Cycle 002: Enter Crows Landing (Finale) WHO: Open to Ophelia, Sam Belli, and Team Survivor (Aka: Any characters still alive) WHEN: Between January 18th and January 30th (protip: if you guys tag in for the 30th, you’ll find an empty shop and will probably be disappointed) WHERE: Crows Landing, Oregon WHAT: The very last plot post for cycle 002! Scenes started in this specific thread will count against you as incompletes if they get dropped, and any final on-screen deaths will earn points towards the score tally. Post as little or as much as you like to resolve your character’s stories! WARNING: This is the last thread of the cycle, so just about anything goes in here (within reason; keep it IC and feasible within this thematic setting). That means anything that you want to do that hasn't yet been done should be summed up or played out here. We're tidying up to get ready for Cycle 3, so this is the very last Cycle 2 post that will be posted to the comm.
And there was more coveting, oh yes. They bought items for themselves, as well. Material goods to net personality changes. Hope at a very fair price. Discounted inspiration, tools of creation, even comfort in the dark. Above all, the shop sold purpose. So much purpose. The romantic to the nostalgic, and even unexpected. As the holidays ascended upon the town, the people of Crows Landing had already begun to experience transition into something more.
As far as Rob York went, he did his best to clean up after Gilman, but things don’t often work out as planned. Granted, this is a man who used Craigslist to get dates. After losing his hooker, he was understandably cautious about women, but when Sully St. Claire ended up going crazy, he did try to help. His efforts at caution only left him answering to more questions from the police, as well as Marcus Caravahlo, and not to mention his lawyer. Unfortunately, unexpected distractions can lead to murder, even when one tries to be cautious. After killing Eden Williams, Rob spiraled. His mother once again had to take over, tell him what to do... Of course, her clean-up methods were a bit too thorough. They included disposing of the funeral home, as well as Dr. Bryant O’Neill, leaving the town without its sole Medical Examiner. It also left Marcus Caravahlo untethered. He’d been in a relationship with the good doctor, and so the sudden loss made him a tad vengeful. At least Robert York would no longer have to worry about answering embarrassing questions.
Christine York would no longer have to worry about embarrassing daughters, either. Aside from fucking Mike McBrayer, Casper Decal (or Samantha York), kept having altercations with Hunter Sommer. The two girls had never liked one another, but it just seemed to be escalating dangerously of late. Hunter was a bit edgy to begin with, but after being evicted from her apartment by Rob, she’d had to move into a trailer home, where her dog was mysteriously poisoned. Having no idea that Marcus Caravahlo had been responsible for that, Hunter opted to blame Casper. It only made sense, after all. Then her boyfriend died, causing her to turn to alcohol. This wasn’t helped by her best friend going missing. Her anger at Casper did land her in the hospital, but it felt justified. The last straw was very likely finding the remains of her friend, Nona Garrett (whose father had decided to take the news of his daughter’s marriage by buying medeival chastity devices and doing the murder-suicide thing, killing her, her new husband, and himself). Hunter decided to take the wheel, so to speak. She very effectively took out Casper Decal, as well as herself.
So where were the answers? Why wasn’t Sheriff Archer Avery putting a stop to the madness infecting the town? He wasn’t untouched by it, that was for certain. He’d lost a deputy, for one... or almost had. Being plagued by a ghost wasn’t easy. As many before had noted, drinking wasn’t a solution, and the body count was piling high. With the mortician dead, it was hard to tell them all apart. Archer’s desk was buried with accounts of murders, suicides, the charred remains of unsolvable mysteries. The Cunninghams were found -- all of them, including the dead ones -- in the twisted wreckage of an SUV, along with the broken remains of an antique typewriter. One of the stolen corpses had been in the driver’s seat. No survivors. No explanation to be had. The town’s dentist had taken up a hobby of altering living little girls into dead dolls. A gas station attendant had decided to go on a murder spree. Mayor Garrett had killed himself, along with two others, in a homemade basement dungeon. A nurse grieving for the lost mortician had decided to take it out on one of the town’s most upstanding landlords, and God only knew what had been in said landlord’s apartment before that had gone up in flames.
And it wasn’t as though the Sheriff’s hands were bloodless, either. Archer Avery had decided to shoot one of his own officers, rather than test the town’s capacity for miraculous recoveries. He’d been at the Donnelly home, to inform Michael that his oldest daughter had been killed in an apparent shootout at McBrayer’s trailer, and that the younger was still missing. In its own way, it was also a murder in self defense.
So it was safe to say that the town was painted in blood, drenched in blood, and what wasn’t bleeding was burning. At “As You Wish..." Antiques and Curios, business was no longer brisk or booming. In fact, Sam Belli had been making far more purchases of his own than he was sales. He and his smiling shopgirl were buying antiques from families of the deceased at a generous offer. Of course, not all of the deceased had families. But that just meant more legwork for Ophelia Sinclair, who’d been working at the shop for weeks, even living in an apartment right above it, carefully tucked under Sam Belli’s wing. Sometimes he had to give her a set of skeleton keys and instructions to fetch something back for him. A Victorian-era hair portrait, for instance, or a hand mirror.
Since December 13th, the little shop had done very well for itself, but the hours were growing irregular. The shop was closed more often than open these days, the inventory items were being packed away for movers, and by the 30th of January, Sam Belli would be gone.