Downtime #3

[crowmod]

downtime, sept oct 14-28

around the office

The morning after the mission, the mood is high in the office. Friday has brought pumpkin-jelly-filled doughnuts in for breakfast, and even Arden can be caught enjoying one in a private moment. With the thief apprehended, it's easy to feel like the taskforce's hard work is almost done... but any good auror knows to never get complacent.

There's lots to be done between debriefs, interrogations, and investigations, and anyone caught idle or goofing off in the next few days catches an earful from one Oddtree or another. The home stretch is no time to slack off, and neither is Halloween.

the interrogation

The bee animagus thief, whose legal name is Hiro Hunter, has been captured and is appropriately contained in an interrogation room at the Crowbar office (for now). The department has forty-eight hours before they're obligated to hand the thief over to the local authorities, and Eleanor takes this opportunity for interrogation seriously. Five Volunteers have opportunities to interrogate the thief themselves, and may ask one question apiece to be answered (mostly) truthfully.

Eleanor personally interrogates the thief for approximately twelve hours, but isn't forthcoming with the rest of the department about what additional information she may have learned.

the egg

This egg is apparently identical to the one stolen from the National Archive. Its previous owner came by it legitimately in 1998, but decided to offload it after he heard that its twin had been stolen. The Archive has no record of duplicates of the egg, and although Miranda Rutherford vouches that it is not the stolen artifact, the Archive would still like it surrendered to them to examine themselves.

The department has one week before they have to capitulate with the Archive's request, a necessary move to maintain a diplomatic relationship. Before that time, X Quintana is leading a team of Five Volunteers to examine the egg. They may each perform one action on it.

allhalloween

The Department's next mission (on October 29) will be providing extra security for Las Vegas's yearly Allhalloween festival, a week of spooky revelry that takes over the Wizard Strip every October. They'll be working this detail as a personal favor from Eleanor to the mayor of wizarding Vegas, Ramses Bohn, and she asks everyone to take it as seriously as any other mission. To prepare for the festival, Everett takes a cautious approach and puts together a team of volunteers to handle security measures, while Arden hopes to glean some information from Vegas's drunken elite and puts together a team to handle covert measures.

investigation teams

• Eleanor's Team
• Vigilance Pryor
• Amadeus McCracken
• Llewyn Llewellyn
• [Volunteer]
• [Volunteer]

• X's Team
• Verity Fortuin
• Ichabod Godfrey
• Vanya Mordaunt
• Sage Wisecarver
• Camilla Harkaway

• Everett's Team
• Wiley Hellberg
• Francis Darling
• Teagan Oddtree
• Kit Mulholland
• Rory Howlan
• Astrid Weird
• Camilla Harkaway
• Keeley Little

• Arden's Team
• Remora Statler
• Sidney Rucker
• Paloma Oakley
• Byron Thorne
• Indigo Blue
• Sloan Silversmith
• Wendelin Sparks

locations!

⬦ DEBRIEFING: Everyone recap what you learned during the mission and collaborate on what you're up to next.

⬦ INTERROGATION: Volunteers on Eleanor's team can ask questions of the thief here.

⬦ THE EGG: Volunteers on X's team can examine and experiment on the egg here.

⬦ AROUND THE OFFICE: For misc. scenes.

⬦ OOC - VOLUNTEER SLOTS: Eleanor and X's teams are limited to five characters each, Everett and Arden's are open to all (and will have special opportunities later in the downtime contingent on what the first two teams discover!).

⬦ OOC - QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, CONCERNS!

Comments

Re: THE EGG

[apocryphist]

On the last day the department has the egg in their possession, with no real progress having been made in several days, Verity’s getting frustrated. The thing is no fake, she can tell that much, which makes her ultimate decision all the more rash.

With everyone else standing around the table listening to Quintana rattle off tepid idea after tepid idea, Verity reaches out, picks the egg up, and cracks it against the side of the table like she intends to make an omelet out of it.

Re: THE EGG

[crowmurder]

For what it's worth, X does try to stop Verity from doing this — her reaction time is just not fast enough. After a moment of stunned silence, she shoos Verity away from the shattered shell of the egg. "You're answering to Oddtree about this," she says in a hushed aside.

But her quiet anger is soon overpowered by curiosity and excitement as she examines the pieces of the egg. A silver-wrought capsule had been hidden inside, and as the other aurors examine that, X quickly fits the three pieces of the shell back together. It fits together seamlessly, and cracking it again causes it to once more break open — a puzzle box, of sorts. There's nothing magical about this craftsmanship, it's just masterfully done.

The capsule inside is imbued with all the preservative magics that Vanya identified, and shaking it yields a sort of damp sloshing sound. While Verity contends that they should just open the capsule as well, X won't let her anywhere near it.