milliways_bar | (no subject)

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george lovelace

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George asks Bar for a large sheet of paper and some markers, and a bit later, he's posted a sign at the bar:

ADVENTURERS NEEDED!

The village of Graymoor is being terrorized by a mysterious killer. Will you help protect the innocent villagers and bring the killer to justice?

If you're interested in joining the adventuring party, sign your name here, then return on [mumblemumbledate] and find George Lovelace.

There are several lines under this advertisement, and George ties a pen to the sign with a bit of tape and string. Satisfied with his sign, he orders himself a sandwich and crisps and a soda and finds a chair near the fire to enjoy his meal.

[ooc: Sign-ups are plot-locked to the D&D players, but George is taggable to all!]

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A very tall man clad in winter furs and leathers enters through the main door with a long, loping stride. His short beard is tied with a band and his eyes are lined with black ink (war paint? aesthetic choice? both?). After ordering a skin filled with warmed cider, he notices the sign -- translated into runes, of course, into a rough approximation of its original meaning.

Floki doesn't care one way or another about protecting villagers who are strangers to him, but perhaps this George Lovelace is offering a reward as well.

The odd writing instrument intrigues him. He's seen Athelstan use things similar to it. He figures it out after a moment or two, and then inscribes his name on one of the lines:

Tucking the skin into his cloak, he proceeds toward the back door and heads outside. The fishing is always good here.

Poirot would never call himself an adventurer, though he was not one to fear threats or danger to himself. But a mystery...he has gone far too long without a mystery.

He signs his name in an incredibly neat, even fussy, script that is clear to anyone who can read Romance language letters.

George is on his way to the fire when he sees someone stopping to sign up for the game and stops.

"Hullo," he says with a smile. "You interested in the game?" He's very tall, very Scottish, and very friendly.

Poirot, he is confused. "The game? The investigation of the murders, it is not a game." Why did Conan Doyle have his creation say "the game is afoot?" It's made too many of his readers thing that it is but a game!

George's eyebrows lift. "This one is. I mean...I'm George Lovelace," he adds, pointing to the name on the sign. "It's really just a game. It's not a real murder."

"Oh." He should not be disappointed. But part of him is. The little grey cells, they need some stimulation. "Your notice, it is not very accurate then."

George reaches up a hand and rubs the back of his neck. "Aye, I'm seeing that now."

"It is not a bad thing, mon ami. There is no one who has been murdered." Bored or not, Poirot is glad that someone is not suffering. "But tell me...what sort of game is it that you play?"

"Cheers," George says with a lopsided grin. "It's called Dungeons & Dragons? My roommate, Simon, used to play it. He always wanted to get a group to play at the Academy, but no one ever wanted to play with him. It's a sort of storytelling adventure game. I set up a quest of some kind, and the players work together to solve it."

"That name is quite evocative of the medieval. Does St. George arrive to slay the dragons?" As much as he believes in the idea of saints, he always found St. George and other British myths a bit strange.

"Not in the story I'm telling," George says. "But I reckon you could do, if you wanted to tell that story."

"So it is a game and a story as well. I wonder what my friend Ariadne would think of that. She is a writer of fictions, you see."

"I reckon she'd be quite good at it, then," George says with a grin. "It's all about telling a good story. Making sure the heroes prevail and the villains get their just rewards."

A hint of a smile comes to Poirot's face. The heroes prevailing? That is how is should be, always.

"She writes the mystery novels, so she would probably be good at it." Not great, though, as her mysteries are, shall we say, lacking?

George quite agrees. One of the draws of the game, so far as he can tell, is that the heroes usually win.

"She'd definitely be good at this one, then. Most of the stories are more about fighting than sleuthing."

"Ah, but her detective, much like myself, prefered to let the others do the fighting, and to focus on the thinking." He knows that she was lifting some small element of things from his later career.

"That's why you diversify the party," says George, who has been reading up on such things. "So some people are good at the thinking, and others are better at the fighting."

"And how many people are in your party for this game?" He finds it interesting in a clinical way. The only games he ever played were chess and Milles Borne.

"Well, that depends on who signs up," George says, nodding to the list. "Ideally between three and five." Apparently if it's more than five, it's too easy, and if it's less than three, everybody will die.

"It is a rough then, is it not? It sounds not unlike the war games I know some officers play in the comfort of their offices." Soldiers with their maps and their pins and their toy tanks...he understands the need for it, but it so often seems self-indulgent.

Steve is always up for protecting innocent villagers. He signs his name neatly, Steven G. Rogers.

George Lovelace is a name unknown to him, and so is the village of Graymoor. (Is that an Midgard name? It sounds like it could be a Midgard name.)

But the situation seems pretty clear! Worth offering his aid, at any rate; even if finding the killer turns out to be detective work or something, Thor can certainly help protect innocent villagers.

(And maybe he's kind of bored and would really like a good straightforward fight where punching things helps, and you end up with a warm glow of lives saved at the end. Just maybe.)

He scans the list. Aw hey, that shipwright has signed up, too! The one who makes good solid wooden ships in that great retro style, and is pretty much trembling in religious awe every time Thor talks to him! Well, Thor's presence will either inspire him to great valor or make him quiver like an overwhelmed hamster until he chills out some about talking to gods, and either option is probably good for him. :D

Accordingly: THOR ODINSON gets added to the list, in angular letters that at first glance look almost, but not quite, like the runes Floki used. But he's using the letters of the Allspeech, so they'll resolve almost immediately into something you can read, whatever writing system that entails.

Always a curious being, Viv is reading the notice board. Seeing the ad for adventurers, she considers for a millisecond before picking up the pen to add her name. She is a hero now, after all.

She writes her name, Viv Vision; her letters akin to Copperplate, very precise and easy to read.

She also notes the names Steve G. Rogers and Thor Odinson, and wonders if they are the one's from her reality or not. This should prove educational at least, regardless of their origin.

Edited 2018-10-24 18:17 (UTC)

A confused and worried-looking Sunshine soon wanders by George's chair near the fire. "George? What's this about villagers being terrorized?"

Is there trouble? Does he need help?

"Hello, Sunshine," George says with a grin, straightening up slightly when he sees her. "It's not a real village. It's for a game."

Hm, that's a question, though. Does his sign sound too much like it's a real village being terrorized? He'd been trying to make it sound more appealing than rolling dice and doing maths.

"Oh!" Some of her confusion clears. "Oh."

That makes so much more sense.

She chuckles, a bit embarrassed. "I had wondered why it sounded a bit... jaunty, for a request for help on behalf of a terrorized village."

George laughs. "I can see how you'd think that, though. I might have to reword the sign."

He raises his glass. "Care to join me?"

"Sure," she says, smiling now as she takes a nearby seat. "People do that, though, you know? Request help if they need help back home? Milliways folk are great for reinforcements, when they're needed. I imagine they'd be game for a game version of it, too."

Though now she's curious about the nature of the game.

"I guess I hadn't thought of that," George says thoughtfully, between crisps. "Asking for help for problems back home, I mean, but it makes sense."

If he went home, he'd be happy of some Milliways help Shadowhunting.

"I think the game won't be quite as exhilarating."

"'Exhilarating' isn't the word I'd use. A mystery game is much preferable to actual peril," she remarks, amused. "I love scary stories, but they're not the sort of thing I would want in real life."

But then, she rarely gets what she wants, does she?

"What kind of game is it?"

George sort of misses active peril here.

"It's called Dungeons & Dragons? It's a sort of storytelling adventure game. I'd be the Dungeon Master and set up a quest, and then the players work together to complete it."

Sunshine looks intrigued. "I think I've heard of it - my brother Kenny may have played it once or twice some time ago, with his friends."

She had been desperate to move out of the house at the time, and hadn't been really paying attention.

"The players each have a role, and together they figure out how to make their way through the story, right?"

"Yeah, that's it!" George says. He's sort of relieved to find it's not unique to his universe. Maybe more people will be interested in playing than he'd originally thought. "I've never actually played it before."

Sameth had forgotten how many things get posted on the notice board and this sign catches his attention. With his current responsibilities he can't go but he's never heard of Greymoor, so starts looking around for George.

As he came in from working with the Southerlings, he's in his surcoat with his sword at his side.

George is still by the fire, but he's keeping half an eye on the notice, and when Sameth stops, he sits up to catch his eye if he has any questions.

"Are you George? I wouldn't be able to help but was curious where Greymoor was." Sameth says when he gets close enough.

"I am, yes," George says with a smile. He's starting to spot the flaw in his advert. "Graymoor is...it's not a real place. The ad...it was meant for a game, but I think I didn't word it very well."

He was trying to avoid making it sound like mostly maths and storytelling.

"A game, what kind of game?" He sits down near George as he has no idea how you'd make a game out of that.

"It's a kind of storytelling adventure game," George says. "The players each pretend to be a character, and I sort of narrate them through a quest, and they have to work together to complete the quest."

"Huh, and did you create the story?"

"Oh, no," George says. "I think tackling the game for the first time is enough of a challenge for me. I just found the story in a book."

"Its that complicated a game?"

"It really is. Every character has to have a different strength and intelligent and...there's a lot of maths involved."

A lot.

"Weird, I mean cricket can have math in it too but not like that."

George laughs. "There is way more maths in this than in cricket."

"How is the math involved?" It sounds like it could get in the way.

The sign catches Bastion's optic on their way past the noticeboard. Protecting innocent villagers sounds like a task they could potentially excel at, if the people of Graymoor will accept their help. The one thing that makes them hesitate is that there's no information about what era Graymoor exists in, if it's on Earth, but when they find George Lovelace they can ask him if their presence will be a problem. They pick up the sign and neatly print Bastion E54.

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