To Catch A Thief

[ArtDrake]

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another adventure! A War Story is dead and locked, so a new story shall arise, with more content, more effort, more illustration, more forethought, and more general goodness! This will be a story of mystery and magic, of motive and intrigue -- a story where, like in real life, everyone has something -- great or small -- to hide.

You are Hugo Goodman, Police Detective of the London Police Department. You are sitting in your comfortable chair, reading case files, in your office. Your feet rest on the mahogany desk that ten years of dedicated [and skilled, might you add] service have earned you, and you recline luxuriously. This is one of the many liberties you allow yourself in the semi-privacy of your office. The wooden blinds behind you are mostly shut, allowing only fine slivers of the morning light into the room, lighting you from behind. You are completely at ease, at least physically. But filling one of the several file drawers is the one case that has been driving the very downfall of the city, until whose resolution you cannot rest. You think to yourself for a second, and realize that this might not be the best of pseudo-vows to make to yourself.

For more than the necessary eight hours a night, you quickly amend. That manifestation of self-deception defeated, you move on to the altogether more serious matters of the day.

[To progress the story, interact with people and perform your duties as the character you are. To receive more exposition, tell the character to think about or reflect on a topic. A good balance of these two will make the story go along nicely.]

[As for frequency of updates, I'd love to do one every night, but I'm not sure that's going to be possible. I'll do my best to keep up with it. Maybe alternating posts and drawings?]

[Your posts should take the form of commands to the played character, and assuming that there are several by the time I check back, I pick the one I think is best or most entertaining. That said, don't be excessively silly "just for entertainment value", because watching the main character derp around not accomplishing anything gets old. Use your best judgement, or at least decently good judgement.]

[bugfartboy]

Consider your potential actions.

[ArtDrake]

As you sit quietly in your chair, letting the morning seep into you, you consider your potential actions. The midsummer heat is rather stifling, and makes it hard to think, but you let yourself sweat for the time being, as you're not going to let mere homeostatic functions drive you from your comfortable station. After all, you weren't born into nobility, amongst whom any suggestion of natural bodily processes is cause for shame. You've always had a rather cynical attitude about that, but then, what escapes your cynical regard? A policeman can hold no illusions about the nature of his fellow man.

You have a few options. You could remain here, unproductively lounging in the comfort and safety of your office. This seems like the most agreeable option, at least in the short term. However, if Katherine LaGrande sees you doing this for too long, it could definitely look bad. You are, after all, a star police detective amidst the greatest spree of civil disorder in the history of the city of London; there must be something for you to do. Certainly, you ought to stay for long enough to finish your tea, review all the recent case files, and perhaps reorganize your file drawers... lethargy pulls at you, commands you to inaction. It's highly tempting not to resist.

You could also pursue one of the cases currently on your desk. This would arguably be the most sensible option, given that it is the duty given by your job description. It would also make the half an hour you spent reviewing the files seem not to have been wasted in the eyes of Miss LaGrande. Furthermore, it's been a while since you wore a timestone, and a number of these cases seem to justify requisitioning one from the department. If for no other reason than the thrill wearing one brings, along with the relief from the relentless midsummer sun beating down on the humid air at the street level of London town, this might be the best option to take. Then again, indulging yourself with an hour logged on the timestone isn't strictly serving the greater good. It would be better then, you think, to put the consideration of the heat aside. You might even catch a chill if you don't bundle up before your beat, and the five minutes bundled up while you secure your timestone would be hell.

Thinking back to your actual job description, you recall that you could, in fact, act as a senior officer on one of the rookies' investigations or even their beats. As long as you dress as seasonably as the uniform allows, and stay in the shade as only a supervising officer can, you might just be able to resist the sweltering heat.

[bugfartboy]

Recollect what a timestone is.

[ArtDrake]

You decide to look for the hundredth time through your Police manual at the page on timestones; they never cease to awe you. It reads: "The timestone is a vital piece of equipment used by the London Police Department and by the officers who carry them. They are the product of long-standing Celtic tradition of runecarving, passed along amongst men known as Runemasters -- the police and other arms of the government are the only ones authorized to commission the production of timestones, because of the sheer power they confer onto their bearer. The timestone, when held, dilates time within the body of the user, effectively speeding them up and, from the bearer's perspective, slowing down the rest of the world. This comes with a wide array of physical consequences, some of which you understand better than others, but the main ones are the physical; because they are the most dramatic, the potency of the timestones' runic energy has been tuned to make the changes incremental enough for someone to accommodate themselves, wearing the proper garb.

"The most severe and shocking alteration of that of temperature. Since the temperature ranges to which most human life is accommodated are within quite small relative ratios in terms of absolute temperature, even small shifts in the procession of time alter them drastically. If the bearer of a timestone is hastened by a mere 9% [the standard increment for a single timestone], a mild 25 degrees Centigrade is experienced as a much more inhospitable zero. Furthermore, for the safety of those not bearing timestones, the perceived temperature of the user's body ought be considered: the normal body temperature of 37 C is brought up to a scalding 64.9 degrees! This converts the bearer of a timestone into a hazard to human life. As such, all those in possession of timestones must wear loudly marked uniforms that clearly identify the officer or other government worker as using a timestone, and thus being highly dangerous.

"The other effects of the timestone are more subtle -- for the bearer, it lowers light [and applies a redshift], dampens sounds, cuts air pressure [though this is in no way hazardous to the bearer, at lower intensities], reduces the effect of gravitation, and increases physical strength, durability and speed by a certain percentage. Particularly noteworthy is that the added weight of the timestone is almost completely counteracted by reduced gravitation, assuming the bearer weighs near 15 stone. Anyone heavier than that should experience less net weight, while anyone lighter should experience slightly more, depending on how much he or she falls short of 15 stone."

As you close the booklet, you consider that these stones are at the heart of the largest unsolved case the LPD is working on at the moment; the embarrassing aspect, of course, being that the stones are being stolen from the LPD itself.

[bugfartboy]

Read through the case that has been giving the LPD so much trouble, and contemplate all possible factors.

[ArtDrake]

[I know there haven't been any updates, but I've been super busy and now I'm sick. There will probably be at least one full update tomorrow.]

[EDIT: Nope, too sick.]

[bugfartboy]

[At what point between images 1 and 2 did he put his hat on?]

[ArtDrake]

[The point at which I wanted him to have a snazzy hat.]