Eustace Delmont and the Case of the Rambler's Inn 02 - The Dog Spray Found Upon the Path and Its Implication

Eustace Delmont and Hitomi Meyer [1] found a bench to sit on nearby. Watched the gathered crowd disperse and taking some of the agitated canines with them. They had the backpack and some of the clothing and the strange device found in the sand and decided it would be quicker to just walk off with it rather than ask around if anyone knew to whom it belonged. Hitomi is looking at the bag itself while Delmont is trying to ascertain just what the device might do, though he had a suspicion. 

"What's that smell?" Hitomi asked, taking a large sniff of the backpack and the clothes. After a few seconds of looking like she was giving herself a migraine, she thrust it against Delmont and said it was his turn to smell this. When that failed to get his attention, she shoved a bit harder and broke his concentration. [2]

"Smell this, Curls."

"CURLS?!" A normally unabashable Delmont felt the top of his head redden as he stared at her, suddenly aware of the sweat and sand on his scalp and how grimy he might be after his silly bout of heroism earlier. 

<< Oh, Eu, it was a compliment, you dolt. I liked your curls. >>

"You did not say your name, earlier. So...Curls." 

"Ah, sorry Ms. Meyer. I am Eustace Delmont. Pleased to meet you." Crossed his arms and then uncrossed them. Held out a hand to be shaken and then brought it back in before she had a chance.

"Call me Hitomi, Eu."

"You?"

"Ok, Eu. What's. This. Smell. Question. Mark."

Delmont took the backpack from her and gave it a sniff and kind of recoiled. "Like...bad breath and mint?" 

"Yeah, like...dog pee mixed with an air freshener. Wait..." Hitomi dug down into the backpack and pulled out a cheap aerosol can with a bright pink label. "D.O.G. Spray. Og. Weiner. Reet? A love potion for your dog? 3 Spatz and the The Batch'll Follow You Home??? What the hell is this?"

Delmont looked over at it for a half second and scoffed. "Those are Is." 

"Eyes?"

"The letter?"

Hitomi processed for a moment more and then made a disgusted face. Pulled out a cigarette pack and lit up after offering Delmont one. An offer he waved away. She smoked in confused silence while he kept poking at the machine in front of him. 

"Wait, are you telling me that this is where Libby the Lab went? Someone sprayed this... love potion? And stole my dog?!" 

"I'm an idiot!!"

"Eu?"

"Yes, me. I saw the effect of this machine just this morning. It screws with digital signals. Some one was using it to...wait, sorry. Your dog."

"One thing at a time. You say your nerd words and then we'll work out why someone is kidnapping dogs and doing nerd stuff."

"The pieces popped out of the the Cyclops. It was to make room for this, which was aimed at the Rambler because they were messing with the video recording. I thought at first that it was stupid to only mess with the recording of the tape that was recording you messing with the recording but...are you ok, you look like you are in pain?"

"No," she said, somewhere between distress, anxiety, and good humor, "please..."

"Right, but I am the idiot. Well, Gunther is the idiot. They mix their recordings up. Some other cameras on that side of the Rambler was probably the target. But God knows which the target was..." [3]

Delmont took off at speed back towards the Rambler's Inn and starts looking around on the same side of the Inn, looking around. 

"The RV park is over there, so that's not...wait, the road leading from the park goes this way, so if someone stopped over..."

Hitomi waited by the Gygax Cyclops, finishing her cigarette. Done, she asks, "So.... Detective Holmes, what do your deductions tell us?" 

"I need to talk to Ralph to confirm, but I think I know where your dog is." [4]

"Isaac Gibbs is the Maidenstead dog catcher," Eustace Delmont explained, standing a few hundred feet from a concrete building with a faded and peeling painting of the back half a dog and the letters "aac ibbs og cher" on a sign that had been torn in half during a previous hurricane and never repaired. "He is a bit of known character around here. Got in a trouble a few years back for luring dogs out of people's yards and graduated to preying on tourists." [5]

"Why doesn't someone do something to stop it?" Hitomi asked.

"Because the chief of police, Elmer Raylon, is his...uncle by way of second cousin or some such." [6]

"What do we do, then?" 

"I asked Ralph and said it would be quickest to pay and then maybe make sure you spit on his front door on the way." 

"Ok."

"100 dollars. American."

"What?!" 

"Exactly. Vacationers get caught in the scam and if they don't pay then Gibbs sells off the pure bread looking dogs to people over in Mobile and puts the others down. If they do pay, he just uses it to get drunk and buy more of that stupid D.O.G. spray. He might be the only actual customer for the stuff."

Delmont had realized that no one trying to hide whatever they were doing with the signal disruptor would willingly want a bunch of dogs to follow them. Maybe they were going to try and lead some dog somewhere in a classic detective plot - "The dog that did not protect the Inn at nighttime" - but not only does the Rambler's Inn not have guard dogs but Gunther Strange is allergic to them. [7]

This led Delmont to realize that the bright pink bottle might have been picked up by someone wandering around on that side of the Inn, the curiosity of the grotesque spray overcoming common sense. Which meant someone else had taken that same path to lead dogs away, dropping the spray, and that the first someone had maybe picked it up. Then stuck it in their backpack. Then...had their backpack torn from them with strong enough force to tear clothes from it and break the spray bottle open. 

Delmont was concerned about the implications of all of this. 

Still, there was another problem to face.

"We have another problem to face," he said.

"Which is?"

"Walk with me, this way, but stay on the far side of the street with me. No matter what." 

Delmont and Hitomi [8] crossed Mangrove Avenue and carefully walked down the cracked and warped sidewalk. Behind Gibb's less than licit dog pound was a small wooden shack in a strong fence. Sad dogs walked back and forth. And on top of that was a pole holding up a security camera high enough to get the entire pound and most of the surrounding street. Just not, based on Delmont's calculations, the far side of the street where they were then standing. 

"Ralph mentioned it to me that he had sold Isaac a camera. At a mark-up. Based on the language Ralph was using, it might be the last he does, but..." 

"But... there is one now."

"Exactly."

"And either we pay a crook his money or we break in and the chief of police has a clear shot of our face."

"Exactly."

"Unless..."

"Unless, what?"

"What is the plan, Eu!? Why are you showing me this instead of us just going inside to get my dog? It's not like my dad wouldn't gladly hand over $100 to me. He's practically funding this career of my sister and Frank." 

"Oh, well..." Delmont holds up the device he's been carrying in his left hand this whole time. "We have technology on our side." 

"Broken technology covered in D.O.G. Spray. Og Wiener Reet." 

"That's why I picked this up...one second...hold this for me..." Delmont took out a kit, what he was holding in his right hand, and begins working on the device with Hitomi helping to hold it steady and replacing wires and screws based on his instructions. [9]

After it was finished, he handed it to her and instructed her to point it at the camera. "Now, I am going to break in." 

"Would it not be better to wait until tonight?" 

"Ah, well. Isaac's truck isn't here so he is probably getting out doing something. Either down at the Johnson Pharmacy and Feed Store or the Gibbs' Plantation visiting his mother." [10]

"Pharmacy and...wait, plantation?" 

"Like...a mansion?"

"I know what a plantation is, why is visiting one?"

"Because his family is the richest family in town." 

"Then why in the hell is he stealing dogs?"

Delmont shrugged. "Are you doing to hold the device still?"

"YES!" 

"Good, let's begin..." Delmont went to swing over the back fence and then stopped. "Wait, which of these is Libby?" 

"She's not..." Hitomi stopped and listened for a minute. "She's barking in the brick building! I hear her!" 

Delmont sighed and pulled out some more gear from his pocket and then went up to the building. He managed to get the door open in no time at all and then came running back out with a dog... [11]

"Is this her?" 

"YES! LIBBY BABY!" [12]

The three of them quickly scooted back up Mangrove Avenue and got away from the building. [13]

Delmont was in the back room of Harley's electronics shop, working on figuring out exactly how the "disruptor beam" worked, when he heard the unmistakable of Chief Raylon in the front room talking to Harley about something. Listening in, he picked up that the chief was talking about him! [14] 

"I caught your boy sneaking around a hotel with some out-of-towner while out there looking for that Patel girl. From experience, I know Delmont is good at screwing up technology [said in Raylon's accent as Tek nall jee]. You know what he is up to?"

"Eustace ain't my boy but I sent him out there to fix some stuff. Don't know no out of towner but Eustace was out there on orders." Delmont was actually surprised to hear Harley lie about Hitomi after she came by the shop with him earlier, when they storing the cash and the clothes at the shop, but Ralph Harley and Elmer Raylon do not have the clearest of relationships. 

"Strange said he had looked at some tapes and that's evidence. Some of those tapes are messed right up. I am trying to find out of Delmont destroyed valuable [val bull] evidence." [15]

"I bet Gunther jammed up that machine with some sticky candy. Eustace is good at fixin' that sort of thing." 

Delmont heard the chief shuffle around and tap his hand on the counter a few times and then heard the voice get louder, clearly being a shout aimed at the back room. "You still owe me for dinner, boy! And don't let me catch you hanging out at that RV park or anywhere near the Rambler, you got it?" Then the bell jangled as the chief left and the shop got quiet. Delmont came out front and looked at Harley.

"I suspect you heard all 'at. You be careful. Awfully careful. Raylon ain't a good 'un. Being loose with the law is why half the folks 'round here backed him to be chief. That and Nancy Gibbs' money." 

Delmont chimed in, to confirm something. "That's his cousin or something, right? I know they are family." 

"No, son," a bit ironic considering Harley's language to Raylon a few minutes before, "That's her boy. First marriage. Before Wilson Raylon went and shot up a bank. She cut Elmer out of her life for years until letting him back when he said he wanted to be a cop. Still keeps him at a distance. Says she figures he'll end up just like his dad given enough rope to hang himself." [16]

<< While Eu was being grilled by the police and finding out Chief Raylon's secret past (which will come up again when we get to the surprising shoot out, I had taken Libby the Lab back to the RV and found the door open. Thinking the worse, I half panicked running in and then the smell of pot smoke being aired made me realize the idiots probably thought they were being clever. 

Spotting a note down, in Daphne's hand writing, that simply said "beach" I shut up the doors and followed the trail down to the beach and then followed my nose and went to the pier. Sure enough, Frank and Daphne and Vern were there with a guy I did not know and they lighting up yet another joint out of who knows how many. A stack of cigarette butts around their feet let me know they would be hoarse in the morning. 

"Hitty! I see you found Libby! I told you would show up," Daphne said. She was always most sisterly and optimistic while high as a kite. 

"Well, actually..." I started, planning to explain to them about a rich dog catcher and running around with a local nerd who might also be the dork of my dreams when Frank cut in...

"Awesome. Awesome. Look, meet Mike!" 

Mike, full name = Michael Anderson, was in his 40s but dressed like the shadow of an 80s rockstar. Later on, I found he was once the frontman of a Christian rock group with the ludicrous name "The Screwtapes". "Like the Lewis, the letters," Anderson explained, in his very gruff whisper-voice, which was mostly unnecessary. The others ate it up, though, like they had found some rock genius. [17]

Apparently Anderson had gotten into a fistfight and taken a throat punch that ruined his voice. The Screwtapes kicked him out and he ended up in Mobile working for WPMI running some of their non-standard programming. He took it as his new calling. He knew if he could just one show that took off and went national (which in Anderson's limited imagination was mostly just being syndicated around a few other stations) then he could rich and get his revenge on the remaining "'Tapes" who were mostly a strange Christian cover parody band. "The thing about me baby is I can tell you about Jesus Christ..." to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Black and White," etc. 

"See, Hitty," I had told Frank and Daphne both that I hated that but they insisted, "Mike and I were talking about our tapes and he would like to feature them on late night Fridays!" Handing me a half smoked joint to bring me into the circle.

"Didn't you want to get out of the old media and make something new?" I asked after taking a hit, a hit for Hitty madcap crossing my mind, tossing back one of Frank's most frequent rants explaining why we had been living out of an RV for the past few weeks. 

"Yeah, yeah...but, Vern?"

"The problem, Hitomi," Vern always used my real name, which I appreciated. He was a serious faced black kid, a couple of years younger than the rest of us, and I had the feeling he was always deeply sad, "the problem is...we have the site up and pre-orders for the first three tapes and have only had five takers and Frank is one of them while your and Daphne's dad probably makes up the other four. We need something to get their attention."

"Yeah, Vern's right, Hitty, this will be just part time. Mike is going to get us rooms in The Rambler and we'll get the scoop of how haunted it is. Hush, hush, mind. According to Mike, it's going to be sold off soon and the owners might freak if they knew we were about to describe it as The Most Haunted Hotel in Gulf Coast Alabama!" 

"Wait, wait, the Rambler. What about Libby! We looked into getting a room, remember? No dogs allowed."

"Well," this was Daphne, done with being the understanding sister and now being the dutiful girlfriend, "Maybe we could leave Libby in the RV?" 

The conversation went downhill from there. Turns out I was "destroying Frank's dreams" and "being unreasonable" and "it's just a dog" and all the kind of arguments they had given me just this morning. Frank even made me a bet. If I just gave him two days he would be able to get enough footage that he would buy Libby and myself a stack of "Libby snacks." But I couldn't leave Libby alone and did not feel safe staying by myself in the RV knowing that Gibbs might be back at any point. So I left in a huff, found a payphone, and made a call...

"Mr. Harley, this is Hitomi Meyer, we met this afternoon...yes...thank you sir...well, you see, I have a favor..." 

And that's how I ended up staying in an upstairs room of Ralph Harley's electronic shop. And why I was not around when Vern, and our equipment, disappeared the next night. >> [18]

NEXT TIME ON EUSTACE DELMONT AND THE CASE OF THE RAMBLER'S INN!

The dog catcher hatches a plan! The audiovisual geek leaves a cryptic message. Delmont gets arrested!?

Current Threads and Mysteries

MECHANICAL NOTES

1. Hitomi Meyer is an Alert Paranormal Investigator who is a lateral thinker but youthful. This latter portion I will say she is a bit out of touch with American customs and a bit out of sorts with just being in a new place after growing up near Oxford and is kind of "play acting" what she thinks a disaffected American Youth might be. She's also a smoker so we'll keep that as a semi-quirk if it has any bearing on the plot later. As said last time, it was the 90s...most of the characters who aren't Eustace are either smokers are pretty ok with smoking. 
2. Queen of Clubs (Scene about an action/skill at 2 effort) + 3 of Spades (Standard Alertness). Hitomi takes 1 Resolve damage before they figure it out. This makes Eustace at 2K 3R and Hitomi at 3K 2R. 
3. His task was 3 of Clubs (so another skill). King of Clubs + Queen of Diamonds. 2 of Hearts so Easy Alert. Eustace gets an exceptional success. So bad for the missing person but good for the missing dog storyline. 
4. "Is the RV park on the same side as the camera disruptor?" 4 of Clubs. No. So, behind the scenes, I had the idea that someone who might use this kind of spray for a reason NOT related to the broader mystery might be a shady sort of  "dog catcher" trope and I asked, "Does the local dog catcher use this spray to lure dogs?" and got 9 of Clubs. Yes he does. I figure dragging out all three mysteries would lead to confusion, even though one of them has already "been solved". 
5. Most of Isaac's stuff came from Table Fables: Modern. "Is Isaac known for taking vacationer's dogs as something of a scam?" Jack of Clubs. Yes and quite a bit so.
6. "How has Gibbs avoided law enforcement?" 4 of hearts. So...a personal relationship, but not a particular strong one.
7. "Does the Rambler's Inn use guard dogs?" 5 of Hearts. No, and... 
8. By the way, yes..Eustace writes everyone as their last name except Hitomi Meyer. Because a) he is a dork and b) he is purposefully unsure how to refer to his future wife by her last name. As in, I intended that to be his confusion. Awkwardness is part of the writing process here. Hence why he writes people by their last name but writes himself as saying them by their first. 
9. Jack of Spades. A scene about conflict with 1 effort per participant. 7 of Diamonds. A hard Brainy challenge. Note, this was pulled at the start of this scene so has flavored most of this. They get it relatively quickly with Hitomi spending 1 Karma. 
10. Ace (4 ==> New Location) into Joker (4 ==> New Location). Got Pharmacy and then Mansion. So while the pharmacy is a bit obvious, I decided to make it a bit funky. As to why the mansion is a plot twist, figured I'd make it that Isaac Gibbs is one of the richest people around. 9 of Hearts to answer the question though so yes it is a good time, and... Gibbs will be gone for awhile.
11. Is Libby the Lab visible? 6 of Spades. No, but... Hitomi can hear her. Challenge to get the door open is "Brainy" and 9 of diamonds = Standard difficulty. Eustace gets double 6s so extraordinary success. 
12. Just figured I'd pull cards. 10 of Diamonds is an unqualified yes. "Can Eustace get back over the fence without trouble?" Queen of Diamonds. So not only yes, but yes and... he is definitely showing off for Hitomi BUT also we'll say that Libby is probably a smaller sized dog overall. 
13. Were they spotted? 5 of Spades. No, but... Gibbs is going to realize the dog is missing and something went down. Which means he will look at the tape, see it is garbled. We'll say that he talks to Chief Raylon who...wait... Did Raylon see any garbled tapes at the Inn? Jack of Diamonds. Very much so. So yeah, Raylon is going to go talk to Harley. 
14. 7 of Clubs. A scene about a skill/action. King of Spades. Bad for the central investigation (about the missing person). 2 of Diamonds. Easy Alert challenge. Extraordinary success.
15. "Did Gunther Strange admit that Eustace had been messing with the BetaMax machine?" 8 of Hearts. Yes, and... he had told the chief that Eustace was fixing it. "Does the chief know the girl who with Eustace was the person's who dog was stolen and retrieved?" 9 of Spades. Yes, but... he isn't 100% sure. Just suspicious. 
16. "Does Eustace have the right idea about Gibbs and Raylon's relationhip?" Queen of Spades. Yes, but... he said earlier he was some distant cousin. Instead, let's say a distant son. One cut out of the family fortune but more recently allowed to circle around it a bit.
17. Michael Anderson is made up of a series of rolls. An injured, but pious musician now working for a corporation. He's passionate and restless. Wants to get rich. Even the "screwtapes" was a result of a random rules...I got the 6, 6 tools image oracle and then 4,6 camera and went "screw lens" before the obvious C. S. Lewis pun came out.
18. Ace of Diamonds (5 ==> New person, see #17 to see the results). 8 of Spades. A scene about a conflict. 10 of Clubs. Hard Charming. Hitomi actually passed but rather than have her talk her van mates out of it, I figured it might be best to have them treated as kind of a story element. 

DOUG'S NOTES

Not a complaint but this one took several days to cook and I think that's ok. It feels like the right pace and idea for the kind of game I want it to be. There are lots of small Southern town relationships brewing, more and more threads about people who might want a piece of the Rambler's pie, stuff that will probably end up making sense by the end. 

The disruptor device is the kind of nonsense I'd expect to see in a 90s mystery series. Let's pretend it makes sense, together, ok?

WPMI is a real TV station but it looks like their tendency of carrying off-programming might have dwindled earlier in 1995 (with this taking place later in 1995). Ah, well. In this universe, it didn't have the affiliate switch and still had a lot of space for local programming.

If anyone is wondering about "D.O.G. Spray," I don't know. I thought up why dogs cared about the backpack so I free-designed the "handmade" label, above and then riffed off of it. There are 100% dog training scents and such: see this and that. The label isn't based on any of those I just thought up...like, "What would Gerry Johnson brew up in his shed and sell to rednecks at his Pharmacy and Feed store?" and that came to mind. I forgot about there being a was of money until the very end. Rather than go back and shoe-horn it in, I'll add it in next time. Maybe. Possible. Who knows?

Two of the OG threads - why was the machine broken and where did Libby go - have been closed. Will now add in "Why was it disrupted" to replace the first one and... hmm, for now we'll focus on Gibbs and the sheriff and have - what is the dog catcher and the sheriff up to? Time to reshuffle the deck and get ready for part 3. 

CREDITS AND RESOURCES

The game engine behind the Eustace Delmont series is Tricube Tales, Tricube Tales Solo, and Maidenstead Mysteries, all by Richard Woolcock.

Addition gameplay elements for this series will be derived from my own personal extended Tricubes framework and other oracle systems mainly including, but not limited to:

• Random Realities by Cesar Capacle
• Book of Random Tables: 1980s -1990s, BORT: Modern, and BORT: Eldritch by Matt & Erin Davids
• Mythic GM Emulator by World Mill Games (mostly for the meaning tables in this case)
• Table Fables: Modern by Madeline Hale

Graphics will be a heady blend of the base game (kind of rarely), my own weird sketches and ideas, Pixabay stock art, and AI generated bits. Essentially in that order for those last four.