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--- seeds-of-doubt [2024/12/21 22:14] – pinkgothic
+++ seeds-of-doubt [2024/12/24 22:51] (current) – pinkgothic
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+Spoilers here: [[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yhTVHg71s5oQANt_lmkTMoiJuOVYjazXZDiMZ9PDTmM/edit?usp=sharing|Campaign notes]].
+----
 **pinkgothic**:
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 "Its a strange coincidence, the hospital pair are related."
+**pinkgothic**:
+Katja nodded mutely for a moment, her gaze drifted to the window and out, staring at the landscape as though feeling a little lost. And why wouldn't she feel that way? Her friends were missing. "So, when Torben shows up," she said, softly. "Do you already know what you'll be asking about?"
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I dunno, I'm going to ask if he knows anything we don't about all five of them, and has any clue where they are. Really were pulling at straws here."
+**pinkgothic**:
+Again Katja nodded quietly, although a furrow of one brow suggested something might be bothering her about it. She didn't wait for Elyre to prompt her about it. "Honestly, I think if he knew something relevant, I would expect he would have already told me about it?" she offered, but it was more of a shapeless, uncertain complaint that a real criticism.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"Well we may as welll double check what he knows."
+**pinkgothic**:
+It doesn't take too much longer - about another ten minutes and change - until there's a sound at the door. Katja rose immediately, a brightness touching her expression that only blossomed more as the door actually opened. It's a young man with a worn and weathered backpack slung over one shoulder, inspecting something on his mobile phone, and not, at first, noticing either of the two strangers.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"The famous Torben, nice to meet you." He said when he did notice him. "Katja and I are working together to find your friends, and we wondered if you knew anything about a doctor and a patient of his?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+As Elyre spoke, the man jolted, and for a split second, a thundercloud rolled over his face. It lasted only an instant - specifically, until he saw Katja, and the tension flowed out of his shoulders. He stood quiet for a moment, letting the prompt sink in, scrutinising Elyre without so much as hiding that he was doing it.
+Then he tapped his mobile phone's screen off and slipped it into a pocket. Keeping his eyes on Elyre, he shrugged the backpack off, beginning to open it. Only after undoing the clasps did he finally give a verbal response: "I'm assuming this is about my brother Bastian, and Eike Jundt and Wiebke Aust?"
+The woman that had let them in paused, glancing past her spectacles at the three of them in silence.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"There are 5 missing, a doctor and his patient also, they all seem to have dissapeared together."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"Really," Torben said, beginning to get out what looked like water samples from the bag and setting them onto a table. He pivoted the conversation: "Are you a friend of Katja's?" And he looked to Katja, who pressed her lips together in a thin line and shook her head almost apologetically.
+She did, though, append: "Torben, he's trying to help."
+"As are the police," Torben pointed out. "Will he do a better job? Is he-- oh, is he, what? Promising to solve this in exchange for money or something?" A protective hardness touched at his tone.
+"No," Katja shook her head, raising both hands. "Give him a chance."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I do this work at a loss, I do blog about mysteries and crimes I investigate, but honestly, I like when I can solve a problem, and I espescially like when and if I can bring someone home."
+**pinkgothic**:
+The sincerity of Elyre's comment visibly gave Torben pause. Perhaps he had expected a bristly rebuke, but the softness clearly cut through whatever prejudice he was busy nurturing. Still crouched with his bag, he blinked at Elyre. The scepticism was still there, not at all concealed, but it had a companion of mild hope. "What's your track record?" Torben asked. "And the weirdest case you've ever solved?"
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I report on what is known, as for the weirdest case I've solved, that has to be the school bus that wound up atop a mountain, turned out it had been lifted there by a chinook, for reasons unknown. People thought it was aliens attacking there children, but the vehicle was offroad foror six years before it wound up up there."
+**pinkgothic**:
+Torben nodded along ever so subtly as Elyre elaborated, but his expression didn't soften further. His tone, though, was fairly regretful as he spoke again, rising from his crouch into a stand and dusting off his thighs. "I appreciate your drive to figure this one out, but, respectfully, I think you should leave this one to the police," he said. "Enough good people have gotten hurt."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"Do we know anyone has been hurt?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+Onto his right hip one of Torben's hands went and he heaved a deep, somewhat laboured breath. "My brother and his friends have been missing for four days. The chance anyone's going to find them alive at this point seems negligible," he pointed out.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I'm sorry to say I agree, do you know anything about the other two, the doctor and his patient?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+Torben's face scrunched up, ambiguous as to whether it was because he was trying to match the question to something in memory, or because he didn't like where the conversation was going. "What's the connection?" he asked.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"They were near the car's location when last spotted, and their also missing, which seems more than a coincidence. It's rare people go missing under strange circumstances after all, espescially out here."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"It's rare people going missing here under any circumstance," Torben offered by way of agreement. "Do you know their names?"
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"Not yet, I was hoping you might, I haven't gotten to the hospital yet to ask about them, I met Katja, she was also investigating the car, and we came here next. Unless.." He checked his phone, half hoping for more leaked info from his inside man in his inbox, anything?
+**pinkgothic**:
+No messages on the phone from Marius - not yet, at least. Maybe that would change later, or if he gave him a prod. But the hospital was a good lead to follow in any case.
+"I don't know the names of these two other people you're looking for," Torben said. "I really think you should leave this to the police, though."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I understood you had little faith in them, that they practically told you they weren't interested in squabbles between cults."
+**pinkgothic**:
+Torben's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and he shifted his gaze to Katja. For a moment, there was an awkward silence between the two, then he nodded a little to break it up and shifted his attention back to Elyre. "I see Katja's told you that they've been rude," he observed. "But I do believe they're still going to do their job, probably especially now that these other two people are also gone."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"Honestly, I can't say much, but my friend amongst them rarely involves me unless he thinks there is a need."
+**pinkgothic**:
+Something changed in Torben's demeanour, but it was hard to pin down what it meant. It looked a little like tired resignation, but he made no effort to open up any further. Disappointment? The bitterness from the start seemed well and truly gone, so probably not. "So you're going to persist in this investigation?" he asked with tired curiosity.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I'm already here now." He said seriously, "I don't share your mourning and worry, but you must admit the mystery itself is pretty interesting. I got to at least go to the hospital, do you want to come along with Katja and me?"
+Apparently he was dragging her along?
+**pinkgothic**:
+"Torben," Katja interrupted gently. "Just let him help. A journalist has a different eye for things than the police do, I don't think it's useless or redundant."
+"I didn't mean to imply he's not useful," Torben frowned, his tone an edge defensive.
+"Then let him investigate. He's an adult, he can take care of himself," Katja grimaced softly. It was clear that she didn't understand why he was behaving the way he was - the adamant insistence that Elyre not involve himself.
+"Bastian was an adult, too," Torben pointed out. Apparently, that quietened Katja down, and he took the opportunity to look back at Elyre. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to question your skill. To answer your question, I'm afraid I really can't leave Aventoft at the moment. And I would prefer if you could leave Katja out of it."
+"No, it's fine," Katja said. "I need to get back to my bike at some point, anyway, so I'm afraid he'll have to chauffeur me around a little more anyway," she smiled gently.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I think Katya was investigating all this when I found her, if she's happy with it I'm gonna team up with her and watch her back."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"I do need to actually get back home at some point," Katja pointed out. "I'm guessing my parents will want to have a word with me anyway for being off work today." She gave the kind of light eyeroll that one would expect from someone who was at adult age, but living with their parents, clearly still far too used to them imposing their values on her but aware that they had no real power over her.
+Then Katja paused, slipping her thumbs into her pockets. "Do you know what Bastian was up to Monday night when everyone vanished?" she asked Torben, voice full of compassion.
+"Haven't we been over this?" Torben asked, sighing softly.
+"You don't remember anything?" Katja asked.
+"Nothing that will help you find him. If he's not with his car, I wouldn't know what trail could possibly lead you to him," Torben shook his head.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I'll get you back to your bike, and if its too late, I'll drive you both home too."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"I still have work to do," Torben shook his head, and almost demonstratively turned his attention back to the water samples, beginning to put them onto the desk that the woman had indicated was his earlier, checking each sloppily written label as he did so. "Thank you, though."
+Katja rolled her shoulders a little. "I guess we'll check out the hospital?" she offered Elyre. "It's only, what?" she asked, then cast a look at her mobile phone. "Mid afternoon. If you get me back to my bike by five thirty or so, that's plenty."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"It was nice meeting you Torben."
+He turned to head out...
+**pinkgothic**:
+As Katja passed Torben, she lingered for a moment, then leant across and gave him a kiss on the cheek. One step further, then, and he raised an arm as though to stop her - but evidently decided against it, forcing his attention back down to his samples with an air of regret.
+Then Katja and Elyre were back outside. "I'm sorry about that," Katja said. "This whole thing just... it really has him rattled."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"There is something he doesn't want me to find out, that he knows." He said with a look at her, then shrugged, "Shall we go see what we can find out at the hospital?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+"I think he's just rattled," Katja said. "You have to understand, Torben cares a lot about people. I guess he thinks that whoever made our friends disappear might be a problem to you, too - it doesn't seem unreasonable. Say for example, if there's some kind of serial... murderer out there," she considered, though the pause before 'murderer' made it quite clear that the idea didn't sit right with her, despite everything she had said about not expecting to see her friends ever again. "Then I also don't think they'll be happy if you poke around in their stuff?" Said, though, she was following him to the car, nodding to the suggestion about checking out the hospital.
+Of course, if Katja was Torben's girlfriend, there was maybe a conflict of interest. Maybe Elyre's instinct that Torben was concealing something was right, even if Katja wasn't willing to entertain the idea, herself.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"I guess that could be it too, I hope it is."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"The worry, I assume, not the reality," she mused. Unsurprisingly, the idea of having a serial killer breathing down their necks didn't really appeal to her. "Anyway, let's see what the folks at the hospital can tell us," she prompted, following him to the car.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"So all we know is the man was a surgeon, and him and his patient are missing. How should we go about this?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+"We ask about the missing people? I can't imagine there's any ambiguity about it," Katja considered. "Hospitals don't just randomly misplace a surgeon and patient."
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"The cafeteria, no point bothering them while their busy?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+"Sure," Katja shrugged lightly, smiling. "I guess I would have just asked at the reception, honestly." But maybe that wouldn't work, what with data privacy getting in the way - but since she wasn't that used to doing investigative work as Elyre, it hadn't occurred to her that it might be an issue.
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"We'll ask the cafeteria staff first, everyone gets hungry and thirsty, and their way less likely to call security."
+"We really just want their names, then we can find another cute girl looking for their friends."
+He smiled at her.
+**pinkgothic**:
+"You think people will call security on us?" Katja's face scrunched up a little. "I'm pretty sure they only do that if you cause trouble." And then, half joking, half serious: "Were you planning to cause trouble?"
+**HypnoWizard**:
+"Nah, but data protection and yadda yadda, I'm sure we''ll learn more at the cafeteria."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"Sounds like it'd be worth a shot," she nodded. "Let's go?"
+**HypnoWizard**:
+He headed to the cafeteria, "Coffee or tea?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+"I'm more of a tea person, if they end up having any," she said. "Do you know which hospital it is?"