It is the heart of apple-picking season in Riverview Heights, and the town is crowded with visitors. The old New England town becomes more lively during autumn and throughout the ski season. As the last town before the mountain road, drivers stop here to rest for the night to prevent ascending the winding mountain in the dark.
As summer comes to an end, detectives are investigating a string of robberies in the North East. The crooks are using the influx of leaf peepers to mask their crimes, stealing from small town museums and bed and breakfasts across New England. They’ve focused on heirlooms and Native American relics, all of which are difficult to assign a value to. The most recent theft occurred last night at the historic bed and breakfast in Riverview Heights, and Nancy is determined to solve the crime before the thief has a chance to leave town.
A sycamore tree in front of the B&B has begun turning orange, matching the mountain. Arriving at the crime scene, Nancy leans her bicycle against the side of the grand Victorian porch. It’s been a particularly wet season, and the chrome on her fenders is caked in muck from summer adventures.
The historic bed and breakfast at the foot of the mountain just celebrated its bicentennial. For two centuries, they’ve collected nicknacks, Indian relics, and feathers from local birds. Black and white photographs line the walls of the local dog sled race, pheasant hunters, and the multiple presidents who have visited the hotel as part of the ski resort, alongside a collection of local bridge paintings.
In the photographs of American presidents Hoover, Harding, and Cleveland standing by the fireplace, a prominent Native American ceremonial urn sits centered on the mantle. The piece features a prominent square shape and a moose beneath it, telling the Native American legend of autumn.
However, this pottery piece has since gone missing. In the fireplace below are the broken parts of wooden snowshoes, with fresh mud - a clue. The burglar must have come from up in the mountains with the year-round snow and broken the snowshoes when they got closer to town.
The song playing over the tabletop radio ends, and the announcer reminds listeners that today is the first day of fall and the autumn equinox. At the beginning of fall, leaf peepers begin to migrate into town. The thief will surely move with them, blending into the caravan of roadtrippers.
Nancy can hardly imagine how much trouble she would be in if she were caught. But it’s the end of a humdrum summer, and she has started on a mystery that can only be solved on the equinox - today, of course. She arrives at the bottom of the chairlift and discovers it is surprisingly easy to switch on the old motor.
The cafetorium is less than ideal, with cafeteria tables with fixed seats attached and a row of ping pong tables pushed up to the bleachers to provide more seating and dining tables for the culinary students to serve.
Captivating Carl makes his debut by stepping out onto the stage from behind his homemade Sword Box of Doom to welcome the audience.
Carl introduces “Emberly, Dale, and the Student Chefs of the Tri-County College Culinary Night School program” with all his mustered enthusiasm and grandeur. Carl quickly realizes how complex this show will be, with the audience bifurcated on either side of him.
Early in his first trick, holding up poster board-sized playing cards, he can pick only one side of the audience to perform to at a time. “Emberly, hold this card high in the air and don’t allow the audience to see it” immediately ends in disaster. The audience behind clearly watches her fold the massive 8 stickers to create a 3 of diamonds. The audience behind begins laughing while the front audience appears amazed.
The lively audience reaction restores Carl’s confidence. He decides to repeat the trick so that the back audience can now see the trick, revealing the secret to the first group.
By the end of the night, the audience is entranced. Somehow Captivating Carl pulled off his best trick: turning his low-budget student magic show into a fantastic magic/comedy/dinner theater show with the help of his friends and the rustic French cooking night at the culinary night school.
Concept
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The Congregation has hired Ferro Mercenaries to free any bipeds that The Vanios Syndicate has enslaved in asteroid belt mines if they vow allegiance to their Numen Supremum. During orientation, new cadets accidentally warp across the quintants. Emerging in orbit of an exploded mining planet, stabilized by an artificial colloid atmosphere, recruits discover sentient Gox drones attempting to destabilize to colloid. Ferro must work with The Varios Syndicate to eradicate the Gox before they can destroy all lifeforms in the region.
Only made possible by Vantablack's tenebrific, light-absorbing properties, Power Void warps guests into deep space where laser cannons blast Gox drones. The first interactive zero-dark ride can shoot powerful lasers outdoors and indoors, where the tracking dots will be absorbed in the darkness of space. Additional innovations in ride systems, from S&S Free Fly, combine longitudinal spin and unique air suspension to surprise riders with an innovative weightless sensation while barrel rolling yet maintaining a parallel orientation to the ground.
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The humdrum energy brought by the torpid townsfolk of Square City the following spring was overwhelmed by a brief torrent of tawpie coeds at the Homecoming Carnival. In an event now known as Soggy Saturday, returning college kids soaked each other along the parade route, hurling water balloons and blasting bystanders in the process. Shopkeepers gleefully took to the sidewalks, returning fire with hoses. A Water War was officially declared by nightfall when the fire department involved themselves in the shenanigans, reigning in the chaos by raining down on the cavalcade.
Brooke’s dad was always the fun dad growing up. When Brooke told him that Senior Monday would kick off a week of unsanctioned squirt gun fights, Mr. Douglas was all in. He spent the weekend building a custom high-powered soaker for his daughter.
He spent the better part of Senior Week boring out nozzles for his daughter’s soccer team, ensuring they were the best-armed soaker squad.
Since the mayor declared the whole town a splash zone, Mr. Douglas had been the go-to guy for black market battle gear. With a range of defensive and offensive equipment to keep your day dry and your neighbor drenched, Squirt City Armory has supplied townsfolk with the necessities for battle since Soggy Saturday.
Concept
Wrecks on Wecks
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The Mid-Autumn Festival is a harvest festival celebrated throughout Asia, though most merrymakers reside in China and Vietnam. The date of the festival varies each year based on the lunar calendar and falls between full moons in late September or October. Brightly lit lanterns of all shapes and sizes are placed in the home and throughout towns, strung over streets, in trees, and along buildings. Other lantern-based traditions including floating lanterns down rivers to guides spirits, and writing riddles on lanterns for children to solve.
One of the central figures of the Mid-Autumn Festival is the Jade Rabbit. According to legend, the Rabbit lives on the moon as a companion of the moon goddess. Rabbits, moons, and clouds are depicted throughout the celebration, often as large illuminated figures, painted on lanterns, or as decorations on treats. Participants in the festival also make and share mooncakes, a pastry which can be sweet or savory. Lotus flowers, cockscomb, and apricot blossoms are also exchanged, along with blessings, as a way to give thanks for a fruitful harvest and the opportunity to spend time with family.
Aerostat
Yokels of the High Pass
Dust blows off the hardened soil as the sun beats and not even dead trees give reprieve from the harsh rays. Days on the arid pass are spent scavenging on the dry stone just to survive. Life is very different at this altitude, the Highdwellers travel on canyon winds like rivers; ever-shifting air currents can devastate the community and water and shade are traded like commodities amongst those who have ended up there.
But to live up there, everyone must contribute to the community. It is the responsibility of every Highdweller to track the wind currents while farming the geothermal vents high in the desert mountains. Navigating the skies is dangerous, even for those who have spent their lives at this altitude. When stationed there, be sure to make landfall before the tides shift as an ill wind can leave airships stranded at high altitudes or worse, plummet to the ground below.
Temple of the Wisdom Tooth
A Lost Civilization
Explore the ruins of this odd civilization lost not-too-long ago, where the hallowed temples and tooth statuary of a bizarre kibbutz of dentile outcasts were left to decay in the jungle. Large-scale tooth sculptures lay in various states of erosion, an ironic reminder of the oral blight they sought to prevent.
Hellbent on eradicating the world of gingivitis, a band of dental extremists were exiled from society and established a commune deep in the uncharted jungle. If their outrageous dental views weren't deemed irrational before, they certainly evolved into extremism in isolation. Convinced that the public was not brushing frequently enough, the commune prioritized its work on a series of oversized dioramas to teach their congregation about proper dental hygiene. The group prospered briefly but unsurprisingly did perish; withering away while attempting to spread their enlightenment to families of hippos and crocodiles.
The Federal Gallery
Exhibit of Counterfeit Antiquities
New regulations for creative governmental funding now allow brides to arrive in a tank on their big day or groups to host themed retirement parties in federal prison yards. But one of the more successful revenue streams has been this Gallery of Federal Seizures. This gallery is chock full of counterfeits and replicas.
Because, when the government’s funding runs short, what is the bureau to do except open up their warehouse and showcase highlights of their seized evidence.
No doubt some of the contraband is incredibly convincing, and museum-quality works in their own right, but nothing here is authentic to their perceived artist or period, or made of precious gemstones or metals. Enjoyable on many levels, either for its beauty as art, its faux historic value, and the non-fiction court case it derives from. The investigations are now closed, so feel free to photograph the art and even touch these "historic" relics - you’re not destroying evidence, the statute of limitations have all lapsed, due to a lack of funding that prevented the cases from going to trial.
