[text - open]

[bossyboiler]

Who: Kate Cordello
Username: cupkate
Warnings:N/A

Anyone else think it's a bad idea to eat bread that's been baked on a gravestone? I don't care if it's a tradition or not. It's creepy.

I haven't been able to to investigate it properly, however. The line for Better Loaf Than Never is RIDICULES! It wraps around the building every time that I've been by. Which begs the question, should it be investigated? What do we know?

They're selling baked sourdough bread that they are claiming is baked on a gravestone. It's in the spirit of Halloween. It's probably just a decoration. But haven't we seen enough businesses that sell creepy things, claim it's all in harmless fun, and then turn around to be so not legit?

You're right. We should investigate the bakery. Who wants to come with me?

I'm still not going to eat the bread though.

Comments

[bossyboiler]

[ Kate starts to shuffle towards the interior. She will appreciate the temperature change. ]

There's always the credit card and check receipts but it may be tricky to get those. [ Her voice is equally low in pitch. ] I wasn't planning on being nearly so clandestine.

[ The inside is warm and inviting with soft lights that enhance the baked goods and provide a cozy feeling. There are multiple employees working, most are behind the counter but there are a couple that mingle around, cleaning and seeing to customers. ]

[easilyamused]

[His shoulders shift in a nearly silent laugh.]

The best-laid plans...

[There's nothing immediately sinister about the inside of the bakery, which is almost unnerving on its own. Once inside, he turns towards an employee who's busy straightening one of the displays to ask, all friendly sympathy, if the crowd's this large every morning.

It's an easy enough in to a brief conversation; they are, apparently, proud of their popularity.]

[bossyboiler]

Should have brought Yelena, she could do some mission impossible thing and get them all. Alas.

[ Kate takes a look around inside the bakery once inside. It looks clean. Everything looks to be in order. The air smells of baking bread and other goods. Nothing seems amiss but Kate knows that something is amiss. Something is wrong in this bakery. Sourdough bread shouldn't be killing lab rats.

She lets out a little sigh once done with her first look around. It's not right.

While trying to keep the façade of a pleasant, well-meaning customer, Kate starts to make her way towards the counter. She gets in line. Again. ]

[easilyamused]

[He rejoins her after a few moments, leaning down to speak quietly in her ear.]

They do have a number of regulars. Maybe it's a matter of concentration?

[Does magic work the same way as physical compounds, with something tailored for a human likely to hit a small animal much harder? There's no reason to think that couldn't be the case.]

[bossyboiler]

Maybe. I didn't ask how much of the bread Cortana fed the rats. It would be helpful to know the concentration. I mean science could tell us the ratio amount needed for humans to succumb or something. If they are sharing the bread, they may not be getting enough to feel any effects.

[ Kate sighs. She needs to be a better detective. ]

We need a way of questioning the customers.

[easilyamused]

Or just eating it over the course of several days.

[Does magic build up in human tissues the way some toxins will? He doesn't know and that makes it impossible to gauge if they're looking at a ticking time bomb.]

If we knew the other effects, we could play it off as a health survey.

[bossyboiler]

But we don't know them because I didn't think to ask what other symptoms appeared in the rats.

[ She's going to beat herself up a little bit. ]

Okay so maybe one of us can ask a member of the staff if anyone has reported getting sick after eating the bread?

[easilyamused]

Even if you had, the rats can't talk.

[Which regrettably limits how well symptoms can be judged with so small a sample size.]

That might put their backs up. But staff in this sort of place tend to take some food home as a perk - we might ask if any of them have had any inexplicable illness, play it off as something circulating in the city.