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That’ll leave a mark

Casefile GS02122010

Location: Victory Hall, #12 Academy Downs, Babbage Palisade, New Babbage

Synopsis: On 12 February subjects unknown flew an airship into the dome of the Victory Hall opera house. The crash started a fire in the structure, causing major structural damage to the building. The fire was contained to the structure by the Fire Brigade. The airship was a total loss. Current suspects unknown.

Personal Notes:
Some days a girl just can’t get a break.

I had been out most of the day, and was looking forward to a long bath and a quiet evening at the Salon. I was in the process of undressing in my apartment when I head an airship pass overhead at full throttle. This in itself is not unusual, since we seem to be home to a great number of jack-leg airship pilots who substitute finesse with airspeed. I was pulling off one boot when I heard a thump and the peculiar sound of breaking glass. Looking out the window, I saw the long plume of smoke and the aft end of the offending airship sticking out of the opera house dome. Cursing my luck, I pulled on my bunker gear, pulled the remote alarm ringer, and ran down the street towards the crash site.

By the time I arrived at the scene, the alarm was going out to the rest of the Brigade. I pulled the hose out of the firelocker and began to climb the roof access. I hadn’t been up long when the dome collapsed from the spreading flames. Between the engines and the gasbag of the airship, the roof was burning with some enthusiasm. What worried me more was what I saw through the bare ribs of the dome…stacks and stacks of whiskey barrels. Apparently Gatsby had been storing his reserve whiskey in the attic of the opera house. I tried to keep the hose trained on the fire, but it was apparent that one line was not going to be enough. Sera and the girls had arrived downstairs and were trying to get some lines running inside. Since they were there now, it dawned on me that we needed the fire service airship. Sera had the same idea, and she started screaming at me to get off the roof and go get the bird. So I slid down the drainpipe and set off at a run to the aeroport.

Luckily for me, the boys at the hanger were paying attention to the clamor and had the bird gassed and loaded when I got there. One short flight later and the first bucket of water was dropping in on the dome. I made three runs, loading the bucket from the pond on the greens side of the wall, but I noticed that the pond was not going to yield any more water, so I angled off towards the canals to refill. The fourth load was the charm, so I wheeled over and landed in the street to see how bad the damage was.

Poor Gatsby was beside himself. I expect he’d be well into whatever he had stashed at home once we had finished securing the doors. He asked me to take a look at the wreckage, so I got my kit and made the climb to the roof again. The airship was nothing but charred metal, and I really couldn’t tell if anyone had been onboard at the time of the crash. I found several bits of paper on the roof…tracts and flyers from some temperance group. Ironically, most of them had been spared from the fire by my initial attempts to put it out.

I told Gatsby that I had found a few things, and that I had a few things to sort out back at the lab. He thanked me for helping, so I said good night and thanks to the rest of the Fire Mistresses who came out and went home.

So the question is where did the airship come from? Who was piloting it? Why the opera house? Who else knew the liquor was stored in the dome?

The investigation is ongoing.

Miss J. Dagger
Terranova Investigative Services
Aether Salon, 2nd Floor
#24 Academy Downs
Babbage Palisades, New Babbage

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6 Comments

  1. Stargirl Macbain Stargirl Macbain June 30, 2010

    Hmm…this is why you’re the investigator. It never crossed my mind that someone must have belonged to the airship and that no body was ever found…that I heard of anyway.

  2. Greg Merryman Greg Merryman July 1, 2010

    were there paragraphs in your original text?

    • Cyan Icewolf Cyan Icewolf July 1, 2010

      I’m sure there probably were. Pararaphs still seemto be somewhat missing here for some reason. We may have to set higher html controls for it or something.

    • Jedburgh30 Dagger Jedburgh30 Dagger July 4, 2010

      That’s affirmative Greg.  I’ll try another one to see if the setting change helps

  3. archivist archivist July 1, 2010

    I had the “treat pastes from Word” differently setting turned off when Jed posted this. I turned it on – hopefully that will help.

  4. archivist archivist July 4, 2010

    Woohoo! I think I found it – for some reason <br> and <p> tags weren’t on the “allowed” list. Now that they’re there it looks MUCH better.

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