Edgequest: Get Over It #4

>>799412
Condition: You are currently damp (from the rain), known (by at least some people on the island), and feeling watched (you're not sure why but it seems like a safe bet). You are also getting tired (it's been a long day).

Character Traits (the signs revealing that they exist):
Bartender (talk about liquor, able to pay attention to multiple things at once, look like you sleep in and stay out late)
Stick Fingers (has a bunch of credit cards without her name on them and a pock full off pilfered odds and ends she barely noticed taking)
Something Like Spider Sense (all your clothes are rip and stain free despite spending lots of time in dingy bars and rough areas)
Mysterious Weakness (everyone seems to know who you are lately)

Contacts:
Italo, a taxi driver, you have his card
Esa Main, a young unkempt moody looking man, or woman... hard to tell. Runs the Forrester front desk and is always drawing in a sketchbook. Has what he calls an "electric memory" and doesn't forget what he sees. He remembers your cousin.
Kimberly Summers, "a desperate college student from Darbane University is up next trying to make this months tuition". Also a performance artist who knew your brother. Member of the Alpha Rio Theta sorority. "vegan". Currently tied up and unconscious.
Frank, owner of Sad Mary's, overly connected and too well informed to just be a man running a bar, strip club, and underground fighting ring.
Hulk Smash, inquisitive and friendly member of a gang of satanists. His tattoos mix pentagrams with anime characters.
Thug1, Hulk's assistant and muscle. He grunts.
Sterling Holloway, socialite and wizard, wants to be your friend and help you find your cousin so the parties of the modern world don't go extinct

Clues (Things you might want to look into later or follow up on)
-Weird dude in a cherokee headdress with a badge saying SNS on it who works at The School of the Original Sensation, in a picture with your brother.
-The School of the Original Sensation, a consciousness raising educational facility that runs classes at 10, 2, and 6 on weekdays, taught primarily by Ben Windfeather and Daryush Madari, the founder of the school.
-Darron Kingston. Your cousin. Works in Cybersecurity. Likes guns. Disappeared five years ago until you found a picture of him on an obscure internet forum. Turns out he used to be a high class courier as well as a fighter at Sad Mary's. So far everyone on the island seems to have known him.
-The Black Car. Kim is terrified of it. It has a really expensive skull hood ornament. The satanist gang seems connected to it. The man you're meeting in it makes pretty good cocktails.

Corpses:
So far, none that you know of.

>>799419
Carrying:
Umbrella
cellphone, currently with no service
Purse: ID, $200, business cards
Esa Main's graphite pencil
A key belonging to Frank from Sad Mary's
A $5 bill covered in roman numerals belonging to Kim Sommers
That bottle of vodka you and Kim were going to drink
A precious stone that was in Sterling Holloway's car and just begging to come along with you
A Photograph of your cousin in front of the Forrester, a hotel built by a gargoyle obsessed artist

Stuff You Have (most of which is back in your hotel room):
Light weight travel bag on wheels
a change of clothes: white t-shirt, jeans, sneakers
Bar uniform: If you know King of Fighters then like King's outfit. Vest, pants, bowtie, gloves, women dress'
shoes
A rented room in the Forrester for a week. Strangely, it's the same room your cousin stayed in.

A note on how I run this quest: I check in every few hours as best I can and check the votes. It's more like high speed play by post. I take the votes and try to include any option that gets a decent number of votes or desn't conflict with what's going on. Goodl luck. Try not to die or destroy the world.

And now... ZE QUEST

>>799426
Looking down at Kim, you decide it isn't right to leave her all tied up in the middle of a light drizzle. Undoing the rope and removing the gag is easy. They are both high quality and soft, the kind use for private games as opposed to interrogation.

She looks up at you, still clearly terrified after your encounter with Sterling Holloway. You silently wave the bottle of vodka at her and smile. That's all she needs to get up and get moving as she follows you up to your room. What could go wrong?

After the day you've had you're pretty exhausted so even the gargoyles that line the ceiling of your room don't bother you much. Not even the one that looks like Elmo smoking a crack pipe while staring at you like he wants to steal your kidneys.

You and Kim open the bottle and skip cups, passing it back and forth till the stress of the day is blocked out by the pleasant throb of inebriation. That's when the guards come down and you guys start having a nice heart to heart though the verdict is out on how much you'll remember or how much of it was actually coherent and worth remembering. However, Kim is definitely a good time. You learn a new drinking game. Hopefully she'll tell you the rules tomorrow. She's funny, flirty, and of course, really an oddball. But you knew that already from talking with her at the bar about your cousin than watching the mind scarring trainwreck that was her performance art. The blond hippie look works for her and she ends up coming off as some sort of drunken forest elf who genuinely likes everyone who doesn't ride around in a black limo of death, which, by the way, she refuses to talk about. "It was a bad party," she says shuddering. "There were human skeletons. I think they were human skeletons. I draw the line at that sort of thing. And I don't have many lines drawn."

She repeats the last line with a different tone, something more playful. "I don't have many lines drawn at all."

>>799576 (You)

As the night wears on, it's time for shut eye. There's only one bed in your room so hopefully she isn't a psycho. It's a little late now though since you're muscles probably won't let you get up for at least six hours.

Is the bed sharing platonic?
(1) I guess.
(2) Very much so. Her performance art was like beyond freaky.
(3) That said, I like freaky. And she has that artsy hippie chick look. I'm into it.
(4) But I'm straight, seriously. Why is this even occurring to me?
(5) Cause I might be bi. You never know. There was that one time in college.

The next morning depends on how the night goes, but you also better have a plan of action. You're not just here to hang out with fun nouveau-hippies. You've got a cousin to find.

So what's next?
(a) Go to Sad Mary's to get the School of the Original Sensation Passes from Frank
(b) Visit the School of the Original Sensation to try to talk to the heads or to sign up for classes
(c) Let's catch up with Hulk Smash, Thug1, and the rest of the game. He seemed friendly and friends are good.
(d) Invite Sterling Holloway out for breakfast. There are more questions he'd know the answer to. (what are those questions?)
(e) Call up Italo the cab driver. You've got a picture and some info you can use now to take advantage of all the cabbies chatting among themselves.
(f) Search your hotel room for secrets. There has to be a reason Frank got you this specific room besides to show off. Hopefully your cousin left a clue.
(g) Try to follow up on this courier work your cousin did. Maybe another client of his? How do you find it?
(h) Return one of the stolen items like the graphite pencil, the key, the $5 bill, or the polished stone
(i) Get blitzed and follow your drunken intuition to the answer (something will happen but it might not be safe)
(j) Research Sterling Holloway and what he told you about the island. Maybe by making some friends you can get a more accurate take on what he told you.

(events will be prioritized by what gets the most votes)

(swinging by Gunsteel to get something to protect yourself with and ask about your cousin's favorite hobby- firearms- is already on the agenda)

And now I realize this should have been number 5 not number 4.

Goodbye Edgequest. I sadly bid you adieu. I'll check you tomorrow but I'm pretty sure this is a no-go right now. I loved you.