Case No. 7
BARISTA: THE AUDITOR
CAFE: NONE
DATE: LATE DECEMBER
RECEIPT ID: CAD-09
I find I must apologize for the… shall I say… "brevity," of Case Report No. 6. I considered attaching some other unrelated Core Cafe receipts. In fact, I had almost combined Jack, CaDence, and I's conversation with a few collected receipts from when Sunshine was newly opened. I decided against it as, truthfully, what else could possibly accompany all of… "that." If you haven't read Case Report No. 6 yet, you didn't miss much or perhaps you missed everything that is and could be. I would consider it a one-off though. If I turn this public repository into a collection of singularly important receipts, I fear it would quickly snowball out of my control. However, I am working with CaDence on something that piqued my interest while I was at the Cafe and Diner, but that's a worry for a much later time.
Back in October of this year, while the Tesseract Cafe toiled away at getting their stories straight I travelled around to the other Cafes to check in. Notably, I spent some time at Testament, Requiem, Sunshine, and Silenus. I was also planning on going a bit further east to pop into Bloodglass and then head down to Midnight, but you must imagine my surprise at running into Midnight, far out of their ordained jurisdiction, in the middle of New Orleans, chasing down their current bugaboo—the Mangrove Syndicate.
The Syndicate, for those who don't know, is a direct competitor to the Cafe and Diner in the Coffee Trade and it has filled in the void left by Ms. Umbra's organization which was known as the Dark. The Dark, which was once led by Ms. Umbra, Ms. Pleasant, and Ms. Aka, was consumed by their own ambitions and as far as we know is currently destroyed beyond any sensible repair. But the area surrounding Florida is far too valuable to the Coffee Trade to go uncontested. Enter Ms. Roussimoff, head of the Mangrove Syndicate. By all accounts Ms. Roussimoff is a much greater threat than Ms. Umbra ever was. She's older, she's stronger, and—believe me or not—she is more well connected to the burnt, black, and bitter side of the Coffee Trade than Ms. Umbra ever was.
Caffeinated Report: C-MIL-01
"Even Niceros wouldn't eat a crumb of bread with them."
Mythology Trivia | 3 Words
Caffeinated Report: C-MIL-02
"Erdnetne Erdnetne."
Language Trivia | 3 Words
Caffeinated Report: C-MIL-03
"'Tis he—'tis Conrad—here—as wont—alone; On—Juan!—on—and make our purpose known. 'Tis he—'tis—"
Urban Legend Trivia | 2 Words
BARISTA: THE AUDITOR
CAFE: NONE
DATE: MID OCTOBER
RECEIPT ID: MIL-04
To help parse Indrid's somewhat cryptic repeating words, I wanted to get my own thoughts down in a Diner Receipt. As we, or, more precisely Indrid, uncovered, the Mangrove Syndicate is in New Orleans in an effort to acquire Mrs. Brown as a customer of their establishment. Mrs. Brown is not a particularly high profile customer, nor is she especially demanding, all things considered. As a matter of fact, during Lent, she forgoes caffeine altogether. However, she is rather… aggressive… to those who aren't as steadfast in their Lenten convictions as she and can go so far as to chew their head off over the issue.
As you might have guessed by her stringent convictions, she is a friend of Behram. Though she is allied to Behram and his meaningless cause she is not actually a fan of Double Shots—she drinks Green Tea. …Which creates some confusion to her station, does it not? If she is a certified Green Tea drinker why waste her time working with Behram? Moreover, it's not entirely unheard of for a customer to switch drink orders entirely… it's not a matter of a hard-coded genetic predilection, it's a way of life. If a customer says they drink Orange Juice or Coffee with Cream, then that is what they drink. Which is funny, in a cosmic sense, because—ah, you had to be there.
Regardless, Mrs. Brown is most certainly a New Orleans local and Ms. Roussimoff is most certainly not. Or… maybe she is? Was? With someone as old as Ms. Roussimoff, it can be hard to tell where she's actually from… I'm getting lost in my own thoughts. Apologies. The important thing is that the Syndicate wants Mrs. Brown and we can't let that happen. The last thing the Cafe and Diner Network needs is to be losing customers to half-baked swamp-bound organizations. Outside of Lent, Mrs. Brown can typically be found in and around the Garden District so that is where we will search for her.
Jericho here. One third of the owners of Midnight, in case you forgot. Funny how Auddy thinks they've got some say in how we operate. I mean, we will go to the Garden District. But on my call, choice? So… yeah, Mrs. Brown can often be found in and around the Garden District. So. That is where my team, Midnight, will search for her.Right as radium and sour as brimstone we'll be off. Don't dare to lead my team, choice? Don't. Er, well, we're all of the Cafe and Diner though ain't we? R—ight, so WHY split hairs, eh Auddy?
Caffeinated Report: CD-MIL-05
"Hull of here."
Research | 4 Words
Caffeinated Report: C-MIL-06
"Home is where the heart is."
Crystal Trivia | 1 Word
Caffeinated Report: C-MIL-07
"Portrait of Maurice, A Bold Bluff, A Jack In Office…"
Animal Trivia || 2 Words
BARISTA: THE AUDITOR
CAFE: NONE
DATE: LATE DECEMBER
RECEIPT ID: CAD-10
And that's what happened. The Syndicate outnumbered Midnight and was able to steal Mrs. Brown as a customer. With two months of hindsight, and a customer satisfaction survey conducted by Jericho, we know that Mrs. Brown has stuck with the Syndicate, and joined Ms. Roussimoff's organization as a full-fledged member. What Jericho has managed to, pardon the pun, glean, since then is that Ms. Roussimoff did not merely want Mrs. Brown as a guard dog. They wanted her to hunt.
Mrs. Brown's keen senses, sharpened by her love of Green Tea, must in some way let her search for something that is out of Ms. Roussimoff's massive reach. With Mrs. Brown in the Syndicate they are no doubt one step closer to whatever it is they are trying to achieve. However, this singular step hasn't been any great leap. It's been two months and the Syndicate is still moving to expand, to recruit, to search, and to control the swamps of the south east. I suspect my path will cross Ms. Roussimoff's again, though for the moment my auditorial services are needed elsewhere.
As I write this receipt, I am headed to the Silenus Cafe at the heart of the Coffee Trade's hotbed, Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Its owner, Dan Hamilton Jr., has been dealing with a problem no Cafe nor Diner would ever wish to face: flies. Yes, it would seem that Silenus has been absolutely overtaken by swarms of flies. A quick audit should find the source, I hope. Whether it be improperly stored trash, an unforeseen entry point, or perhaps a more insidious infestation. I suppose it is worth noting that this is not the first time Silenus has dealt with flies, in fact, their Cafe's sponsor is quite the lord of them; however, these flies differ quite a bit from Beez's from what I've heard.