undergrounds | Easter fun at the Redbright Institute (Scavenger Hunt!)

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Spring is in the air and the Redbright Institute is hosting a weekend of Easter-themed family fun. The event is held outdoors on the Redbright grounds and includes an Easter egg trail, five-a-side football, croquet, arts and crafts, and a cake sale. Plus, a stall for refreshments selling tea and coffee for the adults and fruit juice for the kids. It's all decidedly kid-friendly and not magical at all. Expect to see lots of excitable children running around.

Of course, there is one event for the grown-ups: the much anticipated scavenger hunt! Teams sign up on the morning of 14th April and must solve all the clues by the event's close in order to win the grand prize.

Instructions for the Scavenger Hunt
• There are five clues to solve. You will receive each clue one at a time. Each clue leads to the location of the next clue.
• The answer to the clues is always either a person or a location (or sometimes both at once). To find the next clue, you must search the location or ask the person the clue points to. The answers are not all located in the Redbright Institute, which means your characters will be racing across London to try and find all the clues.
• Except for the first clue which you are given directly at reception when you sign up, every clue is wrapped up with a red ribbon. The ribbon itself has no significance, it just tells your characters that they've found the actual clue rather than a random object.
• You can ask for help up to three times. Help is provided by Mogget, who as you all know is very friendly. You need to tell him the clue you're struggling with before he can help you, so make sure you do that in your first tag to avoid wasting time.
• Everything above is ICly explained to your characters when they sign up so they know what to do. They also know about the time limit.
• When you think you know the answer to the clue, post ICly with your character searching that location or approaching a character and highlight that part of your tag in bold like this. This will allow me to quickly and easily see that you've answered a clue so that I can reply to either give you the next one or let you know to try again.
• Every character that participates will receive an Easter egg and a bonus two activity points!
• You have until 23:59 Sunday 16th April (GMT+1) to solve all the clues! If you manage to solve them all in the time limit and reach your end goal, the characters in the winning team(s) will receive an awesome prize and an extra bonus four activity points. If you don't solve them in the time limit, your team won't win the prize.
• One more tip: If you think you know the answer, go straight to that location or person in the first couple of tags! You can dally around for as many tags as you want, but that will waste time and make it less likely that you'll get through all five clues within the time limit.

[The scavenger hunt is closed to those characters who signed up, but the rest of this event is open to everyone! Feel free to mingle. If you have any questions about the event, please ask here.]

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Another dead end. They won't find anything there, nor anyone who knows why they're there.

Perhaps a third try is a charm but Cesare isn't interested. He rolls his eyes, feeling frustrated and unimpressed by the whole thing. This game was stupid anyway. He has no idea why he tried to take part.

While sitting in the car with Nancy, defeated, he turns to her.

"Do you still drink?" A lot has changed with Nancy over these past few months and he wants to make sure before he takes her to a bar. She's drunk with him at restaurants but that's not quite what he means. He means shots, mixing drinks and probably a hangover in the morning. They might as well turn this stupid event into something fun.

Nancy raises him an eyebrow. "Of course I still drink." It's a stupid question. Clearly, she still drinks. She's a twenty-year-old with a lot of terrible things that have happened to her in her life.

"Why?" She has an idea. For once, given she's got no bloody idea about the scavenger hunt anymore.

Cesare smiles a little as if he doesn't really mind what they do, when in fact it's pretty clear he wants a stiff drink.

"We're five minutes away from my favourite haunts. They do fantastic gimlets." Though let's be real, he probably wants shots instead. He leans over to her, giving her a look. "Are you game?"

"Which one is that? Any place you've taken me before?" She did like some of his bars. Though usually it was always fancy restaurants with him.

She likes the way he looks at her, though. That twinkle in his dark eyes. "Only if you're buying."

Cesare shakes his head.

"Somewhere new." He had assumed he was buying, to be honest, and after talking to the driver, they're at a bar soon enough. It's a dark, moodily lit space in Soho, which, if Nancy is particularly perceptive, is frequented by considerably more men than women. They find a booth and Cesare orders a couple shots each for the two of them. Wait, no. Just give them the bottle.

"Is whiskey alright?" he asks as he pours their shots.

This is unlike any time she's ever spent with Cesare. Ever. Usually it's fancy, all ball gowns and champagne and sex. Now they're in a dive bar which... Judging by the rainbow lights on the bar, is actually a gay bar.

"Of course it is- my taste of drinks ain't changed." She smiles at him, watching as he pours them liberal shots of whiskey. This is not how she imagined spending her Easter weekend, but hey. He was paying for shots. At a gay bar.

Nancy accepts her first one. "Is this your way of telling me you're over women?" She asks after a moment. "Because this isn't your usual sort of haunt."

Cesare doesn't quite get what she's insinuating at first, but eventually it clicks and he looks around with a shrug.

"I'll never be over women, Nancy," he says casually as he downs his shot. "Besides, you only know where I took you while we were still sleeping together. Now we're not. Now I can take you wherever I want so." He spreads out his hands a little, as if to say well, here we are. "It's not a problem is it?"

Nancy gives him an incredulous look.

"Good lord, no it's not a problem. Besides, at a place like this, with a cute guy, we'll get served pretty regularly, I'll take it."

Cesare pulls a face and rolls his eyes. "This place is filled with cute guys. That's rather the point. But I tip better, which is what's important." They'll get served perfectly fine. He gives her drink a bit of a nudge as if to encourage her to drink her shot.

"Don't make me drink alone..."

"I'd never dare." Nancy, maintaining eye contact with Cesare, takes her shot in one gulp.

"May I have some more?"

Good. That's the spirit. Cesare smiles and pours her another shot.

"Of course. Always." Cesare has never been the type to turn people down who want booze.

"So did you think I was a homophobe or something?"

Nancy shrugs. "not really. I just know you're Catholic. So I assumed. But I guess it's different with-" she looks around and adds: "vampires" very quietly.

then she takes another shot.

Cesare laughs a little at how quietly she says "vampires", appreciating her attempt at being discreet.

"I'm a Renaissance man, Nancy. I am a man of modern times. Besides, the Greeks and Romans took male lovers often." In other words, he definitely isn't judging. "You met Micheletto, didn't you?"

The juxtaposition of Cesare stating he's from the Renaissance and being modern at the same time gets a grin from Nancy, and this time she takes the initiative to pour them more whiskey.

"Micheletto? No, but I know a Mick." She had no idea they were one in the same.

"Well, Mick...elletto," he says with a bit of a pause to explain that the two are the same man. "Has such proclivities." Cesare had never even remotely cared about his best friend sleeping with men. It was only when Cesare started sleeping with men too, on occasion, that he became interested, if only for education purposes.

"I believe he must have slept with women at some point too (he's old as well, after all), but from what I gather, it certainly isn't where his general preferences lie. Did you think he was simply being a gentleman when he didn't try to purchase your services?" he asks with a slight laugh.

This is new information. She assumes they're the same person- Cesare is far more likely to know, and honestly, it makes sense. She kept running into him at the sort of functions that Cesare attended. Literally at the functions he attended.

He laughs and Nancy scowls a little. "No- I always met him at events I was with Cooper at." So she wasn't working. "I never offered."

Cesare laughs a little and takes another drink.

"Did you think he didn't know?" Micheletto knew everything. Perhaps too much, in fact. Cesare had sent many letters to him and, upon receiving no response, thought nobody was reading and used it as a diary of sorts, a diary where he confessed too many intimate details than he would like to admit.

"He's a sneaky fucker like that." That's why Cesare likes him so much.

"-Wait-" she blinks, shaking her head.

"You're telling me he knew about us?" She's blushing something awful as she glances down at the table. "Oh my god- what did you tell him?" Now she needs to know. Because otherwise she won't ever be able to look him in the eye.

"You have to tell me." She pours them each another shot, then taps the table, indicating they're taking this one together.

Cesare shrugs, trying to play it down as much as he can, for her benefit as well as his.

"Almost everything" he responds honestly. He had told Micheletto about their entire relationship, warts and all. Micheletto had received play by play commentary, from their first night together when Cesare didn't yet know Nancy's name and just mentioned her in passing, to Cesare's furious drunken rant about the night Nancy had turned him down. Micheletto knows everything.

"He's my best friend," Cesare tries to explain. "And loyal as all hell."

"Oh god," Nancy groans, sinking down in her seat somewhat. The result is a bit ridiculous, given that the booth nearly swallows her whole. "Everything?" She winces. She and Cesare had had a tumultuous working relationship. It had been fun, but the end of that phase of their life had been difficult. Humiliating, terrifying, all at once.

"So you're saying is that our secrets are safe with him?"

On some level Cesare shares her sentiment. He had presumed that nobody was reading his letters. To find that Micheletto was actually reading them very carefully had come as a bit of a shock. If it's any consolation, he's pretty sure he looked worse in the letters than she did. His angry, petty rants are not the most flattering. He pulls a wry, sympathetic smile and pours himself another shot, then another for her.

"I would trust him with my life."

Nancy relaxes against the booth. "Good." And if Cesare trusted someone, there was no reason not to trust them, she supposed.

"Mick's great, by the way. I've always enjoyed talking with him. He gave me his cake, once." Because she'd been incredibly drunk and looking to make friends. And he happened to have cake. Good cake.

"That is a great honour," Cesare replies playfully. "A man does not give people cake freely. I hope you thanked him. Personally, I never would have done it." He's just joshing but there is the slightest bit of truth to it. When it comes to certain things, Cesare doesn't give people anything without expecting something in return.

Nancy giggles, nearly ducking her head into her glass of whiskey. "Oh, I did! Truly, it was a moment I'll never forget." She raises her glass to the memory and downs it.

Also, Cesare, it's cake. Gosh, you could have gotten more.

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