You are a Mechanical Engineer and field investigator for hire by Recess Games LLC
You went to Miskatonic University for mechanical engineering. After graduation, you got a great job in your field with Sirius Cybernetics LLC in a new Cleveland branch. You’re luckier than most; many are still pounding the pavement with constant ghosting or compromising with jobs outside their field.
Your position pays the bills, and you have a little bit left over each paycheck. Yes, you are luckier than most. You have the life you expected and planned for all those years ago with those STEM toys.
A few years go by, and something is missing. You were bored
The one thing you could count on to spark your brain was listening to unsolved crime podcasts; you would listen, take notes, and deep dive into whatever was available. You became alive researching and solving problems.
Soon you were listening to every crime podcast and had a schedule for every day, and at night you would binge on any new crime documentary or unsolved mystery, and you even watched that series about extraterrestrials built the Egyptian pyramids on the so-called History Channel.
One rainy day, you were going through your dad’s old comic books. On the back of Batman, you found an ad for the Institute of Applied Scientists at 1920 Sunnyside Ave., Chicago. It was a correspondence school to train you to be a criminal investigator and fingerprint expert.
I wrote immediately, and I received my copy of the Blue Book of Crime. I contacted OASIS, the Ohio Association of Security and Investigation Services. They had seen the ad before, and it showed them I was curious. I was told becoming an investigator wasn’t gonna be as easy as filling out a form.
I took night classes at Baldwin Wallace University to earn my criminal justice degree. With the degree in hand, I worked over 4,000 hours in investigative work and spent lots of late nights to become an Ohio-licensed Field Investigator.
I still have my engineering job, but I go in with a skip in my step. I am good at both and bored at neither. Although sometimes my field investigator case is a sit-and-wait activity, I am still driven by curiosity, the thrill of the hunt, and the rush of solving a puzzle.
When this carnival case came across the OASIS desk, I leaped and swatted it out of Loelia Ponsonby’s hands, the OASIS office manager, signed my name, and handed it back to her with a smile. It was a perfect fit. Mechanical engineer and field investigator. I am on the case.
NOW ON TO THE ADVENTURE
YOU HAVE AN ASSIGNMENT
You are a Mechanical Engineer and field investigator for hire by Recess Games LLC to find what, why, and by whom the recess carnival is being sabotaged.
“It all started with the flooding. When it rains, half the carnival is no longer walkable, and we can’t electrify customers,” the general points down the midway. “It’s a race against time – we fix one issue, and another pops up! Why are so many things broken? Who is doing this? Can you stop this madness?”
You look and see, downhill, a pool of water around the Merry-go-round. A RED BALLOON catches your eye. With a confident smile, you respond, “I am going to try my darndest.”
The general manager hands you two keys and adds, “These might help. Good Luck”.
You scan the area again and head towards the RED BALLOON. As you walk closer, you see it is attached to a SEWER GRATE underwater.