[EVENT] MYSTERY GAMES

[ironwood]

Hello, Chelonauts, and welcome to Keeliai’s fortnight of mayhem and mystery! To account for the delay, the event will ICly run from 15th to 29th of August, with the final party/awards log posted on the 31th.

The list of characters who signed up, which teams they’re in and which crimes they’ll be assigned, are as follows.

Crime #1: Abduction
China Sorrows
Midii Une
Zelgadis
Hiro Hamada

Crime #2: Theft
Jack Frost
Raine Sage
Pepper Potts
Klaus Reinherz

Crime #3: Murder
Aya
Gene Khan
Valdis
Arno Dorian

As the games are sponsored by the Merchant’s Guild, IC sign-ups sheets will have been available at specific storefronts all across Keeliai. Feel free to assume your character applied at one such branch. Keep in mind, however, that these games are Keeliai wide. Not only Foreigners are playing -- there are as many as a dozen ‘crimes’ occurring at any given time, and kedanese teams will be pursuing your crimes as well!

In the body of the post just below is an IC overview of each crime, but the clues and ‘scripts’ will be in threads in this post. Be sure to track your team’s thread, since OOC crime updates will be posted on the 19th and 25th. These threads will also be where team plotting can occur!

A log for all IC murder-related threading will be posted on the 15th.


Crime #1: The Case of the Mother’s Empty Nest
The first crime is an abduction! The IC information given to the team is as follows. OOC information will be given in the Crime #1 thread here.

Congratulations! The crime your team has been selected to solve is The Case of the Mother's Empty Nest. Your contact will be the distraught mother Mesul (when she remembers that she's supposed to be acting distraught) who will beg you to find her abducted daughter, Juhino. (She will make it a point of drawing the investigators aside and reassuring them that her daughter is indeed quite fine, because this is just a game and she and her daughter are participating together!)

But when she gets down to it, she will confidently relay that her daughter has been kidnapped, and their task is twofold: recover the girl, and find the culprit.

Crime #2: The Theft of the Smithy’s Prize
The second crime is a theft! The IC information given to the team is as follows. OOC information will be given in the Crime #2 thread here.

Congratulations! The crime your team has been selected to solve is The Theft of the Smithy’s Prize. Your clients are Xinhi and Oyora, a smithing-business couple whose long-term anniversary project has been snatched out of their shop. Although they won’t object to the culprit being apprehended, they are more concerned with the return of the project.

This project is a motorcycle, built by Xinhi using parts for which Oyora has traded, and represents their collective talents and interests. Your goal will be to recover the motorcycle in its entirety, with a bonus if your team also succeeds in apprehending the culprit!

The winner for this crime will be chosen on a points-basis, with points offered for speed, thoroughness and of course the bonus. Points will be deducted for undue damages in the pursuit of the case.

Crime #3: The Case of the Serpent’s Demise
The third crime is a good old-fashioned murder! The IC information given to the team is as follows. OOC information will be given in the Crime #3 thread here.

Congratulations! The crime your team has been selected to solve is the Case of the Serpent’s Demise. Your client is a low-level Snake named Lien, who will introduce himself as a member of the task force investigating Meisheng’s murder. He and the task force have specific instructions not to involve anyone else in the investigation because they’re trying not to announce the murder to the public at large until they have someone behind bars; this is why the average citizen of Keeliai will have no idea what you’re talking about if you ask them for details! Lien, however, has gone to your team for help because the investigation is at a standstill. He privately suspects that his superiors are trying to cover for whoever committed the foul deed.

It’s up to your team to try and find the killer. You will be competing against three other teams. The winning team will be the one who successfully accuses the real killer first. Please note that once your team makes an accusation, they cannot take it back, and if the accusation is wrong then your team will automatically be disqualified. We also take sportsmanship very seriously; if your team sabotages another team, that is also grounds for immediate disqualification.

Once your team is ready, Lien will be waiting for you in the back courtyard of the Snakes’ mansion!

Comments

GENERAL QUESTIONS

[ironwood]

Please direct your questions here!

CRIME #1: ABDUCTION

[ironwood]

Your team will be sent to a small residence in the Wood Sector, and will meet with a woman named Mesul, who will give you all the information necessary to begin the investigation. Her daughter Juhino is 16 years old, and a student at the College, studying an offshoot of hybrid agriculture. Mesul went through a lot of effort to help her get into the College, so she's very proud of her daughter's accomplishments!

Mesul will relay that four days prior, Juhino neglected to arrive home after classes. In a Wood Sector alley, there were signs of a struggle, although the investigators will not be able to examine the scene directly, as it was part of the imagined setup of the crime. Mesul will, however, provide the team with the "findings" from the alley:

• One of Juhino's necklaces was discovered with the clasp broken, however no blood was found at the scene.
• Neighbours in the area who were questioned reported seeing a single figure lurking around the alleyway entrance, but the person could not be identified, due to wearing a hood.
• There was a hastily scribbled random note asking for 1000 juulan found at the scene, which is a fair amount of money, but not extravagant. The ransom was paid via a blind drop, but nothing was ever heard after that. The ransom note was written on high end stationary, which seems at odds with the really rough writing it showed.

There are two initial ‘suspects’: Juhino’s ex-boyfriend, Kellban, and her greatest rival at the College, Ildsina. Your team’s initial investigation should take the form of questioning these two and the people who knew them, which will reveal the following details.

Kellban is a few years older than Juhino, which Mesul will admit was a source of concern for her. He works in Earth Sector and has an alibi for the time of the kidnapping, but has curiously bought a kirin very recently -- which is strange, since he doesn’t need one for his work. He’s already paid for it in full, however, though he’s asked the stable to hold it for a few more days.

He will claim that he and Juhino broke off their relationship mutually and on good terms, and that he didn’t want to take away from her time at the College -- it’s so hard to get accepted, after all! That being said, he was looking forward to picking the relationship up in a few years, when she was older.

Ildsina is a young lady from a wealthy family, and one of Juhino’s classmates. Their school friends will report that these two were strong rivals. While Ildsina for into the College through familial connections and money, Juhino was selected on merit. The two were at the top of their classes, each vying for the same ranking, and though Ildsina isn’t quite Mean Girl territory, there has been a bit of attitude on her part regarding their rivalry. A lot of the talk after Juhino’s disappearance is about how, with Juhino missing just before a major exam, it’s almost a shoo-in that Ildsina will rank top of their class. She does have an alibi, but it’s from her family, and everyone knows tight family ties can be …

Ildsina herself will refuse questions without her parents present, and will deny any allegations that she was unfair or did anything untoward to Juhino. If anything, she’ll claim they were on fairly good terms lately, in spite of the upcoming exam.

CRIME #1: ADDITIONAL CLUES

[ironwood]

Please don't reply! This comment will be updated with further clues as the event progresses.

[ironwood]

Mesul will not be able to shed any further light on Juhino's emotional state, other than understandable nervousness about the upcoming placement exams. She will confirm that Juhino has spoke about Ildsina a few times, usually in regards to how the two of them were competing in terms of marks, but never mentioned anything that would imply a dangerous aspect to the rivalry.

Questioning Juhino and Ildsina's classmates at the College will confer that their rivalry never seemed to extend outside academic pursuits, but inquiring about the stationary will confirm that it could certainly have come from a rich household like that of Ildsina's family, and that the likelihood of Kellban getting any would have been remote. In addition, questioning Ildsina with her parents present about the stationary will make her visibly uneasy, and eventually she'll simply refuse to answer any more questions, at which point her parents will end the interview.

In following up on the kirin purchased by Kellban, questioning the stablemaster will yield more information. Evidently Kellban has been attempting to purchase one for at least a year, but given their limited numbers on the turtle, he hadn't been able to afford one and so has been making payments as collateral. The final payment on the kirin was the same amount as all the others, rather than a large lump sum as the ransom might have provided. Since the stablemaster has been seeing Kellban for so long, he can also confirm that Kellban had initially spoken of Juhino as his girlfriend, but that he'd stopped doing so about eight or nine months ago, and that the stablemaster had never met the girl directly.

While following up on clues around the city, the investigations team will be approached by a random (participating) female kedan, who will claim to represent a local loanshark in the Wood Sector, one unaffiliated with any of the Families. She will mention an older male kedan by the name of Crisul, who lives in the Wood Sector near Mesul and Juhino's house, and who has a known gambling problem. The female kedan will mention that Crisul has been heavily in debt to her employer for years, and the amount had recently been to the tune of, yep, about 1000 juulan. Questioning Crisul directly will produce no alibi for the time of the kidnapping aside from his own word, and he will outright refuse to answer how he got the funds to clear the debt. However, bringing him up as a possible suspect in a kidnapping to those who know him will be met with skepticism, as aside from his long term gambling issues, he's generally regarded as a good guy. Still, the unlikely disappearance of his debt is a hard coincidence to ignore.

Mesul will ask the investigations team to formally name a suspect: Ildsina, Kellban, or Crisul, and to deliver their decision to her, as she is stewarding the case for the purpose of the Games.

THE ANSWERS

[ironwood]

Juhino kidnapped herself, to give Kellban his alibi. She traded a piece of stationery paper from Ildsina for the promise that she would purposely miss the exam and let Ildsina take first. When Ildsina found out about the kidnapping, she clammed up to avoid being implicated too. The kirin that Kellban bought, plus the agriculture study Juhino had been doing, was because they were planning to move out to an abandoned farm far out on the shell and live together, basically eloping. Juhino picked up the ransom herself, and gave it to Crisul, a nice guy in her neighbourhood who had promised to swear off gambling, but who otherwise has no involvement in the crime.

Naming either Kellban or Ildsina as the culprit will net a technical "win" in the case, and naming both of them will be the "correct" answer, since all three including Juhino herself participated in the kidnapping. Naming Crisul as the suspect will be considered a "fail" of the case, since he was only involved after the fact due to the ransom.

CRIME #1: TEAM PLOTTING

[ironwood]

Use this thread to plot among your team-members!

Re: CRIME #1: TEAM PLOTTING

[gathersnomoss]

It sounds like we need to talk to both the boyfriend and the rival, but after that it would probably good to talk to the mother about Juhino's emotional state before this big exam.

[bigdamnhiro]

It'd be easy to blame the rival if only for the fancy stationery that'd indicate somebody rich, but that shit doesn't make sense paired with the thousand juulan ransom. Why would anybody that wealthy need more money

Hiro's conspiracy theory is that the girl and her boyfriend are totally eloping and they need the money to set themselves up with a new life away from her family, so they're making it look like a kidnapping. Or something.

[bigdamnhiro]

Heads up, I threw a starter over here to get things going. If anyone would like something different please let me know, or if anybody wants to also thread out a different scenario!

[bigdamnhiro]

Sooooo I think we can likely eliminate Kellban based on the information from the stablemaster. That leaves Ildsina and new suspect Crisul, who might be a red herring?

Ildsina's initial alibi is from her family, and it's her family who cuts off the interview when the issue of the stationery is brought up. The fact she doesn't have an explanation for this screams sketchy. On the other hand, there's no outside evidence to suggest the rivalry was that heated, but seeing as appearances are everything, that could also just be a ruse.

Is it possible Crisul either a) was doing Ildsina's work for her, explaining the poor handwriting despite the nice stationery, or b) intercepted the blind drop for the ransom, not knowing what it was for, and thus has no knowledge of the actual crime?

CRIME #2: THEFT

[ironwood]

Your team is sent to Metal Sector, to a shop several blocks away from Stark Industries. Though small, the shop is well financed and well patroned, and owned by a woman named Xinhi with her wife Oyora. Xinhi is the smith, while Oyora is originally from Earth Sector and handles the business. Both of them are very solid people who don’t ‘act’ so much as approach the game and any clues given as if they’re extra tasks on their list of daily chores, with the unexpected side-effect of authenticity.

Xinhi has been building a motorcycle which has vanished. She can provide sketches and plans for it, while Oyora will provide copies of receipts and names of employees, of which there are two.

One of the employees, Lanza, claims that a customer has been in and out regularly under different guises, but recognisable because of a pale birthmark on her neck. He remembers she bought a set of basic tools on one visit, and some oilskin leather, and has a habit of being there right at closing, forcing those on staff to hold open the store until she’s done. Lanza will tell the team that this happened, with him as witness as the storekeeper, the night the motorcycle vanished.

The presence of this customer and her purchases can be confirmed through receipts, but tracking her down will be the next big task.

The customer with the birthmark can be pursued in any combination of the following ways.

• Talking Oroya can give a name from a custom order sheet, Nuzi, and an ‘address’ which will turn out to be the kedanese equivalent of a ‘postbox’.
• The box-keeper will recognise the description and be able to point the team in the direction Nuzi usually goes when she leaves.
• Canvassing the area where the box-keeper indicated will eventually hit on one of Nuzi’s neighbours, and the block where she lives.
• Asking other local store-owners about the customer with the birthmark will reveal that she is a regular in the area, frequently just to window-shop.
• Persistent canvassing will turn up a description of a uniform from one of the shopkeepers.
• Pursuing the uniform’s description will turn up with the area where Nuzi works, just over the border into Fire Sector. She’s part of a maintenance team which keeps track of the heatless fires in the sector’s ‘fountains’.

CRIME #2: ADDITIONAL CLUES

[ironwood]

Please don't reply! This comment will be updated with further clues as the event progresses.

[ironwood]

Finding Nuzi is the first major breakthrough in the case. Whether they find her at her workplace or her home, she’ll be willing to talk and completely confused about what they want from her. She readily says she was frequently at the shop, and claims that her late appearances are usually because of working overtime.

If accused of the theft she’ll insist the team leaves, and will refuse to see them thereafter. The team will have to sneak back to the location later (or her other primary location, if known).

If simply asked whether they can look around, without accusation, she’ll be puzzled but let them.

Regardless of how they search her home/office, they will find a part from the motorcycle present. When this evidence is brought to her, she’ll claim that she was offered it at a good discount and she had no idea it was related to the stolen motorcycle. At this point the team can, if they wish, declare Nuzi the perpetrator (they won’t be able to retract this decision), but they will still have to find the rest of the motorcycle to solve the crime.

The team can trace the pieces found at Nuzi’s home and work either by asking Nuzi where she supposedly bought them or by taking them back to Xinhi, who will be able to identify the oil used to buff the piece. It’s made from a type of fish commonly sold in Water Sector and can be easily home-distilled and sold cheaply, and is popular because of both this and the fact it blends well with scents.

However the team makes the connection, it will lead them to an alley in Metal Sector commonly used as a kind of flea-market for metal debris, secondhand tools and mechanical objects, and cheap lubricating oils, including the one found on the parts. With a good eye and the plans in hand, the team will be able to ferret out all the motorcycle parts. (They won’t have to pay real juulan, but stamped IOUs to represent currency for the game’s purposes.)

In the process of getting the motorcycle parts, the team will see a lot of stall-owners selling the parts. Most of them will claim it was bought from another stall-owner, or traded to them by a customer, but one of them will be Lanza.

Lanza will tell them that he sells knickknacks on the side and claim the same as the other stall-owners--that the parts he’s selling were passed through others’ hands and he had no idea they were involved in the theft. It’s notable that he also sells oil with the same fragrance as that found on Nuzi’s motorcycle parts. It’s also notable that there are other stall-owners who do, since objects are frequently traded, though asking around will reveal that Lanza sells that particular fragranced oil more frequently than anyone else.

If the team has already declared Nuzi the culprit, they cannot retract the declaration. If not, they can decide to declare either Nuzi or Lanza the perpetrator, as long as associated evidence is provided.

THE ANSWERS

[ironwood]

If the team managed to secure all of the motorbike parts, it counts as a ‘pass’ and a small prize will be won. Though there is more evidence indicating Nuzi, Lanza was the only other person around the night before the bike was stolen, and his fragranced oils were found on the parts. Accusing Lanza and exonerating Nuzi will net the bonus -- the first-place winner and all the runners-up are those who managed to do so! First-place is a matter of points tally, with the winners having been the most polite and least aggressive in their approach, without resorting to breaking and entering or tricks to gain back the stolen parts.

CRIME #2: TEAM PLOTTING

[ironwood]

Use this thread to plot among your team-members!

Re: CRIME #2: TEAM PLOTTING

[lasergrenades]

Whoo! Stakeout? Stakeout.

The fact that Nuzi uses a post box and regularly arrives late at the shop sound like she was scoping the place out, but why steal a motorcycle? The motive is unclear.

Do we want to split two and two, waiting around the housing block and wherever the maintenance team has home base?

CRIME #3: MURDER

[ironwood]

Each team will be given one small mystery-solving kit, containing rudimentary fingerprinting powder, a small magnifying glass, a code-breaking sheet, and two clear chemicals labelled ‘poison-detectors’ that are supposed to turn blue in the presence of poison.

‘Lien’ is a very serious actor determined to do his best; unless someone specifically asks him, he will treat Meisheng’s murder like it actually happened, and grow very annoyed if someone forces him to break character. Yunxu has allowed certain rooms in the mansion to be accessible to the competing teams for this mystery, but if your characters try to leave those rooms without explicit permission Lien will grow flustered and remind you that your presence in the mansion is supposed to be a secret! Further attempts to break game rules will result in immediate disqualification (and, depending on how far the rule-breakers go, Yunxu’s personal involvement.)

Lien will lead your characters to a small dining room off the lobby. The dining room will be empty except for one table, five chairs, and the marked outline of a body sprawled on the floor in the corner. The body itself, Lien will explain, was carted off by his superiors, and there’s no way for him to let your characters have access to it. All he can give you is the crime scene. The only other notable thing in the room is a small empty crystal glass sitting on the table.

There are a number of ways for your characters to proceed, any of which can lead them to secondary clues (revealed later):

• They can fingerprint the glass, and ask Lien to identify the fingerprints for them (it will take him a few days).
• They can test the glass for poison, but neither of the colourless liquids will turn blue.
• They can inspect the dining room with the magnifying glass, and discover traces of a fine black sand tracked into the spaces between floorboards. If someone, for some reason, decides to test the black sand for poison, they’ll find that only one of the two liquids turns blue, and Lien won’t be able to tell them why. They can follow up on how the chemicals work at Stark Industries if they’d like.
• They can ask Lien for updates on the investigation as it stands, and Lien will tell them there are three kedan who were seen in the vicinity of the dining room with reason to want Meisheng dead - a Snake, a maid, and one of Yunxu’s personal butlers. (The personal butlers have been made up for the sake of the Mystery Games.) But Lien won’t tell them names, mainly because he doesn’t actually know what the names are.
• Asking around other ‘NPCs’ in the mansion will net a few different results depending on how the characters approach the questioning. Being subtle will lead to the discovery that the crystal glass in the dining room is of a different model than the mansion’s usual fare, and a set of four were brought in by the personal butlers. Being more direct will lead to the discovery that the maid who services this part of the mansion is an absolutely terrible maid, and no one can fathom why she was hired - surely she must be the killer!
• Following up on the crystal glass’s origin will lead your characters to an empty glass blower’s studio a short five minute walk from the mansion, but the studio will be empty apart from the necessary manufacturing equipment.

CRIME #3: ADDITIONAL CLUES

[ironwood]

Please don't reply! This comment will be updated with further clues as the event progresses.

[ironwood]

There are several ways your characters can pinpoint the suspects, following logically from any of the initial options:

• If they asked Lien to fingerprint the glass, Lien will tell them there are only two peoples’ fingerprints on it; the personal butler and the maid. The fingerprint analysis process, however, will finally give them two names. The butler is called Yongnian, and the maid is called Rou.

• If the characters followed up at Stark Industries about the properties of the poison testing, they’ll discover that neither of the liquids they were given actually test for poison. If they confront Lien about this, Lien will tell them he got the liquids from the Snakes - revealing the name of their third suspect, a guard called Genghis.

• The personal butlers live in the mansion, in their own little sequestered quarters. (These are actually unused bedrooms, but for the purpose of the Mystery Games, personal paraphernalia like pictures and small statues have been put in the rooms.) The magnifying glass will reveal small traces of black sand in Yongnian’s bed, and using the same two chemicals as before will result in the same reaction as before - it’s definitely the same sand.

• By contrast to the butlers, the maids live apart from the mansion, though almost always within a one block radius. (This is certainly not true outside of the Games.) A little asking around will reveal Rou’s address, and the characters can go knock on her door. There are a couple of different ways to approach her, since a formal accusation of murder only counts if it’s made to Lien. Accusing Rou of the murder will make her burst into tears, and she’ll haltingly explain to the group that she didn’t murder anybody - she tricked her way into a maid position because she’s secretly stealing from the Snakes, and if Yunxu finds out, she’s dead. If on the other hand the characters approach her in a more subtle and compassionate way, she’ll admit to having followed Yongian home one day, and been utterly confused when his home turned out to be a glass blowers’ studio.

• If your characters decide to try and confront Yongnian, he will be mysteriously impossible to find.

• Genghis, on the other hand, is almost always on patrol just outside the lobby, and fairly easy to bump into. He’ll be tight-lipped no matter how your characters choose to approach him, but not out of stubbornness or spite. The more observant among the players might notice the fear in his eyes.

Once your characters have taken some or all of these methods, Lien will approach them and say he can’t let them run around the mansion for very much longer - he needs to know who did this, and he needs to know it now. At this point, your characters must formally accuse one of the three suspects (or, if they’re feeling ambitious, any one of the other NPCs involved in the Serpent’s Demise, though it will perplex the heck out of Lien.)

THE ANSWERS

[ironwood]

As it turns out, the accusation - if made correctly - doesn’t matter very much at all. Yongnian, the butler, was the one who killed Meisheng, but the reason he hasn’t been available to question during the investigation is because he’s already been brought to justice. A very Yunxu-style brand of justice. (One doesn’t just kill the head Snake’s second-in-command and expect to get away with it, after all.) Genghis, along with some of the other mansion guards, have been spearheading the effort to keep the true culprit a secret at Yunxu’s orders.

As for Yongnian’s motivation? They don’t know. If there was one, Lien hasn’t been able to discover what it is. Whatever Yongnian’s plans were, they died along with him.

As a final note, any attempt on the characters’ parts to explain to Lien that it was ‘the butler in the dining room with the candlestick wine glass’ will be met with utter confusion, both on Lien’s part and the part of his actor. Keeliai doesn’t have very many board games.

CRIME #3: TEAM PLOTTING

[ironwood]

Use this thread to plot among your team-members!

CRIME #3: TEAM PLOTTING

[redlightgreenlight]

I think that this one would be a good one to follow up on.

"They can inspect the dining room with the magnifying glass, and discover traces of a fine black sand tracked into the spaces between floorboards. If someone, for some reason, decides to test the black sand for poison, they’ll find that only one of the two liquids turns blue, and Lien won’t be able to tell them why. They can follow up on how the chemicals work at Stark Industries if they’d like."

[wrathfulkhan]

after latest clues

[looksfine]

The Black Sand is the most interesting aspect to me, because if only ONE Of the liquids is turning blue in reaction to it...it's making me wonder if it's one of those special poisons that only becomes a poison if mixed with another component. Thus, by itself? Not poisonous. But if combined with its second deadly component.....

Of course, if the Black Sand is to blame, then that woulds certainly place a lot of suspicion on Yongnian.

...UNLESS his disappearance means that he's been poisoned too, but idk if that kind of twist would be introduced at this stage?!?!?

[redlightgreenlight]

It was Yunxu...