[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

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?

[ruinsprofessor]

Stakeout!

I wonder if it's possible the motorcycle was disassembled to be stolen? Where would she put an entire motorcycle that isn't obvious?

Maybe also see if she's bought anything else in the area?

It also seems a little odd that they're being pointed straight at Nuzi without much consideration that there may have been another responsible party.

[lasergrenades]

Agreed on the disassembly idea. Maybe if it is Nuzi, they're being hidden somewhere inside the fire fountains? Alternatively, I wonder, if she did buy other things, what they might be used to make if combined with the motorcycle parts.

I suppose we should use another line of questioning to see if there were any other strange customers besides Nuzi. Nuzi might still be involved - if it was a long case maybe Nuzi was meant to be a distraction from the real thief?

[purered]

I imagine the main motive of the theft is the motorcycle's value. Even in places where such vehicles are extremely common, these thefts occur regularly, usually so they can be disassembled for parts.

Klaus is definitely going to be down with teamwork, and he's no stranger to information gathering so he'd def be down with questioning as many people in the area as possible.

[wintershepherd]

Jack will point out that if the motorcycle is being dissembled, the thieves are going to need a private place to do so, and probably didn't want to take the motorcycle too far for fear of being conspicuous with it? Maybe looking into non-residential areas might be a thing.

[lasergrenades]

So, given that we don'e have much time, what do people think about each of us doing a summary post of what our characters did throughout the games, and then a final post with our declaration of who's guilty?

[ruinsprofessor]

I'm okay with that, since it looks like we all fell behind.

Though we should probably all make the same decision! How do we feel about Lanza? I know personally I feel like Nuzi's too obvious, at any rate, and Lanza did... well, point everyone at her, which would be a classic move for deflecting guilt/blame. "Here, look at this really obvious target who I know wound up with some of the pieces, it totally wasn't me."

[purered]

+1

Lanza definitely seems like the most likely suspect (also sorry for the late reply, my power went out over the weekend)

[ruinsprofessor]

I'm good with that if everyone else is!

(Life happens to the best of us.)