[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

[unetrustworthy]

There are actually two parts of the puzzle that I'm a little confused by: (1) the appearance of only ONE hooded figure in the area, despite the fact that if it was a kidnapping, then shouldn't there have been two? (2) The fact that the note was hastily scribbled.

The second one, especially, to me, is suspicious because it means either the person who write it just has really bad handwriting like you suggested (is there any chance of comparing suspect samples?) or else...the stationary was stolen, which to me, might indicate that it was meant to be a red herring. If the stationary was used by the person who owned it, or in conjunction with the person who owned it, wouldn't it make sense for the note to have been written out a little more carefully, given the opportunity to maybe even disguise handwriting?

BESIDES THAT, however, I do think that further investigation of Crisul is needed before completely ruling him out. The debt is suspicious and far too coincidental not to be involved in SOME manner.

[inkulcation]

I get what you're saying about the hastiness.

Crisul is pretty suspicious and coincidental-- I almost wonder if he's not too convenient, but there's no real other good explanation. If we can track down a relationship between them?

Or maybe it was just a crime of circumstance, like, heat of the moment type of thing?

[unetrustworthy]

Heat of the Moment suggests that the crime would have been impulsive, rash, and only capable of utilizing whatever resources were available at the time.

If that were the case, how would the stationary have been on hand?

[bigdamnhiro]

/tinfoil hat

what if

what if

the rival is trying to frame him? and gave him the money to pay off his debt so she could turn around and make it look bad later?

[unetrustworthy]

/omg Hiro pls take that off

I don't know. I mean, trying to frame somebody else using YOUR OWN STATIONARY seems kind of...counterproductive?

I mean, if anything, it would make more sense for the *victim* to somehow be in on it using a piece of stationary she'd gotten from her rival to frame HER or something like that.

[inkulcation]

Y'know, originally I thought she might have set up her own kidnapping as a way to elope or something

I'm pretty sure that's off the wall, and she's not an acceptable answer, but. Maybe if some of them are in league?

if it was heat of the moment/opportunity then it would have to be the person who easily had that stationary on hand. but, yeah, I see what you mean that that's less likely.

[bigdamnhiro]

I feel like the lack of any extra information on Juhino's emotional state signals that it's not relevant and we probably can't pin anything on her, so I guess, yeah, that's not an acceptable answer at this point.

idk, should we poke mods about the handwriting samples? I think that's the only thing that wasn't covered by this update. Obviously Ildsina may have refused to provide handwriting, and Kellban's is irrelevant, but it might be good to also get samples from Crisul too now that we have him to deal with.

I'm personally leaning toward Ildsina because Crisul seems too obvious, but objectively speaking, both have equal points for and against them. Ildsina won't talk on the stationery, but outside information says the rivalry wasn't hostile; Crisul won't talk on where he got the money, but has a reputation for being a nice dude, aside from the gambling. The stationery points toward Ildsina, but the handwriting points toward Crisul.

Which...really makes it hard to pick one or the other as the primary suspect, and that's why it seems to me like they both might have been involved. If we had any more evidence to implicate one or the other, I feel like the choice would be more obvious.

[inkulcation]

I'm... not really sure which way to lean on this one, but we're going to have to make a decision very shortly, aren't we? Though we've lost Zel/Becca...

The fact Crisul has no alibi is kind of a sticker for me. I definitely doubt it's Kellban, but like you, I'm stuck between Ildsina and Crisul and I think I'm really missing something.

...send help?