Quests & Challenges

Discussion and voting are now closed. Please stand by as I spend tomorrow writing up the results.

***drumroll***

*sharing breath equipment with everyone*

guess now we have a REAL space trip! XD
at least we now know that we don't land the rocket on a planet with huge mountain like aliens :P
@gn0me


It was a great event! Thanks for that! <3

@pinglist-40593 Before Lenore gets a chance to go into everything, I wanted to say that I’m very grateful for the participation and collective effort this event received. I’ve never tried running anything like this before and struggled adapting it to a forum style and figuring out how to get information disseminated properly if the people who had it weren’t sharing. Time management is not my strong point, either ^^; Most of all, I’m happy it wasn’t too much of a disaster and I was able to have fun with all of you. Seeing just what you guys would [i]do[/i] was fascinating more often than not. Especially turning a mimic into an ally; that was completely unplanned! Mimics were mostly there as set pieces in-universe as well as out of universe, and yet you guys ended up causing one to have such an individual personality by interacting with it. “Mimic shenanigans” suddenly became an option for you all to solve things that I never expected. Please enjoy the final reveals and explanations of Symphony Of Despair! [img]https://i.imgur.com/rm3Eqgz.png[/img] Fourteen dragons stand in front of you. Lenore, naturally, takes center stage, one arm wrapped tightly around Anneliese to keep her at her side. Anneliese does not protest. She only obligingly cuddles close against her girlfriend, playing her role perfectly as always. Alistair, Lucien, and Damien are standing together. Alistair’s cheerful and friendly demeanour has never faded, even as accusations are hurled at him one after another. Some time in to the talk of staging a murder (and subsequent murder mystery) as a publicity tactic for a space travel company, Lucien’s gotten out a notebook and has been scribbling away in it ever since, seemingly without a care in the world— or any attention to spare for all of you. Sabre is alert enough for him, standing just behind him as a deathly quiet shadow. And Damien is watching all of this indifferently. Ophelia and Etienne, for that matter, are back some distance behind the triplets, talking to each other by way of sharing a notebook passed back and forth to exchange notes. The silent communication is in turns frustrated (which results in a fluorescent pink note being tacked to the evidence poster) and bitterly amused. Lilith and Dante are, as far as you can tell, ignoring everything you’re saying in order to doodle in a much larger notebook. They’re sitting on the floor, cuddled so close it’s almost hard to make out where one ends and the other begins, and intensely focused on whatever it is they’re doing. It looks a bit like a maze. A maze with worrying amounts of red scribbles. Perhaps you shouldn’t come back to this manor any time soon. Isadora is clinging to her mother while Marius and Victor uncertainly try to shield their sister and mother from too much scrutiny. Thankfully there’s absolutely no scrutiny directed at them, since Isadora already looks anxious enough to cry. The silence as they wait for you all to finish your discussions and vote for the culprit is eerie in and of itself. The candlelight shining under tables and out from cracks doesn’t help— you have an audience, and those are only the ones letting you see them. Finally, the bell tolls twelve once more, and Lenore speaks. “It’s almost impressive how much information you’ve gathered— and how much you’ve managed to twist or ignore it to come up with these… interesting interpretations of what went down. Motive in particular… Though, I suppose it couldn’t be helped. It seems that after my little brothers told the only guest bothering to spend time with them that they’d try to spare his life in exchange for his service, he no longer cared enough to try to save the rest of you. How tragic. Although, given how you’ve managed to ignore information you’ve gathered that’s written on the poster right in front of your eyes, would it have really mattered? I wonder.” “Now then… onto what you’ve been waiting for.” She holds a hand out to the side and a mask appears, almost as if out of nowhere. It has a sheaf of papers clutched in its beak, which Lenore takes. She rifles through them for a moment before looking back out at all of you. … [b]“First vote: Damien.”[/b] “I’ll give you a chance to refute this. Orpheus claims that this is a birthday present you wanted to help arrange for Alucadara. Because everyone was watching me, I wasn’t able to cut the chandelier down myself, so someone else must have done it. Since you’re already accustomed to shady work, and the murder weapon was found in your room, you must be the one to have done it.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Damien’s Motivations][/u] (Discovered by: KleinFye) [“i got a hint from a friend as well: Damien isn't someone who will do things on his own. like, he's not the one who will have the idea for something and then go do it.”][/color] Damien turns his head to look at Orpheus directly. “Yes. The weapon belongs to me. It was in my room, and I’m familiar with such unpleasant things. But I’m not the kind of person who would bother with such a flashy display. For his birthday, I got my older brother boots tailored to fit a Veilspun that will help swallow sound as he walks. I thought they might be useful. He’s as particular about aesthetic as Sister is and it’s difficult to find anything that properly suits the dragons that haven’t been in the modern world for very long.” It’s probably the most he’s said at once this entire time— and even combining the rest of what he’s said and done together, probably as much as all of it combined… and this, only after Lenore’s prompting. Could there be truth in his words? “And if there was a mastermind behind it all, I did tell you they would be the one at fault just as you started discussing it all,” Lenore adds. … [b]”Second vote: Lenore.”[/b] “Talking about myself? How dull. Daphnes claims that I came up with the idea to cut the chandelier down and had Damien do so on my behalf. Again, as a birthday present.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Lenore’s… Testimony?][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka) [“You may suspect me as the murderer all you like, but wouldn't accusing someone who all but says they did it be far too simple of an answer to make anything interesting at all?”] [u][Clue: The Madam’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka) [“I know little… but from what I can judge of her, that child would not set herself up as the ultimate villain. She has such a flair for the dramatic. It’s noticeable even in the changes she’s made to this place. I do not think it would be dramatic enough for her to be the force of evil she portrays herself as.”][/color] “I’m disappointed, truly, to even have to consider this as a possibility.” Lenore shakes her head as she turns to fix her stare on Daphnes. “Is there even anything to refute? How many of you remember precisely that happening? And I know the Aether seer has been showing a few of you who stumbled in on this of your own volition. At the time of the murder, I declared it was my present to my brother, and took ownership of the spectacle. Yes. Ask anyone. That’s exactly what happened.” “And so, I ask you— if it was as simple as being exactly what everyone already saw and could have told you happened the moment their memories returned— that I masterminded a plan to crush someone with a chandelier for my brother’s birthday— why would you be here today? Why would I bid you investigate? What would the [i]point[/i] of it all be? Is it not patently, astoundingly obvious that something as dull as that could never be the answer you were looking for? I can hardly believe someone that subsists on mysteries would speak as if they’d never heard of a single murder mystery in their life. It is unnecessary to say more.” … [b]”Third vote: Alistair.”[/b] “…” Lenore stares at the record on her paper for several long seconds as if to make sure she’s reading it correctly. “Well, how about that. In saying almost nothing, Rosin left nothing to refute. What a tactic, truly.” … [b]”Fourth vote: Alistair.”[/b] “I’ll give you a chance to refute this. Vice claims that it was part of a plot for power that was meant to be a private way of quietly getting rid of someone. It was not meant to be public—“ [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Alistair and Lucien’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka, stormdrink) [No need to display the exact text when he’s about to go over it again…][/color] “How do you [i]possibly[/i] drop a chandelier on someone and have it not meant to be public?” Alistair asks, cutting Lenore off mid-sentence with what seems like a very genuine and heartfelt question. “Especially with that timing! That impeccable, second-perfect timing, and you say it was meant to be private?! That it was an [i]accident[/i] that happened so early?! Shadowbinder bless, you have no sense of aesthetic at all. Imagine it. The grand event of the evening, a beautiful, passionate, impeccably choreographed musical spectacle that spreads throughout the ballroom and touches everyone’s hearts. It captivates attention, until the whole ballroom is singing, and there is nothing but love and appreciation for the Veilspun attendees loved. It finishes, and silence falls… and [i]then,[/i] beautiful, glamorous, elegant, the true embodiment of everything about such a masquerade, the chandelier falls. Second-perfect timing, I’m telling you. Even my youngest siblings, hardly old enough to be running about on their own at the time, could have told you that, but you have accused [i]me[/i], and thus the tragic duty of explaining such a masterpiece falls to me alone.” Lenore waits for him to finish patiently. There are knowing nods of agreement from several of those before you. The twins in particular are too busy with the maze design captivating their attention to bother with anything else right now. “… And that this was carried out through the chain on the chandelier having been weakened,” she finishes, as if Alistair hadn’t gone off on a passionate tirade mid-accusation at all. [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Fallen Chandelier][/u] (Discovered by: KleinFye) [There’s no mention of the chain of the fallen chandelier having snapped at all, nor it being less than perfectly intact…][/color] [color=blue][u][Clue: Scratch On The Ceiling][/u] (Discovered by: stormdrink) [There's a hole in the ceiling where the chandelier was presumably bolted to it at some point. A thin, faint line crosses through the middle of that hole. One side of the line, leading off in one direction from the hole, is noticeably longer than the other. It would be very difficult to see this if you weren't staring right at it.][/color] “Well, that part’s easy enough.” Alistair gestures over at the chandelier, which is still lying in the centre of the dance floor of the very ballroom you’re all gathered in, then up at the ceiling. “Does the chain look like it snapped to you? Nothing about this looks like an accident.” … [b]”Fifth vote: Lenore.”[/b] [i]”Again?”[/i] she sighs. “Aer claims both that this is a murder mystery and that I am the mastermind behind it, having asked my little brothers to do it for me.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Lenore’s… Testimony?][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka) [“You may suspect me as the murderer all you like, but wouldn't accusing someone who all but says they did it be far too simple of an answer to make anything interesting at all?”] [u][Clue: The Madam’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka) [“I know little… but from what I can judge of her, that child would not set herself up as the ultimate villain. She has such a flair for the dramatic. It’s noticeable even in the changes she’s made to this place. I do not think it would be dramatic enough for her to be the force of evil she portrays herself as.”][/color] “And the worst part about this one is it’s so close to being true. I [i]am[/i] the one who decided on and am hosting this murder mystery investigation you are all a part of now. It [i]did[/i] sound fun during the planning phase, and I remarked on it then. However, I never requested a murder. If it went exactly as you saw, that would make this all far too dull.” Lenore sighs again, tapping her claws on the paper. There’s not even indignation for being accused in her expression. Only disappointment. “Charitably, I could interpret this as an attempted vote for [u]Lucien[/u] instead… but, as I said while you were gathering here to discuss this all, using another dragon to commit murder for you still makes you the ultimate culprit. Even if he created the plans, it would be me as the mastermind behind it all, asking them to kill for me. And that, really… the only refutation I need is basic genre awareness. Moving on.” … [b]”Sixth vote: Alistair.”[/b] “I’ll give you a chance to refute this. Araneo claims that the victim was a rival for Ophelia’s affections and you killed them out of jealousy.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Etienne’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: DismasYves) ["Wasn't it a clean death you're all investigating? A chandelier fell and crushed a dragon beneath it. It was over, just like that. Yeah? If anyone had messed with the others, it would never have been so public or clean.”][/color] “Hah?!” Alistair interrupts again. A dark and malicious sort of fury has sprung up in his eyes and now layers his voice— the first time he’s broken out of that friendly, welcoming warm tone. Everything about him has shifted in an instant at merely the thought. “First of all, I courted her [i]fairly,[/i] as she deserves. It would mean nothing if she chose me because I killed all of my competitors. Who’s to say she would still choose me in the future if someone else appeared, or what she would think of me if she knew I was employing such underhanded methods?! Ophelia deserves nothing less than the world and everything in it, not those cheap tricks! Do not insult her with these implications that she’d merely settle for what was left of those who wished to court her!!” It doesn’t seem like he’s even considered being insulted over it and instead is fully focused on his wife. “And— agh, the mere thought of it! If some scum tried to take her from me— not that she is a [i]thing[/i] that can be [i]taken,[/i] mind you— they would never be worthy of a central place on Sister’s stage! To think that I would ever deign to allow them that glory! Such trash would only pollute the beautiful, elegant, sparkling finale of such an emotion-laden night! They would not be allowed [i]near[/i] it and their filthy blood would never be allowed on the floor Sister chose! Nor would they deserve such a beautiful and painless death as being crushed in an instant by such a magnificent construct! Agh, never, [i]never,[/i] you insult every [i]aspect[/i] of this!” “Damien would cooperate with me, of course,” he adds, calming somewhat from the violent mania possessing him, “but he is far too competent for it to be a problem for him to steal such trash away and lock them up somewhere as filthy as they are, where he could take his time with them. Even then, it would not be linked to [i]us.[/i] Why would I bother to crush scum like that immediately? It is all the better if they glory in their perceived victory, smug about besting me, and go about their life. When it is no longer soon enough to seem related to me, that’s when. You want to give them victory, and safety, and build their egos up as high as possible, until they are careless and think themselves glorious. It hurts far more when they crash down from somewhere so high.” “I did have more to say,” Lenore reminds him, and he silences instantly, acting contrite. “My apologies, Sister.” Everything about his demeanour has shifted once more— submission, loyalty, nothing that could be remotely considered defiance. He might have gone on talking forever, perhaps. But not when Lenore has expressed her wish for it to be otherwise. Looking at him like this, he could even be considered tame. “Rain claims that you sent Lucien and Damien out of the ballroom and up into Damien’s room. Damien soundproofed his room to avoid being heard in the ballroom, and Lucien and Sabre used the string to let the garrote wire down through the hole under Damien’s bed, slipped it down into the ballroom, and used that to sever the chandelier.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: State Of The Ceiling][/u] (Discovered by: stormdrink) [There was no mention of the hole the chandelier fit into, nor anywhere nearby on the ceiling, having a hole…][/color] [color=blue][u][Clue: Mansion][/u] (Discovered by: KleinFye) [“Actually, the whole mansion wasn't there during the murder (except the ballroom of course).”][/color] [color=blue][u][Clue: Penumbra’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: Vaaradia) ["Spatially, it isn't in the right place," Penumbra explains. "The door that should lead from the ballroom to out there isn't in the right place anymore. It doesn't even point in the same direction. That wall of the ballroom seems to have turned at a ninety degree angle, and also be inside a manor. Even if you could get any of the doors in there to open, I don't think they'd go outside anymore.”][/color] [color=blue][u][Clue: Alistair’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka, stormdrink) [“A haunted mansion is really a much better aesthetic, so we’ve been renting this out for a while. It was a bit difficult transplanting this around the ballroom so perfectly, but… do look at it, admire it all you want! We’ve gotten everything set up so that it looks like it was always there!”] [u][Clue: Results Of Knife Experiments][/u] (Discovered by: Sketchy) [Just shoving something between the chandelier and the ceiling doesn’t seem like it would bring it down.] [u][Clue: Etienne’s Testimony][/u] (Discovered by: DismasYves) [“I wasn't there. Neither was Lucien's dog, if I've got the timing right.”][/color] “… Where do I even begin?” Alistair sighs. “Damien’s room isn’t directly above the ballroom and takes between one and two stairways to get to, depending on which ones you use. I believe it’s two floors up from here. And relatively far away. And doesn’t have a hole under the bed, and there isn’t a hole in the ceiling here. Search yourself if you don’t believe me, go on. And… how would you precisely slide a wire between the top of the chandelier’s fastening and the ceiling, especially in a way that ensures it leaves a cut on both sides… through a hole in the floor that’s presumably small enough not to be noticed and also goes through at least one floor? Not to mention, would sliding a tiny, sharp wire down against it actually even cut it down? I cannot [i]imagine[/i] how you would possibly get enough force for that under the conditions you have described.” [i]”Possibly[/i] Sabre might be able to, Shadowbinder knows what her master used to have her doing,” he allows, “but— hasn’t Damien’s love been clear enough about [i]that[/i] one yet? Unfortunately, she wasn’t yet working for my brother at the time.” In the background, Ophelia is patting Etienne sympathetically. And, perhaps relevantly, the entire rest of the mansion wasn’t here. There was no floor above the ballroom. Alistair doesn’t seem to think this is important, or perhaps he’s just not acknowledging that? … [b]”Seventh vote: Lucien.”[/b] “I’ll give you a chance to refute this. Fye claims that the three of you are insane psychopaths who naturally view chandeliers in a ballroom as murder weapons. You came up with the idea for this and had your brothers help you carry it out.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Daphnes’ Testimony][/u] (Provided by: stormdrink) [Lucien wasn’t the one described as being the one to come up with ideas…][/color] “Eh?” Lucien only looks up from his notebook at the sound of his name. “Sounds accurate. Except that I’m not the creative one. I can’t really be bothered with it right now, I’m busy trying to figure out if it would be reasonable to use events like this as a way to gain publicity or not, and how to make it happen if it is. Your guests might have been onto something. Ask Alistair if you need anything.” … And he goes right back to writing as if this doesn’t involve him in the least. “You really could have used more character witnesses,” Lenore sighs. “Or rather, isn’t it that more people should have talked to the ones available?” … [b]”Eighth vote: Alistair.”[/b] “I’ll give you a chance to refute this. Bumble claims that with assistance from Lucien and Damien, you used a double-edged blade to cut down the chandelier, then sent the body into space.” [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Garrote Wire][/u] (Discovered by: DuskAwakening) [You slip a long, thin wire out of the cloth. It resembles nothing so much as a garrote wire... but a sharp one. It's sharp enough to draw blood if you touch it, even through thick fur or scales, and yet thin and insignificant enough you could slip it unnoticeably through even a very tiny gap. Tied to one end of the wire is a surprisingly sturdy thread no thicker than the wire but far more translucent. That's not normal for a garrote, or really any kind of wire, especially since the thread is so long. It's easily as long as this room is wide. But why?] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/XZTVuXN.png[/img][/center] [color=blue][u][Clue: Lenore’s… Testimony?][/u] (Discovered by: XianaAsuka) ["A dead body kept here for this long would be a pile of rot and bones, nothing to examine anyway. Even if it were preserved, there's hardly any way to do that without ruining aspects of it that would be necessary for a murder investigation. But-- does that matter? I'm sure you saw what happened, or you wouldn't be here now.”][/color] “Haha! Sister, look at how they’re so eager to investigate a rotting corpse. Didn’t you graciously and personally explain this when asked? Has everyone forgotten how long ago the murder occurred?” Alistair is all smiles and good cheer once again, as if he’d never been anything but. “You received Sister’s personal explanation and still call this into question. The body was disposed of properly before it could befoul this place, of course. And I really don’t know how I would have cut down the chandelier as you presume. Isn’t it [i]so[/i] ungainly and obvious to try to fly up there and cut something down?” … [b]”Ninth vote: Alistair.”[/b] “I’ll give you a chance to refute this. Daphne and Haunt claim that you arranged this as a present for Alucadara’s birthday. Alecinne helped you sabotage the chandelier beforehand so that Alucadara was able to fly up and cut it down himself.” “I don’t want to refute that one,” Alistair says after thinking about it for a moment. “That one sounds fun. And that architect wanted so badly to be suspicious and betray all of the other guests, did he not? Let him have this.” Lenore just sighs. “Yes, yes. It will hardly be necessary in a few minutes anyway.” … She sweeps all of the papers back into one neatly organised sheaf and hands it back to her familiar. “That’s one vote Damien, two votes me, one vote Lucien, and five votes Alistair. That means, no matter by how much, [b]the majority of players have voted for Alistair.”[/b] Lenore takes several moments to regard you all in silence, trailing her gaze from one player to the next. “It’s fascinating,” she says at last. “Absolutely, astoundingly fascinating. Not a single one of you has done anything remotely similar to correctly explaining everything. Or even most things. At best, you took one or two aspects and fixated on them while overlooking quite a lot else. At worst, every single detail you added to your explanation was completely wrong and easily contradicted by any number of things. I am quite certain that absolutely no one here is even close to knowing what happened that night.” “And yet, beyond all expectations, you have saved your own lives. No matter how you came to the conclusion, [b]Alistair [i]is[/i] responsible for the murder.[/b] I’d ask if he wanted to explain what actually happened to you all, but let’s be real, he’s going to do that whether or not he’s prompted.” “Of course I am!” Alistair beams brightly, [i]far[/i] too brightly, at Lenore, as if he’s being praised. “Fye is right about this part— it is an absolutely, positively [i]essential[/i] part of a masquerade ball to crush someone with a chandelier. Especially if you love the kind of aesthetic Sister does. But she had far too much to arrange to be able to perfectly coordinate that, and all the constraints of responsibility. She never mentioned anything about it. She never would have. And there are those who might think I intended to show her I can defy orders, or ruin her perfectly planned ball— never! I would never! It was nothing similar to defiance! Yes, I ordered chandeliers without telling her, and arranged for them to be personally delivered to me in a way that looked so much like an accident Sister would never suspect, but it was all in support of her vision!” “It was almost too easy, really. My brothers and I were already in charge of sourcing so much of what arrived, and the three of us were personally trusted to supervise and relay orders through the back area where everything was being prepared. I inspected everything on the day before the event was set to start. I said I wanted to make sure nothing would ruin Sister’s ball. Why would mere construction workers, especially ones that dazed and complacent, question anything I did? Of course I really did inspect most of it, even the other chandelier, to keep anyone from catching on. It was easy, so [i]easy,[/i] to slip one of Damien’s sharp little wires between the chandelier and the ceiling, keeping it from quite properly being fastened but in such a way no one would detect it unless they observed as closely as I did. And no one would, because I was doing all the safety checks.” “I had to go through so many options to choose the most perfect chandelier for this. It had to be glorious and beautiful and the kind of thing this ball would [i]deserve.[/i] It had to be a spectacle all on its own. Ah, and, it had to be a chandelier that could somehow achieve the perfect, down to the second precise timing I would need to really complement Sister’s grand performance on stage. It is much harder to easily make a chandelier fall and yet not make it fall too early than you would think, especially if you want to have a public presence and need to be subtle with what you can do! My brothers were needed to help assist the Lady Mina, so… as part of the perfect preparations, I chose a chandelier that would work with me. One that understood music, understood [i]dramatic timing,[/i] could communicate with some of the instruments being used, and could even hold the string on the garrote wire for me to keep anyone else from ever seeing it…” Alistair gestures proudly over at the chandelier on the dance floor. It rights itself, then very carefully develops little feet that do not touch the purple goop around it and scuttles over to Alistair’s side. He pats the top of it proudly. “Yes. The answer turned out to be obvious— to teach a pair of mimics the perfect design I created myself and make use of a third-party delivery service that would send a delivery worker without sufficient mental resistance near enough to the paths Aster was luring people down that they would become ensnared and make their way here and back without ever knowing or remembering exactly where they had been. To leave no traces. No one would ever even find a receipt nor would a company have any record of me purchasing chandeliers, because no one involved ever saw anything than a securely fastened black box.” “And from then on it really [i]was[/i] simple. Rehearsals taught this marvelous creature the proper timing, so right on time, it dropped down the string connected to the wire and I used that to pull down [i]hard[/i] on the chandelier in the process of pulling the wire out. Things got slightly scuffed— this wire’s sharp enough to be a menace to anything, I swear— but it gave the chandelier even greater force than it could have achieved by simply letting go on its own. And a cue that it was supposed to, of course. And everything went perfectly. Mimics like killing people anyway. It’s good to let them let it out now and then. Such a marvelous companion in the world of spectacle and murder, and with it, I was even able to help Sister’s dream rise to greater heights than it could have on its own…!”

now that you've had a chance to read that all i would like to reiterate that Lenore and her siblings are psychopaths who murdered someone for fun and trapped you in a haunted manor and their opinions of your investigation do not reflect my own

except for her opinion on Dusk's

that one reflects my own

i am beyond confused at how Dusk got the murderer and weapon right and managed to have literally every single other detail in the entire theory be completely wrong

cinderrain's is also notable (in a good way, as far as being really funny to me goes) for being the only one to actually be 100% correct by virtue of providing zero detail whatsoever

Alistair is the murderer and his motivation was love. those are true statements. probably not the scenario or kind of love you were thinking about, but, because you did not specify even that much, there was literally nothing factually incorrect. i got to that one and am just like I GUESS???

congrats all by the end of Saturday i genuinely did not think y'all were going to make it but you have somehow achieved a correct majority vote and are getting the bonus prizes in the raffle

raffle to be drawn as soon as i sleep for a day straight and sort through 13 pages of PMs and 26 pages of thread to figure out who has how many entries

Whoops, sorry! I didn't get the mastermind thing. Well, that wouldn't have changed anything.

Now that I think about it, we never thought about the fact that the chandelier were mimics. We just went "huh, weird" and moved on x) well of course, now that we have the answer, it's easy to see the things we missed. But there was so much to think about! I'm still confused about the goop x) and the turning ballroom/absent manor! What was up with that?

Also, how could we deduce that Alistair was the culprit, among the rest of the family? Was it possible just with the informations we had?

Anyway, once again, thank you very much for organising all this!

yk what alastair read vice for FILTH lol no idea of decorum is accurate no matter how hard he tries but hey, at least i got the murderer right with my limited information lol

There were two “stories” going on here.

Everyone who guessed that this was a game/murder mystery event Lenore was hosting and that there wasn’t actually a dead body were correct about “what really happened”. The true order of events: One of Alucadara/Mina’s clanmates, an Undertide named Butch, is a host for the Goop and thus not exactly alive— but more importantly, he’s a dragon whose body can be crushed beyond all recognition by a chandelier and leak convincingly dark liquid in a puddle, and after the Goop pieces his body back together again, he can just get up and leave. The trail is from him leaving. He’s perfectly fine and was in the basement watching you guys this entire time.

In “reality”, Lenore knows this and asked Butch if he would mind helping her out for Alu’s sake. It wasn’t planned before the ball; the chandeliers weren’t actually ordered by Alistair or anyone. They showed up. No one actually knows how they got there or why. But, Lenore was going to take advantage of it. She knew the chandeliers were mimics so simply asked one to fall on this specific guy and carefully made sure no one else would get hit.

In “reality”, no one actually got hurt and she’s throwing a murder mystery event for her little brother because they couldn’t plan one during the party. AppleSentry is actually 100% correct about that— but, that wasn’t the “correct answer”. Because the “correct answer” is correctly identifying the murderer in the “script” of the murder mystery event Lenore wrote and is hosting now. This is why the Aethers are so bizarrely unaffected— it literally is a game, and they and Mina know that.

Lenore and Alistair are flat out lying to you and Lenore’s written a “story” to explain away all the incongruent details. The NPCs who mention “rules” were literally given rules/roles and are acting in her game. However it ruins the vibe of “dramatic murder mystery” if you just go “yeah this is a game everyone’s fine actually” so literally none of them are ever going to acknowledge that. The Goop and other small details Lenore can’t actually conceal like your memories (if you have them) of what happened during the actual chandelier delivery and lack of receipt for a chandelier are tiny hints towards “reality”— but Lenore and Alistair have explanations to handwave those away in universe, saying “a corpse would have rotted, don’t worry about it” and “I designed and ordered the mimic chandeliers so of course there’s no receipt”.

The “correct answer” is the correct answer to the murder mystery game Lenore wrote, which I managed to keep a secret even from the players who were helping me plan this beforehand so they’d have a chance to play this event as well.

The thing with the manor is explained in character/in universe— Alistair flat out told Alecinne the motives for literally everything after he found them.

…

“Hm.” Alistair shrugs as if it’s no longer worth thinking about and switches easily and immediately to the next topic at hand. “Thank you, thank you, yes. We put a lot of work into it. A single ballroom would be far too limiting for a murder, don’t you think? There’s only one room, and so few places or things to explore. Things you would have seen before. A haunted mansion is really a much better aesthetic, so we’ve been renting this out for a while. It was a bit difficult transplanting this around the ballroom so perfectly, but… do look at it, admire it all you want! We’ve gotten everything set up so that it looks like it was always there! Ah, but if anyone asks, it was always there, of course. You understand.”

…

The reason is literally “it’s a cool aesthetic” and these are all melodramatic psychopaths who crushed someone with a chandelier for the sake of aesthetic.

As for how you were supposed to figure out it was Alistair— flat out, not everyone who had information shared it with y’all or did much with it. Mina, who knows the triplets by virtue of being their brother’s wife, and Alecinne, who hung out with them for a week and a half, were meant to help with that since Soma, Xiana, and Klein were all people who helped with planning this event. Irl happens and that did not work out. So the players who were meant to help with that weren’t available and you guys did not really get a chance to talk to Alistair/Lucien, Ophelia, or the twins. Nor to really talk about any of the more helpful NPCs you guys did discover about it.

I wasn’t expecting people to think it was Lucien, completely honestly. I had more clues/evidence pointing towards showing it was Alistair instead of Damien. Then Saturday came, people started suspecting Lucien hard, and I realised none of the players participating in the trial got to talk to Lucien, observe him for longer than a small part of a day, or talk to anyone else about him and Soma’s internet was kaput.

Etienne /did/ mention Sabre specifically not being there, and a lot of the suspicion on Lucien came from that + not learning in time how much Alistair is the wildly passionate and creative one and Lucien kinda just. Isn’t. His job is refining whatever the heck Alistair is going on about into a workable format. That’s why I had Etienne step in in character and the Aethers confirm it as soon as I noticed how much that was happening.

So. Yes. That one was a heck of an unexpected struggle. And is why I stepped in as behind the scenes as possible to tell stormdrink Daphnes could use character intuition to just read the bios. And to nudge them into noticing Alistair was the ideas guy. Aaand uh then they had the unique position of being the only player I could communicate with before the end of Saturday at the (late) time I realised no one who actually knew anything about Alistair or Lucien was showing up. Poor stormdrink got drowned in info, thank you for being patient and doing your best to convey all of it… I’m very sorry about that one. I wanted to convey too much through the players instead of word of god’ing it…

Edit: as for how you were supposed to suspect the triplets, pretty much by ruling people who weren’t them out and having everything start pointing at/involving them somehow. And. The deeply passionate, manic rants about chandeliers. I’ve shown what evidence was available to point you away from each of the others suspected during the trial, but
- Isadora, Marius, and Victor were children. Kinda actually too young to do this, they weren’t all that old during the ball.
- Pandora is significantly nicer and less violent and wayyy less likely to go on unhinged rants about chandeliers. Actually she probably wouldn’t do that at all she’s just “that’s wonderful sweetie”.
- Etienne and Sabre weren’t there, plus Etienne basically told you flat out it wasn’t him, Anneliese, or Ophelia
- the twins have very different ideas about what a fun murder looks like and were willing to expound upon them at length if even slightly prompted (which they were)

[claps] we were mostly wrong but at least we didn't die in the cold vacuum of space!

I did feel pretty braintired at the end (I'm sure I wasn't alone in that lol) hence my uninspired final answer, but I did enjoy having Daphnes finally See Etienne's little journey at the end! It felt fitting since she went on a whole little adventure just trying to chase whatever interested her next in true ADHD fashion, like me him, ironically to find out what he knew about the murder. I don't know if that would've changed anything (EDIT: if she'd actually found him before the visions) but it would've been funny!

I do feel bad that some things just didn't work out bc of various commitment issues (which, no judgment, life happens) but I do think I got what I wanted out of this event, which was to practice my descriptive writing and develop my dragon's character/lore! I appreciate the opportunity, even if Daphnes (and I) weren't the best detectives ^^" (Just goes to show that knowing things =/= understanding them lol)

(@DuskAwakening I did regret not having Daphnes interact with Rainstorm more bc I think they would've had hilarious interactions...shoutout to missed opportunities, feel free to holler at me if you ever see me again lol)

And thanks in general to everyone for all the fun interactions, and to Myrrh for the herculean task of managing this event! Hope we all get some good R&R <3

lmaoooooo we all came up with different reasons but had similar conclusions XD

So that's what Lenore meant by "basic general awareness" since Aer's/my answer boils down to "guys it's just a game". I like to think that despite missing some info, we still managed to clobber together the right answer! I'll say it again, I really enjoyed this event and working together with everyone to solve this murder mystery :)