Investigation IV

[lesmodsalouette]

INVESTIGATION

Being forced asleep the second the clock struck midnight has been an ill-omen for weeks now. Yet this morning sees you waking not to explosions and smoke, but to the comfortable feeling of eight hours of uninterrupted rest. It's 8 in the morning and the sun is already out, and all is quiet around Chateau Ambregris.

Do you dare hope that you can face the day without further bloodshed? That Ish's announcement of needing no more bodies has stilled the restless violence in everybody's hearts? They say time heals all wounds, but has this ever-repeating week truly had the same effect?

(( OOC: Comment to this entry with where your character is going in the morning. A mod response will let you know if there’s anything to be found there! The Investigation is a free-for-all until all bodies have been found.

Once the victim(s) have been identified, there will be an IC announcement, and mods will provide Investigation sub-headers for the relevant locations. Up to 3 characters are welcome to investigate under each header unless indicated otherwise. ))

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GARDENS

[lesmodsalouette]

[uiscebeatha]

[ Okay, fuck, this is brutal. He doesn't have time to think about G'raha right now, so. At least he can stomach the gore.

Sariel's—battered? Anything more specific about the state his body's in? ]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ Sariel is laying in a pool of his own blood, most of which is concentrated around his head. He's wearing the detective outfit he's enjoyed wearing this week, though the head is missing. His clothes are also ripped in a multitude of locations, and marred by blood over and over.

Sariel is laying stretched out - his arms are at his side, his legs stretched out behind him. His face is on the floor.

Since the body is a mess pretty much all over, does Cain want to pick a body part and just... go from there in beholding the gore? ]

[uiscebeatha]

[ Just clarifying that the head of the detective outfit specifically is missing and not Sariel's?

Well, this is grim. Since the blood's pooled around the head, Cain will start there. ]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ ... yes, the. The hat is missing. Your mod cannot type. Your mod is making coffee now to improve typing ability.

Sariel's head meanwhile is very much here and present. The first thing Cain can notice is that Sariel's hair is a mess and particularly his head-feathers look very ruffled and ripped up. The second thing Cain will notice once he lifts the head is that there is a bullet wound in Sariel's forehead. ]

[uiscebeatha]

[ JUST DOUBLE CHECKING, you're good, mod!

Yikes. The bullet wound feels pretty self-explanatory, so Cain is going to instead direct his attention to the messy hair. Anything particular or unusual about the state of his hairs and feathers? ]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ It seems like a good few of the feathers have been ripped off, one way or another! Otherwise the notable thing is just that it's all completely disheveled.

Getting in close to check, Cain will be able to detect the smell of gunpowder on Sariel. ]

[uiscebeatha]

[ Hmm, okay. Tucking that away for later.

Moving on—checking the next obvious place on the body. How's the torso doing? ]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ Bad. The torso is doing bad. There is enough going on here that an itemized list becomes the easiest form to relay the onslaught of nasty impressions Cain is getting here.

- There are a lot of bloody tears in Sariel's clothes.
- Through the holes in the outfit, Cain can see that the tears correspond to injuries on the actual body.
- There is soot splotched over the body as well.
- A few glass shards are stuck in the mess.
- His right sleeve is suspiciously wobbly.... ]

[uiscebeatha]

[ Yikes! What the fuck happened to ant man?!

Before he gets to the arm—are the tears on the clothes and body clean, or are they messy? Are they in random directions or mostly facing the same way? Are any parallel with one another? ]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ The tears are clean in that they are going straight. There are sets of parallel tears in the clothes and flesh - meaning that though some of the bloody gashes run in parallel to each other, they are also overlaid by sets of other gashes.

In all cases the direction of the gashes is 'roughly along the length of his body from top to bottom', but they're angled instead of meticulously straight. The sets also don't all have the same length or anything. ]

[coldseep]

( Hwylryn is allegedly here because Cain has tapped him to help, but after that announcement he's just dazed waterworks again... big gigantic ghibli tears rolling down without end...

point him at something and he'll look at it like 🥹 looks covered in water. or i'll make him be helpful. one of those two )

[uiscebeatha]

[ Damn, dude's a mess...

Cain's sympathetic, but that knight captain part of him is focusing on the task at hand, so he can at least put him to work. ]

Hwylryn. [ Voice firm, gentle, and commanding attention— ] Can you check the area for blood or anything else unusual? I'm about to get my hands dirty.

[coldseep]

( Being limber as he is? he responds well to firm. Though his gaze doesn't turn toward Cain, the gentle shift in his posture suggests he at least heard him.

...

Hwylryn slowly pushes himself up, and makes a vague sweep of the area in the near vicinity of the body. He seems reluctant to let Sariel leave his sight - as if it were a clawed thing with hooks in his chest.

Anything obvious in this area? )

[lesmodsalouette]

[ There is a disturbed patch of ground a little bit away from the body, in the direction of the castle. It smells of gunpowder.

Getting in a little closer will allow Hwylryn to see the remnants of a box that was buried here and... well, it blew up. ]

[coldseep]

( ...

...?

He's going to tentatively try to poke at the box with a stick or something... carefully because he doesn't know if it's still live or not (watch it explode anyway). )

[lesmodsalouette]

[ Nothing happens! Our catdragon remains safely non-exploded!

From where Hwylryn is looking at the box, he'll also be able to see some more blood up ahead - the wall of the balustrade in front of the castle doors has a large blood smear on it. ]

cw suicidal ideation technically

[coldseep]

( god he wishes it had exploded sorry who said that

he slowly lifts his head from where he's kneeling, and sees...

oh...

considering sariel is nearby... his brows furrow and his tears start anew (again, again, again)

he stares at the smear for awhile, as if it were the thing that had taken sariel from him, and he feels the instinct to just lay down, as he has every week this week, and pray to dissolve into seafoam.

he'll glance around. are there any blood leading to or from the smear, like a path in the grass to the stairs on the sides? )

[lesmodsalouette]

[ Right under the large stain of blood, there is a very bloody patch in the grass below. The patch is shaped like a puddle overall, but there is a bloody trail in the grass heading over towards Hwylryn's current location. The grass in the trail is crushed flat. ]

[arbalestrier]

[Since he's in the vicinity and he sees what's going on, he's going to unzip the mascot suit so he can poke his head out the back. The sight might be reminiscent of a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, if it wasn't for the head of the costume slumping down at around chest level.]

Hwylryn. Don't go near the paths in front of the palace and hedge maze. I'll let you know when it's safe.

[After zipping the suit back up, he runs off to get a shovel. Byeee]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ Hey, Sousuke, about your palace path bomb... It's too late to disarm that one!

Go get the others though. ]

[arbalestrier]

[Oh, well, that's good to know. But yes he will skedaddle and presumably the rest of the mines are still completely intact?]

[lesmodsalouette]

[ Yup, nothing triggered anywhere else! ]

[arbalestrier]

[Thumbs up! He'll let Cain and Hwylryn handle the rest of the investigation here, time to make sure no one else gets blown up...]

[coldseep]

( oh...

he vaguely nods but then sousuke is gone )