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lavender
[xquote]Members of Warrior's Wish have been called to a dinner party meeting under mysterious circumstances by a strange anonymous host. The events to follow are filled with blackmail, intensity, and most of all… MURDER[/xquote].
news updates (10/26/15): Chapter 8 AND 9 Posted~♪ (10/10/15): I'm without computer and copying huge chunks of text isnt really possible so scary's posted CHApTErr 7. (10/4/2015): we've got a SIXTH CHAPTER UP WOOOOOOOO (660 to go) (9/29/2015): Chapter Five is now live :DDD (someone is not alive :X) (9/18/2015): Chapter four wooooo (8/25/2015): sorry for the wait, Chapter Three is up now (8/6/2015): Chapter Two posted~♪ (8/4/2015): Chapter One posted~♪ (8/2/2015): now working in collaboration with the marvelous Scary~♥
Who is the killer? And who will win?
Join in Ww's own Murder Mystery fic, where 12 guests will struggle to survive in extremely dangerous and suspenseful circumstances.
There are a limited amount of slots, but if you sign up you must be okay with the fact that you might die off in my fic.THE GUEST LIST
(sign-ups closed: all slots are taken)- -taken- [the anonymous host]
- -taken- Lavender the Smol
- -taken- Scary
- -taken- moss
- -taken- Dust LeCornflake
- -taken- Dr. Heat Furbury, Ph.D
- -taken- Adri “Splashy” Silve
- -taken- Altias G. Wolfpal
- -taken- Darkstar
- -taken- Holly Young
- -taken- Jingle le Pie
- -taken- Jayce Lightning
- -taken- Ramiel Lawrence
[/list]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
♦ PROLOGUE
♦ CHAPTER ONE
♦ CHAPTER TWO
♦ CHAPTER THREE
♦ CHAPTER FOUR
♦ CHAPTER FIVE
♦ CHAPTER SIX
♦ CHAPTER SEVEN
♦ CHAPTER EIGHT
♦ CHAPTER NINE -
moss
I want to be in this!!! o:
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Dustfeather
I would like to sign up, please
I'm on the universal sign-up thread 
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lavender
[member=2]moss[/member] and [member=6]Dustfeather[/member] approved c:
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Arcade Heat
YAAAS SIGN ME THE FUCK UP
im on the form thank
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Splashy
sign me uppp i'm on there
also v fancy first post
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lavender
[member=14]Heat[/member] and [member=50]Splashy[/member] approved~
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rowan
Hi I want in on this. my form is over Here
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lavender
[member=42]altias[/member] you are approved ^v^
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Darkstar
Hello, I want in. You can find my application here.
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lavender
[member=3]Darkstar[/member] approved c:
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Holly
sign me up! i'm working on my universal sign up form tho so it'll be a couple hours
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Jingle
I am working on my character sheet thingy but I v much want to be in this
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lavender
[member=38]Holly[/member] feel you lol
[member=17]Jinglepie[/member] okay~I'll mark y'all as reserved until your form is done, okay?
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Jingle
Thank you friend!
I'll try to finish it tonight -
Holly
alright! i finished mine but i can't figure out how to link directly to it haha
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fireheart
omg this sounds amazing! is the last spot still open? if so i'll take it! (i have the universal sign-up form filled out, if the last spot's open i'll edit this with a link to it!)
EDIT: my form can be found here!
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lavender
[member=38]Holly[/member] coolio!~ you're set
[member=55]fireheart[/member] yup spot 13 is free, I'll go ahead and add youPSA: !! from this point until reserved spots post their form they may be replaced by somebody who has already filled out their form after tomorrow
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Snowstep
Man, this sounds really cool… I don't think I've ever seen a Ww murder mystery fic, actually. I'll definitely be reading this!
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moss
right tho…. mysteries are my jam
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Lightning
Okay, I finished mine! Thanks for holding my spot
I just hope the link works properly??
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lavender
[member=17]Jinglepie[/member] [member=4]Lightning[/member] Alright, you're both good to go c:
now we wait for [member=75]Scary[/member] (no rush, just a gentle reminder)working out planning stuff already and I'm so psyched to share it with you guys (in due time, of course c;)
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Tom
at last!!!
here is my sign up~!thank you so so much for saving me a spot and being so patient <333 i am super hype for this fanfic
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lavender
[member=75]Scary[/member] all right, you're all set then
sign ups are now closed, writing will begin soon
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Jingle
Whoo, I'm hype so hype to see what you write for us!!
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lavender
AN: sorry that this is so short… I've never written a fic before… like ever… and definitely not a multi-chapter mystery before. This is an adventure for all of us!! Hope it's enjoyable
;;
PROLOGUE
A knock came to each of 12 doors.When opened, the residents would find no one there, only a peculiar delivery: a strange purple envelope, no return address, no indication of where it may have come from at all.
The enclosed contents: highly individualized blackmail (the only indication that it had met the proper recipients), and an invitation, or rather, a demand for them to attend a dinner (all proposed in letters clipped from magazines).
“1939 DARK FOREST DR.” it read, “DINNER. COME ALONE.”
Some met it with shock, others seemed deeply annoyed. One dropped their drink onto the ground and was doubly shaken up from having to deal with both blackmail and the fact that they broke a glass.
But all prioritized the event.
Their preoccupation with the mysterious dinner that they had been blackmailed to attend took a precedence over all else.
The address led to a large estate, a gated mansion that nobody seemed to notice before. It was very private, no other houses for miles.
Each recipient filtered inside. All seemed able to gather into a dining room as indicated by the helpful “this way to the party” arrows. (Those seemed a little too jaunty to the guests, considering their “invitations”, but nobody said anything about it.)
“Is this your doing, Jayce!?” Heat accused the first person he saw as he walked in, not noticing the 10 others already arguing.
“My doing?” Jayce scoffed, “I got one too!”
“Same.” Said Altias from the corner, who was nervously peering into their envelope again.
“I think we all got one.” Said Scary looking around.
Heat still seemed annoyed “Then who's done this!? WHO FOUND THIS PICTURE OF ME NOT BEING HOT?“
There was an extended silence throughout the room. Darkstar and moss exchanged a glance, trying not to laugh at him. They slightly failed, chuckling quietly.
Jingle rolled her eyes. “At least that's all you have to hide…”
Everyone frowned, and there was even more silence, this time a tense quiet. Each guest eying the others with suspicion growing each second. Who was their mysterious host?
“You're all probably wondering why I've asked you twelve here.” suddenly spoke a new voice from the doorway, startling the guests. “And it's certainly been awhile since we've spoken last, hm? We'll have to catch up… But first… Let's eat, dearies.”
Each member's mouth was agape. HF stood before them!
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tinyfeather
LE GASP!!!
i'm so ready u don't even know!!! -
Splashy
DUN DUN DUN
(But like has anyone checked if it's Bramblekit)I am excite!
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Tom
the prologue is amazing hahaha. i detect a bonus level of mystery with the blackmail …..
i have two theories so far.
1. this is a combination of fireheart being a jerk and sandstorm pulling strings.
2. heat is the murderer, and the picture of him wasn't hot because he was covered in blood. -
Lightning
“Is this your doing, Jayce!?” Heat accused the first person he saw as he walked in, not noticing the 10 others already arguing.
“My doing?” Jayce scoffed, “I got one too!”
Given that the envelopes were purple, yes, I would have totally done it. 8D
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Tom
“Is this your doing, Jayce!?” Heat accused the first person he saw as he walked in, not noticing the 10 others already arguing.
“My doing?” Jayce scoffed, “I got one too!”
Given that the envelopes were purple, yes, I would have totally done it. 8D
i can so relate to this hahaha -
Arcade Heat
This is a tragedy how did you find a picture of me not being hot…
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Jingle
Ohh, I seem so shifty and upset i love it
Very good prologue Lavender, I can't wait to see how we all murder each other!
of maybe HF just murders us all -
Dustfeather
I'm really curious as to what all the various blackmail was :')
Brilliant start
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lavender
A/N: This fic now made in collaboration with [member=75]Scary[/member] Thank you so much for helping me bring this to life ;0; (writing is hard lol
scary did most of the work). Anyways, here's the first chapter!!
CHAPTER ONE
The group of guests had assembled in the dining hall of Hawkfrost's mansion house, each sitting down in their respective seat.
Hawkfrost had allocated seats to everyone, much to their confusion. The head of the table was free, presumably for the host himself. To his right hand side, sat Scary, Dust, Darkstar, Heat, Altias and Lavender. Across from Lavender was moss, who was seated next to Jingle. Next to Jingle sat Splashy, Fireheart, Lightning, and finally Holly who was to the host's left.
Admittedly, the dinner party was off to an awkward start. Despite the fact that most of the Wishers knew each other, the unfamiliar atmosphere made them feel uneasy. The room was lit solely by two massive chandeliers, which cast light in peculiar ways. To add, Hawkfrost appeared to have an odd obsession with light blue decor, which gave the room a cold feeling.
“So Dust,” Splashy called, over the table. “When is the next instalment of Away with the Tide going to hit our bookshelves?” Splashy felt a bit inclined to talk all fancy-like since it was a formal dinner. She had worn one of her nicest dresses for the occasion.
“Oh!” Dust replied, pausing for a moment. “Sorry… It will be out soon.”
“Don't drown her with questions,” Scary, another writer, chimed in. “It's hard being a writer, sometimes time just… flows away.”
“With the tide,” moss added from the other end of the table. They were not a writer, but couldn't resist the wordplay, no matter how awkward and forced it was.
“Keep it up and we'll be swimming in puns,” Fireheart said.
“I have a few more,” Scary offered, “But they're pretty weak.”
“Too watered down?” Holly asked, picking exactly where the other Wisher was going.
“Please… make them stop…” Lightning groaned, his head planted on the table.
“Isn't this conversation river-ting enough for you?” Altias replied, mispronouncing 'riveting' very carefully. Lightning shot them a look that would have made children and puppies cry.
Altias jumped back, surprised by the sudden violent reaction, and lost their balance, toppling their chair and just managing to leap to their feet, grasping the table for support.
Several Wishers jumped to their feet as Altias' chair fell.
“Are you okay?” Jingle asked, sitting directly opposite from Altias. She was the first on her feet, looking genuinely concerned.
“Yeah, I'm fine.” Altias nodded, leaning down to pick up their chair.
“I'm sorry,” Lightning said, though he was too far from Altias to help them up. “I just… puns.”
Altias didn't reply – looking down at their chair, something had caught their attention.
“What's up, Altias?” Lavender asked in a hoarse voice. She sniffled slightly; apparently she was on the road to recovering from a cold.
“If this is what I think it is…” Altias' ears pricked up and they leaned down, picking an object up off the floor. It was a sizeable deck of tarot cards, with an extremely highly stylised cover.
“Do a reading for me!” Heat demanded. “I'll give you a good meme.”
Altias was flicking through the deck, an increasingly concerned look crossing their face. “This isn't any deck I've seen before.” They confessed, finally reaching the end, beginning to shuffle rapidly. “But, this could be a neat way to pass the time, and I might not get another chance to do my reading for tonight. So I'm going to try a reading for myself.”
“Oh… Well, fine.” Heat sighed, slumping back into his chair. He took a flask from his pocket, drinking heavily from it. Darkstar was still standing from when he had stood after Altias' fall. He pulled his long, black coat around himself, and excused himself to go to the bathroom.
Altias took some time shuffling, in a deep silence. At long last, they prepared themselves, and looked up at the others. “Here goes,” they said, drawing a card from the deck.
Altias' face went pale. Heat, who was sitting next to them, let out a loud gasp. There was a general mixed chorus of confusion and worry for Altias.
“That's not gooood,” Heat said, finishing his flask of mysterious liquor and putting the empty flask back into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
“Alright Heat, you're next,” Altias said, forcing a bit of irritation down. They clearly weren't happy with their draw, and had resumed shuffling the deck, in a serious silence.
“I haven't seen Altias like that,” Splashy whispered to Fireheart on the other side of the table. “What does that even mean?”
“It's weird, I was talking about tarot to someone the other day. If I remember right,” Fireheart paused for a moment, “The Tower usually means danger, destruction and liberation. Since we've all been called to an unfamiliar place which is being run by our oldest enemy… Not a good sign.”
“Poor Altias, I hope they're okay.” Splashy watched Atlias as they finished their next shuffle, looking back up from the deck to face Heat.
“Are you ready?” Altias asked, a slightly ominous tone to their voice.
“I WAS BORN READY!” Heat declared, withdrawing another flask from the opposite jacket pocket to his last one. He took a long swig and refastened the lid of the flask, loosening his tie a bit.
Altias drew the next card, quickly, turning it placing it on the table for all to see.
“What's a Two of Bones?” Darkstar asked, suddenly standing between Altias and Heat and looking at the card, sitting reversed on the table. Darkstar took his seat again as the question was contemplated. “You should all definitely use the bathroom at some stage,” He added, slicing through the awkward silence. “Hawkfrost has a seriously nice bathroom.”
“Well,” Altias started, speaking slowly. They took a few moments to observe the card, making a point of not turning it upright. “Considering the little planet on the fan, and the appearance of the two bones… I'm pretty sure this should be read as the Two of Wands.”
“I love this deck,” Heat conceded.
“The symbolism in this deck is awful,” Lavender said, a little cough escaping.
“Well I'm sorry you can't handle the memes,” Heat grumbled.
“Anyway,” Altias interjected. “The Two of Wands upright is usually about discovery; about knowing your goals, and finding the path that will take you towards them.”
“Well yeah,” Heat interrupted. “It took me like an hour to get here from home.”
“Heat, the card is reversed…” Altias pointed out.
“Oh. Oh yeah, I knew that.” Heat glanced at the flask again, then placed it back in his pocket for later.
“Reversed, the Two of Wands is more about the damage you could be doing by not planning enough.” Altias continued. “You may be missing things in your life, or not accomplishing the goals you wish you were. It can also suggest that perhaps a fear of the unknown is stopping you from getting where you need to go.”
Heat took a moment to mull over this. As he was deep in thought, Hawkfrost's butler, an eccentric individual who had earlier introduced themselves as Agatha Christie, appeared and offered Lavender a drink. Lavender quickly asked for an orange juice, turning to the rest of the table and commenting that it was good for Vitamin C. Agatha withdrew a jug of orange juice from the tray behind them, pouring a glass for Lavender. Most of the drinks in the tray were apparently concealed behind the white cloth around its sides. On the top, sat a glorious decanter, filled with red wine.
“I'm not sure what to think about that,” Heat commented, “I feel like I've really got my life together right now.” Altias had gone back to reshuffling the cards, so they didn't reply. Heat turned his attention to the butler. “Heeey friend, where do you keep the spirits?”
“They could be anywhere,” Darkstar answered, “Altias is shuffling.”
A short round of laughter was shared by the various pun fans at the table. Heat, meanwhile, had received directions to “the master's private stash”, and left the room quickly, accidentally bumping into the waiter's tray. Luckily no drinks were spilled.
While this was going on, Altias had finished shuffling. Not daring to interrupt, Agatha left a glass of water next to the Wisher, continuing around the table.
“Darkstar, a reading for you next,” Altias said.
“Oh, uh, that's really not necessary,” Darkstar began, but Altias was insistent. They drew a card, placing it again on the table for everyone to see.
“What in StarClan's name is that?!” Lavender asked, choking on her orange juice at the same time. She coughed into a napkin which sat next to her on the table, holding it daintily in front of her mouth. Once the fit had passed, she turned her attention to something under the table.
“The… minstrel of cubes.” Altias said, narrowing their eyebrows at the card. “I don't feel like I saw this when I was shuffling, and I'm pretty sure I've never seen this card before.”
“I said I didn't want a reading,” Darkstar said, hoarsely. Scary craned his neck up to look at the card. As he was sitting close to the head of the table, he couldn't really see the previous cards, and had just been going by the interpretations. Once he could finally see the card, he burst into hysterical laughter. “Please don't laugh, Scary, this is serious.” Darkstar groaned.
“Yeah… Sorry.” Scary coughed, controlling his laughter.
“So, I've… honestly never seen this card before. I wouldn't even think it was supposed to be here, except for the pattern.” Altias looked up to Darkstar, trying to read his features for some guidance. “I… guess… you're going through some kind of… horrifying times?” Darkstar started nodding, grimly. “Or perhaps you already have?”
“Don't worry Darkstar,” Jingle called out, “You can always worm your way out of trouble.” Darkstar's glum temperament suddenly disappeared and he laughed hard. Most of the rest of the table joined in.
“This is just too much pain,” Lightning said, curling up slightly in his seat. “How can you people stand so many puns?”
“Alright, Dust is up next.” Altias had finished shuffling once again, and continued around the table.
“I hope I don't get the Death card,” Dust said, turning to face Altias fully.
“Death isn't a bad card at all,” Altias commented, “Just misunderstood. It shouldn't necessarily make you concerned for your life… Just cautious. Death means that you will be undergoing some kind of major change in your life. It can be one of the best cards.”
“Oh, sorry.” Dust said.
Altias quickly drew a card, placing it on the table.
“Ohhhh…” Altias said, trailing off, “Ah.”
“Is that a bad oh-ah?” Dust asked, nervously.
“It might be.” Altias said, taking a deep breath. “The reversed Wheel of Fortune means general bad luck. There's a good chance that this will involve negative external forces, which are totally out of your control.”
Dust looked very concerned.
“There must be someone out there with serious ill will towards you,” Altias said, facing her. “Be very careful.”
Dust was going a bit pale, from the ill omen and from all the attention.
“I, um, I will. Thanks Altias.” She said, hugging herself as she sat back into her chair.
“Oh, are you having fun here, dearies?” Another voice asked. They all spun to a doorway at the end of the room, where Hawkfrost stood. He was dressed in black, from head to toe; black shoes, a black suit, and a black shirt, with his top button undone. He wore a faint smile as he watched them from the doorway, and then started to slowly walk towards them. “I'm glad you enjoyed this little toy. Isn't it a delightful deck?”
“What do you want, Hawkfrost?” Darkstar demanded, wasting no time on cordiality. As the new modmin and mayor of Warriors Wish, and as an old enemy of Hawkfrost, Darkstar had every intention of getting to the point quickly.
“Oh, how hostile!” Hawkfrost said, sardonically. “You seem to think I'm up to something.” He reached the head of the table, leaning on the back of the chair that was set for him. Agatha appeared behind him with the decanter, filling a wine glass generously. Hawkfrost picked it up as he continued. “All I want to know from you all is the answer to oooone simple questi– what are you doing with that?”
The wishers turned to see Heat in the doorway, holding a fantastically intricate bottle. Those with a keen interest in spirits would have recognised it as the Ley .925, the most expensive tequila in the world. The cheapest variety of Ley .925 alone could cost up to USD$225,000 (a lot of prey points).
“What do you think I'm doing with it, Hawkfrost?” Heat challenged, walking back to his seat and collapsing into it, looking a bit worse for wear.
“Can… can I have some of that?” Scary asked.
“Nnnnnno,” Heat replied, taking a swig straight form the bottle.
“I… You know what? This doesn't matter.” Hawkfrost said, standing upright and forcing a smile. Anyone could tell it did matter just a bit. Hawkfrost raised his glass to his lips, gulping down the entire glass in one fell swoop. He held it out for Agatha, who immediately appeared to give him a refill.
“I have brought you all here to ask you to join me in a toast.” Hawkfrost raised his glass. “We have had a rocky history, you citizens of Warriors Wish and I. There have been things done and things said which are simply unacceptable.” His cool, blue eyes wandered around the table. Usually so full of malice, tonight they were soft, sincere… almost… kind.
“I have asked you here today, not as enemies, but as future friends.” Hawkfrost stopped here, clearing his throat loudly. He held his chest lightly, letting out a few spluttering coughs. “I want to ask that we put our pasts behind us…” He trailed off again, turning around to cough loudly into his own shoulder. “…and start a new life. As friends.” Hawkfrost raised his glass, shakily.
The Wishers weren't sure what to think. They had thought many things when they received the blackmail envelopes, and had many crazy theories. The last thing anybody expected had been this.
“I will not be toasting. This cat is full of manda–” Darkstar started, but he was interrupted. At the head of the table, their host had dropped his glass, causing it to shatter, expensive wine spilling everywhere. “–rin?” Darkstar finished. As if on cue, Hawkfrost's eyes rolled back in his head. Staggering theatrically, he toppled the chair he had not even sat in, dropping to the floor loudly.
A scream went up from the Wishers, and everyone leaped out of their seats. Some time passed before anyone was quite sure how to respond, but the person who did move was moss. Moving quickly from their space at the opposite end of the table, they crouched over Hawkfrost, holding a hand over his mouth to check for breath. Looking slightly surprised, they placed two fingers on their host's neck, checking for a pulse.
moss exhaled slowly, standing up and turning to face their friends. “Everyone…” they began. “Hawkfrost is dead.”
-
Scar
( I know I'm not in this but I'mma reply anyway c: )
I love this idea a lot, and I loved the prologue and first chapter!
I also love the puns and the fact that Heat had two flasks -
tinyfeather
:0000 what is going onnnnn
this is very ominous!!! -
Addeh
whoooaa nice! (same boat as scar but i'm reading/replying anyway)
I love the cards, for reals. The pepe card thoalso…from the prologue:
“Same.” Said Altias from the corner, who was nervously peering into their envelope again.
I read “peering” as “peeing” and I was VERY concerned…lol
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fireheart
OOO: the suspense, omg!!! this is awesome!
i'll also have you know that i let out the ugliest guffaw when i saw darkstar's card, i love it so much
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Tom
Needless to say, I love it
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Splashy
Lavender wrote:Hawkfrost's butler, an eccentric individual who had earlier introduced themselves as Agatha Christie
amazingalso DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
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rowan
I LOVE THIS the cards are my fav
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lavender
CHAPTER TWO
“Well, okay…” Splashy said. “Let's all go home now.” moss had just declared Hawkfrost dead, which had prompted a very urgent movement from Agatha Christie, the eccentric butler. They had rushed off to find help, muttering something about 'knowing it all along'.
“Hold on, not yet,” Scary replied, his lack of calm showing. “Something feels wrong here. Don't you want to know why we were really called here?”
“Scary is right,” moss said, staring Splashy down. “I was blackmailedinto coming to this party, and I'd wager I wasn't the only one. You don't blackmail people into coming to a party, only to ask them to be your friends.”
“Yeah, good point.” Splashy said, uncharacteristically meekly. The butler returned to the room, with a tall eerie-looking cat who looked as though he was in his late sixties. He wore dirty clothes, and was holding a spade. As soon as he saw Hawkfrost's body, he moved straight for it, checking for vital signs as moss had earlier.
“Hi there, uh, strange guy?” Lightning interrupted him. “He's already been declared dead. What are you doing?”
“Oh, hi,” the stranger replied, standing up and offering a dirty hand to Lightning. Lightning was wearing an expensive white button-up shirt, and appeared somewhat loathe to take the gardener's hand. Either way, he sucked it up and shook it. “I am the gardener. My name is Poe.”
“I'm Lightning,” he replied, trying his best to shake the gardener's hand lightly. Unfortunately the other had a very strong grip, and left dirt all over Lightning's hand. He clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Poe turned his attention back to the body, signalling for Agatha to help him with the process. There were a few mumbles amongst the guests as this took place.
“What are you doing?” moss demanded.
“Burying the body?” Poe said, as though it were something people did every day.
“I don't think so,” the Wisher replied. “This cat has been murdered, and until we find the murderer, his body will be going nowhere. Do you have some way of preserving it?”
Poe muttered sourly for a few moments before looking up from HF's corpse.
“I can ask Ann Cleeves, our cook, if she has some deep freeze storage.” He muttered. “I guess.” The older cat stood up and left the room, adding “Quoth the Wisher, 'nevermore!'”
“What an interesting guy,” Fireheart said, watching him go ponderously.
“I don't see what's so strange about him,” Agatha commented, grinning widely.
“Yeah… Okay then,” Fireheart replied. There was an awkward silence for a few moments.
“Actually, the master approached me earlier today about this kind of situation.” Agatha sighed, suddenly looking very weary.
“Wait, what?” Jingle recapped. “Do you mean Hawkfrost came to you earlier today and said he might die?”
“Absolutely,” Agatha confirmed. “We have been preparing tonight's banquet for some time. But earlier today, he approached me in the grounds, and said something like… 'Hey, butler. I am having some old friends over tonight, who I have a bit of a messy history with. I need you to help me make them feel as at home as possible. But there is a chance I might be killed. If I do, here is a set of instructions.'” At this, the butler reached into his pocket and withdrew a small notebook page. They cleared their throat.
“1. Take my guests to my study. There, you will find my last will and testament.” Agatha read, before stuffing the note back into their pocket and leaving the room quickly, following one of the hallways. Heat, moss, Lavender, Dust, Jingle, Scary, Darkstar and Lightning left the room to follow him immediately.
Holly made to follow them, but noticed the group of Wishers loitering behind, looking disoriented.
“What's keeping you guys?” she asked.
“I want to get out of here,” Altias confessed. “Between the dead guy and the Tower card, tonight is just too much for me.”
“Way too spoopy for me.” Fireheart agreed, nervously fiddling with a napkin.
“There are no cream puffs at this dinner party,” Splashy moaned. “What kind of dinner party has no cream puffs?”
“Just come with us and let's find out why we're here,” Holly suggested, “I'm going to head home after that, we can all walk back to the city together.”
The three other Wishers turned to each other, looking concerned.
“Yeah, I'll come.” Altias sighed, leaving the room and turning down the hallway. Holly, Splashy and Fireheart followed shortly after.
The group of Wishers stood in Hawkfrost's formidable office, the butler in front of them. As Splashy arrived, tailing the last group to enter, the butler cleared their throat and addressed them.
“Good day friends. You may have heard of me before, my name is Stieg Larsson.” The butler said.
“I thought you said–” Lavender tried to interrupt.
“Stieg. Larsson.” The butler said, slowly. “Moving on, as per my master's wishes, I shall be delivering his last will and testament before you today.” Stieg reached over to the desk, and picked up an icy blue envelope. They deftly opened the envelope, withdrawing the last will and testament from within.
Stieg Larsson finally finished reading the will aloud, a sombre look on their face as they looked up to face their late master's guests.
“I am truly sorry,” they sighed, “the master was such a gloomy cat. I had assumed that he was just on another of his paranoid rants. Had I known things would end this way, I swear I would have taken further action.” As they placed the envelope back onto the desk, another folded page fell out, sliding gently across the desk. The silence was suddenly so intense they could hear the subtle clack of the paper hitting the desk, its importance amplified by fear and emotion.
The butler delicately plucked up the piece of paper, unfolded it and held it in front of themselves. In a low, ominous voice, they read…
As they finished, their eyes darted around the assembled guests. “There is also a note attached here, which I wish to inform you all is not an opinion shared by either myself or any other servant of this mansion. It does read, 'what a sappy cat. Is anyone else choking up?'”
“I like puns as much as the next cat,” Darkstar sighed, “but that is just awful taste.”
“Hear, hear.” Scary sighed. “No punner in their right mind would use a line that bad.”
“Yeah,” Lavender chimed in, “I love puns and that was bad.”
“So to sum things up,” moss said, investigation hat back on. “Hawkfrost has blackmailed us all into coming to his mansion under the guise of a dinner party. But what he has really called us here for is to get our help in solving the murder of Blizz, who he is apparently still in love with.”
“Right,” Holly confirmed, randomly.
“So since Hawkfrost's trail is still warm, I'm going to check him for some clues. Jingle, will you come with me?” moss continued.
“Yeah, sure,” Jingle accepted.
“Before you go, I'm afraid there is more to my master's instructions,” Stieg interrupted, withdrawing the note from their pocket again. They cleared their throat, and continued “2. I will be ensuring that this estate is inaccessible from the outside world. The gate will be locked and I have hidden the key. All of the walls around the perimeter will be put on maximum security mode — anyone who touches them will instantly receive a lethal dose of electricity.”
“Mandarin,” Altias, Darkstar and Dust whispered in synchronisation.
“Finally,” Stieg added, “3. Please ensure that my guests are well fed and have a relatively pleasant stay at the mansion. I may have been a total plum pit to them, but I sincerely hope that in the next life, we can all be friends.” They placed the note onto Hawkfrost's desk, next to his will and the tacky pun and riddle.
“May I hold onto those?” moss asked, their gaze following the butler. “For evidence in the murder.”
“Oh,” Stieg looked a bit puzzled for a moment, as though they wanted to say something more. After a few moments, they finished with, “Of course. I do hope that your investigations are most fruitful.” They collected the small bundle of notes and handed them over to moss.
“Thanks,” moss replied, casting their eyes over the notes again.
“I always knew this was going to happen!” Suddenly, Poe. He was in the doorway, looking in, his eyes wide and furious. “I always told the master that this was coming. He should have listened, but no, nobody listens to Poe.”
“Please, don't listen to him.” a new voice pleaded, entering the room. It was a woman, around the age of sixty, with short red hair. She was wearing an apron which was absolutely bathed in what looked like fresh blood. She smiled at them all, “He's absolutely mad. I'm Ann Cleeves, the cook. I know that tonight has been somewhat disturbing, but the master was most insistent that I must prepare you all a great meal, no matter what happens.” She paused, her smile fading, quickly replaced with a very serious look. “Including foul murder.”
“The master was indeed a glum cat,” Stieg sighed.
“Rather,” Ann said. “But anyway, dinner is served. Would you like to accompany me into the drawing room? I fear the dining hall is somewhat indisposed.”
As promised, Ann Cleeves had prepared an impressive banquet for Hawkfrost's guests. Hawkfrost was apparently a keen hunter; the main feature of the meal was a gigantic turkey, which had apparently been the cause of the mess on Ann's apron. Bizarrely, it was carved very cleanly and without any stuffing.
For those who weren't inclined towards poultry, HF had also hunted up an impressive collection of mice. They were nearly overflowing from the large bowls which they were served in.
Regrettably, the vegetarian options were less than satisfying. Scary, Dust, Lavender, Darkstar and Fireheart sat in the corner of the room, nibbling joylessly on their dinner of leaves and berries.
“Now, I know I've mentioned before,” Ann said, approaching them politely, “but you know turkey wings are vegetarian, right?”
“She's trolling,” Darkstar grumbled to himself, gritting his teeth. “Just remember she's trolling.”
“Me? A troll? Why are you calling me a troll? I don't live under a bridge and eat goats!” Ann hmphed and left, muttering spitefully that flamers needed to leave her alone.
“So the cook hates vegetarians,” Dust sighed. “That's just great.” Even her mood had been trodden by the lack of good food.
On the other end of the room, the meat-eaters were having a fantastic time attacking the turkey and mice. The staff of Hawkfrost's mansion had decided to join them for the meal (though unfortunately Poe had not yet cleaned himself up and was quickly creating a very poor impression).
“Heat, could you please pass me some bread?” Holly asked.
“I will,” Poe insisted, promptly grabbing a piece of bread and handing it to Holly. She hesitated greatly, but accepted it politely, waiting for the gardener to look away so she could quickly throw it over her shoulder.
“Tell me, Ann,” moss asked the cook, quietly, as the others carried on. “Both the butler and the gardener said that they knew Hawkfrost's end was near. What did they mean by that?”
A flash of annoyance was evident in Ann's face as she glared at the other staff.
“Oh, absolutely nothing. Just that the master had many enemies in this town. He was meant to retire to a country estate to have some freedom, but… alas.” She stood up and hastily made for the kitchen, leaving moss a little bit surprised. They had been as tactful as they could. The cook was hiding something, for sure. The gardener and the butler probably were, too.
moss caught Jingle on the other end of the table, in conversation with the bizarre gardener. At one stage Poe looked very surprised, and turned to frantically look behind himself. Jingle took the opportunity to shoot a glance back at moss, rolling her eyes a bit.
So the cook was useless and the gardener was as mad as they had all thought. moss realised they would need to take another look at the crime scene. This was not going to be an easy mystery to crack.
-
moss
DETECTIVE mOSS IS ON THE CASE
-
Jingle
omg me having an uncomfortable conversation with the gardener is 100% me, I'm also excited that I seem to be the WatsonBut wow, I def was not expecting Hawkfrost to be the murder victim, this is so good Lav (and Scary!) Your tarot cards were incredible, the servants are great, and I'm kinda craving turkey right now? Also, A+ puns
I'm excited to learn more!! -
Addeh
awesome installment
i have my suspicions as to who killed HF!! can't wait to find out, great work guys! -
fireheart
is the picture for the will broken for anyone elsetoo spoopy for me indeed :'(( can't wait for the next chapter!!
-
Addeh
is the picture for the will broken for anyone elseyea but i didn't want to mention it i didn't wanna be rude
edit: not saying yr rude i just would feel bad -
lavender
seems to be a common problem!!
not rude at all, this is something i'd need to knowI'll go edit in a mirror link that I just so happen to have~
-
Addeh
ooh i see! i wonder who killed blizz. i bet it was the butler
(also nice image how did you make it??)
-
lavender
[member=75]Scary[/member] how did you?
I just added the pawprint in photoshop lolSo I work much like a Vicky except with Vicky
(dangerous path readaloud joooooke)
I just shoot my plot/gag ideas at Scary and we throw paper airplanes at each other for a while until something sticks well with us both (well I mean I've also got some secrets hidden even from him that he doesn't know until the plot dictates he must c; )
And then Scary adapts those paper airplanes into a beautiful, beautiful thingit's actually quite impressive that those paper airplanes can make it all the way across the pacific ocean… :0
It's incredible amounts of fun~
Thanks everyone!! -
Scar
Oooh I loved it!
The will wasn't broken for me, but maybe since those posts someone fixed it or something? Either way it was really cool, and a really nice touch c:
-
lavender
I fixed it up real quick
I didn't have an issue but I guess “postimg” might have expired the thing while my cache still had it? -
Tom
It's the same host I use for literally everything so they're not the problem….. I'll check it out tonight.
sorry it didn't show up for everyone…
(Thanks lav for the fix xD)[member=167]Addeh[/member], I used this thingo http://www.writingfont.com/send-handwritten-letters-online/ ^^
-
lavender
bruh I can't focus on like anything, promise I'll proof-read this again soon
-
lavender
CHAPTER THREE
The guest bedrooms of the mansion house were located upstairs, in the eastern wing. Only a few hours after Hawkfrost's murder, the butler had invited them all to come upstairs to their rooms. Considering they were stuck on the estate for the time being, they all agreed it was best to make themselves comfortable.
“This is the western wing, where the master's quarters are located,” the butler had explained as they finished ascending the main staircase, indicating towards the western side of the property. “The servants also stay in these quarters. Do not enter these quarters.” The butler stared at the group intensely, and they had continued to stare relentlessly for at least a minute, before someone had agreed to their terms.
The group was then ushered into a storage room at the rear of the property, which they were informed contained the late master's extensive collection of fashionable and tasteful sleepwear.
What it actually contained was 152 Pokemon Kigurumi — an entire collection of the Kanto Pokedex.
The guests had been allocated outfits to line up with their Ww ID card reference numbers. Dust was allocated a Charizard kigurumi, and Darkstar was allocated a Venusaur one.
“Is anyone Blastoise?” Dust asked.
“No,” Lavender said. “But I am Jigglypuff. I'll gladly switch out for Blastoise.” She abandoned her kigurumi to one side, turning to the butler who had already retrieved the water-type Pokemon outfit. This broke the ice a little, encouraging everyone else to go along with the idea.
That was, until Holly picked up her Ninetales kigurumi.
“Oh no, not happening.” A very drunk Heat had challenged, “I am not going to be a Kakuna while someone else is Ninetales. Holly, give me the kigurumi.”
“Huh, what?” Holly asked, a tiny bit meekly. “Why would I do that?”
Heat said nothing for a few moments, but he and Holly had entered into a hard-core staring competition. Once he realised that staring would accomplish nothing, he reached to his belt and withdrew a pistol, levelling it at Holly. “Put down. The kigurumi.”
“What in the name of StarClan?” Holly demanded, standing her ground.
“We are in a murder mystery and I've aaalways wanted to be the one who gets the heads rolling.” He said, slurring heavily.
“Uh, Holly,” Lightning whispered loudly, “you might want to just give him the thing.”
Holly looked like she might fight it for a moment, but then conceded, handing the folded kigurumi to Heat. The butler appeared as if out of nowhere, taking Holly by the shoulder and leading her to a wardrobe at the end of the room which contained the balance of the collection.
The late Hawkfrost's guests changed using a private room, one by one, the mood in the room gradually turning from grim to fairly comical.
Finally, Holly emerged, in her new form.
“Uh oh,” Fireheart whispered, beholding the Mewtwo standing in front of her.
“Heat, you have made a very powerful enemy tonight,” Holly said, “You have no idea what you have created.”
Heat silently took his belt, firearm and holster attached, from his pile of clothes, fastening it around himself.
“Should we really be leaving a firearm with someone who is that drunk?” Splashy asked.
“Don't worry about Heat, he's harmless.” Dust assured them. “Probably. Kind of.”
After that, the butler had led them as a group into the eastern wing. There were, conveniently, exactly 12 bedrooms available in this part of the house. There were three staircases in different locations which lead back to the ground floor. Each of the bedrooms was decorated in Hawkfrost's typical light blue style.
The rooms were luxurious and comfortable, and a majority of the guests found it easy to drift off into a light sleep, despite the intense events of the last few hours.
But not everyone slept, and not everyone tried to. One Wisher was up all night worrying. At least two Wishers wandered off to the bathroom. One Wisher was investigating something none of them could comprehend…
… and one Wisher left their room to commit an act of truly horrible murder.
~BREAK~
In the early hours of the morning, the Wishers' dreams were interrupted by an ear-shattering scream.
About ten guests assembled in the main hallway of the wing, looking at each other frantically.
“What was that?” Fireheart asked. The Golduck-themed outfit she still wore didn't help to lessen the confusion.
“What time is it?” Added Scary, yawning. His own kigurumi was styled after a Graveler. Strangely, it suited his nightmarish bad fashion sense.
“It's 2.20am,” Holly confirmed without checking her watch. She was still dressed as Mewtwo. Possibly the outfit was giving her psychic powers.
“And I think the scream came from downstairs. We really need to find out what happened.” Jingle said. She cautiously made a move towards the main staircase. Unfortunately, her sneakiness wasn't in its prime. She was dressed as a Pidgeotto currently, and her wings stuck out a lot.
moss caught up and walked beside Jingle. They were wearing an Ivysaur kigurumi. They and Jingle were a super effective duo.
From the top of the stairs, the assembled Wishers could see a body laying on the ground, immobile. Standing over it was Darkstar, disguised as Venusaur and wielding a heavy-looking candlestick.
“Darkstar, what's going on there?” Lavender called from the top of the staircase. “Don't make me Hydro Pump you.”
Darkstar gave no response, and for a moment the room was thrown into a deep, heavy silence. The only noise that could be heard was Darkstar's slow, controlled breathing.
“Is that body.. a Golbat?” Dust asked. “Isn't that Altias?”
The group lost their cool, almost tripping over each other to reach the bottom of the stairs. The silence had disappeared, and had been replaced with a feeling of general fear and anxiety.
“Altias? Hello?” moss was the first at the bottom of the stairs, and checked the other Wisher's body. “They have no pulse and they're cold. They could have been here for an hour.” moss advised the disturbed group. The Wishers were struck by sadness, confusion and anxiety. Choking back tears and terrified comments, they stood close together.
The one who stayed calm and collected was moss. They turned to Darkstar, staring him down.
“I know you're our modmin and mayor, Darkstar,” moss said, feigning calmness as much as they could. “And we respect and appreciate you for that. But right now you need to explain why you are standing over the body of another Wisher holding a weapon and not talking.”
“I found them like this,” Darkstar croaked, struggling to regain his voice. He cleared his throat a bit. “They were already gone, and this candlestick was on the floor next to them.”
“Okay, and why did you pick up the candlestick?” moss asked, irritation flickering in their voice.
“I don't know,” Darkstar confessed, composing himself a bit. “I was just scared and surprised and… I picked up the candlestick.”
“Darkstar, that candlestick could be evidence. Do you know where you found it?”
“I'm not really sure.”
“Do you understand that you've tampered with evidence in an ongoing murder investigation?”
“Y… yes.” Darkstar's voice quivered, uncharacteristically. He could tell where this was going.
“Do you understand how bad this looks to all of us?” moss continued.
“What do you mean?” He asked, placing the candlestick on a cabinet nearby.
“You and Hawkfrost have a rocky past. It makes sense for you to take him out, and then half way through the preparation for dinner you randomly ran off to the bathroom.” moss began. “Then, you appear next to a dead body of one of our own, holding a weapon. Also, we are here to solve the mystery of Blizz' murder.” The detective trailed off after this, letting the silence increase the tension. “Nobody was happy to see Blizz disappear. But out of everyone, you had the most to gain.”
“This is totally unfair,” Darkstar began. “I went for a bathroom break in the middle of the night and now you think I'm a serial killer.”
“We just have to be sure.” moss said. “We're all scared and confused, but right now you are the number one suspect.”
Darkstar clearly wasn't pleased.
“Why doesn't someone watch over him for a while?” Splashy suggested, stepping forward from the rest of the group. She looked physically pained, which combined with her Diglet outfit, was a particularly convincing sight. “There's no point in us ganging up and hurting another person.”
“But he could hurt the person who watches him,” a nervous Charmander Lightning observed. “Maybe we should tie him up?”
“Tie me up and leave me as fodder for the real killer?!” Darkstar was appalled. “I thought we were all friends. What's going on here? How am I more suspicious than anyone else here? How about… Lightning, for example?”
“What?” Lightning asked, defensively. “I haven't done anything to attract attention!”
“During the meal, you gave Altias a glance that could have killed mere mortals.” Darkstar said. “And now, here they are.”
“Oh….” Lightning paused, biting his lip. “There is that.”
“Darkstar, I'm sorry.” moss sighed. “We have to be more careful now than ever, and most of the evidence leads to you. We'll have to find somewhere to tie you up. If the killings continue, we'll come back for you.”
Darkstar sighed, dejected. Even his Venusaur visage looked as though it was frowning.
“Kinky.” He opened. “Fine, I can see what you're saying, but I don't accept it. You are not going to tie anybody up, but nobody is going to go free tonight. For tonight at the very least, we're staying in groups of at least two. Tomorrow morning we can all get back together and decide what we're going to do.”
moss pored over the question for a moment. The rest of the assembly of Wishers remained silent; Darkstar technically outranked moss. In any normal situation, his word would be law, and moss' input would be moot. But in a pinch, moss knew how to get to the bottom of these situations. Without truly realising it, they had entered into a state of emergency.
“Alright,” they said, at last. “I'm leaving Jingle in charge of deciding who sticks with who. I want to have a look around the crime sc–” they suddenly stopped, mid-word, looking at the ground. moss dropped to their knees and picked up a small red envelope, deftly tearing it open. They withdraw a small note on old worn paper, and read it in silence for a few moments.
“What's that?” Lavender asked.
“One of these tarot cards.” moss said. Theatrically, they pulled the card away from the piece of paper, and turned it around. It still had a paperclip attached to it.
“And there's another part of that note from the killer.” moss added, turning the small piece of paper around for them all to see.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Holly asked aloud.
“It makes about as much sense as the last part of the riddle.” Fireheart pointed out. “It's probably just meant to unnerve us.”
“I'm inclined to agree.” moss said. “Hey, Heat?”
Heat didn't respond. Scary, standing next to him, tapped him on the shoulder.
“Who said my name?” Heat asked. “Hello yes.”
“You spent a bit of time wandering around looking for alcohol, right? So you'd know the layout of the house pretty well.” moss said.
“Yeah, sure.” Heat replied. Now that he had snapped out of his dizzy state he was much more lucid.
“Can you try and find the butler, cook and gardener?” moss asked. “Scary, you can go with him. I want to keep looking around the crime scene.”
Jingle quickly distributed the guests into small groups; she and moss would stick together and investigate. Heat and Scary were searching for the staff. Splashy and Lavender would spend the night with Darkstar. Other than that, Holly and Jayce were told to stick together, and so were Dust and Fireheart.
-
Scar
Oooh, great job you two, that was an awesome chapter!
Also the note is so great and creepy, props Poor Altoid :'c
-
moss
I LOVE THIS!!
look at me goooooo
-
Splashy
dun dun dunnnnnnn
fear me in my Diglett amazingness
-
rowan
(laying still) is the tomato sauce gonna stain my kigu
-
lavender
CHAPTER FOUR
Heat and Scary had wasted no time in finding Hawkfrost's unusal butler. The butler introduced themself as Edward Stratemeyer, and had asked if they knew someone called Nancy.
Heat gave Edward a rundown of the situation, as best as he could given his inebriation. Scary covered for him a few times when his story lost coherency.
“That is terrible. Truly, horrible.” Edward said. “The master was so insistent on everyone having a good time. But being dead is no fun at all. That poor Golbat. Their evening has simply been ruined. We must find Poe immediately, he has dealt with these kinds of situations before.” The butler turned to hurry away.
“Hold on,” Scary stopped them. “Please make sure the body is preserved and the crime scene is left in tact.”
“Hmm?” Edward asked. “What for?”
“So that our town detective can look for clues. They're pretty insistent on that.” Scary said.
“Fine,” Edward said, sounding irritable, and stormed off. Scary thought he'd heard the butler mutter something about 'ruining fun' under his breath, but it was too quiet to really make anything out of.
“What were you guys talking about?” Heat asked, a vague look in his eye.
“I'll tell you later,” Scary said. “Do you remember where HF keeps his fancy alcohol?”
Heat's eyes had lit up. “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Want to steal some?” Scary smiled.
Several hours had passed since the discovery of Altias' body and the continuation of moss' investigation into who was behind these murders, along with the colder case of Blizz' death.
Heat and Scary occupied one of the many guest rooms. A number of bottles of comically expensive alcoholic beverages littered the floor of the room. Both of the drunken Wishers were leaning on furniture for support.
After stealing assorted bottles of HF's liquor, Heat and Scary had decided that sleep was unlikely and would be of poor quality anyway. So, most of the night had been spent discussing Fire Emblem.
“Just think about it,” Scary said, insistently. “Ranulf HAS to be the Black Knight. How else could he always know Skrimir's movements, right? And then after be fights Zelgius he tries to frame him? He's evil. It's obvious.”
“That's the worst thing I've ever heard,” Heat groaned, fetching a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. He held it up–
“Fine, it was a terrible idea. But what if it was Reyson?” Scary asked.
Before Heat could give an answer, there was a loud creak from behind the bedroom door.
“What was that?” Heat hissed loudly.
“Someone walking around… Do you think it's the killer?” Scary whispered back.
“Nah,” Heat dispelled. “There's no way a killer would strike three times in one night. That's crazy. He'd screw up and leave clues.”
“I guess you're right,” Scary conceded. “But uh, Heat?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you call the killer a 'he'?”
In another room, deeper into the guest wing, Dust pulled an object out from the depths of a dusty cupboard.
She and Fireheart had been passing time by exploring the room. Fireheart looked as though she was about to pass out. She had apparently been working night shifts for about a week prior to coming to the dinner party. Even though she was shaken after the events earlier that night, she was really struggling to fight back tiredness.
Dust finally managed to pry the object free, and dropped it on the floor between the two of them. It looked like some kind of board, but it was obscured by a thick layer of (actual) dust.
Fireheart tilted her head, propping herself up a bit to watch. Dust leaned over the board, and exhaled strongly. Her mastery over her namesake pulled through; the dust fled from the facade of the board immediately.
“Oh my StarClan,” Fireheart breathed. “It's an ouiji board.” She picked herself up, suddenly not sleepy, and kneeled over it. “We should totally try and contact Altoid!”
“Altoid?” Dust asked.
“Uh, Altias,” Fireheart corrected.
“Oh! Good idea.” Dust said. “Do you know how to do this? Where's the… stone thing?”
“The planchette.” Fireheart sounded a little disappointed. “You're right, it must still be somewhere in that cupboard.”
Dust peered back into the cupboard, unable to see anything. “Hold on, I've got something for this.” She paced across the room, Fireheart watching her, then crouched in front of the bed and withdrew a backpack.
“What's in there?” Fireheart asked, sitting back on the floor.
“Nothing,” Dust replied. “Just uh, a change of clothes and some other things I might need.”
“Okay,” Fireheart said, yawning. Dust promptly returned with a small flashlight, shining it into the depths of the cupboard. “I never knew HF collected dust particles. Fireheart added.
“I know, right?” Dust asked, pulling a face as she looked at the thick layer of dust covering nearly all of the cupboard. “Hey, hold on. This isn't dusty.” She reached back in, and withdrew a photo frame.
It was heavy, and made from what may have been gold. Dust turned it around in her hands slowly, admiring the fanciness before looking at the picture. There was nearly no dust on the frame; it must have been touched recently.
Both of the Wishers sat on the floor next to each other as they finally looked at the picture.
At the centre of it were a group of Wishers, although they were much younger than they were now. They were standing side by side and all grinning. Above their head a banner hung, with the words;
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!
GAME 1 WINNERS“Is this from…?” Dust trailed off, turning to Fireheart.
“That's Darkstar.” Fireheart pointed decisively to one of the people in the photo. Dust blinked as she turned back to look, but she could definitely see the signs. Young Darkstar was in this picture.
It was then she noticed that every face in the photo had a circle through it. All but three of the circles had decisive crosses through them.
Two of the remaining had question marks next to them.
The only Wisher in the picture who still had a plan circle around them was Darkstar.
In yet another room, moss and Jingle sat, deep in conversation. They were trying to work out an angle. So far, it wasn't proving to be an easy process.
“I think I need to go from the start again,” moss said.
“Alright.” Jingle stifled a yawn. It was getting really late and she wasn't used to doing this kind of work on such short notice. “We'll start with Hawkfrost. Victim number two. Literally everyone here has a motive, and nobody in particular seems to stand out as the likely killer. Before his death, Hawkfrost was investigating the death of victim number one, Blizz.”
“Right.” moss paused. “Hawkfrost was poisoned at dinner. He didn't even touch the food, which makes me think Ann Cleeves is clean.”
“But he was late in coming to the table, so the butler went the entire way around the room before they poured HF a drink.” Jingle observed. “Any one of us could have done it, with enough sleight of hand, or the butler could have done it.”
“During the dinner, both Darkstar and Heat disappeared for extended periods of time. Darkstar went earlier on, and said he was going to the bathroom. Then later, Heat went to find some spirits and crashed into the waiter's cart.” moss said. “HF could be anyone at all, but my biggest fos is at Darkstar and Heat.”
“I just had a thought.” Jingle said. “Everyone here was probably blackmailed into coming. Don't you think…?”
“No,” moss said. “There's no value in everyone sharing the secrets. If HF had a suspect he wouldn't have called us all here. He would have dealt with his suspect first.”
Jingle leaned back a bit, pondering.
“As for Blizz, it's an awful case. It's so cold, and until today we had no confirmation that she was dead.” moss said. “We need to investigate this further tomorrow. We don't even know how HF ended up with the twelve of us on a shortlist.”
“Alright, then on to Altias.” Jingle said. “Again, it was the middle of the night. It could have been anyone. But Darkstar standing there with the candlestick…”
“One thing that I really don't like about Altias' death was what happened during dinner.” moss began. “Do you remember the dynamic between them and Lightning?”
Jingle did remember, and nodded accordingly.
“Lightning is an ambitious employee of the city, who is gunning for a promotion. There's a chance he was behind poisoning HF, hoping to use it to prove he was the town's hero, then realised his mistake and withdrew.” moss theorised.
“Then, maybe he took out Altias to cover up? If you combine his adverse reaction to puns and Altias' readings earlier, they weren't a bad person to take out if Lightning were hiding his tracks.” Jingle added. “The only hole is Blizz' murder. But that's a hole no matter who you consider.”
“Exactly,” moss finished, standing up. “For now, let's try and rest a bit. I know you're innocent and you know I am. Tomorrow, we'll look into the Blizz case, and see if HF had any clues. But for now, we need to keep an eye on Darkstar and Lightning. The last clue that's interesting to me is the notes the killer has been leaving. I don't know what to think about someone taking a swim, but we should watch out for that.”
Lavender was slouched in the corner of the room, snoring loudly. Splashy felt bad for her; her cold sounded really nasty. That said, Splashy also decided to keep a distance from her for the time being.
Darkstar, on the other side of the room, was brooding. It looked like he'd been trying really hard to sleep, but he just hadn't been successful in dozing off. Splashy was devout to stay awake until he fell asleep. Just to be on the safe side. Besides, her stomach was doing somersaults. Splashy was terrified of death, and seeing Altias' lifeless body earlier had really shaken her up.
Splashy stood up and started pacing the room, slowly, trying to keep quiet. Lavender remained snoring, slumping against the wall she leaned on.
“Can you stop that?” Darkstar asked. “I want to sleep.”
“Sorry,” Splashy whispered. “This whole situation has me really scared. I don't know what to do and I don't want to sleep.”
Darkstar looked displeased. “Yeah, but you all think I did it. So pardon me if I'm not dripping with empathy.”
Splashy felt a pang of guilt. She wasn't ready to lay down by all means, but she could appreciate why Darkstar was looking forward to his rest.
“Maybe we could go for a walk around the grounds?” Splashy asked. She turned to glance at Lavender. “I don't think anything would wake her up.”
“No thanks.” Darkstar replied flatly. “You should go though, I'll get some sleep.”
Splashy considered for a moment. She really shouldn't leave Lavender and Darkstar alone, or even be alone herself. But all the others were going to do was sleep. Nothing could go wrong with that, right? Splashy decided – she would go for a walk around the perimeter of the mansion house once, and be back in 10 minutes at most.
“Alright. Stay put, I'll be right back!” Splashy said, leaving the bedroom.
HF's estate was eerie at night. Splashy had taken one of the side exits from the ground floor of the house, which gave a whole new perspective on things. The estate was huge – HF even had his own small forest towards the back of the property.
Splashy could see the tall gate in the distance, actively crackling with live electricity. It must have been a huge waste of electricity having it light up at night like that. However, Splashy had to admit; it looked really cool.
She also had a weird pang of nostalgia. The wall actually looked familiar, as though she had seen it often long ago. She had a feeling she should ask Scary about it, but she wasn't sure why.
Splashy turned her attention away from the wall, and continued pacing around the house. There was no use thinking too hard. Splashy just needed to get some fresh air in her lungs and stretch her legs, then she would be fine.
Continuing her walk, Splashy found herself out the front of the house. The small formal garden here was fantastic. If Poe looked after it, he must have been a genius despite how strange he was.
Splashy approached the centrepiece of the formal garden – an exessive, beautiful fountain with a water feature in its centre.
She crouched in front of it and splashed her face with water. It was super effective.
A face stared back at Splashy from the water. It was a sad face, belonging to a girl wearing a Diglet kigurumi. Splashy forced herself to think about cream puffs, and saw the girl in the fountain smile back.
That was it. Sure, things were getting serious. But Splashy had never let that get to her before. Her gloominess was out of character – and on that note, so was Darkstar's. Their mayor was usually so kind to everyone, and so easy to get along with. Why had he turned so sour so quickly?
At that moment, Splashy silently vowed that she would do everything she could to get to the bottom of this before more bodies showed up. Sure, moss was the town detective. But Splashy was a mean scum hunter.
Crunch
From the gravel behind her. Had someone followed her?
Splashy jumped up and spun around, to behold someone wearing a strange kigurumi and what looked like a pillow case over their head.
The kigurumi was an ugly mess of colours, and was extremely loose and shapeless. Splashy couldn't make anything of the stranger, except for one detail.
“Missing…No?” she gasped.
-
rowan
HOO
-
Tom
11/10
-
moss
my biggest fos omg
and scumhunter splashy. let's team up!!!!
-
Scar
Ahhhhh what will happen to Splashy?
-
Tom
she will stand next to a fountain and be approached by a stranger in a Missingno kigurumi…
following that.. nobody knows… -
Arcade Heat
#imgonnabethenextsuspect
-
lavender
CHAPTER FIVE
“Morning,” Jayce Lightning said.
Holly slowly blinked herself awake. She hadn't slept particularly well. “Hi there.” She replied, mumbling.
“The butler returned our clothes from dinner first thing this morning.” Lightning explained. “They've been washed and ironed.”
“That's cool,” Holly said. Slowly, she was feeling herself waking up.
“Yep.” Lightning turned away from her and made for the door. “I'm going to head downstairs now.” He was wearing the white button-up shirt and dress jeans that he had been wearing the night before. Holly lazily watched as he left the room, stopping at the door for a long moment.
Lightning's fingers brushed against a tie which hung from the door handle. He slowly picked it up and inspected it, appearing to be deep in thought.
Then, as though he'd never stopped, he hung the tie back on the door handle and left the room.
Holly sat up in bed, realising she was still wearing her Mewtwo kigurumi and pretty powerful in it. She felt a little uneasy. But she wasn't quite sure why.
Holly glanced around the room a few more times, realising she was properly awake now and there was really nothing else to do. She pushed her covers aside and forced herself to get up.
She inspected the dress, folded tidily over the foot of her bed. Hawkfrost's servants sure did work efficiently – when had they had time to do all of this?
Still a little uneasy, Holly got up and lifted the mattress from her bed.
They're still there, she thought. Good.
She carefully replaced the mattress, hiding the two concealed blades which she had stashed beneath it. Holly turned around and stared at the tie which hung from the door handle.
Lightning hadn't been wearing the tie last night. Who would bring a tie to a fancy dinner party, and then neglect to wear it at the actual fancy dinner?
Holly was thankful that she'd come to this party armed. After many years in the Wish community, one realised that absolutely all events should be attended with some kind of defence plans. Most situations had the potential to turn into some kind of apocalypse – or apparently, murder mystery – at any moment.
Lightning's tie was
knot giving her a good feeling. Maybe it was something in the windsor something in the water. Either way, Holly couldn't work out how to tighten her suspicions.She had to get to the bottom of whatever was going on in this house. And she had to keep her own secrets down in the meantime.
“I can't find my tie anywhere,” Heat complained loudly. He was clearly suffering from the night before, and allegedly not slept at all. Apparently he and Scary had managed to stay up all night, fuelled by alcohol, talking about anime and video games. It was a rare sight to see – Heat only looked okay.
As Hawkfrost's guests had slowly woken, they had trickled down the stairs, gathering in a group of confused Wishers. Dust had been one of the first to wake – she had defined dark circles under her eyes, and looked as though she hadn't slept a wink either. Scary and Heat had joined her as soon as they heard the movement.
“You weren't wearing it in the kigurumi room.” Dust pointed out to Heat.
“I swear I was wearing it at dinner.” Heat said, closing his eyes. “I think. I can't remember. Dinner was so long ago.”
“Oh…” Dust looked ponderous. Tired and ponderous. “I don't know. Sorry.”
“Was anybody looking at me when we were going to the kigurumi room?” Heat asked, to a general silence. Most of the guests had joined the group at this stage. “Why the hell was nobody looking at me?” He asked, agitated.
“Does this have anything to do with the tie anymore?” Lightning interjected. “Why are you so hyper-focused on a tie, anyway?”
“More importantly, why are you so hyper-focused on not finding my tie?” Heat demanded.
Holly chose that moment to wind up at the bottom of the stairs, and quietly greeted everyone, interrupting the argument.
“Is that all of us?” Scary asked, trying to conduct a headcount. He lost count a few times and had to start again – partly due to sleep deprivation, and partly because he actually didn't know how to count past 3.
“We're one short,” moss observed, using their leet math skills, and glanced around the room. “Where's Splashy?”
“Where is she, Lav?” Fireheart asked Lavender. The two were standing side by side.
“I don't know.” Lav looked nervous and a bit jittery, and sounded less affected by her cold than she had been yesterday. “I thought maybe she woke up before me. Has anyone seen her?”
There were a few moments of silence.
“That isn't good,” Jingle said, her voice full of worry.
“I slept most of the night,” Darkstar interrupted in a sullen fashion. “Splashy insisted on going out for a walk a few hours ago. Lav was up all night, she'd know better than me. Did Splashy not come back?”
“Yes.” Lavender said quickly. “Wait, no. Of course. Splashy didn't come back after the walk.”
“Oh, mandarin…” Holly said, having caught up on the conversation and beginning to realise the gravity of the situation.
“Why would you let her go out on her own?” moss asked.
“She was pacing and keeping the rest of us up. I told her to go away because I needed some damn sleep. Do you really expect me to sacrifice my beauty sleep to go on a stroll?” Darkstar replied, still venomous from the drama earlier.
“Actually, yes, Darkstar. Yes, I would expect–” moss began, before being interrupted by a loud bang.
“Breakfast is served!” Ann Cleeve announced, throwing the door from the kitchen open with such force that it collided harshly with a wall. “Oops, sorry.” She added, seeing everyone's terrified faces. “I am very enthusiastic about serving breakfast.”
“I'll skip breakfast.” moss announced, “if anyone needs me I'll be in Hawkfrost's study.” They returned to the stairs immediately, stopping for a moment to whisper into Darkstar's ear. Darkstar turned to face them, paused for a moment, then nodded quickly. moss ascended the stairs hurriedly.
The rest of the group, including Darkstar, followed Ann as she ushered them back into the main dining hall, the site where they had all witnessed Hawkfrost's murder only a few hours ago.
The room had been cleaned up perfectly. If they hadn't all seen it happen, nobody would have believed that it had been the site of an horrible murder only the night before. The main lights of the room had been dimmed, and candles had been placed along every surface in the room. Their constant flickering played strangely with the shadows of the room, altering the appearance substantially. Last night the room had been cold and magnificent; now, it felt small and sad. A black tablecloth had even been thrown across the surface of the table.
“Good morning,” said the butler as they entered. Their head hung slightly low, and they were dressed in black from head to toe.
“Hi,” Jingle began before trailing off. “What should we call you today?”
“Today, I have no name.” The butler said. They turned and abruptly left the room.
“What's their deal?” Lightning asked. “They seemed pretty okay last night.”
“It's the five stages of grief,” Fireheart said, keeping her voice down. “Last night they were in denial. Now that they've realised that HF really is dead, they're angry. Let them seethe for a little bit.”
“What's the next part of grief?” Holly asked quietly.
“They will start howling at the moon, and get all furry.” Scary began.
“The next stage is bargaining and regret. Then depression, then acceptance.” Lavender interrupted. Her gauge for Scary's poor sense of humour was on point.
“We should see if we can help him somehow.” Jingle said.
“That aside, does anyone else find it strange that he was wearing the exact same outfit Hawkfrost wore last night?” Lavender pointed out.
“First, we really should find someone to ask about Splashy.” Dust added.
“Perhaps we should ask the cook when she comes back?” Lightning suggested.
Ann was totally on cue. She opened up the door, and slowly wheeled in a trolley. They were all tired from the horrors of last night – especially the vegetarians, who had such a lacklustre dinner.
On the trolley behind Ann, in all its glory, was literally an entire pig.
“What in the name of StarClan…” muttered Darkstar.
“I hope you all love roast pig for breakfast!” Ann said. She hadn't been lying – her enthusiasm for serving breakfast was far from lacking.
“Several of us can't eat that,” Lavender said.
“Why on earth not?” Ann enquired, seeming genuinely mystified.
“We are vegetarians.” Scary said patiently. “As we were last night.”
“You people are still here?” Ann asked, sighing. “Fine, I'll go fetch some lettuce for you.”
All in all, breakfast went pretty well. The little group of vegetarians put a lot of effort into trying to carefully divide the head of lettuce that was presented into 5 equal portions. Eventually they gave up, and just grazed as a group.
Jingle had taken the opportunity to ask Ann whether or not she'd seen Splashy wondering around in a Diglett kigurumi. Ann insisted that she had seen nothing, and then abruptly left the room.
After the guests had finished eating, Jingle took lead of the conversation again, pushing her chair under the table and standing up.
“I'm going to go and patrol the perimeter.” She announced. “Holly, Scary, Lightning, Fireheart and Darkstar – can you all come with me?”
The four of them made agreeable noises.
“How about Lav, Dust and I interrogate the servants?” Heat asked, surprisingly up to scratch with what was going on.
“Sure, that's a great idea.” Jingle said. “Maybe search for the gardener first. It would be best to give the butler some room.”
“Good morning friends,” Poe said, suddenly in the doorway.
“What is it with you guys suddenly appearing when we talk about you?” Lightning asked.
“No, no, nothing like that.” Poe said. “I found a Diglett in my fountain this morning.” He paused. “It was so strange. Diglett season usually isn't until July.”
“Oh my god, Splashy!” Lavender said, immediately. She bolted out of the room, the other wishers very close behind her, wasting no time in making for the front door.
Splashy's body was laid out on the gravel in Hawkfrost's formal garden. Her eyes were open, and staring aimlessly. Her mouth was slightly ajar and her skin was as white as a sheet.
“These things happen, unfortunately.” Poe said. “Digletts never respond well to water, and they have the second-lowest Base HP of any Pokemon. Not only that, but amongst Ground-types, their defence is the absolute lowest. Water is a sure death for any Diglett.”
“Poe, you need to stop talking.” Holly said, leading the gardener away from the scene.
“She drowned,” Jingle said, as she confirmed that Splashy had no pulse. “The riddle was right. One took a swim… This is awful.”
“Wait, what is that?” Fireheart asked, pointing at the fountain.
A small folded note sat on the edge of the fountain. Leaning very carefully on top of it was a tarot card, for all to see.
“What does the reversed Sun card mean?” Scary asked.
“Upright it's like,” Heat replied, then paused, staring vaguely into space. “It's good stuff. I don't know about reversed. Altias would have known.”
Jingle made directly for the fountain, picking up the little folded note that lay there. There was a small card stapled to it, which she read, tore in half, and then shoved in her pocket.
It didn't take long before the entire group's eyes were on Jingle. She slowly unfolded the piece of paper, and read the contents.
“I'm going to tell moss about all of this.” Darkstar said, abruptly turning away from the group.
“Hold on–” Jingle went to stop him.
“moss said they wanted to speak to me privately, earlier. Also, I can't be behind this death — Lavender is my alibi. She was watching me all night.” Darkstar didn't wait for affirmation. She strode back towards the house.
“Poe?” Jingle called the gardener. “Can you take Splashy here to where you have the rest of the bodies preserved? Please.”
Poe looked a little bit confused, but after noticing the sobriety of the group, realised he would do better not to argue. He nodded curtly, and went back into the mansion to get some help.
“Fireheart, Scary, Lightning, Holly. Let's go have a look at this fence.” Jingle said. All of their moods had dropped considerably. Nobody questioned her or stopped to mince words. If there were any clues to be found about the killer, it would be better to find them as soon as possible.
As the group made their way to the gate, Heat Lavender and Dust stood vigil over Splashy's Digletty body. Lavender stood on the other side of the fountain in silence. She felt cold, and scared. And the further away Jingle's group got, the worse the feeling got. Lavender slowly bit her lip, watching them go.
-
Scar
Omg all the tie puns
Also I heaps love the new riddle! Great chapter guys
-
rowan
doge haunts me even in my death…………………………………
Good chapter as always!!!
-
Tom
doge haunts me even in my death…………………………………
Good chapter as always!!!
Omg
Doge attempted to cast a healing spell but he was out of MP from keeping the earth warm
-
lavender
CHAPTER SIX
moss found themselves digging through one of Hawkfrost's desk cupboards, distracted for a moment from the piles of assorted documents on his desk.
The first useful tidbit moss had found laying around was a pair of half-moon spectacles with false lenses. They placed these on the desk, continuing to ruffle through the drawer.
Apparently HF was an avid stationery enthusiast. His draw was crammed full of dozens of pens and pencils and other assorted knick knacks. moss knew that they should stop snooping and get back to researching Blizz' murder, but there was something strangely satisfying about finding out more about what Hawkfrost had been up to for the last few years.
moss' gaze passed over something that appeared to be a pencil sharpener. Immediately, they were struck by how unusual it was – it was pretty big, as though it was meant for a ridiculous novelty pencil.
They picked it up, turning it around in their hands. The object was cold – metal. It was in the shape of a heart, with a perfect circle in the middle. moss inspected it, but couldn't find any blade. Perhaps it wasn't a pencil sharpener – but what was it and why was it in HF's drawer?
moss heard a click as the door behind them was opened. They closed the drawer hastily, wondering what to do with the object. Since it had been cold, moss had brought a coat to the dinner party. They took the opportunity to shove the small heart-shaped object into its inner pocket.
Darkstar stood in the doorway of the study, watching as the detective made a series of strange, erratic movements.
Suddenly, HF's desk chair spun around. Sure enough, moss occupied the chair, a pair of half-moon spectacles resting on the bridge of their nose.
“Darkstar,” they said, “I've been expecting you.” They took off the glasses, placing them on HF's desk.
“I'm not surprised you've been waiting for me, since you asked me to come.” Darkstar said, keeping his demeanor icy. He drew a chair from the far end of the room, placing it next to Hawkfrost's desk and sitting in it. “How can I help you?”
“Before we get into this, I need you to know something.” moss began. “If I don't make it out of this room, I've asked Jingle to assume that you are the killer, and to handle you accordingly. Right now, she will be working through the rest of the group, deciding who can be trusted to help take you down.”
“Well that's intimidating,” Darkstar said. A little smile played on his lips as he leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable. “Continue.”
“I'm going to follow through on this morning. Your motives stack up, and you have no alibi for any of the murders we have spoken about so far. You were a leader, so you had direct access to Blizz – once she was gone, you stepped into the role of mayor.” moss said, recapping. Darkstar said nothing, just listened, wearing a condescending smirk.
“It's common knowledge that you and Hawkfrost have a complicated history. Also, he was hot on the trail of Blizz' killer.” moss tapped the pile of papers on the desk. “So it only made sense for you to take him out before he found out something concrete. But your plan backfired. Hawkfrost anticipated his own death.
“Hawkfrost's dinner had allocated seating. He was very careful about who sat where – I am still trying to discern where he would have placed his prime suspects, but I have a theory. Let me revisit that. Altias was placed on a seat which had one leg cut short. The chair wobbled then they reacted to Lightning's glare, which threw Altias' balance and caused them to fall. Underneath the chair was the tarot deck, placed there by the host himself.
“Hawkfrost threw us all a curve ball by forcing us to remain on his property. If it had been HF's death alone, it probably would have been a cold case. Even though I still would have found you suspicious, virtually everyone at this event wanted HF dead for one reason or another. It would have been a cold case. But no, now we were all stuck together, which meant you had to think quick.
“Altias' psychic powers were bad news for someone who was trying to hide something as big as Blizz' murder. One reading with the right question, and we could be onto you in a second. They had to be the next victim, the moment that we all knew we were going to be alone. The killer is someone who knows this community well, and they're taking careful steps to ensure that they're not found out. And who knows the community better than the incumbent mayor of Warriors Wish?” moss asked, pointedly.
“I have–” Darkstar began.
“Wait,” moss said. “The seating. Hawkfrost knew that someone would make an attempt on his life at the dinner. Putting his prime suspects too close to him would be ridiculous, but at the same time he would want them at a distance where he could keep an eye on them. Who has been acting the strangest since we got here? Firstly, you. This aggression and defensiveness isn't like you, Darkstar. Secondly, Splashy. I don't think I've even seen Splashy frown until all of this started happening, and she is absolutely depressed. The third person who has been completely out of character is Lavender. But she had a cold, so I haven't decided to interpret that yet. All in all, Darkstar, every reasonable piece of evidence points towards you. The motive for every murder stacks up if you're the killer. What do you have to say to defend yourself?”
“Splashy is dead.” Darkstar said, suddenly. “I appreciate what you're doing. Occam's razor suggests that I'm the prime suspect. Whether you suspect me or not, you're throwing everything at me to see how I react.”
“Splashy is dead?… wait… how…” moss said.
“It's my turn to speak, detective. Occam's razor has failed you. Lavender can vouch that she was watching me all night, and this morning, a body appeared. I can't be your killer. Jingle even let me come here on my own.” Darkstar stood up, preparing to leave the room. “I'll leave you to start on a new lead, moss. I'm going to go find Jingle and hope that she's found something more substantial.”
Meanwhile, Heat, Dust and Lavender were sitting in the drawing room next to the kitchen. They had fully intended to interview Ann Cleeves (in order to give the butler some space, and because Poe was stark raving mad); unfortunately, this idea hadn't really got off to a good start.
Dust and Heat were fast asleep on one of the tables. Ann had taken the time to sit with them, but was unfortunately not a source of information as far as the murders were going.
“I loved the pigs which my father bought for me. I named one of them Lunch, and the other one Dinner. But almost as fast as they arrived, they had to depart.” She prattled. She had just finished a rant about cutting cows for meat, and had launched into a very disturbing life story. “The master asked me which one we should slaughter one day. We couldn't decide, so we slaughtered both of them. And they were delicious. Also I was six years old.”
Lavender was working her hardest to block the story out. She was having a deeply frustrated day, and Ann's disgusting story was making it worse.
She had instead taken to trying to put together a diagram of everyone present, and their relationship with Blizz. At the centre was a very crude picture of Blizz, as she had appeared during the transition from the old old city to the old city, so many years ago.
Around Blizz' portrait were a group of fourteen circles. Each one had a quick sketch of one of the guests of the dinner party and their name printed underneath. The thirteenth belonged to Hawkfrost, and the fourteenth was unlabelled.
Lavender had left two of the circles blank; one sported her own name. The final empty circle belonged to the unlabelled person.
Lav twirled her pencil around between her fingers for a few moments as reality started to sink in. Most of the people here had never met Blizz. What kind of motive could really stack up? Would they accomplish anything by searching for a killer based on motive, or were they better off relying on circumstantial evidence?
She went to push her hair back, out of her eyes. But as her fingers touched her hair, Lav made herself stop. She placed her pencil on the table, sighed, and leaned back in her chair.
The butler entered the drawing room, interrupting Ann's rant.
“I have made the rooms, and am washing the kigurumis.” They said, flatly. “The Mewtwo girl was kind enough to make her own bed. I've never had a guest do that before.” As soon as they had finished talking, they turned and left the room.
Ann watched them go, sighing sadly.
“Poor butler. They have always had issues with working out their own identity; they've never kept a name for more than about two hours, you know?” Lavender tuned into Ann completely, ignoring the diagram. “The only thing they knew in life was to follow the master's orders. And now he's gone.”
“What will the butler do?” Lav asked quietly. “What will all of you do?”
Ann stared at the door which the butler had left through. Her eyes were thoughtful and sad.
“Buggered if I know.” She whispered. She turned and looked at Lavender, with an uncharacteristic level of sobriety. “You look sad. Are you fighting with your friends?”
“N- no,” Lav squeaked, taken aback. “It's just… everyone is so secretive right now, I don't know what to do or who to trust.”
“Trust everyone until they've given you a reason not to.” Ann said simply. “It's better to give your friends a chance. That will help all of you get through this.”
It wasn't much of a revelation, but it was the reality check she had needed. Lav jumped to her feet and ran to find the group that had gone outside, saying a quick goodbye to the cook. There was only one Wisher who had given her a reason not to trust them, and she was going to expose it.
“I remember this,” Scary said, approaching the gate at the front of Hawkfrost's estate. “Hawkfrost, you sneaky grapefruiter.”
“You've seen this fence before?” Holly asked.
“I think so. If I'm not mistaken, I actually built it for Gloometh in the early days of the old city.” The former mad scientist looked up and down the gate, taking care not to actually touch it. “I'd bet pp that it's the same one, or at least that he used my design.”
“Well can you switch it off?” Fireheart asked.
“I always put an emergency kill switch on my inventions. Sometimes. If I was in the mood.” Scary wandered along the length of the wall, gently tapping the bottom of the gate with his shoe as he went. “But it seems like Hawkfrost has disabled it. The only way this thing will honestly go down is if there's a complete outage of the power supply. And I can't think of a way to make that happen from in here.”
“See if you can come up with something, Scary.” Jingle said. “But right now, I need to tell you there's a secondary reason for me bringing you all here.”
“What?” Lightning asked.
“Right now, our prime suspects are all inside the manor. Darkstar is cleared of Splashy's murder, which is why I wanted him to join us. moss will be interrogating him inside right now, and asked me to arrest him immediately if anything happens to them. Heat has just been acting weird and aggressive – plus, he has a gun. Who brings a pistol to a dinner party?” Jingle mused.
“To be fair, I'm surprised he didn't bring a sword and try to use artes on us all again.” Scary pointed out.
“True. Scary, can you honestly say that you were up and watching him all night?” Jingle asked.
“I…may have dozed off a bit.” Scary admitted, looking embarrassed.
Jingle sighed quietly. “Dust, I can't put my finger on. She's usually so friendly and polite, yet she's seemed really isolated since this all started happening. The only person who can alibi her is you, Fireheart.”
“Uh, oh,” Fireheart looked a bit taken aback. “We found an ouija board last night but we couldn't use it. After that I fell asleep pretty quickly. I don't know, sorry.”
“And yet this morning, Dust looked like she hadn't slept at all.” Jingle said. “As strange as it sounds, it's very possible that Dust was roaming around last night like Splashy was. And finally, Lavender. She said she has a cold, but this morning she seems to have miraculously recovered. Also, apparently she was up all night – yet she looks well rested today. Nobody with a cold could be doing as well as she is. I don't know if I suspect her of being the killer necessarily, but she's definitely hiding something.”
“You're right,” Holly said. “Since none of us are suspicious I guess we should all stick together and vouch for each other, right?”
“Oh… Yeah. Definitely.” Jingle said, unconvincingly. “There is a second reason I asked you all to join me. If things turn bad quickly, I need to know who here is armed.” She looked around the group quickly. Everyone present wore a surprised look on their face. “Lightning? Fireheart? Any blades? Any firearms?”
Fireheart threw her arms into the air, declaring, “These ones right here!”
“Yeah, Jingle. I always bring weapons to fancy dinner parties. This time, I smuggled in a bazooka.” Lightning said. He quickly sneezed, looking a bit awkward. “Sorry, my allergies are playing up.”
“Alright then,” Jingle replied, narrowing an eyes slightly. “Scary? Holly?”
“I'm not armed.” Scary said. “The last time I carried a weapon was… that time.“
“You mean the time Darkstar banned all staplers from existing in Wish City?” Fireheart asked.
“Yes. I would rather not discuss that incident.” Scary looked at the ground, bashful.
“Moving right along then. Holly? Are you armed?” Jingle turned to the last member of their group.
“No.” Holly said, simply.
“Okay.” Jingle turned back towards the mansion, wondering what to do next.
To her surprise, she could see Lavender there, charging towards her.
“Lav? What's going on?” Lightning called out.
“I lied! I'm sorry!” Lav yelled, before slowing down and stopping next to them. She exhaled, and breathed slowly, catching her breath.
“Lied about what exactly?” Holly asked.
“I fell straight to sleep last night. When I next woke up, Darkstar was sleeping and Splashy was gone. I'm so sorry.” Lavender managed to get out, between breaths.
“Wait.. so that means..” Scary began.
“I don't know… what Darkstar…” Lav trailed off, her breath catching.
Nobody said anything for a moment. There was nothing that could really be said.
In unison, the group started to sprint back towards the house.
-
Scar
Ooooh DS gon GET IT!
-
Arcade Heat
this is like a real life mafia
-
rowan
ds is going to be DeStroyed
-
Tom
ds is going to be DeStroyed
lmfao
-
Tom
Lav is currently unfortunately dead irl (doesn't have a functioning PC) sooo I'm posting chapter seven on her behalf c:
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jingle quickly took the lead, running back to the mansion faster than she had ever moved before. She was silently kicking herself for dropping the ball with Darkstar. Despite the fact that she had thought Lavender was a reliable alibi at the time, Jingle knew she shouldn't have let Darkstar roam around on his own so quickly. As soon as the alibi fell over, Darkstar was back to being public enemy number one. She just hoped that moss and he hadn't fought.
Poe opened the front door to the main house as he saw Jingle coming.
“The Diglett has been frozen–” he went to say.
“Thanks!” Jingle called out as she exhaled. She could see the stairs ahead; she slowed down to a jog, taking them two at a time. Behind her, she could hear several sets of loud running footsteps, catching up to her.
“Huh?” Dust called out vaguely, emerging from the drawing room as the Wishers darted past her.
“There's drama,” Heat said, enthusiastically. “Let's go watch.”
Jingle reached the top of the stairs and burst into Hawkfrost's study, finally slowing to a stop, leaning on the door slightly for support.
“Hi there,” moss said, sounding confused, as they looked up from the pile of documents they were sifting through. “This is a really weird time to exercise.”
Scary, Lightning, Holly and Fireheart had nearly kept up with Jingle's pace. The four of them arrived at the study door, stopping to catch their breaths. Heat and Dust were close behind them; apparently Lavender had lagged behind the group.
“Where's Darkstar?” Jingle asked.
“I let him go to re-join all of you.” moss said. “He said he had an alibi for Splashy's murder, and apparently you'd cleared him?”
“His alibi… was Lav…” Jingle sighed slowly as she caught her breath a bit. “Lav was meant to be up. All night. But she wasn't. She told me, she fell asleep.” Jingle's head was hurting. Not just from the sudden twist and the physical exertion, but something else. From the far end of the study she could hear a strange, high pitched noise. It was faint and foreign; Jingle couldn't decipher either where it came from or what it was.
moss stood up. “Where could Darkstar be?” They sounded panicked. “He was meant to come and find you. Has anyone here seen him? And what's that noise?”
There were no replies from the Wishers, but the noise slowly became more and more audible. It was like someone was furiously whispering in gibberish, three octaves too high.
“Okay… First, we need to… Ah,” moss turned to face the source of the noise – the sound of shattering glass filled the room, and the light went out.
The curtains drew themselves tightly shut, blocking all light from entering the room. In response, the door swung shut, leaving Jingle and moss alone in total darkness. Their only company was the screeching noise, increasing in pitch and in volume.
“OPEN THE DOOR!” moss yelled as loud as they could, throwing their hands over their ears. The screech was rattling their skull. They had to get out of the study.
Jingle leaped for the door, fumbling until she found the handle. She wrapped her arm around one ear, closing her hand over the other as she awkwardly turned the handle, pulling the door open.
Everything was dark outside the study as well – the power seemed to have gone out, and all sources of external light seemed to have been shut off. Jingle and moss ran out of Hawkfrost's study; moss slammed the door shut behind them.
The Wishers who had been waiting outside the door had all dispersed. Still confronted by the unearthly screech, Jingle and moss ran for the east wing of the house, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the noise.
As she ran past the bedrooms, Jingle thought she could make out some familiar sounds amongst the vicious high-pitched whispers.
“Appre… ciate…. me…..” hissed the noise.
Fireheart was sick of running. She'd ran all the way back to the house with Jingle and the others; and as soon as she had a moment to get comfortable, she'd had to run again to get away from the terrible noise.
For no particular reason, Fireheart had found herself alone in the kitchen. Although the distance from the study to the kitchen wasn't great, the noise was actually really quiet in here. Fireheart was also surprised to find that the walls of the kitchen were soft and spongy.
Does this kitchen have… insulated walls? Fireheart wondered, trying to keep her mind off the noise. Her fingers traced carefully along the kitchen wall.
Yep. It was definitely insulated. What in StarClan's name was Ann Cleeves doing in this kitchen, which required it to be soundproofed? Was she secretly a bagpipe player as well as a cook and butcher?
Before Fireheart could finish the thought, she felt the floor underneath her begin to shake. Fearing she would lose her balance, Fireheart quickly dropped to the floor, kneeling down. Her mind was going a thousand miles a minute. What was happening? The screech, the shaking, the insulated walls of the kitchen – there was too much going on in this place for her to focus on a single thought.
BANG!
The sound of a heavy tin hitting the ground, coming from the southern side of the kitchen, near the ceiling which sat below Hawkfrost's study. A continuous series of little clicking noises followed, as an uncountable number of little round objects skittered across the kitchen floor.
Curious, Fireheart picked one up – it was cold and smooth in her hand. She lifted it up to smell it. What a curiously strong mint, she thought.
The skittering noises finally stopped, as the mints lay in their final positions around the kitchen. The shaking had slowed down substantially, and was nearly ready to stop.
Fireheart turned around and lay on her back amongst the mints, processing her thoughts, the screech only a distant nuisance.
As strange as it was, the most likely explanation was totally supernatural. If they were to assume there was a connection between the screech, the blackout, the shaking, the mints–
Crunch
From the mints, in front of her.
Fireheart propped herself up a little, trying to see forward in the darkness. She could see an ominous humanoid shape, looming over her. The shady figure was holding some kind of long object. In the darkness it looked like a flagpole.
“Hey there,” Fireheart said, then stopped. “Darkstar? Maybe?”
The shady figure gave no response, but took a slow step towards Fireheart.
“You're kinda creeping me out here.” Fireheart said. “Who even are you?”
Once again, there was no reply from the figure.
Fireheart realised she needed to get past this figure, and quickly. There was a very good chance she was a mere metre away from the killer. It was dangerous, considering the figure stood in the path of the only way out, and considering the chance of slipping on mints. But Fireheart knew what she had to do.
She pushed herself up with her hands, preparing to leap to her feet to make a hasty dash — but the stranger was faster.
There was an intense pain in the left side of Fireheart's chest. She felt her hands falling out from beneath her as the sheer force of the impact knocked her back to the floor.
Fireheart coughed as she fell. Two sensations had suddenly taken hold of her; firstly, the immense, unbearable pain in her chest. And secondly, a terrible awful cold. She wanted to get up, move around so that she could warm up. But it was no use. Her legs and arms weren't responding.
Fireheart coughed again, a metallic taste suddenly filling her mouth. She wanted to scream, but she didn't have the energy. The shady figure stood there, watching Fireheart for a few more moments; then turned, and walked away.
Jingle had managed to run the entire length of the east wing, take the set of stairs at the far end, and double back to the dining hall. The sound had been unbearable upstairs, but was only mildly annoying from here. Jingle figured the best thing she could do would be to prepare for after it stopped. So she had found the kitchen, hoping to acquire one of the candles.
She had lost moss in the east wing. She remembered the detective trying to yell something at the top of their voice; it hadn't been anything more than a distant muffled sound to Jingle, so she hadn't thought much of it, deciding to ask her friend to repeat it once they were in a quieter place.
But by the time Jingle had reached the stairs at the northern end of the east wing, moss had disappeared without a trace. Jingle had no idea where they had disappeared to, but she did know that moss was resourceful, and could look after themself. They would probably meet up again soon.
Entering the dining hall now, Jingle was pleased to find that it appeared to be decorated the same way as it had been the previous day. She found a nearby cabinet and carefully felt along its surface, until she was confident that she was holding a candle.
She picked the candle up from the cabinet, holding it in front of herself confidently. After one long moment, her brain still rattled from the noise. Jingle turned around, unable to see anything clearly. She needed to find some matches or a lighter or something. Then she could get the candle lit and find the others.
Before she could get much further, the screeching stopped. It was completely sudden; there was no diminuendo to match the way the screech had started up. One moment it was there, constantly loud and intrusive, and the next there was absolute silence.
Jingle stood still for a few moments, finding herself savouring the silence. The lights were still gone, so she knew that she would need to find some kind of light for them. But she had no idea where to start looking. The servants would know; perhaps they were the ones to ask if she couldn't find anything.
There was a soft creak, coming from the hallway. Jingle crept across the dining room, trying to get a glimpse of the hallway. What if the noise was Darkstar, lurking around?
The hallway was still mostly obscured in darkness. Jingle found her eyes were growing accustomed to the dark; however, she could still only make out vague shapes. The door from the kitchen was opening, gradually, the creaking noise only just audible. A dark shape emerged from the room, apparently standing still in the hallway.
Jingle froze. This could be anyone. She knew the right thing to do would be to call out, and get their attention. If it was the killer, she may be able to learn their identity. If it wasn't the killer, she would have found at least one of the other guests.
But nothing happened. She just stood still, gripping the candle tightly in her hand, overcome by a wave of intense fear. She tried to stop herself from staring at the dark shape. But still, nothing happened. It was as though she was stuck in stasis. And the worst part was, she felt as though the figure was staring back at her. Jingle tried to force herself not to breathe, willing the stranger to leave her alone and go away.
After what felt like the longest moment in history, the figure darted off in the other direction. Jingle let out a sigh of relief, startling herself by how loud it was. She pulled a chair out from the dining table and sat in it, leaning on the table for support for a moment.
This had been the worst half hour of her life. First the insane sprint, then the revelation that Darkstar was on the loose. Then losing moss, StarClan knows where, and finally being stuck in the dark, unable to move from sheer terror, and staring at some creepy figure who may well have been a serial killer.
It seemed like forever passed before Jingle's attention was suddenly gripped by a light, coming from the far end of the dining room, across from where Hawkfrost had stood during the meal. In reality, it would have been at least five minutes since the figure had departed.
“Hello?” A voice called, timidly – it was Lavender.
“Hi! Lav, it's Jingle!” Jingle replied, keeping her voice low. She stood up, pushing the chair back under the table. She picked the candle back up and walked towards the source of the light.
The butler stood before her, holding a candle of their own – except theirs was lit. Lavender stood a short distance behind the butler, her face unusually shiny in the flickering light.
“I'm Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” the butler said, holding out their hand. For all their eccentricity, the butler was reliable. All of the signs of misery they had shown earlier were gone. “Shall we go and find your friends?”
-
Scar
fireheartxmints
-
Tom
fireheartxmints
[member=55]fireheart[/member] I'm so sorry
-
rowan
i make a return in murderfic, and my second form is a box of altoids
-
tinyfeather
FOREHEAD NO
-
Arcade Heat
#notdeadyet
-
lavender
I'm so excited for the next few chapters :>
-
lavender
CHAPTER EIGHT
The house was eerily silent as Jingle, Lavender, Scary and the butler, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, wandered through its hallways, searching for the other Wishers.
“Hello?” Jingle called out, to the rooms on the northeastern side of the ground floor, past the kitchen. “We mean no harm. I'm here with Lavender and the butler. Come and join us.”
There was no reply. She sighed; this routine had been on repeat since the butler and Lav had joined Jingle in the main hall. So far, they had traversed upstairs once, and had just started wandering through the ground floor, having accessed it via the northernmost steps in the upstairs east wing. They were yet to come across any other Wishers. Jingle was wondering where they should go next, and turned to ask Lavender.
“Hiya,” said Dust, suddenly behind the group. Lavender and Scary turned around, letting out a little muffled exclamation.
“Dust!” Jingle said, keeping her voice low. “How long have you been standing there?”
“I'm sorry,” Dust said, “you were talking and then you seemed very deep in thought so I didn't want to interrupt you.”
“Oh,” Jingle replied. She and Lav glanced at each other momentarily. “Thank you.”
“It's fine. Sorry for scaring you,” Dust said.
“Have you seen anyone else?” Lavender asked Dust.
“Not since before the blackout,” Dust confirmed, sadly. “I've been trying to keep to myself a bit… I'd hate to run in the killer.”
“True,” Jingle said, then lowered her voice. “I think I saw them.”
“Where?” Scary asked, glancing around the group quickly, as if on lookout for the murderer.
“When I was standing in the dining room.” Jingle said, nearly a whisper. “This strange humanlike figure walked out of the kitchen. I think… I think they were looking right back at me.”
“Creepy,” Scary said, crossing his arms. “So who could have been in the kitchen back then?”
“I don't know.” Jingle said. “moss was upstairs with me about two minutes before, so I want to say it's not them. But it could be anyone.”
“Grapefruit it.” Lavender muttered.
“Hey Lav,” Scary said. “Your cold sounds much better today.”
“I feel fantastic.” Lav said, her voice dripping with irony.
The small group continued through the ground floor, via the dining room. They found Lightning in there; he had heard their voices and was trying to find out what was going on.
“Have you seen anything strange?” Jingle had asked.
“No.” Lightning had replied, simply.
Lightning followed them as they entered the drawing room which allowed entry to the kitchen, attempting to flick the light switch, and then clicking his tongue in annoyance. The room was so eerily dark; the light from the candle wasn't strong enough, and the furniture around the room cast strange shadows.
There was nothing to see in the drawing room, and no more of the Wishers were hiding out there. Staying silent, Jingle and the butler took the lead in wandering into the kitchen.
The butler emitted a high pitched scream and dropped their candle, causing the room to fall into darkness.
“What's going on here?” moss demanded, moments later. They had been summoned by the butler's scream, and had entered the drawing room, proceeding to the kitchen as the butler managed to relight their candle.
“That is so gruesome,” Scary said. He, Lav, Lightning and the butler promptly left the kitchen. Dust stood completely still.
moss silently looked around the kitchen, trying to work out what had happened.
Fireheart's unmoving body lay in the middle of the kitchen, amidst a pool of fresh blood. Surrounding her, were a splendid array of little mints.
“Fireheart was outside of HF's study when the lights went out, right?” Jingle asked quietly.
“Yeah.” moss confirmed.
“So… the killer did this when the lights were out, somehow.” Jingle observed.
“Excellent point. They must have had some kind of light source, and probably something better than a candle.” moss said, turning to face the Wishers in the drawing room. “We should see if anyone here has a torch [flashlight] or something.”
“Hello, hunties!” Heat called out, storming into the drawing room. He had acquired another bottle of tequila; a Don Julio Real. While this was nowhere near the calibre of the tequila Heat had found the previous night, it was still leagues above the stuff they served in Ww's usual hangouts.
After taking a couple of steps into the room, Heat staggered and tripped theatrically, the tequila flying across the room.
“Are you okay?” Scary and Lightning said in unison, both crouching down to help Heat up. Lav and the butler looked on, concerned.
“Does my hair look okay?” Heat asked, still face-down on the ground.
“Probably.” Lightning admitted, as he helped the drunken Wisher back to his feet.
“Can I have everyone's attention?” moss called from the kitchen. Scary, Lightning, Heat, Lavender and the butler turned to give the detective their undivided attention. Jingle and Dust stood behind moss, still in the kitchen.
“What's up?” Heat asked.
“Fireheart is dead. We found her body in the kitchen, impaled through the heart.” moss began.
“One had some heartache,” Lightning recited, “and then there were nine.”
“Right.” Jingle sighed.
“On her body, were two items. Firstly,” moss held up a little purple card. “It says 'she wasn't a firejerk after all.'” moss crumpled the piece of card in their hand, and then threw it aside. “Secondly,” they began unfolding a piece of paper, old and yellowed like the others. Reading carefully, they recited the contents of the note.
“What does that even mean?” Lavender asked.
“I don't think we can afford to spend too long thinking about it,” moss pointed out. “Right now we need to find the others. Butler, can you please find Ann and have her preserve Fireheart's body for further investigation?”
The butler hesitated. “I can,” they began. “But are you sure it's a good idea?”
moss looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
The butler hesitated again. “Never mind.” They rushed out of the room, hurriedly.
“I think I should keep doing research in Hawkfrost's study.” Jingle said.
“Are you sure that's a good idea?” moss challenged.
Jingle turned to moss, speaking quietly. “It is. You should see if you can get everyone back together, so that no more murders happen. But if we can find something in Hawkfrost's notes in the meantime, we might be able to work out who is behind this.” Jingle reasoned.
“But it's dangerous for you to be alone.” moss pointed out.
“There has to be something in Hawkfrost's research we can work with.” Jingle said. “Besides, this could be the best chance either of us have to work uninterrupted. I'll lock myself in the room, and I won't leave until you come back for me.”
moss looked like they wanted to argue further, but they didn't. After a few moments of silence they sighed and conceded.
“Fine,” moss said. The butler returned to the drawing room with Ann Cleeves close behind. She let out a disappointed sigh and made a comment about the mess in her kitchen, before setting to work on cleaning up the mints about Fireheart's body. “Butler?” moss asked.
“Michael Connelly, at your service.” The butler replied.
“Can you accompany Jingle to Hawkfrost's study? Please lock the door once she is inside, and return the key to me.” moss instructed. They sounded worried, but they were still able to control an authoritarian tone.
“Certainly.” Michael Connelly confirmed. They signalled for Jingle to follow them, holding their candlestick high.
Jingle followed the butler as they led her out of the kitchen, and though the drawing room. As Jingle left, she couldn't help but notice Dust holding a handful of the little mints which Ann was working to clean up. Dust was staring at them, lost in thought.
“I didn't want to tell the detective.” Michael confessed, as Jingle arrived in the study. “But I have no idea where the key to this room is. Please promise you won't run away.”
Jingle glanced at them, slightly skeptical for a moment. But the butler's face was a mask, totally unreadable; whether they wished Jingle any ill will was impossible to decipher. They just stood there, holding their candle and waiting for her reply.
“Okay.” Jingle said. “That's fine.” She knew how to take care of herself, even if something did go wrong.
“Great. Here is a candle.” Michael withdrew a candle from somewhere behind their back, carefully lighting it with their own candle. Jingle accepted it, carefully placing it into a convenient candle holder situated on Hawkfrost's desk. “Good luck, Jingle.” The butler said quietly, pulling the door shut.
Jingle watched them go, feeling strangely haunted by the butler's farewell. She shook her head, forcing her mind to clear. She needed to hunt for clues.
Jingle sat at Hawkfrost's desk, squinting to read the page of messy handwriting in front of her. It seemed to be a series of notes by Hawkfrost. From what she could gather, it was about portal research, and written entirely in the first person. She had to angle the candle and really squint to read it properly. Before getting much further, Jingle decided to abandon the scribbles and take a look around the study.
It was a spacious room, but mostly empty. Two massive book cases filled the far end, stacked full of unsorted tomes. These ranged anywhere from high fantasy, to physics textbooks, to murder mysteries, to seemingly ancient bundles of paper, bound together flimsily.
Across from HF's desk, a single picture frame hung from the wall. It contained a picture of Blizz, from all those years ago, back in the original town.
Jingle held the camera up, looking at her. She didn't recognise the background at all, but young Blizz was unmistakable. She was staring just past the photographer, a smile on her face. But as Jingle focused harder on the picture, something felt slightly off. It was as though Blizz' smile was fake – and not even a very convincing fake. She didn't understand why HF would be hanging this photo, out of all the photos of Blizz.
She forced herself to stop trying to make sense out of the photo, turning her attention instead to the old book case.
The lighting was still very dim, and the spines of the books were hard to read clearly. Jingle held her candle up close, taking care not to hold it too close to the old brittle paper.
Something caught her eye.
On a shelf slightly above where Jingle was looking, there was a book, leaning slightly crooked against the paperback to its left. The book to its right was a solid hardback novel, which was able to stand upright with ease. The hiding place was simple, but very effective.
Jingle pulled out the leaning book, a small crumpled note coming with it. She placed the book – a copy of Agatha Christie's Then There Were None – on HF's desk.
She unfolded the little piece of paper, slightly surprised to find that it was actually three pieces of paper. She began to read the first one.
Jingle forced herself to stop reading here. The note was very heavy, and extremely personal – she felt a pang of guilt for everything that had happened to their host. His demise had been untimely.
Still distracted by thinking about Hawkfrost, Jingle turned to the other pages in the bundle.
There were two, fully typed and printed on much newer paper than HF's handwritten note. It was a thesis by the late Splashy, entitled “The Properties of Those Portals That Appear and Make People Go Missing”.
Curious, Jingle placed the thesis on top of Hawkfrost's desk, planning to try and read it later. But in the short term, her eye caught something else.
A little purple envelope, just like the one Hawkfrost had used to blackmail them into coming to the dinner. Jingle picked it up, her heart beating quickly.
The envelope wasn't sealed. She glanced inside, and found a little piece of yellow cardboard. On it was a messily handwritten note:
I left everything I know about her in the attic, above my bedroom, past the servants' quarters.
Jingle considered this for a moment. On one hand, the note was pretty sketchy, and wandering around on her own was a bad idea, even if the door to the study wasn't locked. But on the other hand, Hawkfrost's study didn't seem to contain any meaningful information about Blizz' murder. It made sense for there to be some other information. And now, while the lights were out and everyone was distracted, was the perfect opportunity for her to sneak into the servants' quarters and test the validity of this claim.
If Hawkfrost was right, and the killer was among them, then there was a strong chance that they were with moss at this moment. The only wild cards were Darkstar, Holly and the servants. But the first two were in hiding, and at least the butler and the cook were running errands for moss, only minutes ago. On the balance of probabilities, nobody in the house would have had enough time to sneak into the servants' wing.
Jingle had made her decision already. She was going to sneak in.
The servants' quarters were similar in layout to the guests'. There were a series of rooms assembled along the walls. At the end of the wing hallway, however, was a wall with two massive doors, painted light blue. Hawkfrost's room, Jingle know immediately.
She carefully pushed one of the doors open. The suspense of the moment and the age of the house had made her assume the door would creak. It didn't.
HF's room was a bit of a surprise. The walls and ceiling were painted light blue, in Hawkfrost's usual style. There was a gigantic king bed, complete with technicolour fluorescent bedsheets. The room was also void of all furniture, save for a few tall coffee tables, which were all covered in picture frames.
She picked a frame up by random. It was a picture of the butler, in black and white. There was no mistaking them. They were smiling, and shaking hands with a man.
Jingle felt like she had seen the other person in this photo before. He was an older guy, wearing a suit, with short dark hair and a formidable moustache. He was also smiling, but in a wry way, his nose turned up slightly.
Casting her eyes over the rest of the frames, Jingle realised something. Every single photo was of the butler, in virtually the same position; shaking hands with someone. Some were black and white, some were full colour. The butler shook hands with people of all races, ages and genders. She turned the photo in her hands around. On the back, was scrawled 'ACD. 29th June 1930.'
She carefully placed the frame back down on the table. She didn't know what was going on, but there was no way the butler had aged 85 years since that photo was taken. Jingle decided she would talk to moss about her findings and see if they could make any sense of them. Turning to survey the rest of the room, Jingle found a little hatch in the ceiling, a ladder leaning next to it. She took a deep breath.
The attic was dark, eerie and covered in bugs. The floors creaked as Jingle walked across them, and she couldn't shake the foreboding feeling she had.
“Hello?” She whispered. It was more of a formality than much else. The attic was almost empty.
Except for one corner. She could make out two silhouettes.
One seemed to be a piece of furniture under tarp.
The other was humanoid, but unmoving. It, too, appeared to be covered in tarp.
“Hi?” She called again, a little louder. The tarp person didn't reply.
“It must be a mannequin,” Jingle resolved, slowly creeping towards it.
Before unveiling the tarp, Jingle decided to test her theory.
The shape still hadn't moved, and it resembled a mannequin more and more.
She had worked up enough courage. Jingle reached out to touch the mannequin–
–and screamed, as a hand grabbed her wrist.
-
lavender
A/N: SURPRISE, ANOTHER CHAPTER!!!
CHAPTER NINE
moss watched as Jingle and the butler left the drawing room. The butler turned and closed the door behind them.
They turned to face the rest of the small group; Lavender, Scary, Dust, Lightning and Heat stood around the drawing room. With the exception of Heat, they all looked very sombre and worried.
Heat, the obvious exception, was craning his neck to try and see into the kitchen. He was being detailed by Lavender and Lightning, who were apparently disgusted that he even wanted to look at the body.
“What's wrong with you, Heat?” Lightning asked, pushing Heat away from the kitchen. “Why do you even want to see the body?”
“It's my goal in life to kill somebody!” Heat snapped. “I need to see how the killer has done it!”
“Comments like that make me think that maybe you're the killer.” Lightning replied, suddenly icy.
Heat stopped trying to get into the kitchen. He took a step away from the others, apparently recoiling.
“Rude.” He said.
“Just think about it. Your only alibi for Splashy's murder is Scary, who admitted he fell asleep.” Lightning pointed out.
moss sighed, irritated that all of their alibis were suddenly crumbling.
“Sorry–” Scary offered.
“Don't even say it,” moss said. “I'll just assume nobody is reliable.”
“Then after Fireheart's death, you take such a long time to re-join us.” Lightning continued. “Where have you been, Heat?”
“Stealing alcohol.” He said. “Obviously.”
“From Hawkfrost's stash? In the room just past the dining hall?” Lightning asked, pointedly.
“Yesss,” Heat replied, drawing the word out.
“Then why didn't you reply earlier? We were there and calling out for people.” Lavender interrupted.
Heat didn't reply for a few moments. “I didn't hear that.” He said, cautiously. “When were you there?”
“A little while after the power went out.” Scary said.
“Nope, I am pretty sure I was there the whole time.” Heat said.
“Well, you weren't.” Lav snapped.
“Please,” moss interrupted. “This is going around in circles. Heat, why–“
There was a loud creaking noise from somewhere upstairs. It didn't sound close enough to be coming from the servants' quarters, but it was definitely somewhere up there.
“So either the staff are wandering around,” Dust whispered. “Or it may be Darkstar or Holly.”
“Jingle must be in the study by now.” Scary said. “Was the butler meant to come back after he saw her there safely?”
“I don't know, but I think so.” moss said. They paced over to a table in the room and put down the candlestick they were holding. They reached behind their own back, calmly drawing a police issue Glock pistol. It wasn't their weapon of choice, but they'd been known to carry it around on police work.
“WHAT.” Heat exclaimed.
“There are a few things wrong here.” They said. “But before we can address them properly, we need to get Jingle, Darkstar, Holly and the staff. The only way we can sort this out is if we get everyone together again.”
“Should I ask Jingle to come back?” Dust asked.
“No, let's give her some time to study. Jingle is safe in the study. She's the least of my concerns right now.” moss looked deep in thought as they checked their weapon over. “Do any of you know of any light sources we can use? Something better than these candles?”
“I have a torch in my bag upstairs,” Dust said, after nobody replied for a few moments.
“What would we want fire for?” Lavender asked.
“What do you mean?” Dust asked back.
“Torches… Like those sticks with fires on the end?” Lightning asked.
“Torches… Like those things with LEDs in them.” Scary clarified.
“Flashlights.” Lightning sighed. “Some people just refuse to speak proper English.”
“Go and grab that,” moss instructed, cutting into the banter. “Then, come back to this drawing room and wait for everyone. If you see anything suspicious at all, shine some light on it and yell as loud as you can what you're seeing.”
“You want me to go alone?” Dust asked.
“Scary, Lightning, Lavender and I need to split up and search for the servants and some other light sources. As long as we all follow that rule, it will be fine.” moss said. They turned to address the group, and reiterated, “If any of you see anything strange, at all, don't be afraid to yell. Let us all know where you are, and what you're seeing. Okay?”
“Sure,” Lightning, Scary and Lavender agreed.
“What about me?” Heat asked.
moss took a moment to consider him.
“Yeah, you should search on your own as well.” moss said.
Holly watched, as the dim light appeared at the other end of the guests' wing. She didn't dare speak out loud, but she silently cursed herself for her actions.
Why had she panicked and run off on her own? Why had she insisted on retrieving the weaponry hidden beneath her mattress? Why didn't she want to be around the rest of the group? Holly couldn't answer any of these questions, not even to herself. This was why she insisted on never making decisions.
But there was someone coming. It seemed like they had a candle. Soon they would be able to see her.
Fumbling a little, Holly grasped the handle of the door she was standing next to. She turned it and slipped into the room, leaving the door ajar so that she could listen to whoever was out there.
The stranger was walking the length of the guests' quarters. Holly could hear their slow, casual footsteps. Otherwise, all was silent. She pressed herself up to the wall, keeping as quiet as she could.
The person in the hall had stopped at one of the doors. Holly heard them slowly turn the handle and open their own door. There were a few moments of silence before the stranger took another step. After a few more moments there was a light thudding noise.
“Ouch,” a female voice said quietly. “Sorry, wall.”
Holly would have recognised those mannerisms anywhere. It was Dust LeCornflake. Holly considered calling out — under normal circumstances, Dust was a friend. But she forced herself not to. Curiosity had gotten the better of her.
Treading lightly, Holly slipped through her ajar door. She kept her back against the hallway wall, carefully tiptoeing towards the room where the light from Dust's candle was emanating. She peered through the doorway, half expecting Dust to be staring straight back at her.
She wasn't. Dust was on her knees at the other end of the room, rifling through a backpack. The other Wisher pulled an object out of it, slipped the object into their pocket, and then stood up.
Holly moved swiftly away from the doorway. She had panicked, and hoped she hadn't made a sound. Holly had once been an employee of a museum, and from time to time had indulged in the practice of sneaking around after closing hours to mess around with the nightguards. She hoped all of the practice would pay off.
Dust hadn't given any sign that she'd heard Holly. Holly took this as good news, and quickly maneuvered herself back into the room she had occupied before. She heard Dust leave the room and head back towards the stairs at the northern end of the house.
Holly's curiosity was about ready to explode. This was totally out of character for Dust. The other Wisher was usually so reserved and polite — sneaking around in the dark? That wasn't like her.
Holly left her room again, acting less cautious this time. She entered Dust's room, still not able to see properly, but making her way to the place where the bag had been. Holly reached out to prod it with her foot, and was pleased to find Dust had left the bag exactly where it was.
She kneeled down in front of the bag, feeling out its general shape. Dust had zipped it back up before she left.
Holly unzipped the bag, holding it open before herself. She squinted as hard as she could, trying to make out some of the items in there, but it was no good.
Curiosity had killed all apprehensions. Holly slowly lowered one of her hands into the bag, feeling out the items in there.
She could feel a few pots of ink.
Several sheets of seemingly old, crumpled paper.
One ink pen, which seemed to be a relic of The Quills writing group of the old city.
“What the grapefruit,” Holly whispered.
Lavender felt as though she'd been walking around forever. She had mostly focused on downstairs; specifically the dining room and the stores in the corner of the house where Heat had found Hawkfrost's stash.
Lav had to admit she was sick of opening drawers, holding her candle up and squinting, then closing doors. There had to be something more productive she could be doing.
She sighed and sat back in a chair, considering giving up on the room she was in and just returning to the drawing room. Obviously Hawkfrost didn't keep many decent backup lights around the house. The butler was probably the best person to talk to.
A thudding noise interrupted her thoughts. It sounded like it came from the northern parts of the house.
Lav didn't think much of it. Somebody had probably dropped something, or accidentally bumped into something.
But she had a bad feeling. Something was really unsettling about this entire situation, and the thud noise could have been part of it.
Lav held up her candle and left the small storage room, tiptoeing towards the dining room.
She tried to peer through the far door, but the light wasn't enough. Lav quickly traversed the dining room, emerging out the other door to the area where the stairs were.
Lav looked up, her candle illuminating faintly illuminating the body which was hanging from the first floor. She screamed as loud as she could.
Only moments later, most of the remainder of the occupants of the house appeared. Dust and Scary had appeared out of the kitchen, Dust holding a flashlight and Scary still wielding a candlestick. Lightning and Heat appeared from the stairs only moments later, with moss hot on their trails.
“What the Place of No Stars is going on here?” Lightning asked, before glancing up. “Oh… Oh no.”
“Jingle…” Lav said, her voice too shaky to continue. A thick silence descended on the group. One by one, all eyes turned to face moss. They were the one who was meant to meet Jingle in the study.
moss was absolutely silent. Their face was an emotionless mask. But as soon as they spoke, anyone could detect the sheer anger in their voice.
“Before we talk about this, there's something I've wanted to check since we got here.” moss reached into an inner pocket in their coat, and pulled out a small purple envelope. “This is the envelope which I received inviting me to this dinner party. Enclosed also was a short article which would condemn me for murder. In the old city, I erroneously shot an innocent Wisher who I believed to be an arsonist.”
The guests gasped in unison. None of them had heard anything about this before. moss' reputation as a detective was flawless. They had never had a case they couldn't solve, and they'd never gone for the wrong person. This changed everything.
“Well, we all know what was in my envelope.” Heat said sourly. “Somehow they actually found a picture of me not looking good.”
“Lightning. What else was in your envelope?” moss continued.
Lightning sighed, heavily. “Since we're sharing,” he said. “I've also taken justice into my own hands on one occasion. This newbie showed up a couple of months ago, and he just wouldn't stop punning. So I ended him. I did the right thing.”
“That's the worst crime,” Scary groaned.
“I agree. Puns are good.” Lav squeaked.
“Well how about you, Scary?” Lightning asked.
Scary looked bashful. “They've got all the secrets of SkypeClan.” He paused. “All of them.”
“Okay, you can stop there.” Lightning said quickly.
“What's going on here?” a voice called from the top of the stairs. The group turned and saw the butler, Ann Cleeves and Poe, all descending the stairs in unison. The butler was holding an impressive candelabrum.
“Isn't it obvious? And where have all of you been?” moss asked, snapping. Their calm façade was crumbling rapidly.
“We were in our quarters,” Ann said, quietly, looking up at the body. “Freshening up.”
“At the same time?” moss asked, a droll tone to their voice.
“Is there something wrong with that?” Ann retorted.
“Ugh. Dust, what does your letter say?” moss continued.
“Um…” Dust began. She looked at her feet. “It was back in the old city. One day I was in a huge hurry to get to a really urgent meeting, and I was running through a hallway in this company's building, and,” she took a slow breath. “I bumped into this poor lady, and I was in such a rush I never got the chance to apologise. She's on her deathbed, and the blackmailer has found her, and they're going to tell her everything.”
“For anyone else, that would be the worst lie ever.” Lightning observed. “But… I actually believe it.”
“Lavender, what does yours say?” moss asked.
Lav stood silent, a look of disgust and disdain on her face.
“Lavender. Now, please.” moss said, their voice firm.
“I don't have one.” She said.
“What are you talking about?” moss asked. “We all–“
“I wasn't invited to this stupid dinner party.” Lav pulled off her hat and threw it aside. She put her hand up to her forehead, and quickly removed the blonde wig from her head. Pink hair sprung out in its place. “I'm Tiny. I have been the whole time.”
-
Scar
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!?!
-
Splashy
WHAT HAPPEN AHHHHHHHHHH
-
Arcade Heat
What the fuck
-
Tom
WHAAAAAATTTTTT
-
Scar
WHAAAAAATTTTTT
You knew about this
-
Tom
WHAAAAAATTTTTT
You knew about this
Ahh you got me
-
Scar
Tiny be like
-
Tom
Michael Scott is me :'(
Sorry scar. At least you can sign up for all the others c':
-
Scar
Michael Scott is me :'(
Sorry scar. At least you can sign up for all the others c':
Oh I wasn't saying that about me, I meant that that's what I imagined Tiny being like since she was all “I wasn't invited…” lmao
-
Tom
Michael Scott is me :'(
Sorry scar. At least you can sign up for all the others c':
Oh I wasn't saying that about me, I meant that that's what I imagined Tiny being like since she was all “I wasn't invited…” lmao
Omfg
I missed the inclusion of “Tiny be like” hahaha
I'm so blonde -
Scar
It's okay, most kangaroos are lmao
-
Tom
…that's true
I'm cry -
tinyfeather
Tiny be like
TRUUUUUUE i'm laughing so hard
i called this from the beginning bye bitches
-
Tom
If anyone knows Tiny's character being written by me… it's Tiny.
-
Jingle
JINGLE NO :'( I was so young, so pure…
also omg I'm so interested to see where this is going, so many mysteries
-
Holley
I read it!!! and the torches part, and the heat part about the picture…..lol
-
Tom
Omfg I'm so happy you read it!!! (and enjoyed it
) -
lavender
It was the first day of December — an even colder first of December than usual. A thick layer of snow had descended upon Wish City (with the exception of Scary's house, which was an unfortunate perpetual desert). A sharp, chill wind tore through the streets, freezing any Wisher who dared walk through it to the bone.
But even the most oppressive winter could not stop the citizens of Warriors Wish from participating in one of their greatest pastimes. For today was not just the first day of December. It was the last Poke-the-Blizz-Day of the year.
Wishers all over were poking their former leader with an assortment of items. Real items or imaginary items; sharp objects or fluffy kittens; someone had even tried to poke her with the power of imagination. But it was to no avail. Blizz was unresponsive no matter what kind of pokes they threw at her.
That was, until this very Poke-the-Blizz-Day. In an underground laboratory outside the city of Wish, one solitary researcher stood, a vial of dangerous-looking liquid in one hand.
“At long last, I've done it!” They said, before allowing themselves a moment to cackle maniacally. “The world shall be mine!” They thrust the vial upwards, in a triumphant pose–
–and gasped, as it disappeared into thin air.
Little had they realised, their excitable reaction had formed an official Blizz-poke. It had formed one Blizz-poke that would change the world forever.
In another country, a long way away, there was a massive desert, which stretched across the continent.
Sitting in the middle of the desert was a single, unmarked grave. It was made of stone, but the constant sand and wind had eroded it beyond any kind of recognition. Nothing living had come near the grave for some time — even the animal inhabitants of the desert tended to leave this inhospitable area alone.
But today was different. The sand in front of the little stone began to shift. After a moment of being dispersed, it began to sink, as though there was a hole in it that now needed to be filled. Overwhelmed by the excitement, the little grave marker toppled over.
One hand clawed its way out of the grave, attempting fruitlessly to grip the shifting sands. But regardless of the challenge, the hand continued to struggle. Its owner was tenacious, and they weren't about to go back to sleep.
They were filled with a righteous vengeance.
They were ready to find the one who had killed them.
HALLOWEEN SPECIAL
In the present day, at Hawkfrost's mansion, things were a little bit less spooky.
Ann Cleeves was in the kitchen, as she was known to be, preparing a meal for that evening. The focus of the meal was a gigantic horse's head, which had proved surprisingly difficult to prepare. But Ann was up for the challenge. There was no dead thing she couldn't cook.
As she contemplated how to get rid of the mane, she heard the door of the adjacent drawing room creak open. She looked up, carefully placing her knife down.
“Hello?” she called out, stepping out into the doorway. A very pale woman with dark hair was in front of her, walking slowly towards the kitchen. Ann couldn't help but feel that she looked familiar. “Have we met before? Would you like to join us for dinner?”
“Mmmm…..” the woman said, staggering towards the kitchen. The poor thing looked rather worse for wear.
“How would you like to sit down?” Ann suggested. “I can get you a glass of water?” The woman continued to slowly lurch towards Ann. “Tequila?” She suggested.
Suddenly, and long before Ann could react, the woman leapt towards Ann, arms flying around the cook's waist. Ann let out a surprised gasp, as the stranger brought her face around to Ann's neck, taking a deep bite.
Ann screamed, excruciating pain coursing through her entire body. She tried desperately to push the woman off, but it was no good; this stranger had an iron grip, and their attack on Ann's neck was relentless.
After attempting to struggle for a while, Ann finally conceded, beginning to lose consciousness. The stranger let go of the cook, allowing her to drop, and slowly staggering towards the deep freezer room Ann had been using to stash the bodies.
“No…” Ann said, quietly. “You couldn't possibly be…” But with her last moments as a living human, Ann knew it was true. She was the woman from the photographs around the master's house.
She had just been mauled to death by Blizzardclaw, the former mayor of Warriors Wish.
Tinyfeather was outside of the mansion house, in the formal garden. She was sitting on the fountain, staring blankly into the waters.
What a mess this has ended up being, she thought, watching her reflection in the water. She couldn't believe that just earlier today, Splashy's body had been found in this fountain. Splashy, one of her oldest friends and writing colleagues. Splashy, one of the most successful writers and one of the most cheerful citizens of Warriors Wish, gone in an instant.
Tiny was struggling to understand how this could all be happening. Not only were bodies appearing left right and centre, but the drama had caused a vicious divide between the survivors. Even amongst those who she had considered her closest friends, Tiny had no idea who she could trust.
She forced herself to look away from the fountain, her mind floating back to the present. She had more important things to do than reminisce about the past. She had to find it… and soon.
Tiny stood up, and prepared to walk back to the house.
But she wasn't alone outside.
In front of her stood a girl with dark hair, wearing a Diglett kigurumi. Her skin was as white as snow, and her hair matted. Her eyes were white. Dead eyes.
“Splashy…” Tiny said, standing up. “Are you Splashy's ghost?” The ghost didn't reply, but slowly walked towards Tiny. A faint smile played on its lips as it closed in on her. Tiny felt a wave of joy rush through her. Splashy's ghost had come to visit her — she couldn't be sure of much, but she definitely knew that there was no way Splashy was a bad guy. She stepped forward to give her late friend a hug.
But Splashy moved faster. As Tiny approached her, the recently deceased Wisher sprung forward, tackling Tiny to the ground, making a beeline for her neck.
Tiny had let her guard down from excitement at seeing Splashy's ghost return. She knew that she should have been prepared for a situation like this, but the sudden movement had taken her so by surprise.
“You're not a ghost at all…” Tiny said, kicking and trying to tear Splashy off her. “You're a grapefruiting zombie!”
“Raahhh!” Splashy groaned in agreement, her teeth leaving Tiny's neck for a moment. Tiny seized the opportunity. She pulled away from Splashy, pushing the zombie's body away from hers. It wasn't successful. The bite was deep, and Tiny was losing blood fast. She couldn't gather enough strength to get up and run.
Tiny had one option left. It was risky, but she thought she had enough energy to at least try.
As Splashy came for her again, Tiny twisted her head, sharply. A fresh gush of blood poured from her neck, saturating the ground as she made the movement. It was too much for her. Tiny crumpled to the ground, feeling her life fading away.
With her last moments, however, she was glad to see her idea had worked. She had been working on the art of winged eyeliner refinement for years, and it had paid off. Her eyeliner was finally sharp enough to kill a man.
She watched as Splashy's zombie stood up, slowly. The zombie's smile had faded, and was replaced with a sad frown. Tiny watched as her former friend's zombie's head slid, apathetically, from her shoulders. Tiny closed her eyes, knowing that she had spent her final moments well.
Heat was watching the scene unfold from the front door of the mansion house, his eyes wide with shock. He held his pistol in his hand; he had been loath to try and take a shot for fear of hitting Tiny. Either way, he had only put his latest bottle of liquor down a few moments ago. Even Heat himself was dubious of his ability to hit a target like this.
Zombie-Splashy staggered for a few minutes, before she seemed to realise what her situation was. She stood still, her shoulders turning one way and then the other, as though still trying to see out of eyes that were no longer attached. Seemingly defeated, Zombie-Splashy reached into her pocket. She withdrew a creampuff, and placed it on the top of her neck.
“What the grapefruit,” Heat whispered, raising his pistol. He fired — missed. Again — missed. Again — missed. “Son of a blueberry.” He said, throwing the gun aside. Heat turned, deciding it would be best to find someone else and ask for help.
But there was someone behind him. It was Altias, but not as Heat had known them. Although still furry, they were angry, even fluffier than usual, and had gigantic teeth and big red eyes.
“Zombie-Altias!” Heat yelled. He reached into the scabbard at his waist, drawing a rapier.
“Fight me.” Growled Altias.
Not long after these events, Hawkfrost's guests had assembled in the dining room. The two doors which allowed entry to the room had been shut, with chairs wedged against the handles so that nobody could enter.
“So, can you please explain what's going on here?” Sorrel asked. She had arrived with Cheetah only minutes before the Wishers had locked themselves in the dining room. The two of them had got wind that there was a party at Hawkfrost's place, and had decided to invite themselves. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of detail about the nature of the party.
“I watched Zombie-Splashy kill Tiny.” Heat said, still holding his rapier. Both Heat and the blade were covered in blood; Heat had a small scratch on his face, but otherwise the blood didn't seem to be his. “I tried to stop her, but I couldn't. So I came to get help, but then I was attacked by Zombie-Altias.”
“Who was suddenly hairy with red eyes and big teeth,” Lightning double-checked, forcing himself to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.
“Yeah! But they weren't a werewolf. We're dealing with the zombie apocalypse here, not the werewolf apocalypse. Try and keep up.” Heat continued. “Zombie-Altias leaped at me and I drew my sword and I managed to fight them off! But they got me. Just one little bite.” Heat pointed to his face.
“So you're going to turn into a zombie?” Holly asked. She and Darkstar had each respectively decided to come out of hiding as soon as they'd heard that the zombie apocalypse was going on. It was a really bad time to be wandering around a strange house on one's own.
“No, I'm not turning!” Heat explained, excitedly. He placed the rapier back into his scabbard. “And I have a theory.”
“And the theory is…?” Dust asked.
“Alcohol.” Heat said, simply. “It's simple. The alcohol I've consumed is causing the zombie virus to flow around my body more slowly. That's how science works, you see.”
“I think we can trust him.” Cheetah pointed out. “Heat is a tomato for science.”
“Well then, I have some excellent news.” The butler signalled to the bar cart which they had abandoned in the corner of the room, after the dinner party the night before. It had a sheet drawn over it. Anyone would have assumed it was empty. “Beneath that sheet are two dozen bottles of Fireball Whiskey. Please, help yourselves. It's for a good cause.”
Drinking straight from the bottle, it wasn't long before Dust, Darkstar, Scary, Lightning, the butler, Sorrel and Cheetah were absolutely intoxicated. Heat had tried to down some of the Fireball Whiskey, but the combination of his earlier drinking and his fight with Zombie-Altias had left him uncharacteristically tired. Instead, he sat at the table as the rest of the group drank.
Only three of their company had refused to partake in the drinking. moss had politely declined, apparently cynical about the actual benefits of being excessively drunk in this situation. Holly had also turned down alcohol, commenting that she was well below the legal age. Poe had been a bit of a surprise; when asked if he would like a drink, he had simply said, “No thank you. I haven't had a drink since that one time Darkstar strictly illegalised all staplers from Warriors Wish.”
Scary took a moment to stare at his bottle. The label depicted a red dragon against a golden background, the word “FIREBALL” stretched across the top.
“I sure wish Scartail would ride in on her mechanical dragon about now,” he mused.
“What was that?” moss asked.
“Oh, nothing.” Scary said.
Poe was sitting next to Scary, staring sadly into space. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. Under his breath, he quietly mumbled about staplers.
“Hey, Cheetah,” Heat said, turning to face Cheetah. Cheetah, for her part, completely ignored him. “Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah,” he continued, refusing to stop.
“Heat, can you just leave her alone?” Sorrel asked.
“Cheetah, Cheetah, Cheetah,” Heat continued, not responding to Sorrel's request.
Darkstar stood, abruptly, banging a large spoon against his bottle in an effort to get everyone's attention. The chatter around the table slowed down, and everyone turned to face him.
“Everyone in favour of lynching Heat, please raise your hand.” Darkstar called out. Everyone in the room raised a hand, except for Holly, moss and Heat himself. Holly and moss exchanged a glance, shrugged, and then also raised their hands.
The lynching had been done. Nobody was particularly proud of what they had decided to do, but they'd all agreed that it was for the good of the town. There were a few moments of solemn silence, but they were broken not long after they began.
“Hello there, I don't believe we've met!” The butler declared, grabbing Holly's shoulder. Holly turned around, awkwardly offering the butler a hand. “I am the mighty Stephanie Meyer.” The butler said. “The greatest horror writer to ever walk this earth.”
Holly's face went pale. She couldn't even think of a response to this.
“I need to get out of here. This room is insane.” Holly said. She approached the door which lead towards the front of the house, and kicked the chair out of the way. She pulled the door open and stepped outside–
–and Zombie-Blizz was onto her, before any of them could even say “mandarin”.
“Run!!” Dust yelled, pushing the chair out of the way of the other door. Zombie-Blizz was still making a meal out of Holly, but it wouldn't be long before she was finished, and she would be chasing them through the dining room.
“Hey Blizz, can I have some prey points?” Cheetah called out. “For ThunderClan!”
Blizz dropped Holly's body, and stood up slowly. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, but it didn't help to clean the gore. On the contrary, it caused a massive red smear across her face, giving the former leader a terrifying visage.
“My only prey now is you.” Zombie-Blizz hissed.
Not even Cheetah was brave enough to mess with a zombie who was making comments like that. Everyone left in the room sprinted through the far door.
Poe had taken the lead. The gardener ascended the staircase two steps at a time, making for the guests' wing. “There must be something up here we can use as a weapon!” He explained over his shoulder as he ran. Nobody had any better ideas, so they generally agreed that following him was sensible.
The Wishers found themselves standing in the guests' wing of the mansion house, unsure of exactly where to go next.
“Where do you suppose we can find weapons?” Lightning asked Poe.
“I don't know. I hadn't thought that far ahead.” Poe confessed.
“Wait here for a moment.” Scary said. “I have an idea.” He took a few quick steps across the hall, entering the room he had spent the night in. A few moments passed before he re-emerged, holding an impressive set of coat hangers in his hands. “They may not look like much, but you'll be surprised.” He said. “These things have been known to be useful in fighting off other species' apocalypses.”
As he triumphantly held up his prizes, the door of the bedroom behind him swung open. From inside, appeared the zombie of Ann Cleeves, armed with a gigantic cleaver.
“Scary, watch out!” moss yelled. Scary turned to see the cook lift her tremendous cleaver over her head. The moment he saw this he made a 180 turn, preparing to sprint away.
“ZOMBIE-ANN CLEAVE ATTACK!” Zombie-Ann screamed, bringing the cleaver down in a rapid chopping motion. Scary didn't have long to react, but he seemed to have accepted his fate of death by Zombie-Ann' cleaver. He flung the coat hangers towards the group of Wishers — the final ones left his hand as the cleaver struck him in the back, sending him sprawling to the floor.
Dust leaned down and picked up a coat hanger as Zombie-Ann leaned down to start snacking on Scary's corpse.
“Dust, leave the coat hangers.” Cheetah said. “Scary watches too many stupid movies. He doesn't know what he's doing.”
“Oh… Okay.” Dust said. She dropped the coat hanger, and the group of them ran back towards the staircase, away from Zombie-Ann Cleeves.
“Maybe we should go outside!” Stephanie Meyer suggested as they reached the landing at the top of the staircase. “I can't think of anything else to do. There's probably just as many zombies out there than there are in here, but at least there's more space out there.”
“That's actually fairly sensible,” Darkstar conceded. He was wearing a cone on his head.
“How can you talk about sensibility when you have a cone on your head?” Lightning asked.
“Please, Jayce,” Darkstar said, an authoritarian tone creeping into his voice. “We don't have time for these kinds of questions.”
“Let's get out to the garden,” Poe said, agreeing with the butler's sentiment. He ushered them down the stairs again, moving quickly.
The group had been expecting to see Zombie-Blizz down here, ready to destroy them all. They had been ready for a fight. They had been ready to do anything to survive. But Zombie-Blizz wasn't in a fighting mood anymore.
Zombie-Blizz and Zombie-Hawkfrost were standing against a wall, embracing each other and locked in what looked like trying to consume each other's faces.
moss couldn't help but stop at the bottom of the stairs, strangely captivated by the sight before them. The rest of the group ran around moss; but Dust had stopped, and turned to face them.
“moss, are you coming?” she asked.
“I… I know I should.” moss said, staring at the lover zombies. “But for some bizarre reason, I just can't look away. Help me. Please.” Dust continued to stare for a moment, unable to decipher the situation.
Eventually, she decided that they would be better off with moss than without them anyway. Inspired by a strange rush of assertiveness, Dust grabbed moss by their coat, and pulled them towards the front door of the mansion.
“Thank you,” moss gasped, “you saved my life.”
“Don't mention it,” Dust said. “Like… please. I don't want to know what just happened.”
The two of them exited the house, and re-joined the rest of the group outside. As they stood among their fellow wishers, Dust and moss realised that they had just walked into the beginning of an epic Wishers vs. Zombies showdown.
In a tidy row before the group stood Zombie-Cream-Puff-Splashy, Zombie-Altias (who they could now clearly see was definitely a werewolf, and not a zombie), Zombie-Heat who had literally become a Ninetales, Zombie-Fireheart, Zombie-Holly who had dressed in a Santa suit, Zombie-Jingle who was dressed as a snowman, and Zombie-Tiny, who had managed to remove the winged eyeliner from her face, and was holding it like a boomerang.
Before the combat could start, the clouds above them formed into the shape of three faces. Slowly, they became more vivid, the faces taking on appearances of their own. Leafpool, Sunneth and Pine looked down on the Wishers from the sky.
Taking it in turns, Sunneth, Pine and Leafpool made some kind of speech about realising who the Wishers were, and returning to their place in the Circle of Life. Everyone was busy with other things so they didn't pay it much attention.
Zombie-Heat glanced across the group of survivors, ignoring the mods in the sky. “One…” he counted. “Two… Three…”
“Stop counting, immediately!” Lightning yelled, his voice booming. Dark clouds formed overhead, and there was a crack of thunder. Zombie-Heat politely stopped counting, for the mod had posted.
Next to Lightning, Poe raised a hand. A glowing green circle appeared around him, with a red shape tracing itself into the ground beneath him. Before long, Poe was standing in the middle of a green-and-red pentagram. “HAIL SANTA!” exclaimed the gardener. A scythe materialised in the air in front of him, sporting the same Christmasy colouration of the pentagram on the ground. As he gripped the scythe, the pentagram rapidly faded.
Stephanie Meyer took the cone from Darkstar's head, turning it upside down. From within the cone, they withdrew a pump-action Remington shotgun. “I am George Romero,” the butler declared. “Prepare to die, zombies.”
For her part, Sorrel began to float slightly above the ground. A brilliant aura surrounded her, and glorious wings appeared from her back. As the sole surviving founder of SkyClan, it was only fitting that she had literally turned into an angel.
Dust raised her hands, whispering in the sacred language of her people (not the Welsh). Almost immediately, the mighty collection of dust from Hawkfrost's mansion house obeyed her summons. As a collected entity, the dust smashed open the front door of the house, swarming out into the formal garden and accumulating in a gigantic cloud above Dust's head.
“I think we're about ready to kill these zombies.” Lightning said. But this wasn't the case. Following the dust's exit from the front door were two more zombies: Zombie-Scary, who was dressed as a spoopy skeleton and followed by a little raft of ducks, and Zombie-Ann Cleeves, who was holding her now-bloodied gigantic cleaver.
“Hey, Darkstar,” Cheetah asked, suppressing a giggle. “Don't you think that spoopy skeleton outfit looks nincompoopish?”
“I do,” Darkstar agreed.
“Would you be so kind as to ban Scary for nincompoopery?” Cheetah asked.
“It would be my pleasure.” Darkstar said. He held out his hand and a banhammer materialised out of thin air. He raised it up to take a swing, but suddenly–
There was a loud clang from the middle of the formal garden, in the area between where most of the zombies were, and where the living Wishers stood.
A trapdoor had been opened, from which another Wisher was emerging. Nobody present could quite believe their eyes. She wore a lab coat, and carried under her arm a pumpkin with an angry face carved into it.
“Lavender?” moss asked. “For real this time?”
“Ye, it me!” Lav exclaimed. “I know this situation seems dire, but I have a solution. I've been working in an underground secret lab on Hawkfrost's estate, to develop a serum which would give Wishers superpowers.” With that, she pulled a small inhaler from the lab coat she was wearing. “Leave it to me, I'll take these zombies down.” Lav promptly proceeded to inhale the mysterious substance from within the inhaler, before throwing it to the ground, turning to face the zombies in a fighting pose.
There were a few moments of intense silence, as everybody awaited Lav's superpower serum's activation. Even the zombies were still with anticipation.
Gradually, the air in the formal garden was filled with a peculiar scent. At first it was hard to place, but as it became more potent, it could be described as… purply. Fruity, crisp and clean. A little uplifting and fresh, even.
Lav stood in silence as this took place, before turning back to the living Wishers.
“Turns out my superpower is smelling like lavender.” She said, awkwardly. “I withdraw that comment I made about taking these zombies down.”
The zombies emitted a tremendous roar, and began to charge. Lav made a quick run to join the living Wishers, avoiding being caught in the zombies' charge. But before she could quite make it, there was a loud whirring sound. Lav saw a winged eyeliner boomerang whiz past her head, narrowly missing her. She dropped to the ground as the boomerang came back around, turning herself just in time to see Zombie-Tiny catching it.
“That was close, Zombie-Tiny. You almost forced me to damage my pumpkin.” Lav stood up, serious mode engaged, and carefully picked up the pumpkin.
“Sorry,” Zombie-Tiny shrugged. “Brains.”
“Pumpkins don't even have brains!” Lav protested, as her former friend hurled the winged eyeliner boomerang at her again. Lav decided to change up her approach. Rather than avoiding it and risking harm to her pumpkin, she summoned all of the powers of positive smell she could muster. Forming them into an invisible, lovely-smelling wave, she forced the scent-energy back against the winged eyeliner boomerang.
It worked. As Lav channelled her powers, the boomerang halted in mid-air, before dropping uselessly to the ground.
“What–” Zombie-Tiny began. “I mean, brains?!”
Lav held up her pumpkin in one hand. “That's the power of science.” She said, before hurling the pumpkin at Zombie-Tiny. It was mutually assured destruction. The pumpkin was defeated, but so was the dangerous zombie. “Goodbye, my friend. And my pumpkin.” Lav whispered.
Not far from where Lav was, Darkstar turned to face Zombie-Scary and Zombie-Ann. He was relieved to see Zombie-Ann had been distracted by someone else and was walking away — that was a fight the modmin did not want to have.
He turned to face Zombie-Scary, raising the banhammer.
“Are you ready to die?” Asked Darkstar.
“No,” sighed Zombie-Scary, as the banhammer was swung into him, turning him into a smouldering pile of ashes. Darkstar looked down at the ducks who had been following the zombie Wisher.
To his relief, they appeared to be perfectly normal. He crouched down in front of them, gently petting one. “Be safe, birb friends.” Darkstar said. “But do not cross me again. We must all remember the pecking order.”
The ducks nodded in agreement, and waddled away, quacking. Darkstar called after them, “I hope the rest of your life goes swimmingly!”
Behind Darkstar, Lightning was preparing to face off against Zombie-Heat. He had been momentarily concerned when Zombie-Heat and Zombie-Splashy had approached him at the same time; however, luckily, moss had appeared in the last moment, clinging to Zombie-Splashy and rendering her powerless.
Zombie-Heat raised his rapier, groaning wordlessly at Lightning. Lightning smiled; this kind of zombieish threat was nothing to him.
A bolt of lightning came forth from the dark clouds above, striking the middle of the formal garden. The flash was so bright that for a moment, nobody could see a thing. There was a loud clap of thunder as Lightning's vision refocused; Zombie-Heat had been struck by the lightning, exactly as intended. That was one zombie down.
“Zombie-RiverClan… avenge…” moaned another zombie from behind Lightning. He spun around to see Zombie-Fireheart, walking towards him, her clothes drenched in blood from her recent demise.
“Do you think you can beat me?” Lightning asked, confidently. “I can keep striking you Zombies with lightning all day. Time to cook you like the fish you are.”
Once again, a bolt of lightning leaped forth from the clouds above. But there was more at play, which even Lightning himself was not aware of. His unintentional pun had severely crippled his lightning powers; this bolt was nowhere near as strong as the one that had defeated Zombie-Heat.
Zombie-Fireheart angled her head upwards, opening her mouth as the bolt of lightning came down upon her. The zombie consumed the bolt of lightning in one gulp, its power enriching her fiery heart. After the following clap of thunder, Zombie-Fireheart lowered her head again, smiling wordlessly.
“Oh, mandarin,” Lightning whispered. Zombie-Fireheart opened her mouth, allowing a tremendous column of fire to escape from her throat. The fire-breathing zombie made short work of Lightning. As she turned to re-join the fray, the dark clouds above slowly dispersed.
Meanwhile, angelic Sorrel was channelling her holy powers to use upon Zombie-Holly, wearing a Santa suit. Holly was simply standing there, smiling, ready for whatever was coming.
“Why aren't you terrified?” Sorrel demanded. “My angelic powers will destroy you.”
“You have miscalculated, Sorrel.” Zombie-Holly said, coldly. “Angels exist for Christmas, and right now, I am Santa Claus. The god of Christmas.” With that, the Spirit of Christmas floated out of Zombie-Holly, its size absolutely overwhelming for any normal angel.
Unfortunately for Zombie-Holly, she, too, had miscalculated. Although the Spirit of Christmas had been enough to defeat Sorrel, she hadn't been watching behind her. Cheetah (aka. The real Holley) tapped Zombie-Santa-Holly on the shoulder.
“There can be only one Holl(e)y,” Cheetah began. All of the windows of the mansion house suddenly exploded outwards.
“What?” Zombie-Holly asked, looking scared.
“Hehehehehe,” Cheetah continued, an extremely vicious edge to her giggle. Zombie-Holly looked physically pained, as though every giggle was a kick in the chest.
“Stop, please stop,” Zombie-Holly begged, as the Spirit of Christmas withdrew back inside her Santa suit, attempting to defend herself. But it was no good, the vicious giggles were too strong.
“HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE,” Cheetah giggled, in a tremendous crescendo.
Zombie-Holly emitted a scream unlike anything from this world, as the Spirit of Christmas fled from her, terrified of the onslaught of giggles. Without its fortifying powers, Zombie-Holly herself was powerless. She crumpled to the ground, slowly melting back into the earth.
Once the zombie was well and truly gone, Cheetah looked down at the space where she had been.
“And now,” she said, “I shall reclaim my true secret name. I shall henceforth be known as Holley. The one and only.”
Not far from this scene, Poe was engaged in a fight with Zombie-Jingle. Zombie-Jingle had been materialising snow balls and throwing them at Poe, who had responded by attempting to swat them away in mid-air with his scythe. He had alleged that he was allergic to snowballs, and that this was grossly unfair.
But this had been going on for some time now, and Poe had gotten into the rhythm of swatting away the snowballs, avoiding where necessary. He had hoped to reason with Zombie-Jingle, but it seemed that this was out of the question.
“Quid quid…” he began uttering, between snowballs. “Latinae… dictum set… altrum sonar…”
“Brains,” said Zombie-Jingle, throwing more snowballs.
“Vir prudens…” Poe swatted one away. “Non contraventum…” He swatted another. “Mingit!” He resumed his rhythm of knocking back snowballs, but the world was changing around them. It was suddenly night, and the moon was gigantic. But the size of the moon was not the most disturbing part. The most disturbing part was, the moon had an eye on it.
The sky had turned red. It began to rain. Zombie-Jingle continued to throw snowballs.
“MANU,” Poe said, his voice booming with a deep, unearthly tone. “MANDUCARE,”
The earth split from beneath Zombie-Jingle, briefly interrupting her snowball hurling. She looked down to observe the phenomenon, as a gigantic hand leaped forth from the crack, dragging her into the ground.
“Fear the power of broken Latin,” whispered Poe.
Zombie-Ann had continued her walk away from the mansion house, seeking out a particular target. That target had fortunately been busy trying to help others with their own respective fights (though, regrettably, without much success). That target was Dust LeCornflake.
“Brains,” said Zombie-Ann. “Maybe liver and rump. No vegetables.”
“Even in death, you're still like this.” Dust said, sighing sadly. She summoned all of her dust particles around her, ready to face the cook's almighty cleaver.
But Zombie-Ann had another trick up her sleeve. She dropped the cleaver to the ground, and reached behind her back. Her arm reappeared, holding a gigantic dustpan and broom. Zombie-Ann drew the broom from the dustpan, wasting no time in hurling it towards Dust.
Dust tried to use her dust as a shield to defend herself, but it was no good. The broom cut through it easily, making a beeline directly for her. She closed her eyes as she saw it coming.
As the dust dissipated, so too did the Dust. Zombie-Ann allowed the dustpan to drop, retrieving her cleaver from the ground.
Zombie-Altias was viciously attacking the butler, their claws unsheathed and their teeth vicious. Poe's alteration to the sky had proved beneficial to them for some bizarre reason; they were now more powerful than ever.
The butler wasn't able to get enough time to get a line of sight and fire off a clean shot. It was annoying them. As George Romero, they were meant to be the master of zombies. But there was something about Zombie-Altias that was just unstoppable.
And then it clicked. They were the wrong type of horror writer, and Zombie-Altias was the wrong kind of zombie. They weren't a zombie at all. They were a werewolf.
The butler cursed themselves for leaving their silver bullets in the lavatory.
“Everyone, follow me!” Poe's voice interrupted. The butler and
Zombie-Werewolf-Altias both turned to give him their attention. The gardener was standing at the top of the trap door Lav had appeared through, pointing down.The butler and
Zombie-Werewolf-Altias looked at each other again.Zombie-Werewolf-Altias smiled, before bolting for the gardener and the trapdoor.But the butler was ready to react — they brought up their shotgun, firing it, hitting
Zombie-Werewolf-Altias square in the back.It wasn't a killing blow, but it bought the butler enough time. They ran to where
Zombie-Werewolf-Altias had fallen, standing over them and holding their shotgun at the ready.“You guys go on without me,” George Romero said. “I'll hold off the zombies here.”
“No worries, dude.” Poe said, as the rest of the Wishers climbed down through the trapdoor. George Romero held the shotgun up until the door was finally closed. The zombies had slowly accumulated around their general vicinity, but none of them had dared cross George Romero.
But now, they were done. They were out of bullets anyway, and there was no way they could take on this many zombies. The butler threw down their gun, holding their hands in the air.
“Congratulations,” they said. “You win, I'm yours.”
As the last surviving Wisher scrambled into the door in the middle of the formal garden, Poe pulled it shut overhead.
Standing in a small, confused group were moss, Darkstar, Holley and Lavender. Everyone else was gone. And judging by the loud banging noises coming from the door above their head, the zombies had no intention of letting the five survivors go, either.
Poe reached the bottom of the small ladder, joining the rest of the group. It was pretty hard to see, but everyone was reasonably satisfied that they were alone down here.
Suddenly, fluorescent lights illuminated the room they were in. It was a small laboratory, exactly as Lavender had promised. Lav stood against one of the walls, her hand lingering on the light switch there.
“All of this is my fault,” she said, hoarsely.
“Zombie apocalypses happen,” Holley assured her, “Don't blame yourself for it.”
“No, literally, I'm pretty sure I brought Blizz back from the dead and started this whole thing.” She wandered to a large container, which was filled with spoopy bubbling green liquid. “This is a potion which should bring the dead back to life. A few days ago–on the first of December–I thrust a vial of this into the air triumphantly. And I think I poked Blizz…with the afterlife.“
“Oh.” Darkstar said. “In that case yeah, this is your fault. And you're probably crazy.”
“I'M NOT CRAZY!” Lav screamed, throwing her arms around in the air. “Look at all this science. Could a crazy person science this much?”
“That's beside the point. Why would you even need a zombie potion?” moss asked.
“It's just so difficult to make a few pp around this place.” Lav sighed, wistfully. “I thought if rich people turned into zombies, I could raid them forever and nobody would notice. So far, it's going well.”
“I tried asking Zombie-Blizz for pp,” Holley reminded her, “Nothing about that ended well.”
“Oh. Oh yeah.” Lav turned her attention from the group of survivors back to the potion. She waited for a few moments before punching the workstation in front of her. “Science is so beautiful,” she whispered, a tiny tear rolling down her cheek.
“Okay, I know we've had some differences,” Darkstar said to moss, quietly. “But if Lav goes insane, I recommend we all team up and kill her.”
“I'm here too, I can help!” Holley said. moss and Darkstar continued their discourse, not replying to her.
“You're right. We've spent too much time bickering over virtually nothing; right now, we need to have each other's backs. A crazy scientist–” moss said.
“Guys, I don't feel so good. One of the zombies bit me, but I thought alcohol was meant to slow it down…” Holley said. She quietly sat on the floor.
“–is much more dangerous than any one zombie. Scary and Gloometh alone have proven that time and time again in the old city.” moss continued.
“That's true.” Darkstar confirmed. “Alright, first, we kill Lav. Then, you, Poe, Holley and I can find a way to save the rest of Ww from the zombies.”
moss went to reply, but they couldn't. Suddenly, Holley had leaped back to her feet, biting the detective's neck viciously. moss screamed and attempted to push Zombie-Holley back, but it was no good. Her grip was like iron.
Darkstar summoned his banhammer again, not sure what to do. Holley and moss were locked in a nomming combat. Lav was staring at her work station, and had begun to slowly giggle, occasionally mumbling the word “science”. Poe was standing on the other end of the room, silently watching all of this go on.
Darkstar didn't have enough time. He had to do what he could to save Ww from more mandarin like this. Without thinking through it too much, he hurled his banhammer at Lav.
The newly-mad scientist didn't even have enough time to acknowledge it. One moment she was standing at her desk, mumbling about science; the next, she was a smouldering pile of ashes.
Darkstar resummoned his banhammer, ready to take on the remaining zombies with Poe's help. He spun to face Zombie-Holley and Zombie-moss.
But they were no longer aggressive. The zombies simply stood there, side by side, watching him in silence. Poe remained on the other end of the room, watching Darkstar wordlessly. Darkstar took a wide berth of them, walking towards the gardener.
“Poe, do you know why they're suddenly so peaceful?” Darkstar asked.
Poe reached to his belt, and drew an old fashioned revolver. Before Darkstar could even register what was happening, let alone react, the gardener fired twice, hitting the modmin in the chest and killing him.
“A job well done, zombie friends.” He said to Zombie-Holley and Zombie-moss.
“Thanks,” Zombie-Holley and Zombie-moss said in unison. “Brains.”
Poe turned to face the reader. Yes, that's right. You. He smiled, and swiftly removed the mask which was covering his face — which had been covering his face all along.
Beneath was a face which many Wishers would recognise. It was a face they had seen on news shows months ago, and in their nightmares since. It was the face of the one-man epidemic. The scourge of Warriors Wish. It was the face of Crook.
“Happy Halloween,” said Crook. “Hail Satan.”
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fireheart
i'm screaming this is so good
i cant believe i have shoop da woop powers
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Scar
That was amazing thank you for blessing us with this wonderful piece of literature
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Tom
thank you so much for reading it, guys
and congrats on getting the whole way through :') -
tinyfeather
i demand a refund
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Tom
link=topic=247.msg45410#msg45410 date=1446337994]
i demand a refundtechnically, we paid you.
so your refund is -1000 prey points, payable to skyclan.
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