Chapter 1.1

[Penchant]

Mirabelle beams and it almost seems as if the shop gets brighter with her smile, "Oh, that would be lovely! Yes!" She bustles over and gets a bouquet of white lilies from a vase in the corner and wraps them in paper. She lays them gingerly on the counter. "Oh, and the potion!" She goes to the same box the first one came out of a produces a second bottle with red liquid in it. She sets the bottle on the counter next to the flowers. "If you can put the flowers on the grave, I would be happy to give you a partial refund on the potions. The name is 'Donner'."

[Cairo]

ImpBiscuit

A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head.

Biscuit hands over the stones she owes Mirabelle before proceeding to stow her purchases in her massive pack. While doing so she watches the exchange between Mercurius, Ludwig and Mirabelle with a small smile. She finds it fascinating that someone would choose to play a shopkeeper in what must be some kind of an adventure game. She could totally see herself doing the same, though perhaps with a bakery.

But Ludwig promised he'd teach her the game and he seems intent on playing an adventurer, so adventuring it is! Besides, shopkeeping's a long-term commitment and Biscuit's here for just a short while. Best to make the most of it!

Slipping her comically large pack on her back once more she waves goodbye to Mirabelle and heads out. She waits at the doorway for the other two to follow.

"That was a thoughtful idea Ludwig. The flowers, I mean. Where to next?"

 

[rorytheromulan]

 

<Mercurius>

"I'm waiting to get to the combat trainer, but how about we all visit the fortune teller next? She could offer us some hints. And who knows, she might be as bugged as we are?"

OOC:

[Penchant]

The party leaves Mirabelle's shop and huddles to figure out what to do next. The players stick together as a group instinctively rather than breaking and going off in different directions. At Mercurius' suggestion you all head over to the Fortune Teller's place. This is where Olwin is supposed to be.

You find the place and it is a strange combination of a wooden structure and pavilion tent. It's as if it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a Victorian house or a gypsy tent. The tent part has a second story. It has it's 'Whimsical' stat turned up very high. The sign out front has a crystal ball emblazoned on it.

 

The front door is beautiful stained glass with witches and cats playing in the moonlight. As you open it, a little bell above the door rings to announce your presence. The interior is has all the whimsy you could imagine. It's as if a clock shop and an antique store barfed up at a Spirit Halloween. Every bit of the walls and every table has something interesting to look at that is a bit edgy and creepy and yet nothing over the line. Somebody spent a lot of time working on this. As you circulate around the room, nobody comes and so you peek behind the curtain leading to the main area.

 

---

 

Inside the room is darkened, lit only with candles and glowing firefly lanterns. The walls are lined with purple curtains tied with golden sashes. In the center of the room is a round table with chairs set around it and a single high backed chair covered in purple velour. On the table is a massive crystal ball set in a brass clawed pedestal and arrayed around the table are the accoutrements of fortune telling. And you see Olwen.

 

She is very... very dead. There is a massive spear piercing the table that oozes a black smoke. The spear is holding Olwen's body up in the air protruding downward through her chest and sticking upward from her back. She hangs there completely still except for one leg that convulses and shakes as it is glitched into the table. Her eyes are open wide in surprise. There is no blood and the words 'Olwen the Fortune Teller' hanging above her head glitch in and out of existence.

 

[rorytheromulan]

 

<Mercurius>

As soon as he registers the body, Mercurius "oohs" at the spooky atmosphere, at first treating it like a murder mystery written into the tutorial.

"Nice, I like it when a game isn't afraid of exploring dark themes... Oh. Her leg's glitching out."

OOC: Uh-oh, I don't think this is part of the tutorial.

Edited March 6 by rorytheromulan (see edit history)

[Cairo]

ImpBiscuit

A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head.

The sight of the dead woman with an unnaturally twitching leg drains all color from Biscuit's face - not that she had much color there to begin with. She clearly doesn't share Mercurius' nonchalant attitude towards the fortune teller's gruesome fate.

"Nice..? How is this nice?" she questions in a soft voice.

Disturbed by the scene of murder, Biscuit nonetheless steps into the room and starts slowly circling it trying to keep her distance from the corpse. She swallows hard as she gets a better view of how the massive spear impales both Olwin and the table.

"Can we help her somehow? Ludwig? What can we do?"

She glances back at the person who promised to teach her more about the game. Well, here's a teachable moment.

[Trigun]

Ludwig's expression was somewhere between Mercurius' interest and Biscuit's pale shock. "Even if the game let us save her, we can't. It's too late. Still, we need to find out what happened in here and let the others know, especially Kaori. If this somehow triggers an event where people assume it was us, we need her to vouch for us. But more important right now is to inspect the room for clues. Especially since Olwin's clipping through the table itself. Clipping's a term when a game character clashes with game furniture, it's not supposed to happen which is a sign of some faulty coding and such. Anyway, I'm gonna turn on my Quirk." The sage declared, using the game's function where choosing a quirk gives them an extra ability and downside. For him, Curious was one he liked to use since in past versions, he got more items, xp and lore doing so, but also triggered more traps that killed him just as much. He still chose it for his character since it was a beta and he wanted to find what was new with this update and there was the fact he also missed playing this game and Luis had a lot of fun using Curious. So the sage began exploring the room immediately to search for any clues.

 

Action: Using Curious quirk to immediately discover a single, hidden thing if it exists.

[Penchant]

Ludwig's attention is drawn to the spear itself. It looks like it's all metal with no polish or finish on it. It still has the forging scale on it which is a by product of the heat and typically cleaned off by the smith. There appear to be runes stamped into it but obscured by the finish. Instinctively, he rubs some of the scale off to better see the rune and pulls back in pain. Pain. Actual, tactile discomfort. He looks at his hand and the same rune appears as a scar on his palm. The pain fades but he can still feel the scar.

 

Ludwig has gained the Affliction: Cursed! A little symbol also appears next to his name above his head.

[rorytheromulan]

 

<Mercurius>

Alerted to the prospect of being found and mistaken for the murderer, Mercurius moves toward a curtain and tries to access his abilities and use Easily Overlooked. Shouldn't it be a passive? Even if it is working, who would it hide him from?

"Do you think whoever did this might come back? They just came in, murdered an NPC, had a panic and then ran off? Or, what if they're nearby?"

OOC:

[m3owdy]

Cleo Cleopatra

"Oh, nice."

Once again, Cleo is craning their neck into the tent from behind the rest of the party, not having heard much of their discussion as she makes a blithe comment.

Sigh. The Rai-Neko looked behind her to see if their tutorial NPC was still in tow. Maybe, this was all intentional, some kind of meta-setting about the players saving the game itself. Just maybe.

She hoped Kaori had enough SAN left, if that was even a mechanic implemented into this version of the game.

"Hah, Tana, how's your Passive Perception?"

If anything, this little catgirl has way better hearing and sight than I do i-r-l. I haven't seen this well without glasses. I can hear the butterflies beat their wings. I'd be surprised if we were caught off guard by anything trying to approach us...

 

[Cairo]

ImpBiscuit

A Chib woman with platinum blonde hair, dressed in an elegant, white bell-sleeved romper with lavish copper-colored cuffs and details. She wears boots in a similar style, a white stocking only on her right leg, and a three-tailed dark blue cloak. For jewelery she has a four-pointed obsidian star pinned to her hair and a copper circlet floating above her head.

"Oh..."

Ludwig's explanation of the situation dampens Biscuit's hopeful energy that there might be something they can do to help. At the same time it's a timely reminder of the fact that this is, indeed, just a game. Olwin the fortune teller is not a real person, regardless of if prior to her grim fate she was played by a fellow human or not - a distinction Biscuit continues to have trouble making.

Perhaps recognizing that difficulty and wanting to play it safe Biscuit steps up to the dead fortune teller and lays a hand on her other, still leg, treating her with the respect she'd deserve if she was a fellow player. And also not twitching like mad.

"I'm sorry we couldn't help you Olwin. I wish you could tell us what happened here?"

---

OOC:
Biscuit doesn't realize it but she's inadvertently activating her Dread Orator quirk. If Olwin's been dead less than a day, by placing her hand on her Biscuit can ask her two questions and she will answer truthfully.

..in which case I'll also need to make an Aura Check - success! No negative quirk consequences.

[Trigun]

"Ma@%$!#$ sea la madre!" Ludwig cursed in Spanish as he pulled his hand back in pain. "That freaking hurt!" He added, not noticing the implication of what he had just said out loud to the rest of the group. The sage was more focused on his right hand, noticing the scar left on it. The pain passed soon and he let out a sigh of relief. "No one touch that spear. The murder weapon is pure metal, with none of the polish nor finish most weapons tend to have. It still has the forging scale with the addition of some runes. Needed to rub off some of the scale to see the rune better which was a bad idea. That really hurt.... ...wait, it hurt?" Ludwig finally caught on to what he had just said. His hand hurt, felt actual physical pain, or at least tactile discomfort. The sage also realized he had said this out loud, meaning the other players had probably caught on to the implication as well. As he raised his head to place a palm on his forehead in disbelief, he noticed the small symbol besides his name. "...Did I just get a status ailment from touching those runes?"

[Penchant]

At Biscuit's touch, Olwins body spasms. "I died". Her head swivels unnaturally to face Biscuit with lifeless eyes. "I was murdered. My soul damned to hell for what I might have said. He whose name is written up on my heart slayed me for the sight he gave me. I'm damned, you're damned... We're all damned here."

[rorytheromulan]

 

<Mercurius>

Although he would like to comment on Ludwig's knowledge of metalworking, Mercurius doesn't have long to be impressed with it, before Biscuit causes the dead to speak. An eerie feeling that something isn't right comes over him again, but different from when he logged in. An NPC who, by his own experience, is meant to be unkillable, has been killed and is now speaking to them via a quirk meant to target creatures and objects part of a "dead" faction within the game's files. He had set a high bar going into this game. He wasn't holding his breath, but the game had cleared that bar in more ways than one already, and Kaori had been suspiciously silent for a while. Is she still catching up to what they're seeing? Would she?

"A-ask--You should ask her to describe the killer, next. I think we might be able to guess who it is, though."

OOC: If Kaori isn't actually there, mb.

[Inquisitor D]

"Err..."

Kaori hasn't wanted to intrude on the party's visit to the fortune teller, so she'd been lingering at the back. But finally, she makes it into the tent and sees... something she'd never expected to witness first hand.

"This... can't be right. It's a trick, right? An illusion?"

But no. This isn't a trick. One of the people of Cherubim, wonderful, safe Cherubim is dead. Is this what she'd felt earlier? Why things felt wrong? If the town wasn't safe anymore... then it wasn't the same town. It was in danger.

A part of Kaori is nagging at her: she needs to help, to intervene, call someone. Do something! "I... I..."

She can't get the words out. What do you do in this situation? What do you say? Kaori falls to her knees and starts to sob, bawling her heart out. There's no dignity or grace to it, she's loud, distraught and can't even see the poor dead woman's face through her tears. "I'm so sorry, Olwen! I should've stopped this. I..."

No more words. She can't: trying just makes her cry out, a gutteral, off tune snarl. Anger, sadness, fear: everything's a mess. Kaori's gasping for breath, but even that's not enough to get her feelings back under control. For now, she sits on the ground. The host has for the first time forgotten her guests entirely.