CARDINAL

[teamposts]

[When the shadows clear, your team stands unharmed in a fancy bedroom. There are sharp knives, similar to the ones in the ghost you just saw, scattered throughout the room. They are stuck fast in the walls, the ground, the bedposts, no amount of force can pull them free. The sheets of the bed are soaked in blood.

Over on the dressing table sits a jack-o-lantern that lights itself once you look at it, smoke rising from the flame into the shapes of people, acting out the scene of a memory in the room.

A young woman is getting ready for the ball, dressed in her very finest silks with her hair being styled neatly in place. The little girl doing her hair, perhaps ten years old, fumbles her fingers. She tugs on the hair slightly, dislodging some clips, and the woman starts screaming at her. ‘Clumsy little oaf!’. The girl is kicked out of the room, the young woman insisting on doing it herself and muttering about useless staff. After a moment of this there’s a flash of light that streaks toward the bed. The woman jumps up, startled, and investigates what happened. There is a knife stuck in the bedpost. Several more flashes of light appear behind her and she turns, horrified, to see them all aimed at her. She tries to scream, and the smoke disappears abruptly as all the knives come hurtling towards her.]

Light the lanterns.

Comments

RULES

[teamposts]

[A murder has occurred, and it’s up to you to solve the mystery of who the murderer is. The victim has sent you to recover her lost memories so that she may exact revenge upon her killer. However, the killer is not going to make it that easy. The rules are simple! Travel through the castle, get past the killer’s obstacles, and discover the memory to unravel whodunit. There will be roughly 3-4 rooms depending on timing.

It’s possible for your character to skip a room without facing the monster out the door they came, but that means you won’t get the memory and the victim will be mad at you. You only get ONE SKIP, if you try a second time she will attack.]

START

[teamposts]

[Opening the door does not take you to a hallway, as you would expect upon leaving a bedroom. Everything is pitch black beyond the bedroom, dozens of voices speaking in inaudibly hushed whispers fall silent. Four doors appear floating in the shadows to choose from, with insignia’s upon them. From left to right is a door with a rusted crown, a battered door with a torn book, a glass door with several flowers behind it, and the final door is a large metal structure with nothing painted on it, instead it’s covered with chains and shut tight. It does not seem you can go through the fourth door yet.]

Re: START

[femmefailtale]

[Hokay, so it's a haunted house, I'm a teenage girl, and I just got some recently.]

[...Well, I'm doomed. Let's just go ahead and pocket my eyepatch. If I'm going into this it's going to be with both eyes open. Meanwhile, let's go ahead and try the glass-flowers-door. At least if I'm going to get murdered I'm going to get a bouquet out of it.]

ROOM ONE

[teamposts]

[There is something in the courtyard you've just entered. You know this instinctively. Everything looks calm, peaceful even. The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, water is spraying from the fountains. It’s a perfectly serene sight, with a pumpkin perched on a bench.

But something is wrong. You know something is wrong, this calm is a lie. What if everything is a lie? You don’t trust anything in here. You don’t trust anything at all.]

Re: ROOM ONE

[femmefailtale]

[...Well, in the event of calmness being a lie, we must assume there is an illusion in effect here somewhere. Since my eye that sees through those is currently offline, that means shit is a little worse than before. But, with everything else seeing so peaceful and serene, JD turns her attention to the pumpkin on the bench. CLEARLY we should start by prodding it with a finger.]

Re: ROOM ONE

[teamposts]

[The pumpkin wobbles when you push it. Nothing else happens.]

Re: ROOM ONE

[femmefailtale]

[So I'm sitting here in this so called courtyard.
It's peaceful, birds are singing and there's this pumpkin on a bench.
And I'm like maaaaan, what do I look like, a sucker?

I took it.

AND THREW IT ON THE GROUND!!!!!

I'm not gonna' be part of your system!

I'M AN ADULLLLT!

Don't put a pumpkin out unless you want it broke!

Maaaan!]

Re: ROOM ONE

[teamposts]

[That... May not have been a good idea. The banshee shriek from before echoes throughout the courtyard, furious and painful. It feels like your head is going to explode.]

ROOM TWO

[teamposts]

[You have chosen the throne room. The pumpkin you’re searching for lies up ahead, perched on the middle of one of three thrones. The throne to the right is much smaller, but shines brighter. The throne to the left is covered with a black veil. It’s still dark in here, the curtains are drawn closed leaving little visibility to the room around you, it’s a long walk towards the thrones.]

Re: ROOM TWO

[femmefailtale]

[...Well I still am not sure what the rate of growths on these scales are so let's just run for the pumpkin!!]

Re: ROOM TWO

[teamposts]

[You make it to the pumpkin without incident. You now have a pumpkin.]

Re: ROOM TWO

[femmefailtale]

[I will set this on fire without smashing it, I guess.]

Re: ROOM TWO

[teamposts]

[The pumpkin’s smoke rises again, shaping itself to reveal the woman again, sitting on the throne and arguing with a younger girl who looks suspiciously like a certain new portrait. She is not wearing a crooked witch hat or robes however, both her and the woman are dressed in lavish gowns and wearing crowns. The younger girl who is not the witches daughter is insisting that their economy isn’t stable, ‘Mother your expensive taste can’t last, you spend so much on your gowns that you ignore food. Our people are going hungry, and taking OUR provisions for themselves.’

The murdered woman scoffs, ‘What’s the big deal about food? You eat too much anyhow, watch out or you won’t fit in your own gowns.’ She stands and walks away, laughing to herself and leaving her daughter fuming. ‘You’re the one who needs to watch out, mother. A queen like you makes so many enemies.’

The woman stops, looking back over her shoulder and smirking at her child. ‘Threats, darling?’

‘A warning. Don’t make the mess I’ll have to clean up when I’m queen any bigger.’]

Re: ROOM TWO

[femmefailtale]

[So we have... two suspects.]

[Okay then. Bomb out, let's head for the exit. What's the extent of the scales?]

Re: ROOM TWO

[teamposts]

[You have maybe one extra scale on your arms. Hopefully you're not too distracted with your arm to miss the screeching that echoes throughout the room as you turn, like nails on a chalkboard.]

ROOM THREE

[teamposts]

[Everything is very well lit in the library. Books lay scattered throughout the room, torn and ruined, wind and rain beating down on them through smashed windows. The pumpkin is not in sight, you’ll have to search for it.]

Re: ROOM THREE

[femmefailtale]

[Alright then, I'll just use my x-ray magic eye powers to...

SKILL LOOOOOOOOOOOSS!!

I guess we're doing this the long, hard way. By searching through the books.]

Re: ROOM THREE

[teamposts]

[Most of the books are ruined by the rain and wind. There are a few near the wall that look legible.]

Re: ROOM THREE

[femmefailtale]

[Let's read them, then.]

Re: ROOM THREE

[teamposts]

[The books don't have any titles or indication for what they're about, so it's some trial and error. This one is about poisons!

This one is about court politics and working the system to your favour!

This book is about BONDAGE. Specifically the chapter on chains.]

Re: ROOM THREE

[femmefailtale]

[...]

[I'm going to start with the last one.]

Re: ROOM THREE

[teamposts]

[This book is a trap. Shackles bind around your legs, holding them down in place. Meanwhile, the rain outside intensifies, water starts to flood the library.]

TURN-IN

[teamposts]

[Wherever you are, and whatever you're in the middle of, shadows wind around you and drag you back to the bedroom you started in. The Queen's ghost is waiting, staring hard]

Who killed me?

Re: TURN-IN

[femmefailtale]

I unlocked haunting mode and wound up working for the other guys instead.

Sorry man.

Re: TURN-IN

[2_spooky]

[Proceed to endgame]