week 10

[productions]

murder manor week ten



monday

9 players remaining.

[Something seems to have changed as the time changes from Sunday night to Monday morning. The lights in the manor seem to be flickering back to life. The clock begins to ring again for meals, although you'll have to prepare your own food for them. The manor still feels incredibly empty, but it at least feels a little more alive.]

This is a general mingle post, covering the period from Sunday at midnight to Monday evening. Please put your character's name, the time, and location in the subject heading of their comment. Players may also thread in logs, either posted to murdermanor or in a private locked journal post filtered to include productions.

Setting & Rules
Private Conversations

Comments

Monday - 6 PM - Dining Room

[productions]

[When you arrive in the dining room for dinner on Monday evening, there is a notecard set up in the foyer on a pedestal for you to take on your way in. The card reads: ]

Dinner will be taken in the drawing room this evening. Please arrive promptly.

[Inside the dining hall, the screen executions are shown on has been lowered, and the projector is playing. In the flickering light, the silhouette of a man in a top-hat can be seen, although the image is too dark to make out any of his features.

A large feast is set out, and a table has been set for nine. You may take your dinner while the man speaks to you.]

Good evening.

I'm going to be frank with all of you. This isn't going well. What Doris did... [The man pauses for a moment.] She had good intentions, but she didn't help anyone, least of all you. If production shuts down, none of you are leaving this place. Well, me, I was about ready to wash my hands clean of all this, but you've one more out.

The rules say that if one player kills and gets away with it, they get to go home and the rest of you are executed. The rules also say if you prove who the Mastermind was, all of you walk. Well, Lithuania was the Mastermind. It's his title and everything. But it seems you sewed some doubt into our viewers, and that avenue is closed to you.

Here's the deal. You're having a trial for Lithuania. His killer is someone in the manor, and, minus Doris, there were never more than thirty people in this manor from start to finish. Got it? His killer's a player, so if his killer walks, they go home, and all of you are executed. But if you manage to figure this one out, we'll see about sending you home.

Everyone understand? Well, the trial starts tomorrow. There's no time left for you to mope around and eat meals. Find Lithuania's killer or you're done.

[hollowheart]

Give me a break.

You mean to tell us someone made Lithuania explode, and it was one of us. For all we know you're just turning us against one another for fun and ratings. Why should we even trust you after all of this?

[productions]

Fine, don't. If your plan is to lie down and die, that's fine by me. This can't be any more of a disaster.

But I'd check the body before you start making funeral arrangements.

[inthebones]

I thought we established there was no one behind the scenes apart from Doris.

[A faintly irritated expression is shot at Spain though it was hardly his fault.]

Who are you and what is your relation to this, then?

[productions]

Did I say there was someone behind the scenes? I've never set foot in this place. But I work for the production. Doris had to get her orders from someone.

[inthebones]

So you're the actual Producers. Very good.

If you'd prefer to kill us all, why are you even bothering with this? The person who killed Lithuania and Doris - assumedly the one who set this all up in the first place. Aren't you working for them?

[productions]

For them? [He laughs for a moment.] It's a complicated situation. Try not to be stupid for a minute, maybe you'll work it out.

I would prefer to shut you down and not throw any more money at this project, but it's not costing any more money to give you a few days to see if something can be salvaged.

[inthebones]

And we're all just devastated that you've been pouring money into an unprofitable sinkhole, I'm sure. Your poor audience must be absolutely beside themselves with how poorly you've managed this.

I suppose they aren't watching now?

[throe]

But we don't have any clues and the ones we do have could easily be false, especially with how the last trial went.

[hollowheart]

I don't think it'd hurt to check the body. It's not much, but it's a start for now.

This game is skewed against us but I have no intention of dying after making it this far.

[inthebones]

The body is in five dozen different pieces. Are we honestly meant to divine a murderer from assorted viscera alone?

Is there anything else to go on at all?

[hollowheart]

Liked I said, it's not much [and she doesn't sound happy about it, either.]

I'll go collect the body.

[inthebones]

...I think we'd better make this a group effort. I'll fetch some... buckets.

[Their Body Collector is dead alas.]

[hollowheart]

[And here we go]

Annie Leonhardt | 6:20 pm | Everywhere

[hollowheart]

[She has a pair of gloves on, and she starts crouching to search under the furniture. Her cardigan is already off to place anything they may find on it.]

[inthebones]

[Susan, in due course, returns with a bucket from the kitchen so Annie's cardigan won't suffer quite as much as Susan's cloaks have previously.]

...Well.

[They had (probably) sort of collected Lithuania's remains to the side so the drawing room could be entered without everyone feeling the need to vomit uncontrollably given that the drawing room was the only way to get downstairs. Susan will hesitantly begin to place body parts in the bucket.]

I'm not quite sure what we're looking for. Fragments of explosives that spell out the killer's name in Lithuanian?

[hollowheart]

Let's go for the biggest piece we can find. [she adds as an afterthought] Is there ice in that bucket?

[inthebones]

He's been like this for a few days already. It's already a bit...

[Squishy. ...Sorry, Lithuania.]

I'm afraid the moisture might pull apart the tissue, but I can fetch some.

[hollowheart]

I don't know how else to preserve... It. [they've always promptly burnt the bodies in her world.


For now, she's going to examine a hand, wrist and all, carefully.]

[inthebones]

[Susan will vanish and reappear after a few minutes with ice from the icebox. Preserving Belarus's head wasn't all it was good for.]

At least the explosion was localized. ...It could be in fifty dozen pieces rather than five.

[There probably wasn't much of a bright side here honestly.]

[hollowheart]

[sorry Lithuania, no hard feelings. They just want to get out of here.]


Wait, I think we should check his clothes.

[inthebones]

...Pockets, perhaps?

[And if Lithuania's pants and attached limbs aren't too terribly destroyed, she will offer them to Annie to search.]

[hollowheart]

[After ten weeks in this mansion, Annie's no longer squeamish about reaching into a disembodied torso's breastpockets and rifling around. It will take her more determination to go through the pants pockets, which she does, eventually.]

Couldn't they have poisoned him instead?

[inthebones]

And deprived us of this pertinent lesson in human anatomy?

...I really don't see how he could have had an explosive attached to him without his knowledge. It's not something you can easily hide.