Week 5

[bathymetric]

Good morning, New Rapture. A new day is dawning.

Another week, another motive, another trial. Even without a literal time loop, it's easy to start to feel stuck in something of a rut. Though vandalism parties and the like can help shake the feeling somewhat, it's only natural to start going a little... stir-crazy, don't you think?

Fortunately for you, another week brings another new section of New Rapture to investigate. This one is the biggest yet! And look at that fun theme park. And a bar!

Seven of you are dead, but eighteen of you remain. What you do to try to escape is up to you, but at least following :)'s advice gets you coins for stuff, you know?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to the fifth week of Unknown Seas Round 3! Please make sure to mark any investigation toplevels accordingly, post your ac, and you can reach either Mayor Fontaine or Eleanor for conversations! ]

Comments

[inaclearing]

I'm...pretty sure it was all the war and bloodshed that got to him. He didn't get along with his family, and at one point he spent years traveling warzones with - Gerda. A war photographer.

[don't worry about it!]

He told me about it, once. He said -

Inside me an anger was born again,
For injustices I couldn't cure.
I tried to hold fast to the love that we shared,
but the darkness would come and leave no room for something so pure.

[Yo where'd he get that backing music from? The snippet of song seems oddly unsuited for Brett even as he repeats it - but at the same time, his voice fills it out better than it would have a month ago.]

Seeing all that carnage, with his family name on the weapons of war - I always thought that was what did it. [...] I've got the tapes, actually. Could you tell if he was a werewolf from his voice?

[fuckingguy]

Possible. [ He sounds kind of genuinely disappointed to admit: ] But... what you just said is more likely. Not everyone is able to handle war with grace.

... Did he also sing it, or is that just you?

[inaclearing]

I don't know if people should be. His cousin was much too comfortable with it, if you ask me.

[Not that anyone did - she didn't, and so he hadn't said anything. But Brett's always thought Howl's resistance to the family business, and even his ill-fated desire to change it, spoke well of him. More clearly than nearly anything else about the man.

Anyway, immediately distracted by that question!]

...you're the second person to mention this singing thing to me recently.

[fuckingguy]

It is just that you keep on doing it. Ever since the first trial, you know, it's like — you will be talking as normal, then suddenly you are singing for no reason, and if anyone brings it up they are the weird one.

[inaclearing]

[Brett frowns, bemused, at him for a moment.]

You know what? Come listen to the tape with Howl.

[fuckingguy]

Okay...?

[ He will simply follow Brett wherever he's going whilst looking mildly befuddled! Truly, this is a man who has turned the Euphrates red with blood on multiple occasions. ]

[inaclearing]

[He's just heading back to his suite to retrieve the tape! Nandor can follow him into his room if he likes; it's pretty neat. He's got a few trinkets on the shelf by his bed, and a super normal conspiracy board pinned up to one wall, and also a small pile of maces and swords shoved in a corner. Don't worry about it.]

Oh, here - this is it.

[He'll play the tape, skipping over most of the earlier interview pleasantries. Honestly, this is not a werewolf thing, this is a singing thing.]

[fuckingguy]

[ Uh, of course he's worrying about it, those should be mounted on Brett's walls like all of his are?? Nandor is absolutely bopping on over to the conspiracy board, but before he can get particularly invasive in checking it, Brett's got the tape and he's listening to it. ]

Do you really not hear this? I mean, yes, he is just speaking about this Gerda, but there is a guitar in the background — and now he is singing.

[inaclearing]

[The conspiracy board is pretty much everything that's been presented at meetings, anyway! It's just more organized and has some of Brett's own thoughts and theories.]

This is just the raw footage. There definitely wasn't a guitar.

[Brett folds his arms, starting to look a little uneasy.]

I mean, he's just - he's being eloquent.

[fuckingguy]

Nnno, he is definitely singing. He is listing a lot of cities and shit that they saw, yes, but in song.

[ And honestly, it's a little affecting? He feels verklempt and nostalgic for something he himself has never really had, for a tenth of a second, but then Gerda gets in the mix— ]

Her too?!

[inaclearing]

...her who?

[There was literally no one else there...]

[fuckingguy]

Gerda, I assume?

[inaclearing]

Wh - Gerda's been dead for years.

[fuckingguy]

Then why is she on this tape singing to him?! I would not make shit up about this, Brett, it is too elaborate and boring a lie!

[inaclearing]

I don't know!

[He's freaking out a little!]

What is she saying?

[fuckingguy]

Can you hit stop on it? All of this is going very fast and now it is him again!

She was like, come into the water, Peter, [ and unfortunately he's singing in a falsetto! and this is pre-cult Nandor so he hasn't even gotten into the swing of doing Barenaked Ladies sing-along jam sessions ] Peter, I see you.

[inaclearing]

[Brett had thought to ask what she sounded like, but after hearing Nandor make that noise, he just sort of winces and hits pause on the tape.]

He was...talking about that picture of them on the beach. [He swallows, unnerved.] The one he...when he disappeared, he left half that photo behind. Took Gerda with him.

[fuckingguy]

Brett, I mean no offense, but his being a werewolf is maybe the least of your worries.

[inaclearing]

What? [....] No, no, we're way past that.

[He'd honestly forgotten that was what started this!]

Seriously, you heard Gerda's voice on this? She was my great-aunt - I think I met her a couple of times when I was little...I don't remember what she sounded like.

[fuckingguy]

[ He was agreeing, kind of! But for those same reasons, he's going to abandon the werewolf thing and focus on (disgusted sigh) the more personal stuff Brett just brought up... ]

Yes. Although she did not sound like a great-aunt on the tape. She sounded very young... as I suppose she would have been, at the time.

[inaclearing]

........so she's not a ghost?

[fuckingguy]

I mean, unless he was summoning her spirit through a song only you couldn't hear...

[ And from there he just trails off, because this requires serious thought! ]

[inaclearing]

Howl's really not someone who ever struck me as a...musical sort of guy. Or a seance one.

[so........hm]

[fuckingguy]

In that case, this is all very strange.

[ as if the other options were just, you know, normal and par for the course ]

[inaclearing]

It is.

[.....]

Well, thanks for helping me look into it a little more, I guess. It's...sort of been wigging me out.

[And it is definitely doing so way more now, but like? At least he has a little more info, maybe?]