WEEK 7

[bathymetric]

Another Saturday gone and just like that you wake on Sunday, down five of your number. The largest dent taken out of you at once so far - it's surely noticeable, the head count being cut by a third. Almost enough to make you wonder how many of you will even be left by the next motive or two. Surely this isn't a sustainable rate for body counts to increase... right?

There's a new and, it looks like, final wing of the building to explore, bringing everything full circle. Maybe you'll get some more answers to some of the questions and mysteries of this place there - or at least, you can certainly hope for them. Time to turn your investigative eyes towards one last batch of rooms, who knows what you might find?

Angel remains around at night, her appearances much more common now that... well, she's certainly seen a downtick in necessary surveillance work, hasn't she? The app giving you a line to The Professor remains open, and well... whatever's going on with that ouija in the library continues to happen! You're not suffering from a shortage of leads, at least, even as things get more bizarre.

Something's going to have to give here, eventually. Right?



SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to your last player case week! AC is over here, regains as always are over here, and... well, enjoy! After this we get to take our big turn towards the Serious. ]

Comments

investigation

[hardnosed]

[ Instead of checking out the new area, or doing, like, anything useful, Jasper spends the morning sulking in her room with occasional breaks to find something new to sulk about. Rose's room is the obvious first destination, and she spends a while in there. If you happen to come in, she's probably hunched over, staring at something — the picture of some unfamiliar Pearl, either of the drawings depicting the other Diamonds once she finds them, the very brief letter addressed to her — and she doesn't even look up before speaking. ]

Get out.

[ If she's looking at the photo of Rose and Greg, however, she just looks kind of puzzled, for comedy's sake. Who's this fuckin' guy?

Afterwards, she enters Anna's room, but she's only there for a few minutes before leaving. She hasn't punched a hole in the wall or anything! She looms in the doorway and pronounces yet another tch before walking on. Rhea's room goes entirely unexamined.

In the afternoon, she does investigate the new area, and she zeroes in on the crime exhibit. What's the lowlife layout here, anyway?

(She also tries to grab some bowling balls at the bowling alley, completely unaware of the purpose of the physical space or the game, and gets so offended that her giant fingers won't fit in the holes that she eventually, only half intentionally, chucks one halfway across the room.) ]

anna's room

[mouflon]

[ So, conveniently, Rin wakes up late, meaning her time sulking over Anna's room just so happens to intersect with Jasper's arrival! When Jasper opens the door, Rin looks up from where she's standing over Anna's desk, and the sheets of paper in her hand. ]

She didn't leave an insulting letter for you or anything, if that's what you were wondering.

[ Despite their tense... lack-of-relationship, Rin just sounds tired as she says so. ]

[hardnosed]

Didn't expect her to.

[ She certainly wouldn't have done it, if their positions were reversed. Jasper's eyes narrow as she catches sight of the paper. ]

But she did leave something.

[mouflon]

[ Rin nods. ]

Not for anyone in particular. It's a journal.

[hardnosed]

Huh.

[ She hesitates for maybe a quarter of a second, not nearly enough to merit ellipses at the start of her sentence but still, perhaps, enough to be noticable. Especially since her standard response would be way more along the lines of "what, there was something about herself she wasn't yelling at everyone?" ]

Don't think I'm going to fight you over it, if it means something to you.

[mouflon]

It doesn't belong to me, and I'd be a hypocrite if I kept other people from reading it. I don't know how much there is that'll be of interest to you, but...

[ She shuffles the papers into one hand, holds them vaguely in Jasper's direction. ]

...Just hand it all back in one piece.

[hardnosed]

I'm not some bumbling oaf, [ she snaps, mere hours before shotputting a bowling ball across a room, ] I'm just big. ... Just give it here.

[ But she'll just take them from Rin rather than make her say, as is self-evident, that she's already "giving it here." Jasper holds the paper close to her face, her yellow eyes fixing on the words. Either she's reading fast, or she doesn't see good reason to read it too closely. ]

Hey. Sixteen is young for a human, right?

[mouflon]

[ That isn't what she meant — but after everything that happened during the last trial, Rin doesn't feel like starting an argument. She hands the papers off to Jasper and keeps quiet while she skims(?).

The question is unexpected, though, and for a moment, no answer comes to her. Rin is barely any older than Anna was, and she has already thought of herself as an adult for years. But, even so, on some level she knows that isn't normal; every time someone has known her by reputation and been surprised to find out how young she is, she receives a reminder of that. ]

It's old enough to do a lot. [ ... ] Still, she was the youngest one here for a reason.

[ Which is to say yes, it's young, but to admit that would be the same thing as admitting her own youth and vulnerability, and god forbid. ]

[hardnosed]

[ She appears to simply absorb the information and continue on. Jasper's concept of children is quite literally a month old at this point. Whether or not kids just miraculously become adults at some point between Rin and Anna's ages, or whether Rin is a child too, doesn't really matter. (Therion's only a year older, and he's clearly a mature adult with his priorities in order!!) She'll just take her word for it.

But, all that aside, it's striking that she was so... like that, so early. Aren't humans supposed to grow and change, after coming out with no true expectations put upon them? Isn't that part of what Pink loved so much about this garbage planet?

(She absolutely does her dumb jock chuckle when Anna says she doubts she could kill her, as things stand.)

After a bit more of this, she starts actually skimming instead of just reading fast. But the parts that catch her eye that aren't her own name, about how Anna needs to keep her focus, how nothing else matters... ]

She was still just a human.

investigation

[bathymetric]

[ Crime time, heck yes.

Alright, so! It's mostly a history of crime, dating back to... some tablets with criminal records from Rome, and most of the information might as well be accurate, for all Jasper knows? But it's the modern section where things get interesting - there are a few cases of artifacts, and some plaques of information that might be worth reading. ]

[hardnosed]

[ Oh, gross, information about human culture that's definitely factual. She's going for the plaques first, since she assumes she won't have any idea what half the items in the cases are if they're not explicitly labeled. ]

[bathymetric]

[ They are indeed labelled! There's a few different things in here - Jasper wouldn't necessarily know this, but all of them are things labelled as "stolen" that, in a usual 2020, would definitely not have been stolen - mostly pictures of the crime scenes, or the cases in which they used to reside, with detailed instructions on how the things were stolen. A couple of them are paintings currently in the art room, so that's pretty wild!

But inside one of the cases is a piece of paper, tucked into an empty frame where a Van Gogh apparently used to be. ]

[hardnosed]

[ MMMMMMMMM

okay can this case be opened in a way Jasper would be able to figure out realistically, or is she just gonna have to

punch some glass out WAIT ALSO IS THIS A PHYSICAL CASE IN THIS ROOM, OR JUST A PICTURE, I AM REALLY SMART ]

[bathymetric]

[ its a physical case and well

up to you if you want to figure out a way in that isn't Jasper Smash, jasper, there's no obvious way to open it ]

[hardnosed]

[ yeah no she's just going to kick it ]

[bathymetric]

[ That'll work! Claim your prize, brave warrior. ]

[hardnosed]

[ And so she will! With probably an obnoxious little "heh" noise when the glass shatters. What have we got here? ]

Bowling alley

[bolderfell]

[Since he's lucky enough not to be in the ball's trajectory, Therion's happy to watch it sail away and thunk into another part of the alley.]

I don't think that's how this is played.

[He actually sort of recognizes this! Versions of bowling have existed on Earth for centuries, he's probably seen this somewhere in Orsterra. Noblecourt, most likely. Snobs.]

[hardnosed]

I know.

[ She's not mad! She's not mad!! ]

It's a game, then.

[bolderfell]

Yeah. I think, anyway. I've seen people play something like it in Orsterra.

[He looks at how everything's set up, the balls, the lanes, and then he points down at the pins.]

Don't know what all of this is for, but the main idea is to take turns knocking over as many of those as you can with the ball.

[hardnosed]

Sounds like a training exercise. Not a useful one — it's not like targets are ever this stationary. But I guess being useless is what makes something a game.

That still doesn't explain why the floor is like this.

[bolderfell]

Don't look at me. It's played outdoors where I'm from. And what do all these shoes have to do with anything?

[??]

Are we supposed to wear the ones that match our room numbers?

[hardnosed]

You think I know?

[ That said, she's absolutely walking over to the shoe area in consideration of this. They almost certainly don't go up to size 23, but let's find out babey!!! ]

Stupid of him to do it, in that case. I can't take my boots off without shapeshifting.

[bolderfell]

[Well, if they don't go up to 23, they don't go up to 24. Therion frowns at them all, then walks back down to a size eight. These should be a little closer to his size.]

Then maybe they're not for us. Or they weren't for us, specifically. [He picks a pair up and examines the soles doubtfully, rubs his thumb along the odd smoothness of the material.] ...You'd slide far in these on a floor like this.

[hardnosed]

[ Okay, they might not go up to 23, but there is inexplicably whatever the size Jasper or Rose would be, so like, 26 or 27 or some unimaginable shit. When she sees what Therion is doing, she checks the her-sized pair out similarly. ]

What are you getting at?