Fandom High School

"Okay, guys. Time's up."

Look, if you thought Rosa was going to bother sticking around through another class of fumbling around a fake mansion for clues, you were wrong. As a matter of fact, she even changed the simulation a little, so that the storm was over, they'd apparently been there through the night over the course of the class thus far, and the sun was shining through the windows and birds were chirping as if to symbolize the end of it all even more.

"It was Alexa Daisy. She murdered her lover the night before the dinner party, in the conservatory, with the rope. The evidence was the fact that she was even here the night before the party, the hair on the scene of the crime, the video footage didn't make it clear but the figure in it did match her vague physical attributes, and the butler lied about having talked to Mr. Corpse the morning of the party because he was trying to protect her. So she's either off to fake jail now for getting fake caught or you're all fake dead because she struck again before you could call her out on it. Case closed.

"So this week's going to be a field assignment," she offered, in case they were wondering what they were going to do now that there was no case to solve. "Find out if any of your schoolmates or teachers have hooked up this week,"--not that she actually cared, because that would be weird and gross, she just thought it would be hilarious and would probably forget she'd even given this assignment well before next week--"and present evidence for why you believe this hook-up happened. Established relationships don't count.

"And that's it. Go find evidence out there in the real world instead of a dumb sim. And unless there's any questions," why would you bother her with questions right now?, "you're free to go. Get started. Get out of my hair."

"So as it turns out," Rosa said, and they were still in the study and the boards of collected information and potential motives were still up, but there were a few laptops in the mix now, too, "in an attempt to capture evidence of paranormal activity, the maid here has actually put up secret security cameras in the conservatory. Today, we get the fun experience of watching that footage in the hopes that there's something useful in there, or if we're just back to square. We only have a few laptops," ignore that it was the danger shop and Rosa could literally have just programmed more; it was more funny to her this way, "so you'll have to partner up, but everyone get together, start reviewing the videos, and hopefully, there's something we can maybe us in there.

"Alright, let's get to work."

The fake storm still raged outside the fake mansion, while the fake dinner guests still gathered in the fake study with the list of fake motives still on the fake board in front of them. And they hadn't really gotten anywhere.

"Well," said Rosa, looking over the suspects, looking over the board, "we're not much further in figuring out who done it, but if we turn our focus on someone specificl--"

It was at that point that the door to the study burst open and the house staff finally made a reappearance, bursting through the door, the maid limp and dazed in his arms.

"We know who did it!" he announced, but then quickly faltered. "Or, at least, she does," he lifted up the maid as if to explain who he was talking about, "and she was just about to tell me when she was struck by a terrible shock and fell into the state in which you see her now! I don't know if something scared her or what, but now I can't seem to get a word out of her."

He slumped the maid into a chair, where she sways a little bit under her swoon, and Rosa slipped some smelling salts out of her pocket until the maid perked up and blinnked around. "What--what's happening?"

"You were just brought in by the butler," Rosa explained. "He says you were about to tell him who you thought the killer was?"

"I..." Her big wide eyes passed around the room, her face somehow managing to lose even more color, go even more pale. "I...I don't remember..."

Because of course she wouldn't, it couldn't be that simple, right? Rosa sighed slightly before turning to the students.

"Well, guys," she ventured, figuring this at least should lead to some interesting responses from this lot, "what do you think? Anyone wanna give it a shot at trying to jog her memory here?"

Good news! The body of Mr. Corpse has finally been found!

At least, that seems to be the case. After following the secret passage from the conservatory to the kitchen, a thorough investigation has revealed a few things of note. For one thing, there was a coil of rope just inside the passage to the kitchen, one of its end ripped and frayed. In the kitchen itself, several of the knives seemed to be missing from the knife block, there's definitely a part of the pipes underneath the sink missing, and then there's the dumbwaiter.

Of course the body would be in the dumbwaiter!

It appears to have been quite hastily stuffed in there, and rigor mortis has set in, so good luck figuring out a way to figure out how to get it out of there for a closer inspection. But that does seem to be Mr. Corpse's signiture grey suit, and a keen eye may even be able to indentify hairs clinging to it that appear to have once belonged to a German shepherd.

So now it seems it's up to our dinner guests/murder suspects to determine what the next step may be!

Don't mind Detective D. She's just going to take a moment to brew up some coffee while they're here, too.

Last week, the party had convened to the ballroom, to discover a body assumed to be their absent host, the life presumably having been bludgeoned out of him by a candlestick found nearby. But it turned out that the body in the ballroom was not in fact that of the missing Mr. Corpse, but was, in fact, an incredibly hyper-realistic dummy and the blood pooling around his head was actually raspberry jam.

Look, it was the danger shop. Rosa could do whatever she wanted.

The candlestick, it should be noted, and the blood on it were quite real.

(Well, except the whole danger shop part, so none of it was real, but---anyway).

Curious.

It was at this time that the butler was also noted to have been missing, disappeared during the inspection of the body, but the trembling, terrified maid informed the party that she had seen him slip out through the door of the ballroom's western door, across which was the constervatory. Perhaps a pursuit may in in order? Or was there something else still more intriguing to pursue instead?

The plot has certainly...well, not thickened, arguably just got stupider, but the plot was definitely attempting to do...something!

The class instructions would direct the students to meet at the danger shop for each class, unless otherwise noted by the teacher, and if they were new and had trouble finding the danger shop, well...they probably weren't going to do too well in a class about finding things out, were they? Either way, as they arrived, they would find themselves on the doorstep of an elaborate, ostentatious mansion in the middle of a dark and stormy night. A butler greets them at the door before ushering them in, welcoming them to the party. "Mr. Corpse shall be down shortly," the butler assures them, leading them into the dining hall, where a long table awaits with chairs becoming progressively filled by classmates and your teacher. "He apologizes for the delay, but implores you to please, get started without him! So have a seat, and we'll begin!"

Once everyone was there and seated, the class did begin, twofold. In the butler moving around to place before everyone the first course of what is clearly a very fancy meal, and in Rosa looking them all over and explaining.

"Welcome," Rosa said, "to Cognitive Logic in Understand Evidence, a practical look at solving a very specific crime. For the purposes of this class, you don't know each other. You've never seen each other in your entire lives. We are all strangers here gathered under the invitation of a mysterious Mr. Corpse. Do you know Mr. Corpse? Is he a stranger to you? Who are you and what are you doing here at his party? All details that only you and our host are privy to....

"So," she picked up the glass of 'wine' that the butler had just filled before moving on to the next cup, peering thoughtfully around the table, "who might you be? And how is it that you know our dear Mr. Corpse? That will be our first class, getting to know our fellow diners, on this night where absolutely nothing could possibly go wrong..."