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It would be worth it to use sense motive on someone we suspect... which means that it's a bit wasteful used on Step-There. (great naming scheme, by the way!)
We only have 3 of those per day, so I am wary of whiffing them.
Belief Moves:
*Locate the nearest path or shortcut to an unvisited location
*Sense the intent of someone you have eye contact with
*Communicate via thought with someone in sight
Well, on the other hand, it was a great way to draw Steel out. Though I doubt it that Sees-It is involved directly, he could have arranged for a combination of guests that would jump at each others' throats, and use the lockdown to facilitate the process.
Though wouldn't it get him in trouble, having people killed at one of his parties? I suppose if Steel is indeed his rival, the benefits would be worth it.
That's if we trust Steel's words about his goals. Would give a second explanation to rather lax guards he hired.
Belief Moves:
*Locate the nearest path or shortcut to an unvisited location
*Sense the intent of someone you have eye contact with
*Communicate via thought with someone in sight
Not sure if I'll get the time to properly read the options through. Too many choices to mull over makes it less likely I can contribute.
I'm too busy between work and family life.
No problem, this is a CYOA so I don't expect commitment. And yeah, I am not satisfied with how bloated the choices for mystery segment have become, but I couldn't think of a simpler way to do it unfortunately.
Eh, I do it this way: 'I wanna poke my nose into this/that guy's business - is there an option for that? Cool!'
For this choice, the only thing I definitely want to do is partner up with another Shadowrunner, er, Shardwalker.
Basically, we have full freedom of investigation, up to and including talking to servants and guards. No guarantee that anything useful comes out of it, though, so it might make more sense to observe and interact with named characters.
In unrelated news, that bit about the airship was interesting. Is it possible to escape the mansion by hijacking it and flying away? It can be piloted by two, and there is a dock in the garden. The question is, how do we make it land?
In theory, we can cheat our way to the Vault with our belief move, team up with Steel and Head-Taker, rob Sees-It anyway, and get out. But why do I feel like it'd be our head for the taking with a company like that?
In unrelated news, that bit about the airship was interesting. Is it possible to escape the mansion by hijacking it and flying away? It can be piloted by two, and there is a dock in the garden. The question is, how do we make it land?
In theory, we can cheat our way to the Vault with our belief move, team up with Steel and Head-Taker, rob Sees-It anyway, and get out. But why do I feel like it'd be our head for the taking with a company like that?
The airship can be safely piloted by two. You can try to do it solo. You even have the Crafting skill, which applies to operating mechanical equipment, so you can't fail to, for example, take off and land. Your landing might be a hard one, however...
Nevill brought up the belief move and Kz3r0 and hello friend voted for it, so you will be using it to figure out a shortcut to the vault. You postpone your judgment on the killer's identity, anticipate that Quiet is going to be the next victim, and consult with Step There.
Nevill's suggestion to search for the mysterious beholder with the help of Head-Taker is tied with trying to figure out the building's strange geometry. I will roll a die of fate, with 1-3 meaning you will do the former and 4-6 meaning you will do the latter.
...the Die of Fate
Result: 5!
Part 23 – Trust Your Intuition
Quiet's anxiety troubles you. She knows more than she lets on, and that very knowledge might make her the killer's next target.
You knock on Step-There's door. You hear him struggle with the handle before he slowly opens the door, as if afraid of what might be on the other side. His expression turns from fear to slight relief as he recognizes you.
“Strider? Come in if you must.”
A stench hits you as you step inside. The manus must have sweat into his fur profusely. The bath is littered with hairs – looks like Step-There had washed himself recently in the attempt to defeat the smell, yet it lingers in the room. The odor, together with the drab yellow of the walls, make the room almost nausea-inducing.
You ask Step-There is he is feeling alright.
“I- nothing's alright!” he responds, throwing his hands up. “How could you even ask that in a situation like this?!”
He shuts up and falls down on the bed, his head balling up into a fist. The manus looks absolutely exhausted by...no, tortured with worry. He certainly has the reputation of a craven among the more successful shardwalkers, but is this situation really any more stressful than a voyage through the Void? You sneak a glance at the blueprint framed on the wall as you ponder what to say. It would probably be useless to ask him if he has seen Lady Loyalty, as it is unlikely that he left his room recently.
You decide to probe him by telling him of your bystander hypothesis. It is likely that whoever knew Look-It-Up best might know what happened last night, and Step-There certainly fraternized with him.
“Please...” the crestfallen manus moans, “don't tell you me that you are suspecting me!”
You sigh and sit down on the bed. Step-There has no apparent motive to kill the Book-Taker or frame Belt. However, if he knows anything, he should te-
“Demiurge's mercy, Strider! I was with Look-It-Up last night,” the manus exclaims and sits up, suddenly embracing you.
Taken aback, you pat the back of the furry person clinging to you. What precisely does he mean?
“I mean that, I, uhm...” Step-There is practically choking up with anxiety, “I hadn't drank much last night, if you remember, and uhm, didn't sleep much either since...I have a problem, you know, trouble sleeping since the, ah, Shard of Darkest Falls...
I thought to ease my mind to sleep with books, thought maybe my ra-rapport with Look-It-Up could get me in – yes I know it is illegal, but the blasted spirits didn't help! - but uhm...I had to go to the latrine, I left the...the fucking door unlocked, understand?
On my way back I heard them, barely audible, shuffling like someone was moving about and stifled m-moans and...oh, Demiurge take me! They stopped as I got close, ceased entirely, do you understand? It was as if whoever was in that room, you know, with Look...with Look-It-Up, they heard me coming! Now I'm bleeding scared that the murderer thinks me a witness and plans to kill me, too!”
You idiot, you tell the manus as you hold him. Does Steel know? The manus shakes his head, then buries it back in your shoulder.
No, of course not. Trespassing into a library is a very serious offense, and the Lord-Foreman is the last person to trust with such information. Step-There probably planned to tell no one and leave the mance as soon as possible, only to find himself trapped in the building with the killer. And the killer must have been a very perceptive person to be have been able to hear a creeping manus on the other side of a hefty door while being busy with another...
After a minute or so the manus calms down and unwraps himself from you.
“Do you believe me, Strider?” he asks, finally having caught his breath.
Not knowing if you do yourself, you instead tell him that there is one way that he can redeem himself. You tell him of Quiet, and how she also seemed nervous and afraid. Perhaps Step-There can make himself useful and look to see where she's gone today.
“Well, why not?” the manus perks up suddenly, “an old grab-bastard such as I can still protect a young woman. Oh, there is one more thing: could I, perchance...stay in your room tonight? You know, for safety and all. I-I could hide in the wardrobe? We mani can sleep upright, you know. If I am able to catch any sleep, that is...”
A1) Sure thing, idiot. You can hide in the wardrobe. A2) On the other hand, let's not – you might just be inviting a murderer to kill you in your sleep.
Before leaving, you warn Step-There to keep his distance from Quiet as she probably doesn't like men of your shared profession all that much. He seems dejected at first, but you catch him fixing his fur with the help of a pocket mirror as you turn to close the door to his room.
---
Once again you come back to your room. All this yellow...you hate the damned colour. Still, it is the closest thing to a refuge that you can find in this damned building, and you find an odd comfort in that.
With all the crucial matters attended, you finally dedicate your full attention to the matter of the vault.
...2d6+Intelligence
Relevant Skill: Crafting
Result: 4; Partial Success with Heavy Consequences!
At least that is what you intended, but truth eludes you for the next few hours. The facts are so damn muddy, after all. Supposedly the vault is on the nonexistent fourth floor, yet wouldn't it be much more convenient to drag the riches down to a secure basement as opposed to carrying them up to the top floor, which would be exposed to any freebooter crew with an airship? Of course, it is not as if the mansion has a basement either...
You become frustrated with yourself. Perhaps you could have learned more if you spent the day actually exploring the manse and its grounds, yet you chose inaction. You try to find solace in the blueprint, and it once again steals your attention. After all, the ship design is equally as perplexing as the building, with its ceiling wider than the floor, and the massive space in the middle. Huge steam engines would be put inside the central section, even though a magical engine would be much more efficient for a ship this size. In the latter case, the engine is merely a catalyst for the pilot to project their will; the airship would fly solely because its pilot believes it can, whereas a mechanically-operated ship is constrained by physics to a degree. Was it Sees-It's intention to create something that would be run exclusively by technology as opposed to the Void-derived powers of creation? This suggests that the ship is deeply personal to Sees-It, which makes you wonder why it has not materialized...and why its blueprints are framed in every single guest room.
Enough! The vault. Where could it be? You can't help but feel as if you betrayed your Seeker tenets by postponing active investigation, and this bitterness swells inside you. The vault...you try to picture the glimmer of the riches inside. You can almost sense the metallic tinge in the air. But where...
You burst out of your room and rush across the hallway, to the empty drinking lounge. You press yourself against the window overlooking the central garden. You spot a previously overlooked detail: how despite the obscuring vegetation, the mansion's walls are noticeably sloped, giving the entire building the appearance of a pyramid. Your eyes are then drawn to a large metal object, reflecting the evening's pale light.
You blink and find yourself standing in the garden, cloaked in the shadow of the small airship and its high base. This is the entrance. Where is the key?
“Strider!” someone hollers. You turn to find Step-There running out of the maze-like garden depths, a limp Quiet in his hands.
Looks like you were right to trust your intuition.
---
Drawn by the dinner bell, or perhaps seeking safety in numbers, the guests, their servants, the master of the house, and two guards have assembled in the dining room. Most are sitting down and digging into their food, staring at one another with suspicion between bites. Sees-It is his usual self, cloaked in arrogance and having Silver and one other guard taste every dish that gets to his side of the table. Belt has seemingly only gotten angrier, and has even ceased interacting with the Master Flagellant. The males have their personal weapons at arm's reach, no longer restrained by etiquette (although they were barred from going outside to retreat their heavier arms). Steel, Deadliest Vile, and Belt all carry holstered crackguns – compact one-shot slug-throwers.
Quiet, feverish but alive, is lying on the couch, attended by the healer servant (and by Lady Loyalty who, much to the healer's displeasure, insisted that it is her right as Quiet's mistress to weep over her unconscious body until she recovers). Step-There explained her situation: “I tracked her down, just as you said, and followed her into the garden. She was quite a ways ahead of me but I was certain I heard footsteps of one other person up ahead. Suddenly, I heard her body fall and, upon turning the corner, found her. A quick examination revealed a small hole in her neck, so I immediately suspected poisoning through injection. Thankfully I have had much experience sucking out poisons from wounds, having faced the fang-beasts of the Shard of Darkest Falls, so I-” You remember that is when he bent over in a coughing fit, and eventually regurgitated a hairball.
At the table you sit among Steel and his companions, who are as stoic as ever (save for Step-There, though his spirits have lifted considerably after Quiet's rescue). You ponder the idea of letting Steel know about the entrance to the vault...but perhaps it would be better if he didn't know a thing? You could plunder the vault and hijack the ship in the night, and you wouldn't even have to share.
B1) Create a mental link with Steel (expends a belief move) and tell him of the entrance to the vault. B2) Don't.
Deadliest Vile stands up rather suddenly and starts hitting an empty glass with a fork.
“I hope you realize,” Sees-It says, not even glancing up at the freebooter, “that this is a dreadful time for a toast.”
“No, that was just to get everyone's attention,” Deadliest replies, setting the glass and the fork down. “I just wanted everyone to know that Belt killed the Book-Taker.”
A silence falls over the room. Even Lady Loyalty's sobs are stifled.
“Don't you dare...” the Lord-Inquisitor spits out, yanking Wretch's chain, who responds with frightened buzzing.
“It's simple, really. You thought to have us all fooled, but it didn't work out. Everyone remember the little hankie found in the hallway? Silver said it was tucked halfway under the carpet, didn't he? Now I ain't a learned person, but I'm pretty sure that if a piece of fabric slips out of my pocket, it is not going to tuck itself under a carpet.”
“That would mean it was planted there, you stupid sack of shit!” Belt shouts, fist hammering the table.
“So you are telling me that the killer was good enough to have sneaked into the library and tortured someone to death, all under the guard's noses, but he wasn't smart enough to drop an object in a plausible way? Nah, I don't buy it – the likeliest and simplest explanation is that you, Lord-Smartass, decided to trick us all by offing the manus and deliberately botching the plant job, making it look like someone else had done it and tried to frame you. Except you are not feeling very clever now, are you?”
You remember thinking that Belt's face couldn't get any more red. You were very wrong at the time.
“Question is,” Vile grimaces, “why'd you try to kill the grab-bastard broad? I think the answer lies in...love.”
Belt's hand inches towards the crackgun at his belt. Meanwhile, Deadiest Vile's large mouth opens as he is about to deliver words that may be his last.
Choose one:
C1) Stay out of it. You will sleep better at night if either one of these assholes die. C2) Interrupt the beholder and call for peace. Deadliest might be making a terrible mistake... C3) Do/say something else, please specify what
Regardless of what you do about the standoff, do you plan on accusing someone afterwards?
D1) No. D2) Deadliest Vile, freebooter thug D3) Lieutenant Silver of the White Cloaks D4) Steel, Lord-Foreman of the Gambit Badlands D5) Head-Taker, his close friend/rival D6) Sees-It, Lord-Foreman of the Gambit Badlands D7) Belt, Lord-Inquisitor of Demiurge's Plaza D8) Wretch, his pet D9) Loyalty, Lady-Scribe of Demiurge's Plaza D10) Quiet, her chief servant D11) Step-There, your old companion
D12) Master Flagellant, also known as the Philosopher of Pain D13) One of Sees-It's servants D14) One of Belt's servants D15) One of Loyalty's servants
You are back at 2-Belief because you did not go out of your way to pursue your Seeker tenets today.
That being said, 3-Belief is zeal, so it is meant to be very hard to consistently maintain. This does mean that you only have 1 belief move until you rest.
Also, due to the weight of this choice, I will count all the choices together as opposed to separately (I think this is referred to as voting by block as opposed to voting by line). If we get into a crazy 3-way tie situation or get too few votes, then I will go back to counting choices independently.
I have a hunch that our employer is the murderer or Deadliest Vile at his orders, maybe Head Taker on his own, all in all the three of them, together or separatedly are the most likely culprits in my opinion, hence we either support them or part ways from them and flee with the airship or something like that.
It's obvious from my choices that I prefer the latter, probably we'll need Step There help.
I also think that the beholder is trying to cause a massacre here, maybe we caoul use sense motive on him to ascertain what he is planning to do.
On my way back I heard them, barely audible, shuffling like someone was moving about and stifled m-moans and...oh, Demiurge take me! They stopped as I got close, ceased entirely, do you understand? It was as if whoever was in that room, you know, with Look...with Look-It-Up, they heard me coming! Now I'm bleeding scared that the murderer thinks me a witness and plans to kill me, too!”
You know, this does not particularly scream 'murder' to me. I went back to check Quiet's and Look-It-Up's races, and what do you know, they are both manus... manuses? That'd explain why she was nervous, certainly.
The tie-him-up and gag could be explained away with this, surely, as well as why the alarm wasn't raised. Cuts and a slit throat, not so much. Unless the poor scribe's heart gave out and this was masquaraded as murder shortly afterwards for... reasons?
I don't think she was there for a good time, though. She is the brain behind Lady Loyalty, so she most certainly had a goal in mind. A book? What else of value could a scribe possibly have had?
Loyalty's insistence on being the only one to tend to her conveniently deprives us of a witness.
I mean, sure one can play the torture card straight, but that'd implicate Master Flagellant, and he is a part of Belt's crew, so I am not putting much stock into it. He is a beholder, though...
No way. He has his motive, and it's robbery. This threw a solid wrench into his plans, and it is not making his goal any closer. In fact, he is now risking getting caught in the murder plot in his enemy's territory. That is incredibly inconvenient.
I would not rule out Head-Taker, though. First, the name. Second, the intelligence. Third, he is a rival. They could be acting independently on this. But as they are relatively close and seem to respect each other, I find it harder to swallow.
By the way, OP, when and how did Loyalty return?
What do we know about poison on Quiet? Was it a lethal one? It can't be self-inflicted, can it?
The beholder outside... could that be Sees-It checking on his precious vault? I will have to check whether it was close to the garden. Would explain the denial and his shifty attitude. But wearing the servants' uniform? Whom would it fool?
I'd advocate for peace. We need a bit more time to figure it out. Not sure whether we want to let Steel know about the vault, though. Depends on how likely he is to dupe us.
Edit: I would like to note that this seems to be the second attempt at seduction of someone from Steel's entourage by the same (?) team. I wonder what is the purpose. Quiet's words that she wouldn't socialze with us if she knew what we were here for might have another reason behind them.
The buzzer healer from earlier is still taking care of her. I meant to say that Loyalty insisted in being "in his space" and spending the entire time crying by her side.
I guess I didn't make the transition very clear, but basically you and Step-There took Quiet to the dining room, where the bulk of the people were congregating for security reasons. Loyalty was already there.
What do we know about poison on Quiet? Was it a lethal one? It can't be self-inflicted, can it?
Well it was potent and quick-acting enough that she is still incapacitated despite most of it no longer being in her system, hence why she needs a healer at her side. Besides that, hard to say (yet). If she had died you'd have a bigger sample available (that wasn't contaminated by Step-There's spit) so you could have gotten some conclusions from the buzzer earlier.
The beholder outside... could that be Sees-It checking on his precious vault? I will have to check whether it was close to the garden.
Coud Step-There be involved beyond what is known? He might have been. He left the door unlocked, let someone in (maybe Quiet), then came back to finish the job, then silenced Quiet.
...nah, doesn't work. Even assuming he told us that he was with the victim - a fact we wouldn't know if not for him talking - to divert suspicion, it does not work on many level, not the least of which is that Quiet would have recognized him if he were the one assaulting her, so it makes no sense to leave her alive.
So the first choice probably won't get us jumped by the murderer unless there is something else in play. Granted, it is the height of stupidity to let others in your room for the night while being in the middle of murder mystery, but I can't think of many ways in which Step-There could be involved and act like he does.
Could Quiet be a murderer and fake her own assassination attempt to avoid being questioned? Possibly, if the poison isn't lethal, however with how strong the remains are it would be a big gamble on her part.
Next question, could Step-There and Quiet be in cahoots? One lets her in, the other kills/robs Looks-It-Up and sets up Belt, then next day they fake Quiet's 'murder', and Step-There conjures a 'third person' for us to suspect. The others would certainly believe the attacked. I think there was some data contradicting this theory, but I can't quite recall what it is. I'll have to go over the text again.
If we rule out Step-There as a criminal or accomplice, then we'd be able to let him stay in our room more confidently.
As for the Vault, I don't think it would be in our interests to loot it independently from our employer, without backup. I know the rewards may make it sound tempting, but we'd have to leave everything on fire to get away with it. I'd rather let him clean it and use the distraction it provides to escape if all goes to hell.
That makes my vote...
B1) Create a mental link with Steel (expends a belief move) and tell him of the entrance to the vault. C2) Interrupt the beholder and call for peace. Deadliest might be making a terrible mistake... D1) No.
100 coin = 1 load. There are "loot items" which are basically 0-load or 1-load valuables that can be sold for coin as well. And this is only taking into account your own person, so you could put way more shit into the airship if you have time to take multiple trips to and from the vault.
Loyalty is almost certain not motivated just by concern for her maid. However, I am surprised that you want to use the belief move on her and not on Step-There. Do you trust him?
The woman tried to pull a fast one on you yesterday. She tried to seduce you, and only the gardener bailed you out. We suspect Quiet went to Looks-It-Up, perhaps with the same goal, and now he is dead.
The spot prolly isn't so blind.
However, as a heraldress, wouldn't she know we are invading her mind's privacy? OP?
