Game 101 - FINAL TRIAL - The End is never the End

[crazynuto]

Once more you must dance this deadly disco of death and despair. Once more you must find who killed, but for what purpose? To oust a killer to a tyrant who likely will kill you just the same the next night? Perhaps this is truly an exercise in futility.

Nevertheless, you arrive at the Throne Room, where the fleshy mass lays on display in the center of your circle of podiums. So many of you have fallen, who could this new victim possibly be. Princess Shroob wordlessly points at a panel on the wall then claps her hands. She sits on her Throne, a pulsating heartbeat drumming in the back of your ears as some Shroobs pile in, chanting in an alien language.


⍓︎♐︎ ♑︎❖︎♓︎❍︎⧫︎ ⌧︎❍︎❖︎❍︎◆︎♏︎⧫︎♓︎📪︎ ♑︎❖︎⍓︎❑︎ ❍︎⌘︎🙰 ♒︎♓︎◆︎⧫︎♓︎❖︎ ●︎♓︎⌘︎♓︎❍︎⧫︎♐︎ ⧫︎♐︎♓︎ ⌧︎♌︎❍︎⌘︎♓︎⧫︎📬︎ ◆︎♏︎⌘︎♍︎ 🙰♓︎♓︎⌧︎♓︎❖︎ ❍︎⌘︎🙰 🙰♓︎♓︎⌧︎♓︎❖︎ ♏︎⌘︎⧫︎⍓︎ ⧫︎♐︎♓︎ 🙵❖︎⬧︎◆︎⧫︎ ⍓︎♒︎ ⧫︎♐︎♓︎ ♓︎❍︎❖︎⧫︎♐︎ ⬧︎⌘︎⧫︎♏︎♌︎ □︎⍓︎⬧︎ ⌧︎♓︎⌘︎♓︎⧫︎❖︎❍︎⧫︎♓︎ ⧫︎♐︎♓︎ 🙵⍓︎❖︎♓︎ ❍︎⌘︎🙰 ♏︎⌘︎♒︎♓︎🙵⧫︎ ♏︎⧫︎ ♒︎❖︎⍓︎♋︎ ❑︎♏︎⧫︎♐︎♏︎⌘︎📬︎ ◆︎❍︎□︎◆︎ ⧫︎♐︎♓︎ ♑︎❖︎♓︎❍︎⧫︎ ◆︎♐︎❖︎⍓︎⍓︎●︎ ♑︎⍓︎🙰◆︎📪︎ ♐︎❍︎♏︎♌︎ ♌︎❍︎❒︎⍓︎◆︎📪︎ 🙵⍓︎⌘︎◆︎⬧︎♋︎♓︎❖︎◆︎ ⍓︎♒︎ ⌧︎♌︎❍︎⌘︎♓︎⧫︎◆︎✏︎ ♋︎❍︎□︎ □︎⍓︎⬧︎ ❖︎♏︎◆︎♓︎ ⧫︎⍓︎♋︎⍓︎❖︎❖︎⍓︎❑︎ ❍︎⌘︎🙰 ●︎❖︎♏︎⌘︎♑︎ ❖︎⬧︎♏︎⌘︎ ⬧︎⌧︎⍓︎⌘︎ ⧫︎♐︎♓︎◆︎♓︎ ⌧︎⬧︎⌘︎□︎ ⍓︎❖︎♑︎❍︎⌘︎♏︎🙵◆︎✏︎

Difficulty: Hard

QUESTIONS:

Q1: Who is the Victim?

Q2: How were they killed?

Q3: When were they killed?

Q4: What was used to melt the body?

Q5: Who killed the Victim?

Difficulty: Hard

QUESTIONS:

SQ1: Why did they have to die?

SQ2: Where is the Cobalt Star Core?

SQ3: What is Princess Shroob planning?

SQ4:How can we escape this fate?

SQ5: Who is truly behind this?

The trial begins, a final act of this fatalistic play. Will you find the truth, or will you succumb to despair? Good luck my friends, you'll need it.


You have 48 hours. An extension will be given upon request. Trial ends at 8 pm EST on 7/30/22. Answers thread will be up in 24 hours. Not all is as it seems. But I believe in you.

[jash]

Nagito also starts chanting along with the Shroobs:

OH GREAT PARASITE.
GROW AND FESTER BENEATH THE PLANET.
SINK DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO THE CRUST OF THE EARTH UNTIL YOU PENETRATE THE CORE AND INFECT IT FROM WITHIN.
SAYS THE GREAT SHROOB GODS.
HAIL LAVOS.
CONSUMERS OF PLANETS! MAY YOU RISE TOMORROW AND BRING RUIN UPON THESE PUNY ORGANICS!

[Peregrine]

"I want to clarify the facts as they stand. On the whole, I mean."


Keziah clears her throat and prepares for a monologue.


"We're trapped by a forcefield in Peach's Castle, after our original... timeline, let's call it, was abandoned due to the use of the Time-a-Tron 3000, or 5000, or whichever."

"At some point between fifteen years ago and today, the castle was overtaken by Princess Shroob and the now-pervadin' Shroob occupants. We arrived back in the Shroob-infested castle through a Time Portal from the Gritzy Desert, effectively skipping past those fifteen years of occupation."

"Soon after our arrival, deaths began occurring amongst our group on the regular. Princess Shroob always seemed suspiciously well-equipped to adjudicate our investigations into these deaths, and seems to operate on a set of guidelines by which she metes out punishment to the appropriate culprit. No effort has been made to avert these deaths."

"The trial concernin' Shenhe's death took place in Toad Town fifteen years ago. The Squeaker attending trial was, in fact, from that very same time. Both he and his present-day counterpart were placed in a lock-box as punishment, leaving their fate at the time ambiguous."

"The Stuffcophagus in which the Squeakers found themselves has since been brought to the present. However, I submit that whether it has actually aged fifteen years or been brought through the Time Portal, Squeaks is no longer inside. In the former case, Squeaks couldn't have survived fifteen years in a sealed box, no way no how. The latter case is more complicated: the mechanics of time travel, as I understand them, dictate that creatures originating from the past suffer dire consequences by travelling to the future, up to and including ceasin' to exist. I'd imagine this would cause the present-day counterpart to disappear as well."

"Despite all this, we still heard noises coming from within the Stuffcophagus this morning. That means somethin' got put in there somehow—rather, someone got put in there. Whoever that is, it's our 'victim' in this case, and it sure ain't Squeaks."

[⋆⋅ Sage ⋅⋆]

Kokichi, sitting in his wheelchair, strains to be seen over his podium.

"Well, I may not know who the victim here is, but I do know someone killed one of the Shroob Guards in the East Staircase to the 2nd floor last night. Burning someone alive? Not cool...

"Oh yeah, and did you know Luigi was here?"

[peterparker]

Byakuya crosses his arms. “You idiots haven’t even figured out who the victim is yet? How can you have a murder trial without a victim?

“I’d like to hear from whoever investigated the body. They’d better have figured out who the victim is, or I will be suing them for wasting my valuable time.”

[Vulpix]

Yoshi yips softly at Byakuya. His robotic voice emanates from his collar.

"I sniffed the pile of goo. It did not smell nice. It smelled like vinegar and also booze. I think it was once shaped like a two-legged person. A naked two-legged person."

"The goo is very sticky, like pancake syrup for pancakes. There are bits of rock stuck in the goo. Overall I would not recommend sniffing or licking the goo. Thank you for your time."

[Jackie :3 (Bloom/Pollen)]

(Frank after hearing the comment about the burnt shroom guard looks around nervously) "I wonder who burnt the shroom guard! but it isn't important..." (He thinks a bit) "OH RIGHT! I went to the shroom shop they said a list of things were missing butttt most importantly some type of acid... I forgot which kind but it is the melty kind for sure!"

[mao]

Princess E. Moji is still flickering in and out of existence like a broken lightbulb, traces of temporal energy buzzing around them… or is that just some noise coming out of their mouth?

Bzzzzzzzzzzzz – Hiya, friends!

I will tell you about my night- BZZZZZZ!

Anyway, that’s all there is to it. After reappearing in the library, my body’s been acting all weird…

SDRAWKCAB GNIWOLF SI EMIT

I blinked and suddenly I had gotten back to the library. I figured I wasn’t supposed to go there, after all, since the past was so angry at me. The portal was flickering weakly like it was about to disappear, I think that’s my fault.

Then I left some emoji letters to various people in the past. I have a feeling I was supposed to do something important, but the portal had messed with my memory. My brain didn’t know if I was E. Moji from 15 years ago or E. Moji from 0 years ago.

The gravity in the town got really heavy. It took me a while to make it to Archie T’s house, but he wasn’t home. It felt like the portal was pulling me towards it, but you know, adversity is part of life! I had something important to do so I couldn’t just give up. Princess Peach was relying on me, so I just ignored the voice telling me to call it quits!

I saw Ritchie looking into the portal when I got the bright idea to – BZZZZZ! – and so I dashed right through it. Toad Town was looking weird and glitchy, though. There were purple mushrooms all over the place and the square was wrecked.

The dog lady and the dog-faced dinosaur came into the library wearing ominous hoods. Ritchie was talking to them, and it looked like a private conservation so I just butted in. They were talking about their mother’s ships and the portal and the mushrooms.

I was hanging out in the library with Ritchie and the turtle guy, Frank. The shards were freaking out, shaking on the table while Ritchie looked at them. He had some mushrooms on him and they were looking kinda… tasty, not gonna lie.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

When we found the new victim, I wanted to be helpful, but didn’t really know where to investigate. So my body got split into eight places at the same time, and I saw lots of things!

- The Storage was trashed. I couldn’t tell if anything was taken, but it’s obvious that someone visited that place last night. The vent was taped shut.

- Shroob Shop was also trashed. Maybe the culprit went on a rampage on the first floor?

- There was a burnt corpse on the East Staircase. But it’s not important, probably.

- Someone slept in Peach’s bed again! And this time, it wasn’t me!!! Oh, and one of the wheelchairs was missing from her bedroom/infirmary, too.

- The Kitchen looked like it’d been used heavily. There was an empty wine bottle. I’m 101% positive it contained wine. Cherry Wine, to be exact.

- Engineering, West Staircase and Strange Machine Room appeared relatively untouched.

I hope that’s helpful! I also used my super secret ability on – bzzzzzz…

[Segaaaa]

"Nobody cares about a detective's alibi, so I'll jump straight to the facts before that."


"I say 'nobody', and that's also what we're dealing with. There's no body."


"The 'body' is actually a melted mass of flesh."
"Upon sniffing, this thing smelled of vinegar and alcohol."


"I moved it around like clay."
"It was sticky and syrupy to the touch, it felt like a thin layer of sugar was over it."
"As I played with it, I managed to find some small bits of stone embedded in the flesh of the thing."


"After I was done, I consulted my brain cell responsible for rock information."
"As it turns out, the bits of stone could be from a weak sedimentary stone like limestone, marble, or shale."


"That's all on the red poop."
"I also investigated the room around it, the Throne Room."


"By center of the room, under the fallen chandelier, was a giant bloodstain."
"From past detective experience, I could tell this bloodstain was several hours old."
"Unrelated to this finding, I also found a shattered wine glass near the throne. I could tell someone probably drank from it."


"Then I thought I was done, but there was more."
"In the room was also the Stuffcophagus, which was melted open."
"A closer examination revealed green residue on the edges of the steel."


"Regardless of what caused this, the steel couldn't have taken more than two hours to melt."


"Then there were two rooms left. I'm tried, so I'll make it quick."


"Absolutely nothing was taken from the Armory."
"The last room I checked, the Observatory, was still a wreck from yesterday's explosion."
"Still, I could tell the telescope had been used. I went and looked through it, but saw nothing but stars."



"That's all."

[crazynuto]

Jul 29, 2022 21:34:05 GMT -6 Jackie :3 (Bloom/Pollen) said:

(Frank after hearing the comment about the burnt shroom guard looks around nervously) "I wonder who burnt the shroom guard! but it isn't important..." (He thinks a bit) "OH RIGHT! I went to the shroom shop they said a list of things were missing butttt most importantly some type of acid... I forgot which kind but it is the melty kind for sure!"

A small sheet of paper flutters out of Frank's pocket. Oh hey it seems he had the list on him the whole time!

A Bottle of Coca-Cola
Some Lovely Nitric Acid
A Hammer
A Ballpoint Pen
A Statue Leaf
A Large Bottle of Rum
A Wheelchair
A Can of Purple Paint
A Bottle of Water
And lastly
A big ol’ F You

You get the feeling some of this is a lie. I wonder why?

[crazynuto]

All Questions Unlocked.

Q4: What was used to melt the body?

Q5: Who killed the Victim?

SQ1: Why did t   hey have to die?

SQ2: Where is the Co    balt St    ar Cor    e?

SQ3: Wh    at is Prince    ss Shroob plann    ing?

SQ4:H    ow ca    n we esca    pe             this fate?

SQ5: W    ho     is             tr    uly                             beh    in    d                                                                                         t    his?

[Peregrine]

crazynuto said:

A Bottle of Coca-Cola
Some Lovely Nitric Acid
A Hammer
A Ballpoint Pen
A Statue Leaf
A Large Bottle of Rum
A Wheelchair
A Can of Purple Paint
A Bottle of Water
And lastly
A big ol’ F You

As she and Yoshi review the list, Keziah rubs her chin.


"I dunno if we can trust all o' this, but I know at least some of it's legit. We can see the wheelchair right there, and I spotted evidence of that paint gettin' used during the night."

"I wanna draw attention to two things here: Nitric Acid and the Statue Leaf. I did some diggin' in the Library and learned a thing or two about Statue Leaves; they're an expensive powerup used for disguise and infiltration. It transforms the user into limestone for one to two hours before wearing off."

"Limestone's important fer two reasons: firstly, it matches the traces of rock found in the flesh soup. Second, limestone is exceptionally easy to dissolve in just about any kind of acid! It seems pretty clear to me what happened, then; the victim had a Statue Leaf applied to them, turning them into limestone, and was trapped in the Stuffcophagus with enough nitric acid to dissolve them over a couple hours. We just gotta know when and how that all got in there."

[peterparker]

Byakuya scoffs at everyone else's investigations. "Pathetic. Allow me to reveal my superior deductions about this case. 

"First of all, I checked the Throne Room. Obviously, something terrible happened here, and I'm not talking about the chandelier that squashed Kokichi earlier in the day, because that was just funny. I'm sure it's his blood congealing under the chandelier in a disgusting fashion. Honestly, can't you afford cleaning staff here? 

"What was I saying? Oh, yes, the Throne Room. Obviously the body was there, if you can even call that a body. There was also a half-drunk wine that someone carelessly threw away by the throne. Finally, there was the Stuffcophagus, which has been melted open and the Squeaks' bodies are gone. The melted steel had some green residue on it, which looked really gross but I investigated it anyway. You're welcome. Based on my superior intellect and extensive scientific knowledge, I've deduced that it took no more than two hours to melt through that steel. 

"I also investigated the Kitchen. I found a bottle of Cherry Wine missing about one glass' worth of wine. As a wine connoisseur, I can confirm that this time the wine is not cough syrup. There was also some cherry juice on the ground and, uh, a sandwich that I may have thrown away in a fit of rage which got run over. Let's move on from that.  

"I investigated the Battlements. The only interesting thing I found was a trail of purple droplets leading from the East Wing to Princess Shroob's Room. I can't say who made this mess, as it looks like many people passed through the room. What I can say, is this castle is a pigsty and I want to go home. 

"Oh, I also investigated the Strange Machine Room, but no one had been inside it, and apparently Princess Shroob is too cheap to pay someone to wave a feather duster around."

[mao]

E. Moji who had been frozen in time suddenly continues their unfinished sentence.

– Squeaks. They are definitely 50% not dead. In fact, loots of things happened to them during the night. Even though I'm only 50% certain that they are alive, I think they are still

A M O N G U S

Here's their alibi in Emojese:

A0: 💻🤔👀
A1: 👾📷🛸🍒⭐
A2: 🤖🎮👑
A3: 🥤🍷👑
A4: ⚰🔓 (sarcophagus unlocked)
A5: ❤🔥⛽🌟

[Peregrine]

mao said:

Here's [Squeak's] alibi in Emojese:

A0: 💻🤔👀
A1: 👾📷🛸🍒⭐
A2: 🤖🎮👑
A3: 🥤🍷👑
A4: ⚰🔓 (sarcophagus unlocked)
A5: ❤🔥⛽🌟

"Damn. I'd been keeping this quiet in case I had to catch someone out in a lie, but I think it's relevant now."

"That weird elevator in the Mothership has been out of order until tonight, but not any more. I got it up and running again, around Action 4. Yoshi here said he smelled somethin' odd when we went in—like death, and somethin' familiar. I'm beginning to realize what he meant."

"Up that elevator there's a Control Room fer the Mothership. It's got a few gadgets lyin' around, like some cameras watching over a few rooms in present-day Peach's Castle, a transporter (also wired to the castle in present day), some kinda VR setup called a Visione a Fungo, and a whole talkin' robot. There are also six shroobs sleepin' in pods, like they're in some kinda stasis. A few o' them were weird, too—a two-headed one, one flickerin' outta existence (kinda like you, Moji), and a mighty sinister-lookin' one."

"I got to ask that robot some questions. It sounded like he was babblin' nonsense, but if I'm hearin' that info about Squeaks right, it starts to make more sense to me. We ain't seen Squeaks in person, no, but I reckon whatever that Stuffcophagus was, it made him real strange. Temporal instability or quantum dissociation or somesuch baloney. Seems he's been wanderin' about in some kinda liminal, extraplanar, quasi-spatial, fugue limbo ethereum—I'll call him a Time Ghost."

"In any case. I did my best to get the robot's answers verbatim, so here were our little Q 'n A session:"


Q. What are the details of this transporter's recent use?

A. "T-T-The Transporter? According to my logs it moved t-two objects to the same place. Something... strong and powerful and strong and powerful and... something f-fruity."


"I don't know fer sure what the 'strong and powerful' object would've been, but based on this and Moji's testimony, I'd wager the fruity thing was a Double Cherry, an illegal powerup that creates a copy of the user. Caveat bein' that the clone can't last too long when separated from the original, and disappears if the user dies. Caveat to the caveat, it's theorized that some kinda external power source may provide an exception to one or both of those rules. Any info on specifics has been stricken from the records, though."


Q. Within the last eight hours, has anyone entered this room by means other than the elevator?

A. "Unaffirmative. Nary a soul entered this room aside from you and the furry one. Entered through the elevator is the only entrance unless they were already here than they didn’t enter, yes?"


"If you ask me, I'd say Squeaks had been snoopin' around the Control Room as a Time Ghost fer a while. I think he might've been using the Visione a Fungo to control a Shroob somehow—at least, that's what I assume it allows the user to do. When I tried to use it while investigatin', it said it was 'In Use' already."


Q. Were the shroobs in this room always shroobs, or did they begin their life cycle as something else?

A. "'Tis the nature of life to constantly grow and evolve no? Yet these Shroobs are in a state of... undeath, yet they were not always so undead. Perhaps once in a time they were, perhaps not. The life cycle of a mushroom is to feed off the decaying, so yes they started as not mushrooms. As will you. Too much said. Too many truths. No no no. Shutting d-down. Battery low. Missing c....o"


"This... doesn't make too much sense t'me. Like I said before, there were six shroobs. One of 'em had two faces, one of 'em was flickerin' in and out of existence, and one just looked plain mean. The rest seemed normal enough. I can't fer the life of me imagine what they're there for, though. Are they power sources? Do they pilot the Mothership? Do they have somethin' to do with any of our previous victims or culprits? All of the above? I just don't know."


She lets out a deep breath.


"That's all I got."