WEEK 2

[whimsicalism]

The first week at the castle passes without any (recent) murders. Mysteries were found, questions asked, bonds formed, and Halloween celebrated. Now as Sunday 'dawns', you might feel your mind a little lighter as your first memories fade. Will this be just a week celebrating the (questionably) best thing about October or will more sinister things be afoot?

Either way, it looks like the Alices will continue their game.

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

[Hello, and welcome to week 2! Don't forget to submit your memory losses here and your activity here. If you want to ask or annoy the twins you can do so here. As always, don't forget to turn your threads in for 'fabulous prizes.]

Comments

[imozon]

[Ah! Hm. This has implications even she can pick up on.

Dark Dream is not the sort of person who thinks of bringing a flashlight to an investigation, so while we wait for a better-prepared person to show up, let's take a look at something that's easy to see in the light from the doorway. What kind of destruction are we looking at with the furniture? Is it stuff you'd take to a carpenter to have repaired, or is it pretty much just scraps?]

[whimsicalism]

[You could bring this to a repair person but they probably would point you to the direction of the dump. This isn't repairable.]

[littlebratziska]

[Franziska has not lived this long and studied this hard to ignore details, and a door that has always been closed and locked suddenly being cracked open is a significant, enough that she makes a beeline right over and peers inside. Then, you know, recoils somewhat, because boy that is a lot of broken everything all over the place in there.]

Dream? What are you doing in here?

[She immediately tries to turn on the light switch, and it does not work. She frowns in response, turns and goes back to her room and then digs through the drawer until- aha! She thought she'd remembered a flashlight in there.

This in hand she makes her way back to the dark room, glass crunching in the carpet as she steps in.]

What happened here?

[whimsicalism]

[Franziska, welcome to what looks like a crime scene. There's a Lot that could be explored here. Where do you want to look first?]

[littlebratziska]

[In scanning the room does anything stand out other than everything being broken? Especially a portrait or something that should be one, or anything on top of the desk?]

[whimsicalism]

[There's no portrait here, surprisingly. The desk itself is overturned and seems to have deep cuts down the sides. In fact, if she turns around there's several knives jammed into the wall near the door.]

[littlebratziska]

[She flinches back reflexively when she turns and there are a bunch of KNIVES that are RIGHT THERE, but after a moment walks over to those.

What kinds of knives? Can she pull any or all of them out of the wal? Do they seem to have been aiming for any particular spot?]

[whimsicalism]

[They seem to be some of the knives from the knife sets that the machine is so fond of, plus one of the combat knives. In fact, if she shuts the door there's some empty holes where more of them could have went.

She can probably pull a couple up if not all. They were thrown with some force to get this deep, after all. As for where they're thrown...

They seem to be in a horizontal line about the same height heading towards the door. It's not a perfect line, though.]

[littlebratziska]

[If the line is leading to the door, she shuts the door, and voila. How many knives are there in total, and how many empty holes are there? What, roughly, is the height of what was being aimed at?

As she examines the knives, she looks very closely for any bloodstains, on or around any of the knives, the holes, and the floor under those knives and holes, as well as a brief glance at the rest of the room. She can check it more thoroughly for blood later.]

[whimsicalism]

[The holes in the door match up with the line. As for the knives in total: there are four steak knives in the wall and two combat knife. As for the holes, there's two in the door. Someone must have brought a lot of knives with them, huh.

There's no bloodstains on the blades but half of all the knives have stains on the handle.]

[littlebratziska]

[Do the stains on the handles appear to be blood? Are they in any particular pattern, for example a hand print? And is there a pattern to which are stained and which are not - for example are there only stains on one end of the line, or on one kind of knife?]

[whimsicalism]

[They all seem to be at a level as if someone might have been throwing them at someone near but under your own height of 4'8".

As for the stains, yes, this is blood. There does seem to be some kind of smudged pattern on the handles. Since Franziska's probably has seen a lot of various blood stains she'd probably be able to tell that, even with it's age, it probably was by someone who was wearing gloves or at least partial ones. There are some prints that are too smudged to be useful, now. As for a pattern, they seem to alternate between stained and not stained.]

[littlebratziska]

[Does it appear they were throwing it at head height? If so she is checking the blades and the floor for any severed strands of hair.

Franziska absolutely knows what bloodstains look like when the lack of any fingerprints indicate gloves, and the lack of ridge detail is the easiest place to start. Do the stains all appear to be from the same hand, for example all from the left hand? Does the pattern left on the knife appear to suggest the knives were held with any proficiency for this use, or by an amateur, for example how erratic does the pattern of the stains seem to be? Were they all held fairly uniformly? Are there multiple patterns of grips, as though it was held several ways? Is the blood pattern heavier at one end of the line or the other?

Franziska will pull out the knife with the most badly degraded pattern if she can, as well as one with no pattern, so she can more closely examine the blades. Do either of these have any blood on them, left by the same gloved hand or otherwise? Does the surface seem to carry any other fingerprints?]

[whimsicalism]

[They do seem to be at head height. Though, probably luckily for the intended target, there's no hair strands or clothing scraps under them.

They seem to be all from the right hand. There doesn't seem to be any left handed blood stains. For detail on how they were held on closer inspection this person wasn't just wearing gloves they were wearing fingerless gloves. The palm print doesn't have any detail but several finger prints do.

As for the general, even if there was blood on the handle the grip seems to be consistent. The fact that while the line isn't uniform, it's close to being in a straight line also indicates that whoever threw them knew how to throw knives well.

The level of blood does seem to be getting heavier near the end of the line. It would be safe to say that it was the same person who threw all of them.]

[imozon]

I don't know! I opened it with the bookmark and it was already like this!

[SHE DIDN'T DO IT]

[littlebratziska]

[She's looking around with a mixture of amazement and disdain.]

It looks like someone wanted to destroy everything about this place.

[imozon]

They must have really hated it. Or whoever lived here, I guess.

[littlebratziska]

Hm... We know that murders have already taken place here... could it be that we are not as safe as we think in our bedrooms?

[If she was the protagonist of Ace Attorney Investigations this is where a clue would be added to the organizer and the logic screen. Since this is not quite the case she merely makes a mental note and continues.]

[imozon]

We can't use clothes to get into each other's rooms. I had Seven try yesterday.

[Hm.]

We could let each other into our own rooms, though.

[littlebratziska]

True, but that's assuming that is always the case. Someone was clearly attacked here. They might have let them in, but we don't know for sure the rooms will always function the same way.

[imozon]

You mean they might have a secret other way to open them?

[OH GOOD SOMETHING TO BE PARANOID ABOUT.]

[littlebratziska]

I don't feel like we know enough about this place to rule the possibility out. We do know that several people have died here already, though, and...

[Her flashlight briefly lingers on the knives]

Something clearly happened here.

[imozon]

Do you think they stabbed someone who was leaning on the door?

[...probably not.]

[littlebratziska]

I don't think anyone was actually stabbed, even though the attacker was bleeding. There's not enough blood for that, and if they'd been stabbed against the door we would see the stains from that. Someone certainly tried to stab them, however.]

[imozon]

So this isn't where someone died... just looking at everything I was sure something like that had happened.