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

[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.]

[littlebratziska]

[OH WELL SHE DEFINITELY RECOGNIZES FINGERPRINTS IN BLOOD and will certainly be making note of that. If only she had a camera! Presumably she does not have access to a camera.

Regardless she is absolutely going to try and find some kind of fingerprint to compare it to - she's never done fingerprint analysis herself, but she knows about it and how hard can it be?]

Don't touch any of these knives, they have valuable evidence on them.

[Satisfied, at least for now, with the information gathered from the knives, Franziska turns to a more through search of the rest of the room to look for blood traces, paying close attention to any patches or droplets that likely would have fallen from the knife-weilder's right hand. She's not sure if they were injured or it was the victim's blood, but if there are any scattered bloodstains that might help figure that much out.]

[whimsicalism]

[There does seem to be a lot blood traces in this room! Not enough to say that someone died here but the splashes of blood on the floor and walls do seem to be in a general enough pattern that it could have been from the person who threw the knifes, possibly when they threw them.

More than that, the broken window area seems to have a lot more blood. Again, not enough to suggest a murder was done here but the broken window glass has blood on them. Not to mention black threads caught on the glass.]

[imozon]

Those aren't mine. I didn't touch it.

[littlebratziska]

Of course not, you're not bleeding, and anyway the bloodstains are already dried.

[Presumably, anyway, she is not bleeding. Hopefully she is not bleeding. Dark Dream you are not bleeding are you?]

[imozon]

[Dark Dream is not bleeding, since she wore shoes.]

[littlebratziska]

[Well that's interesting! Do the bricks behind the broken window appear to have any scratches on them, as though left by a knife?]

Ha! The attacker clearly tried to kill here first, shattering the window and injuring themselves, and then threw the knives when their target dodged their first strike!

[Can she see the knife block, or any sheaths or containers the knives might have been kept in prior to the attack?]

[imozon]

You can tell all that just by looking?

[She is, for the record, being very careful not to touch anything. More than she was being before, incidentally, although she didn't really touch anything then either.]

[littlebratziska]

Of course, it's as plain as my riding crop.

The glass of the window is shattered, and the bricks are scratched by a knife. The killer, or attempted killer at least, cut themselves when they did that - you can see the blood on the glass, and on the knives they threw.

[She curtsies just a bit after this explanation, with a slight flourish.]

[whimsicalism]

[There does seem to be some scratches on the bricks as well as some of those familiar fingerprints.

Strangely, there's no evidence of how the knives were carried in here even in the debris.]

[littlebratziska]

[Is there any particular pattern that the fingerprints are in? And is there any evidence of where the attacker was cut based on the blood stains? Do those bloodstains seem to lead anywhere, if followed from the window to the area where the knives seem to have been thrown, do they go anywhere from there?

Strange! But then, the attacker must have carried them in, maybe in some kind of bag or a bandolier or something, who knows, and then taken that evidence with them when they left.

She walks over to the door again and examines the two holes left by the knives. Is there any blood around either of them, for example when the attacker pulled their knives out of the door?]

[whimsicalism]

[It's a little hard to tell with the color of the bricks but the prints are right above the bottom edge of the window. There does seem to be some blood surrounding a shape on the frame of the window. (Window sill? Whatever it is you call where the glass attaches.) It's not a lot of blood but it does sort of look like a knife had been there at some point.

There seems to be a few drops from where the window is (where it seemed to be a lot more collected) to where the door is. There's also another hand print on the door as if they needed force to pull the knives out.

That hand... is small, even compared to Franziska's.]

[littlebratziska]

[The hand being so small gives her pause, as it suggests that perhaps the attacker was quite young. She quickly reexamined the other knives, to see if she can see anything to suggest that they were maybe thrown at an upward angle instead of straight.]

[whimsicalism]

[Or at least smaller than Franziska herself. There's a slight tilt upward but not much of one.]

[littlebratziska]

Hm...

[So probably shorter and smaller than her, so probably younger. (She has no concrete evidence that they are younger, but in her mind this is a solid Fact).]

So, based on what I've seen thus far, the attacker was probably younger than the person they were attacking. They might have thrown the knife first and struck the window, I guess, or maybe just tried to stab their target while in front of the window and broke the glass, and then cut themselves on the glass. There are threads that were left in the frame, so for some reason they touched it, and it tore threads off of their glove, probably at the same time as they were cut.

Bleeding but determined to accomplish what they'd set out to do, they turned around and threw their knives at the person in this room - the occupant, probably - who had run over to the side of the room, and ran for the door, slamming it as the attacker threw their last two knives, which struck the door instead as it shut.

The attacker, not done yet, ran to the door and pulled the blades out, then immediately ran out after their victim, and continued the chase.

[A sudden thought strikes her, and she suddenly looks slightly less pleased with herself and a little more upset.]

Perhaps... the bloodstain in the library, maybe that's where this ended.

[BUT SHE REALLY HAS NO WAY TO KNOW THAT so she shakes away the thought.]

In any case, the attacker appeared to have no luck in their aim in this room.

[Just in case, she turns her flashlight and briefly scans the rest of the room for the two missing knives from the holes in the door, not really expecting to find them. She'd already decided that they'd been taken by the attacker, but just in case...

She also pays more attention to the rest of the furniture as she briefly skims the room, especially looking for blood that might tell her if the furniture was destroyed before or after the attack, and how the furniture seemed to have been destroyed; if the damage looked more like it was caused by a blunt object or a sharp object (small, like a knife, or large like a sword), or even claws, or teeth, or simply being thrown with great strength. Or perhaps some combination of all these things! You really never know!]

[whimsicalism]

[There does seem to be a lot of little scratches on the furniture and bedding. Something that could have been done with a knife or many knives. There are various stabs in the furniture as well. If she checks it they definitely seemed to be made by the knives, probably by the ones taken by the Knife Person.

The desk and side table do seem like they were knocked over, potentially in a chase or a struggle.

Strangely, though? There's enough bedding in here for two people.]

[littlebratziska]

[wtf?? She does definitely check the furniture enough to gather that most of the damage looks like it was caused by knives and then focuses in on the bedding, and begins to carefully pull it apart, searching for clues as she does.]

[imozon]

Did you find something else?

[littlebratziska]

There's too many blankets here for just one bed - look. Could... could more than one person have been staying here?

[whimsicalism]

[For one, while it's clear there was and is only one bed in this room? There's far too many blankets for one person. They're also pretty slashed up and far away from the bed.]

[littlebratziska]

[Does the pile of blankets removed from the bed appear to be in the shape of a be itself?]