Devils of Mortechaîne: A Mystery

"Thank you."

"Right;" he said to Sebastian, "if we're gonna follow him, we'd better get movin'."

He prepared to get out of the bushes and follow Engel, keeping both distance and tabs. All that was needed now was to make sure that Sebastian was going to do the same...

edited 11th May '11 6:26:35 PM by kkhohoho

"... ... ... ... ... So... What's your name?" Marcus asked.

"It's... It's just like..." Engel was horrified by the scene.

The mayor put a reassuring hand on Engel's shoulder, "I'm sorry you had to see this... But it looks like we're not out of the woods yet, as it were..."

Sebastian followed, joining the crowd in the alley and laying his eyes on the body as well. "Oh my...", he began, but stopped. He slowly backed away, resisting the urge to vomit. He leaned against a wall, slowly removing his hat and offering a preyer for the deceased...

Who would do such a thing? Who? This isn't possible... it can't be... Sebastian just couldn't fathom it.

"My name is Ryuu Duquesne."

Bloody hell...

He had never seen anything like it before in his life; suffice to say, this was not pretty. He felt close to vomiting; not to the point where his body had truly the process, but he had still put a hand on his chest for a good two seconds.

The average man would likely panic and whine and be absolutely terrified of the situation, but Ryan did none of these things; instead, he took out his notebook, and began jotting down notes about the entire scene. Which, while of course including the body itself, also happened to include the people. Yes, the crowd wasn't exactly enjoying themselves, but at the same time, they weren't reacting as though this was the first time they'd seen this sort of display before, either; '"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice'...

edited 11th May '11 9:09:11 PM by kkhohoho

It was at that moment Anya, blissfully unaware of what was really going on, ran upstairs to inform her brother of the cancellation of school, "Marcus! Papa said school was canceled... He had to go do something in town all of a sudden so Aunt Ambre's gonna come over and watch us."

Engel buried his face in one of his hands, "Mayor... I told you... I never saw the face of the killer when..."

"I know, Engel. But... I wanted you to help investigate. You're one of the most intelligent people in town and have a bit of experience in this, as it were... And I think your family may be in danger..."

Claudia couldn't stand it anymore. She needed to excuse herself. "U- Um... Dad... I- I think I'm going to be sick... I- I need to-..."

"Go ahead, sweetheart..." He said, "You don't need to be seeing this kind of thing..."

Claudia nodded, and quickly excused herself from the scene... But accidentally knocked into Sebastian in her hurry.

"! Oh- Oh... Mr. Clearwater...!"

"Hello, Miss Reynolds.", Sebastian replied, his hair still untucked, which was a shame but he didn't have time to worry about it. He needed to start questioning witnesses, but he should start with her first. "Shouldn't you be getting some rest, Miss? It was near midnight when you left, and its only seven or so now."

Not waiting for an answer but not quite letting her go, he turned to Engel and the Mayor. "Excuse me, sirs? May i have a word?"

edited 11th May '11 7:42:38 PM by InfiniteParagon

Ryan had been busy taking notes when he noticed that Sebastian had moved from his spot; it seemed that he had made his way to the mayor. At first he thought about going up to the mayor as well, but, 'Too many cooks spoil the stew,' as he thought the saying went. The mayor was probably already on edge as is. He didn't need two people interrogating him. So instead, he decided to ask a random local; not exactly right next to the mayor or Sebastian, but still close enough so that Sebastian could find him later.

"Excuse me," he said to the random stranger while tipping up his hat, "but has this sort of thing happened before?". He pointed toward the literally bloody mess. "Sorry, but I'm new here." Of course, he was pretty sure at this point that this had happened before, but this was as good a place to start interrogating as any; he could work his way up from there.

edited 11th May '11 9:07:05 PM by kkhohoho

The mayor looked at Sebastian apologetically, "Yes.. Of course... I'm sure you're shocked about this... I apologize, I was hoping this wouldn't happen..."

"I knew something like this was going to happen..." Engel muttered a bit bitterly.

Claudia was watching them, and fiddled with the bandaged on her hands nervously.

The local that Ryan addressed turned to face him. He appeared to be a young man close in age to Daisy - 19 or 20 or so. He seemed to be particularly stressed about the situation, and cringed a bit when Ryan gestured towards the body.

"... Yes," he answered, seeming to hold back tears, "I- I'm sorry... I don't feel like talking about this now... The victim was... She... my sister..." The young man seemed rather distraught from the scene.

Daisy smiled. No locals left in the room, now. And the most suspicious members of her group were missing as well. Now she could have a real talk with her peers.

"So," she asked the group at large, "what are the best theories we have on all this?"

"Oh..." said Ryan to the man, "uh... I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked..."

He decided that perhaps this wasn't the best individual to have chosen to talk to, and decided to try someone else...

Whether he talks to someone else, or the current person he's talking to decides to have Ryan stay and talk to him, will depend on the GM.

"Start from the beginning, please.", Sebastian asked him, withdrawing his notebook and pen. He wasn't rightly sure what he had gotten himself into, but he knew that it was important, and possibly relevant to their waking up at the hospital. It was just a matter of time before he let something slip...

"As it were, I do believe you deserve an explanation..." The mayor began, "Well... As cheerful and as popular a tourist spot as our little town is, it's had a rather... Dark history... That my wife fears is going to repeat itself. I myself am not very familiar with the folkloric aspect of it, as it were, but... In the distant past there have been strings of murders occurring in the town, supposedly, but there's really no way to prove it... It was long before anyone living here now were born. To everyone, it was just a questionable bit of history... You'll really have to ask my dear wife about that, she's more familiar with it..."

"However..." Engel seemed to cue him.

"Oh, yes... About four years ago... A string of murders occurred."

"You're digging for information?" A female voice said behind him. A thin, pale woman with cropped black hair approached Ryan, "Good luck. Tried that four years ago, and the trail ran cold."

Ryan turned around in a flash, facing the stranger. Hesitating a moment, he noticed that she didn't seem to have the 'air' of the rest of the crowd; she was different. He said to her, tipping up his hat with a finger, "And just who're you supposed to be? And what do you mean, 'four years ago'?

edited 12th May '11 6:52:06 AM by kkhohoho

"Much like this one, i can safely presume?", Sebastian inquired. "I'll cut to the chase a bit, and maybe this is a little out there, but these murders stopped a bit ago and conveniently started up again now, didn't they?" Sebastian didn't want to know the answer, but he knew it was vital to dig up what he could.

It would make logical sense in a coincidental way as well: We all wake up in a hospital after being found in the nearby woods unconscious for a week before waking up at the same time to find out the way out of town has been blocked, and now a murder has happened? Whether or not these just started up, this isn't coincidental anyore. This was planned, although the finer details of it are sketchy. I'll need to make a small trip once i get done here...

edited 12th May '11 6:50:20 AM by InfiniteParagon

"Well... They did stop rather abruptly last time... And this is the first since then, yes." The mayor answered.

"Given the unusual circumstances this time... It's definitely not coincidence." Engel added.

Claudia decided to contribute, so she wouldn't feel like dead weight, "... Um, yes... I was thinking that, too... I mean, access to the outside world is blocked... Mr. Clearwater and the others show up..."

"Samara Amarante," She replies with a slight bow of the head, "A guest in town. At the inn. An investigator." She wasn't one to waste words.

"Four years ago, a string of murders occurred in this town. All of them were similarly gruesome. Aside from the brutality, the other key defining factor was a lack of suspects, motive... That sort of thing." Samara looked intoRyan's eyes, "Frankly, I find it suspicious... That this occurred immediately following your group's arrival. The closed circle. I suspect there's more meaning to this than what is seen on the surface."

As she was talking, Ryan was taking notes while keeping attention, until something came to mind...

"Tell me, Inspector; just how, and why, did you come to this town, both this time and last? You said that you were merely a guest, correct?"

edited 12th May '11 12:27:38 PM by kkhohoho

Remus’s Journal, Day One in Espoir Village, June 1st.

Part Two.

We arrived at the house, and Engel explained to us that it was intended to be rented out to guests, but he was lending it to us so we could have a place to stay, saying that we needed it more or something like that. He mentioned two people who came here in the morning to do house chores or something like that—Camus and Engel’s sister, Ambre. I remember their names only because I tried to pay attention to them—it will probably pay off to know everyone’s names. Shouldn’t be too hard, in this peasant village…

Ro walked to the door, and suddenly looked as if he had touched a live wire—he was tense as all hell. He stood there, for a minute, before turning to me.

“Remy? What’s wrong?”

What’s wrong with me? You’re the one who’s acting crazy, I remember thinking.

I told him that I had been thinking—not too far from the truth—and went into the house.

As we walked to our room, Ro was unusually silent, and I remember wondering just what was up with him. Had he figured out that something was wrong with this place?

As it turned out, he had.

“This place isn’t normal, is it?” he asked me when we were in our room.

I was a bit shocked that he had displayed this level of clarity, but quickly contained myself. “Yes. What tipped you off?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “But my instincts are going crazy.”

I thought about this for a while, thinking about all the things that were wrong with what was happening.

This place was starting to give me the creeps.

There were a number of things wrong with the story the village had told us—first off, the fact that we had all been found in the woods, together, when even one person would be unusual.

The villagers were not telling us the full story.

I said as much to Ro, and he reacted with a startled look, before asking what I meant by that statement. I didn’t blame him for it—after all, I didn’t quite know myself.

“I’m not sure. I’m confused to. I have no idea what’s going on. But believe me—I’m going to find out,” I told him with conviction as I tried to reassure him. He seemed scared, frightened by the strange events that were going on, and I had to do whatever I could to comfort him.

He asked me what else I had noticed, and I thought carefully over everything that had happened.

The first strange event is the conspicuous coincidence that we had all awoken at the same time. Coma’s, or whatever you call them, don’t work like that. People wake up at different times. But awakening on the same day? Within the same hour? The odds against it are astronomical.

The next odd event is that they hadn’t tried to contact anyone after they found us. Normal people would have tried to call the nearest village and see if they were missing anyone, or at least tell someone that they had found nine seemingly random people before said people woke up.

The final odd event is, of course, the rock slides. The rock slides happened just before we woke up. They were just…too conveniently timed. Unless rockslides blocked the village from the outside world on a daily basis—which I highly doubt—then the sheer odds against a rock slide happening on the very day we woke up were even more absurd than us all waking up on the same day.

We were perfectly trapped, like rats in a cage, and the coincidences kept piling up.

We were in a closed circle.

I said all of this to Ro as soon as he asked, and felt proud of myself for having figured it all out. But...

“You’ve been reading too many detective novels.”

He didn’t believe me.

He calmly explained that all of the coincidences were just that—coincidences—and that nothing was amiss. How could he be so blind?

As he went through his rant, I felt my anger grow. Not at him, of course—at the fact that, despite myself, I was starting to believe him. He was right. Sure, it was a bit of an odd series of events, but so far nothing particularly bad had happened. I was mad at the fact that I was wrong—that I had started thinking like this was some kind of fictional story, that I had gotten carried away in my own imagination.

He was right.

As he concluded, I quietly agreed with him, prompting him to smile.

I had been wrong.

I turned my back to him, and started changing out of my clothes. I heard him do the same, and after I had taken off my dress and shoes I climbed into my bed.

“’Night!” he told me as he turned off the light by his bedside.

I nodded an affirmation, and pulled the sheets up to my neck.

I had been wrong, I had been wrong, I had been wrong…

Part One.

We were woken up by the children.

Little bastards. I had been having a good dream.

“Oh no, Mr. Engel! They didn’t bother us at all. We’re used to waking up early!”

No. We’re not. But you don’t want to upset Engel, now, do you?

“Right, sis?”

I nodded, and returned to my thoughts about this village. I had been proven wrong last night, but now…for some reason, something was bothering me. They say that some people can feel storms coming; I like to think that I can too, but in a less literal sense.

Something was going to happen, and I had a sickening feeling that we were going to be in the middle of it.

The phone started ringing.

…Speak of the devil.

Engel excused himself, and walked over to get the phone. I noticed the other girl in the group suddenly leave, looking as if she was upset. I smirked, despite myself.

I’m not really a fan of competition.

I frowned. Where had that thought come from?

I shook my head, before turning my attention to the maid like guy. He had placed a note in front of Ro.

Odd.

Ro read the note, and handed it to me. I read it as well.

…The hell?

He wanted to talk to us.

O…kay. I’d bite, I supposed. I wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted to talk about, but I’d listen to what he had to say. It couldn’t hurt.

He was probably going to ask us about the weirdness, come to think of it. Well, I couldn’t really help him with that. I hadn’t figured out that much in the short time I’d been conscious—at least, no more than he had. What was he expecting to gain from talking to us?

Oh.

He was scared. That was probably it.

Come to think of it, I’m not scared is because I have Ro, and Ro isn’t scared because he’s a fucking idiot. The others don’t have either of those benefits. The maid guy and the rest were all alone, and presumably of an adequate intelligence to feel fear. Meaning that they had no crutch to stand on—no boat to support themselves with in this tempest of confusion and mystery.

I nodded to him, and toyed with my food, feeling bored. I don’t like having to eat. I just don’t like food. Ro, on the other hand…

I sighed, and turned to watch him as he scoffed food down like a pig.

Suddenly, Engel came out, a worried expression on his face. I instantly perked up.

Something interesting had happened.

He gave a few curt instructions to his children, before leaving. Ro, true to his nature, offered to wash the dishes. Typical. He could give maid man a run for his meticulously counted money.

Then one of the members of our little group asked, aloud, something about the mystery. I sighed, and mentally took back the assumption that he was of adequate intellect. Anyone who could be that candid about his suspicion was clearly not the brightest spoon in the shed.

I put on a stupid look, and asked, as convincingly as I could manage, “What are you talking about?”

That's 'she', not 'he'.

Daisy waved her hand their surroundings. "All this, of course! I mean, there's no way you don't find it strange, us just happening to be found in some creepy forest with no idea how got there. There must be something going on here!"

Her tone did nothing to change Remy's opinion of her intelligence. She didn't want it to. People generally didn't question your motives too deeply if they thought you were beneath them.

edited 12th May '11 11:51:19 AM by Gilphon

"As entirely uncoincidental this has become, i can assure you i was not involved in... this.", Sebastian replied, grimacing. He turned to the Mayor.

"As i have already told you, my name is Sebastian Clearwater. I am a detective, and i assure you i will get to the bottom of this before it gets worse.", he told him with such passion it was hard to deny he had utterly devoted himself to this cause.

Whether he would actually solve it or stop another murder remains to be seen. He turned back to Miss Reynolds. "And to go back to an earlier question, shouldn't you be getting some rest? You must have been watching for signs of us waking for that entire week, yet you are here, seven hours later?" Sebastian supposed he might be overexaggerating it a bit, but it struck him as off, somehow. Maybe he was just grasping at straws.

"Huh? Oh..." She trailed off and blushed a bit, seemingly embarrassed, "Oh, that... Well... I certainly tried... But dozed off a lot... I'm fine..." She noticed her andaging on one of her hands was coming loose, and almost frantically fixed it. It was subtle, but it was there.

"You can just call me Samara or Ms. Amarante. And as for your question, I came here four years ago to visit a friend, as well as to work with the police on the murder cases. I decided to stay because I had a feeling there was more to come."

More to come?

"Hold on there, Samara;" he said to her, "sorry, but, why don't you take this from the top? Start from the beginning? The whole story? Sorry if it feels that I'm bein' kind of inquisitive here, but hey," he said with a smile, "I'm a reporter. So, if you don't mind me askin', how did this all begin, and how did it...well, I suppose it didn't end, did it? Okay, how did it begin, and how&when did the murders stop the first time? I really just need to know what's goin' on; I hope you can understand me here."

edited 12th May '11 4:24:32 PM by kkhohoho

"They started abruptly with the death of a girl that worked at the flower shop, followed by several other deaths... " Samara began, "Then ended abruptly with the death of your host's wife. It just sort of happened."

She seemed to take a minute to think, "However... There was also something else going on that was strange then as well..."

' Your host's wife... ' our host's wife... and our host is Engel... Engel's wife?!

And before he could properly react to this shocking revalation...

"What? Something else that was strange? Lady, considerin' that," he said, before pointing to the scene once again, briefly, "is already pretty f***ed up as is, this would have to be somethin' pretty 'strange' to match up."

edited 12th May '11 4:32:55 PM by kkhohoho