Beware the Woods.
Marietta Candor is a plucky kid detective, solving crimes with the power of the occult!
But she makes due with solving cases addressed to her father, who has been missing for half a year. Except this last case has taken her somewhere not of this world. And she pissed off the only guy who could take her back safely. And her sidekick's hacking phone is busted.
What could possibly go wr- OH LOOK A GHOST DOG SO CUUUTE!
In August 2019, at the end of Chapter 2, the comic was put on an indefinite hiatus as the author looked into continuing the series outside of web format. Two years later, the author revealed on Twitter that the series got picked up by a publisher, and will continue on as a graphic novel series
with the first book being published in 2024.
However, as is the case when a webcomic jumps to the mainstream, the main webcomic link was taken down and the pages for the Webtoon taken off and replaced by the announcement. Luckily, the webcomic has been archived and can be found here.
Now has a character page, please contribute.
This Webcomic provides examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: "The Demon of Labyrinth Inn" ends on a whopper. On the one hand, Harris and Lawrence are reunited with their parents, Marietta manages to solve Velia's murder, and she and Wyatt have found new allies. However, Owen is unable to avenge Velia and is taken by the Conductor once his ticket expires, Velia reveals to Marietta in her last moments that there's a larger conspiracy in play, and Marietta realizes that all of the other victims (her father included) likely met the same fate as Owen or Velia.
- The Butler Did It: One of the possible suspects in the prologue case, though he turns out not to be the culprit.
- Cliffhanger: With the series going into indefinite hiatus, the story, at the current, ends on one. Marietta finds that someone in her hometown is throwing people into the woods and there might be a conspiracy going on. Wyatt is revealed to have a ticket, and has seen firsthand what's in store when his time runs out. There are at least two more factions with their sights set on Wyatt (carnies Leo & Capella, Unknown Rival Milly). And the Conductor has decided to take a more active role and tells the Car Attendant to follow Marietta and Wyatt in the hopes of stopping their investigation.
- Closed Circle: Zig-zagged in Chapter 2. Lawrence traps his dinner party in the inn at the mercy of a "demon" prowling the halls. However, that turns out to be a façade; he just wanted them to think they were trapped so they'd get rid of the demon for him... except that they actually were trapped, because Velia sensed her killer's presence among the guests and decided to interfere until someone could figure out who it was.
- Deal with the Devil: Accepting a ticket from the Conductor allows an outsider to ride the Passaway Express and travel through the woods freely, in exchange for a favor to be named later... but if the ticket-holder can't hold up their end of the deal, the Conductor can collect their soul instead. Since the favor in question is usually "kill another outsider and give their soul to the Conductor", he comes out ahead either way.
- Fair-Play Whodunnit:
- The prologue has an easy case with a simple solution: The Daughter, With Poisoned Nail Polish, In The Gambling Room. Unfortunately for the detective, Marietta barges in and starts spouting off occultist nonsense. Hilarity Ensues.
- In Chapter 2, all of the clues to the murder in the Labyrinth Inn are provided before the chapter's end, but one vital clue (Susi's letter to Anita) never finds its way to Marietta or Wyatt, so their final deduction is slightly off the mark. Marietta is able to put the missing pieces together... but only in the aftermath, too late to change the outcome.
- Genius Ditz: Marietta; she's good at analyzing things, but she lacks every other adventuring skill; common sense, diplomacy, stealth, survival, etc., which is kind of important as she's a detective in a Dungeon Crawl setting!
- Happily Adopted: Marietta was a survivor from a town fire. The lead detective for the arson case adopted her for reasons unknown.
- MacGuffin: The five keys required to use the emergency exit out of Oddity Woods.
- Magic Compass: A compass with a similar aura to Marietta's magnifying glass is shown at the end of Chapter 1, in the hands of Detective Hastings.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Harris, Lawrence, and their parents are a family of werewolves. They're able to control their form at will; when Lawrence first transforms, it's played up like a Magical Girl's Transformation Sequence.
- Painting the Medium: Used with Marietta's Lie Detector magnifying glass; when a character lies, their speech bubbles show up in the glass in jagged red font.
- Slow Transformation: The curse behind the tickets. The person with the ticket has a limited amount of time to meet their end of the bargain; as the timer ticks down, the person's body transforms until they become a giant tree monster (something Wyatt describes as "part of the woods").
- Ten Little Murder Victims: The first key is found in a haunted manor, where the protagonists attend a guest party with a monster hunting the guests down.
- Transformation at the Speed of Plot: One of the Chapter 2 murder mystery suspects is affected by the Conductor's ticket curse, and slowly succumbs to it over the course of the chapter.
