MURDER MYSTERY PART 4 (Making fun of the Dorp Squad)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
=====
Getting Jackson and Bryce down from the spotlights wound up being something a production. We wound up having to toss the vine across the room in hopes that they would be able to grab onto it without slipping into the snake-filled water. Though I'd survived it only moments prior, it was only due to a coin flip landing in my favor. Frost managed to snag the vine after only a couple of tosses and landed safely on our side, but Jackson couldn't quite seem to reach far enough to get a hold of it, nearly falling off the wall on more than one occasion. At last, he barely grasped the thing and was whisked towards us, his leg skating the surface of the water. He tumbled to the ground unceremoniously, but was otherwise unharmed from the whole affair. We had all made it out in one piece.
Sure enough, the door to the greenhouse was now unlocked, and we opened it with no resistance. Once outside, however, the thick snowfall and pitch black night made further exploration on the outside utterly impossible. I could only hope that Torte hadn't been trapped in the hedge maze. It's not as though we had anticipated being locked up in that greenhouse for such a long time. Besides that, I had a hunch that this wasn't going to be our last encounter with life-threatening puzzles. But who set all this up in the first place? Presumably it was Jonathan Jones, but something told me that one or more among the Dorps knew more than they were letting on. At this point I couldn't say I fully trusted anybody, and the dead silence that followed after our exiting the building told me the other three in my party were thinking the same.
Finally, Cherri spoke up. "So, which way is the mansion?" she asked. "I'm not staying out here."
"This way," I motioned, remembering the approximate direction we entered from. We could barely see anything more than seven feet in front of us, so I prayed my natural sense of direction was reliable. The lantern didn't seem to be much help. "Let's just hope somebody else managed to find Elvis."
"So what WAS that back there?" Jackson asked. "Who would take the time to build such an elaborate puzzle for a stupid key?"
I looked the key over once more, my hands now stinging in the bitter cold wind. The key looked to be made of bronze and pretty much fit the bill if you were describing a key to someone who had never heard of keys before. There wasn't anything really remarkable about it, other than it looking to be pretty old. I figured we'd wait for a locked door to show up before we could even begin to figure out what it unlocked.
Soon we came to a giant pile of snow. Curious, I brushed away some of it with my sleeve. It was a window. I peeked inside and could barely make out the interior of my car. The snow must have been relentless while we were finding the key, I thought. And it didn't show any signs of letting up. At this rate, we would be snowed in before the night was over. Nonetheless, we had reached the front of the mansion, and the statue, just like the car, was totally coated in snow. Where water had been spouting out earlier, there was a white, snow-coated tube. The water in the fountain had frozen. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something bright red in the fountain. I walked over to investigate, picking up what looked to be a small ruby gem. Before I could investigate further, I heard Cherri calling out behind me.
"Hey!" she yelled. "We can look around out here later, we need to get inside!"
She was right. Though my curiosity was peeked, my hands were numb at this point and the thought of being in a warm environment was absolutely heavenly. I pocketed the gem, rejoining the others. I'd have to remember to investigate the fountain later.
When opened the doors to the manor once again, we were greeted by silence. Mewd's group should still be in here somewhere. Most likely, ProZD's group had also started headed back by this point. I wondered how it would be best to explain to them the situation we'd been through. I had marks, after all. I felt my shoulder once again, feeling the bite marks that had been left there. It stung with a dull pain, but was hardly unbearable. We headed back upstairs to the dining room where we'd met originally.
Inside we found Mewd, Wiggy, Reno, and MGAW sitting in silence. Only Mewd glanced up at us when we entered. The rest seemed to be spaced out entirely. I couldn't help but notice that Reno's clothes were wet, and his hair looked like it had been that way not too long ago. At least I wasn't the only one, I thought.
I figured I'd ask. "Any sign of-"
"Elvis is dead," Mewd quickly replied.
The words hit me like a bullet. It was only in that moment that the reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I suddenly remembered the last last time we had Skyped with Torte. It wasn't too terribly long ago. But now he was fucking dead? I couldn't wrap my head around it.
"Oh god..." Siro said. "Where?"
"We'll show you," Mewd said reluctantly. "It's better you see it for yourselves than to explain it here."
The story we had to tell took a backseat for the moment. I was too nervous to raise any objection as David stood from his seat. The others in his group reluctantly followed suit, and we were lead back downstairs to the backdoor. The creaking noise it made when it opened made my heart race. We were lead through the snow very briefly as Mewd walked up to the cellar doors in the ground outside. Mewd paused, took a deep breath, and pulled the doors open. We followed him down the stairs.
I noticed there was another device with a timer like we'd seen in the greenhouse. There was a KEY rod jammed into it and the timer had stopped at 00:24. They had barely made it out of here themselves, I realized. I didn't dwell too much on the significance of another timer in here, but perhaps it was because I had anticipated it. The windmill probably had one as well. I hoped ProZD and the others were alright.
The cellar itself was a wine cellar, with dusty crates of who-knows-what lining the back wall. There were spiders slipping around all around us, but I tried not to worry too much about them. The pillars supporting the house were old and wooden, and seemed ready to disintegrate at any given moment. How this whole place was still standing was the real mystery here. There was an enormous puddle of wine gathered around one of the barrels, and Mewd effortlessly pulled open the face of the barrel. They had found a secret passage, apparently.
"In here," Mewd said lifelessly.
We had to crawl through the small tunnel on all fours, and it was nearly pitch black going through it. It was an extremely claustrophobic experience, but only took a few seconds before we reached another room. It was a sewer, it seemed. There were many streams of water violently flowing past the room, and rickety bridges over each one. Each bridge was made of metal and each wired up to a lever. In the corner of the room I noticed an enormous pile of levers like them. We crossed the bridges and came to a pool of water the water now mostly frozen. There was a rope extending into the water. On the wall there were three slots for levers, with only two of them filled. A small metal box was mounted on the wall next to that, its door hanging open.
"This was where we found him," Reno explained. "He was... still alive, when we did."
"If we'd only been faster," Mewd groaned. "We may have gotten to him in time."
"The water was flowing then, too," Wiggy explained. "But the warming system ran out of juice and then... And then..." Wiggy nearly started crying.
"Where does it lead?" I asked, trying desperately to keep a straight face. Nonetheless, my voice shook.
"No idea," Reno confessed. "We were thinking it might connect to the outside, judging by how quickly it froze over."
"I should've been a bigger help," MGAW muttered. "I'm sorry I was so useless..."
"It's not your fault, Kraig," Mewd said. "We did everything we could."
"I never even finished The Good, the Bad, and the Torte 3!" MGAW continued, tears now streaming down his face. "Can you believe that? I told him I did, I said I finished! But I was a full chapter behind... I can't even begin to express how humiliated I am that I lied like that..."
I didn't have the heart to tell him that barely any of us had read his stupid fucking story.
"And... and the Windy City?" MGAW said falling to his knees. "I... I wanted to watch it... I did... b-but..."
"What's done is done," Frost said, ignoring MGAW's blubbering entirely. "Doesn't look like any of us are safe anymore."
We sat in silence for a moment, besides Kraig sobbing uncontrollably on the floor. Frost saying it so plainly put us all on edge even more than we already were. I suddenly remember the ruby I had found earlier and reached down into my pocket. I felt around, but to my disbelief, it was gone. I turned out my pocket entirely, and all that was left was a subtle brown stain.
"What's up?" Siro asked, noticing what I was doing.
"By the fountain, I found this..." I started, but then stopped mid-sentence. My face must have been overtaken by absolute horror as it hit me what I had found. The others were looking at me, a little worried. "I... I..." I struggled to get the words out. "I know where this leads..."
The others were taken aback by what I'd said.
"If I'm right..." I started. "And I REALLY hope I'm wrong... Follow me. You might not like what you see." As I turned to lead them out, I stumbled off-balance. I felt about ready to faint. Still, I managed to keep a level head as the entire group followed me back into the wine cellar, upstairs to the back, and all the way through the house until we were outside by the fountain. As we stood before it, I walked up, my heart thumping so hard it felt ready to explode in my chest.
I brushed the snow off of the stream of frozen water that was flowing from the statue's mouth. Slowly I placed the lantern up next to the ice so that it was plainly visible. And unfortunately, my suspicions were absolutely correct.
The ice was crimson red.
Part Two
Part Three
=====
Getting Jackson and Bryce down from the spotlights wound up being something a production. We wound up having to toss the vine across the room in hopes that they would be able to grab onto it without slipping into the snake-filled water. Though I'd survived it only moments prior, it was only due to a coin flip landing in my favor. Frost managed to snag the vine after only a couple of tosses and landed safely on our side, but Jackson couldn't quite seem to reach far enough to get a hold of it, nearly falling off the wall on more than one occasion. At last, he barely grasped the thing and was whisked towards us, his leg skating the surface of the water. He tumbled to the ground unceremoniously, but was otherwise unharmed from the whole affair. We had all made it out in one piece.
Sure enough, the door to the greenhouse was now unlocked, and we opened it with no resistance. Once outside, however, the thick snowfall and pitch black night made further exploration on the outside utterly impossible. I could only hope that Torte hadn't been trapped in the hedge maze. It's not as though we had anticipated being locked up in that greenhouse for such a long time. Besides that, I had a hunch that this wasn't going to be our last encounter with life-threatening puzzles. But who set all this up in the first place? Presumably it was Jonathan Jones, but something told me that one or more among the Dorps knew more than they were letting on. At this point I couldn't say I fully trusted anybody, and the dead silence that followed after our exiting the building told me the other three in my party were thinking the same.
Finally, Cherri spoke up. "So, which way is the mansion?" she asked. "I'm not staying out here."
"This way," I motioned, remembering the approximate direction we entered from. We could barely see anything more than seven feet in front of us, so I prayed my natural sense of direction was reliable. The lantern didn't seem to be much help. "Let's just hope somebody else managed to find Elvis."
"So what WAS that back there?" Jackson asked. "Who would take the time to build such an elaborate puzzle for a stupid key?"
I looked the key over once more, my hands now stinging in the bitter cold wind. The key looked to be made of bronze and pretty much fit the bill if you were describing a key to someone who had never heard of keys before. There wasn't anything really remarkable about it, other than it looking to be pretty old. I figured we'd wait for a locked door to show up before we could even begin to figure out what it unlocked.
Soon we came to a giant pile of snow. Curious, I brushed away some of it with my sleeve. It was a window. I peeked inside and could barely make out the interior of my car. The snow must have been relentless while we were finding the key, I thought. And it didn't show any signs of letting up. At this rate, we would be snowed in before the night was over. Nonetheless, we had reached the front of the mansion, and the statue, just like the car, was totally coated in snow. Where water had been spouting out earlier, there was a white, snow-coated tube. The water in the fountain had frozen. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something bright red in the fountain. I walked over to investigate, picking up what looked to be a small ruby gem. Before I could investigate further, I heard Cherri calling out behind me.
"Hey!" she yelled. "We can look around out here later, we need to get inside!"
She was right. Though my curiosity was peeked, my hands were numb at this point and the thought of being in a warm environment was absolutely heavenly. I pocketed the gem, rejoining the others. I'd have to remember to investigate the fountain later.
When opened the doors to the manor once again, we were greeted by silence. Mewd's group should still be in here somewhere. Most likely, ProZD's group had also started headed back by this point. I wondered how it would be best to explain to them the situation we'd been through. I had marks, after all. I felt my shoulder once again, feeling the bite marks that had been left there. It stung with a dull pain, but was hardly unbearable. We headed back upstairs to the dining room where we'd met originally.
Inside we found Mewd, Wiggy, Reno, and MGAW sitting in silence. Only Mewd glanced up at us when we entered. The rest seemed to be spaced out entirely. I couldn't help but notice that Reno's clothes were wet, and his hair looked like it had been that way not too long ago. At least I wasn't the only one, I thought.
I figured I'd ask. "Any sign of-"
"Elvis is dead," Mewd quickly replied.
The words hit me like a bullet. It was only in that moment that the reality of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I suddenly remembered the last last time we had Skyped with Torte. It wasn't too terribly long ago. But now he was fucking dead? I couldn't wrap my head around it.
"Oh god..." Siro said. "Where?"
"We'll show you," Mewd said reluctantly. "It's better you see it for yourselves than to explain it here."
The story we had to tell took a backseat for the moment. I was too nervous to raise any objection as David stood from his seat. The others in his group reluctantly followed suit, and we were lead back downstairs to the backdoor. The creaking noise it made when it opened made my heart race. We were lead through the snow very briefly as Mewd walked up to the cellar doors in the ground outside. Mewd paused, took a deep breath, and pulled the doors open. We followed him down the stairs.
I noticed there was another device with a timer like we'd seen in the greenhouse. There was a KEY rod jammed into it and the timer had stopped at 00:24. They had barely made it out of here themselves, I realized. I didn't dwell too much on the significance of another timer in here, but perhaps it was because I had anticipated it. The windmill probably had one as well. I hoped ProZD and the others were alright.
The cellar itself was a wine cellar, with dusty crates of who-knows-what lining the back wall. There were spiders slipping around all around us, but I tried not to worry too much about them. The pillars supporting the house were old and wooden, and seemed ready to disintegrate at any given moment. How this whole place was still standing was the real mystery here. There was an enormous puddle of wine gathered around one of the barrels, and Mewd effortlessly pulled open the face of the barrel. They had found a secret passage, apparently.
"In here," Mewd said lifelessly.
We had to crawl through the small tunnel on all fours, and it was nearly pitch black going through it. It was an extremely claustrophobic experience, but only took a few seconds before we reached another room. It was a sewer, it seemed. There were many streams of water violently flowing past the room, and rickety bridges over each one. Each bridge was made of metal and each wired up to a lever. In the corner of the room I noticed an enormous pile of levers like them. We crossed the bridges and came to a pool of water the water now mostly frozen. There was a rope extending into the water. On the wall there were three slots for levers, with only two of them filled. A small metal box was mounted on the wall next to that, its door hanging open.
"This was where we found him," Reno explained. "He was... still alive, when we did."
"If we'd only been faster," Mewd groaned. "We may have gotten to him in time."
"The water was flowing then, too," Wiggy explained. "But the warming system ran out of juice and then... And then..." Wiggy nearly started crying.
"Where does it lead?" I asked, trying desperately to keep a straight face. Nonetheless, my voice shook.
"No idea," Reno confessed. "We were thinking it might connect to the outside, judging by how quickly it froze over."
"I should've been a bigger help," MGAW muttered. "I'm sorry I was so useless..."
"It's not your fault, Kraig," Mewd said. "We did everything we could."
"I never even finished The Good, the Bad, and the Torte 3!" MGAW continued, tears now streaming down his face. "Can you believe that? I told him I did, I said I finished! But I was a full chapter behind... I can't even begin to express how humiliated I am that I lied like that..."
I didn't have the heart to tell him that barely any of us had read his stupid fucking story.
"And... and the Windy City?" MGAW said falling to his knees. "I... I wanted to watch it... I did... b-but..."
"What's done is done," Frost said, ignoring MGAW's blubbering entirely. "Doesn't look like any of us are safe anymore."
We sat in silence for a moment, besides Kraig sobbing uncontrollably on the floor. Frost saying it so plainly put us all on edge even more than we already were. I suddenly remember the ruby I had found earlier and reached down into my pocket. I felt around, but to my disbelief, it was gone. I turned out my pocket entirely, and all that was left was a subtle brown stain.
"What's up?" Siro asked, noticing what I was doing.
"By the fountain, I found this..." I started, but then stopped mid-sentence. My face must have been overtaken by absolute horror as it hit me what I had found. The others were looking at me, a little worried. "I... I..." I struggled to get the words out. "I know where this leads..."
The others were taken aback by what I'd said.
"If I'm right..." I started. "And I REALLY hope I'm wrong... Follow me. You might not like what you see." As I turned to lead them out, I stumbled off-balance. I felt about ready to faint. Still, I managed to keep a level head as the entire group followed me back into the wine cellar, upstairs to the back, and all the way through the house until we were outside by the fountain. As we stood before it, I walked up, my heart thumping so hard it felt ready to explode in my chest.
I brushed the snow off of the stream of frozen water that was flowing from the statue's mouth. Slowly I placed the lantern up next to the ice so that it was plainly visible. And unfortunately, my suspicions were absolutely correct.
The ice was crimson red.