A Test of Chaos - Genericum Test Game (Inactive)

Game Master JonGarrett

Sounds good.

They proceed to Almena's room.

It doesn't take long to find the room. The door to this chamber has a small sign, decorated with flowers, saying 'Almena's Room - Please knock'.

Zandora decides not to antagonize the suspect before they have even talked to her, and knocks.

"Come in!" The smell of growing things and sunlight rushes out as the door opens, revealing a room with a large bed and a massive wooden cabinet. Every other surface in the room is covered with plants. even in the fireplace. A small woman in a simple dress sits cross-legged on the bed, her hair a stream of green and flowers.

Greetings. Almena, right? Can you tell me a little bit about the state of the garden out there? It looks kind of, uh, burnt.

"Oh, hi," the woman said with a smile. The smile dropped as the burns in the garden were mentioned. "Yeah, there was a bit of an accident out there. We don't do experiments out there for a reason," she said, taking a breath. The smile returned. "But we've almost got it all fixed up now! I just need to spend a little more time with the trees, healing up the rest of the burn marks."

That's great... you are doing an excellent job. Can you tell me what experiment went wrong and what caused the damage? Also, is that Crystal building out there where you work?

"The greenhouse? Yes, I work there too. It's where I spend most of my time. A lot of Master Ured's creations need rare herbs, and it's easier to grow them than it is to find them. Most of the time." She smiled quite proudly but deflated when mentioning the next part.

"Uh...Azana was trying to make something. I think it was compacting enchantments down, so the metal could store more of them and you could make more weapons? But it turns out you can't because the materials can't cope and it blows up."

"Was she hurt in the explosion?"

"No, she got away before it exploded," the young woman said, then added, "Thankfully."

Zandora pulls out the gloves.

Do you recognize these?

"Um," she said, squinting. "They're gardening gloves, aren't they? They look kinda messy."

I found them in the greenhouse. Are they yours?

She looks at the gloves, and shrugs. "Probably? I have, like, 3 pairs of them."

You'll note they're not "messy," they are in fact bloody. Only a little though - they've been washed. Odd to lose a pair of gloves after washing blood out of them.

"Blood?" She looked at them, eyes wide. "Oh, goodness, so it is. Maybe it was the pair I was wearing when the explosion happened? Some of the glass broke in the greenhouse. Or maybe it was a pair I lent to Valera?"

Do you wear glasses, Almena? I notice you have been squinting. Do you need to get some aid in order to see what we're showing you?

Zandora also looks around the room for writing samples. Is there a journal or any other paperwork? If not, she'll ask her to write something.

The girl looked taken aback. "Glasses? No. I just got something in my eye earlier, I think."

There was a to-do list on a nightstand. A cursory glance suggested that the hand was quite similar, but not identical, to the unusual writing examples you'd found so far.

Intelligence +10 for easy (40): 1d100 ⇒ 30

Almena, you clearly wrote the note in Azana's journal. Did you hate her for ruining your garden... and also hate Valera so much that you wanted to frame her?

Her eyes widen in shock. "What? No! Of course I didn't! It must have been Valera. She's trying to frame me! She's the one whose framing me."

Fellowship to deceive: 1d100 ⇒ 81

Well, currently her case is substantially more solid than yours, I'm afraid. It's becoming increasingly apparent she was not involved.

[ooc]lol that went well[/lol]

It's YOUR handwriting, Almena.

And that handprint illusion was so obvious too. It's like you didn't even TRY. What, did your poor trees cry a little, and you decided that they were more important than a HUMAN LIFE?

Badgering her to get her to reveal the truth. What would be cool is if there was a food we could make that was like a truth serum... then we could ask her to take it to prove her innocence. ...Anyway, though, we should take her to the front to have the boss keep her there, then come back and search her room some more, and then talk to Valera and check out the other room to make sure we get all the evidence we need.

"Whattt? NOOOOO! IT WASN'T ME!" The small girl bursts into tears at the accusation, but willingly enough goes with you to the Guildmaster. "MASTER URED! THEY'RE BEING MEAN!" she sobs as she slumps next to him.

The kobold raised an eyebrow. "Intriguing. Do you have an accusation to make, or...?"

I think Truth Serum would likely fall into brewing more than food?
I can add it to the potion list though.

"She likely did it. It is clearly her handwriting in the fake journal entry, which she denies, so at the very minimum she is caught in a lie."

"However, we have a few more things to do to wrap things up and to be certain. I was badgering her to get her to confess, but apologies if I went past the limits of the game. I meant no harm."

Almena stopped bawling instantly and waved it off. "Oh, it's fine sweety, I'm just playing the role. Don't worry about it at all!"

Ured sighed. "Almena, stay in character please."

"Oh, right!" The flower-haired woman went back to bawling.

The Guildmaster shook his head. "Well, that is not a problem. Feel free to investigate as much as you wish. Anything that is private to our normal lives has been removed from the game, so no need to concern yourself with that."

------

The room doesn't contain anything obviously incriminating. The one thing to note is the fireplace is closed up, with potted plants sitting in it, suggesting that this was not the way the killer got down into the forge.

Not sure I thought about the need for there to be a way in... isn't it open to anyone who lives here, or who is just wandering through? Maybe I am not picturing it well.

Oops, I copied some flavour text I shouldn't have. Short version here is that, if you check the footprints downstairs, you'll find that the attacker came down the chimney flue in the smithy to come up behind her.

Okay... interesting.

After finding the sooty footprints, Zandora says

Okay... we have bloody gloves in the garden area that contradict the fake handprint, scorched trees, sooty footprints, bloody footprints and handprint (though a lot of that was probably illusion), we think we have the murder weapon, although the fake prints led to it... false entry in the murdered girl's journal... we know someone was caught in a lie over that part. Let's see what is in the empty room, then talk to Valera, then we can revisit anything else if we don't think we have all the pieces.

Sounds good.

The first room seems to be a guest room, and simply there if people need it. On the plus side it meant there was a quiet room for you all to talk about things away from anyone else.

Valera's door is heavier than the others, and simply has a nameplate with 'Valera' on it.

Does the third room look disturbed in any way? Was someone actually staying in it?

Nope, it has blankets neatly folded at the end of the beds and the drawers are empty.

Zandora and Shada knock politely on the door.

Valera? Can we talk to you?

"Sure, come on in," a voice called from inside. The room beyond the door is simple, plain and austere. The fireplace is ready to light, the bed is made. A red-haired woman in a violet suit sat in a chair by the bed, reading a book. She looks up and as the door opens she puts the book down. "What do you need?"

Hi, I'm Zandora. We need to ask you a few questions. Can you tell me about what happened in the garden where the trees are scorched, and how all the apprentices got along?

Zandora also scans the room for anything sooty or bloody or a writing sample... just to make sure.

"Uh, sure? Azana did a thing with some metal that made it explode. I dunno how you make metal explode, but it was impressive. I think everyone mostly gets along, as much as you're gonna get with a bunch of people in one house. Azana and Almena were being all grumpy at each other because of the explosion thing, but things were fine. Probably."

There are no traces of soot away from the fireplace itself, no blood that can be seen and the writing sample seems quite different.

Did you borrow some gardening gloves from Almena?

Did you threaten to stab Azana in the heart?

She held up her hands - which were much larger than Almena's - and shook her head. "I don't think they'd even fit me, if I wanted to garden. And I don't. And no, I didn't threaten to stab her. If I was going to stab her I'd just do it. But not in a stupid way. If there's a non-stupid way to stab someone?" She seemed to be considering the idea of how to stab someone in a more clever fashion.

Zandora thinks about it.

Hmm. Well, I would say that stabbing someone is almost inherently stupid, honestly. It would have to be a pretty rare situation to make something like that sound reasonable.

Zandora shows her the copy of the Journal entry.

Any reason someone would want to frame you?

The woman considered for a moment. "Not wanting to get caught?"

Fellowship 30 to see if Shada can tell if she's lying. I have Deception 1st rank.

1d100 ⇒ 50

As far as Shada can tell she's being honest.

When you say Azana and Almena were being grumpy with each other, can you describe what you saw that made you think that?

Can anyone here cast illusion magic?

"Um," the woman said, thinking. "There was a lot of shouting and screaming at each other when the whole explosion happened. I was in the kitchen, cooking, so it was pretty loud there. Azana tried kicking Almena, but the whole barefoot thing meant it probably didn't hurt much. Uh, Ured can do illusions, and I think there are some items that can make them around somewhere?"

Ah, the items. Could you show me?

And even though it might not matter... why barefoot?

"I don't know which items do it, but Ured will probably know where they are if you wanna look at them. And have you ever seen Azana wear shoes? I mean, you've probably just met, but she doesn't wear them. She literally hates them. Says it has something to do with being a worshipper of Nature Itself, but I think she just doesn't like shoes."

Just met? Wait... do you not know that Azana is dead?

Just making sure... you mentioned Azana breathing when we inspected the body before... that was just because the whole thing is staged as well, right? No possibility of a faked death?

Shoot. I meant Almena. Almena is the one who doesn't wear shoes. On re-writes, less A-names.

Okay, no worries. At this point I think Zandora would ask Ured about some of the machines that can create illusions... who had access, etc, but unless something comes up wildly different than what we already know, I think that we need to just accuse Almena and be done. We caught her in a lie, and everything else seems to fit together, although still not sure why she killed her. Doesn't seem like a non-recoverable problem to harm some trees... I mean they aren't even dead, and they will be fine eventually. Maybe there is something hidden in her room that tells us why? I guess I would check again just in case.

Anyway, if there is something extra-sneaky in there, I am not getting it, and I feel like we may have lost all the other players besides Shada, so I think it is time to be done either way.

Yeah, I'm thinking the same, really. We'll finish this section off and start working on the next stuff, if everyone is willing. To be fair, there -is- something extra sneaky, but it's nothing to do with the story and is entirely an easter egg for my own amusement.

Returning to the Guildmaster, Ured nodded as you suggested Almena was the killer. "I see. Well done. Congratulations gather the evidence and being succesful in your deductions. And well done in not trying violence." The kobold rolled his eyes. "You would be amazed at how many people do."

"We get to hit them back!" Almena added cheerfully.

Results
Found the Killer - +1 Reputation (Ured)
Found the KIller First time - +2 Reputation (Ured)
Complete the challenge without violence - +3 Reputation (Ured)
Reputation With the Adventurer's Guild - +1