Althea idly munched on the toast, not even noticing Eve was back. She muttered a "Thank you," to either Kyoya or Evelyn. Or both.

"For someone so set on the importance of the rules, you seem quite willing to just disregard 'em completely..." Elu mumbles, "Whatever makes it interesting though, right?"

---

"W-What the heck, man..." Nicos cried. "Enough with the motives...enough with the killing...why did Marshall have to die..?"

"First you kill someone to enforce your rules, then you break them entirely." Annabella shook her head, hugging her doll tighter.

Taylor clenched his fist and gritted his teeth upon hearing the new motive. "Great. Just fucking great. We're still stuck here... Goddammit."

He let out an aggravated huff, slowly unclenching his fist. "We need to find a way out of here... Maybe with Eve's physical body dealt with, we have a slightly better chance," he muttered to himself.

Honda watched the execution in horror. "Why...?" He asked wearily after it was over. "So much death and this nightmare isn't even over yet... How much longer must this go on for?" He then looks down and sighs. "Farewell, Marshall. May you rest in peace..."

[Please refrain from posting until you’ve checked your Quicktopic, and until the next post is made.]

[You have 96 hours to solve the case. Good luck!]

"W-W-What the heck is going on?!" Nicos cried. "H-How did two people die this time..?! What did...what the heck happened here..?"

Nicos was out of breath, never mind the fact that Akrasia was also used to kill Hoshiko -- but the dreaded double murder crept up right behind everyone's back.

"Wow, I still can't believe the loudest asshole and the most silent and ever-present moron both died on the same day!" Skylar said with a toothy grin while clapping. "It's like a dream come true, but I don't wanna die, so let's get this shit over with."

"H-How can you say something like that..?" Nicos cried to Skylar. "H-Hoshiko was a sister to someone here..! And Kyoya was our friend..! Well...they both were..!"

"Yes! We were such good friends with Kyoya that he could never show us his face! We were such good friends with Hoshiko that... um, actually, does anyone even know anything about her? Because I'm drawing a blank."

"E-Even so, you can't speak like that of the dead..! Some of us cared for them..! I-Imagine how you'd feel if you were in Nana's shoes..! That's so horrible..!"

Nana still looked completely miserable, but she'd somehow managed to calm down a little by now... until Skylar started trashing her sister. She trembled for a moment, then collapsed against her podium, buried her face in her arms, and started sobbing loudly again.

---

"Skylar... Please stop that." Althea muttered. She sounds drained. She looks drained, too, actually. Much paler than usual, slumped shoulders, and every now and again she shivers slightly.

Eli seemed to be struggling as well. He was leaning over the podium with his hands over his face, simply breathing. The others could only assume it was due to the disturbing punishment for the killer and what had happened to Kyoya. Both were certainly enough to leave him shaken.

Eventually he opened his eyes and stared out at the podiums in silence. It seemed he was trying to maintain his usual composure, but he wasn't doing a very good job of it. Anyone could see the muted fury in his eyes.

"Skylar..." He eventually mumbled, "I think it's been made clear numerous times during these trials that anyone's input is valuable, 'specially when it comes to alibis. After all, we need to gather as much information as we can, and discussin' it from every angle is the key to findin' the murderer. So I hope you continue to contribute as you have before."

"But...when it comes to your thoughts on our classmates, I can assure you. No one gives a fuck."

---

"Womp womp!" she snapped back at Eli, "Nobody gives a fuck about you either, Ultimate Dick!"

"I'm sure I'd be petrified if my own cardboard cutout sibling died, but whatever," Skylar said to Nicos dismissively, kind of irritated her normal avatar wasn't working because God just wasn't on her side today. "Let me give my alibi so we can plow through this like it's the Tunnel of Love."

She coughed a little, but quickly began speaking again. "So! At around 11:00, I asked Honda to go and explore the Horror Zone with me! I might be in love with that place... but anyway, at approximately 11:50, we came across the Haunted House. Let's say Honda was... less than enthusiastic about going inside," she said while shooting him a glance.

"It took some convincing to get him inside, but eventually we went into the house. Though, like, literally five minutes later at 11:55, we heard a loud bang and the sound of glass shattering, like a window or something, catching us off-guard. I suggested we go search the rest of the house to find the source, but Honda was adamant about going outside. His logic was that, if it was a window that broke, then it could still be spotted from outside, so whatever," she sighed, "the point is, we didn't find shit worth talking about, even after searching the whole mansion.

"At 12:10, while still in the Haunted House, the power tripped and the lights in the mansion went out, as well as the music distorting. Oh, and the light outside shit the bed, so everything was dark. It took a bit to get out of the house but we eventually made it. Though, on the way down the stairs in the foyer and out of the house, Honda said he heard movement, but I don't know what he was talking about.

"At 12:20, we wandered around for a bit in the dark, until Honda remembered he has a lighter because he smokes like a chimney. We used it to create a makeshift torch, and we eventually ran into Annabella, who was just as clueless as us. At 12:30, we found some other goons, namely Eli, Taylor, and Nana, and we all went to explore the Space Zone. Gravity sucked ass, and it took us forever to get through it (just like this post!). If anyone else who was there wants to talk about it, feel free. Please.

"At 12:40, we arrived at the funhouse, where, again, if anyone wants to talk about the switch we found, be my guest. Actually, I'll just skip to my investigation with Annabella, because there were five other people who can say what I was gonna say, anyway.

"For the investigation, Annabella and I were in charge of the Control Tower and the Underground Base. We circled around the tower and found nothing, so we then climbed the stairs to get to the top, since the friggin' elevator wasn't working. At the top, we found nothing of interest aside from a ladder that led to a spot that gave you a nice view of the park. We hauled our asses back down to check out the base, only to find that the electronics were buggin' out, which isn't shocking.

We went to go check on Kyoya in his room, but other than his equipment being present and acting up, we didn't see anything interesting, not even the man himself. We went to Hoshiko's room, which was all neat and in order. The only interesting thing we found there was an extra copy of the document she was found with."

Skylar exhaled, feeling exhausted. "There, that's all I've got to say. If anyone else wants to fill in the obvious blanks, go ahead."

"..."

Rose stares blankly, quietly wiping a few remaining tears from her eyes before regaining her composure and speaking up.

"That's enough. We don't have time for this pointless bickering. Right now we need to focus on the trial." She says bluntly, cutting to the point.

"At 11:00, I went over to the medieval zone, thinking that some of the refreshments from the different stands would be good to research for potential new perfumes. On my way there, I...bumped into Althea. However, before I could even speak, Althea sprinted away." The perfumer explains.

"As I continued on my way, I happened to see Nana in the distance. I tried calling out to her, but Nana didn't seem to hear. She...she looked preoccupied, and moved out of view. I decided to just keep going between the stands."

"At 12:10, just as I finished up with the refreshment stand, the music started getting strange. Distorted and all that. I could see that some of the rides in the park started acting up."

"About five minutes later, I spotted Nana heading over to the control tower. I wanted to see what she was doing, but when I followed after her, I kind of struggled to keep up…" Rose frowns and looks down at the floor.

"When I finally reached the tower, my progress was pretty much halted, since the elevators weren't working anymore. Then I went back to the medieval zone."

The perfumer then looks up at the others. "So that's what happened with me. The others will probably do a better job at explaining the investigations..."

Annabella stood at her podium, staring down at her doll. Her breath was shaky and her face was tear-stained.

"I-I suppose...I-I should start-t giving m-my...a-a-alibi..." Her voice wavered and she wiped her face with a handkerchief. "...e-excuse me, Althea? Y-You're a d-doctor right? I-I'm not-t...f-feel...feeling good."

Althea flinched away from Annabella like she pointed a gun at her.
"I'm, I'm not a doctor, I'm not. Sorry. I, I can't help." she stammered.

Taylor stood at his podium, silently glaring at Skylar before letting out a soft sigh. "Rose is right. We need to work together to solve this shit, no matter what our thoughts on the victims were. So." He lightly rubbed the back of his neck. "Let's do this."

"Nicos and I looked for Akrasia. We searched the funhouse top to bottom, though it was a bit difficult to due to the mechanisms and shit in place. After about twenty minutes, I decided to search the medieval zone, so we split up to cover more ground. On my way over, I saw Kyoya and Annabella, for what that's worth."

"Around 11:35, I made my way around the castle restaurant's corner, and I saw Althea there, collapsed. She was alive, thankfully, so after checking her pulse and such, I brought her into the restaurant, laid her down on the sofa, and wrapped her in a few tablecloths so she didn't get cold. I decided to stay put inside of the restaurant, since she was completely defenseless. Didn't want to leave her alone, after all."

He awkwardly cleared his throat before continuing to recount his alibi. "A-Anyway, uh, around 12:10, the music got really odd and the mechanical parts of the restaurant went haywire. Luckily, most of the restaurant wasn't mechanical. Five minutes after that... I saw this figure dash by the window. They seemed to be dressed in a black cape, and I wasn't able to get a good look at them. I did want to leave and chase after them, but... well, I didn't exactly want to leave Althea alone and vulnerable, so... I stayed. Again. Yeah."

"Around 12:20, Eli and Evelyn came into the restaurant. Evelyn went over to check on Althea while Eli told me about how the machinery in the winter zone was going haywire, and... and how Hoshiko was trapped in the ferris wheel. I figured that she was safe up there for the time being, so we should focus on finding other people who were possibly in danger due to the machinery." He chewed his bottom lip. "Guess I was wrong about her being safe, huh..."

"In any case, we found Rose in the medieval zone, and then Nana shortly after. Five minutes after that, we ended up in the horror zone, where we found Annabella, Skylar, and Honda. The forcefield that, like, limited the sun's rays ended up completely blocking out all light, so Honda made a torch. So, uh... good job on doing that."

"That just about covers everything I did before we all searched the space zone, which was already covered. Annabella told us that Nicos was trapped in the funhouse. The electrical malfunction had locked the doors down, so yeah. However, the building itself was just, well, inactive, which was odd, considering everything else was going fuckin' insane."

"Eli found a manual shutdown switch that completely cuts the power, even if there's a fault. So that's worth mentioning. Anyway, we went inside and found Nicos. He was stuck in a kiddie slide. I went ahead and pulled him out, where he told me that he was knocked into it by the equipment."

He let out another sigh and scuffed his feet against the podium. "Anyways, that's my alibi. Whoop-dee-doo. Just... Just give me a bit to recount the investigation I did with Nana," he said, mainly because I don't have the time to type it out at the moment and this post is long enough as it is.

"...oh." Annabella's face fell. She wiped her eyes again and tried to proceed with her testimony.

"A l-little bit after...11 o'clock, I saw...I saw Kyoya in the space zone. H-He was trying to get a jetpack, so I got one for him. We played around-d with it...for a little while. During that time, I saw Taylor leave the funhouse around 11:20, and Hoshiko entered 10 minutes later, but left after 5 minutes.

"When the park malfunctions went off, Kyoya's j-jetpack went haywire a-and burned part of my dress. I tried to get inside the funhouse, but the doors wouldn't open, so I went to the horror zone. The malfunction messed with the lighting and everything was pitch black. I couldn't see where I was going, but I found Honda and Skylar about 20 minutes after the initial outage.

"Ten minutes later, we met up with the others and went back to the space zone. We got Nicos out of the funhouse and went to look for the others. Then we found Hoshiko's body and split off to investigate. Skylar already covered all of that."

Annabella looked down at the floor, talking to herself in a voice too quiet for anyone to hear.

Eli sighed. Clenching the podium, he began to speak, sharing his alibi without introduction.

"Alright, listen...The tunnel of love's got these two facades at each corner, with two doors leadin' into a secret passageway. I'd set up a workshop back there after Eve came back with the purpose of...well, I don't feel like going over all the details. Basically, I was planning on screwin' with Eve."

Eli looked up at the ceiling, scratching the back of his neck. "At about 11, Evelyn found me there. After I explained everything, she asked me to check on her monocle, which was still broken. I did the best I could to fix it up and gave it back to her. It seemed to be working well enough.

"That's about when the park started malfunctioning. We got hit with a blizzard and had to run over to the medieval area. We found Taylor and Althea, who was unconscious on the sofa. Once she woke up, we all left. Rose and Nana joined us later on."

"Eventually we found Skylar, Honda, and Annabella at the horror zone and went to the space zone. Skylar already mentioned that, but I'll elaborate. Basically, the gravity kept switching from normal gravity to zero-G and then really heavy gravity, so getting around was a challenge. Then we found Nicos trapped in the funhouse. The power had been shut down by a switch in there, so despite the fault, there wasn't anythin' going on there."

"As for the investigation, I was in the winter zone with Evelyn. I did a quick search of the surrounding area while Evelyn was doing the autopsy," Eli crossed his arms. "Once I got back, Evelyn had finished the autopsy...but I'll just let her go over all that."

"Aside from the document in her sock, Hoshiko had some stuff in her backpack. It was mostly empty, but the side pockets had, uhh...makeup, some red earrings and a ribbon like Nana's, some telescope lenses, and a map of the park. Then I went to show her some of the stuff I'd found."

"At the base of the ferris wheel there was a black cape and an empty bottle of 'Feather Potion.' We also found some footprints in the snow, which musta been from after the blizzard. Two of them were ours from earlier, another trail went from the ferris wheel to the space zone, and the last went from the control tower and disappeared. The stands were normal; the only stuff missin' was a drink I grabbed a whole ago and the cupcake Honda took. At the gateway to the medieval zone, we found blood hidden under a pile of snow in front of one of those ceremonial suits of armor. Everything else was the same as normal...I mean the dodgems, reverse bungee, and tunnel of love, specifically."

Eli trailed off awkwardly, apparently having finished.

---

"T-This is just so twisted..! Nothing is going right...h-how is it that after Marshall died..."

Nicos blinked a tear away, deep in thought and despair. After a while, he nodded and decided to force his testimony out.

"A-At 11:00, Little T and I went to the funhouse after breakfast, cause he was gonna help me look for Akrasia...thought it would be there, I just had a feeling, y'know? But that dang funhouse is so tricky! We could barely get a good look at anything! Taylor went off to look for Akrasia at the medieval zone, but then...

I-I, uh, saw Hoshiko enter the funhouse...she said she had some business here, and she was acting really strange! I didn't run into her again...I just continued my search. Maybe I didn't notice her..? She probably just left, is all...she said something about having business at the funhouse. I don't know...

Forty minutes later or so, everything began to malfunction! It...was honestly kind of crazy...I found my way to the exit, but it was locked cause of the malfunction, and I didn't have Akrasia with me...I couldn't hold out there long enough, as much as my warrior spirit fought against the machines! So, I got bonked into the children's slide...

Then you guys found me, obviously...it was kind of embarrassing, but my defeat at the hands of an amusement park ride isn't the important tragedy right now..!"

Nicos sighed a sigh of relief, having gotten through all that.

"S-So yeah. Rose and I investigated the horror zone. I-It was so scary..! But we got through it A-Ok! Everything was so dark, cause of the forcefield surrounding everything..! It was almost pitch black!

We got some of the Zombie Survival Torches for light...the refreshments were all stocked, there was a hammer from the test your strength game missing, and a rope was missing too...Hmm, and one of those guns from the target shooting game were missing..! Someone was having a blast, huh?

B-But the scariest thing was that we could, like...hear Kyoya! In the spooky music theater, it was like...bizarre! He wanted us to avenge him, and he was gonna tell us who the killer was, but he cut off...creepy, right? It's like he was spiritually connected to us, or something...

What happened next...uh, we went to the haunted mansion, and we found the missing stuff there. The rope was tied around the hammer, which was lodged between the two bars on the balcony...maybe they were going to climb down, or something...which is what I did! I climbed down, and found the gun and saw it was fired once. We went back inside and saw a hole in the ceiling, and the balcony window was broken...

We reached the end of the mansion and saw a nice looking Dracula animatronic with a missing cape. Rose pointed out it was probably the cape found at the scene of the crime..! Rose also found a concealed staff door in the foyer...in here was a machine that had a bunch of crazy electronic things on it...it was controlling the electronic devices and stuff, so when we turned it off, everything went back to normal..."

....

Nicos rubbed his head, trying to see if he could remember anything else. "I-I think that's it..."

"Ah... The alibis, right. I have to give my alibi." she took a deep breath, getting a little more stable, and muttered to herself, "Come on Althea. Make yourself useful. Come on..."

"This morning, I ended up skipping breakfast. So, at more or less 11:00, I went to the medieval zone, to maybe find something to eat. But, I ended up bumping into Rose... I, I'm sorry. I wasn't feeling well, I didn't know what to do, so I just, ran away. I collapsed soon after..."
She gripped her podium, suddenly taking a keen interest in staring at her feet. "The, the truth is, I have a... Condition. I've been without any treatment for a long time, so, well, it's been catching up to me. But, you don't have to worry! I, I can take it! I can still be helpful!" she looked up, finally. "... But, today, well, it got a little unbearable, and I ended up collapsing. I'm sorry. I, I should've had breakfast, I'm sorry."

She shakily adjusted her mask, trying to calm herself again. "After that, Taylor found me. He said it was 11:35, although I wasn't able to tell. I'm sorry. I was having a very nice fever dream though..." she started going on a tangent, but thankfully stopped herself soon. "Ah, well, I have to thank you for watching over me, Taylor. I woke up and passed out again so many times, but, ah, you were always there for me when I was conscious enough to see. So, thank you. Thank you."

"I woke up at 12:20. Mr. Miller filled me in as to what happened, so, we set out to find the others. We found Rose and Ms. Nana in the medieval zone in about five minutes, so at 12:25. Ms. Nana seemed to be lost, so I suppose it was thanks to her luck that we found her. What, what an amazing talent you have, Ms. Nana..." she moved on before dwelling on that too much. "Well, five minutes after that, so at 12:30, we were already at the horror zone, and we met up with Skylar, Mr. Honda, and Ms. Hale. It was dreadfully dark, but the light from Mr. Honda's lighter was enough to help us find them. It's a good thing it's only mechanical, and not electric like the park's equipment! It was, ah, very helpful, is what I mean. Anyways... Exploring the space zone took a bit longer, because of the gravity going haywire. If I had eaten anything today, I might have lost it then! It was quite an uncomfortable experience! But, we still managed to find the funhouse where Mr. Agne was in only ten minutes or so. So, about 12:40. The funhouse must've suffered some sort of malfunction, but when we found it, it was inactive, as Mr. Miller said. We don't know who shut it down, but, ah, it's a good thing they did, I suppose. We then made for the winter zone, getting there at 12:45, and... I suppose we were all there to witness what happened then."

"Ah, after that, me and Mr. Honda went to investigate the medieval zone. We, of course, skipped the hedge maze, as we would never be able to search all of it. We did use the maze's exit tunnel to check the gazebo at the end, but there was nothing and nobody there. The same can be said for the other attractions, the tea pots and the log flume. Aside from their fast and erratic movements, no doubt results of the park's general malfunction, there was nothing to note about them. The, the only important part was, Mr. Okamura's corpse..."

She cleared her throat, but she was clearly just stalling for time because she didn't want to talk about the body. "... We heard a large thump coming from one of the refreshment stands, near the restaurant. It, ah, the roof collapsed, you see. When we went over to look, we found a jacket with blood on its left side, and a sword. The, the sword was also bloody." she continued, still stalling. "Between them, we found the body... The roof collapsed on top of him, but that probably wasn't the cause of death. There was a stab wound, through his chest. Ah, and also, I'm pretty sure the roof had a hole in it before collapsing. So, ah, to make things clear:
Mr. Okamura seemed to have one wound, a stab through the chest, and a medieval sword was lying next to him, covered in blood. It's the most likely murder weapon we have for now. His jacket had also been removed, and was off to the side."

"I, I tried to do an autopsy. Though, I'm sorry, I most definitely cannot hold a candle to Evy's talent. But, I just wanted to be helpful. So, ah, what I found was...
Mr. Okamura was stabbed from behind, and likely died quickly from shock. He had no other injuries, and likely died between 12:00 and then, which would be just around 13:30."

"We couldn't stay there for too long, we did have a time limit, so we had to move on. We looked at the restaurant, but aside from the automated parts of it going haywire, as expected, there was nothing unusual there. We also took note of how that mega coaster was acting. It was, ah, impossible not to, really. Its particular malfunction was a sight to behold!"

"When it was just going horizontally, it whipped on by at dangerous speeds. But when it went up a slope, it slowed down almost to a crawl. But furthermore, it seems that when it went down a slope, the ride didn't get power at all, only being pushed by gravity and past momentum. It was... Really quite bizarre. Aside from that though, it's still a roller-coaster, I suppose. It was still following its rails, I mean, what else would it be doing, so it was going all around the park. Ah, also, I think there was supposed to be one of those forcefields around it, to stop anyone from getting too close to the parts of the ride that are closer to the ground, but that was disabled. Aside from all that though, everything else was the same as always. Even the entrance still seemed to work."

"And... That's it. That's all I have."

Evelyn seemed to be calm, though the look in her eyes was indeed sorrowful. Strangely enough, she also had her monocle back on as well, though the lens still seemed broken somewhat.

"Truly a calamity we have lost two people in one go", she sighed. "Even though I never got to truly know Hoshiko, I cannot imagine how painful it must be for Nana to undergo such suffering... Even Kyoya, the man we suspected so much in the previous trials, was truly willing to help and was a crucial part of our team. I hardly know what we shall do without him..." She shook her head. "But I suppose the easiest way to rectify this is to find the killer...or killers, rather. Whoever they are, they cannot get away with this." She put on her kerchief-mask as usual and began her alibi.

"I believe after breakfast, I went to the winter zone to try out the reverse bungee", she started off on a slightly strange note. "I'd been curious about it for a while and wanted to give it a try. It was about 11 AM that I went there. Ten minutes later, I finished the ride. It was...surprisingly exhausting. I spent almost half an hour there sitting on a bench and relaxing. Getting up, I noticed Hoshiko setting up the controls for the Ferris Wheel and then entering. I...think it was her, anyway, as I had seen her with her bagpack on. Though with my condition, I suppose I could have mistaken her for Nana....albeit, I do not see why she would need her sister's bagpack for that. But she did seem troubled and lost in her own thoughts, so I decided to leave her be."

She turned to look at Eli. "That was when I noticed Eli heading rather furtively into the tunnel of love, so I decided to follow him inside. He approached one of the façades there, opened a concealed door and went in. I followed him to his little workstation and asked what he was doing there. He was a little surprised by my presence but he explained what he was doing there. He wasn't able to hack into the animatronic, but I did have another request for him. That was, of course, fixing up my monocle so that my, er, condition would be counteracted. He tried tinkering with it and I simply chatted idly with him for a bit as he did so. We also noticed Hoshiko pacing back and forth there in one of the cars. Anyway, he managed to fix up my monocle nice and proper and returned it back to me. Miraculously, it even worked! I was able to see faces again....temporarily, anyway."

She shook her head sadly. "At about 12:10, the malfunctions in the park struck rather abruptly and my freshly repaired monocle stopped working, as did Eli's eyepiece. More worryingly, the levitating Ferris cars all rose up to the maximum altitude of the ride and locked in place. Hoshiko began panicking inside, but didn’t have much she could do to get down. We also got hit with the blizzard as Eli mentioned and we had to abscond from the premises. Then we went to the restaurant at 20 past, where Taylor and Althea were. And then...well, Eli described the rest rather well, at least till we found Hoshiko's body."

"Now for the investigation... Eli investigated the surrounding area while I performed the autopsy. Hoshiko's corpse was rather ordinary, admittedly. I was a little disappointed by how simple it was, but I was at least able to get a better analysis of the body this time. My autopsy report is as follows." She cleared her throat.

"Hoshiko was stabbed just once. The blade pierced through her stomach and then took an upward trajectory out of her back. She died of blood loss. She had no other wounds, injuries or peculiarities about her. As we all saw, she died a little after 12:40. By my estimates, she would have been stabbed between 12:10 and 12:30. Due to the sword blocking the wound, blood was slow to leak out. It did eventually form a puddle around her, though. Oh, and, just to recap", she quickly added, "We found her in a hunched over kneeling position. Akrasia had stabbed through her almost to the hilt. Her hands were over the handle in a position suggesting she’d pushed the blade through herself; a suicide, in short."

"Eli noticed that Akrasia was a katana, a sword with a blade the length of an arm, plus some. The hilt was standard, and there was a long-ish handle that you can comfortably fit two hands on. There was blood on the blade, of course, but otherwise it seemed normal. And the rest of the investigation was summarised rather succinctly by Eli, so I have little else to add." She let her shoulders sag down a bit, a little tired by all the talking she was having to do. "Hopefully that was a little helpful, at least."

---

Last edited by Southern Corn on Thu Mar 07, 2019 5:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

"First we lose Marshall and now we lose Hoshiko and Kyoya...?" Honda asks sadly. "We have to do our best and figure out who did this." He adds, clenching a fist in determination. "So that our friends may rest in peace."

He takes a deep breath before continuing. "Right, so before everything started I was with Skylar at the horror zone in the haunted house. She covered what happened there pretty well, but I'd like to add that I'm just as confused about the movement noise as she is. I truly don't know what it could have been. It's quite the conundrum..."

"Anyways, after we got out of the haunted house we made the makeshift torch, met up with Annabella, and then eventually most of the others. That part was also covered well, so I don't think I need to repeat anything there."

"Finally, for the investigation I was with Althea. I don't have too much to add, as she already covered most of it, however. While she examined Kyoya's corpse, I took a look at his jacket. There was a bloodied hole on the back, and the sleeves were soaked in blood. After we finished examining the body, I took a quick look at the refreshment stand, and found that one 'Feather Potion' was missing. Everything else at the stand was in order."

"Well, that's about it, I think. My apologies it took me so long to get my thoughts in order."

"You noticed the missing feather potion too? How curious", Evelyn remarked. "Speaking of, I believe I might need some clarification regarding this potion. It makes people...lighter, yes? So does this mean they stay the same size or do they shrink down as well?"

"The reason I ask is regarding Hoshiko, of course. She died between 12:10 and 12:30... When she was supposedly alone in the ferris wheel, with nobody else besides her. This would indicate that she was alone there and only she could have killed herself...but if there was another person hidden there due to their small size... Though I still would have my doubts with this theory. Would they not need to be normally sized to hold Akrasia? How long would this 'light' effect even last for? How would they have escaped from the ferris wheel during the blizzard without any of us noticing? It seems too unlikely for another person to have been behind this in this scenario still for me."

"...Perhaps Kyoya would know if he were still with us", she added rather dismally.

---

"I did notice it was missing." Honda confirms, with a nod. "But as for it's effects, I'm afraid I don't know what they are. Maybe Eve or Gawain could clarify this for us."

"Hmm..." He continued. "Are we sure it makes you lighter though? This is probably a bit of a stretch, but what if it lets one float? Maybe it's possible that someone drank it, floated up to Hoshiko, stabbed her, then floated back down to the ground?" The minstrel scratches his head. "That's probably not what happened though..."

"There was a rather large blizzard at the time in the winter area, so I'm not sure whether that would have been possible", Evelyn clarified simply.

---

"Ah, right. I had forgotten about that." Honda said sheepishly. "Well, so much for that theory."

"Another thing I noticed was the strange incident in the haunted house", Evelyn commented. "Clearly, someone took the rope, hammer and gun from the stalls in the Horror Zone and used them to break open a balcony window and produce a hole in the ceiling. This was most likely behind the noise that Skylar and Honda heard from there. The main question is for what purpose would someone need to break a window? Could they have gotten into a fight with someone? This could also be related to the black cape Taylor briefly saw which was at the crime scene. It was taken off from the animatronic in the haunted house, so there must be some correlation there."

She paused to think about it. "Perhaps it was Kyoya who was the figure with the black cape? He did always wish to conceal his face and identity from us all the time...and he was always quite conspicuous about it too. What can we piece together about his death, even? Althie's autopsy seems to suggest that he was stabbed with the sword, and it doesn't seem like there's much else which fits the bill...perhaps by analysing his own actions that day, we can make more progress."

"I suppose there was that faulty jetpack of his when he was playing with Annabella. Though given that, his jetpack could not have been used for that much. I suppose a jetpack in general would be a little faulty during the malfunction. I had thought for a second that perhaps the killer could have used a jetpack to either enter or escape the ferris wheel car which Hoshiko was in, but now with the malfunction as well as the blizzard getting in the way, it doesn't look as though they could have been successful. Although...the mega coaster malfunctioning that Althie mentioned does seem quite curious. I notice that near the ferris wheel, the coaster is at about ground to mid-level, meaning that it would have been moving rather fast except at the slopes. Could someone have used that to their advantage?" She speculated idly.

"...Well, actually, thinking about it there doesn't seem to be any indication that the killer knew that the malfunction was going to happen. And even if they somehow did, I doubt they could have anticipated how the coaster would malfunction. Curious..." She finished, realising that she wasn't really making much progress this way.

---

"The Feather Potion merely makes you lighter, as stated on the bottle," Gawain said. "You would not change size.

"I think Honda's theory on how it was used has merit. However, drinking it would not allow you to float upwards. "

"I suppose at most, it would allow one to float downwards after exiting the car..." Evelyn mused. "The blizzard would most likely carry them away too, so they could leave their fates to the winds. Still, if someone else was in the car, how did they get there and how did Hoshiko not notice? How did we not notice, either? Could they have simply hidden under the seat in the car?"

---

"Would makin' it lighter allow them to climb up the Ferris wheel itself and get in there that way?" Eli asked.

---

[To clarify, 'blizzard' was probably misleading. It was mostly just really heavy snowfall, no winds.]

[Ferris wheel cars only have windows on the upper half, so it's not unreasonable for someone to crouch and hide in one and not be seen from the outside, especially if the observer is at ground level. However there's nowhere to hide inside one where someone else in the same car wouldn't spot them.]

[Because the Ferris wheel is spokeless, it's impossible to climb up it. Instead the cars levitate.]

"So there doesn't seem to be a way to really get into the car without being noticed", Evelyn said. "Even the rollercoaster is at ground height near the ferris wheel, so I think it's somewhat unlikely that someone could have jumped from the top of the slop with the feather potion and made it to the car... I suppose one way to explain it is that there was indeed another person inside the car with Hoshiko and she was well aware of their presence, for whatever reason... Though if they were crouching to stay stay out of our sight, I'm surprised she didn't question it."

"Thinking about it, since Hoshiko was stabbed with Akrasia, that would imply that either she or her killer stole it from Nicos, for whatever reason... Though where would they even hide it? It's not exactly inconspicuous... Unless Hoshiko was capable of hiding it in her bag somehow."

---

"The main part of her backpack was totally empty, so I feel like there mighta been something there." Eli said, "Not sure if Akrasia'd fit though, it was pretty long."

"I guess the feather potion would have worked to get the killer down, but not really to get them up. I guess maybe someone could have gone up with Hoshiko normally, but they'd have to be pretty well-hidden. And the only one who really had time was Kyoya, and I don't want to go accusin' him all over again."

---

"Hoshiko's bag is oversized. Akrasia may be long, but even that would comfortably fit inside," Gawain said.

"...Ah, well", Evelyn said, shaking her head. "So I suppose that possibility cannot be eliminated yet. There still does seem to be a good chance that she did stab herself with it. Otherwise, how could someone else simply take it out from that bag? It wouldn't be easy to do, unless Hoshiko was overpowered by them. And I don't recall any signs of a struggle on her body, either."

---