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xxxxEast Outgrowth > Central Hivestem || Rumpus Block
Another tide of trolls going to and fro dislodged Hazmas from his vantage point, causing him to lose sight of his blue-blooded friend. Knocked off balance, the young green blood tripped and fell to the floor, along with any attention he'd possibly garnered. He heard Machim grunt threateningly at passers by as he picked himself up off the ground, pausing when he heard raised voices - one of which he recognized.

It was Eridia's, but... it almost didn't sound like her. At first it held the same antagonistic tone hre voice usually had, but then it sounded angry and hurt and... lonely? He couldn't tell, but one thing he knew was that she was upset about something or at someone and the last time he'd crossed her, though it was more a crossing of him and Gerard at that point, it hadn't ended well.

He shook himself and ran a hand through his hair. 'Not your business, not your problem,' he thought, repeating his lusus's mantra from the West Outgrowth. But now that he thought of it, the green blood noticed that neither Gerard nor Comedi were present and felt a sudden pang of concern for his Mirthfulness. Despite his troublesome reputation among the guests, the youngster had felt a bit of comradery after the sniff-node incident. That and the fact Comedi had opened up in the least about his and Awassi's military exploits had made him want to get to know the jugallo just that much more.

'I hope he's alright,' Hazmas mused and turned his attention back to finding his clue mates. He knew he needed more information than what he had, what he didn't know was where to find it. There were at least two groups he could see; the one where Chiara was hanging out with a redblood, lighter blue blood, and some others, and the other where Lorata was chatting away with Kursha and Alifax. But there in lied the problem. Chiara and Lorata - one of the many feuding pairs besides Kursha and the blueblood he'd messed up earlier. If he went to one group, the other would probably think him a traitor and withhold their clues resulting in not a good situation.

'Unless....'

Glancing between the groups, Hazmas approached the first and tapped Chiara on the shoulder. "Thought you could give me the slip, eh?" he said with a grin and then noticed the less than cheery expression on her face. His smile fell into a look of concern. "You.. You okay Chiara?"

[+] Kursha Vidari

As Kursha reviewed his findings, he caught a trace of movement in his peripheral vision. Palming the scrap of paper, he looked up just in time to see Alifax seat himself beside him. Kursha offered the redblood a wave, then returned his attention to the paper in his hand. While Alifax flipped through his own notes, Kursha glanced over at him from time to time. At some point he covered his mouth to hide a grin. Alifax: always focussed, always on point, always reliable. It was nice to know that he had someone to watch his back, even when he did not ask for it.

“Have you seen...?” Kursha started, but a bubbly voice cut him off before he could finish.

Perching on the arm of his chair, Lorata launched into a lengthy spiel. At first her over-enthusiasm and rapid patter put him off. As he listened though, it became apparent that she had uncovered some worthwhile information. “Al, you getting all this?” he murmured when the seadweller paused to take a breath. They could not count on their memories to remember everything.

At last Lorata seemed to have finished. Kursha glanced from her to Alifax, and then back to her. “I think,” he said slowly, “we're off to a good start. Nice work.” Reaching into his vest, Kursha pulled out a tiny, metal object: a tracking chip. He passed it to Lorata.

“Found that in the garbage disposal, while I was questioning the Major. This too.” While Lorata was investigating the chip, he handed the scrap of paper he had been reading earlier to Alifax. It read, “-att ledger 3,000,000 for gl whale blubber nummcorp recipient”. He continued. “Puchen seems to think this whole thing is a set up—that Epratt isn't really dead. I gotta say, there's enough going on, I kinda wanna agree. There's too many coincidences...” He shrugged. “Let's see... What else? Oh!” His face lit up.

“Came across this in the laundry baskets in the training block and—don't look at me like that—and this on the desk in the library.” He offered a cloth napkin speckled with purple stains, and an RSVP from Tigwyn respectively. “Actually I found a couple interesting things in the library. It looked like one of the floor tiles had been pried out and put back. There was a groove in the bottom so... someone was probably using it to hide something. I also tried getting into the filing cabinet, but someone else beat me to it. There were scratches all over it.”

Kursha paused, mentally backtracking. After his search in the library, he had gone down to the basement. He had not found anything especially interesting there, except... Of course! How could he forget?! “Oh yeah!” He brought his fist down on the arm of the chair. “One of the mutants is missing!” he exclaimed. “I tried asking Schrad about it, but she didn't seem to know anything. I'm guessing she was keeping guard 'cause she said she heard someone moving around in the library and went up to look, and... Overall, she seemed pretty unconcerned. Tch.” He slunk down in his chair, looking bitter. He should have questioned her more. No one knew where the kid had gone, and that worried him.

“The rest of what I got is all hearsay. Schrad seemed to think that Puchen was blackmailed into coming to the party. Her second in command or whatever was gonna be culled if she didn't. As riled up as Puchen's been, I don't doubt it. She thought I was gonna try and kill her or something. As if.” He rolled his eyes. His justice was fair. At most, he wanted to take out one of her eyes. “After she chilled out though, she told me that Comedi and Gerard had been fighting in the trophy block. Tigwyn came in to calm Comedi down, which matches up with what Lorata saw.”

He let out a long sigh. His gaze wandered across the room to where a group of hateful children sat in quiet discussion. His mouth twisted. “Look at them, forming factions, like we're not all in this together... Really ******** pisses me off.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, impatient. At last he managed to tear his gaze away to look back at Alifax.

“I do have one important question,” he said, expression serious. “What the hell are you wearing?” He broke into a grin.

Eostre clasped her hands together when she saw Tamiya."How wonderful it is to see you again, Tamiya," she said, smiling at her compliment. She thought her idea was wonderful too. It kept people from asking her useless questions and grilling her about where and when she found it. They could just see for themselves! Maybe more people would add clues to her little clue table and they could be compared more easily.

As Tamiya spoke, Eostre noted down the information in her (admittedly sparse) notebook. But what truly caught her eye was the postcard Tamiya produced and placed on the table. That was a bold threat if she'd ever seen one! Eostre went to compare them, as well as take a closer look at the unsavory photos inside the envelope. The blueblood gave a gentle squeeze to Tamiya's hand. "Your findings seem a bit more fruitful than mine... I saw some blue stains in the ballblock, and I wonder if they're the same as Puchen's, or the blood in the armory. An empty victrola... There was a crate in the basement, as well as some missing candy and soda. And Puchen had some very mild gossip about Gerard," she said, rolling her eyes. She hadn't seen the purpleblood enter. Or Comedi, for that matter. "That he was basically a phase that came out of nowhere. And Erilyn, that they shirked their military service to sing."

Sypon

eostre's so happy to be w/ her bestie

Hivestuck

I'd like to get out my magnifying glass and smoking pipe.
What: Tamiya's threatening postcard to the small note
Where: Comparing handwriting to see if it matches. maybe it was sent by the same troll
How: Just the eyeballs here

Hivestuck

I'd like to get out my magnifying glass and smoking pipe.
What: The photos in the plain envelope
Where: Seeing if she can identify anything particular about the highblood, and if not, if there's anything familiar in the backgrounds (places, items, etc) that could be used to figure out who or where they were taken
How: Eyeballs, her most powerful asset

Tamiya nodded and offered Eostre a smile back. She listened closely as she spoke. Bloodstains and poor troll relationships. Not much to go off of, unless someone volunteered their open wound for examination.

“I would suspect Puchen is responsible for the blue blood unless, as they say, Gerard is guilty of blood treason.” Tamiya hissed. “Or it could belong to… Some other ******** scanned the room, her eyes narrow slits. The young and dangerous Chiara’s hue she had not yet let. Leeroi Furore, however, she was familiar with. She’d recognize his filthy blood color anywhere. Eostre wouldn’t likely tell if she herself had been the cause of such blood, and she looked as though she was as vital and perky as ever. “The candidates are slim. We should consider why the Major may have been bleeding, if the blood you say you saw was fresh.”

"I don't know yet. I haven't had the time to look it over," Hemera replied to Leeroi once he asked about the bag. She cautioned a glance towards the adults. "...And I was hoping at least one of them might still be around for an easier comparison." But that wasn't the case. She started looking over the purse, trying to remember the hues among the deceased and missing. Hopefully they would match up.

She only turned towards him again when he removed something from the bag. One of the vials. The notably empty one. "What are you-"

But he was already off. Mera looked on, confusion obvious on her face. She raised a brow when he returned, silently asking him what the heck he was doing.

All she got out of him was the announcement of his next move. "What- are you- Furore!" Oh god. Oh god. He drank from one of the vials. A clean-ish one, yes, but. There it went. Her chair squeaked back as she stood up and slammed her palms on the table. "How could you do that we don't know what it is or what it does. Did smacking your head on the ground so much make you forget that for all we know this is what might have poisoned Epratt? There are other ways to test things, even if we lack most scientific equipment, besides just throwing caution to the wind!"

At first Alifax didn't seem to be paying much attention to Lorata - but the glass being shoved in his face caught his attention. He examined it briefly, and then - well, then his hands were occupied for a long time. It was a small miracle that shorthand existed. Lorata talked fast, and hardly seemed to be breathing. "That's...a lot," Alifax said hesitantly. "But I think I have most of it?" He flipped his notebook open so it was in full view of his current companions, although the current page mostly contained Lorata's information, and he hadn't taken many notes on the items he'd been able to find. He needed to go over this again with a different color...what was interesting? The blackrom was interesting with some of the writing he'd found, though, and he pulled his yellow and purple files out of his bag as Kursha began - handing him more stuff. An RSVP - that was interesting, especially in light of his cigarettes (he pulled out the most interesting one quickly), another scrap that mentioned beetle amounts...hm. That was interesting, with what Sarcel had shown him, too. Where was she? Probably not invisible.

Privately he agreed with the hypothesis that Puchen and Kursha were proposing. But he wasn't going to say that himself. "Ioyana said something similar, about the mutants," he nodded. That at least, was true. He wrinkled his nose briefly at the napkin, but wasn't particularly disgusted by breaches of etiquette. That was practically Alifax's ancestor name, or something. "I've...amassed a collection of things," Alifax said, indicating his veritably bulging bag. "I'd definitely put some stock into - " Well, he'd seen Comedi, and he had the casing and the glasses...he wouldn't say anything further without more evidence, though.

He was about to pull out the rest of the correspondences when Kursha interrupted his thoughts with another question. Wearing...?

Oh. Alifax looked down at the ensemble, wincing slightly when his horn covers bobbed. "I don't have much that's nice," he shrugged. "A friend dressed me." It had been a nice gesture, even if the clothing seemed stiff and uncomfortable compared to his burn-worn canvas. "Here," he said, changing the subject to something far more important.

He pulled out his record, as well as everything he'd found with handwriting on it. "We should compare the handwriting on these," he said. He put the cigarette with the message on it near Tigwyn's invitation, and isolated the saccharine note. He pulled the yellow and red envelopes open significantly, glancing over at the blueblood and purpleblood girls discussing their own set of clues. "From what I know, some of these should be compared to what's over there." That blueblood had found blackmail photos, according to his notes. "But you should read these - have either of you heard of a firebird project?" He pushed the items into Lorata's lap, figuring Kursha could look for himself.

As they looked Alifax attempted his own examination, putting papers next to each other frantically to figure out what each sample of handwriting looked like, and what pieces of evidence it matched. He compared to the recording, too, and then after a while pulled out the bag that he'd deposited the remains of the record into. This was also important, he thought. "I'll examine this and then perhaps attempt to see whether that red envelope matches anything there."

Azrael stopped mid step as Eridia spoke. Every word cut him deeply to the bone. He didn't mean to leave her alone, he just didn't want her to fight with Leeroi and PSy. He wanted her to stay safe. But that is not how Eridia chose to take his words. Instead, she expressed her loneliness and how Azrael had left her side. The guilt and shame he felt for his actions were too much and the young blueblood burst into tears. He tried to be quiet and descrete, but whatever he tried the tears were coming. He didn't want to hurt her, he'd worked too hard to be friends with her to want to hurt her. He just shook his head at Hemera's questions as he quietly sobbed. What if Eridia never wanted to talk to him again? He wasn't sure he could stand that. When he finally started moving again he looked at Leeroi who was studying the gathered clues.

"Leeroi!" Azrael barked through his tears. "This had better be worth it," the young blueblood said threateningly. He knew they didn't care much for Eridia, but he cared a lot. He cared a lot that she was off on her own instead of part of the group. Wheen Leeroi left, Azreal examined the powder, by chance was this what he'd found floating in the colorful liquid back in the nutrition block? he didn't even look back up when Leeroi had returned and tuned out Hemera's hysteric cries. Once he was done here he was going to find out if anyone else had any clues to compare. Probably start with Kursha since he actually knew him, sort of. Even if he'd made an utter fool of himself in front of the greenblood, he still felt comfortable in the fact that he could probably ask if he had anything or to trade off something. They were after all on the same side in the end.