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Unfortunately Alifax only caught Sarcel's back as she turned out of the block. Damnit - he'd thought it might be nice to confer with her. That was okay, though - he scribbled carefully in his notebook about what he'd found in the antlerbeast's mouth, and in the wide mouth of the victrola. Not to mention what he'd seen in the piano...he'd made a lot of progress, without the purpleblood there to pull at his clothing.

Still...he eyed the queen, with her chalk. There were a few things that were still nagging at his mind. "I'll be back," he said to Nahori, taking his notebook with him. Better approach her and see whether she had any answer at all than just sit around, right? He stepped over carefully, feeling nervous at even the hint of proximity to someone with fins. Well - better be known for exploring every avenue, right? Okay. Ablution block first, then the queen.

"Excuse me," said Alifax, clearing his throat. "I'm inquiring about the silent auction - I know it was to take place in the ballblock immediately following the dinner, but I couldn't find any sign of the location having been prepared for it." There was neither stage nor decoration in there - not beyond what seemed standard for the room, anyway. It was altogether far more green than Tyrian, after all...although the dinner had been fairly green itself. Still, he'd have expected the party's hosts to have at least begun making preparations during the ample time they'd had to set up. He knew a silent auction didn't really require that the hosts be present, but he'd have expected the tables to already be in place, along with the equipment, if not the items themselves. And it was definitely strange to see the rug, completely in disarray - like Awassi hadn't even bothered to clean. "I wanted to check with you whether this was intentional - are the items for the auction still in order? Was there a storage plan in place for them?" Had they been cleared up so quickly? If so, why was there no evidence of it on the rug, or why had the servants not been by to clean them?

After all, if they'd been cleaned before the rug had been disturbed, that'd imply that someone had been quick enough to come back in and disturb the room after the commotion, and if they'd been cleaned afterwards - well, the tracks of servants should have ruined the visible evidence on the rug.

It all brought more questions to mind than it answered.

Ҕᾁʐɱᾁʂ Ҏӫςɧῒɱ
xxxxRumpus Block
Letting out a disgruntled sigh, Hazmas flopped into one of the over plush chairs of the rumpus block. Dealing with Eridia and bizarre taxidermy high art was just a little more than the green blood wanted to handle. Reaching into his sleeve for his notes, the little troll gave an rough sigh and began taking more notes.

"Rule No. 3," he scribbled, careful to keep his notes visible to only himself, "- have a party-ready satchel. You never know what you might need. Rule No. 4 - NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, LEND ANYTHING TO ANYONE UNLESS YOU CAN REPLACE IT. CHANCES ARE, THEY WILL KEEP THE THING YOU LET THEM BORROW FOREVER. DO. NOT. LEND."

He glanced up from his papers when he heard Her Majesty's voice and spotted the redblood he'd seen in the Trophy Room. He grimaced and ducked his head. Even with the antics he shared with the pint-sized purple blood, Eridia, Hazmas knew you didn't just go up to a sea-dweller, the Queen, no less, without using those high-blood, low-blood courtesies. After all, miss any one of them when dealing with an older highblood, especially a royal, and it was off to the culling circle for you.

However, the little conversation between Her Majesty and the teenaged red blood did present a little opportunity, Haz hadn't considered. The chalk board had a bunch of things written on it, some of which brought him back to the little things he'd discovered earlier. Taking utmost care not to invade the space of Her Majesty, the little green blood took up a piece of chalk and began writing in a little corner of the black board.

A very familiar voice startled her from her thoughts, bringing her back to reality to be looking up at a grin and tattooed eyes. Her face lit up like fireworks.

"Kursha! Hello!" She greeted, chipper as ever, "You found me!" Realizing that was somewhat of an odd thing to say, she lightly laughed, waving a gloved hand. "Oh, I mean. I was going to find you! You just beat me to it. Heheh." Elidae leaned forward eagerly, matching his grin, snaggletooth particularly prominent. "I wanted to talk to you, I- oh! Lorata!" Her partner for the night, Lorata approached the two of them. Elidae's eyebrows shot up when she refereed to Kursha as 'captain', curious if they were already acquainted. Well, of course they were. She could only assume someone is Lorata's position would know all the important trolls, including military.

Upon being questioned if they already knew each other, Elidae gave Kursha a playful look, sticking her tongue out between her teeth. "You could say that. I'm assuming you two already know each other as well? So it is 'captain'!" Giggling, she bounced off the armchair and took a few steps away from them, urging to follow.

“Hm! So! Lorata, I found some interesting information.” Discreetly, she pulled out some official military publications she found within the bookshelves she searched previously. Glancing at Kursha, she nodded her head over to invite him in the conversation. “Like, there’s a lot of info here, but most importantly, information about Shishi Schrad. I don't really know much about her, really, but this says a lot about her work in the military. Seems like a really impressive troll, if you ask me! Survival and saving trolls, that kind of exciting stuff."

“Also!” She added, scratching her nose, unsure if this information was noteworthy. "The husktop in the library: the screen was completely red! Like, no service. Seems like someone tried to use it, but... not very well." Elidae looked to Lorata, shrugging. "Tigwyn didn't have much to say, other than everyone was a suspect." She paused, shifting her weight and biting her lip. "Well, he did mention that he thought this was more of a "political clean-up party". Didn't seem too concerned about himself, though."


Katanari
hi elidae talks


KitsuneAura
a lot

[+] Kursha Vidari

Kursha straightened, looking surprised. “You were searching for me?” he asked. “What for?” Before she could respond however, a familiar voice called out to him. He had not expected to hear that nickname again. Looking back over his shoulder he saw a finned, young troll approaching him: Lorata. What had she called herself again? He dug through his memories of the swamp. Aha.

“Princess,” he said, after a pause.

Elidae cut in then, answering Lorata's question. Thankfully she did not go into the specifics. He responded to her tease by rolling his eyes. “Technically, Commander is right.” he interjected, folding his arms over his chest. “'Captain' is, well... Never mind. It's dumb.” As much as he did not want word getting out of his condition in the tunnels, nor did he want anyone knowing he had played around with a FLARP group. While pursuing the Phoenix Initiative. While he was supposed to leading the assault. God.

Grateful for the subject change, Kursha followed after Elidae. As the yellowblood shared her findings, he nodded along to the her words. The information on Schrad seemed fairly standard, but the bit about the husktop piqued his interest. Then there was the information she had gleaned from Tigwyn. Kursha's brow furrowed. Political clean-up party? That sounded... anything but good. He glanced towards Regina. What was she planning...?

His attention snapped back to his two companions when Lorata began speaking. So, she had questioned Tigwyn as well. He held his chin in his hand. While no new information had been presented, hearing about the other troll's suspicions only reaffirmed his own. There were too many strange happenings for it to be a case of simple murder.

“Not bad,” he told Elidae and Lorata when the seadweller finished. He dropped his arm back to his side. “It's definitely a start. Tigwyn seems like he has a good grasp on the situation. I spoke to Major Puchen and she felt the same way. Said the whole thing was a set-up...” Kursha lowered his voice. “And there's a possibility Epratt might not be dead. That was her thoughts anyway.” Kursha shrugged. “Aside from that, I... oh hell. Come on.” Gesturing for Lorata and Elidae to follow, Kursha lead them to the wall where Regina, who was in the midst of talking down a familiar redblood. Kursha might have waved, but he was not in the mood to play mind-games with the queen. “Should have done this in the first place,” he muttered.

Taking a piece of chalk, he proceed to write in neat, meticulous hand-writing. As he did, he explained. “I checked out the armoury. Discovered that there was a missing gun, and a blue smear over the floor. Looked like something had been recently cleaned up. Might be something the Major knows more about. She seemed pretty anxious when I walked in.”

Finished, Kursha pulled away. He immediately scowled. Aside from his own notes, Regina's, and a single scrawl from some disgusting shade between yellow and green, the wall was empty. Had everyone else just been ******** around, or were they keeping information to themselves?

The redblood's sudden appearance had surprised Nahori, but then again, what didn't. It wasn't as if he'd been boisterous about it. On the contrary, he was as quiet and to-the-point as she'd known him to be so far. Still, she'd been lost in thought, mulling over the things she'd found in the library.

Ah, Nahori knew she just wasn't smart enough to solve this riddle on her own, and Guineamom was far from helpful in situations like this. Well, when had she really been in a situation like this? She shook her head.

"I-I actually think..." she began quietly, glancing around, locating the other trolls in the room with her gaze. "... I might have f-found some things... Maybe, um, we could t-talk them over s-soon."

It seemed like he'd found interest in the Queen, however, excusing himself to speak to her. That was fine, she'd check the library one more time before they reconvened. Maybe she'd even have more information to share.

"See you soon, Alifax..."



Sometime later, Nahori slunk back into the room, her bloodpusher still pounding with what she'd done. Talking to Tigwyn had been hard on her. He was older, intimidating... She was still shivering, but she'd done it. Now she'd consider what he told her...

"It's not dumb!" Lorata corrected as they followed Elidae, but she dropped it as the yellowblood started in on her information. They'd both had a look at different parts of the library, she was pretty sure, and she didn't have a doubt that they could draw some mystery-solving conclusions from throwing them together. First up, military documents! She'd heard a bit about Shishi Schrad, of course, so an impressive history was no surprise, but it seemed like a little of an odd find. Had Erilyn decided to do some reading up on the guests before inviting them, or?

She considered the news about the husktop and what Tigwyn had said before piping up to add her own observations. "Ah, I talked to him about what's going on too, while we were in there. He definitely thinks it's all way too convenient, like a set up." She tilted her head, remembering how he'd worded it. "Like a circus, he said." She shrugged, continuing. "When I asked him about Mr. Epratt, he just told me he thought it must not have been as easy a life as you'd think, being so good at killing lusii and things. And that he smelled like a tuskbeast." Yeah, she thought that was about the gist of what he'd said.

The seadweller made a bit of a face, then hummed, trying to remember what else had stood out to her in the investigation. She'd spent some time looking at the pictures inbetween the bookshelves, but they'd just been- Well, hm. "I'm not sure if it means anything, but one of the pictures in there was kind of weird. They were all these fancy maps, but this one didn't fit the frame at all! It was way too small. It was really old and outdated, so it might be an antique or something?" She couldn't really put a finger on why it bothered her, but it did and now they knew about it too. Information shared.

Except she didn't really feel much closer to solving anything. Squinting, she swept a glance over the rest of the room to see if any new information had gone up on the walls. Almost everyone who had come in seemed happy to just quietly think about things, keeping it all to themselves. The seadweller frowned. They were supposed to be giving her all the clues too. She and Elidae, and now the Captain too, were going to get to the bottom of this, and everyone was being so selfish and slowing them down.

"Hey!" Lifting her voice so everyone passing through would hear, she stepped away from her friends and closer to the center of the room and put her hands on her hips. "What are you all sitting around for? Write more stuff on the walls or come tell us what you've found too! We're supposed to be finding the killer! You've got to have some kind of ideas!" A vaguely familiar shade of blue caught her eye, and she paused a second. "We only want the intelligent ones though!"

Alifax raised his eyebrows as he heard Lorata begin to shout.

The problem was, no one was sure what information was safe to express - and really, it was a little silly of her to expect everyone else to come forward with information when she hadn't really done the same. Still, there were a few more questions lingering in his thinkpan, even if Tigwyn's answers had given him a little bit of thought.