Welcome to Gaia! ::

((We need more people sweatdrop ))

[ooc: Howdy, folks. Incoming doctor.]

It was not as if drinks were all that held his attention at this gathering, nor was it that they held his attention in the world at large. But it just seemed so very right to remain drinking here, to draw not a single bit of attention to himself. He was not the type to enjoy such festive occasions, though it was not by his choice that he was here in the first place, and he was quite intent on doing as he pleased. From the moment the doors to the gathering had split and opened the way to the elegant room in which they all resided until the very moment he had begun pondering the drinks in the first place, he had obtained his rightful place near the source of the drinks and had not moved from it.

The drinks gave him something to do, and in turn, prevented him from doing other things. Outwardly, he could deceive even the most prestigious of individuals with his outwardly high-class suit. No extra effort was spared in detailing and preparing its designs, and it showed. It was a deep red, easily indistinguishable from black without light nearby, and had not even a single spot to mar its surface.

The man named Raymond Ritz was, professionally, a doctor. To be specific he specialized in any case of bodily injury or harm, but had begun dabbling in various fields involving chemical cures. Thus far he had devised a clever plan to combine many remedies to create a cure-all. He had a deep determination to see it work, and conveniently was always on the lookout for new possibilities. Today, though unaware of it yet, his fascination to the drinks of the gathering would later lead to a better-tasting cure-all than the one he had created.

Slung over his shoulder rested the strap of his medical bag. He, even at the most formal of events, could never seem to part with it. As such, it became the fastest way for any individual to call upon him. Doc RR, incidentally, became his nickname. No one seems to be willing to admit why. (Though others think it's obvious, why would you even need to ask why that's his nickname?)

Looking upon him, he looked no different than an average 27 year old man. He was fairly tall, 5'10" to be exact, but he exaggerated his height to be 6 feet whenever asked. He was more on the skinnier side of life than the larger, as he rarely indulged in large meals (though his doctor's instinct urged him otherwise). His dark brown hair, always an unusual style, on this day consisted of a left-side part leading to the right side of his hair spiking out to the side. He felt that spikes were more fitting than hair idly laying flat. And his green eyes, always seemingly able to determine the rhyme or reason behind what he was looking upon, had still yet to leave his drink.

That is, ironically, until someone in the room called for a doctor.

He had been paying little attention, and this new outcry pulled him back into reality and away from his drink. He set it aside and strode towards the source. Before his eyes set upon the ring of guards that stood ahead, he replied.

"I'm a doctor, what seems to be the prob... lem...?!"

[ooc: Seizing the opportunity to get us rolling along.]

The situation at hand was hardly one in which the good Doctor's judgement was impaired, but it was certainly one where he had every wish in the world that he had at least been paying attention in the slightest.

But this was a formal party. With rich folk. Important folk. People like that didn't just drop ill or dead. They got richer.

So why...

"Let me through! You're all in the way!" he exclaimed without hesitation, following his true grasp on the events that had apparently transpired.

Someone important was dead or dying.

"I said" his voice became firmer as he pushed aside a guard with one hand, his other busily rummaging in his bag. "Move ASIDE"

Between his question and his new location beside the Princess, only a few seconds had passed. His effeciency was hardly able to be overlooked. It only required a situation that deemed it necessary in order for his "true colors" to surface; though the narrator is undeniably baffled at the sudden recurring referencing of a doctor's "true colors", as one would normally assume them to be the color of blood.

The point, however, was solely that the good doctor was where he needed to be, and given only moments of examination, a proclamation was made.

"The princess has been murdered!" he stated aloud, rummaging still through his bag until he located a small black box. From it, he pulled forth a set of two dark rocks and a black sheet. One guard nearby, baffled at these strange items, took a step forward.

"What are those?" he inquired, too stumped to think of any other question.

"These" Raymond replied "are to prevent the evidence from disappearing." He pulled something loose from the Princess' leg and set it down upon the black sheet. He then repeatedly struck the rocks together over both the object and sheet, creating bright flashes of light (as well as a few sparks).

One guard immediately moved forward and readied his weapon, intent on stopping whatever was going on. "THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH." he bellowed, his tone hardly helping the situation.

"Hardly not" Raymond replied, striking the rocks still "This takes a bit longer than--"

"I SAID STOP."

Annoying. Raymond's eyebrows furrowed, showing his mounting frustration outwardly. "Make yourself useful and LOCATE THE KILLER" he bellowed back, in a tone that almost matched the tone of the guard's own shout.

The room had become eerily quiet following his final strike of the rocks, and he set them down beside his bag. Before standing, he set the sheet within the inner coat of his suit and grasped the object in his palm. Turning to face the guards, as well as those in the room, he held forth the object.

"The princess has been murdered here tonight! This is what took her life from her!" He said aloud. ...and as reality suddenly caught back up with him, Raymond came to realize something...

He hated being the center of attention.

((Finals indeed. Calculus is currently the bane of my existence.))

Evangeline watched with wide eyes as the doctor approached the dead princess, went to work-- went so far, even, as to defy the guards. Now, she was a strong supporter of defying authority in most of its various forms; it was how she came across meals, usually. But palace guards? Brave as she was, Evangeline would not have had the courage.

Garotte's shouts had indeed alerted her to his location, and Evangeline approached him slowly now, her eyes still on the defiant doctor and his patient-- it struck her again just how very wrong it seemed, for her to be dead, this delicate and graceful girl. Who would want to do such a thing?

With a glance up at Sir Garotte, she asked, "Does this sort of thing happen often here?" Although her voice was still softly accented, she was not acting now-- the tremors in her voice came through clear as day despite her efforts to steady them, and while the question made sense, given her supposedly foreign origins, she was honestly curious. She'd heard stories of danger and intrigue, of love triangles, jealousy, and ambition, but now that she'd seen the princess, she found it hard to believe that she could have been involved in such things.

(( You join right when I'm typing a response too! XD Welcome! ))

"Ask and ye shall receive..." Rolando thought to himself as the doctor came forward through the crowd. The man pushed himself through the guards who had formed a ring around the Princess, thus letting the guests more curious see through more clearly, since their formation was broken.Rolando watched the man do his work, with minor interference from the guards (as the guards tried to stop the doctor and stop those around from looking at the fresh corpse). It was during this time that Evangeline found him; his cry must've caught her attention.

"Is she shaking?" he wondered when she approached. She appeared distressed. Of course, many of the other court ladies were cuddled up with their beaus, softly weeping, or talking in hushed anxious tones, wringing their handkerchiefs (Sir Garrote may have not been paying too much attention to the ones who weren't, but broad assumptions were easier to make than actually observations).

"Does this sort of thing happen often here?" she asked, voice quavering.

"I assure you it does not," he said, frowning slightly as he looked on at the corpse, and then flashed a smile in Eva's direction, hoping to comfort her a little. His arm slowly reached out behind her, hand coming to rest on her far shoulder, and he gave her a little sideways hug. "Don't worry; We certainly haven't done any wrong. We'll be out of here in no time," he spoke softly into her ear, his arm still around her. It seemed that she needed a friendly face, some comfort, and Sir Alto had been pulled away; he was too distraught at the moment anyway. As much as he hated to be called it, he was still the Princess' pet.

And 'was' was the operative term here too. Death was not common at the palace; a jousting mishap, a zealous duel, sickness ravishing the old and young. But nothing like this as far as Rolando knew. No news of other murders had ever reached his ears, either while at court or home.

Still holding Eva (for as long as she would let him), he looked on at the doctor's work. "The princess has been murdered here tonight! This is what took her life from her!" The doctor cried. The crowd shifted in front of him, so he couldn't see what the doctor had lifted. A few murmur's stirred from the people in front. "Is that a...?" "What is...?" "How...?"

"Who would want to murder the princess?" said someone nearby. Rolando looked over and saw a servant had edged near the front of the crowd. Rolando raised his eyebrow at him, his expression conveying the message 'I wouldn't, but I wouldn't be surprised if a you would' (a difficult expression to use and interpret I'm sure). And it was at that moment a Duchess (one Rolando vaguely remembered from his previous visits) came up and demanded the answer everyone wanted to know. Besides who was the murderer, of course.

((Hehe. I dunno if guns exist, but we'll go along with it. Randomness.. wheeee... Dundundun... what is this murder weapon? Is it the murder weapon? DUNDUNDUN... that's for all of you to figure out, yes even the doctor!

Pixelated, hi and welcome! Yup, this RP was kind of slow. People have busy schedules! Umm, yeah, still in finals for me, so lamo posts again.))



Lise Illumincroix almost let out an unnecessarily loud sigh as she peeked around the corner into the ballroom. Still unnoticed by the guards, Lise had snuck in. She did not trust Armand, and she was going to make sure he didn't do anything stupid.

Apparently, someone had found a dart of some sort on the princess, who was... dead. Lise sincerely doubted that Armand killed the princess. The dart really should have just hit Armand instead. Then, Lise wouldn't have to worry about an annoying Armand.... except she would be unemployed if he somehow died from it.

Anyhow, once she entered the ballroom, she wouldn't have to worry about hiding since she was in masquerade clothes and dressed as a male. Hopefully, no one would hit on her....

-----
"A gun?" Armand mused.. and then he remembered that he was still dressed as a servant. He still had no idea what the spark rocks were for. The noble man in disguise thought it ironically amusing when the doctor declared himself a suspect happily. Who's to say that he didn't do it? Should we even trust this doctor?

Poison? How could he tell from those weird rocks? Armand blinked and looked around, staying as calm and still as he could as the guards ran around searching everyone. When would people stat pointing at each other just to find a scapegoat or a culprit?

Despite being distraught over the sudden loss of a long time friend, and the princess no less, Alto was not so far gone as to miss several important events transpire.

It was perhaps due to a lot of bellowing on the guard's parts and then the shouting match that erupted shortly after wards that drew the young man from his own bouts of self guilt. But once it was announced that the princess was absolutely murdered by someone in the vicinity, he above everyone else wanted to know how and whom!

The so called doctor raised an object for all to see, and being where he was, Alto couldn't tell what he held. It was certainly something very small and it had to be for it to escape everyone's notice.

The raven haired young tried squint to somehow see the object better to no avail. Just when he was about to ask what the hell the doctor was holding up, someone else beat him to the punch and framed the same question to which it was announced that it was a poison dart.

Alto couldn't believe what he was hearing. A posion dart?! What was this? Some cheesy paperback novel? Murders at the balls only happened in fantasy stories he often read at bed time. But never here! And things turned for the worst when it was ordered that everyone was to be kept in this room and searched.

True it was a good possibility that the killer COULD be in this room, but just the same, what if the killer wasn't? A blow dart could be done anywhere and the simple mechanics of it made it easy to make and easy to dispose of. In the time of her death to now, it would have been easy for the killer to sneak out!

"What are you daft? Don't just keep the guards here!" Alto shouted above the din of the noise. "Have guards moving through out the castle! What if the killer escaped and is not even in this very room!?" If he was going to be confined here, then there damn well better be someone combing the grounds for the killer. Alto was already enraged that someone took his dear friend's life and ruined an other wise interesting ball, but to not be allowed out to look for the killer himself was just too much. He would not stand by and just wait, he would do everything he could to make up for his attitude toward his friend in the last hours of her life. Perhaps then, when he'd done everything he could, her spirit would forgive him.

As if regaining his purpose to live, the young Runieus heir started making his way through the crowds ordering everyone to inspect each other and to alert the guards if they saw anything suspicious.

He wanted everyone looking, the more eyes there were, the less there would be to miss.

Without a moment's pause, Raymond fired back his response to Lucia's questio-- demand. It wasn't that he didn't think about it, but it was more that his gut instinct had already kicked in and told him what the right answer to give was. What the appropriate, fitting, and most logical response was in this given situation. After all, in his mind, his focus was set on one thing. This time it happened to be the complex task of killer finding. May the lord above help whomever could stray his attention from that; yet may the lord help the killer as well, for Raymond did not stop, when he was determined.

But that wasn't the matter at hand. The matter at hand was Raymond's response. That single immediate phrase that prompted the guards back to their task and would undoubtedly end in invoking the royal rage of the woman standing before him.

"I refuse"

[ooc: Lucia is fun. x'D]