Fallen (A murder mystery)

[Netdroid9]

Ring a ring a rosies...-Death-...A pocketful of posies...-Disease-...A tissue, a tissue...-Corruption-...They all fall down...

An ear-shattering scream resounds through the grove. In the middle of the Training Dojo, a sacrificial altar had risen from the ground. Placed upon it was the body of a student, his blood draining into an intricate series of grooves in the shape of pentagrams and other unholy symbols. But that wasn't the half of it: The student's skin had begun to blacken and flake away, as though he were being burnt from the inside out. Runic symbols hovered in the air above the student, signifying something important yet long forgotten. A drop of blood falls to the ground and darkness spreads outwards from the altar, killing everything it touches.

***

*The area had been sealed off to students and the general public, with only moderators and those charged to defend the dojo allowed access.*

Net: Eugh... What happened?
Net2: Search me. God, I've seen public toilets cleaner than this. He's still draining blood. Poor guy.
Net: We need to find out who he was and what got him into this mess. I'm going to check his room. Stay here and keep watch. If anything wierd happens, no matter how small or insignificant, burn everything.

[addman]

*Addman, hearing a commotion from inside, peers around the doorframe*

Net? What's going on?

*Addman walks in, stepping in a small pool of blood. His trailing foot leaves bloody footprints across the floor as he makes his way towards the alter.*

Lots of pagan symbols, blood, and murder. Sounds like a typical day back in the cave, but out here it's not so common. Was the guy someone of importance?

[Panther385]

Rai sucked in her breath sharply. She stood a few feet away from the murder scene.
"This isn't your run-of-the-mill killing...." The alchemist commented, turning to face a blue feline.
"You've got that right." Panther said gruffly, scrutinizing the stone. Kiri hunched down behind her and sniffed.
Very interesting.

[Shine]

Mr Sanders, the groundskeeper/gardner, heard the commotion and came in.

"Oh, what a mess this is going to be to clean up" he said. He took a notepad from his pocket and copied down the runes, and left.

I few minutes later he came back with a small case and a couple of handheld devises. From one of the devises he produces a rather large insect (about three inches long) that looks like a boxelder beetle, but semi-metallic irridescent bluegreen in color. He goes inside the cordon tape and kneels down. He releases the beetle, which walks carefully over to the darkness and extends its antennae. Mr. Sanders is examining one of the devices. The beetle next procededs to a small pool of blood, takes readings from it with his antennae (not touching it.) It then opens it wings and flies around the body on the alter, all the while its antennae are twitching and Mr. Sanders is intently studying his devise.

He says to Addman, as he continues to observe his devise and his beetle:

"I'd stand a bit farther back if I were you , and I'm really not sure you want that blood on your feet, could you wash it off without tracking it around too much?"

Next he shuts his eyes and forms a magical protection circle around himself magically (Total Protection and Integrated Response Field) and carefully extends his awareness into the corpse to see if he can detect the last moments of its spiritual/emotional life, ready to sever the connection instantaneously if needed.

[Somefreakoverthere]

ravil was standing next to the boundrys of where she could go.her mind was trying to work out what might of happened.
"huge amounts of magic...not good for the mind having so much magic consontraited in one spot..."she murmed before she pulled out her pad of paper and pen.she drew the runes down very acuratly,maching sure each rune was the only one of the padge,with two pages at least between each piece with a rune on it.Even drawn on paper,the runes had some power in them.she noted down what had happened to the corpse before she finaly turned away.
she felt sick now - maby because of all the magic,or because of the body."ugh,i won't be eating for another three days now...best i make use of the time and try and do somme research..."she held her churning stomach as she tried to remember the way to a library she could use.

[Shine]

Mr. Saunders continued his investigation. He pulled some sample collection bottles from his kit and also a 16 inch long "wand"-type thing. It works in a number of ways (like Whitteoaks staff, but smaller, more precise and with a couple of other"sensing" capabilities), in this case, the mini tractor beam function allowed him to gather blood samples that were still freshily seeping from the body with out actually toucing them, and put thim in the collection tubes. He also did this with blood collected from drops on the floor (to scan for any differences). He next used the laser cutting function to slice off small pieces of the blackened skin, and then lifts them (tractor beam) into a tube. All these were then sucked into a molecular compression storage device as medical samples. The devise scans them on a variety of spectrums for magical residue. It should, after processing, differentialte between magical flame burns, curse burns, plague blackening, etc and indicate whether they were still "contagious" on either the physical or magical spectrum.

Returning to the body he made note of the students physical description, it's gender, it's basic dress, including the nature of it's clothing or robes, any jewelry or accessories, it's species, and any other physical (but yet undescribed) characteristics.

The beetle scans had indicated some small objects in the young persons pockets. Using a second "wand" he was able to carefully remove the contents and place them into (truly, in the original magical sense) "hermetically"clean and sealable baggies. The breath mints were probably not significant, the rubber band? there were a few other items as well.

Being a retired instructor from his former life with the Angelic Special Forces, "Mr Sanders" (as he was now called) preferred to keep to himself and did not, as a habit, get to know the students here, so he had never even seen this student. He turned to Rai and Panther and asked,

"Did you know this student?, did he have any friends, or enemies for that matter. I wonder who he was studying with, I suppose we will have to contact any family.
Excuse my manners, I am Ecc- er, um, Sanders, Mr. Sanders, I'm the groundskeeper here."

(( Need a few more clues here, or some indication about what to do next,
or
is something going to happen next? You've got my curriousity up, do any of his investigations reveal anything to help get the story moving along? Sorry if I seem impatient. ))

[Netdroid9]

((I'm waiting on permission from the admins before I start giving out clues, but expect to find something soon .))

[addman]

*Addman notices the blood on his foot from stepping in the blood puddle, and proceeds to wipe it off with a tissue*

I'm going to go and check the perimeter, see if I can find any more clues outside.

*He leaves through a side door and vanishes from view, checking the surrounding area for any signs of escape*

[GBE]

((Considering it was Alec a.k.a. Keeper who allowed me to become an Mod, I'm going to roleplay him in participation. However, whilst one of my characters appears to be in training with our respectable local Admin DP, I'm going run my character Nobu as my mainline character to be associated with my account....))

Alec had been studying one of his genetic experiments when he'd accidentally unleashed one. Chasing it down, he'd temporarily lost track of it, until he gained it's scent again.

Upon finding it, he recaptured it in a tougher storage ball. Then, there was a blood curdling scream. Racing of around a corner towards it, he saw the altar and some other people stood around. Entering underneath the cordon tape, he looks at the sacrificed student.

Taking out his scanner, normally reserved for scanning creatures, it runs through an incredible data-base of relics, artefacts and sacrifices, from every known religion, many unknown relgions, and even alternate dimension and planet rituals and events.

Evevntually, it finds within a 62% accuracy of what kind of thing he's looking at. It also simultaneously ran scans of chemicals, hormones and other traces in the immediate area, attempting to track the culprit. However, because of cross-contamination, he only gets a 29% accuracy rating on this.

This also means his personal senses wouldn't be able to track what ever it was because of the cross-contamination.


However, up on a nearby roof-top, a young boy had observed some of the events, not entirely affected by the death as such. However when others started appearing on the scene, he retreated slightly, into the darkness, and shrouded most of himself in the darkness of the shadows.

((Hope you don't mind filling me in on the ritual Net, what my device would pick up on. And, a 29% accuracy of a possible culprit

And, hope you don't my mind my slight powerplay of a culprit/witness? I thought it'd be interesting trying to track him down.... Not an easy task mind

Just let me know, and I'll edit accordinly.... ))

[Netdroid9]

((I've already got a murderer, but I could use a good witness. And a target for our resident murderer . Your device would pick up on an ancient ritual of some kind, probably related to disease and probably of human origin.

The idea with this RP is simple: PM me with who you think the murderer is and I'll look at giving you money/a medal if you get it right. I'll post a new clue later.))

[Shine]

Mr. Sanders noticed Alec's arrival and his scans. He walked over to the young man and said:

"I'd assume that you discovered much the same infomation that I did. It looks to me like death resulted from a human disease, but brought about by layers of intense and varied magics, obviously culminating in a fairly powerful ritual. The runes have similarities to a couple of languages in my library, but not exactly, and even rough translations don't make sense. Do you know those runes?

Oh, and I think we should keep the onlookers back a ways, I don't know that I would rule out possible contagion on contact now that its been unleashed on this victim. Did you find anything more? I didn't know the young man, did you? I've gathered his effects, but I'll bet he had a dorm room to be examinied and next of kin to be notified.

By the way, my name is Sanders, and how might I address you?"

[Panther385]

Kiri sniffed the stone again and grunted.
The runes on this stone are quite ancient.... Meddling will cause trouble....

[Netdroid9]

((Made a new hint. Look for the [HINT]s ))

[The Murderer]

Nanu, nanu, nanu, SOLVERNIS!

*Holding his book in one hand, he chanted the incantation. From his other outstretched hand, one single drop of blood protruded from his palm, trickled down the length of his hand, then fell towards the stone steps of the training dojo.

During his escape, he'd stumbled upon a student of the training dojo hanging around, probably trying to get a sneaky peek at the horrific events which had occurred inside.

His work would not be impeded by this insolent fool. This was important, and all this youngster could do was to peer in through the window like it was some travelling freakshow. He did have orders to dispose of as many people as possible, but he would take great delight in reaping this one.

The drop of blood splashed upon the cobbled stone at the back entrance of the dojo. Suddenly, a looming black shadow emerges from the impact point, growing and stretching towards it's next victim.

The young boy stumbled and fell. The darkness hastily took advantage of this, consuming him whole, but not before he let off a booming cry for help.

Upon hearing this, the dark figure decided now would be a good time to make his presence scarce, and he fled swiftly into the darkness, as the shadow seeped through the youngster's flesh, and set him alight from within*

[Somefreakoverthere]

((nice one.The huge amount of magic your using if going to be notissed very,very quickly,and ravils going to start freewheeling and possibly drop her notepad.third time since she's arrived at blackstar that this has happened.))

ravil felt the power before she heard the cry.she fell forwards freewheeling,clawing at her head in pain.Too much magic and she went boom.she slowly followed the cround of students with raziel helping her along.