Week 04: Saturday

Wow, I can't believe it's already Halloween. I've been so busy with classes I barely had time to even think about Halloween. Sana told me about this party two weeks ago, but I hadn't even thought about it until a couple days ago.

"Hey, Nayeon, are you ready yet? Come on, we've got to get there by 8:00!" Sana says. She's standing just outside my door.

"Hang on, I'm almost done getting changed." 

Luckily, my keyboardist, Dahyun, hooked me up with a pretty sweet costume. Even if it is a little last minute.

"This is gonna get me a few to get on, okay?" I say.

"Meanwhile, I'm gonna call Momo and let her know I'm on my way. I'm out in five minutes, so don't be late, okay?" Sana leaves dialing her cellphone.

Ugh. I forgot about Momo.

I gotta admit, I was looking forward to hanging out with Sana... Plus whoever else shows up, but, yeah. I certainly don't feel like spoiling my mood dealing with that cartwheeling bish, Momo.

Now I'm rethinking if I even want to go.

I guess there'll be plenty of eye-candy if I do go. Momo can't stop me from looking! I'm gonna strut my stuff for all the fine peeps.

A quick change later and I head out to the porch with Sana.

"Well?" I turn around, showing my costume to her.

She checks me out from head to toe examining every curve and hump my body possess. She smirks.

"Woah. Damn... you look so deliciously fine in that costume." 

I feel my cheeks heat up when Sana bit her bottom lip after saying that. I'm wearing a super tight catwoman costume so yeah, I sorta expected Sana to have that kind of reaction. 

Sana is wearing a revealing, a little too revealing in fact, vampire costume. She looks so hot I almost feel insecure. Almost.

"Oh, feel free to bite me. Please. Preferably up in my room for the next couple hours. You're looking smokin' hot yourself, y cutie." I say.

Sana giggles.

"You don't have to tell me, honey bunny. Now if only the others would show up, we could get going."

"As called, I am here!" Chaeyoung appears suddenly.

"Oh, you puppy, you!" 

"No- wolf, Sana. I am a wolf."

"Aww, you're such an adorable wolf, Chaengie." Sana pinches Chaeyoung's cheeks.

"Who else is coming?" I ask.

"Hmm... I think you'll like this spell." Sana says. She leans close to me.

"I like it already!" 

"Say it with me... Bippity... boppity..."

"Umm... boo?" Mina pops out from behind.

"Now I KNOW I like this spell!" I say, chuckling.

Sana rolls her eyes.

"You're never gonna get a scare like that, hon! Come on, you gotta sell it!" She tells Mina.

"Definitely, because whatever you're selling, I'm buying. Between the two of you, I'm gonna run out of cash." I tease.

"I'll be happy to bleed you dry later, hottie kittie." Sana teases back.

"Your costume looks really good too, Nayeon." Mina says, smiling.

"Thanks! Is this it? Any other surprises for me?"

"This is it. Jeongyeon's hanging back to hand out candy if anybody comes by. Tzuyu's mom is in the country so she'd be spending a few days with her." Sana explains.

"Then let's get going." I say.

Well, so far so good. I think I'm gonna be having a good time after all.

Together we make our way down to the party site; another house on campus.

Ten minutes later (just in time!), we're staring at an incredibly well decorated house. Whoever did the decorating really went all out. The whole place is covered in cobwebs. I can even see some cutouts that look like ghosts in some of the windows.

"A welcome to you, our most esteemed 'ghasts' of honor. I presume you are the inspectors we sent for?" A small guy with weird looking glasses greets us.

"Huh?"

"You may call me Butler. We rang the constables to solve ghastly murder in our quaint dormitory... I... I thought you were they. No? Well, please come in." He says.

I look at the other housemates, who all appear to be just as confused as I am.

I don't know why he's talking that way, but he enters through the front door and gestures for us to enter as well.

"I heard it was a theme party, I didn't know it was going to be like this..." Sana says.

"Hey, as long as I'm with you girls, I'll play along with whatever weird stuff they want to throw my way." I say.

"This way, please. Do mind the corpse." Butler ushers us inside.

"Mind the...?" Before Chaeyoung can finish we've all entered and are staring at the bloody corpse in the middle of the hall.

There are about 10 other people here with us. Some of the others are talking amongst themselves about the body. It's actually very well done, it looks very believable.

"Poor Mr. Jaljari. He owns this building... well, owned. He donated a rather large sum to the college, apparently on behalf of a student he had a particular fondness for. Actually... it's rather odd, but he had been filling out these cards when he sent me out. They... they have your names on them." Butler says.

He hands everyone in the room a card with their name on it.

"So that's why we had to RSVP for this thing..." Sana says.

I open my card and inside it just says 'You were Mr. Jaljari's number 1 salesperson. You are innocent, but the murderer is out there. At 7:00 you were refueling your vehicle.'.

"Hey, what did you guys get...?" I ask.

"Please, do not discuss the contents of your letter until the constables arrive. We wouldn't want anyone to tamper with the evidence. While we wait... Please avail yourselves of the amenities. There is a kitchen down the hall. The study is that way, and the sitting room is through that door. I expect there may be clues about... I'm sure you'll discover something along the way." Butler says.

"So... what's going on?" I ask again.

"Looks like you're on the case, honey bunny. Time to figure out who murdered this poor sap." Sana says.

"Interesting game." Chaeyoung comments.

"Yeah! Oh, this will be so much fun!" Mina adds.

Wow. They are so into this especially Mina.

"Well, I think I know what I'd like to investigate!" I say, grinning.

We all laugh.

"Down, kittie." Sana says.

"It appears we must solve this dreadful crime." Chaeyoung says.

"Who doesn't love a good mystery?" Mina says.

Sana smiles to Mina. "You are way into this hon."

"This might be pretty cool." I agree.

"Hmm... I think I'm going to see what I can find in the study room." Sana says.

"Butler, is there food in the kitchen?" Chaeyoung asks.

"Indubitably." Butler answers.

"I'll take that as yes and go to feed myself."

"I think I'll see what I can deduce in the sitting room!" Mina says.

"I think I'll come and find you guys in a sec." I reply.

"Don't keep me waiting, hot cakes." Sana winks at me.

"You know it." I wink back at her.

While we were making our plans, so was everyone else. Soon enough the crowd disperses. Only the 'butler' is left.

"So dude, what's really up?" I ask.

"Exactly what I've said so far."

"...All right, I'll play along. So what are the facts, jack?"

"I'm afraid I don't know much. Feel free to look over the body for clues. I'll answer your questions as you like."

"'Aight, I can work with this. I think I may be surprising everyone tonight!" 

The only question now is, where to start? Hmm... clearly there are four rooms to visit, if I include the main hall here. There are probably clues in each of them, not to mention my friends.

Time to investigate the main hall! After all, there is a body here to look into.

I look around the room, just to get my bearings. There are some stairs going up here, though that seems to be out of bounds for the game. The main entrance is here too. The butler appears to have gone back outside to wait for the 'police'. The body lies before me. Whoever did it up did a great job. It almost looks like a real person. A real person who's had the back of their skull caved in. The body is wearing a very nice three-piece suit that's been treated very roughly. Whoever got to him must have had a fight on their hands, there are holes and tears all over. The man was also clearly quite well-to-do. A gold watch peeks out from under one of his sleeves.

I'm a little hesitant to mess with the body; I don't know if it's against the rules or not.

"Hey, Butler, can I touch this guy?" I ask loud enough for him to hear me.

Butler comes in.

"If you think it will help your case madam. Everyone else seems to have gone to search for clues elsewhere. I'm sure the police will be able to put the pieces together if nobody else here can."

"Sounds good."

I take a look at the watch on his wrist. It's definitely seen better times. The strap is nearly broken off and the face is definitely broken. A little blood has gotten onto it, on the strap and on the knob on the side. The watch hands have stopped moving, stuck pointing at 7:00.

I decide to go through the pockets of his jacket as well, after a few moments of riffling around, my hand grasps something... It appears to be a stop payment order on a check. On the reason line it just says 'Cut off!'.

There doesn't appear to be anything else of note on this body.

"Well, Butler. I think it's time you told me what you know. Exactly what happened here?" I start my interrogation.

Butler adjusts his glasses, clearing his throat.

"Very well, here is the sordid tale. I was here when the Master returned from work at six in the evening. He was certainly planning on throwing a costume party tonight, all of the invitations to you were sent off ages ago. At 6:55, the master noticed that we were dreadfully short of port for the evening. He immediately sent me to acquire more for the night. Obviously I don't really know what happened while I was gone. I arrived back from the ships at 7:30. I entered to find the hideous scene you see before you. I called the police, of course, but then you all began arriving and, well, you know where we got from there."

"Did you hear any strange noises when you were leaving? Any sign of struggle? If we assume his watch broke at the time of assault, it wasn't long after you left." 

Damn I feel like I'm really a detective, and I love it!

"No, I don't recall hearing anything unusual as I left. It was actually very quiet." He answers.

"And there was nobody here when you got back?"

"No, I checked all the rooms and nobody was about."

"Are there any other entrances or exits?"

"There is a back entrance, but it was still locked when I checked it."

"All right. Well, thanks Butler."

"Of course, madam."

I think that's all I'm going to get out of this place for now.

Time to visit the study room! I think Sana came in here. One of the classrooms has been converted for the evening. Looks like there are people relaxing all over. Someone even put up a few pipes on a coffee table between some of the chairs. They probably haven't been used, since I'm pretty sure this is a no-smoking building.

Sana is sitting on one of the chairs, idly leafing through a book. I don't know if she's reading it or not, actually.

"Hey Sana."

"Hey hone