come_sailaway

Hm. ( Let him think about that for a minute. ) All Hallow's Eve, the day to remember the dead, and where children disguise themselves to receive sweets...

( It's kind of a weird mix if you ask him. Not unlike the eclairs and the gorey display with the doll. His expression might give these thoughts away; luckily, he has a tried and true answer to give when Pollux asks him something like this: )

As long as you're happy, it's fine.

( Izzy has him completely sussed out, it's true. Strangely enough though, he hasn't picked their next destination, and with Pollux enjoying this little venture as she is, Castor isn't about to give up on it halfway. He'll pluck the card back so he can give it a read himself, looking similarly unimpressed as the pieces click together. )

The buffet.

( He says it simply, and... that's it. "It's called the Windjammer." He doesn't care what it's called. He cares that he's going to hand the card to Pollux to confirm, then take her other hand in his and start towards the door. )

[ they're learning about the magic of halloween now! it's scary decorations, autumn foods, threatening notes, and the occasional dead body. don't worry about it. there's also no need to worry about the cute display that's been set out for them on one of the tables. a black and orange checkerboard tablecloth with cats and pumpkins covers the table and falls all the way down to the floor and the table itself is decorated with little trinkets that fit the mood - witches and bats and cats oh my!

a skeleton takes a bath in what seems to be a halloween chex mix as it holds a chocolate bar that reads bone appetit!" and black cats perch on miniature moose cakes while ghosts peek out from behind things. there's even a graveyard - a take crumble dirt bread with chocolate stick fencing and cupcakes with tombstones that read rip. pressed into it that have tombstones with rip carefully written onto them. there's a large fake pumpkin in the center filled so full of candy that it's spilled out on the table around it, making the real mystery how anyone has the time to put together this convoluted mystery or why they would.

there's another card: ]

" Congratulations! That was a fang-tatstic performance!

I tried every trick in the book, but you've found all my treats and won the grand prize! I think you'll find that it comes in candy.

I hope this helped you to get into the holiday spirit! Remember, not all ghosts are so ghoulish! Some just play hide-and-shriek.

Happy Halloween!

- Kit, the Catty Ghost "

[ a bat, a piece of candy, a ghost, and a jack-o-lanten are drawn next to the corresponding lines and little doodles around the margins, making the second great mystery how this person hasn't been thrown overboard yet. but perhaps there's one final riddle hidden within the card. there's little dips of dried red paint leading from behind the card in a little half-circle around the pumpkin before moving up and staining a few pieces of candy. with any luck, they've realized that nothing is going to bite them or stab them or anything that else involves puncturing skin. ]

Edited (my cupcakes ):<) 2022-10-13 01:31 (UTC)

( with the note in hand, she reads it as her two boys stand behind like always, and she takes note of the letters off in another color. handing it to izzy, she claps her hands together with glee as though she's excited for how far they've came. )

You've both done well accompanying me on this journey as we must see this through, now... surely this can't be the end.

( even if there's nothing else, she can't say she's not disappointed in the outcome— piles and piles of candy isn't quite her thing, but the thrill of the friends she made along the way is. the experience with both her bad boys who would rather not deal with this, but they've gone through it anyway which means there will be thousand of pictures like this in the photography room for them to look at.

she thinks to grab one to put up in their room. )

Hm...

( pollux reaches out towards the pumpkin, her fingers tapping at the rim before she sticks her hand inside. they should follow the trail of blood as it stands out the most, and then they can think on the text next. )

[ it's buried under a fair bit of candy, but toward the bottom pollux will find something about the size of the baseball. the object is slightly warm to the touch and velvety. there seems to be a cord attached to it as well. If she takes it out she'll find that it is, in fact, a red velvet pouch with something inside of it.

will she open it? ]

( she looks to izzy and then to castor as she contemplates what's in her hand, it's heavy enough, but... this is about the experience. turning to castor, she hands it over to him for her brother to inspect. she did the hard part by digging in the pumpkin, and she has half the mind to take it with her in order to give it to hiyori. )

Let's see what brother has in store for us.

( with that said, she's going to stand beside izzy with a big smile excited for what castor will find. )

( Castor was paying attention mostly for Pollux's sake, but then she hands the bag over to him and he just kind of. Looks at it. )

Very well.

( Let him pull it open and peer inside... He's not gonna dump the contents or anything, just look. )

[ :(

inside is... another hand! this one also appears to belong to a doll or something similar if the weight and lack of blood and foul smells are anything to go by. in fact, it seems to be the companion to the hand they found at the bar. maybe somebody was caught stealing. the fingers are curled tight around something, though it's impossible to tell just from looking what it's holding onto. ]

Edited 2022-10-13 04:23 (UTC)

( No!! Don't frown!! To be honest, Castor's about ready to just accept that it's another hand. It's probably just holding more candy or something, though there is the question of where someone got such a flexible doll hand. It's like, human-sized? So maybe the human knows what it have to do with Halloween—in that case, all it takes is a moment of inopportune eye contact for Izzy to be the one who gets the bag next. )

You can have it, Human.

( Then Castor looks at Pollux. Look how generous he's being!! )

[Oh for fuck's sake, he's never looking at you again. Izzy gives Castor a flat, unimpressed look and reluctantly holds out his hand for the fuckin' thing. It isn't that cursed monkey paw from the jungle, so there's a small mercy but it could be just as bad or worse. The last time Izzy touched anything magical his hand went dead for ages.

Who knows that? Oh yeah, you two bozos.]

Bully for me. Thank you so much, Castor.

[He can not sound less pleased. And yet, like the fucking clown he is, he still takes the object. Izzy pulls a small folding knife from his pocket and uses the blade to carefully pry open the fingers.]

[ :)

the twins are setting izzy up because he's the only one who knows how to be a team player. though the hand seems to be made of an unusual material, it seems to be harmless, and they're conveniently jointed and flexible, so with a little bit of effort he'll be able to pull the fingers free. what falls out is a torn scrap of paper, one that's been crumpled up. the paper has scribbled drawings of cats in different colors and lines on it on it. while the ones on the cards were passable, these almost seem to be the crayon scribbling of a small child. upon review, it seems to be a graph.

it's a bit messy, but the group should be able to determine it to be intended to measure the amount of different halloween items individually as well as the total number. in total. there are thirty cats, ninety-seven pumpkin, and fifteen ghost. aside from these three the rest have been torn off, as only half of what would presumably have been a bat, and the corresponding numbers as well. the other half doesn't seem to be present and it's best that they don't make a mess trying to find it, but the trio can add up the remaining numbers if they'd like. ]

[Wow. The most anticlimactic booty, ever. Where's the gold? The blood? The razor's edge of glory? Izzy crouches and retrieves the note, tossing the gross fake hand on the table in favor of opening and looking at the graph.

Shitty pictures. A lot of them. Which means counting.

Nah, fam. He doesn't do stupid math. This is what you made him risk his hand for, Castor? Really?

Izzy rolls his eyes and hands the note over. There you go, big man. There's your fucking prize.]

( ↑ Guy who was also waiting for the blood.

The note instead has him frowning, and he gives it only a cursory glance before passing it back to Pollux. It's safe, so she's allowed to have it now.

...

Give him a minute, and he'll wander back up to the table to pick up the hand and inspect it a little. Is it warm? Was the bag itself warm? Where was the warmth coming from that is so sketchy... )

( ^ would be lying if she wouldn't have gotten pumped up over blood.

...

she takes the paper, looking it over to see what they have in store. it's math, are they passing this all over because of math? she looks to izzy, and then to castor...

... )

Starting next month, you two are coming to the library with me.

( we WILL be fixing this problem at hand. besides, izzy's been answering these riddles before so what is stopping him? looking up from the paper over to castor, she notices the hand in his hand... and how izzy hands is with them. alright. )

We're going to split up! ( why? ) We'll acquire all the body parts!

( crafting a corpse in their bedroom? more likely than they think, of course, adding up the numbers of what's here has them one off, but if they add the spare bat... )

Brother, you'll go to Hurikane, and Izzy you'll depart to the infirmary. I'll stay behind here to see if there's anything else. We'll regroup back at our dorm room, do you all follow? Great.

( she's turning around to inspect some other part of the buffet, bye team. )

[ unfortunately for them this is not the story in which we make red velvet cupcakes with blood as the secret ingredient or ruin a batch of perfectly good candies with unsanitary methods, your specter friend isn't so unsanitary and wasteful! there are other body parts hidden about, though they all seem to be taken from various different dolls, as though a person were attempting to create the doll version of frankenstein's monster - unfortunately, even if they slotted together it's features would be anything but a proportional creature with such beautiful features.

it's a bit out of place with halloween activities, and the head and right right appear to be missing, but perhaps it really is just someone who wished to share the spirit of halloween with three individuals unacquainted with it...? there's always a suspicion associated with something that takes up so much time and energy, and perhaps the fact that there's red paint splattered and the faint metallic scent present here and there will only add to that to that thought, but nothing jumps out and nothing seems to be of immediate danger.

either way, when they regroup they'll find that two orange arrows form a branch path between rooms 142 and 143. they're done in orange paint (apparently our ghost would rather not be associated that other guy who keeps writing blood letters,) each with an item in front of them and words written on on the doors themselves. on the door for the former is written "tricks," with a phone sitting in front of it, and on the latter is "treats," which has the missing doll arm in front of it. of interest might be the fact that this door, while not having blood letters, does have red handprints all over the letter and marks and scratches on it - as though something were trying to break in.

halloween isn't a time to be greedy, so pick one option please - room 142, room 143, or stop here to end the game. if this were a horror movie, they might find the latter to be the correct choice. ]

( Okay but the weirdly soft and warm hands specifically...

Anyway, well, Castor is unaware of any phone dramas going on right now and to be honest the fact that their door is vandalized is totally disrespectful. Vandalized! A gods' room! It takes some nerve to do that. If anything, shouldn't Pollux be the one who gets to enjoy decorating their cabinspace for Halloween!?

So yeah, he's marching up to 143 to open it up first of all, not because he wants blood but because the "blood" on his door is offending him. )

[ :)

there's a faint shine near the floor, one that will only become apparent once castor opens the door and pulls both of them taut.the first is attached to the arm, and the other to the phone in the hallway. both items jerk forward and up as the door is swung open. the first sound that might hit their ears is that of an aersol, like hairspray being applied, but it's quickly overshadowed by the ear-ringing sound of an explosion going off in the adjacent room.

it might be a bomb, or it might be a series of them, but either option would lead to the same deafening explosive sound and violent release of energy that causes the floors and walls alike to shake and vibrate from the sheer impact of it all. it leaves behind only the crackling sounds of flames along with the the audible thump of something hitting the floor. it's difficult to tell what size it is or exactly where it had fallen from, but it's noisy enough to dismiss as a result of the explosion itself.

it would be best not to open it at this point, though, as introducing gas to an open flame tends to end poorly. there's no need to worry, though, when this was all intended to be a fun game for those who occupy the room. the large canister has been stuck directly into the vent, the top popped off now, pushing air into the room as much as it pulls it in. arsenic gas released is deadly even in small doses, and it does circulate through the vents quite nicely - though it does tend to gravitate toward lower areas. it would likewise be best to close the door and not enter the room for those of the mortal variety.

as for the rest of the hall, well, this does all seem to have been an effort to teach them the ins and outs of halloween! there's no harm meant, but when lost and confused it's always best to stay in one place, lest they find how serious the lettering about tricks and treats was! in fact, the trip wire set in front of the dioscuri and izzy's room that causes a smoke grenade to fall to the floor and mix in with the poison in the air might be the least of their concerns. incidentally, while heavy gases such as arsenic can come to hug the floor and lower floors, smoke is more inclined to filter through the air and burn eyes and obscure vision equally. the trio is free to keep tempting fate, but before that...

happy halloween! ]

[And so to recap, I think, a bomb the likes of which Izzy has never experienced explodes behind the closed door of 142. A room they had been planning on visiting, anyway. Something about doll hands that he doesn't understand, but it doesn't matter now.

Smoke and fire press through the seams of the door. It's incredible that thing is still on and wasn't blasted off it's hinges. Lucky for Izzy- who was standing closest- and would have been caught. What a shitty way to die.

A canister in the vent of the corridor goes off, spewing toxic gas that falls heavily towards the ground. Just after, a smoke bomb drops and begins the flood the hall. If you're tall, you get the smoke. If you're very small, you get the gas. If you're in the middle, then you get a face full of both. Lucky us. Ears still ringing from the noise, Izzy scrambles back, hand to his sword, but there's nothing to fight. You can't fight smoke. There aren't any windows the open and the fire will eat through the door, presumably.

What the fuck, what the fuck what the fuck!? FUCKING Halloween!]

( ...

Castor closes the door. )

( out of all the tricks, she wouldn't have wanted something so dangerous that the ground shakes under them— her first order of priority is immediately focusing on who is with her. that happens to be you izzy— )

Izzy, you must leave now. Warn those you cross the paths of, no one is meant to come here.

( they'll have to check the rooms everywhere else down this hall, but she's not stupid enough to leave a human in the middle of both smoke and toxic gas. it doesn't bother her anyway. her steps quicken towards 142, and a stray hand reaches out to slip her fingers between castor's own to lace them. with her free hand on the knob, she takes a step back to stand by her brother's side. )

Be safe. ( this is a command, an order. ) We'll regroup, I promise.

( castor should understand her intentions, even though she doesn't need him to do this; they're both going to knock their bodies against the door which is like the quick way of getting in. hey there dead bodies (?), it's us... ya gods... whomst in here? )

[ that's exactly it. it's a little prank that probably isn't meant to kill anyone, though it may lead to some agitated sinuses, smoke doesn't tend to be very good for them. it's the correct choice to close the door, though, as it quarantines the room. it might be best to keep room 142 sealed as well given the rules of safety, or at least to use the key instead of causing further property damage, but knocking against it will do well enough at granting them entry to the room.

room 142 is the disaster that one would expect after an explosion in a small room. smoke hangs in the air and a few places flicker with flames that had flamed out before beginning to die down, ones which it might be best to snuff out before they spread, and it's good fortune that the damage was contained. the walls and and floors are both charred and marked by flames, with pieces of the ceiling having fallen to the floor and the wall separating the room from the bathroom crumbling. the furniture and items within have fared no better, the sofa damaged and the bed charred, with glass having shattered and the television resting on the floor in pieces, and various items scattered about.

but despite the extensive damage, it is miraculous how much can survive an explosion, though, and so a surprising amount of items seem to have survived it, allowing the room's occupant to avoid losing all their possessions. it might take some digging and cleaning up, and perhaps new sheets, but despite the disheveled appearance there's quite a bit that can be salvaged (i.e. player/character-specific items won't have been harmed unless desired.)

of more immediate concern, though, might be the headless body hidden amongst the rubble. the body seems to belong to an adult man and is is also slightly charred (or at least incredibly dirty and soot-covered, but aside from the pieces that are missing it's somewhat impressive how in tact it is. ]

( Okay, well—first order of business! Our priorities are backwards. The body is headless, and there still look to be flames, which are no small threat to all of them on a ship like this. Castor looks to Pollux to confirm her judgment of the situation before heading further in, taking whatever is closest, thick, has a decent surface area, and doesn't look to be completely destroyed—thinking a blanket or something, but his hands will probably do in a pinch for the smaller flames. Making an effort to snuff those out is the most important thing to deal with right now.

When any flames that have survived enough to be some kind of threat have been put out, that's when he turns his attention to the body, closing the distance to get a closer look.

...

Looks at Pollux in the doorway. Do they want this? It has no head. )

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