grimmoired | CHAPTER SEVEN ; TRIAL

The Story Continues...
CHAPTER 7 - WEEK 711 Narrators Remain ;

Wakey wakey, naughty murder children. It's a lovely Saturday, after all. Breakfast is served piping hot at its usual time and all of the evidence has been removed from the scenes of yesterday. No matter how you choose to spent your morning though, the clock will begin to chime the moment both hands reach the large, ornate twelve.

Before your eyes materializes a door...but not just any door. Unlike the door leading to the festival, this door sits primly and properly right in front of the foyer. Whether you exit the castle on your own or you feel a friendly, invisible push, you begin to walk under an arc of wisterias. Behind you, the clock continues to chime with every step you take.

By the time the time the clock strikes twelve, you've entered a beautiful garden. In front of you is a long table, 19 seats on each side. Around the garden are several glass cases containing evidence collected yesterday. As noon intensifies on the sun-shaped clock, you'll find Dragon at the head of the table, a glass-covered rose near her right hand.

Tick tock, Narrators. You have nine hours to deliberate.

The garden is strangely silent and there are no snacks today...it seems as though you'll be left to your own devices.

Welcome to your trial post!

Please see here for the OOC summary of events from yesterday's investigation.

In addition, please be sure to vote! Please see the voting page on how to vote, as we will have two special things to vote for. Voting will close at 9pm EST/6pm PST or sooner if the game ICly elects so.

If you have any questions, please ask on our Discord server or ping us on plurk. Please direct pings for the NPC to Dana (

decals), as she will be taking point for today's NPC, and the moderator team will be on deck for all other questions.

full navigation.
locations

taken (statuses)

stories (profiles)

info & faq

wishing well

private conversations

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ion's gaze also goes pretty flat as soon as the kids attention turns to veronica and varian. really??? really. ]

You can have these for now, but please, try not to stay out in the sun for too long in the future... Nellie might not be here next time, after all.

[ anyway so he's going to straighten up with a tiny bow, then wave them a kind-looking goodbye as soon as that's sorted. this is officially varian and veronica's problem to sort now, time to scope out a house to break into! ]

[ GOOD WORK TEAM

steph will follow ion. ]

I think that one looks... empty?

[Veronica, too, wishes she were dead.]

Yup...! That's right! Just— Uh. Just let us know when you're feeling cooler, okay?

[Set them free so they can go loot.]

[ luckily for us, this can be written in one tag where the children enjoy many popsicles and feel cooler and then we leave them with more popsicles because this is as close to a system as we can get.

unluckily for varian and veronica, it takes them at least ten minutes of just standing there hanging out with children and trying to feed them ice. once the kids say they're fine, varian is waving with one arm and then gesturing at veronica since he cannot. grab her. and fuckin off to find the house ion and stephanie have hopefully found to break into ]

Thanks for waiting on us!

[ rude!! ion if varian has to suffer so do you!!! ]

[ ion and steph sure have scoped out a house of some sort, there's a window within uh, easy smashing range and

well ion just tilts his head at v and v when they catch up. ]

I thought this might be a more efficient use of our time.

[ but if they're all ready, their two keys secure, he'll nod to steph. take it away, uno bear ]

[ she bows, and varian and veronica will notice a sizable rock in steph's hand.

they will also notice it leaving her hand, because that rock is being fucking yeeted through the window. ]

Tada.

[ once that's done, she's going to just... tidy this up so that she can actually shimmy through this broke window and get inside. ]

[Steph is truly the MVP.

Once they have the key from the last task and they can get inside:]

Is there anyone here, or...?

[ oh wow. varian is just going "go stephie" softly in the bg while she does that. anyway: ]

Does it matter? All we have to do is break in and take stuff, if we get caught, we can just-- run.

[ which they probably will have to ]

[ he huffs a sigh, just a short one (it kind of is hot out here, still), and impatiently gestures a hand. ]

I've done this before during our stay here-- if they don't care for the specifics, just take something and run. We'll follow the jewels out to wherever they lead us.

[ you know, the ones just lying around that no one else seems to have noticed because magic or something.

anyway is there a desk or something, neat, ion's grabbing a figurine of some sort from it and following the rest of them, time for a speedrun. ]

[ YEAH LET'S MOSEY ON OUT

to follow the jewels. she's grabbing the key on their way out though, because that's a thing that's around. ]

Onward!

Any ideas where these are taking us?

[Besides "outside of the Bazaar", anyway.]

[ they're all just running wildly on the path of jewels through-- a forest now ]

I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about it?

[ it's a relatively dark clearing, apparently, that opens up pretty quickly so he can't even appreciate the respite from the heat.

unfortunately it opens up to a certain house they'd probably all rather not opt to remember at this point. ]

... I'm not sure I trust this, but I suppose this is where we must go.

...

[ she almost just turns the fuck around.

but doesn't, and instead, she will be brave and go to open the door. ]

... huh. Bad idea.

[ she's stuck. ]

[Oh, mood. Veronica looks like she's about to murder a man, but instead she sticks close to Varian just in case.

But also—]

... Uh, what was a bad idea? What happened?

[STEPH??]

[ well it's a good thing veronica is doing that because he's uh he's kind of frozen where he stands and even takes a step back. let him out let him out let him ]

I'd-- I'd rather--

[ not, honestly, but. then steph gets stuck and he just heaves out a shaky breath ]

What's happening?

Oh, enough of this.

[ Ion throws out his sleeves, allows the omnipresent strips of wound fabric around his arms to unwind and flow together, forming into the shape of a goddamn decently sized sledgehammer for either of Veronica or Steph since that's what you all want or something. He doesn't have quite enough fabric strips to finish one of decent size, but, thankfully, he does wear plenty of layers, and so his outermost, embroidered cloak is consumed as well, leaving him in the slightly plainer raiment he wears underneath. ]

Take that and do something with it, we don't have time for this.

[ He himself spins his staff, just once, to find his grip and balancing it properly-

then just hecking stabs the forked end of it into the door like it's actually an oversized fork, and starts using it as a sort of crowbar to try to start on pulling this house apart. ]

[ steph is stil like, stuck, so veronica should probably take it

steph is gonna attempt to just break it apart with her free hand. ]

[GENTLY, she puts a hand on Varian's shoulder.]

It's okay. You can look away. We'll take care of this crap.

[Which is to say, fuck yeah!! She's going to take that hammer and start wrecking the gingerbread house. Between Ion's staff, Stephanie punching it and the hammer, it won't take long before they're able to break the house down enough to see the chest.]

... Thank you.

[ he doesn't look away because it's ... well, cathartic, though he doesn't participate because that includes coming close to the house. the one thing he does do is fucking run of the chest and yeet it when it becomes visible, though

y o i n k ]

Now can we please get out of here?

CHAPTER SEVEN ; TRIAL

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject