01

[puppetstring]

Oichi sleeps in her coffin. She does not fight against it. She just sleeps, the cool stone under her body never warming and her body chilled. She is content to lay in that comforting darkness. Waiting for her strength to return and for her friend to come back; the hell hands aren't with her, they are gone away. But they come back after a while, creeping forth through the darkness and joining in her shadow. They reattach, slotting in as though dislocated.

It's then that she stands and smashes through the walls of her sarcophagus. With the tiniest gesture of her flesh fingers, the shadow hands follow and do as they have been told. She does not smile, but she laughs, stepping out unsteadily. She sways as though she doesn't know how to stand, and the hands steady her. She leaves the room, coming to the spring.

She sits by it and dips her hands in to drink, the dark shadowy hands holding her hair back so it doesn't slip into the water. And after she has quenched her thirst she wanders the place, hands running along the worn stone, humming a lullaby to herself.

Second Deduction [Open]

[modernholmes]

 Shinichi is outside in one of the courtyards today.  After receiving his skateboard from the spring he had spent a few days thoroughly checking over all the wiring and connections.  And today he had decided to finally test its operation.

He searches the courtyards until he finds one with promising surroundings.  And then he drops the skateboard on the ground and calmly steps onto it.  With one toe he nudges the pressure switch.  

And then, to the sound of the motor's loud whine, he's crouching down on the board as he speeds down the courtyard.  As he approaches the wall he leans into the turn and starts building up the acceleration.

[Open] 02 - in which a castle is explored, and strawberries are grown.

[eldritch_princess]

[Action/Prose both ok!]


I. EXPLORATION:

The massive, labyrinthine castle was just waiting for exploration, and on this day, Cordelia had decided to go a little further, leading her to this particular room.

Though calling it a 'room' didn't do it justice. In any other place, it'd be called a courtyard. Several fallen columns littered the floor of the massive room, shattered into massive blocks, overgrown with moss, but the main feature was a huge spiral staircase, right in the middle of the room.

Unfortunately, it had clearly been neglected for years, if not centuries. Entire sections were missing, which one would have to cross by jumping or other means, like the ivy growing in patches on the inner pillar the staircase spiraled around. But the most important part that had crumbled away was the bottom part - the beginning of the stairs was fourteen feet over the floor, as if a giant had just grabbed the masonry and spirited it away, requiring additional effort to even reach the stairs.

Of course, anyone who would reach the top would face a final challenge - from the ground, one could spot what appeared to be a drawbridge, which would lead from the platform in the middle of the room, on top of the staircase, to the only other exit from the room.

Unfortunately, the drawbridge wasn't lowered.


Far down on the floor, one could spot a woman (her dress had gotten a bit more practical, but it still looked a bit fancy, as she had completely failed to get something else, despite originally wanting to), looking around and, well, trying to figure out how to best get past this particular situation. Of course, doing so alone was a rather troublesome endeavour, but maybe there were others exploring, too...?

[OOC: I think this sets the scene up suitably for a few characters exploring the room? I'm happy to edit stuff if not.
Feel free to add to it, if it helps your character have fun. Maybe there are levers somewhere, or a shadow portal on top of the stairs? I'm absolutely open for stuff like that. Obviously, if the log goes somewhere, there could be other rooms for exploration? ]


II: Otherwise!
At another time, one could run into Cordelia in the main court yard near the commons. More precisely, behind a fallen column that shielded a particular section from view somewhat. It had recently collapsed - a couple days ago at most.

She was currently busy attending to...a few strawberry bushes? Those hadn't been here before, despite them clearly being fully grown. Come to think of it, there were a LOT of flowers behind the column - dozens of different flowers, including a few rather odd ones (had that small green one just caught a fly?)

She was currently busy with the work she was doing, which was examining the ground near the strawberry bush, and on occasion ripping out a flower, which went to a rather large compost heap, containing what looked like more strawberry bushes. Weird.