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Tippy top!

The thread goes lower and lower every time I post as Sloth! Goodness, and I thought sloths were good at climbing.

Coming! Bringing Evil Devin, Alfred, Nugget, my sketchbook, LotR, THE WINGFEATHER SAGA, OF COURSE!!!!! And, uh, some bookmarks. And chocolate. And snacks. And a pencil. And a notebook   And a map. Of Aerwiar. Yeah. Bye now. 

Oh, wait, so sorry. I didn't even read ahead before I joined! So embarrassed. I should've seen that this was from JANUARY FIRST. Ugh. Okay, so, just, yeah. Sorry for interrupting your amazing story! It looked so good my first thought was to join, and, well, yeah. Maybe I'll come back and read this sometime. :-) 

I feel super guilty about Icy's death. I'm so sorry that I didn't fully jump into the investigation earlier. Now, I want to take the initiative and start a small investigating process, in stead of Icy's death. 

1. Why would Cassy not have revealed who the murderer was and sent them packing by now if she had been spying on them? Surely she wouldn't want the deaths to continue.  

2. UNLESS the murderer has forced Lily/Cassy to work for them (Blackmail? Foul play? Threats? Bribery?), which explains how they knew about the CB. The murderer must have told them about it. (Motive for the murderer to tell Lily/Cassy?)

3. Lily/Cassy  don't  know who the murderer is. My guess is that they gets instructions from a) a masked figure, b) a telephone/cell phone call (could the phone number be traceable? Are there phones in the rooms? Did any CBers bring cell phones?), or c) a note with instructions, and a threat or money with the note. 

Note: 'C' seems most likely. Maybe during the next game a group of CBers could rifle through their bedrooms? Also, I think it's mainly Cassy who's being the murderer's tool. 

4. The murderer performs all the dirty work him/herself. Cassy/Lily simply keep an eye on us and set up situations when murder would be easy.

5.  "I ALWAYS KNEW I WAS A BAD COOK!" Wow, Cassy. Way melodramatic. Come on, if she was being forced by the murderer to poison Saphire, that would be the perfect reaction for someone who is super bad at keeping secrets, who is trying to hide that she is an accessory to a murder.

6. One last thing: all these deaths are sophisticated, meaning that it's most likely that a CBer did this. A CAPTCHA doesn't have the speech abilities that the murderer does, and if an AE was the murderer, the result would be a kind of horror movie spoof, with deaths every five minutes, and a crazy plot to blow up Lake Leillo at the end of it all. CBers are the only ones with the elegance to pull it off like this. 

Tehe...

@Brooklyn Newsie--excellent theories! Answers shall be revealed in due course!

I can't wait for the Massive Theory someone just posted. :P

Day Four--Part Five

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In their rooms, the CBers packed their lightsabers, knives, daggers, pranks, and anything else that could be used in self-defense into their backpacks or bags. (They also had no intention of leaving behind any extra weapons for the murderer's use.)

Puck made Owlgirl lead the CBers out of the mazelike mansion as a pop quiz, which is why, long story short, it took the CBers an extra thirty minutes to find Lily and Cassy.

Out in the main lobby, there were two plastic tables with index cards stacked upon each other. Lily and Cassy each sat on one.

"Welcome to another team game," Lily began. "Each team makes a scavenger hunt, which they hide around the lake for the other team to follow. Cassy and I will join your search party afterwards and judge the hunt based on creativity, accuracy of clue, and the other Chatterboxers' reactions. There's only one rule, and that rule is, you can only hide your clues ABOVE the ground."

The CBers glanced at each other. "Okay. Got it."

"Just start making clues whenever you're ready! We're not watching the clock--creativity can't be timed," Cassy said knowingly.

Lily nodded. "Tell us when you're done and you can go hide them."

The two twins skipped out of the room.

The vacationers split into two groups, whereupon they began hashing out the details of their scavenger hunts. However, their minds were not on their intricate clues so much as they were on the rule Lily had enforced. Above ground only...above ground only...WHAT was so important down in that cave? The CBers, AEs, and even the CAPTCHAs so badly wanted to find out, and it was all they could do not to hatch a plan to sneak down there. Well, most of them resisted the temptation--there was one Alter Ego who simply could not resist.

"It's DANGEROUS," Echosong hissed at Jayfeather, eyes narrowed. "DANGEROUS, do you hear me?"

Jayfeather simply shook his head. "I wouldn't expect a well-behaved AE to understand, but it's a necessity. It's in my nature. I've gotta go down there!"

"Ugh, he's like Spyro's twin," Echosong muttered to herself.

"And I can hear very well, too," Jayfeather added cheerfully, drawing a picture of a tube stuck into some sand on his index card.

"Stop that!" Echosong exclaimed, peering over at his drawing.

"Hey, I'm in charge of clue number nine. Don't I have the right to draw a picture of whatever I want?"

Echosong put a hand on her forhead. "I give up. You know Lily or Cassy will be following us, right? They'll know you were trying to break the rules."

Jayfeather rolled his eyes. "It'll work out, Echosong. It always does for us AEs."

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After the CBers finished their clue-making, they summoned Lily and Cassy.

"Done, everyone?" Lily chirped, swooping into the room and (miraculously) not tripping over a single thing. "I mean, obviously you are. Okay, well, go off and hide your things! Um, the group closest to the door can head out first! Just be as fast as you can so that the others have plenty of time when it's their turn to hide clues!"

It so happened that the team closest to the door contained Echosong and Jayfeather--will Echosong be able to stop Jayfeather? Or will Jayfeather manage to break the rules once more? Find out SOON!!!

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The murderer followed group one knowing full well what Jayfeather was planning. While the others were certainly not playing the scavenger hunt for fun, they still were not ready to infiltrate the secrets of their chaperones. They were content to simply be on the lookout for new clues that might be made apparent with their newfound knowledge.

The murderer held in a snort. It didn't care who did what as long as they didn't go down into the cave. It trotted along with the others, watching the scenery roll by, not the slightest detail escaping its gaze. Heat rose off the cobblestone in waves. Birds used the updraft to glide higher. An osprey fell down towards the lake in pursuit of a fish. All this was seen not through wide, wondering eyes, but an expressionless glance that masked its true nature.

The murderer stood by, occasionally helping hide a clue in a particularly cleverly thought-out location, yet not being truly immersed in the situation. Its heart skipped a beat when its team passed by the food stands on the beach. Jayfeather and Echosong were whisper-fighting off to the side.

"Sorry, got to go!" Jayfeather said as soon as the murderer was close enough to hear him, and he darted off for the tunnels. Echosong looked helpless for a moment, then raced after him.

"Hey, who was in charge of clue number nine?!" Wordsy shouted. "Has it been hidden yet?"

No one replied, for those who carried the answer were far beyond the range of hearing.

~ ~ ~

"JAYFEATHER!" Echosong yelled. "THIS WON'T EVEN WORK!" She stopped running. "Okay, hide it here if you want. But clue number eight didn't point to the tunnels, it said to go to one of the food carts. If you hide it here, no one will find it!"

Jayfeather heard her and stopped running as well. "Hey, you're right!" he replied. "I guess I'll be the only one!" And the AE kept running.

Echosong had a horrible feeling about what would happen if Jayfeather found what was in the cave. Mind working furiously, she finally procured a solution to the problem.

Echosong darted out of the mouth of her current tunnel and looked around furiously until her eyes fell upon what she was searching for. It was the other tunnel that connected to the network of tubes, sticking innocently out of a sand dune. If she could reach it in time, she'd be able to race Jayfeather to the mouth of the cave. Hopefully she'd be able to cut him off in time.

She practically flew across the sand and into the other tunnel. Almost slipping on the plastic, she regained her balance and continued racing on, accelerating despite the slick flooring. A few seconds later she saw it. Lit by the glowsticks buried in the sand, the intersection to the main tube grew closer and closer...she took a right upon entering it and just barely saw the blackness that signified the cave...But as she planted herself in front of its entrance, relief did all but wash over her.

Though she had been able to use another tunnel to cut in front of Jayfeather--though she had made it in time to block the entrance to the cave--though Jayfeather would likely never find what was inside--Echosong felt no triumph. In trying to protect Jayfeather, and the other CBers, she had put herself in grave danger.

A click had sounded as soon as her feet had touched the last few inches of the dimly lit tube. Looking down, she saw something very shiny under her shoes. It was a pressure plate.

Gradually she became aware of the wire clumsily stapled to the side of the tube, which led up into the darkness of the cave. Echosong couldn't see what was in there, but she decided she'd rather not know.

She suddenly heard a 'pitter-patter' coming from the bowels of the plastic tube, growing exponentially closer. Or perhaps it seemed that way because the footsteps could very well mean Echosong's doom--if Jayfeather bumped her, the pressure bearing down on the metal below her would loosen, spelling D-E-A-T-H for her and possibly Jayfeather as well.

"JAYFEATHER!" Echosong shouted desperately. The footsteps wavered but didn't stop. "STOP! IT'S A TRAP!"

Jayfeather sped up once more. "Yeah right!" he retorted. His lanky frame appeared around the bend of the tunnel.

"At least slow down!" Echosong pleaded.

Jayfeather heard the note of fright in her voice and hesitantly slowed down, but he did so, however ironically, too fast: His feet flew out from under him and he slid, on his back, inevitably closer to Echosong.

"NO!" Echosong screamed, but Jayfeather couldn't stop. He crashed right into her.

Echosong stumbled back, and the pressure plate clicked upwards again. Jayfeather tried to press it down again, tried to fool it, but his attempts were no use.

A deep, muffled explosion took place far under the earth, shaking the ground and even cracking the tube Jayfeather was in. In the split second that followed, the cave imploded. Rocks tumbled everywhere, spilling into the plastic tunnel and forcing Jayfeather to scramble backwards.

He gaped speechlessly at what had once been a cave. He began to feel a feeling that he had never experienced before--it slithered into him like a tiny little worm, where it began to munch on his insides. It is a rare feeling for an AE. They call it guilt.

Jayfeather gawked at the rocks that had crushed Echosong for a second more before fleeing the scene. He wanted to get as far away from the tunnels as possible--run away and away and away from the guilt.

He probably would have, if he hadn't smacked into Hotairballoon at the mouth of the tunnel.

"Jayfeather!" Hotairballoon exclaimed, stepping backwards. "Are you--are you crying?"

"No," Jayfeather said stoutly, wiping his face with muddy hands.

"What happened?" asked someone else--and suddenly Jayfeather found himself crowded by curious and concerned CBers, CAPTCHAs, and fellow AEs.

"No, no, no, go away!" Jayfeather said, pushing weakly through the group.

"Jayfeather! You're covered in mud!" Cinderpelt cried.

"I know that," Jayfeather said, averting his eyes from his CBer.

"What happened? Why were you down there?" Dragonrider asked.

"Has anyone seen Echosong?" Autumn Leaves wondered.

Jayfeather pointed down the tube he was just in. His eyes were burning--he had never cried before; why did he have to start now?

"She--she's down there?" Autumn Leaves asked.

Jayfeather squeezed his eyes shut. "No. The cave exploded."

Autumn Leaves gasped. "Is she o--"

"No."

Autumn Leaves stepped back.

"So there was a trap down there," Elvina said darkly.

"And--and why--how--did Echosong fall into it?" Saphira asked, standing next to her Chatterboxer.

Jayfeather merely shook his head, too upset to say anymore.

"Let's go inside," suggested Autumn Leaves quietly. "We probably shouldn't stand around out here any more..."

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Rest in Peace, Echosong.

Coming soon: Day Four--Part Six! It's the Day Four that never died...XD

"Please note that this is my second ski lodge, and it's kind of linked to
my first. In a sense, it's the next part. I don't know if I should call
it a part two, or what, but some things might reference the first ski
lodge. Don't worry--I'm not going to make things super confusing. I'll
explain things as I go--and I really need new CBers to join in. But I
also need some CBers from my previous ski lodge to come. ('Course, they
don't have to join if they don't want to; I'll understand.)" 

Who was there for the last ski lodge? What do Lily & Cassy have to do with it?  

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Ehehee. I hope this plot works out okay. If not, well, that will be unfortunate. Great theories, everyone! I wish I could tell you if you're right or not, but alas, I cannot. (Reminds me of the predicament of someone in the story...see if you can find out who's...)

CBers who were in my last story include, but are not limited to, Moonfrost, Booksy, Joan, Dragonrider, Poetic Panda, and Hotairballoon. Autumn Leaves had a character that shared her name, however, she wasn't actually in it. But Lily and Cassy were nowhere in sight!

And now, without further ado, presenting: Day Four--Part Six!

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The activities seemed to be cursed. The past two had brought with them a death each. But perhaps the most recent death wasn't forced at all...perhaps it was, the CBers reflected as they heaved the front doors open, at their own fault this time?

"Are you guys finished already?" Lily asked, surprised. She was playing cards with Kate the Great, Cassy, and Booksy on the floor while the other members of team two lounged on the carpeted floor doing yoga or playing guessing games.

"Yes, we're done," Saphira said bitterly.

"What's wrong?" Lily asked curiously. "Oh, no. Nobody--"

"Died? Yep," Saphira said.

The room fell silent. The only noises were those of the crackling fires, pointlessly heating up the lobby.

"Who?" was Grace's first question.

"Echosong," Saphira said shortly.

Lily and Cassy rose. "How?" Lily demanded. She looked slightly more serious than usual.

The members of team one glanced at each other apprehensively. "Um--an explosion," Autumn Leaves answered.

Lily and Cassy looked at each other. Were the CBers imagining a deeper meaning within that glance?

"I think a funeral is out of the question." Autumn Leaves had changed the subject firmly. "We can have a memorial service outside, in the graveyard, and then I think we'll go up to our rooms early."

The CBers could take a hint. After a lengthy memorial service, the CBers retreated to the upstairs level of the mansion, where they crowded into the living room to simply let their guards down and get the ideas out of their brains.

"There was a trap!" Autumn Leaves growled. "Jayfeather, tell us what happened!"

Jayfeather slumped into a chair, all too aware that he was under the gaze of everyone in the room.

"Why were you and Echosong down there?" Autumn Leaves repeated.

"She was trying to keep me from going into the cave," Jayfeather mumbled. "And there was a trap at the end of the tunnel."

Autumn Leaves regarded Jayfeather with a hint of suspicion. Saphira then took over the interrogation, being generally less sensitive towards others' emotions than her CBer.

"Tell us EXACTLY what happened," she ordered.

Jayfeather sighed. "I wanted to see what was down there, okay? Echosong tried to stop me. And then I wanted to go down even more, so I didn't listen to her. So she went some other way and got in front of me, but she stepped on this pressure plate thing in front of the cave. I slipped before I could stop running and I knocked her down. The whole cave imploded. It's all blocked up with rocks now. It was...my fault...that it happened. Sorry," he finished lamely.

"You'd better be sor--" Saphira began, but Autumn Leaves cut the AE off.

"It's fine, Jayfeather," she said wearily. "Just...oh, just be careful from now on."

Brooklyn Newsie twirled her wand in her hand. "Back to the startling headline: The theoretical 'trap' turns out to be real."

Pepper Star coughed quietly. "Ouch, my throat really hurts. Does anyone have a Ricola or something?"

"I hope you're not being infec--" Ariel's foot was smashed under Joan's warning boot.

"Here, Pepper," she said, handing the CBette a lozenge for her throat.

"Thanks."

"Yeah, the trap was real. How do we explain that?" BookBuggy/LilyPad asked.

"I'm having trouble keeping track of everything!" September exclaimed. "I wonder if Icy would mind if I wrote in her notebook? Where all the information already is?"

"Probably not," Nighthawk/Ember said.

September left the room temporarily while she fished out the notebooks from under her bed.

"I wonder if Cassy knew about that trap," pondered Brooklyn Newsie. "After all, she did say it would do a lot of harm for us to go down there. She's the one who pushed the above-ground only rule, after all."

LilyPad nodded. "I mean, we can't eliminate any possibility. Hey!" she exclaimed, sitting straighter. "Can you perform Legilimency, Brooklyn?"

Brooklyn's eyes widened. "No, unfortunately not," she replied.

September burst back into the living room. "Guys, you have to--have to look at this!" she shouted breathlessly. She thrust her finger at the pages in Icy's journal that were once empty. They were now filled with neat rows of cursive.

"What the--" LilyPad said.

I live in my journal. XD I've enchanted this last notebook to continue my work even after I'm gone, as a failsafe in case I really do get killed. It can 'hear' as well as a normal person and 'think' as well as me. It basically is me, but not really. P.S., Thanks for letting me use your wand, Brooklyn! It's going to probably be a real life saver, if you get my drift. :)

The next paragraph had a date over it: 2/27/17, 6:09 PM:

I hear you all talking in there. Ugh, will they ever open me? Sounds like Jayfeather got himself into some trouble--Echosong is dead?! Uh huh...yeah...I see...(Now I'm just bored.) *Sigh*
Cassy knows something Lily doesn't. Bear with me; I know you already read that part. But, see, they wanted to plug the tunnel, right? They didn't have the supplies, apparently. Or did they? LILY is the one who said they needed supplies. Now, Lily didn't know the murderer was still alive, but Cassy, on the other hand, apparently DID. And yet she didn't tell us. However, she can't be the murderer because she was trying to protect us. She didn't want us to go down there any more than Lily did. Okay, that was confusing even for me. Anyway--Cassy could've made the trap, because SHE certainly didn't say anything about a lack of supplies. But Cassy isn't the MURDERER.   My theory is that Cassy has direct correspondence with the murderer--some way of communication. She wants to keep us safe, however, suggesting she is not wholly on the murderer's side. Blackmail?--

  Brooklyn Newsie gasped. "That's exactly what I was thinking!"

--Death threats? Haha, I almost wrote 'threads' instead. Anyway, Lily doesn't know what Cassy knows. Cassy is doing SOMETHING with the murderer. I think that's safe to conclude.
Whatever the case, those tunnels are really important to the murderer. If the murderer didn't want anyone in there, and Lily and Cassy didn't want anyone in there, that means they have similar views on the whole cave issue. If they have similar views they obviously know similar things about it...I'll let you figure out the rest. All the other things I have to say are too dangerous to write.

  "Hmm. Cassy working with the murderer?" Nighthawk said incredulously. "Usually this kind of discovery comes much later on in the ski lodge!"

"I know what you mean," Poetic Panda agreed. "But we can certainly use this knowledge to the best of our abilities. Someone should--"

Suddenly the lights went out. And I mean all the lights. Even the windows went dark because someone drew the curtains on them. The entire living room was black.

"Hey!" Brooklyn Newsie protested from the darkness. "Stop! Give that back!"

A white neon strand of light erupted from the gloom, but it didn't illuminate any of the room, much to the CBers' dismay. It swirled through the air, spelling out two words and an evil smiley face: Sorry, Icy! >:)

The CBers gazed at the words as if hypnotized. There then came the acrid scent of burning paper, followed by a harsh snap in the same moment the lights turned back on.

The words disappeared, and something was flung against the back wall. Whatever 'it' was landed against the ground with a dull thud and a crunching sound.

September screamed--Icy's journal was now on fire. She flung it off her lap and attempted to stamp out the flames, but each impact with her foot made the fire burn brighter.

"No--it's magic!" Ariel said. He had run over to inspect the thing that had been thrown to the back of the room. Holding it up for all to see, he revealed Brooklyn Newsie's magic weapon--the source of so much deceit in its lifetime--to be broken clean in two. It was now useless, wand attatchment and all.

Abruptly, the journal desintegrated, all the flames went out, and the last remnants of Icy's brilliant mind disappeared.

"Well darn, what do we do now?" Kate the Great wondered. "The whole JOURNAL is gone!"

"We--we--we--we--okay, it's fine, it's fine, I can live without it," Brooklyn Newsie sighed, referring to her broken weapon. She had lied to LilyPad--she had been able to perform Legilimency, and had been attempting just that when the lights went out. She supposed the murderer had seen through her lie.

The CBers were now very suspicious--Cassy, Brooklyn, Ariel, Jayfeather...Who was to be trusted?

"Is everyone ok?" Poetic Panda asked. "I don't see any, uh, dead people."

"Yeah, I think we're fine," Briar said.

"We need to talk to Cassy," September suggested.

"You're right...," Kate the Great agreed. "We can't just let this slide."

"Who should do it?" Owlgirl asked.

Nighthawk peered around the room. "Maybe two of us should."

"We'll draw names out of a hat to make sure they're random," Moonfrost suggested.

Brooklyn Newsie took off her cap and stuck it on the coffee table upside down. The CBers took pieces of paper from Dragonrider's notebook and scribbled their names down on them. Once everyone (not including CAPTCHAs, since they couldn't exactly talk) had placed their name into the hat, Brooklyn passed her hat around. The last two slips of paper that were drawn were announced for all to hear:

"Pepper Star," announced Moonfrost.

"And you, too, Moonfrost!" Brooklyn Newsie said. "I guess you two will go talk to Cassy. Tell us what you find when you get back. Good luck. Don't be too harsh."

Moonfrost nodded and exited the room. Pepper Star follwed, coughing softly.

~ ~ ~

While the other CBers in the living room discussed other theories, talked to Jayfeather again, and tried to set up protective murderer alarms in front of their beds, Moonfrost and Pepper Star sought out Cassy.

"I'm nervous," Moonfrost whispered as she and Pepper walked along a deserted hallway decorated with wallpaper. "I don't want Cassy to get mad at us."

Pepper Star nodded. "Me neither. But at least we'll know if she's--"

At the end of the hallway, the two CBers saw Lily approach around a bend. She was about to go through a door when Pepper called out to her.

"Lily!" Pepper said. Lily looked around and spotted Moonfrost and Pepper Star running towards her.

"Hi, there! What're you two doing?" Lily asked cheerfully. She opened the door, which turned out to be a storage closet. She began rummaging through the boxes leaned against the back wall.

"Um, we were looking for Cassy," Moonfrost blurted.

Lily delved deeper into the closet. "Ok. I think she was in the attic, trying to dust a little bit."

"Thanks, Lily!" Pepper Star said. "How do we get into the attic, Moonfrost?"

Lily pulled an ancient vaccuum cleaner out of the tiny room. Setting it upon the hall's vintage rug, she said, "You can just go up these stairs if you want to."

Lily pointed into the utility closet. A small, cobweb-covered staircase that was about a foot wide led up into utter darkness in the back of the room.

"Don't mind the cobwebs, they're fake. Me and Cassy store the Halloween decorations inside the hidden passages to make them more scary."

Pepper Star laughed. "Cool! Thanks, Lily!"

Moonfrost nodded. She and Pepper Star squeezed up the staircase together, wondering what Cassy would tell them when they found her.

They had no idea what they were about to get into.

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What are they about to get into? Ooooh!

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