Name: Brooklyn Newsie

Gender: Female 

Preferred Book Genre: Historical Fiction

What you will be bringing:  My red suspenders, newsies hat, and slingshot. 

Full Name: Erm, my name is Icy, but....... what should I...I'll just put in my full from Kyngdom. Icicle Soul, aka Icy!

Gender: Female

Preferred Book Genre: Fantasy

What you will be bringing: a dozen notebooks (I write all the evidence and suspects down, and write EVERYTHING DOWN!), and my Ice Powers. They may be a little 'pointy', but I can't get rid of them, my apologies.

Full Name: Leeli Wingfeather

Gender: F

Preferred Book Genre: Fantasy all the way! Well, and animals. I love animals. Animal-fantasy is good, but I can read other types of fantasy as well.

What you Will be Bringing: My backpack full of notebooks, sketchbooks, books, pencils, bookmarks etc. Nugget my CAPTCHA, my Æs Evil DEVIN and Alfred, and uh, some candy and homemade pizza. And brownies! Oh, and clothes and toothbrush.

Nugget says obom. What? You're bringing a bomb! 

Are people still interested? There is one spot left and then we will begin, if there is still an interest.

Good! 

I will begin posting... March 1!

That gives us 3 days for someone else to join, before we start. 

Prolog- Day 0

Many figures in a throne room, their focus on only two.

One is dressed in black, the other in white. One is humanoid, the rest in the room are not.

(The speech is translated from Old Gerrlis)

"Good day, your... eh... worshipfulness."

"A day it is, but it's your choice if it's a good one."

The figure dressed in white raises one perfect eyebrow.

"I will pay you very well if you succeed in bringing me the book. No need to be merciful, just do what's necessary."

"Yes. I will go now."

"Good."

The figure in black, the human, strides out of the room.

A different room, this time in an old restaurant. Still, one figure is human, the other not.

(Now the speech is translated from Mot)

"Let me be frank about this. On the trip, there will be someone. I don't know their name, but they will do anything to get to the book. Once they get the book... I don't know." An old Mothii general, her badge just as shiny.

"Shall I kill them?" The second figure is dressed in gray, their face was hidden.

"Maybe. Start by stopping them from killing others. I will now promote you, my friend, to the rank of Assassin. Wait... I know you've been waiting for this, but you should enjoy a trip. The whole trip. Go now, but not just as an Assassin. Strict professionals have the most boring social lives...

Learn something! Have fun."

"Thank you, Grand Merrim. I will!"

"Oh, it's nothing..."

As the new assassin strides out of the room, leaving the Mothii to her thoughts, she sighs.

"I hope they will do okay."

"I am positive they will. After all, I trained them.

Stop worrying!" 

 Destiny Silverstone nervously fingered her CAPTCHA's ears.

The Bahaah ships were not comfortable things, and the beings piloting them were far from human.

Each Bahaah sported four arms and four legs, as well as an eerie face with a pair of questing side antennae. 

The ship docked with an efficient hiss. The hatch swung open and Destiny stepped out.

Ember almost jumped out of Destiny's arms. Across the loading bay, stepping out of another but very different ship (this time piloted by a Mevwell) was someone she recognized.

Joan, instantly recognizable in shiny micromail armor, waved and was almost flattened by an emerging Puck.

"AAaah. So nice to see a sun again! These tiny cramped wet ships are too much to bear! Oh Hi, Destiny!"

Puck pulled out a tiny pouch from nowhere and reached into it.

Joan instantly yelled "DUCK!" and the few staff members in the loading bay hit the floor.

Destiny's Bahaah captain leaned his head out the hatch and got a moonberry pie straight in the face.

"Hey!"

Evil Devin came running at full tilt towards the fellow AE with arms spread wide for a tackle hug (the customary AE-to-AE greeting) and Puck graciously accepted it, landing on Joan.

They bounced off. Micromail is always useful.

 Leeli, with Nugget on her head and Alfred in tow, followed at a more leisurely stroll. Destiny helped her pilot clean his face.

The small group headed into the lobby behind a perky Zim sublibrarian. There they met their guide for the tour, as well as a few more CBers drinking and eating from a large buffet at one end of the lobby.

Icy barely glanced up from her notebook as the others entered. She already had a lead on who the murderer might be.

Brooklyn Newsie (Can Narrator please call you Newsie?) looked up from wrestling the last chocolate muffin away from Fleetfoot, Kestrel's CAPTCHA, who Kestrel was also holding onto from behind.

The Riddler and Cockleburr were in an animated discussion with a small Mevwell staff member, elementgirl was listening to Hamilton, blissfully unaware of the chaos, and the other CAPTCHAS and AEs were, by turns, lounging about, eating cake, throwing cake, and chatting. When the AEs saw Puck, Evil Devin and Alfred, however, they swarmed out of their chairs for tackle hugs.

After all the smoke (Puck) subsided, the small Mevwell raised her voice to be heard by the whole group.

"I am Sublibrarian Tome, your tour guide. We can start this off by... let's see... How would you like to see your rooms?

The rooms were at the very top of the rounded square of the Library. They were dormitory style with amazing views of the Seldopolis skyline.

Rooms

Room Spacetime

Joan

Puck

Sequoia

The Riddler

Room Cozy

elementgirl

Destiny

Ember

Anna

Nugget

Room History

Brooklyn Newsie

Cockleburr

Alfred

Kestrel

Room Views

Icy

Leeli

Evil Devin

Fleetfoot 

Day 1 Part 1

The black figure slipped soundlessly out of their room and into a bathroom. The time was about 2:00, so most of the librarians were asleep.

About a minute later, a human in sublibrarian clothing hopped down onto a winch. They rode the deserted platform down to the New Artifacts bay, where they stepped off.

A figure in gray slipped out of a CBer room and climbed up to a beam in the roof.

Maneuvering through the towers of boxes, one in particular caught their eye. Swiftly tapping the side, the figure dislodged the secret compartment and removed the sleek matte black case.

Her Ladyship had certainly not been cheap on this. Daggers, vials, tiny jars and noiseless shurikens glinted alongside the latest in the technology of death.

The Murderer, which is what the figure was, worked their way back to a changing room, changed, walked to the the winch and rode it to a room.

The Assassin saw the Murderer creep into a CBer room and felt a pang that they weren’t able to stop the Murderer faster.

As the Murderer backed out of the room and returned almost inaudibly to their room, a figure dropped from the rafters and tackled the Murderer.

The Assassin, two knives in hands, was surprised as the Murderer drew two knives of their own and almost sliced the Assassin’s nose off.

The Murderer and The Assassin circled before the Murderer struck out with a knife. The Assassin blocked, struck, blocked and the two were suddenly knife to knife, hilt to hilt and almost touching noses.

They both noticed at the same time their blades were of the same material.

The thought flashing through both heads was “How-?” when a sleepy sublibrarian stuck his head around the corner.

“Hello? Hello? Barmy? Is that you?”

There was an empty hall and the sounds of doors closing ever so quietly.

10:00

“Hey!”

Sequoia whirled around, infuriated. Tart dripped down her hair and off her back. “Who did that?”

The CBers were having brunch after perusing the Library’s massive nonfiction section and learning a short history of ancient Zim culture. Several of the AEs, having no pies, were throwing tarts (Puck wasn’t letting anyone at her prank bag) and they found tarts, being smaller, were more aerodynamic but less sticky than pies.

The CBers and CAPTCHAS who had to eat were chowing down on sim-bacon, tea, tarts, spaghetti-eis (Google it) and many other foods.

Icy tried some green Jello-like substance and found it quite delicious. Kestrel started on her ice cream. Fleetfoot tried Jaffae biscuits and found they were similar to tuna. The Riddler was challenged by Evil Devin to a game of cars, no funny business, no cheating, for the stakes of her Hat. Alfred would deal.

Evil Devin’s exact words were “Try and beat me if you can!”.

The Riddler could.

After brunch, the CBers went on a hike. Not outside, but through the habitats in the Library.

A few CBers were struggling to keep up with their guide, the Mevwell being used to rough terrain.

Icy noticed that Cockleburr was lagging behind, a purple bruise on her leg obviously painful.

Icy slowed down to ask “What happened?”

“I fell out of bed last night. They really should put up guard bars on the third tier!”

Icy shrugged.

After making it through the Sea, Jungle, Grasslands, Q, Meep and Bim habitats, Kestrel was feeling sick. Normally a giant breakfast helped her start her day, but today she felt sick.

She told Tome, and the diminutive Mevwell had the group stop to examine Kestrel.

She pulled out a small device and held it to Kestrel’s forehead.

“M-hm. Oh? Oh… no.”

“What? What is it?”

“There is a slow-acting poison in your stomach. What did you have for breakfast? Did you have something no one else had?”

“Um... I had… bacon, toast, eggs, some of that powdery stuff the CAPTCHAS love, and ice cream.”

“Did anyone else have the ice cream?”

“I don’t think so…”

“That’s it, then.”

Tome whipped out a talker, and called for an ambulance. As the medics ran up the steps through the water, Kestrel was an abnormal shade of yellow. Small bumps were appearing on her skin.

The medics strapped her to a carrier as the others watched in awe and shock.

Tome said gravely “That poison was intentionally placed. We may have a murderer among us.”

There was a chorus of “Not again!” and “Every time?”

Anna seemed to speak for the whole group when she said “Almost every tour, free vacation, or anything else a group of CBers go on, one of us goes crazy and tries to murder the rest! I think this time we should find out who the murderer is before more people get wiped out.”

Leeli chimed in with “We’re CB’ers! We’ve lived through world domination attempts, revolts, countless ski lodges, and so many other things! We can and will beat this murderer.

The Assassin thought ‘Yay!’

People Lost: Kestrel

Assassin-0 Murderer-1

Give me strategy ideas and try to guess my identity!