Day four pt. One

   Kitten, Nyx, Nihil, Leo, Sybill, Niko and Agent Winter had all gathered in room 14, to discuss the murderer. 

   “Well, it couldn't be Porcelain Dragon now, could it?” asked Leo. “Agent Winter wasn’t killed while they were paired up yesterday.”

   “Yeah, but neither was anyone else,” Agent muttered darkly. “It could still be her, since she couldn’t have killed anyone else without me seeing.”

   “I don't like to suspect my own CBer,” said Nihil. “But it’s a little difficult to argue with that.”

   “But it couldn't be Porcelain!” Nyx exclaimed. Everyone looked at her.

   “Well?” asked Kitten. “Do you have a reason it couldn't be her?”

   “Well….” Nyx seemed at a loss for words. “It's… Porcelain.”

   “Exactly.” Niko stood up. “She’s kind of… quiet, isn’t she? Doesn't talk a whole lot? Really the only time I noticed her the center of attention was on the first day, when she poked herself in the eye with some… bacon.” He smirked, and then seemed to instantly regret it. 

   “Niko’s right,” Sybill murmured. “I hate to say it, but I think logic beats loyalty in this one, Nyx.” 

   The CBer sat back and folded her arms comically, as if she had forgotten she was a dragon. It was also interesting to see her glaring defiantly at the other dragons who, except for Sybill, all seemed slightly larger. 

   “Well I don't think it's Porcelain,” Nyx huffed stubbornly. “I’ll prove it to you.”

   “Or die trying,” Nihil murmured to Niko as Nyx walked away. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc

Day four pt. Two

   “Gah!” Agent Winter ducked sharply as yet another dodgeball whistled over her head. Today, Vansix and Lila had decided that instead of going outside, they could pick between playing dodgeball or reading, writing, or basically anything else that didn't involve electronics. Agent had chosen dodgeball, the same as everyone else. Even Kitten, who would have preferred reading, and Luna-Starr, who insisted she had something better to do, had been roped into the game, and within a few minutes were flinging dodgeballs up into the air, and slapping them across the room with a wing or a tail with as much enthusiasm as anyone else.

   Agent Winter had found that launching the dodgeballs efficiently was much harder than anticipated, as had many others, but a select few including Porcelain Dragon, Sybill, and Nyx had found a talent for it. And Porcelain, accompanied by Nyx, was mercilessly flinging dodgeballs at Agent with abandon. They clearly hadn't forgiven her for accusing Porcelain of being the murderer. And she didn't expect them to. 

   “Porcelain Dragon!” cried Lila, from the edge of the room where she and Vansix were supervising the game. “Please, no head shots! We don’t want anyone to get hurt!” In response, Lila got a particularly powerfully thrown dodgeball right in the chest. 

   “Five minute’s warning!” Vansix called. “Dodgeballs in the bin!”

   The CBers and companions reluctantly began to throw the dodgeballs in the general direction of their bins, but most of them were still flying into eachother’s backs.

   “I'm not kidding!” At Vansix’s second cry, tinted with annoyance, they finally started to actually put the dodgeballs away. 

   “All right, now we can-- hey!” Lila ducked a rubber ball that one of the CBers had been hiding behind their backs. “Put that away! There. Now as I was saying, now we can head to dinner.” There was a chorus of groans, as everyone’s heart rate was up, and they weren’t really looking forward to trying to sit relatively still at the dinner tables.

   “Don't worry,” consoled Lila. “So long as there are no unfortunate incidents or broken rules, tonight light’s out will be pushed back, everyone will meet in this room, and we will have a… what is it? What do you call it?” Vansix murmured something to her, and she called out, “A slumber party!” There was a chorus of excited yells, and shouts, and everyone surged towards the dining hall. Niko looked a little put off, as he had heard before that slumber parties were generally for girls, but Nyx swiftly put him at ease by assuring him that Vansix and Lila probably wouldn’t put in all girly activities. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc

Day four pt. Three

   According to Vansix and Lila’s directions, TheaterGirl and Luna-Starr went up to their room to retrieve all the hammock pillow, throw pillows, and any other kinds of pillows that they had stashed up there, same as the rest of the vacationers. Lila, in searching for pillows for an activity, had found that almost every room had stolen anything even remotely related to a pillow, for various purposes. 

   Once they got back to the gym (claws full of pillows, with some tied to their backs), where the dodgeball game had been held earlier, they found that they were the last to return. It seemed that the entireity of Skywater had been stripped of all it's pillows, and they were now piled in the center of the room, with Vansix and Lila perched atop the stack.

   “Attention, CBers and companions!” Lila called as TheaterGirl added her pillows to the pile. “Welcome to the slumber party!”

   “Whoooo!!” Various cries of excitement echoed around the room, amplified by the high ceiling. 

   <Whats> <thee> <first> <acti><vity!?> yelled a tinny voice from the back. It sounded like Nikai, Nyx’s CAPTCHA. Upon further reflection, TheaterGirl decided it had to be her, since she was the only CAPTCHA at the ski lodge, and no AE or CBer that she had heard of would take the pains to sound like a CAPTCHA if they didn't need to.

   “Glad you asked!” Lila slid down the pillow mountain, Vansix close behind. “I’ll give you a hint.” She gripped the nearest pillow in her claws and in turn flung it at the nearest body, which happened to be Nihil. “PILLOW FIGHT!!!”
  “That’s not a hint!” Nihil cried indigantly, but she was easily drowned out by the roar of stomping feet as the CBrs stampeded the pile and began launching pillows at one another, miraculosly not ripping any in the process. Even Niko and Nihil soon gave in, and made quite a formidable team as they threw pillows with devastating aim and power, from a slightly safer (though not by much) perch halfway up the pillows, though they were soon tossed off as Leo, Porcelain Dragon, Joan B. of Arc, and Luna-Starr stormed their post and batted them with pillows until they tumbled down the pile. 

   Meanwhile, the murderer threw pillows and chased CBers with as much outer enthusiasm as anyone else, but inwardly they concentrated on concealing a sharp knife, and when they followed the strike force up the mountain to attack Nihil and Niko, they made their move.

   “Oh-- oh no! No, Leo!” Luna-Starr stumbled sideways as Leo crumpled into her, a dagger plunged into her throat. On the now-dead CBer’s other side, Porcelain Dragon stumbled away, a look of confusion, then anger on her face, and scarlet blood on her talons. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage, Leo

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc

Original thread: http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/puddingsplace/node/415874?page=5

This is the last of the reposting! Anything after this will be fresh material!

Day six pt. One

   Kitten slithered through the tall grass, trying to find Vansix or Lila before they found her. The pair had announced, via a note on one of the breakfast tables, that the CBers and AEs would have to hunt them down in order to find out what the next after-breakfast activity was. But Vansix and Lila would be hunting them down too, and whenever they found a CBer or AE they would “capture” them, and whichever side “captured” all the members of the opposite side won. Kitten had a sneaking suspicion that this was just an activity to find out the net activity, and had prepared herself to be bored as the CB-side found their chaperones almost immediately, but she had been greatly surprised when she walked past a group consisting of Agent Winter, Sybill, and TheaterGirl, all with their front legs roped together and their wings cuffed, clearly signifying that they had been “captured”. Kitten had started sneaking at that point, and a little while later Joan B. of Arc and Luna-Starr had been added to the “jail”, as Kitten had begun thinking of it. Now she and the AEs were the only ones left to find Vansix and Lila. 

   “Oof!”

   “Quick, pin him down!”

   Kitten’s head jerked up, and she ran, low, towards the sound. Niko and Nihil had managed to find Vansix, and were currently trying to wrestle him to the ground in order to capture him. Kitten started forward to help, but a rustle in the grass off to the side warned her back just in time, as Lila exploded out of the grass and tackled Nihil. Niko also retreated, and within moments the chaperones, with assurances that it truly was just a game, had led Nihil away to their jail.

   “Niko!” Kitten hissed, as soon as the others were out of sight. “Come back, I have a plan!”

   “Good, ‘cuz we just got lucky, springing Vansix out of the grass like that.” Kitten gasped and jumped away from Niko, who had just appeared beside her. “Well?” he asked. “What’s your plan?”

   “Oh. Um…” Kitten shook herself. “Follow me, I’ll explain.” She began to lead Niko around to the chaperones’ jail, hoping to get there first. 

   “So you see,” she continued, as they came upon the bound group and realized with releif that Vansix, Lila and Nihil hadn't gotten there yet (probably due to their prisoner’s attempts to escape), “if we stay here and wait for them, we could possibly grab Lila, giving Nihil a chance to escape before she’s put in the jail, and then we’d have enough people--dragons, I mean--to set a trap for Vansix.”

   “Smart. But why not release them all when we have the chance?”

   “It’s against the rules, I think. And we shouldn't need more than the three of us.”

   Niko settled into the grass on one side of the bound CBers, winking at them, and Kitten curled up on the other side. 

   After only a moment or two, Vansix, Lila, and Nihil came around the corner. 

   “I must say,” said Vansix, “you put up quite the fight, Nihil. Nearly got away.” Kitten held up three claws, and Niko mirrored her action. “I would never have thought,” Three... “to hide in the trees like that.” Two… “You looked like a vine, I swear.” One… “Why, next time we play something like this, the trees are the first place I’ll--”

   “Now!” Kitten cried. She and Niko exploded out of the grass and bowled into Lila, knocking her over. Before the two dragons knew what had hit them, Nihil had freed herself and grabbed Lila, and the three of them were bolting around the corner of Skywater dragging the small dragon with them.

   “Ah. Smart,” Lila panted, as they tied her up. “An ambush, huh? Well played.”

   “Lets gag her too,” Niko decided. They tied an extra piece of rope around the amused chaperone’s muzzle. 

   “Okay, so what do we do now?” asked Niko. 

   “Um… I hadn't quite gotten that far yet…” Kitten replied sheepishly. 

   “Oh well that’s easy,” said Nihil. “The two ‘jails’ aren't that far apart, so one of us guards here, another stays at Vansix’s jail, and the third sneaks around in between. Whoever sees him first, jump him and call for the others.”

   “That’s… actually a really good idea,” said Kitten, impressed. “Alright, let’s do it.”

   Turned out that Kitten and Niko, who had been selected to guard the open area and Vansix’s “jail”, didn't even need to get to their posts. Vansix was prowling across the open stretch of ground, directly towarsds them. Kitten and Niko looked at each other, and nodded. The AE leaped forward, tackling and surprising Vansix.

   “Nihil! We’ve got him!” cried Kitten, running to help. A few seconds later the powerfully built AE burst out of the brush and landed squarely on top of Vansix’s back. The dragon’s legs buckled, and he rolled over in defeat.

   “Whew!” he panted. “Better than expected. I thought I was sneaking perfectly well, but I’d barely gone two steps when you found me.”

   “Yes, well done.” They all turned, surprised, to see Lila walking up, not a rope on her. “I have hind claws, you know,” she said, noting their shocked expressions. “I just waited to untie myself until I was sure you had won. Congrats!” 

   The threesome looked at each other and shrugged. The rules at Skywater could be weird, as could the dragons, but no one could deny that they were fun. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage, Leo, Nyx, Porcelain Dragon, Nikai

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc

Day six pt. Two

   “That was a good effort though, Nihil,” said Sybill, wiping walnut juice off her scales. It turned out that the activity after the capture game was a race. First dragon to succeed in carrying a bucket’s worth of walnuts from the starting point to the finish line, using nothing but a small shovel, a fishing net, or their own talons, won. Nihil had come in second, after trying each option and finally settling on a combination of the three, but Sybill had won by stubbornly carrying talonful after talonful of slippery nuts across the track, and refusing to lose time by thinking. 

   “Attention, vacationers!” called Vansix. “Lila and I have been talking, and we’ve decided that instead of going straight to the next activity, we’re going to push lunch, down time, and everything else up a few hours, and do the final activity later, after dark!”

   “Ooh!” The CBers at once turned to each other and began speculating about what the final activity could be, and Lila had to screech loudly to get their attention back. 

   “Heyo!” she yelled. “Right now we’re gonna head to lunch!”

   “Wait, aren't you going to tell us what the activity is?” asked Luna-Starr.

   “No, but I will tell you that you can pick your partner for it. There will be four teams of two-oh!” 

   The Cbers had, almost before Lila had finished talking, collapsed from a mostly orderly half-moon, to a small bunched-up group, talking loudly and arguing about who would be partners. A few feet away Niko and Nihil looked at each other, amused, and partnered up to avoid the chaos. 

   Eventually, the noise subsided, and the group broke apart to reveal the teams: Niko and Nihil, Sybill and Agent Winter, Joan B. of Arc and Kitten, and Luna-Starr and TheaterGirl.

   “A-all right,” stuttered Lila. “I-I guess that’s taken care of.” Then she laughed. “Okay, let’s head to lunch. You don't have to sit with your partner, but you can if you want to.” 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage, Leo, Nyx, Porcelain Dragon, Nikai

Surviving: TheaterGirl, Luna-Starr, Kitten, Sybill, Agent Winter, Joan B. of Arc, Nihil, Niko

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc

Day six pt. Three

   Agent Winter stood next to her partner, Sybill, waiting with the others in the dining hall to find out what the final activity of the day was. They could all see that it was night-dark outside, courtesy of a nearby window. 

   “All right, CBers and AEs,” began Lila. “I suppose you're all tired, and want to go to bed now?”

   “What? No!” The Chatterboxers’ indigant relpy brought a grin to Lila’s face. 

   “Oh, well then I guess we’ll have to go on with the last activity.” Lila sighed exaggeratedly, and shook her head, turning to Vansix. “They never run out of energy, do they?” she asked. Vansix shook his head solemnly, squashing a smile. 

   Agent and Sybill began to shift back and forth ancily, and someone yelled, “Come on, tell us what the activity is!”

   “All right, all right!” Lila waved her talons for quiet. “I guess I’ll have to tell you. It’s a scavenger hunt.”

   “What? That’s it?” yelled Niko. “All that for a scavenger hunt!?”

   “Ah, but it’s not just a scavenger hunt,” said Lila. “Remember the game we played earlier, where you eight had to catch me and Vansix before you found out the next activity?” They nodded. “Well, we will be applying that to this scavenger hunt. Each team will be given a short riddle to solve, which will lead you to the next one, and so on and so on. Each team will also be following a seperate set of clues, which our staff are currently hiding, inside Skywater and out, so we will also be turning off most of the lights inside. First team to reach the end and bring their colored bandanna back here,” as she said this, Lila was tying colored scarves around their necks and handing them folded slips of paper, “wins the prize! But here’s where the darkness and capturing comes in.” Several of them leaned closer, as if to recieve a secret. And indeed, Lila was acting as if what she said next must be kept in the greatest confidence. “You are allowed to capture and tie up enemy teams, and I must say, we expect you to. It will give you a good advantage over whichever team you captured a member from. You can go about the capturing however you want: one member hunts while the other captures, you just hunt, or you drop the hunt entirely and focus on catching everyone else. However, someone can rescure their teammate, if they find out where he or she is being kept. Everyone understand?”

   “Yes!” they chorused.

   “All right! Go!” 

   Sybill swiftly unfolded their riddle, while Agent Winter studied their scarves. Yellow. They would be searching for a bright yellow bandanna.

   “Agent, look at this,” Sybill hissed. She turned the paper to her. 

   What do you get when you mix heat, air, and fuel? Put the answer in a pit and add something sweet and sticky.

   “Huh?” Agent rubbed the back of her head. “Well, heat air and fuel makes fire…”

   “And you put fire in a pit and add something sweet and sticky! marshmallows! “ said Sybill. “The fire pit!” 

   They dashed off, leaving muttered “green paper?” and “what’s a chophouse?” and four other scarves colored blue and red. 

   “Come on! We’re almost there!” cried Sybill. But just as they were getting close to the last corner, a voice blared over the intercoms hanging on the walls. 

   “We will now be turning the lights off,” it said. “If you are afraid of the dark, please scream loudly, but only breathe fire if you are completely lost. Thank you.” 

   Two seconds later, Agent could hardly see the end of her nose. She sqeaked loudly in fear, and then clapped her talons over her mouth.

   “Scared of the dark?” asked Sybill.

   “Maybe.” Agent’s reply was slightly muffled. Sybill giggled and kept walking. 

   “Oh, come on!” A frustrated hiss sounded in front of Sybill, and she stopped. “This isn't the dining room!” it continued, and Sybill felt Agent Winter shake her head, amused. The voice sounded like Niko, Nyx’s AE, who was teamed with Nihil. Although both AEs were very smart, it seemed that the dark and the riddles had them slightly turned around. Sybill and Agent waited until their whispered conversation faded away, and then she rushed forward. 

   “Ooooooh! Sybill, wait for me!” Agent hurried after, glancing side to side. “I feel like someone’s watching me.” And, as the pair would soon find out, she wasn't entirely wrong, though Sybill was quick to dismiss the fears as the usual feeling of being in the dark. 

   “Here,” she said, grabbing a torch off of the wall. “Light that, we’ll need to read the paper without setting it on fire. We’ll put it out afterward.” But just as Agent was about to light the torch, Sybill found a green glowstick under a bench. “Oh. They're serious about not using fire. Alright, let’s see our next clue.” She unfolded it and read out loud, quietly.

   “Where the willows bend and meet in a dome, the C-A-P-T-C-H-As make their home.” Sybill could just see Agent’s smile.

   “More poetic than the last one,” she snickered. “I bet Lila wrote it. She seems more like the kind who would. But where does it mean? Where the CAPTCHAs make their home? No CAPTCHAs live here.”

   “Unless…” Sybill snapped her talons. “Nikai really liked the woods! She wanted to play Hide and go Seek for hours in there!”

   “Yes!” Agent whisper-cried. “And there was that one willow patch, where their branches almost intertwined! That’s it!” They high-fived, and raced outside as fast as the dark hallways allowed them. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage, Leo, Nyx, Porcelain Dragon, Nikai

Surviving: TheaterGirl, Luna-Starr, Kitten, Joan B. of Arc, Nihil, Niko

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc, Agent Winter, Sybill

Day six pt. Four

   The murderer ran lightly over the grass, having decided with the help of their oblivious partner that they would be the one to hunt down and capture other players. They couldn't care less about the prize, but it wouldn't do any harm to have it. In the meantime, they meant to do their job. And they meant to enlist the help of their accomplice to do it. It wouldn't do for them to have bloody talons themself at the end of the game. 

   “I think we’re lost, Sybill,” said Agent Winter, looking around fearfully at the trees.”

   “We’re fine,” her partner assured her. “I know exactly where we-- what was that?” 

   They both tensed, sharp ears detecting a sharp, but low pitched cry, a thump, and the sound of running feet.

   “That’s where we’re going!” Sybill exclaimed. “Come on!” They raced towards the sound, and burst into the willow glade finding Klirscales crumpled on the ground, holding a piece of paper and a green glowstick. 

   “Help me,” she gasped. “The-- the-- the-- someone-- I was hiding your next clue, and someone-- thing-- my leg--” she stuttered in a high voice. 

   Sybill bent down. “Your leg’s fine,” she said. “Just twisted. I bet you’re scared more than  anything else.” 

   “Ye-- ye-- yeah,” Klirscales managed to choke out. “Wh-- what-- you-- look!” Her eyes widened in terror, and Sybill and Agent Winter turned around, expecting to see the murderer rearing up with a spear. But all they saw was a long, thin object appear out of thin air, and dive down towards them. 

   “Oh! Oh no!” Klirscales screamed in terror as Agent and Sybill crumpled to the ground, twitching, both with bleeding puncture wounds in their throats. Klirscales stared wildly into the woods as the two CBers twitched their last, the poison having spread swiftly through their bodies, and taken their lives. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage, Leo, Nyx, Porcelain Dragon, Nikai, Agent Winter, Sybill

Surviving: TheaterGirl, Luna-Starr, Kitten, Joan B. of Arc, Nihil, Niko

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc

Wow. I mean wow. This ski lodge/solo write thing has gone by FAST! I can't believe how few survivors there are now! 

And my suspicion is that the murderer is... me. Yikes. Which would honestly be a first though, since I've never actually been the murderer of a Ski lodge if it does happen to be me. Nice job by the way to Vansix and Lila. 

Are you Porcelain Dragon perchance?  

@Vansix and Lila, you remind me very much of Agent Winter, though I don't recall her having a leaving thread of any kind? Other than that, I would hazard a guess that you're Starseeker? I'm probably totally wrong...

Elli says auara

Yes, she does have that aura. 

TOP TOP TOP!!! :)

TOP TOP TOP TOP TOP!!! :)

Yay! Fresh, never-before-seen content! 

*sarcastically* I'm just brimming with joy. 

Day six pt. Five 

   HeroesOfOlympus draped her gray and blue coat of scales over her head, hoping she wouldn’t be too late to the vacation. It did, after all, sound quite fun, and she wouldn’t want to arrive just as everyone was saying good-bye. 

   A few seconds later, she poofed--poofed was the only word to describe it--into thin air. Falling a few feet, she landed on something hard and spiky with an audible oof.
  “What?” she asked, looking around. 

   “Grt orff mwww!!” Heroes looked down, to find a bundle of blue scales and short spikes, likely what had poked her. She scrambled off of Luna-Starr, stammering an apology. 

   “Don't look so terrified, I'm not gonna bite you or anything,” the CBer muttered. “Hey, lend a claw will ya? We’re tryna find Agent Winter and Sybill.”

   “Are they lost?” Heroes inquired. 

   “At best. We heard a scream. Then Klirscales, one of the staff, limped in all terrified, but she was so shocked we could hardly get a word lout of her.”

   Heroes shuddered. “O-okay.” 

   “Luna-Starr! We found them!” Luna-Starr jerked up her head and ran towards the voice, pumping her wings to glide lightly over the ground. Heroes tried to fly with her, but ended up with more of a hopping, flapping gait that was more exhausting than was worth the small amount of speed she gained. 

   They skidded to a stop on the edge of a small group. Heroes cocked her head in surprise. She’d expected more, but there was only TheaterGirl, Kitten, Joan B. of Arc, Indigo Feather, Mahriel, Nihil, Niko, Luna-Starr, herself, and two dragons she didn’t know. The group parted, revealing two prone forms. Heroes stifled a squeak of terror, somehow recognizing them as Sybill and Agent Winter. 

   “Lila, how did they both die?” Luna-Starr asked. Heroes was wondering who Lila was, when the smaller of the two black dragons she didn't know stepped forward.

   “The murderer must be very skilled,” she said. “We wouldn’t even have known they were in trouble if one of them hadn’t screamed.”

   “Why did it have to happen tonight?” Kitten stamped her talon irritatedly. “Joan and I were about to win!” 

   “How do you know?” Nihil challenged. “The clues weren’t numbered. There was no ‘Yay! You found clue seven! You’re almost there!’” 

   “Yeah, but we’d found like eight clues, we’d’ve had to have been getting close!”

   “Be quiet!” Heroes jumped as the larger black dragon spoke for the first time. He continued in a softer voice. “We’re very sorry that these two died, especially on HeroesOfOlympus, Indigo Feather, and Mahriel’s first night--” Heroes looked at the two named, both of which seemed slightly green, “--but they’re still dead. And we still can't do anything about it.”

   “What about the closing event, Vansix?” someone called. “Where you’re gonna resurrect everyone? Couldn’t you do that now?” 

   “No, we couldn’t,” Vansix said patiently, not offering any more information on the subject. 

   The murderer cocked their head. They weren’t sure if that was good or bad for them. It probably wouldn’t affect anything, although they couldn’t help thinking that the remaining CBers, and the two AEs, would likely become very stubbornly dedicated to keeping each other alivein the days to come. The murderer would have to do their job quickly and carefully, and play their game as well. 

   “Meanwhile,” continued Vansix, “It’s getting late, and though I doubt there would be another death tonight, we should discontinue the scavenger hunt and go to bed. We’ll try to make up for the anticlimax in some way.”

   So he thought there would be no more deaths tonight? The murderer narrowed their eyes, though quickly adopted a crestfallen expression when they noticed Kitten giving them an odd look. 

   The CBers, through some unspoken on-the-spot agreement, scattered. Possibly to try and keep the game going, but Vansix and Lila swiftly routed them and herded them back into Skywater, and then into their rooms. Then, though it was nearly 11pm at night, the inhabitants of each room scrambled to erect makeshift traps and alarm systems around their hammocks. The murderer went about the activity with as much enthusiasm as everyone else, but only because the engineering of a tripwire-activated net trap interested them more than hanging out in their hammock and possibly raising suspicions about them. Later, once the others in their room had fallen asleep, they dropped onto the floor, taking care not to hit any tripwires or pressure plates--where had their roomates even gotten pressure plates?--and left the room. They walked quickly and quietly, pausing only to grab a sharp knife that their accomplice had left on the ground by request. Rounding a corner, they were so absorbed in their mission that they almost bumped noses with a surprised Kitten,

   The CBer recoiled, surprised and with her eyes fixed on the knife, and opened her mouth to scream. But the murderer had already struck.

   Quick as lightning, they grabbed Kitten’s head and thrust the knife down her throat, then held her mouth shut so she couldn’t spit it out. A few moments later, they dragged her back to her room and deposited the dead CBer on the floor next to her hammock. 

   They turned to leave, but stopped and looked back at the room. Working quickly, they rearranged Kitten’s head so that the handle of the knife was visible and blood dripped slowly out of her mouth. Then they tangled up the CBer’s hammock. Then, stepping carefully, they tripped all the traps in the room but none of the alarms. When they had finished, several nets hung limply from the ceiling, a couple tangled piles of rope lay on the floor, and a surprised-looking teddy bear’s head stuck out from a pile of books. The last one had nearly woken the room’s inhabitants. 

   When the murderer had finished rearranging the stuff on the floor, they left, the room now looking like the scene of a violent but silent nighttime fight. 

~~~

Dead: Barswallow, Vivian, Sage, Leo, Nyx, Porcelain Dragon, Nikai, Agent Winter, Sybill, Kitten

Surviving: TheaterGirl, Luna-Starr, Joan B. of Arc, Nihil, Niko, HeroesOfOlympus, Indigo Feather, Mahriel

Suspects: Luna-Starr, TheaterGirl, Nihil, Joan B. of Arc