Luna silvermoon here!

Name:see above

Age:????????????

She/her

Quirky and reckless

Blue hair blue eyes. Do what you Will with this

Packing list:my talking cloak named Nightly,my magic staff with a raven on it,(named  tiona and comes alive) Tearmoon Empire

Most:nothing.its all important 

bag:a black leather one

Name: Suki
Age: 13
Pronouns: She/her
Personality: Mischevious, likes to play pranks, loves reading and drawing, fun, usually friendly, clever, loves climbing trees.
Appearance: Long tangled black hair, heterochromatic eyes (one green, one amber), long brown pants, a dark green sweater, tall black hiking boots. Has sap all over her hands from climbing trees
Packing list: A pencil, a sketchbook, books, a coat, a coil of rope, 3 dark blue hoodies.
Most important item packed: A pencil
What type of bag are the belongings packed in?: An old backpack. Brown, if you must know.

And here. We. Go.

--------

Day 1, Part 1

In eleven places on eleven parts of the planet, eleven CBers shook eleven snowglobes and all disappeared and then reappeared on the snowy porch of an old house on a hill above a small, old city.
Someone stepped out through the door of the house. "Hi," said the person. She was tall, with a messy bun of brown hair, and wearing jeans and a sweater. "Are you the guests?"
"Yep," said Luna Silvermoon. "At least I think so."
"Okay good," said the person. "So this is the house, or hotel or whatever." She led them past a small check-in desk situated immediately in front of the door. "You can pick your rooms; there are sixteen rooms, four to a floor, on floors 2 to 5, although keep in mind that there are no elevators. If you need anything, press the red button on the wall of each room. Towels are in the bathrooms, and so on." The person led them through a door into a kitchen, where another person wearing a T-shirt that read Math Nerd for Life cooked spaghetti in a pot. "I'm Elizabeth Farrayew, and this is Rosana, who's in charge of all the cooking here. Somewhere in this house are Addie and Nina, my daughters; they're both pretty shy, so don't expect to encounter them. Once you have muck or water on your shoes, leave them on the porch. That's it."
"I'll share a room with Jay," said Chaser, "if you don't mind."
"Okay," said Elizabeth. "You can pick your rooms, so why don't you go up and put your stuff away, and then soon I'll come and check on you." Elizabeth showed them to a staircase, which they all climbed. It wound past a small landing with a few dried flowers in a glass vase sitting on an end table and then turned back the other way. Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Ultimatum, and Tsuki chose rooms on that floor; the rest of the CBers climbed another flight of stairs, where Chaser, Jay, Echo Hallowswift, Silver Crystal, and Hawkstar chose to have rooms. Luna Silvermoon and Suki continued to the next floor, where Luna Silvermoon proceeded to dump her stuff on the ready-waiting luggage rack and head downstairs to ask about skiing. She found Elizabeth at the check-in desk.
"Can we ski here?" Luna Silvermoon asked. 
"Sure," said Elizabeth, "but there's no lift, so you'll have to walk up the hill once you've gone down it. The snow behind the house is much better than in front. I'll fetch some snowshoes and skis from the attic."
"Great." Luna Silvermoon proceeded up the stairs, where she promptly knocked on each person's door and asked them if they wanted to go skiing. Everyone agreed, so they all waited on the second floor for Elizabeth, who came downstairs with two huge boxes.
"Nine pairs of skis," said Elizabeth, "and ten of snowshoes, although there is a sled outside the back door."
"I have my own skiing stuff," said Jay, who was holding a pair of skis.
"I wouldn't mind sledding," said Luna Silvermoon.
"Okay then," said Elizabeth, who began to dole out skis and then opened the snowshoe box. Inside were a bunch of objects that had cloth stretched over a metal frame with a hole in the middle. There was a screw going across the hole.
"Um...rather, um, custom snowshoes," said Hawkstar.
"One of our guests made them," said Elizabeth. "And they work, which is something."
Each person carried their snowshoes around their neck, because attached to the screw was a sort of lead with a clip on it, that went on the other shoe as well. They tried to all go down the stairs. It didn't work; Tsuki was pushed to the side and fell into the corner of the landing--which happened to be where the vase was. It shattered and the two dry thistles slid out neatly.
"I'm so sorry," said Tsuki anxiously, fretting. "I broke your vase by accident, I didn't mean to."
"That's fine," said Elizabeth.
"Is there anything you want me to do about it?" she asked, hopping up and down. She accidentally hopped on a shard of vase, which poked through her sock and into her foot. She let out a yelp, sat down, and yanked out the shard.
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Elizabeth, pulling a band-aid from her pocket and giving it to Tsuki. "Is your foot okay?" Tsuki put the bandaid on and tried standing on it. It didn't hurt too much, but she wasn't really in the mood for skiing.
"Yes, it is," said Tsuki. "Do you mind if I stay here for the morning?"
"No," said Elizabeth. The skiiers headed downstairs to leave, out into the swirling snow.

Warning, which I should have said before: This is a nonlethal ski lodge. At the most, you'll come down with poisoning that won't kill you...
Anyways.

---------

Day 1, Part 2

"So," said Elizabeth, "this is the check-in desk." She led Tsuki to the entry, where the small, school-like desk sat in the middle of the entry. Elizabeth opened a ledger and Tsuki sat down in the chair by the desk. The ledger had six columns, which were headed Name, Room, Date of Check-In, Method of Contact, Method of Payment, and PAID? "Do not let anyone go to their room without answering each of these. People may withold information. Unfortunately, you have to extract it. And don't put anything in the PAID column. For method of contact, address is best, and phone number okay, but email is not exactly welcomed."
"Why would you need method of payment, though?" Tsuki wondered. "Doesn't everyone usually use normal money?"
"Some things these guests do," said Elizabeth. "You'd be surprised. Oh, and you can assign rooms by your own choice, but flip the corresponding room on this model around to get at the keys, and then keep flipping it until it says occupied." A model of the house stood on the edge of the desk, and Tsuki could see that it had each of the rooms. All the ones occupied by the CBers had OCCUPIED on them. She pushed one of the rooms experimentally and it revealed 5E. She set it back in place and Elizabeth left Tsuki alone in the entry. Tsuki went to the bookshelf in the livng room and grabbed a book, then sat down to read. She passed the morning this way without any guests, but she was wondering, Why wouldn't you give someone your name and address? And why, for goodness's sakes, wouldn't you pay in money?

-------------

Everyone who had gone skiing enjoyed the powdery snow, but did not enjoy the walk up the hill.
"Why would you run a ski lodge without a ski lift?" Darkvine groused as she dragged the metal snowshoes. They were heavy, and sometimes they sank into the snow.
"I don't know," said Ultimatum, trying to be cheery. "Maybe it's too expensive to run one."
"Could be," said Luna Silvermoon. "But why wouldn't they have enough skis? Because I'm pretty sure they only invited eleven people and were pretty sure of the number."
"No idea," said Ultimatum. 

--------------

Around noon, a knock roused Tsuki from her book. She let the book sit open on the desk, stood up, and opened the door.
"Hi," she said, sitting back down. The knocker was an old lady wearing a woolly dress, a woolly scarf, and a woolly hat. She carried a woolly carpetbag and wore thick woolly socks. "What's your name?" 
"What?" said the lady. She stepped over the threshold and dropped her carpetbag. A couple of socks--one bright green with monkeys and bananas and another purple with pansies--dropped out. "My," said the lady as she bent to pick up the socks. "If my bag doesn't need a new clasp, my name isn't Squintina Howard."
"But is your name Squintina Howard?" Tsuki asked, picking up a pen and opening the ledger.
"Yep," said Squintina distractedly.
"What's your address?"
"2765 Argyle Court, Rocklin, California, 95677." Tsuki diligently recorded it.
"How will you pay?" she asked.
"Oh, in dollars, of course." Tsuki wrote down $,added the date, and then assigned Squintina a room.
"Your room is 5C, so on the fifth floor, and the third room."
"Thanks!" Squintina headed up and didn't close the door. The CBers came tromping in, wet and panting.
"How was the skiing?" Tsuki asked.
"Great," said Suki. "We're all kind of hungry, so."
"Do not despair," Rosana called from the kitchen. "Spaghetti and garlic bread to the rescue!" 

----

The CBers ate their food, then they sat around reading, playing games, and talking until Rosana called for dinner. On the table were sweet potato fries, soup, and more garlic bread. They sat around the long table, and Addie and Nina joined them. Addie looked about eleven or twelve, and Nina maybe eighteen or nineteen; both of them sat down near Elizabeth and started to eat.
"Say!" Squintina Howard broke the silence. "This soup is so good!"
"Thank you," said Rosana.
"Also, I need more soap in my room. Isn't it odd how those two words are so similar? Soup and soap?"
"I'll do it." Nina stood up and left the table. Hawkstar and Echo Hallowswift traded glances: Why the heck would someone who arrived that day, as Tsuki told them, need more soap after about six hours? 
Nina returned and everyone finished their food. All the CBers were tired and decided to turn in early. Darkvine headed up to her room and started getting ready for bed. Just as she was about to turn out the light, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," said Darkvine. Addie opened the door. She was carrying a tray with a bunch of cups of hot cocoa and one Polaroid photo on it.
"Room service," said Addie quietly. Darkvine picked up the nearest cup and set it on the nightstand. "Also, Nina wants you to have the photo." Darkvine picked it up. It was a picture of a small bathroom littered with multicolored socks.
"And why exactly?" Darkvine asked.
Addie shrugged. "Nina said to give it to one of you. Said she took it when she was in Squintina's bathroom giving her more soap. She's doing this photography assignment for school where she takes pictures of interesting things, and she said this definitely was interesting."
"How weird can it be?" said Darkvine. "Squintina Howard washes her socks."
"Night," said Addie, who took the tray with all the other cups of cocoa away.
But, as she fell asleep, Darkvine wondered, In all honesty, why would you wash a billion socks by hand? 

Day 2, Part 1

After the CBers got up one by one, Rosana served them French toast with jam, which was delicious. Squintina, Addie, Nina, and Elizabeth were there for breakfast as well; she shot glances across the table in Nina and Darkvine's directions, for no reason at all. 
"Can we go snoweshoeing in the woods if we want?" Silver Crystal asked. 
"Yep, but don't go past the back fence," said Elizabeth. "It's pretty clearly marked 'do not trespass' so it'll be fairly obvious. If I'm right the boxes of ski stuff are still in the living room, and you shed what you wore on the porch." 

--------

All of the CBers headed out to the porch. A few of them had brought water bottles, although Rosana had ruled it unnecessary to carry any food more than a snack, because the property was deceptively small. Tsuki, Silver Crystal, Luna Silvermoon, Ultimatum, Echo Hallowswift and Jay headed off to go hiking, while everyone else decided to ski. The snowshoes were okay, but not superlight or super good at not sinking. 
"It looks like someone made these," said Echo Hallowswift, bending over to look at one foot. "I mean, it's just cloth, waterproofing stuff, and weird metal rims with screws in them."
"It could be," said Tsuki. "I mean...this probably sounds crazy, but what if someone paid Elizabeth with them?"
"Um..." Ultimatum started.
"When I was checking people in, there was a column for method of payment in the account book. What if someone decided to pay Elizabeth with handmade snowshoes? It's not something she wouldn't need," Tsuki hastily explained, wondering if it would still sound weird.
"Yeah," said Jay, "that might actually be right. And how on the letter or whatever there was stuff about an unpredictable nature?"
"Could be," said Luna Silvermoon. They kept on hiking. About an hour later, they met up with a concrete road and walked along it. Somehow, Tsuki lost her water bottle, although she had no memory of doing something with it. The road wandered uphill and then came to the house. The other CBers were just taking off their snowshoes on the porch. Rosana stuck her head out the window.
"Lunch!" she called. The CBers took off their snowy boots and snowshoes and wandered in to eat the tortilla soup. After lunch, they all went out into the snow again, and headed back when it got dark at about six. There were two new guests when they sat down for dinner: a youngish lady with black hair and nervous eyes, and an oldish man wearing glasses and a top hat as well as a ludicrous orange-and-purple striped muffler that looked to be about six feet long. Squintina was still there, and they all ate the pasta that Rosana had made.
"Is this anyone's?" said a voice. It was the lady, holding up Tsuki's water bottle.
"It's mine," said Tsuki, who took it. "Thanks, um...what's your name?"
"Mor--Moira. Moira N. Slygreen. You're welcome." Moira smiled.
"And I perhaps ought to introduce myself as well," said the man grandly. "I am Dr. Deipnosophist, professor of philosophy related to everyday conversations at the local college."
"It's nice to meet you," said Ultimatum. 

----------

After dinner, they all wandered into the living room to talk. Chaser and Ultimatum played a furious game of Scrabble, and Echo Hallowswift discovered a lovely old collection of detective novels on the bookshelf. There was excellent hot cocoa to drink. They all talked to each other, other than Darkvine and Squintina, who stood at the bay windows admiring the views of the snow. Then Squintina said that she had decided to turn in early and shuffled up the stairs, and Darkvine said that she didn't really feel so well and followed her. Suki yawned after playing seven consecutive chess games with Luna Silvermoon and climbed up the stairs. She paused on the first floor and heard something of a scuffle in one of the rooms. Three of the doors were open, and she could see Reuby Moonnight and Darkvine's twin messes and Ultimatum's silver suitcase through the doors, so that would make the closed room...Darkvine's. Suki yawned again and climbed all the way to the top floor. Then she fell asleep. 

Tsuki wondered what had happened to Darkvine. She climbed up the stairs and carefully opened the door, as quietly as she could. Darkvine was lying in bed, sleeping apparently, but a note tucked into the covers told a different story: 

Here lies Darkvine, tucked in bed
You have three days until she's dead
Find out now who, why, and when
And she might be well again.

She fetched the rest of the CBers.
"People," she said in a whisper. "Look at this." They all crowded up the stairs and into Darkvine's room.
"Well, three days until doesn't mean she is dead," said Luna Silvermoon. "Which is comforting." Echo Hallowswift peered into Darkvine's cocoa mug, which was on the nightstand.
"Look," she said. Echo pulled out the small round things that hid in the slurry at the bottom and wiped them with a tissue from the tissue box. They were red and soft to touch. "Hollyberries. Someone obviously did this on purpose." 

-----

All of the CBers went to bed with confusion in their heads. All of them were mostly scared and worried, except for Echo Hallowswift, who in addition to that wondering, How the heck did this happen? And more importantly, who did it?

I may or may not have accidentally, after stressing out about this ski lodge for ages, managed to post under my real name.

Oh dear. No matter. (Elizabeth is a pseudonym, by the way--I'll reveal officially at the end, but considering I already have unofficially, you don't really not know who I am. On the other hand, I'm still a kind of obscure CBer, so maybe I'm not superrecognizable?? And for the ski lodge's sake, I'll just finish the ski lodge without posting under my real name, because, you know, that kind of ruins the effect.)

Day 3, Part 1

The snow blanketed Wayfarer's House thickly. The CBers meandered downstairs and had breakfast, which was waffles. Everyone had come down, including Moira, Squintina, Dr. Deipnosophist, Addie, and Nina, with one exception, which was Darkvine.
"I hope she's okay," Elizabeth fretted.
"She's fine," said Squintina. Moira shot her a suspicious look. "I mean, I trained as a doctor, and I asked to do a small inspection...she's fine, she just has a cold."
Moira muttered something.
"Anyways, why don't you go enjoy the snow?" Rosana posited.
"Sure," said Luna Silvermoon. They went out and actually did enjoy it; Ultimatium went on another hike, Suki climbed one of the pine trees, Tsuki did not lose her water bottle, and Luna Silvermoon and Silver Crystal attempted riding double on the sled, which resulted in both of them being covered in snow. They went back in for lunch, but instead of going out, Echo Hallowswift led them to the living room.
"We should probably find out what happened to Darkvine," she said seriously. "I mean, hollyberries don't exactly have two feet to hop into innocent people's cocoa mugs."
"I'm in," said Luna Silvermoon breezily.
"Me too," said Ultimatium.
"Yeah, I think we should," said Chaser. Suki, Jay, Silver Crystal, Hawkstar, Reuby Moonnight, and Tsuki all nodded.
"I swear on my life I didn't do it," said Echo Hallowswift.
"I do as well," said Reuby Moonnight.
"So do I," said Suki. 
All the CBers made various gestures and noises of assent.
"Okay then," said Echo Hallowswift. "We're down to Rosana, Elizabeth, Addie, Nina, Moira, Squintina, and Dr. D."
"Rosana made the cocoa," Reuby Moonnight pointed out.
"Let me check something," said Hawkstar, who stood up and ducked into the kitchen. She returned. "There's no holly in the kitchen, and she didn't come out until she brought the cocoa, right? Which is when we would have seen her."
"She's off," said Silver Crystal. "And Addie and Nina..."
"Why don't we look in Darkvine's room again?" Suki suggested. "We might find something that could explain it." They headed up the flight of stairs and Echo Hallowswift opened Darkvine's door. Inside, there was a huge mess, but under the cup of cocoa was a Polaroid photo. Echo picked it up. It showed a bathroom, like the ones in the inn, full of wet socks.
"Um," said Echo Hallowswift, who held it up. "What the heck is this?"
"It's a picture." Jay fixed it in his head, then opened a door to the bathroom. "Of a bathroom in this inn."
"It has to be someone's room, right?" Hawkstar asked.
"There are three rooms unoccupied, because there are thirteen occupied. 11 of us, but Chaser and Jay share a room, making it 10, and then three guests," said Silver Crystal.
"I'm betting it isn't one of the occupied ones, though." Echo Hallowswift examined the picture. "You can still see the ground in the picture, so I'd think that it's one of the lower floors."
"In fact," said Jay, "there's a new soap--and you know how in all the bathrooms the soaps are partial or at least have soft edges, but this one is hard enough to have just been cut with a knife--on the soap dish in the bathroom. Which makes it..." He paused for dramatic effect. "Squintina's." 

"Okay." Reuby Moonnight shrugged as the CBers went down the stairs. "So basically a picture of Squintina's bathroom is in Darkvine's room and Darkvine's poisoned. What connection is there?" There were a few people in the living room: Moira, who had an awl, a lot of paper, and scissors and appeared to be binding a book; Dr. Deipnosophist and Rosana, who were having an animated discussion about quadratic equations; and Nina, who was taking a picture of the frost on the window with a Polaroid.
"Look," said Chaser. "Behold our solution." He walked up to Nina.
"Hey," he said.
"Hi," said Nina.
"Do you get frost like this here a lot?" Chaser asked.
"No, not really," said Nina. "It's really nice, though. For photography class, we have to take pictures of things that make us curious, and even though this is more beautiful than intriguing, I think it makes the list."
"What else have you photographed?" Chaser asked again, trying to make it sound like he wasn't digging for information.
"Well, the snow, and all your boots on the porch, stuff like that...this conversation kind of reminds me of the one I had on your first night, with Darkvine. I remember we were sitting together and she seemed kind of interested in photos...it's sad that she has a cold now, isn't it?"
"It is," said Chaser. "Thanks for talking." He wandered back to the CBers.
"Okay," said Echo Hallowswift. "Nina took the photo and gave it to Darkvine."
"Dinner!" Rosana called, interrupting Echo's train of thought. The CBers headed into the dining room, where there was pasta laid out on the table, and for just a moment, forgot about everything that had happened recently, and dug in.

Day 3, Part 2

After dinner, everyone wandered into the living room. Moira was putting the finishing touches on her project, but no one else was very busy.
"I say," said Dr. Deipnosophist, "this is so boring I could have just stayed at the university! Why don't we entertain each other or tell stories or something like that?"
"Do you have a story, Dr. Deipnosophist?" Elizabeth said.
"No, I don't, alas," said the professor. "Squintina?"
Squintina shook her head vehemently.
"I suppose," said Moira as she lay down her needle, "I have a story." Then she went ahead and told it.

---

Listen.

Once upon a time, there was a girl. The girl's name was Morrigan. Morrigan Ensley, that was her name. Her parents were professional euphemizers for the city government, and she heard all the truths that they tried hard to obscure. She wished she had the bravery to tell the stories that had been so carefully swept under the rug, but it felt like she didn't.
The year she was thirteen had the longest autumn anyone had ever seen. One day, as Morrigan was walking home from school, she happened upon a traveling man. The man said that if she gave him a coin, his Book of Answers would answer any three questions she asked it. Morrigan was intrigued and gave him a few coins, then took the book. She pulled a pencil from her bag and wrote,
How can one be brave?
The book wrote back, in plain, hard script as clear as day. It said, In order to be brave, you must be yourself.
How can one be oneself? Morrigan asked the book.
In order to be yourself, you must find yourself, said the book.
How can one find oneself? Morrigan asked.
Going on a quest would do nicely. Here the book paused. The Queen of Winter has been locked up by her vengeant sister, the Princess of Autumn. She lies in the tower in the Forgotten Woods, just south of the city. Rescue her, and you should know who you are.

That Saturday, Morrigan set off for the woods. She packed a lunch of biscuits, a water bottle, a pocketknife, and her notebook and a pencil, but nothing else. The woods were thick with briars. Morrigan used her knife to pull the briars out of the way. After a few hours, she came to a crossroads. A man was sitting at the crossroads.
"Excuse me, sir," she said, "but which way will lead me to the tower?"
"In order to get directions," said the man, "you must answer my riddle. What can you hold in your right hand but not your left?"
"Your left hand," said Morrigan.
"Very well," said the man. "Keep straight." Morrigan kept walking. An hour later, she came to a young girl.
"I'm lost," she said. "Can you tell me the way back to the city proper?"
Morrigan remembered what the man had told her. "Just keep straight until you're out of the woods," she said.
"I'm hungry," said the girl.
Morrigan gave the girl a biscuit.
"Thanks," said the girl. "You deserve this." The girl handed Morrigan an old, old key. Morrigan thanked the girl and continued on her way. An hour later, she reached the tower. There was a lock on the door at the bottom, an ancient rusty padlock that looked so old that nothing could open it. Morrigan was right-handed; she tried the girl's key in the handle as most right-handed people would do, with her right hand, but it wouldn't work. Suddenly she thought of the man's riddle. She transferred her key to the other hand and tried it. The door swung open.
A young woman in a blue dress sparkling with jewels sat at a table inside. She had long hair that was so blond it was only a bit less white than snow and eyes darker blue than the darkest of night skies bedecked with stars and frost. She wore a small crown that looked like it was made of icicles.
"Are you the Queen of Winter?" Morrigan asked.
"I am," said the Queen of Winter. "Thank you for rescuing me. Why have you done it?"
"Because," said Morrigan, "a Book of Answers told me to do it so I can be brave enough to tell the truth. But am I?"
"You are." The Queen of Winter stood up regally. "You are kind, and smart, enough to get through Autumn's way-blockers. Therefore, you are brave enough to do anything you wish."
Morrigan didn't believe the Queen of Winter.
"What if it doesn't seem like it to me?" Morrigan asked.
"Well." The Queen of Winter pulled something from her dress pocket. It was a small silver bottle with a cork waxed tightly in. "If you ever feel like you need a little extra bravery to tell the truth or whatever you need to do, just rub this bottle."
"Thank you," said Morrigan. She took the bottle, and she and the Queen of Winter went back to the city together. Morrigan went on to do many things in her life, but always, she kept the bottle.

----

"Well," said Moira. "What do you think?"
"Ah, that was great," said Dr. Deipnosophist. "It hit the spot."
The CBers awakened from their states of being withdrawn inside their heads and went back to their respective activities. Jay went over to the bookshelf and picked up a book that looked interesting. It was titled The Truth about Mayor August Grint and looked fictional, but...wasn't, because it said that it had been eventually verified by the city lawmakers in the front of the book. The actual first sentences were The year I was thirteen, winter came so late that it felt as though it had been locked up in some kind of tower. That was the year I began looking for answers in every nook and every cranny, and seven years later, I found big ones. That sounded...familiar. Jay looked at the cover: the author's name was Morrigan Ensley. He hadn't been thinking the person in the story was real, but...what if it was?

Silver Crystal asked Tsuki to play Scrabble with her, but Tsuki declined and said she'd go to bed. Silver Crystal dumped out the tiles anyway and decided to use them for anagrams puzzles, which she'd done before. She started with her own name (crystallise VR) and then, for some reason, lingered on Moira's. The pause when Moira had introduced herself struck Silver Crystal as odd, and before she knew it, she'd spelled out 

M O I R A N S L Y G R E E N 

and rearranged it into 

M O R R I G A N E N S L E Y. 

Across the room, Nina was taking a picture of something for her assignment; if Silver Crystal had been assigned that, then her camera would have been out and clicking right about now.