GAME 2 - DAY 1

[protoshepherd]

[ You stir awake on the cold floor, and find yourself in a REALLY CROWDED dressing room with some other people. They may be strangers, they may be people you know, but then you wonder, where are you?

Then it hits you. The last thing that happened before waking up was that you found a message in a bottle. You read the note, blinked once, and someone behind you hit you in the head. You fell to the floor, but that was it. That was all you remember. You must have passed out, and now you're here. Wherever here is.

The room is what it is. It seems to have been a murder scene. Who was murdered, no one knows. Try not to destroy the crime scene, would you? There's only a couple of drops of blood by the outline - and that's a really huge outline, the guy must be at least 6 feet tall. A tile from the floor is missing. Well, whatever. Is that really important? (No, it's not! Not at the moment, anyway…) What may be of importance (?!?!?!?!) is the note written in lipstick on the mirror. It reads: MAKE FRIENDS.

If you exit the dressing room, you'll find yourself in a hallway. There's another room next to the one you came from, but it's locked. There's some noise coming from inside, though… If you put your ear to the door, you may hear a possibly familiar song. But you might even check that out later, because right on the wall in front of you hang twelve square mirrors - about twelve inches in length, and eight in width. Each mirror will reflect only one specific person, no matter how many people are standing in front of it. (Eg. if Person A stands in front of Mirror A, he'll see himself. If he stands in front of Mirror B, he won't see any reflection at all.)

Upon looking at your mirror, you'll find someone behind you. Before you could even react, you hear the words "find wolves, keep secrets" whispered in your ear like an itchy and spine tingling thing. If you look back, the beautiful creature is gone. Its reflection is gone, too.

And when the badger disappears, you'll feel something heavy in your pocket. Pull it out, and you get a Nokia 3210. It's a pretty bulky and heavy device, but hey. It's a cellphone. Although… there are only four features to the phone: Rules, Vote, Calculator, and Snake.

If you check out the vote feature, you'll find a list of names. It seems you can only choose just one pair of names. Once someone votes on it, the bar right below their name grows longer, and you can see how many people voted on it. Everyone should know who their partner is from this list alone.

Welcome to (one part of) the Sunshine Coliseum! The broom closet is locked, and so is the room with the red light. Don't go there, Roxanne. If you head to the stage, you can play with the instruments. Feel free to chill out in the audience area. The chairs are very comfortable to sit on. There isn't much to do, but one should be crafty enough to find means of entertainment. This is game, after all.

Lastly, YOU HAVE NO MONEY TO BUY ANYTHING IN THE VENDING MACHINE. (It has soda and potato chips, by the way. Please don't steal anything...! Or you can. You know. Whatever. It's not like there are cops around!) ]

(SUSPICION POLL)

---

CLUE
* only one member of each team may vote, so please coordinate with your partners!

Schedule:
[ 00 EST 18 April: Clue/Activity!!

00 EST 19 April: Suspicion poll comes to an end and Ousting poll gets put up.

00 EST 20 April: Ousting poll draws to a close. A new day begins, with two teams out of the game. ]

For any team posts or if your character(s) will be talking to another team in private, please remember to filter the post and add protoshepherd to it! Characters will have whatever they had on them, or if they have any pets, then they can have those, too.

Regarding pets/items: SURE GO AHEAD AND HAVE YOUR CHARACTER BRING THEM. If it's a magical item, then it will NOT work.

Hurting other characters is fine, but please ping @sytry on plurk if and when your character tries to kill somebody, or beat them up senseless. There will be an IC punishment for something like this, and they also can't kill anybody, so!!!

Comments

[inspectormacarena]

[Hm... How to fish for specific information without vocally fishing for specific information... That's the tricky part. Well, he'll just be as pleasant as always. An interest in Temsik does not an enemy make, and he isn't even sure of that much.]

Do you live here in Los Angeles, Mr. Bruce?

[amygdalae]

[This inspector is suddenly asking quite a bit of questions. Of course, they're nothing suspicious for now, but... Bruce isn't exactly the type to spill his life story to any random person asking, even if he is law enforcement.]

No, I don't. [...he should probably elaborate a bit more.] I've been--away from the country.

[If 'away' means 'running from the US military'.]

[inspectormacarena]

[And that? That's another one of those answers he was both hoping for and fearing. Espionage is nasty business and while he doesn't know exactly which country the Manipulator has been making deals with, this is one heck of a coincidence.]

Are you saying you returned to this country quite reeecently, or have our kidnappers somehow managed to smuggle you across the border for the sake of having you attend this little... game? [The latter would be troubling for a variety of reasons, surely Bruce would sympathize with that much.]

[amygdalae]

[...Bruce wouldn't exactly say that he 'returned', but how does one explain that a special US agency thing dragged him into this band of people who ended up sort of saving the world.

Yeah, this is why Bruce isn't exactly fond of elaborating about himself.]

I returned for a bit. [Only because Stark forced him to, at least until the thing with Loki was settled, which fortunately hadn't been anything more than a few days.] But I had just left it before... all of this.

[He sort of waves to the room around them as reference.]

[inspectormacarena]

[Hm. Ambiguous response. That doesn't quite relieve the border smuggling worry, nor does it bode well for the conversation in general. Time to throw subtlety out the window.]

This maaay sound like an odd question, but you wouldn't happen to know anything about meteorites, would you, Mr. Bruce?

[amygdalae]

[Well that's certainly an odd question. Odd enough that it gets an expression out of Bruce, which is confusion.]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Unless you count glowly space sticks from a norse god who almost took over the world... or a blue cube that caused a whole lot of damage. But neither of them resemble meteorites in any shape or form.]

[inspectormacarena]

[Hm. Of course he wouldn't outright admit it if it were true, but that expression of confusion seemed convincing enough. Bruce is safe. ...For now.]

I see, I seee. I'll admit, it would've been a long shot.

[amygdalae]

[Bruce really has no idea what's going on, but the way this inspector is talking, Bruce has a feeling he needs to be on guard for... well, something.

He doesn't like this already.]

Um. [Should he ask...? Probably best not to.] Is that all, Inspector?

[inspectormacarena]

[Hm. Hmhmmm... No, he has to milk this interrogation for all it's worth. Not forcefully, of course- that's the sort of mistake that cost him dearly at the start of his career. Just a gentle nudge.]

Not quite, baby. Let's get to the heaaart of our current predicament. What's your opinion on this game we're expected to play?

[amygdalae]

[His opinion...? Bruce certainly has a few opinions, but he's not entirely inclined to share. Still, considering things earlier... Bruce supposes he has to make an effort to put himself in the clear from whatever suspicion the inspector has on him.]

I'm still not entirely sure what the game even is. [Sheep and wolves?? Bruce has been out of touch for too long.] Not to mention that there's still too many questions which none of us have answers to.

[...and Bruce doesn't like playing these kind of games, too.]

[inspectormacarena]

[Good. Very good. It's an opinion that Cabanela is very inclined to agree with. If Bruce were pushing for them to play along, it'd be a whole other matter, but this much successfully limits some of the suspicion.]

Quiiite right. If all goes well, we'll find a way to escape our odd prison before the game is played at all, of course. In a case like this, we have to think outside the box, maaan.

[amygdalae]

[Odd prison is one way of putting it. Bruce just hopes things don't get any worse beyond this... not that he really knows what the norm is right now. More variables and data are required before he can formulate a proper hypothesis.]

Well, first, I'd suppose we have to know what the 'box' in question is. [Then they know where the 'outside' is going to be.]

[inspectormacarena]

[Quite earnestly, they might be looking at several boxes that were piled into one another. Boxception, if you will. For now, though, let's stick with the basics. There's no point in making a difficult situation even more difficult.]

I would saaay that the 'box' we find ourselves in would be the game. We're expected to play along and I have this naaasty feeling that nothing good will come of it, baby. [Ergo, thinking outside this first level box of the Boxception means finding a way to get out without playing the game.]

You dig?

[amygdalae]

[One step at a time is Bruce's motto. It's managed to get him... well, he's managed to stay in one piece, mostly. Sort of.

He listens to the inspector's words and nods. He sort of gets it, although he probably needs to know more about this game first before he can get anywhere.]

I suppose the assumption is that we can't get out unless we participate in whatever 'game' we've been made a part of against our will.

[inspectormacarena]

[Ahah. It seems Mr. Physicist is a bit uninformed. In that case, Cabanela will whip out the dinky old cellphone again with a flourish of the arm. He also makes sure to spin the phone around in his hand as if he's twirling a revolver around his finger (wow how is he doing that, it must be magic) before actually doing anything with it.]

The rules- [Button press, and the next moment he's holding the phone up for Bruce to see. It's showing the rules screen.] -state, and I quooote, "You will be trapped in the coliseum until you finish the-" ... Well, there's a bit of static there. These trinkets appear to be quite old. I can only assuuume the last word would be "game".

[amygdalae]

[More things that Bruce isn't going to comment on. There's a lot of them happening here ever since this started.

He does however read the rules when the inspector holds the screen up for him.]

Its the most logical conclusion at the moment. [Although it doesn't quite help with anything. But at least its a start. Bruce leans back and purses his lips, thinking about it.]

...what is the second line talking about, though? ['Don't you worry, because there will be ▥▒▉▉.'? Not exactly very helpful.]

[inspectormacarena]

[He spins the phone around in his hand again. Just because, well, he can.]

Food, I should hope. Much as I appreciate the occaaasional snack from the trusty ol' vending machine, I'm fresh out of change and swiss rolls don't make much of a meal.

[amygdalae]

[Hm. That makes sense too, although Bruce isn't too bothered. He's had to make do with less before, but knowing that there is something is at least good to know.]

Maybe a search of the entire premise will find something for us. [Like a pantry, or something. Who knows, they might be lucky.]

[inspectormacarena]

[Cabanela's been all over the place already- well, except for the locked doors, anyway- and the only thing close to food-related was the vending machine. But hey, who's he to say it's impossible?]

I've yet to find aaanything, baby, but feel free to conduct a search of your own. [Whoop, he's slipping that phone back into his pocket with an extravagant arm swipe and also some unnecessary leg lifting.]

[amygdalae]

[WELL one may never know, it could mysteriously turn up or something...]

I'll try that later, then. [Never hurts to have a second look and all that. (And once again, not commenting on what the inspector is doing. Nope.)] If I do find anything, I'll let you know.

[inspectormacarena]

[Yeah wouldn't that be something?]

Much obliged, Mr. Physicist. Muuuch obliged. [Also, he's out of questions to ask (for now), so he'll be riverdancing strutting off now.]

[amygdalae]

[HAVE FUN RIVERDANCING AWAY Bruce will just... be glad things ended here well enough. Though he'll certainly be wary of the inspector in white now, considering what just happened.]