Pen tapping on the notebook pages, River’s gaze never left the word “recommended”.
“Do you know who else was recommended for this event? The same way you two were?”
“I know some of them, at least… Is there something-” Vanessa stopped herself mid sentence. Frankly speaking, the order in which River had asked his questions was already making the reason for them blatantly obvious. “…Is someone targeting us?”
He almost missed the mutter. It was once more an amazing display of how brainwashed these people are, to still not suspect the staff, but River’s job here wasn’t to convince anyone of who the criminal was.
It was to finish the ritual, and nothing else.
Together with Logan, Vanessa got together a decent list of who were the recommended people. There were a lot of them, about a quarter of the ones around, but River planned on double-checking his findings with Aspen, who had hopefully compiled a list of people who stood out a lot.
The lunch bell rang at the perfect moment. Selene’s gaze was drilling holes into River’s back, and knowing he had already overstayed his welcome anyway, the easterner obediently got up. “Thanks for everything. I’ll drop by again tomorrow.”
Because there was going to be another victim, but it was also something he had to do to ensure he appeared like a decent person.
“Stay safe”, Vanessa responded as Logan gave a tiny wave. Iris never came out from under her blanket.
Lunch was amusingly more vegetarian and vegan centric than before. There were meat dishes, but considerably fewer, and even the greatest meat-lovers in the room held back on their usual enthusiasm about it.
Something about seeing a corpse with a hole had probably destroyed their appetite for meat for the day.
The ever growing tension had culminated into silence that hardly anyone dared to break, but this was the silence before the storm. At the peak of the tension, it erupted with force.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The fight was far from what you’d expect in such peaceful surroundings.
It was the very literal meaning of a fight, with fists and curses flying, furniture turned over, and people creating a carefully distanced ring around the two main actors.
The first of the two was a young man, probably around the age of adulthood. He had the face of a child thinking himself a mature, grown man who knew everything and had total control over his life, which was very much wrong but made it no less dangerous considering his build that implied regular work-outs.
The second was of unknown gender, with a very androgynous appearance. They were possibly a whole decade older than the other and considerably more controlled, but the way their expression had warped implied a loss of control due to fierce anger. Not to be outdone, they fought back on equal level.
It was pure chaos.
Too many voices were shouting over each other, curses enveloped by layers of confusion, worry, annoyance and even curiosity.
As was so often the case, a train wreck drew observers – no one quite left the scene.
Instead, those that tried to intervene and stop the two simply got caught up in the fight. An accidental punch to the face had a good-willed woman fuming enough to take off her shoe and throw it, while an elbow to the gut had an elderly gentleman join in with his cane.
What had started out as a scuffle between two individuals turned into a full-blown tavern fight.
It was unclear why it had started, but with tempers boiling over, this had to happen sooner or later.
Just as River deliberated the best action to take, someone was quicker than him.
“Stop.”
It wasn’t loud, but even if you had used a loudspeaker, it couldn’t have spread any better.
The command was said with enough authority to freeze up the whole mess on the ground. Heavy steps sounded as Papyrus walked right towards them – the crowd parted like Moses the sea – and simply but very effectively dragged the main culprits apart by the collar.
“What happened? Why is everyone fighting?”
It couldn’t be a more beautiful setting for Acorn to enter in, and the stage was his.
“It’s about the victims”, Soot said, entering the stage from the left, her voice clearly carrying throughout the now silent room. “This guy here said that we are in danger and that we should interrogate everyone who is suspicious. This other one here said we shouldn’t mistrust our companions, so the guy called them a co-conspirator. The discussion escalated.”
Papyrus displayed the right person at the right time, the two obedient in his hands, bruised faces and bodies aching.
Acorn sighed, sadly, for oh, how tragic all of this was! “I can perfectly understand why this happened, but fighting against each other will solve nothing. Rather, shouldn’t we find a way to ensure we are safe? Instead of doubting each other, should we not see it as a chance to find out if anyone has seen anything? An intruder?”
He put his hands on the shoulders of both people, and Papyrus let them go.
You could be a puppeteer, managing things from behind the scene, or you could be like Acorn – an actor, a hero, a protagonist joining the stage to maneuver the story into whatever direction he wanted.
River and Acorn were the complete opposite in their types, and the setting was the worst fit for River.
He was good at being the “ghost hand” that moved things to have people act according to his will. He had proven that in the previous games, and while he was interested in the open manipulation that Logan had perfected and that Acorn was using, he was far from experienced in it.
River was, and would always be, someone who was not meant to be in the limelight.
“You think someone broke into here?”, the rash youth questioned, wiping his mouth with the back of his fist. He did shoot a glare to the side, but didn’t try to throw another punch. “How? The security is high.”
“You’re right. I don’t think anyone could have broken into here. There’d be signs at the door, not to mention that everyone knows each other here. If a foreign face suddenly joined us, we’d know.”
Agreeable murmurs.
“So it was someone of us!”
“Yes and no.” Acorn gave a soothing smile. “There’s another possibility.”
“Another possibility?”
“Someone we know, but someone who isn’t one of us. Someone that doesn’t have to break into here, but has instead peacefully walked into this place with everyone else.”
Soot stepped forward. Again, her turn for her lines, eyes sweeping through the room as if making sure that everyone is listening, stopping a moment too long on River and Aspen.
“Because, as we all know – from the moment we gathered in front of the building, not even staff has ever checked any list of attendees.”
I’m loving this