revivalproject | Murder on the Gold Saucer Express

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Murder on the Gold Saucer Express

WHO: It was you!
WHERE: On the airship!
WHAT: With the candlestick!
WHEN: Moments after...a horrible crime has taken place! Also during the Eorzea trip.
WARNINGS: This is a murder mystery, so both of those things are going to happen. Mark it if you get gory or weird about it.
NOTES: Go here for some OOC organizing.

The Dock

Those teleporting crystals were extraordinarily advanced for a society that didn't have computers, but none of them were going to give Tony an aerial view of the land like a proper flight could. A flight like in one of those ships he had seen trundling along; not proper jets or even blimps, but something that looked like an enthusiastic hot air balloon hauling the hull of an entire sailing ship. Ridiculous, and a far more straightforward path than getting himself in the sky and then having to answer some invasive questions for the display.

A regular, dedicated loop to the Gold Saucer advertised itself as travelling in style, a glitzy prelude to the indulgence of the games, a proper pre-party party bus. It looked much shabbier in person. Tony raised a lip as he stood on the dock and the boarding plank was dropped unceremoniously with a crack, disgorging a footman who's jacket was threadbare and had long lost the lustre of the gold piping around the collar. Tony lifted his chin to try to see past the man and into the ship, only to be suddenly jostled back.

"I have the right to be here, Hedda!" a woman shrieked as another, presumably Hedda, came careening into Tony. Tony stumbled, but was quickly catching himself and her, only for her to shove him off to go barrelling back at her attacker with her own fists raised. Tony's catch became a hold on her elbows to try to draw her back as the crowd around them spread out, with nervous gasps.

"You have the right to leave, too, Vedis, so get walking!" Hedda snarled, taking very little heed of Tony trying to stop her from clawing a woman's eyes out.

"Not until Rhitfedar has heard how much damage he's doing. Every cent he spends on you is blood money!"

No amount of Tony's attempt to soothe, "Hey, okay, hey, let's calm down," was going to be heard over Hedda screeching, "You're just jealous! Stop following us around!" Tony had to physically drag her back until enough people poured into the gap made between them and apparently her mortal enemy, streaming toward the ship. She finally wrenched herself away, fussily straightening her clothes and her hair, then cast Tony a startlingly coquettish smile. "Goodness, I don't know what came over me, she's terrible, really, has been since school, she drives everyone around her crazy, it's a miracle she hasn't gotten herself killed. Say, you look like you've got some extra cash on you, do you mind buying me a ticket? I seem to have dropped mine, and I'm supposed to meet someone..."

"All aboard!" the shabby footman's voice rang out startlingly clear, and Hedda was clinging pathetically to Tony's arm then, her gaze darting to every piece of metal on him. She was getting on that ship, one way or another.

-----

The Lower Deck

"What do you think?"

A man was practically pressed against Tony's shoulder, his hand raised to wiggle his fingers under Tony's nose, making them clatter with the array of rings there all adorned with polished, glimmering seashell shards. Tony raised his eyebrows, trying to come up with the kindest possible answer, and was relieved by the man himself who continued, "I know, they're awful. Some of my worst work. The only money I'll be making back is if I sell that atrocious piece of land." He was barely actually talking to Tony, but the other men who had been standing with him, letting Tony nod slowly and turn back toward the window where he was watching the city retreat below them. "Swarming with adventurers anymore, even if there was better materials to find there they've been long since cleaned out. That dungeon. Ugh. You'd think one of them would be good enough to buy it."

"You could give it to me," one of the other men offered, voice all grit. "Call your debt even. No more worrying about the money, I won't even have to kill you anymore." Tony tried his best to catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of his eye while sidling away, not particularly eager to be surprised by another fight so soon. Maybe if he could flag down that footman, he could get more of that cheap wine in them and defuse the situation.

"Oh, well, that..." the artist was demurring, waving his clattering hands. "That speculator, Rhitfedar, he said something about a new resort, maybe, it would be a great investment for him, worth quite a bit up front, I was hoping to catch him, make so much more for both of us, really, without having to do the development work..."

---

The Dining Room

The buffet was mostly grey. Tony inspected a cracker, wondering the likelihood of getting food poisoning from something dry and stale, and if alien food poisoning was less likely to effect him or more likely to kill him. "Rhitfedar," said a voice at his elbow, to which Tony dropped the cracker and turned his attention to a bowl of dusty, wrapped candies. The voice cleared its throat, and tried again, "Mr. Rhitfedar?"

It was the footman. Tony turned, glanced around, then gestured to his chest with the candy that he had plucked up, and eventually had to accept that it was him that the footman was trying to address. "Uh, no, sorry," he said.

"Oh." The footman didn't seem to know what to do with this information, and held the box he was carrying out toward Tony anyway, which locked them in another awkward stalemate until the footman insisted, "But I saw you come in with Hedda. This package has been on board for you since this morning, if you could sign here."

"Still no, and not expecting a package," Tony tried again, inching away, not really hungry anyway and leaving the candy on top of the box for the footman's grand effort. "Good luck, honestly, he can't have gone far, step out there is pretty steep."

When Tony glanced back from the doorway, the footman was chewing slowly and peeking inside the box, brow furrowed and looking harried. To the next person who approached the buffet table, he blurted, "Mithtuh Whyfe-er?"

---

The Bathroom

Absolutely everyone on board this ship was turning out to be too touchy and potentially insane, and they had barely gotten off the ground. Tony had to make a quick retreat from an elderly woman with a very wide smile and very sticky hands before she took a bite out of him, leaving her waving her handkerchief after him and promising to have a glass of wine for him when he was done as he slipped into the security of the bathroom. Hastily, he secured the lock and braced the door for good measure as he caught his breath. This had not been his best idea, and getting an aerial view of the area wasn't even telling him anything useful. Slowly, he turned to face what new damp, dusty horror the facilities had to offer him, only to freeze, expecting bad and somehow getting worse.

There was a man on the floor.

Tony tried the footman's tactic, clearing his throat, to no avail. Right, that probably wasn't going to rouse this man any more than Tony's entrance had. Tony dropped to his knees then, gently touching a shoulder first, then trying a shake, before leaning closer to listen for any sign of breathing. That was about what he expected. Desperately, he glanced around for anything that might help as he searched for a pulse, finding only clammy skin and an empty box knocked under the dripping sink, newsprint spilling out of it, but nothing that would rouse a man from the dead.

He had to pull himself together and hurry back to the door, where he flung it open, only to brace his arm against it then throw his body in the way of another gentleman that had been waiting patiently outside. "Um," Tony started, bringing his free hand up to search for the proper phrase that conveyed the urgency of the matter, without inducing a panic on an airship. "Would you mind finding the footman?"

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Cayde never shot anyone who hadn't shot at him or killed someone else first. That he was the first culprit Tony was willing to pin it on all simply because he was there stung, and all he'd been trying to do was make some side cash with this dumb mascot job at a venue they hadn't even reached. He waited for Sundance to get settled, pausing from pulling the head back on.

"If you want, sure," he said with a shrug, defensively flippant. "You can go run out there and say there's been a murder, and I'll keep an eye out for someone who might be eyeballing you as their next target."

As though they had any chance of ignoring the tension now, Tony insisted, "No, I can't just go out there and say there's been a murder, because all of those people will freak out, they're already drunk and...weird--" except he hardly cared about making that point. He didn't even take a breath to redirect, "I'm sorry," aggressive, definitely not sorry, "I don't know what you expected me to think after lurking around and not talking to anyone this whole time. Maybe if we had a foundation of you not killing people to work from, we could have moved passed this already."

"Maybe I didn't want to accidentally knock anyone off the edge of the ship or step on them because I can't see in this stupid thing! Not to mention people were avoiding the creepy frog anyway!" Cayde said as he rounded on Tony, annoyed mostly at the apology that wasn't.

"Also, implying that I would make a blood bath of a pleasure cruise- it's like you don't even know me!" He dropped off suddenly as he realized his voice was picking up, his optics flicking upwards at Sundance before glancing towards the door as he wondered if anyone might've overheard.

That was probably reasonable, Tony was definitely avoiding the creepy frog whenever he turned up, so the frustrated scrunch of his nose became an irritable suck of his teeth, fang bared in a snarl as he folded his arms stubbornly and kept his head turned toward the door like he was still listening for any sign they had been heard outside long after Cayde cut himself off. What was Tony supposed to say to that? He certainly didn't know Cayde's boundaries.

"Well, I didn't do it," Tony eventually muttered, still not looking at Cayde, or the problem to be reckoned with on the floor.

"I wouldn't have pegged you for it," Cayde said, finally relaxing a bit as he ran through the scenario in his head again. He was still a little miffed about it, but obviously Tony was high-strung about things and he wasn't quite sure it was entirely due to the dead man lying on the floor.

He lowered the frog head again, tucking it under an arm as he turned back towards Tony. Sundance would let them know if anyone was approaching the bathroom, at least.

"So what should we do about it? You were saying something about getting the footguy or something..?" he prompted.

There wasn't anywhere for the shame of that accusation to go, so Tony rolled his eyes and let his arms drop limply with a sigh of acceptance for it. Good friends didn't accuse friends of murder. He had to gather himself up again, elbows tucked in and hands with nowhere to go now because they were not eager to get any closer to the body again, and sidled away from Sundance and the door with a watchful stare.

"I thought..." he started, sighing again to focus with some relief that Cayde still seemed like he was going to help, "If he had been murdered, then we can't freak everyone out, and we have to figure it out before this boat lands or whoever did it is just going to walk away. We have to get him out of here without anybody seeing, and we have to figure out what happened to him."

That was true enough. Tony had pointed out something to that effect earlier, and Cayde couldn't deny that the passengers aboard this airship would probably take the news badly.

"We figure out cause of death? I don't see much of a mess... Not that that means anything specifically, but it broadens the possibilities outside of foul play."

He tapped a finger against his chin. "I think I got an idea to get him moved. Hey Sundance, give me the rundown, we clear out there?" he asked as he glanced up at his Ghost, twirling a finger to suggest the space beyond the bathroom.

"...no one within the general vicinity. That includes above us," Sundance reported. Cayde finally cracked a grin. "I'll be right back. Gotta get my stuff. If you hear screams upstairs then that means people saw a ghost amphibian and they're clearly hallucinating," he said as he popped the frog head back on.

"I was, uh, getting to that," Tony said, clearly in no way interested in getting that personal with the body and having to reckon with it now that he'd made this claim. This would have been much easier if there was an obvious hole in the important systems. Tony's finger's curled into unenthusiastic claws, and he was at least temporarily relieved from having to commit to this task to look to Cayde curiously for what he would be doing in the meantime, baffled by the suggestion that he had brought along stuff to move a body on his mascot job.

"Sure, okay. You've already got them primed for the frog being weird, can't make it much worse," he accepted, waving his hands to be absolved of any crimes Cayde thought he had to commit from here on out before dropping into a crouch over the dead man.

There really wasn't much madness to his method in this particular case. Cayde snapped off a salute and then leaped through the ceiling.

The steady vibration of the airship's engines quickly filled the span of silence as once again Tony was left alone with a body. That sort of company was bound to make the time seem to pass a lot more slowly. Cayde wasn't taking any more time than he had to, only stalling to make sure he kept from being unseen as he slipped through the halls to the passenger storage room.

A frog dropping back down through the ceiling probably wasn't any less shocking than running into him outside, but it wasn't like he could give a proper warning. Cayde reoriented his landing with a small midair hop, a bag slung over his shoulder. He immediately started yanking off his frog gear. "You find out anything?" he asked, even as he handed off the head to Tony.

That was new. For a hysterical moment, Tony wondered if he had hallucinated Cayde being there at all. That would explain the frog costume. Well, not explain, perhaps only a therapist could do that. Did he need a therapist?

By the time Cayde returned, the whole experience had become too macabre for Tony to be as jumpy as he had started, and he was sitting slouched with his legs sprawled on the bathroom floor next to his new therapist to only kind of flinch when Cayde-or-the-frog suddenly dropped into view. "We've had a good chat," he reported, with a pinch of irritation while he received the mascot head, unprepared to deflect it and left holding it in his lap as he gave his report. "I cannot with confidence tell you how this man died, but I can say that his pockets have been turned out and are empty. Weird thing to do as a last act, unless you're looking for an epipen or something, but I'm sure we can all agree it didn't turn up in that case. It does kind of look like an allergic reaction, if we want to be so optimistic and not call this a robbery. Lot's of blood in the eyes, spit around the mouth, and, uh, his tongue is...green." Tony gave an accusatory look to the frog head, like this was part of a pattern that he was really starting to resent.

Clearing his throat, he added, "There's this box," with a indication with his chin toward what he had found on the bathroom floor. "I think the footman tried to give it to me earlier. Just some newspaper inside, though." It was scrunched up, clearly packaging something more delicate, but some of the pictures in the articles might have been a little familiar to someone who wasn't having so much trouble seeing while onboard the airship.

"Eyew. Glad I haven't had the chance to eat anything," Cayde said, as though being a robot on top of being one dressed in a constrictive frog suit wasn't an issue. He peeled off the suit and tossed it over to Tony, standing for once without armor covering every inch of his metal body, just a silly pair of boxers.

"Sure nothin' was taken from inside the box?" he asked as he rummaged around his bag to pull out his clothes, tugging on the Agrii-provided wardrobe. "If the footman had it, maybe he was in on whatever this plan is? Why'd he wanna give it to you anyway? -stupid cravat, why is this even a thing??"

Seeing Cayde without any of his armor was almost as staggering as seeing him phase through the ceiling, leaving Tony staring and easily slapped by the suit that fell into a lump with the head on his lap.

"Probably," was Tony's most coherent answer for what the box might have been for. He didn't feel qualified to make a hypothesis on what could have been inside, between the prevalent magic and general...alien-ness of the planet. "He didn't seem to know who it was actually for--...am I dead, did we die? Is this some kind of--could you always do that?"

"What, strip? My gear's not glued on, and as much as I'd rather wear my own stuff, the Agrii seemed pretty intent about us blending in. I'm sure I could've managed-- then again, after seeing all the weird crap people around here wear, maybe we'd stick out too easily for looking almost normal!"

Cayde gave up on trying to fix up his collar and slipped into the rest of the layers, eventually pulling on his coat. "This is probably the fanciest thing I've ever worn in... ever, maybe."

Right. Dead body. He forwent the extra trappings for the moment, stepping over to have a closer look, reaching for the mysterious box to have a look at its contents.

There were scraps still on the box from its wrapping, where some scribbling could be made out that might have been the dock that they boarded at, and the date. Inside was only packing paper, newspaper in various stages of yellowing. On one, a photo of a man covered in jewellery accompanied the title, 'ARTISAN BETS FORTUNE ON HIDDEN GEM'. Another declared, 'SOCIALITE DISGRACED' with a woman snarling at the camera. The third photo in the collection was of a massive fire, claiming, 'ACTIVIST GROUP ESCALATES'.

Meanwhile, Tony was chattering, "No, the--well, yes, if you want to talk about it, I'm willing to explore your stripping talents, but I'd rather there wasn't an unenthusiastic witness. Maybe back in Temba, this place is backwards, they don't even know what a soldering iron is, I'm working with a handicap. Stop moving." He had dumped the frog costume onto the corpse to roll back up onto his feet and tug at Cayde's cravat for him, where he could look over the box again as well, like anything could have changed with it between now and the last time he looked at it.

Cayde rolled his eyes but stayed put for the most part while he tolerated Tony's fussing like a reluctant child having their mother fix them up in their Sunday Best. He picked out the newspaper, careful in case anything was hiding amongst the folds.

"Wow. Well I guess if you're pulling a murder you wanna go all out with the dismal themes, even in the packaging," he muttered as he held up the yellowing print.

What had Cayde done to this thing? It really wasn't going into place, making Tony bite his tongue like he had to work an engineering miracle, and was irritated that his focus was drawn away from this delicate work by the useless packing paper. Until he realized, "I know her." The Disgraced Socialite glared back at him, making him abandon the cravat to snatch the paper away from Cayde, frowning. "She looked just like that when I met her, too. Just before we got on this boat." Not just like that, he thought, squinting at the photo, then quickly flipping the paper around to try to find a date. "What year is it on this planet? This is old. This wasn't just--I don't believe in coincidences."

If he'd known that answer then he wouldn't have been having a cravat malfunction. Cayde blinked as the newspaper was removed from his hand. "You do?" he asked.

He watched Tony's face as the man studied the newspaper articles more closely. "Asking the wrong person," he said, holding up his hands. The going year was about the last thing he was wondering about here. "What do you mean, coincidences?"

"Her," Tony replied impatiently, snapping the newspaper taut between his hands to try to smooth out the crumpled image for Cayde to take in. "She's on this ship."

That seemed like the logical place to start then, but as Tony started to turn to make his next move, he was confronted once more with the body and the frog costume. He raised a lip, and snatched the box from Cayde as well to rummage through it instead, muttering, "Is there anyone else in here? Do you recognize--Him, look, did you see this guy? He's got all of these rings on, that's the same guy, right?" Now Tony thought he was starting to see things.

Peering closer at the pictures. "...yeah- now that you mention it," Cayde said as he fingered his chin. He didn't have the best visual range but when he was standing still it was easier to watch things, and although the versions of the faces from the newspapers were slightly more horrified from accidentally locking eyes with a frog, they were starting to click into place.

"Are...are they all passengers? Is this guy in the paper too?" he asked, gesturing at their dead friend on the floor.

Peeling paper out rapidly and dropping it to the floor to skim through the next one the moment he got confirmation that he was only potentially crazy, Tony twisted his mouth to the side with some frustration, distantly shaking his head. "I don't know, I don't think--some of these pictures aren't people," he had to observe, and didn't know if they would be wasting time actually reading these articles then, what? Asking very nicely for a list of passengers to compare against? "Do you think these others are more victims?" They might have already wasted too much.

This wasn't exactly Cayde's forte for experience, but he stooped down with Tony to have a closer look at the packing materials. "I have no idea, I didn't exactly have a chance to go schmoozing with the guests. But if they are, and they're all conveniently aboard- but then how can it be that convenient unless they're all like...regulars? They know each other?"

He scratched the back of his head, making something of a face before tugging the hood over his head. Thaaat was better. Hopefully no one barged in on them while he didn't have his helmet on. "Any significance of why this guy has this thing? ...it's all...kind of weird, right? Okay, more than weird." He stood back up, folding his arms. "You said his pockets are empty, so maybe someone was here with him...but I'm not sure when the poison or allergic reaction happens, something from the box? Part of the box?"

His eyes snapped towards the door. "Should we be on the lookout? Damn, maybe I should have kept the costume on. Then again..." He wouldn't be able to keep that great an eye on people.

That was an incredible shift of priorities directly after suggesting that it was the box itself that might have been the murder weapon, making it fly entirely of its own accord out of Tony's hands as Cayde looked to the door. It was humiliatingly loud as it went bouncing across the grimy floor again, and Tony grimaced, holding his potentially poisoned hands aloft daintily.

He couldn't just stay like that, though, and he couldn't seem to bring himself to put his arms down, so he did the next best thing and started talking: "If they all know each other, then the lady from the dock would know who this is, and who'd be sending packages. I had to buy her a ticket, though, she said she lost hers..."

Cayde looked down at the box as well before looking over at Tony. Okay, fair. He watched him a moment as though half-expecting the man to turn green.

"...or she was broke and couldn't afford it," he said as he stooped down to pick up the newspaper said woman graced, skimming for any details regarding her disgrace. "Only one way to figure out if they knew each other, but I don't know how great that'd go if you went flashing that newspaper around."

The disgrace in question certainly seemed to confirm the suspicion that Tony nodded along to slowly, though he was less sure now than he had been when she had been so sticky sweet on the dock about it. Her fortune was gone, down to the last penny after being sued by some of her home staff over 'a matter of violence', as the article delicately put it. "Or she really did have a ticket. Only she hadn't paid for that one, either," Tony proposed, mostly muttered to himself as Cayde continued.

He raised his eyebrows, and suggested, "What, you want to show her the body instead?"

"What?! No! I figure the newspaper's the most convenient way to do it but you don't know who else'll be watching."

Cayde paused, looking back at the body on the floor.

"...so um. Speaking of- I figured we stash him in the frog and you can say he got completely smashed if anyone asks questions...and...that's as far as I got on that one."

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