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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Actually doing it proved to be that much worse in practice, compounded by that guilt making Tony impulsively hide it, then feel more guilty yet for the way he positioned himself very casually in front of Cayde tying a rope around a dead guy to obscure the tableau for anyone who happened to look this way. The thumbs up didn't help. Tony gave a weak, uncomfortable smile in response, mirroring the gesture unenthusiastically, then waving his hands impatiently to get this over with. "One--two--three," he counted off for them to gather up the dead weight, and heave it over the side of the ship.

The head came off in Tony's hands. The body hit the side of the ship with a horrible thud. As much as he didn't want to, Tony leaned over the mascot head in his arms to inspect what had happened, to see the body strung up against the side of the ship, pressed flat by the sheer except for his flapping hands and the ripple going through what was left of the frog costume. There weren't any windows down there, were there?

While Tony actually worked up the nerves to look, Cayde was still frozen in the cringe he'd tensed into upon that awful sound. He slowly melted back into neutral, stepping over beside Tony to look back down.

"...maybe this wasn't such a hot idea after all."

Were there windows? He sure hoped not. Cayde glanced over at his partner in crime.

"...I won't tell if you won't."

"Not one of my best," Tony agreed, muttered between grit teeth, and he stepped back away from the railing, not eager to keep watching the awful display they had produced. Walking around with the frog head still in hand was definitely not going to be easy to justify if someone did find that body before they had the chance to find the murderer, and maybe pin the atrocity part on him as well. "This guy is the snitch," he pointed out as he glanced around for somewhere to stow it quickly.

That was going to be a very telling thing for sure. Cayde grimaced at the head, deciding he'd seen enough of that thing to last him another lifetime. Plucking it from Tony's grasp, he lobbed it over the edge.

"-it would've been out there either way," he reasoned. "Shall we go beg the lady for an autograph?"

That was certainly a safe distance away. Tony watched the head go with blank acceptance, vividly predicting where it would drop out of the sky next to some unsuspecting farmer or adventurer, and only ruin their pants if they were lucky. "Are you sure you're not the murderer?" he checked in, twirling a finger and nodding for this latest crime, but was already turning on his heel to continue their search for the disgraced socialite. She couldn't have gone far. It was pretty unlikely more than one person was hanging off the side of the same boat.

"If I am, this makes you my accomplice," Cayde said cheerily, but he followed along after Tony after a quick look about just to make sure they hadn't missed anyone watching the whole thing. The more he thought about it the worse he figured it would be to have to explain the whole matter if someone did think to question them.

"For the record, if things go south? I am confident I can get us both down safely on the ground after a freefall. Okay, about eighty-five percent confident."

"Eighty-five is good odds," Tony accepted, clearly not about to reject an offer to jump off of the flying machine. They could figure it out on the way down. "You know, I'm only on this boat to see if this planet was secretly also Agra-10, like in another universe--there's other Earths, why wouldn't there be other Agra-10s? Turns out, that's stupid. Just another planet, of the infinite planets of the multiverse that it was just as likely to be. And I'm not even getting paid."

"Eh, wasn't too bad a thought. I mean, who knows where they end up sending us, right? I wonder where they get the head's up that there's something to find here..."

Cayde shook his head, waving it off as he stepped forward to get the door once they neared it. Inside and away from suspicious railings trailing ropes with dead frog men. "Getting paid would be nice. We actually had to get jobs here! What fun is that?"

"I thought they were paying you for the frog thing. Don't tell me you're frog pro bono," Tony said, hand to his chest to look scandalized with disgust that Cayde could be otherwise fulfilled by his mascot venture. The whistle of the wind died as soon as they stepped inside, replaced by a soft chattering of two dozen people, making Tony's voice seem very loud suddenly. Or maybe that was the staring they were doing, enough eyes on them to make Tony slow to a stop, hand forgotten on his chest even as he turned toward Cayde, and the big, viewing windows that framed him. They might have had less time than previously thought.

"-well I was supposed to get paid upon arrival but obviously that's not going to happen now," Cayde said, tossing up his hands.

"Uh."

Well, this was super awkward. Cayde glanced at the others in the room, no small number on this boat. He looked at Tony and then slooowly towards the windows. While his mouth couldn't be seen, enough of the 'Oh' was whispered to be heard at least by Tony.

It was a nervous second or two before he abruptly turned back towards the others in the room, raising his hands up. "That's now how the scene's supposed to go- you're supposed to keep murmuring! You!" He pointed randomly at someone just off to the side. "Apples and oranges. Just say it, I know it sounds foolish. You, you're next, same thing- look, it won't work if you say it all at the same time, we're trying to create a continuous susurrus."

Keep them engaged, sure, that could work, as long as there was a reasonable end point where they didn't have to be engaged anymore, which Tony doubted was magically working itself out on their behalf. His focus quickly skipped through the crowd, clearly trying to figure out what to make of them, and how seriously they should be taken, and it might have been the last good moment for Tony to take advantage of that focus and ask, "Has anyone seen Hedda? We're looking for her." Announcing their intentions like that was definitely going to make things worse if she also turned up dead now. The evidence was mounting. But cutting down on the search time right now felt more valuable.

"She's with the Captain," a familiar voice supplied, sneering and narrow-eyed. The other woman that the socialite had been scrapping with on the dock.

Cayde tried. He wasn't quite sure what he was going for, honestly, but he still tried. Tony asking around for their target- maybe that wasn't the best way to refer to her, all things considered- had not been something he expected, but at least it got them an answer and less reason to be standing around here.

"Great, thanks," the Hunter said with an exaggerated bow, because clearly they couldn't be doing any worse with this crowd. He tried to steer Tony towards the first set of doors he found and hopefully it wasn't another bathroom.

It was a hall, where Tony dropped his voice to report, "That gal was throwing down with the one we're looking for, before we got on the ship. If this one turns up dead, I know who I'd be asking about it, Hot Stuff." Maybe she was on a spree, or her poison had landed in the wrong hands--it wasn't like the footman cared very much about who ended up with the box. As much as Cayde was steering him, Tony was steering back, so they were dragging each other along as Tony grew steadily certain there was another body waiting for them somewhere, and they had now positioned themselves as the prime suspects in a mass murder situation. "Captain steers the ship, Captain would be at the wheel," he encouraged, like he knew exactly where that even was in this magical machine.

"Hm," Cayde noted, committing the woman's face to memory as a potential suspect. The two probably looked like they were drunk themselves as they eventually made way along the hall.

"Yes, wheel. Great detective work. Um, so...would it be up top like a classic ship or below like...them old navy carriers or something..." he pondered aloud, because he hadn't really been given a tour of the place once he boarded.

"It's up here, it's got to be, this whole thing is spectacle so--" Tony insisted, keeping one hand on Cayde to keep pushing him along even as he turned to press his nose to the nearest window to try to see some kind of helm out on the deck, like a proper sailing vessel, and they were just very distracted by the corpse when they were out there.

"That's them," the familiar voice was suddenly back, venomous and smug, down the hall where they came from. The woman was standing there just as casually, flanked by two more people in the ship's uniform like the footman, though these ones looked a little more clear-eyed and attentive. And they looked about to attend to the capture of a couple of people who threw bodies over the side of boats.

One!! It was just one body!

Cayde looked at Tony, about to question the man's certainty about where a wheelhouse would be on a flying boat when that voice he just had a feeling he'd hate spoke up from behind them. Even with his face covered, Tony could probably imagine the look Cayde cast him as he glanced between the trio and him. That's...probably not a good thing.

To his credit, he didn't immediately reach for a weapon, instead turning about, setting his hands at his hips. "What, you looking for more acting coaching? I'm flattered that she's recommending me but I gotta warn you, I charge a steep fee."

The look was shared as Tony turned woodenly away from the window, then slowly toward the ship's crew, already starting to raise his hands in surrender when Cayde spoke up. Oh, okay, they weren't doing that. Tony tried to lower his hands in a gesture that read more placating than aborted, and added cheerfully, "It's worth it, honestly, take out a loan if you have to, he's the best in the biz. Hedda and I are working on a new thing today, how to look really suspicious. I think we've made big breakthroughs."

This did not appear to be a convincing performance, despite Cayde's credentials. The crew shared a wary look, then started their advance, one warning, "We'll be able to clear this up once we land."

Cayde straightened a bit, exaggerating his reactions enough that they could be read easily without someone deciding to ask for him to remove his helmet. That'd be an immediate abort of the whole play right there. Whatever it was they were going for anyway.

"Clear up what now?" he asked, his casual approach unfailing, but then it was virtually a defense mechanism in itself by now. "Did we do something to offend the lady?"

"Some of the passengers," the man corrected, dissuading any direct accusation of any ladies in particular, "claim to have seen you and your friend throwing something overboard." Sure enough, Tony started tapping urgently on Cayde's elbow to get his attention on the window, where another crew member was tugging ineffectually at the rope that was held taught over the side of the ship. "That is a safety concern that we have to take very seriously."

"You know, that does make a lot of sense, now that you say it," Tony responded, shooting Cayde a brief, hard look for the throwing of the frog head, but Tony would rather avoid having plenty of time in the brig to discuss the details of that particular choice. "Won't happen again, you're right, can't be too careful."

Cayde distractedly batted at Tony's hand as he tried to take in what they were being accused of. He finally glanced back towards the window, stiffening under Tony's hand, if just for a split second.

"-oh you can't tell me no one's littered from this boat. Do you go after people for spitting over the edge too?" he said, practically overlapping with Tony's reassurance. Even then he started to shift his weight, murmuring just loud enough for Tony to hear. "Sundance, what do our exits look like?"

There was the doorway that they had been headed toward, and a smaller one between them and the crewmen, facing the windows with a sign declaring that it would take them into a stairwell. To get back actually outside meant going through their advancing opposition, or a window.

Tony took a slow step back as the men came closer, eyes narrowing at the glee the woman at the far end of the hall seemed to be taking in watching the scene. "We can discuss that when we land," the man repeated, sounding much harder and less patient now, starting to lose his cool in the face of this opposition.

Was it really opposition though? Cayde actually stepped towards the two was they started towards them, although not more than a step, looking past them at the woman. Yeah, something definitely up with that one.

"Okay, fine. So in the meantime we can chill, right?" he asked, even as he cast a brief glance over at Tony. Do they make a run? Do they charge? Neither really would do anything to clear them up from this.

"In the meantime, you can come with us," the man corrected. "We'd like this to be the end of the disturbance."

Tony didn't look particularly eager to do either option, swaying backward again like he might bolt for the door, but also starting to raise his hands in surrender again. "No disturbances, of course, we completely understand. We've just never taken this trip before, so maybe it's a cultural thing, I wasn't really prepared, that's on me, I can be kind of impatient, my dad would tell you, I'm a real terror, always needed a lot of attention, creating a scene, I should know better by now. Him, though, he does his best to rein me in, he was trying to tell me and I wasn't listening, you know, he's collateral damage and I think we can all understand that he doesn't deserve to be--are we getting arrested, is that what's happening here?"

Yeah, he was afraid it'd be that. "Wait- is this...are we a disturbance? So far as I know, we haven't really done anything. I think that this is a very lopsided claim here!"

Again, Cayde began babbling simultaneously with Tony. Maybe they were the ones needing the rehearsing. As Tony continued, the Hunter dropped his own hands, nodding along and pointing as he felt was expected of him before pausing and looking in mock shock from the man to the opposition, hand flying to his chest.

"Arrested?? Now that seems uncalled for!"

Edited 2022-08-30 03:45 (UTC)

"--for him, see, he barely knows what's happening here," Tony continued, hard edged as he widened his eyes at Cayde to maybe stop provoking them. If they would be satisfied with taking Tony to whatever backroom interrogation setup they had prepared, Cayde could figure out what had happened to the bathroom-body, which Tony tried to express by winding his hands and explaining in a voice that was slightly too loud, "I'm sure I can clear everything up for you, and my friend can go back to enjoying his experience, you won't even know he's here."

The crewmen didn't seem to quite know what to make of that, looking between each other, not convinced that they should be trusting a party simultaneously admitting their guilt. That wasn't a trustworthy person. "Come on," one of them finally declared roughly, and each moved to grab one of their disturbances.

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