One of Us is Guilty; Chapter 3
Three are now dead, but the killer seems to be caught ... but this night is not over until the room is found.
Characters; Vil Schoenheit, Rook Hunt, Azul Ashengrotto, Jade Leech, Silver, Cater Diamond
Content; Unreliable narrators, murder mystery
Content Warning; Death, murder, blood, anxiety, kidnapping, overall dead dove content warnings
Word Count; 1.1 K
Find this content triggering but still want to participate? Link to the Google Form to vote!
As a reminder, do not put my work — or others for that matter — into AI as it steals. Link to Masterlist
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Epilogue (Part 1) | Epilogue (Final)
The body count had risen to three; Dire Crowley, the Ramshackle Prefect (whose blood still stained the floor, the iron scent permeating the air), and now, Divus Crewel as well, the latest victim. One minute the professor was alive, shaking from anger that one of his students was killed on his watch and that he was the prime suspect of the killings. But now he was sprawled out on the ground, killed in an instant.
The remaining students — Vil, Rook, Azul, Jade, Silver, and Cater — were silent, processing what exactly had just happened. The lights had flickered only for a minute, and in that minute, the killer had struck. But the silence was broken by a deafening clap of thunder, lightning illuminating the windows, and bringing everyone back to the present, to their laughably horrible situation that they had found themselves in by sheer chance and bad luck and timing.
Silver sat down on the staircase, and put his head in between his legs, taking deep breaths. Despite his training, he did not consider that he would be witnessing death so soon. The small part of his brain that had a sliver of hope that his friend had survived their gruesome injury, but he was just lying to himself; no one could survive that.
Vil was pacing, hands clasped behind his back, and he was muttering to himself. He thought he could read people, what with being raised amongst the stars that hid behind too-sweet smiles that belied venomous words. What was there to gain from any of this?
Rook was cracking his knuckles, and then rubbing his eyes, trying to think of why this was happening. While he could appreciate the hunt, this was something entirely different. Yet, it also reminded him of several books; one being a murder mystery, and the other about the deadliest game, of hunting a fellow person.
Azul was shaking and biting his nails, his resolve long gone. Had he made himself the enemy of one of his peers? Was he going to be next? He was supposed to just be perfecting a potion recipe for the next test, yet he found himself way above his head.
Jade looked at Azul, taking in that his house warden and friend was shaking more than the leaves outside in the howling wind. He too was disturbed by the night's events, sick to his stomach even, but he couldn’t show weakness, especially if he wanted to see it through.
And Cater? He was paler than a ghost, a cold sweat glistening on his forehead, and he felt like his heart was going to leap out of his throat. His cheery smile had left long ago, and now panic was fully starting to take control. Why? Why? Whywhywhy? WHY?! Yet he stayed silent.
No one spoke, but they eyed each other with caution. Every time that they had went to the mirror and they voted through it, someone died. Was it the mirror? No… no, that didn’t make sense… None of this made any sense though.
“No more votin-” Silver whispered.
Cater cracked his head around, green eyes judging every move the underclassman made. “And why’s that, Silver?” His voice was shaky, but Cater wasn’t trusting him or anyone for that matter. “Afraid that-”
“THAT’S ENOUGH!” Vil barked, commanding everyone’s attention, eyes all on him. But he was used to eyes being on him, and he stayed cool, despite how this may damn him into being guilty in their eyes. He didn’t care at the moment though, all he cared about was no one else dying. “Look at what being suspicious of each other has brought us,” his eyes wandered to the dark clotted blood that had now gone cold. He swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat, keeping the calm mask up. “I agree with Silver though; voting through the mirror only ends up with someone… dead.”
“Then how do we proceed, Roi du Poison?” Rook asked, falling to his house warden’s side. His eyes looked over everyone, picking up their behaviours, emotions, and any tells.
Azul’s head snapped up. “The potion-” he started muttering to himself, before clearing his throat and gaining his composure again. “A truth potion, but one that shows the truth about the situation, we can use that to find the killer.”
Cater looked at Silver, and offered him his hand; a peace offering. Silver took it, and brought himself up on wobbly knees. A truce.
Jade placed his hand on Azul’s shoulder, offering him a bit of comfort that not everyone was out to get him. “Was that what you were working on?”
Azul nodded, and he started making his way towards the alchemy lab, where hopefully they could put an end to the killer’s little charade once and for all.
…
…
Vil helped Azul make the potion, and both students kept a keen eye on the other, but they made it without incident. And to show the others that they hadn’t tampered with it at all, they took it first, with the others shortly following suit.
“What about the room?” Silver asked.
“We can figure that out once we find the killer,” Jade countered.
Everyone looked at each other, taking in any minute details, but everyone was calm; the potion apparently did wonders to calm the nerves… but that in itself was a dangerous effect, since now everyone’s guards were down, making them easy targets.
Vil took in a breath and released it. “Who killed Dire Crowley? Why did you then kill the Prefect, and then Professor Crewel?”
But no one spoke up.
“It isn’t me,” Vil said confidently, hoping that his speaking up prompted the others to follow suit.
Cater was to his left, and he spoke next. “I didn’t do it.”
Then Silver, “Or me… I couldn’t do something like this…”
“I did not do it either,” Jade offered.
Azul’s eyes went wide, and he eyed the next person in line. “The killer isn’t me.”
All eyes fell on the last person left in their little circle; Rook. With all of them but him left, that only left him.
He let out a throaty, quiet, chuckle. “I suppose this game has run its course,” he tipped his hat to them, green eyes glinting dangerously in the dim light. “As for why? Hmmm,” he hummed, and the hairs on everyone’s necks stood on end. There was something off about Rook, this wasn’t Rook.
“You’ll find that out when you guess the room.”
What?
Everyone took a step closer to each other, away from Rook, and they whispered amongst each other, voting on what room Crowley’s murder took place in.
“Alchemy lab,” Cater spoke for the group, trying to keep his resolve as Rook seemed to stare into the very contents of his soul, like he was searching for something.
Rook stepped forward, still smiling. “Ah, désolé Monsieur Magicam,” the whites of his eyes started turning black, “but you would be wrong.” The lights flickered again, and in the seconds of darkness, Rook was gone, and so was Cater.
GOOGLE FORM (voting will end Wednesday, October 18th at 9pm EST)
SUSPECTS:
- Silver; the kindhearted knight with a mysterious past, is it just for show? (Plum)
- Vil Schoenheit; the actor who is always pigeonholed into the role of a villain (Scarlet)
- Divus Crewel; the alchemy teacher with a penchant for fashion, Crowley’s co-worker (Peacock) DECEASED
- Rook Hunt; the enigmatic hunter who always has a hunch of what’s happening (Mustard) MURDERER
- Azul Ashengrotto; the owner of The Mostro Lounge, a businessman with dubious morals (Green)
- Reader; the ‘house-keeper’, a role that was imposed on them by the late Headmage (White) DECEASED
- Jade Leech; a student enamored by fungi and seems to have a foreboding presence about him (Orchid)
- Cater Diamond; the preppy beau of Heartslabyul, but his smile seems forced (Peach) MISSING
ROOMS:
- Main hall (eliminated in Chapter 2)
- Teachers’ lounge
- Cafeteria
- Kitchens
- Lecture theatre
- Botanical garden
- Alchemy lab (eliminated in Chapter 3)
- Library
- Crowley’s office (eliminated in Chapter 1)
WEAPON: MAGIC (found in Chapter 2)
…
To be continued
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so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...
duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!
reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.
common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,
fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.
characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.
characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.
characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.
The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.
and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.
to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.
so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?
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