Jorgmund Emergency Announcement Part II

[piper90npcs]

[That horrible alert sound goes off on all their communicators, and after three minutes, Richard Washburn shows up on the screen. He clearly hasn’t sleep, although he’s just as clearly doing his best to hide that fact.]

Good early morning, hires. Unfortunately, it seems like there’s been very little forward progress on identifying which of you is the shapeshifter, and just as little progress finding the body of whomever it’s impersonating. We’ve spoken with some of our foremost scientists and they believe with a significant degree of certainty that this Stuff creature can only impersonate child-friendly figures.

Some of you have petitioned me and have made compelling cases that no child would ever want anything to do with you, and as such I’m clearing you for release for an internal mission to find the body of the person who was replaced by the impersonator. The following people are cleared to leave…Mr. Price, Mr. Winchester, Agent South Dakota, Agent Washington, Ms. Burnham, Ms. Kerrigan, Alia, Agent Tucker, Mr. Loken, Ms. Haynes, Guts, and…Mr. McDonald.

Hopefully they’ll be alive still.

For the rest of you, it’s been pointed out to me that there are ways you may be able to examine each other and determine who among you is a shapeshifter, and that you may need to demonstrate powers or look at each other in person. As such, while the living quarters as a whole remain locked, you are all released from your dorms and may mingle with each other.

The higher-ups have gotten impatient with this entire thing, so if you haven’t identified the imposter in the next…[he checks his watch]…two hours, my hand may be forced and I may need to utilize your collars to see if we can use discomfort to force the creature to reveal itself.

Please continue to keep me updated.

Comments

locked to team one

[trialbyliar]

[The response to their theorizing comes not on this post through their comms, but instead as a voice calling out distantly from Setsuna's comm. If the line's gonna be kept open anyway, he prefers the relative privacy.]

Yup, yup! Our knock-off Santa did indeed have a sack! Buuut that missing uniform is way more important if you ask me. I mean, you know what that means, right?

[Yeah, he's gonna be a pain in the ass about this.]

Re: locked to team one

[passifloraincarnata]

[Setsuna's comm is already in hovermode, but she turns back to it as Kerrigan's message interrupts Kokichi's feed on her end, and gives Kokichi an only partially apologetic moue and a shrug before setting her own video feed to broadcast to all New Hires as well.]

[One wonders if this causes any sort of annoying feedback screech or if it's just the regular level of annoying that comes with all three of them being able to hear each other thrice over simultaneously within the same room.]

[She straightens, still irritable, nudging a few pieces of candy aside with her foot.]

There was a locked trunk here. ["Was", being the operative word; the feed shows nothing so much as splintered-open painted wood to either side of where candy still spills.] It's full of ... candy. Nothing but Christmas candies. I'm hoping they were put here by Jorgmund staff in advance of 'rewarding' someone and then simply forgotten about, but under the circumstances, given this creature's preferred victims ... I doubt it.

I'm going to disassemble the bed next, just in case. I don't see anything visibly concerning, but judging by what else we've found here, looks could be deceiving.

[Also, that way, she doesn't have to be looking directly at it when either South or Kerrigan opens the sack and confirms what she already fears might be inside.]

[She moves to the side of the bed, shuffling or kicking candy out of her path, and simply hauls the mattress, sheets, duvet and all, off the bedframe, flipping it as she does so it falls upside down upon the soft duvet, now-untucked sheets falling to either side of it. She leaves the feed to notice anything immediately revealed in the process to the rest of the New Hires, turning her own attention back to the frame instead in case the removal of the mattress has exposed any secrets that might lie hidden beneath.]

locked to New Hires

[zerg_rush]

[Unfortunately for Kokichi, what he said is loud enough to be picked up and rebroadcast to the New Hires channel in a strange, echo-y reverb.

Kerrigan ignores Kokichi's general Kokichi-ness as she looks through the bathroom cabinets (solely on principle—she doesn't think there are likely to be any clues there), reasoning through the problem aloud.]

Right. "Santa" dumps the candy from the sack, tries to clean it out to reuse for something, gives up, and takes a uniform to change into, maybe not in that order. It didn't do the lock, at least not at the same time. It's not a rush job, and there are fingerprints. Is it that good a mimic?

[Kerrigan huffs. Not enough information.]

Hey, uh, Cure Passion [oh god why is this happening] how much would you say that candy weighs?

[ownperson]

[ South's eye-roll at Kokichi is off-camera. ]

Yeah, and the uniform's size is fuckin' important, too. If the thing's taken it to wear then whoever it's mimicking can't be someone who needs large and up. Might rule out some people.

[ South does a final sweep of the closet before figuring she's found all there is to find, then heads back out into the rest of the room. After a brief pause to blink at the mess Setsuna's made now that she's seeing it in person, she heads to check the perimeter of the room and the other doors. ]

Uh, yeah, so, looks like the other locks in here are all fucked up too.

[passifloraincarnata]

[Setsuna's answer is immediate, and certain.] Heavy enough they'd have to be very strong to carry all of it for long without strain. It looks to be almost twenty kilograms' worth of candy, if not more.

... a little over a third of the weight of the average adult human body weight, at best.

[Don't everyone thank Cure Passion for that extremely helpful but extremely morbidly concerning fact all at once, now.]

[She frowns, invisible to the feed, as she's facing the candy, not her comm.] Does that even help us at all?

[zerg_rush]

[Kerrigan knows what a kilogram is, Setsuna. And what hauling a dead body is like.]

It means the thing knew the sack would at least hold a child. It's a lot easier to explain a bag over your shoulder than an unconscious kid. It scrapped that plan when it couldn't get out the suspicious stains.

[She holds said suspicious stains up to the camera. Everybody look at the gross goo!]

The black stuff smells rotten. [Wait.] I mean literally rotten, not just bad.

[It reminds her somewhat of the zerg Creep...but she'd prefer not to think about that, and instead she addresses the people waiting in the dorms.]

We still have to search the kitchette, but is there anything you guys want us to take a second look at?

[passifloraincarnata]

Shout out if anything in the refrigerator's turned into a fungusmonster from residual evil corruption at this "Babadon't"'s hands, I wouldn't mind facing a comfortably familiar threat, for once.

[Setsuna doesn't wait to hear if there's any last-minute feedback about their efforts thus far; she nods, respectfully but business-like, to the two soldiers, then turns her head, comm feed following her gaze, towards the door leading out to the gardens.]

I'll see whether there's a lady, or a tiger, beyond this door.

[Some logic puzzles are the same across all worlds, it seems. Setsuna opens the door - by punching the doorknob off, if it isn't easily or already unlocked - and strides through, making her way towards the gardens, braced to pull herself up short in case she faces any obstructions.]

[zerg_rush]

[On her way to the kitchenette, Kerrigan swings by the remains of the chest and helps herself to a handful, popping a peppermint into her mouth. As she turns away she steps on a chocolate Santa, and oops, wouldn't you know it, pivoting on that foot to turn around crushes chocolate into the carpet. Gosh, how careless of her.

She idly offers her candy-filled hand to South as she heads in to rummage through cupboards for clues, and maybe for a really big container to fill with candy. She's not even particularly enthused about sugar, but she is all in on any sort of petty revenge on Jorgmund.]

Dirty sponge, clean sink.

[Her voice is a little indistinct around the mint.]

Who wants to do the trash can?

[trialbyliar]

[ rude

But whatever. The annoying voice is undeterred.]

Don't go ruling anyone out too quick. I mean, isn't it more likely that missing uniform was meant to fit whatever body it swapped to after Santa, if Santa's discarded stuff is in there? Since it wasn't Santa when it entered the dorms area.

[The voice coming from Setsuna's comm turns a bit sly.]

Buuut if we know it can't replicate clothes and it did change into someone that wouldn't fit that uniform, then maybe someone in the dorms is short a spare uniform?

[ownperson]

Right. It was other shit in-between. Almost forgot about that. Fuck, that's a good point then...

[ Don't sound so loathe to admit it, South. ]

Whatever. Keep it in mind, I guess. We don't know exactly what this thing's been doing, it could have been back here multiple times.

[passifloraincarnata]

Shout out if anything in the refrigerator's turned into a fungusmonster from residual evil corruption at this "Babadon't"'s hands, I wouldn't mind facing a comfortably familiar threat, for once.

[Setsuna nods, respectfully but business-like, to the two soldiers, then turns her head, comm feed following her gaze, towards the door leading out to the gardens.]

I'll see whether there's a lady, or a tiger, beyond this door.

[Some logic puzzles are the same across all worlds, it seems. Setsuna opens the door - by punching the doorknob off, if it isn't easily or already unlocked - and strides through, making her way towards the gardens, braced to pull herself up short in case she faces any obstructions.]

[The sight of wilted lilacs and roses out the windows into the Gardens that her comm feed shows from its vantage point, just inside the hallway, certainly can't be alarming to just Setsuna alone. Perhaps more startling, to those who've never seen Cure Passion in action during any of their off-Rig missions, is the reflexive swiftness with which she grabs her comm in one hand and then teleports into the ruined patches to begin searching them, the video feed briefly swallowed by a blinding stab of bright red light from the ability in use.]

[It does, however, neatly clear her identity of suspicion, given this is almost certainly not something anyone else could easily mimic, and demonstrate to Kokichi how she could've reached the rewards lounge as fast as she did; not that she's really concerned about either of those possibilities at the moment.]