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After the first few steps and rotations,it was smooth sailing from then onwards. Eltnam grew quite used to Eris' touch,though he was still waiting for some sort of reply. He appreciated the fact that she didn't freeze him to death upon first contact,taking a closer look at her mask. Her touch felt soft and warm but that could be either his delusion or she just wasn't using her power. Likewise,Eltnam tried his best not to squish and crush her gentle hand. He quickly adapted to the song's rhythm as they had joined the dance quite late but Eris wasn't bad either,able to also follow his lead.

Oh,another person entered the room. Obviously quite a powerful one judging from the posture,the costume and,of course,the mask. Though of course,he didn't let the newcomer distract his dance.

Asha strolled in wearing a pretty red and black dress, it was long but it still showed her feet as to avoid accidentally stepping on it. She smelled like a bouquet of rose's as she looked around the ballroom. Asha didn't really have anything to do at that moment and no one to chat with. God she wished she could just go home but apparently her family sent her here so that she could become the next queen or something. After getting out of her thoughts Asha notices some people were dancing elegantly to a orchastral symphony.

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Heiress Emika/Lady Darling Desire
Lady Emika breathed a sigh of relief, alone once again...

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Lady Eris Everlast
Lady Eris's smile tightened slightly. "The House of Frost is a very demanding place. As the sole heir, er, heiress I suppose, my parents were determined to make sure I was untouched through and through. Whether it was my powers or my parents' influence, many shy away from me the same way I often shy away." She shyly said, omitting a couple facts as the two of them danced.

A guard dashes in, and yells at everyone to evacuate. Most of the guests do, but amidst the chaos, you are all swept into the room. Marquess Yahui is the last to enter, and when they do, the door swings shut and locks itself, causing Kai to yelp in shock and panic, collapsing into the arms of Marquess Apate, who looked at her in disgust before backing away. “Congratulations, dear players! Welcome to our little game! A game of….how would you put it…find the killer before the time runs out!” There is a pause for dramatic effect, then the voice continues “Yes, all ye rumours are true. There are people amongst you now, who would love to kill the Queen. Andddddddddd while I could stop it, I….quite honestly don’t want to. So here’s the first puzzle, get out of the room! Bye loves!” And with that, the voice is no more. Kai promptly lets out another high pitched scream, and faints away in a nearby chair.

---

Stumbling into the room, Yahui was caught by his twin who shares worried looks between them. This was their chance. If they just let things play out, there was a large chance that they could free themselves from the burden of being royalty, of being something that neither of them wanted to be. If they let the killer murder the queen then they could claim that it had traumatized them so bad that they weren't fit to rule anymore. But it wasn't anything that they wanted. People dying just so they could get a chance at living the life they wanted? Perhaps Father's teachings hand influenced them too much but they were going to earn their freedom their own way. If they conversely found the killer, they could get on the Queen's good side and request to simply live as peasants without any worries, disappearing quietly. And that started with getting out of this damned room. It probably wasn't going to work, but Yahui tested the door just to see, already trying to think of what the trick to this task could be. These things were never as it seemed

Mara for their part walked to the windows to see if they would open, while taking stock of the atmosphere of the room. They would have to socialize though, as getting into their heads and analyzing who could be the potential killer was going to be a necessity. To access that level of information though, a deep secret hidden that no one would ever want to show, was going to be difficult. Years of work would be needed, almost impossible within the constraints of such a stressful situation where everyone was bound to be suspicious of each other. Gods, just thinking about it was making Mara's head spin as they tested the windows.

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"Then,for someone such as myself to be able to dance with you,it is the highest honor!" he exclaimed,slightly pulling her body closer to his. He was surprised he was able to even converse with a person like her,so elegant,cute and shy. "Rest assured,I won't shy aw-" he was suddenly interrupted as the music suddenly stopped playing and the guard told everyone to evacuate. Instinctively,he was still holding Eris' hand and kept her close to him while trying to make his way out,hoping she would also leave unscathed as well.

With all everyone pushing and shoving,suddenly throwing all class and nobility out the window, Eltnam ended up in what seemed like to be the guests' room,though as soon as Yahui entered,the door seemingly closed shut. Much to his surprise,he wasn't alone. "I must say,the Queen sure knows how to throw a party." Eltnam added after listening to the voice. This is the sort of event he was waiting for. He had several questions such as 'is the killer within this room?' but eventually he will find out.

The first puzzle is getting out of the room? Child's play for anyone and even more so for someone with a power that enhances the body such as himself.

“There’s a key in here” Kai states, seemingly back from her initial state of unconsciousness. Kai’s first action is to go try the key in the lock on the door, only to be disappointed when it doesn’t fit.

“Not very bright are you Princess? Clearly being royalty doesn’t mean you’re smart. Did you really think they would make it that easy?” Marquess Apate drawls out, getting up from her corner. Her eyes glow red, and they hear footsteps outside the door, before whoever it is- is slammed forcefully into the door, which remains unwavering. She flicks her wrist and screaming is heard as someone gets thrown across the corridor outside. She then settled back into her chair in the corner. “Worth a shot. Now we know brute force doesn’t work— and prissy Princess’s key doesn’t open the door. One of which is a useful piece on information, I don’t need brains to tell you which is which.”

Kai glares at Apate, clearly not happy at being insulted in front of others. “My father will hear about this, Raven” She snaps, huffing as she sat back down on the chair, arms crossed.

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This is the room you guys are locked in! Now, Eltnam will find a locked box in the drawer to the right of the bed. Any character belonging to puppet_master will be the one to realize the key pairs with the box, and open it to find a piece of paper with numbers written in code. Tsuko’s characters will find the decoder, and ShatteredDiamond will be the one to solve the puzzle, enter the number combination and open the door! Feel free to describe it however you wish, but the passcode to open the door must be 6272. Have fun! :)

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"My Ladies,please!" Eltnam raised his voice,something he himself wasn't used to. "We're all locked here and should we not hurry the Queen and Prince..." he didn't even want to utter what would happen to them. He exhaled,collecting his thoughts. "I ask of you to act wisely. Conflict between us won't take us far and certainly not out of this room." He addressed everyone in the room,but more specifically the women already bickering.

He sat on the bed,trying to figure out a way out,inspecting the room. There was a drawer close to him,next to the bed he sat on, and many more next to that. He decided to open the drawer close to him. Surprisingly,the drawer opened quite smoothly,the wooden surface rubbing against the sides. A box was inside,which he carefully took out. It was quite contrasting to the whole aura of the room,it seemed more elegant.

Curious as he was,he tried to open it through various means,simply lifting the lid,shaking it upside down,moving the lid to the side,only to be met with the same disappointing result. Locked.

Letting the ladies bicker among themselves, Yahui floated over to the windows where Mara was checking them, using gloved fingers to check behind them for any latches that could open them. Yahui felt the familiar presence of a second consciousness wrap around his mind like an old friend, welcoming it with a warm touch and open arms. And a healthy heaping of judgment. So much judgement. ("Did you find anything?" "If I did, we wouldn't be having this conversation, dingus." "Ouch, I was only trying to help." "Mhm, sure. And where were you when I needed help?" "Not everyone can just play servant and abandon their duties willy-nilly like you can, peasant.") Glaring at each other, which to any outsider looking on was just plain weird since the two hadn't stopped staring at each other ever since the Marquess approached his personal servant, the twins both turned away with a huff.

Moving on to the next window, Mara felt around again, not expecting much as the other windows had all been smooth panes of reinforced glass, the type that not even a bullet would break. To their surprise, their fingers brushed against a sharp corner, something that had them reflexively yanking their hand back with a grimace. Snatching whatever it was, Mara turned around and presented the... paper. It felt like a folded sheet of paper to their twin. Letting themself back into Yahui's mind, they watched as the paper was unfolded to reveal... gibberish?

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(Yes, I’m finally posting. I’ll be picking up from here)

ততততত▣ ▶👑◀ ▣ততততত

”The crown is mine.”

“You’d be surprised, to strike with a sword, one must also be quick to parry, and to be light on their feet lest they be struck down. Wordplay is surprisingly similar to swordplay, though there are differences in the forging of the weapons themselves. ” Yu smiled, elegantly bowing, taking up the stance of a fencer, procuring a fan out of nowhere and using it in replacement of a sword. “In fact, many would believe the dance and clashing of blades are mesmerising, people fall in love and fall prey to war because of this as well.” With that, Yu began to dance with her fan, emulating a battle with a invisible swordsman. though no sounds could be heard, Yahui could almost see the outline in the smoke taking on the shape of a thin and lithe man, a expression of fear and reverence engraved into their face. But it ended as quickly as it started, smoke dissipating and leaving Yu in the spotlight. “I hope you enjoyed the show, I do not like to boast of my skill, but i do enjoy a good dance.” Before she could continue, a lone guard rushed in, yelling at everyone to get out. Ill prepared of this as she was, she was swept up into the storm and pushed into a room with the other royals, being locked in. Lady Yu looked around in confusion, what was going on? Hearing of the killing game and the escape the room puzzle, her curiosity was peaked, and she was extremely intrigued. Getting up, she began to look around the room to search for clues. A vent or a weapon maybe? That would come in handy. She cut out the screams of kai out of her head, she had no time for those theatrics while her life was at stake. She cast a glance around, recognising many others. her sister Tsuki, Yahui, Yahui’s twin, Oaken Togami, Hearth-Fire and Asha. Nobody really useful as far as she was concerned. She didn’t really believe any of them to be killers, but she couldn’t be sure, best to keep her distance, even from her sister. Her sister had always been a snake, she still hadn’t forgiven her for the time Tsuki tried to convince Yu to jump off a cliff to gain the ability to fly when she was too young and stupid to separate truth from lies. Deep breaths, she told herself. This is no place to start dredging up old memories. She came to with a start when she realised Kai had found a key, perhaps the shrimp wasn’t as useless as she had first thought. But apparently not, as she saw Kai try and fail to open the door with a key. She snorted and Aqpates attempt at opening the door. Clearly if the door could be opened by brute strength from either side, they wouldn’t be here right now, they had plenty on men in the room. “Worth a shot my A$[CENSORED], you barely even tried.” Yu muttered quietly. Meanwhile, Ken was quietly hidden in the shadows, observing the room. Deep down, they were panicking, but they stayed quiet, deciding to survey the room from the shadows. Looking at Eltnam, they realised they had found something and approached. Sitting beside Eltnam, they gazed at the box curiously, watching Eltnam trying to open the box. “Oh how i wish the box would open, maybe there would be a hint inside.” Suddenly, something clicked into his brain, unbeknownst to him, his divine luck had activated, guiding his stream of thoughts towards the answer. He shot up, swivelling to Kai, “GOOD SIR, PASS ME THE KEY YOU FOUND! I BELIEVE I KNOW WHAT IT’S FOR!” He stretched out his hand, waiting to receive the key.

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Merely inspecting the carefully crafted box and looking for a way to open it is a very thin line which Eltnam managed to balance on. Lost in his thoughts,it was natural for him to jump a bit when a loud voice demanded a key. Simply putting two and two together,he gently turned to their direction and presented them the box with both his hands.

"A key? It wouldn't hurt to try using it on this." he said as he stretched his arms a bit,giving the box away. "Don't be discouraged if it doesn't work." he paused to look around. "There are quite other places it could potentially fit." Even though at the surface he seemed calm,a big part of him was worried about the well-being of the ones who organized this masquerade... Could the lot of this room actually save them?

Ken snatched the key from Kai’s grasp brusquely, fitting it into the box and turning it to hear a satisfying click. “YES! I’VE GOT IT!” Ken opened the box and found…a bunch of unidentifiable runes they couldn’t make sense of. “Oh fiddlesticks, It’s just a bunch of nonsense.” They harrumphed, turning to Heiress Emika. “Hey lady, catch.” Ken tossed over the piece of paper to her. “Maybe you’ll make some sense out of this nonsense.”

(AYYYYYY JUST NEED TO WAIT FOR SHATTERED DIAMOND TO POST NOW, THEN WE CAN ESCAPE THE ROOM!)

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Heiress Emika/Lady Darling Desire
Emika caught the paper. Giving Ken a look, she began to examine the runes. She noticed someone, a servant?, holding another piece of paper and quickly took it. Looking over the two papers carefully, she noticed patterns in them. Where one 'rune' went down and left on one paper, the gibberish on the other paper in the exact same spot went up and right. They were opposite yet matched together! Emika put one paper over the other, she held the stack up to the light. In the negative space between the black lines were four numbers. "6...2...7...2..." She said aloud. She moved over to the door, looking carefully... There! A number pad with four spaces above it for the passcode. Emika entered the code 6272 into the pad and hit enter. *BEEP* went the lock and clicked. With a breath, Emika tried the door handle. It was no longer locked. She was able to open the door fully and did so.

The group enter yet another room, a large circular library. They wander around for a bit, not noticing the bookcase-door they just exited from slide shut. No one notices anything, until the room starts to spin, the books on the shelves becoming nothing more than a blur. Kai screams, clinging on to Apate, who looked disgusted and tried to shake her off. Several minutes later, the whirring stopped, and the computer screen sitting on the desk at the center flashed on, and a timer appeared, accompanied by beeping. 5.00, 4.59. 4.58…. Apate glared at the computer, the air around her hands glowing with a red mist. “I like causing chaos, not being IN it. Isn’t there an off switch for that beeping thing?”

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Eltnam walked around the room hoping the exit would just be there. He walked a couple of rounds around the circular library until it started spinning. Losing control and falling on his back,he closed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Didn't think he would be reminded of his motion sickness today. As if that wasn't enough,a screaming voice he couldn't pinpoint nor focus on only amplified how disturbed he felt.

He held himself back from lashing out at the person,since their reaction was somewhat justifiable,when the room stopped spinning and got on his feet,just squatting and staring at the ground waiting for the motion sickness to wear off. "Just what kind of a purpose does that function serve?" he groaned.