gooseberryhigh

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PROM

PROM

It's an overcast, windy day as all the prom-goers excitedly pile onto the busses to leave the anti-apparition zone. After that, it's a quick Portkey to California, where a mansion has been rented out for the dance.

It's just beginning to drizzle as everyone is given a short reprieve to drop off their things, get into their clothes for the dance, and maybe recover from a bit of portkey sickness. After that, it's time for dinner, and finally... the dance!

It's raining hard, filling the room with a romantic roar as everyone files into the ballroom. Ursula de Luca gets up on stage to greet the crowd, and to announce this year's prom royalty. Four freshmen hold little pillows with the suitably fancy crowns as Ursula reads off the names:

Queen Wilhelmina Tran & King Leonardo Fiori

Princess Mackenzie Prince & Prince Casey Patterson

The winners are called on stage to be crowned, and a few embarrassing snippets from their nominations are read aloud to the student body. Mrs. Bloom commends Mina on her willingness to take control, and Leonardo for his determination and responsibility. Kenzie is complimented for her ability to command respect, and Casey is lauded for his enthusiasm and drive. The audience applauds. Their dates are invited to stand with them for the prom court photos, and then they are invited to take to the floor for a dance.

After that's over, the lights go out! Thre's a sudden crash and scream! It's obviously part of the story, though, as Todd Skynner jumps up on stage as the lights come back on. They announce that Mr. Gooseberry, the billionaire philanthropist host, has been... murdered!!! But by whom??? Everyone who signed up for the game is asked to check their clue cards, which are charmed visible only to them. Whoever can solve the mystery by the end of the night will win 100 dragots, a deerstalker hat, a mysterious magnifying glass charm*, and will earn their house an advantage in next month's water balloon fight.

*The magnifying glass will be an asset in the end game plot, but we cannot tell you how!

RULES

Busses will pick up the rest of the students going to prom at 5:00 PM. If they're spending the night, they'll need to bring their own necessities.

The busses will take the students to a location where portkeys will transport them to... a mansion in California! Unfortunately no one gets to enjoy the nice west coast weather, as it looks like a storm is rolling in.

Upon arrival, everyone will be given an envelope that contains information on how to play in the murder mystery, their room assignment and key, a colourful nametag with their prom name (optional to wear), the schedule, and general rules.

Students will have about 45 minutes to drop off their things in their rooms and put on their dresses and suits!

It begins raining at 6:00 PM.

Dinner will be served at 6:30 PM in the ballroom, which offers four different dishes: chicken, beef, vegetarian pasta or vegan ratatouille. It's a sit-down dinner with large tables for groups, and smaller tables for couples.

Photos will be taken of couples or friends on the grand staircase in the entryway.

We had to ditch the idea of prom crimes. We simply didn't have the time to fill in the gaps. Sorry everyone. :(

By 7:00 PM, the rain has become a dramatic thunderstorm. The mansion is positioned so if you go to the western windows and balconies, you can see it raging over the ocean.

The dance begins after dinner at around 7:30 PM, so if you eat quickly you can go freshen up before heading to the ballroom.

Prom royalty is announced, and after that, the Murder Mystery begins at 8:00 PM. This is essentially a big, live action version of Clue. Each year plays a separate game, and has separate killers to track down. All the rules can read HERE. All suspects, weapons and rooms are listed HERE. (You can hit "File > Make a copy" to get a document you can edit.) We're cutting off accusations and announcing winners after Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 11:59 PM MT.

Quiet time in the hotel wing of the mansion begins at 10:00 PM, but curfew isn't until 12:00 AM, when everyone is expected to be in their room.

No one is allowed to leave the grounds. You will be punished if you're caught with illegal substances or items.

» BEFORE THE DANCE: On campus waiting for classes to end, time just seems to drag on and on for the students going to prom.

» Arrival & prep: See your rooms and get ready to go! There's a rush of activities as everyone scrambles to get read and look their very best. The hallways are chaotic with laughing, screaming teenagers all blasting their own music. This is a non-mystery area, you can't question other murder mystery players here.

» Dinner: In the ballroom before the dance begins, students can be seated in pairs or goups, where they'll receive a limited table service meal. The cuisine is Italian, and you have your choice of chicken, beef, vegetarian pasta, or vegan ratatouille. Dessert is tira misu, or vegan sorbet. This is a non-mystery area, you can't question other murder mystery players here.

» ballroom: After all the tables are cleared out, the large ballroom hosts the main part of the dance. There's plenty of space to shake your stuff, and a refreshments table for when you get thirsty. A little sign reminds people that students are limited to three cupcakes a piece. Huh. Why is that? Earlier in the evening, the music will be modern and exciting, but as the evening winds down it begins to favor classical and romantic ballads. This is a non-mystery area, you can't question other murder mystery players here.

» conservatory: A glass and iron greenhouse extending out into the garden. The sound of the rain is almost deafening, but it's very romantic. There are little tables to sit at, and lush plants for decoration. It smells incredible.

» billiard room: There are billiards tables available if anyone wants to try their shot at pool. There will be RNG matches of pool, ran somewhat like Quidpong. Post your character's name to accept challengers, and the mods will roll you results. You're limited to two games per character, after which we'll stop rolling results for you.

» library & study: A very scholarly room, with ceiling high bookshelves overflowing with old texts. This is a relatively quiet room, and there are plenty of nooks and crannies to get lost in.

» lounge: This is a popular sitting and socializing area, with chairs pulled around coffee tables and the music of the dance perfectly audible. The lounge has a balcony that provides an incredible view of the storm over the ocean.

» accusations: If your character is making an accusation to try and win the murder mystery, comment here with who they think the murderer is, the murder weapon, and the room it was done in. Remember, you only get two accusations before you're disqualified. Anyone disqualified or any killers/accomplices caught get a small consolation prize.

» end of the night: Everyone returns to their room, and some students take the opportunity to end up in rooms they weren't strictly assigned to. I'm sure there's nothing scandalous going on, though! All the rooms are unique, and somewhat eclectic. They may contain twin beds or queen beds, and will all be rather darkly decorated. This is a non-mystery area, you can't question other murder mystery players here.

» the morning after: Everyone wakes up... well, maybe not in their own bed, but a bed. Grab breakfast and get ready for the trip home.

» OOC: QUESTIONS, COMMENTS & CONCERNS

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All three big mysteries were solved. Lucas ... didn't really help all that much. It was all very overwhelming and a glance through the pocket notebook he'd brought to take backup notes indicated that he'd spent very little time writing anything and had mostly just gawked at the paintings and woodwork and furniture. His mom would love this place. He loved this place. And he really needed to get back to the library to check things out in greater detail.

Ordinarily, Lucas would've just wandered away from the group and made his way there on his own, but that seemed like a rude thing to do when you were professionally attending a dance. So after standing around angsting about this for a while, desire to check out the books finally won out and he asked Bash if he wanted to tag along to the library.

"This place has a ridiculous amount of books," he says once they've gotten there. "Some day I want to have this many." After a pause, he admits, "But it'll all be Star Wars EU stuff."

Bash had notes. Lots of notes. They just - were more doodles of wrenches and poorly-rendered revolvers interspersed with 'To Googl'e questions about how easy it'd be to garrote someone with piano wire (And would you need gloves? Of what thickness?) than, y'know, actually helpful things. If he'd taken a minute to go over them again, he probably would've done fine. But, whatever. No biggie. Actual Murder wasn't going unsolved.

He's more than happy to follow Lucas back to the library. If by 'more than happy' he's allowed to mean ridiculously stoked - because this is some Beauty and the Beast meets the interior decorator for the Addams' Family level of librarying right here. He really wants to find one of those rolling ladders. He won't. But he really does want to.

"Do you think somebody's read all of them?" he asks, because it's a genuinely intimidating amount of books for a place that was originally intended to be somebody's house. But then he's laughing, question gleefully replaced by: "Forget that - you think the universe is this extended yet?"

"Probably not," Lucas drawls the first syllable. It sounds like there's more to that thought, but he has to take a moment to gape at one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves first. "But, someday." he says with the certainty of your standard issue sixteen-year-old Star Wars fan.

He reaches out and touches a shelf, but tentatively, like he's afraid an alarm will sound when he does. It does not. Cool. Lucas glances over his shoulder at Bash. "What if one of these books is actually a trigger for a hidden passage or something?" How could a place like this not have hidden passages?

"You think the new movie's gonna be good?" Bash inquires, absolutely 100% not at all scanning the room for rolling ladders. "I hope the new movie's gonna be good. Even though they're definitely gonna murder the hell out of the EU. There's no way they're going into that much history."

RIP all over again, Mara Jade Skywalker.

"Yeah, but what do you think you're gonna get -" He raises a hand, tips it back and forth like a see-saw. "Hypothetical Batcave or entrance to a horrifying torture dungeon?" The exterior design isn't terribly reassuring. Not that this stops him from edging his way forward curiously.

"Ugh, even if it isn't, I'm still seeing it twenty-four times." Lucas says, utterly resigned to his fate. He touches the top of a thick old leather-bound book and, after a moment's hesitation, pulls it out halfway. Nothing happens. That sucks. "There'll probably be a lot of lens flare, but I can deal with that. Farewell to Thrawn, though, for sure."

The question prompts a grin and a heavy shrug. "Oh, you know me. Expect the horrifying torture dungeon. Hope for the Batcave." Lucas pulls out another book. This one is titled More Ghosts! Nothing. "Maybe an old, long forgotten Soviet spy intel room, though."

"Thrawn." His voice drags the word out into an unnecessarily dramatic groan of mourning. "You poor, beautiful, blue bastard." One beat, philosophical. "At least you're on Rebels." And then another. "At least I can use my nieces as a legit excuse to be watching Rebels on the regular." Not that he needs it. Just that it's a nice excuse to have.

"Or it's a totally active Soviet spy intel room and we're going to be in serious trouble in a few seconds." Seeing as his nose is practically against one of the shelves at this point, this potentiality doesn't seem to be too off-putting. "Maybe it's a statue." He leans back, squinting across the room. "Maybe we need to tilt a statue. Or move a ficus."

"Wall sconce?" Lucas says, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world and he can't believe they didn't think of it earlier. "That's a long time for a Soviet espionage initiative to be up and running...Although, maybe they didn't get the memo." Or maybe they're ghosts. Lucas doesn't say that part, but he definitely thinks it.

He stops picking at random books to glance at Bash. "How many do you have? Um, nieces, I mean." To Lucas, a niece or nephew is something you are. Not something you have. It's kind of an alien concept.

"They're very dedicated to the mission," he replies, scanning the walls for a moment before his eyes catch on the aforementioned wall-decoration. Which is - yeah, he's too short to just casually yank on one of those. Although ...

No. He is a Prefect and he is not going to climb a bookshelf. The amount of restraint this takes is so great that it's almost a visible force pressing him into the ground.

Bash latches onto the question with great deal of very necessary attention. Nieces. He's got those. Definitely. "Three," he manages, with a very firm nod. "So far. I mean, I feel like Beth might be done repopulating the world now - but there's five of us, so who knows? Her opinions on how many children a normal human being is supposed to have are probably skewed."

"Huh. Full house." Lucas says, head tilted to the side. He tries not to - really he does - but watching Bash struggle with whether or not to scale a bookshelf has Lucas cracking a smile. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, again, and joins Bash, standing obviously close to the light fixture, which is very much within his arm's reach.

This is quite amusing to him.

After a few moments of being quietly pleased with this fact, he reaches up, hand hovering an inch or two away from the fixture. "No whammies," he says - it's something his mom says - and then wraps his fingers around the sconce and gives it a light tug. It remains firmly in place. No secret passage. "Awh."

"You got siblings?" Bash asks, turning to face Lucas as he makes his way over. "Or is it -" he pauses, lips twitching to the side and he bounces himself up onto his toes. It doesn't really make all that much of a difference, to be honest. Which isn't funny. At all. "Dude."

Like, damn. When will his growth-spurt come back from war?

He's leaning forward eagerly, so the quiet "big money" he mutters under his breath is automatic and absentminded. (His Gram likes the Game Show Channel, sue him.) But then he's letting a dramatically let-down huff of air. "We're never making it to the Batcave now."

"Who builds a giant Gothic mansion and doesn't put in a secret passage? Seriously." Sounding very put out, Lucas snorts and lets his hand fall away from the sconce. After a beat, he's back to grinning at Bash, small smile pulling to one side of his face. "Guess apprenticing to the world's greatest detective just wasn't in the cards. Looks like you'll just have to settle for Aquaman, now."

He rocks back on his heels. More notably, he's not looking at everything else in the room at the moment. It's like he's content to just chat or something. Shocking. "Oh, um, it's just me. No siblings."

"There's a secret passage somewhere. There's no way there isn't a secret passage somewhere. We're just not gonna be the ones that find it." He shrugs, but doesn't seem to be too put out about the whole thing. They tried. The mansion wins this round. "And Aquaman's probably more on my level anyway. Just scraping my way into the Justice League by the skin of my teeth."

Being aware of your superheroic limitations was a valuable lesson in humility. Or something.

"Yeah? Is that -" his nose wrinkles. "I was gonna say quiet, but you wouldn't have a basis for comparison. You ever want 'em? Or do you like it? Y'know, having all your parents' attention - getting a room all to yourself?" He snorts, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "I ain't never slept anywhere that didn't have at least one person all up in my business."

"That sounds..." Lucas tries to come up with a word that isn't 'terrible.' His mouth presses into a flat line. It takes him a second before he realizes that this is actually a very familiar description, but when he does, he exhales a huff of laughter. "Honestly, a little bit like being in Azurcrest."

"So, I guess I could go for it." His gaze drops thoughtfully to the floor. Last year, Lucas had been terrified of being sorted into Azurcrest. Now, he wouldn't trade it for the world. "Everyone who has siblings that I know of seems to like 'em. You like yours, right? Would you go in for being an only child?"

"So my house is basically your House," he replies, lips splitting into a wide grin. Hey, it's a good house. He'll vouch for it. "Maybe that's why I wasn't sorted that way. Azurcrest didn't want to deal with all this."

Which is a dirty lie. Ms. Rhee drew the short straw on dragging his ass out of the Sorting Cave and everybody knows it.

Bash takes a second to genuinely think it over. He - well, he can't really say that he has before. He's the last one. His sisters were an inevitability. "I don't think I'd do real well," he admits, smile going a bit sheepish around the edges. "I barely do well on my own just for school. I mean, Ariel's usually the one holding the 'Shut the Fuck Up, Bash' card."

"Guess so," Lucas' smile broadens when Bash's does. "Maybe it knew you just needed a break. A vacation. I'm willing to bet Ebonhide features, at most, half as much excited yelling as Azurcrest." Lucas is...not innocent of Azurcrest-style yelling. It's a community-building exercise, he's pretty sure. They all have a lot of important things to say. And it's vital that all bird opinions are heard and commented on. By everyone. Simultaneously.

"Come on," a disbelieving laugh. "You're a prefect. You've got thirty-nine best friends. You're funny. You--" Lucas holds that thought. Lets his tongue twist in his mouth. "You're doing fine. Haven't had to use the card tonight, have I?"

"Less yelling, maybe - but, between me and Solo, there's plenty of words being tossed around." Often in volumes quite a bit higher than whispering. But sometimes the words have to get all the way across the cabin. Which - thinking about it, the whole high volume and lots of words shtick might just be a Sophomore thing.

"Yeah, I - um." God, his nose is really red. Fuck. He swipes a hand across it. "I got meds for that. And - rules are good? I do really well with instructions? Prefecting is nice. Or else I'm all -" he waves a hand in some vague approximation of chaos. "And that's cause you're a nice person."

"I've got you snowed, then." Lucas replies with a confidence that belies his growing embarrassment. The long pause that follows and the way he ducks his head, running a hand over his curls, though, those make it a bit more obvious.

"Having a lot of fun, though." He adds. Maybe he should clarify. Lucas takes a second to think about it and... no, there's no way he's clarifying or expanding upon that point.

Bash barks out a laugh and a reflexive: "Bull shit." Which was - vehement. Um. He coughs, grin curling its way back upward and flush pretty much taking permanent residence on his face. Whatever. No way around that shit.

"Thanks, y'know. For coming." He pauses, then barges forward for further clarification. "Not that you weren't going anyway. Just -" He shrugs up a shoulder. "The with me part?"

Even clamping down on his bottom lip, Lucas' grin still shows through. He laughs, soft and shy. At himself, mostly. This is one of those situations where, ordinarily, he'd want to run. Or self-immolate. And, while his face is feeling pretty warm right now, spontaneous combustion does not actually seem all that likely or, honestly, appealing. Weird.

He's preoccupied with figuring out what to do with his hands (pockets, he settles on his pockets) and where to look. Because every time he looks at Bash he feels his dumb smile pulling wider. So, it takes him a bit longer than it probably should to reply. "I'm glad you asked me. Glad I said yes."

Huh.

Well that's - That's pretty damn nice, isn't it? Like 'probably going to call his sister from whereverthefuck he can find a reliable signal to ask her really dumb questions about human interaction' nice. But later. Because at the current moment he's kind of busy fiddling with his cufflinks and smiling at his shoes. (Which is kind of stupid. Because they aren't even that great, as far as shoes go.)

"Yeah?" His gaze raises from his stupid shoes. It only really makes it to middle ground, but it's definitely on an upward track. "I mean, yeah. Me too."

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PROM

Lucas & Bash (are probably gonna get kicked out of the library for talking too loud)

Lucas & Bash (are DEFINITELY gonna get kicked out of the library for talking too loud)

Lucas & Bash (have taken it upon themselves to kicked out of the library for talking too loud)

Lucas & Bash (test the upper limits of the library's noise policies)

Lucas & Bash (have five conversations at once, not a single one quiet)

Lucas & Bash (are excellent at multitasking; terrible at volume control)

Lucas & Bash (might break something)

Lucas & Bash (will be getting kicked out of prom)

Lucas & Bash (will be hitchhiking back to utah)

Lucas & Bash (could probably call an uber)

Lucas & Bash (are going to have quite the adventure)

Lucas & Bash (probably don't have enough cash for that)

Lucas & Bash (definitely don't, and will need to go couch diving for change)

Lucas & Bash (should be grateful they're in a mansion, they can sell a couch)

Lucas & Bash (decide to have a yard sale? with someone else's things. in the rain.)

Lucas & Bash (might be able to reach ebay from here)

Lucas & Bash (will need to find an LTE signal first probably)

Lucas & Bash (may actually need to climb a bookshelf)

Lucas & Bash (are definitely going to be put on double secret probation, now)

Lucas & Bash (should've quit when they were ahead. so - 20 minutes ago)