[text]

[defenestraighttomyheart]

Hi. I'm Richard Conway, if you haven't seen my public ID. I sometimes do detective stuff.

I, in fact, did some detective stuff a while ago with a few associates. Reno, Kuja, if you're there, well. Thanks for your help, but the situation seems terribly unresolved. Typically, I don't name names, but I hardly see the point in hiding it for this matter.

We were commissioned around Halloween to go find out what was going wrong with this house that the client had bought not too long ago. Bottles of wine missing, chills in the air. That sort of thing. I was guessing this was a matter of kids getting in, drinking all of my client's wine, scaring her, and moving all of her stuff and exploiting superstition. After talking her down, my associates and I checked out the downstairs area and found a wall that looked like it was recently bricked over.

After tearing it down, we found a skeletal corpse of a moogle in a jester outfit, surrounded in wine bottles. Turns out ghost stories aren't just fiction in Vaikuntha. The victim seemed to have been killed multiple times over. If it wasn't the fact that he was bricked over and thus suffocated, there was evidence of a stab wound. If it wasn't the stab wound, it would have been the traces of marlbaro sap that laced the inside of the wine bottle.

Usually, my job is to either get myself stuck into a corporate battle of egos or to find lost pets and junk. I'm a tad out of my element when it comes down to magical murder cases.

I think a good place to start is to try to figure out who owned the house before the current inhabitant, dig through real estate logs and maybe talk to the mayor to see if I can't find the history of the place. Any other ideas?

Comments

[shinra_dog]

You don't name names, huh?

But yeah, I thought the same thing. Someone was fucking murdered. Obviously the spirit wanted the body found, but that's only half the problem.

I was gonna look into this anyway, but we probably would cover more ground if we worked together.

[defenestraighttomyheart]

Hey, I added the qualifier of 'Typically'.

I'm happy to see you back, grisly situation aside. I wasn't able to put this one down, either. I don't have any delusions on the matter, this is a two or three year old cold case, I'm not 100% convinced that we're going to get a lot of salient information without really digging.

But hey, the mognet is a big place. You never know.

[shinra_dog]

I have a feeling it's older than two or three years, too. That was an old house. The wall was newer than the rest of it, sure, but even the wall was pretty old.

Hopefully the MogNet turns up something, but I think our best bet is going back to the neighborhood.

[defenestraighttomyheart]

So, uh. You might be right, and I might be a little dumb.

I took a look at one of the bottles of wine that was left behind. Thing was over fifty years old. I don't think our moogle's that classy of a guy if he was drinking those in bulk.

[shinra_dog]

Clearly he liked his wine.

Maybe his standards fell over the years? Trapped behind a wall, ghost'll take what it can get.

[bladeofconquest]

Oh my, I didn't know you'd been busy with this Mr. Conway. Please be careful, all right? And let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

I'm not sure if I can offer much assistance, but you said the Moogle's body was dressed in a Jester's outfit? There's a Jester's Guild here somewhere, isn't there? If he was wearing one of their outfits, he might have been a member...maybe you could ask there? They must have membership rolls, or records or something, or there might be someone there who knew him.

Unless you've already considered all of this, of course.

[defenestraighttomyheart]

yes i did know this and didn't just now realize that the jester guild is a thing that exists thank you corrin

totally unrelated i kinda feel dumb

[bladeofconquest]

It's okay! I'm just glad I could help you out. Let me know if there's anything else I can do. I've got your back, Mr. Conway.

[desertbloomed]

As the jester guild lead has been discussed, perhaps the wine may provide a lead? More specifically, the malboro sap. I imagine such a thing must be a somewhat rare, or perhaps even a controlled substance.

[defenestraighttomyheart]

Smart idea!

I do imagine that something that causes that kind of instantaneous rot would be like florine levels of controlled.

Did you know that stuff can go right through protective equipment and kill you before you wake up without you having any clue what it was doing? Because that was in my nightmares last night.

[desertbloomed]

I did, as it happens; such morbols are somewhat common in my homeland of Ivalice, smaller though the Ivalician breeds may generally be. I've faced such creatures many times in battle. Avoiding the sap is one of the most difficult aspects of facing a malboro in melee combat.

[defenestraighttomyheart]

oh my god they're common over there?

dear god you sound like you come from interdimensional australia

voice;

[sullenstallion]

Hey. You're the screechy guy, right?

If you're paying, I can try talking to him.

[Remember the Necromancer?

'Ghostly Whisper: The Necromancer can sometimes hear whispers from the spirits in places where many have died.']

[defenestraighttomyheart]

[He seems a little deflated at that.]

Okay, in my defense, my job both requires that I remain unarmored and right next to the thing that were launching tidal waves of horrible black magic ice. I've had better days.

[He rubs his neck and gives Dylas a look.]

Tell you what. A grand of gil and you forget what you heard that day, and we'll take a walk to see where the moogle died.