A Den Of Murderers

Post your murder mysteries on this thread. E-mail Anshar, and only Anshar, with the solutions.

The person who correctly solves the most mysteries will win; likewise, the writer of the mystery with the fewest number of correct solutions will win that part of the competition.

In the event of ties, for whatever reason, the speed of the posting and solutions will determine the winners.

Village of Murders

You have been assigned to patrol one of the villages that the Clan often uses for recruitment & training. As you walk down the main street of the village, you hear a muffled scream behind you. You walk down one of the alleys and find a group of five people standing around a body. Upon further investigation, you find that the body is that of a high-ranking village official and ally of the Clan. The man had be poisoned and stabbed in the stomach. You find a note in the man’s left pocket; it reads “Death to the Brotherhood.”

You get the names of the five people and get their stories:

Person 1 (Abel) – Abel works at a local medical lab. She says that she was working in the lab injecting chemicals into rodents when she heard the village officials scream in the ally behind the lab and came running. She also mentions that some homeless guy was ranting in the street earlier.

Person 2 (Bresa) – Bresa states he works outside of the village normally. He sells tractor parts & chemicals to the farmers.

Person 3 (Cypus) – Cypus says he is a bodyguard. He is currently working for Dezi. Observation: Cypus is armed with a gun & a knife.

Person 4 (Dezi) – Dezi states that she is the owner of the one of the largest businesses in the biggest city of the planet. She has come to the village to explore the possibilities of expansion.

Person 5 (Edu) – Edu is known as a homeless relic of an old war. He bares many scars from laser burns and often has hallucinations of being in battle.

You search for further clues by going to the official’s residence. You find it has been ransacked with papers and debris all over the floor. You wonder what they were looking for when you see something suspicious. Reading through a report written by the official the same day as his death you find that the five people that were by the body of the dead official are all listed in the report as potential recruits for the Brotherhood. The report also mentions that all five are very upset that they have been chosen. They’re could be a motive as one or more could have been upset enough to kill.

Now it’s up to you to decide who.

You have been sent on a mission to a highly backwater planet. You are to locate a promising potential recruit and convince him to return with you to join the Dark Brotherhood. The Consul has sensed this recruit’s power through the Force. The recruit must come with you willingly, or you have failed.

As you land on the planet, you are greeted by a group of people in brightly colored robes of yellow, orange, red, violet, blue and green. “Backwards primitives,” you grumble as they hail you and your (to them) astonishingly advanced ship. The awe, although irritating, works to your advantage, however, as they gladly direct you to the home of your primary objective. When you arrive at the recruit’s house, you can sense much anger and fear, and from one being, power. You smile, your Consul was right, this one will be strong in the Dark Side one day if he lives through his training. You let yourself into the house.

“Someone has killed my father and I will kill them when I find out who it was! It must have been one of you! You are the only ones who have been near our home!” Your smile broadens briefly and then you stash it away behind a stern face. This is too good to be true, a revenge killing is just the kind of warm-up a budding Dark Jedi could use. You sense a Scroll of Indoctrination in your future.

The young man has not noticed your appearance because he is still wildly gesturing at the five people in the room and shouting what must be curses. You step forward and make yourself known, all eyes on are you.

“Tell me what happened and who these people are, then I will tell you who killed your father,” you state.

“How can you do that?” the boy snarls.

“I have more power than you can imagine,” you say, weaving the Force through your words and making the boy believe. “All I ask is that once we have discovered and dispatched your father’s killer you return with me to become a great warrior.”

“I will! Now you hold up your end of the deal!” The boy, who is dressed in black, goes on to explain that tonight is a great festival which everyone in the village attends, ceremonially dressed to match their partners. He had been tending the family livestock and was returning to the house to prepare for the festival when he found his father dead in his room. His mother was entertaining two other couples out in their garden when he found his father and screamed, bringing them all inside. You question the boy and the others and find out the following about the people in the room:
1) The boy’s mother has no job, but stays at home and helps tend the garden and some of the farm land. She is devoted to her husband, but has become increasingly suspicious of his business partners, Tharvik and Denmar. She is wearing yellow.
2) Sala is the wife of Tharvik. She works in the village as a baker, using the grain grown on the farm that her husband, the dead man, and Denmar own. She is wearing orange.
3) Tharvik is Sala’s husband. He is a business partner to the dead man, but has always been closer to Denmar, as they attended the same school. Until three years ago, the farm was profitable, but drought has cut their profits greatly and shortened the grain supply for his wife’s bakery. He openly accuses the dead man of cheating on his wife, only Tara and the boy’s mother rise to his defense. He is also open about the fact that he was considering leaving the joint farm and striking out on his own. He is wearing blue.
4) Denmar is Tara’s husband. He is good friends with Tharvik, and wishes that Tharvik would continue to share ownership of the farm, because “Tharvik knows all the crazy math.” He also shares with you privately that the dead man has been cheating on his wife, but he does not know with who. He is wearing red.
5) Tara is wife to Denmar and also works in the village, she is a teacher at the local school. She loves Denmar, but she’s the smart one in the family (he smiles at this). She is wearing green.

You also learn the following details about the pre-festival get together of the six adults. Tharvik arrived late to the gathering, coming from the direction of the house, he claims to have been checking on a special crop, which he says is a secret. It must be, because no one else seems to know what he is talking about. Sala also left the party at one point to go and get herself an extra drink of water from the well near the house. You search the dead man’s room and find that he is stabbed, laying face up in the middle of the room. You are interested to find that he is the largest of the business partners by far. You also find that he has informational sheets about a new type of grain sitting on his desk, looking recently disturbed, and is wearing a violet robe. One drawer in his dresser is not fully closed, within you find a blue robe, hastily stuffed into the drawer, there is blood on it.

The boy is growing impatient, “If you have this power, you must know who killed my father!”

“I do, come with me and we will bring him justice,” you say as you hand the boy a knife.

The killer is in the other room, who do you instruct the boy to kill?

You’ve been ordered to investigate a murder by Anshar. A young member of the clan was found dead in a dark hallway of Castle Tarentum with numerous stab wounds across his back. Over the last week you had heard three people express a desire to kill this particular clansman but had dismissed it as idle chit-chat.

You begin your investigation by interrogating everyone you’ve heard mention doing unimaginable things to the victim

First on your list is Maxamillian von Oberst-Tarentae. He was perhaps the most vocal, and graphic, of all those you have to interrogate. He did not deny involvement but also provided no alibi. On your way out of his residence you notice a number or martial weapons in display cases and a few coarse words nipping at your heels.

Next is Balia Donos. He claimed to be engaged in combat training with Windos Helkin Tarentae at the time of the murder. A cursory check of the ACC records proved this to be true, but you suspect Windos could have been in a position to falsify those records if he felt it necessary.

Finally you had to interrogate Windos, who gave the same explanation as Donos.

Now you have to decide who killed the pudding clansman.

The Corpse in the Rest Room

Sent by OV

Facts :

A dead body has been found in the Ladies rest room of Tridens Headquarters (Castle Tarentum, base level) in early morning, around four o'clock of local Yridian II time by a female journeyman. A young Twi'lek Dark Jedi (NPC), was lifeless, hanged by her own whip with a full slip-noose tight around her neck. Her body was found dangled in the corner of the room. The handle of the whip was trapped on the ornamental hook of the ceiling. Her body was still warm when escorted to the medical bay. Neither signs of bruises or wounds were found in other parts of the body nor unusual liquid substance instead the V bruished on her neck . Her lightsaber dropped on the floor beneath.

Crime scene investigation was conducted. Consul Anshar Kahn Tarentae asked you to be the independent investigator and directly reported your result to him. A rumor spread about this unusual task. The Sentinel Chief i.e the Quaestor of House Tridens was used to lead the investigation, however he asked to pass this duty. People in the castle knew that the deceased was recruited by the QUA, alas the effort of indoctrination ended at her Protector level, as also her current Dark Jedi rank.

You searched any possible evidence in the crime scene (rest room). You found no strange finger prints on the whip, only her own. Trace of finger prints in the rest room were from the female members of Tridens. Holographic security record only showed whoever entered the rest room until three hours before her body was found. The time she entered the room was unrecorded as well. Her quarter's record also gave no view and when you checked further, the entire Tridens security recording was off. At the same time the rest room record did not capture any images. The only one who were able to do this would be the QUA and the holder of the Key of Pain, but the latter person was on LoA for a month. You secured the crime scene without any further beneficial evidence.

In her quarters, you found some personal facts about her in her computer journal. She was previously a sub spice trader on black market. She sometimes used Death Sticks for amusement, but high-rate herbs trading was her specialty. Her remarkable gift was differing herb poison and reducing the effect until some level of safety. She agreed to follow the Quaestor to be trained as a Dark Jedi after the QUA saved her from a dangerous conflict with another smuggler in Servacos II by killing the smuggler. Later she told him that the respective smuggler was the killer of her family fifteen years ago. She was thankful as she also wanted to recover from her disease, not yet curable viral infections that caused her to be very sick in such unpredictable spiky moments. The QUA told her that she could expand her gifted ability in herbs, poisons and medicine if she joined the Dark Side of the Force. She thought she might benefit from the clan power in regards of her recovery.

Interesting facts also described that she continued the trading inside the headquarters. The most frequent buyer was the QUA himself who used the substance for his private experiments of Pain-Arts. You did not find any records of how much the QUA would pay for those stuff. These data were found in her microthrust portable computer which strangely left the decoding process open. Inside her quarters, you only found some tubes of Death Sticks, and a small pot of Carsunum but the data did not confirm any stock or trading of Carsunum that day. Only some Death Sticks, and Glitterstim, according to the data in the mircrothrust. The last record about Carsunum was the time when she became an Apprentice but only trading a half of the stock.

However, the buyers were also clan mates and coded as DNKT, WBKT, KSTR and some more initials. Other than the QUA, there was another equite of the house, with the inital of KKYS ordered glitterstim for every evening use. However, his last trading records were five days ago, that today he should order more to maintain the effect. Other records were also five days ago. You checked the guests that had come to Tridens HQ for these five days and found no clan mates visiting. Just regular residents of Tridens, even some other important figures in level one and level two did not bother to call in the base level, until the morning of the happening.

Her fellow house mate that staying in the nearby room suddenly entered to meet you. She said that she heard steps of male boots in the corridor but she did not bother to get out anyway.

You said thank you and returned to the Twi'lek's computer. You found an interesting screen saver message as follows :

If this Darkness can free me from my chain
I find it severing me

I hate it, I am no more free,
Love is the chain of all
and I have no way to flee
but he doesn't trust me.

I lost my freewill
But maybe my painful void will free me

You smiled. It was the time to talk to the Quaestor.

You had the talk in the Quaestor's office. The office was now guarded by four elite clan guards inside and outside. You asked the reason of these guards' duty and the Quaestor said it was the Consul who gave the command. He told you that he was tired with this happening, as a stressful threat of assassination was directed to him also. He told you the same fact of relationship as precisely as you obtained from her computer, but he did not mention about any intimate connection. He explained as well that the day before, at the evening, he had a mild quarrel with her. She wanted to advance faster and needed his help or even if it needed to, she would serve him. However, as the Quaestor, he should abide by the rules, and then emphasized that she must work by herself towards her promotion to prove that she was worthy. She threatened that she would not supply for the QUA anymore and would spread the fact about this illegal trading to all of the Brotherhood. He told you that he ignored her, and she left the office to her room crying.

He finally mentioned that the Twi'lek had a similar face with his prior wife, but he underlined that there would be only one female in his life. He also stated that even in her short membership, she already had an affair with an Equite in the house, whom the Quaestor thought that might be the sender of the scourge. However he did not want to accuse. He mentioned that he cared much of his members. This decease was truly a shock to him. He never imagined that she would end herself that way.

You wanted to clarify the Quaestor's alibi at the moment of the security check was off the record. He explained that his access was hacked and he thought perhaps she gained that access when he ignored her for a while as he went to the adjacent room to meditate. He mentioned that she had an excellent ability of computer, and he felt such a guilty feeling regarding his job, duty and his unawareness. He said that he was meditating until his Aedile bursting into his room to tell about her condition. He jumped out to escort her to the medical bay but he could not help her further.

At a glance you noticed that the Quaestor's right hand had a fresh scar. He realized your gaze as he noted that he unfortunately had a saber scratch after a fight this morning.

Then your comlink beeped as the Consul summoned you. In your way to the Consul's office you had an additional talk with the AED that confirmed the Quaestor's story. He noted that he heard the door of the Quaestor's office opened three times at that respective early morning until the time he ran into the office to tell the shocking news. He stressed that he was annoyed with the disturbance of his computer access as well at that time. He stayed awake that night because of many urgent tasks to finish. Quaestor and Aedile's offices were close to each other, separated only by a meter corridor. He did not heard the nearby talking because he said the QUA would activate the sound proof wall if it was necessary. You also had the confirmation that the mentioned Equite was assigned in a mission to the allied Clan this morning by the Consul after he engaged a fight with the QUA in the medical bay.

You arrived at the Consul's office and the Consul gave you a new information from the forensics that in her body was found a medium concentration of raw Carsunum with a high level of Death Sticks that could cause her death within ten minutes. He asked you about your investigation, to confirm if she committed suicide or not. And if not, who the murderer was.

You took a deep breath before presenting the details and conclusion.

What would you conclude, why and how?