World Tree MUSH

    It took Frederick Porter Wensley a little longer than he would have liked, to get clearance for outside investigators to see the crime scene where Mary Jane Kelly had been killed. This killing happened some time ago, now, which means that, thankfully, the body has been removed, but the scene itself has largely been left as intact as possible... Well. As intact as 1800's crime scene investigators can leave a location.
    Even with magic, that's not very much... At least no one's cleaned up the bloodstains yet.
    13 Miller's Court is a single room nestled beyond a passageway between two stone buildings. The furnishings are quite spartan, even for someone who was supposedly a witch: A single bed nestled in the corner of the room, a small writing and reading desk with a single chair, two windows with basic curtains. There's a simple wash bin for clothes, but the lack of running water or even so much as a faucet says that most washing and hygiene needs would have to be taken care of elsewhere.
    "I'll be here to answer any questions you may have, while you look around." Wensley says, dressed in a drab grey suit that matches the drab grey London weather.

    "I appreciate it," Octavia de Tenebrae replies to Wensley.

    It's been longer than she'd have liked since the killing; there's every chance that this or that clue might have decayed by now. But there's little to be done about that, and despite having been somewhat unsettled by the photo, the young noblewoman has steeled herself to the task at hand in the time since they last met. "Everyone, do watch your steps. Thoroughly look where you plant your feet. Even so much as a stray hair that can tell us the color on the culprit's head might be useful."

    Following her own advice, Octavia is careful where she puts her boots, watching for anything like shoe patterns in the dust, scraps of fabric, or even just hair that might be of a different color than the victim's. Assuming nothing of the sort distract her, she'll take only a few steps into the room, where her main goal is to get a look at the pattern of bloodstains and try to get a better idea how things played out.

    Serrah is looking exactly like someone who stayed up at least three hours later than she usually did, which was in turn at least three hours later than she should have. Her black shirt depicts a frowny-face, and her rainbow-colored skort continues to be disastrous. She still has her bag of baseballs at her hip, of course.

    At Octavia's admonition, she immediately rises off the ground and hovers in after her, not even making physical contact with anything in the room. "Mmm ..." She frowns. "... I'm ... actually not sure how grossed out I'm supposed to be by dried blood," she mutters to herself, peering around to try to look for clues.

    Josuke nods to Wensley, and offers, "Thank you for letting us in, anyway. It might have been too long for anything to still be left, though." Looks like he's thought about that too -- that the scene might have deteriorated too much to get any real clues.

    But he has an idea! To the room at large he suggests, "If you find something that's too decayed, or think there might have been something a while back, let me know. I'll see if I can restore the clue to usable condition."

Mariam Highscribe enters with a flourish. Because she has a cape. And if you have a cape it flourishes! That's what capes are for. She looks around the room and frowns a little as she looks over to Wensley and nods. "Thank you." she says. She mutters something to Hooty. Hooty nods and flaps up to the center of the room and starts peeking around-- using his regular vision for now. To try to see something from overhead at the others might not see at ground level.

Mariam occasionally peeks in on his vision, her eyes sort of glazing over between yellow and normal between peeks.

"The latest victim was killed here. So. If we're gonna find any clues, it's most likely going to be here. Any other sites might be too 'gone'... I might think." she says. "Given the climate of the city." a polite way of saying the conditions suck around here.

  Lucatiel of Mirrah is here.

  She does not actually look like she wants to be here. She had more or less given her word that she would take a look at the crime scene, though, and so she is leaning against the corridor wall outside the apartment, arms folded and the brim of her hat tipped sharply down. She's listening, even if the angle of her hat suggests she might be dozing.

  Honestly, she's only here because Sally suggested that she go keep an eye on things. On eyeing those bloodstains, though, the notion of 'hazard pay' is not very far from Lucatiel of Mirrah's mind.

  Her head tips incrementally toward Wensley at his statement.

  Apparently she's waiting for everyone else to have a good look at the room first, though, because there's just not enough room for a lot of people in that cramped little apartment. Instead, she tips the hat up slightly and looks Wensley over. Not necessarily to study his appearance, although she does; instead, it's to study his body language and his posture. Useless, perhaps, but it's something to pass the time with that may or may not be relevant later.

  She hears Serrah's comment, and lifts her head to call out.

  "That depends entirely on how much of it there happens to be."

  As Mariam makes her entry, Lucatiel's hat brim tilts just enough to watch The Other Highscribe. She's silent, head swiveling to watch the younger witch. After a second or two she sighs and shakes her head, resuming her lean against the wall and half-regard of Wensley.

  "The city is filthy." Mariam might be diplomatic. Lucatiel isn't. The knight snorts behind her mask. "I will be surprised if anything useful is left by this time."

    First and foremost, there is a lot of blood. It's almost everywhere, but a rough drag pattern through the door says the initial wound wasn't performed inside the room. However judging from the erratic nature of the drag, Mary may have still been alive at the time she was pulled in through the door; fighting to the best of her ability to stay alive, kicking and possibly screaming.
    After that though... The dried blood is just everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, some splatters on the ceiling. The bed is a still a mess, rumpled sheets stained as deep rusty brown from where the body had been laid out to soak the sheets in liquid crimson.
    "Wensley clears his throat softly and pulls out a small notebook... "Mary Jane Kelly, also known as Marie Jeanette Kelly, Fair Emma, Ginger, Dark Mary, and Black Mary. Believed to be the latest victim of the unidentified serial killer dubbed Jack the Ripper. A High Elf, approximately twenty five years old, working as a hedge witch, and living in relative poverty." He says for the ake of the investigators.
    "Of the killings so far, her body was mutilated the most; we believe that under the circumstances the killer felt he had more time and privacy with the corpse in order to do so and remained for at least two hours after the victim's death to perform such atrocities."
    Aside from the group here now, no one has been through here in a little while, a pattina of a few weeks of dust has already begun to accumulate on just about everything, but there are several key locations to begin looking, including the windows, the bed itself, the washbin, and the desk.

    Serrah give Josuke a quick nod of acknowledgement. She nods in approval at Mariam's flourish -- that kind of theatrics are fabulous! -- and floats off to the side to make room for Hooty to get a look at things.

    At Lucatiel's comments, she just smirks and rolls her eyes.

    At Wensley's description of the murder, however ... Serrah starts to tense up. She's frowning, clenching her fists slightly. She's angry at Jack the Ripper, and she isn't sure how to handle it; she's really not used to having empathy again.

    (Ugh, this is going to make it even harder to avoid participating in heroic stuff, isn't it.)

    She floats up to focus on the stains on the ceiling. "What've you got, Hooty?" she says to Marian's familiar, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

    "That ability of yours really is handy," Octavia replies to Josuke. She gives Serrah an approving glance for the floating; that will likewise open up investigative avenues. "You can never be sure," she replies to Lucatiel. "Even in the most... unpolished places, sometimes clues will be left. Sometimes it's even because of the dirt that clues remain."

    As she suggested before, the young swordswoman is very careful about where she puts her feet, looking for bootprints, stray hairs or anything that might serve as a clue before she takes a step. Her eventual goal is the desk, to see what she can make of things there.

>> SUMMARY[Octavia de Tenebrae] >> Carefully heading for the DESK.

Mariam frowns at Lucatiel. That was completely impolite! Mariam crosses her arms at Lucatiel and gives her a dirty look, but mostly keeps her mouth quiet, turning to look at all the blood. "Uck..." she says. "Y..you'd think that there would be less blood than there is in any given person...!" she exclaims. But still. She gets to work.

Hooty gives Serrah a sideeye because he's forever grumpy. He starts to use his more magical-detection vision to sort of start sweeping the room. Mariam checks in on this every so often too, but relying on Hooty.

Hooty, finally says, in a rare moment of speech. "I'm looking still." even his voice sounds grumpy.

But like, you'd be grumpy if you we're named Hooty, too.

  Fair Emma and Dark Mary? The contradictory is interesting, and maybe worth asking Salome about later, but for now Lucatiel doesn't comment on it. She's definitely listening to Wensley by the tilt of her hat though, and her head swivels faintly toward Octavia. "Perhaps. My expectations for this wretched place, however, are low."

  Mariam's huff and pout earns a flat, stone-cold stare from Lucatiel, or at least Lucatiel's mask. The knight holds it for precisely five seconds.

  Until Wensley speaks. That catches her attention. "Two hours?" The question is bland; leaden. "Either a violent lunatic, or someone plotting a ritual of their own." It's hard to say which it is with the mess left behind. Lucatiel tilts her head, eyeing through the apartment doorway. "...Poor girl." Whoever she was and whatever she did, nobody deserves such treatment.

  The Knight of Mirrah pushes off from the wall, striding slowly and deliberately across the threshold. As she goes, she unsheathes the rapier at her hip, but she doesn't turn the blade against anybody else; it stays pointed at the floor as she strides directly towards the bed of the late Miss Kelly. Very carefully, she spikes the edge of the sheet with the point of the blade, above where a splash of blood stiffens the cotton. Once she's sure she has a secure 'grip,' Lucatiel turns her wrist, lifting the sheet carefully.

  She can probably scour that sword down later. Or just douse it in pitorro and have Salome set it on fire. Yeah that might be better.

  In the meantime, if there's anything interesting to see in there, she can do it... without touching any of this nastiness, leaning over to take a closer look.

>> SUMMARY[Lucatiel of Mirrah] >> Lucatiel is investigating BLOODIED SHEETS on THE BED.

>> SUMMARY[Mariam] >> Mariam is using Hooty to scan for any sort of hidden magical items, effects, etc.

    Josuke's got that Joestar wit, so he's likely able to figure out the path of the blood, the events that happened during the murder, etc. Though that doesn't help them figure out where the killer might have gone after this -- and the length of time it took to get in to look for clues probably doesn't make that any better!

    Unfortunately, he doesn't have Jotaro's Stand's advantages -- 'Star Platinum' can see minute details a massive distance away. Josuke's 'Crazy Diamond' trades a lot of that utility to have both power and mending... so there isn't a lot he can see besides what a human being normally can.

    So, well. With the others checking out things, he heads for the windows to see if he can see anything. He's not going to touch anything.

>> SUMMARY[Josuke Higashikata] >> Looking at the Windows

    Serrah floats up to the ceiling. There's not as much blood spatter up there but there are flecks of rust that indicate the killer was so brutal with their methods that the witch's blood went everywhere.
    Oddly... On the way to the desk, there are a series of boot prints that look to have recently disturbed the dust. The sieze and gait indicate that a man has been through her recently... The desk itself has a few drawers with miscellaneous effects and what looks to be Ms. Kelly's diary. There is also a small mirror attached to the wall at the desk.
    Hooty will find this very mirror to be magical in and of itself for some reason.
    Lifting the bedsheets reveals the bed beneath to be just as much of a mess, but something falls out when the stiff cotton is shifted-- a small gold locket that investigators seem to have missed in their original scouring of the crime scene!
    And then Josuke goes for the window. The curtains are down, so the room is actually pretty dark as a result but there seems to be some... Movement on the other side?

    Serrah just returns a glare back at Hooty, then focuses back on the ceiling. It's only a moment, though, befor she frowns, and looks away. "... hmmmh ..." Nothing there. Trouble is, there's blood in every direction.

    Oblivious to the magical nature of the mirror, she looks over towards Octavia. "Crazy Diamond's definitely come in handy before," she says dryly. But the locket catches her attention when Lucatiel goes to mess with the bedsheets. She frowns, and floats closer, curling up in midair so that she's not taking up as much space. "What's that?" she murmurs. "Uh, Wensley, we have permission to screw around with things like lockets, right?" She turns around. "I feel like --"

    She sees that movement outside. And she immediately tenses up, uncurling and rotating herself back upright, one hand going to her baseball bag.

    Movement?!

    Needless to say, this isn't something Josuke expected! He figured everything would be gone by now!

    But see... Josuke may be a sweet guy, but he's also a punk. And having a Stand that can fix things makes him pretty nonchalant about breaking them. So his first reaction to seeing something on the other side of the window that might be a person?

    "<CRAZY DIAMOND!>"

    The purple aura appears around him as he takes a step back, and the Stand appears before him. And with a loud, "DOURRRRA!" the muscular figure punches right through the window, grabbing at what he hopes is the neck of whoever might be on the other side! He's going to try to pull them through the window!

    Of course, he's not a barbarian. Should he manage to grab the person, he'll turn on the healing/mending. So not only will any wounds created be healed before they become life-threatening, but the window should also fix itself.

    ...Which might be DAMN WEIRD for Wensley to see, even if he's accustomed to magic, depending on what he's capable of seeing. Stands aren't magic, after all... they're psychic phenomena -- poltergeists, to be more precise. So Josuke doesn't register as magical to a typical magical sense (unless it can sense psychics, of course).

    And if Wensley can't see the Stand? That might just be even WEIRDER for him!

>> SUMMARY[Josuke Higashikata] >> Josuke does the sensible thing -- tries to pull whoever that is through the window with his Stand! But also intends to heal the person and fix the window, so yeah.

Mariam softly blinks as something glows small, but glows netherless, in Hooty's vision. Mariam 'ohs!' she gently passes by Octavia as she says. "Excuse me a moment." she says. She motions to the mirror. "There's something going on with this mirror on the wall." she says as she studies it. She isn't touching it yet....

She's trying to determine what's going on with the mirror. Waving a hand in front of it. Gently spinning her finger and sending a little puff of wind at it.

"But could be a mundane enchantment too." she says, pursing her lips. "Con-men selling mirrors that make you look prettier or more handsome and all that sometimes." she says rolling her eyes.

And then suddenly there's commotion. "Huh?" she asks.

    Octavia does her level best to carefully examine those footprints, hoping to at least memorize the shape of them if she can't discern what the person was doing in the room. "It looks as if there was someone here very recently. Rather large. If it was human, probably a man's, but I suppose there's no guarantee it was human..." From there, it's on to the desk, and she takes her time investigating the various personal effects there, moving aside with a soft, "Of course," for Mariam...

    ...but it's while she's just about to check on the diary that Josuke goes full Joestar on the window. Instantly, she takes a single step back and turns; the net effect is that the girl drops into a perfect fencing stance, which is good, because she draws Hauteclere in the same motion. She won't lower the weapon until she sees who (or what) Jojo just grabbed.

  Behind the mask, Lucatiel's eyes narrow, and the point of the rapier flicks over and down, swatting the locked down to the floorboards before it can bounce or roll any further. The blade lowers until it can pin the article of jewelry in place.

  Very carefully, Lucatiel turns her wrist and threads the rapier through the chain, lifting it so it's on the very end of the sword's point. It glints in the light. A slight turn of the wrist lifts it closer to the knight's brazen mask, but not too close. There's no telling what kind of supernatural nastiness may be hanging around this thing--

  Then Josuke happens.

  The locket slides down the blade a bit because Lucatiel is busy staring; with a startle and a flick of her wrist she slides it back down to the far end of the sword. Her other hand was halfway toward reaching for her buckler, but it looks like Josuke has the uh... problem... well in hand. Well, then.

  Shaking her head, now that that's over with, Lucatiel bobs the locket on the end of its chain, balanced neatly on the very edge of the rapier's tip. The question is... does it have anything useful inside it, or is it just a memento of its fallen owner?

  "Is this thing magical?" Her question is simple, and directed pretty much at anybody equipped to answer it. She wants to open it, but she's not touching it (even with a glove) unless she knows it's not cursed or something. Lucatiel of Mirrah has enough curse wuju going on, thank you very much.

>> SUMMARY[Lucatiel of Mirrah] >> LUCATIEL examines the GOLD LOCKET, after Suddenly Josuke Accidentally A Window.

>> SUMMARY[Mariam] >> Trying to discern nature of the mirror.

    For all intents, appearances, and purposes, the mirror, just looking into it, SEEMS to be a normal mirror. At least by physical appearance anyway. Whatever the enchantment is can't be discerned from a glance alone. Waving a hand in front of it has all the same effects as a normal mirror. It's the puff of wind that seems to pass through the glass.
    The locket, however is as mundane as can be, when inspected; made from gold, with intricate etchings and inlay. Should be safe to open.
    But that might have to wait when Josuke smashes through the window to grab the figure on the other side.
    This makes even Wensley jolt, as the youth's stand punches clean through the glass and yanks a tall, lean, figure in a dark coat through the shattered window. There's a grunt, one hand manages to hold the hat he wears down to his head, and his face s covered in bandages that make identification impossible as he tumbles into the room.
    There are no words. Just a hurled knife right for the very mirror that the otherswere investigating!

    Without standing down from her tense posture, Serrah looks over at Mariam and Octavia; she can't answer Lucatiel's question, so she simply looks towards the witch, who can. She floats just a little bit closer to the pair, trying to look over their shoulders as Mariam performs her examination ...

    And then Josuke Josukes, and she lowers her hand. "... I wish I'd thought of doing something like that first," she says tells him dryly.

    But there's no time to react to anything else, because there's suddenly a knife getting thrown, and this is something Serrah can deal with.

    She stops time, floats over, and grabs the knife by its handle before resuming; the movement tugs her hand forward slightly by the inertia.

    To everyone else, in particular to the bandaged figure, it would look like she is suddenly there, catching the knife with no transition in between her two states, as abruptly as a video skipping ahead.

    She gives the bandaged figure a cold glare. "... What's can you tell us about the spell on the mirror, Highscribe?" she asks Mariam, not taking her eyes off of the figure. ... And not seeming to notice the way she stumbled over her words a bit there, which probably interferes with any sort of 'menacing' effect.

>> SUMMARY[Serrah Delany] >> Timestop knife-grab.

Hooty floats down and says "Cuuuuuursed." in grumpy stoic voice in front of Lucatiel. Mariam huffs! "That's not funny Hooty---it's normal and non-magically. Ignore the grumpy owl." Hooty huffs at Mariam and flys to her shoulder as Mariam 'ahs', as she leans back. "I think...the mirror might be a portal..." she says as she watches the wind go through it.

Then that whole commotion happens.

Mariam, who is nominally already near/in front of the mirror throws her hand up and mutters something under her breath as lighting sparks out around her, forming a large protective sphere around her--- thou... it seems Serrah has it.

She's still keeping the protective forcefield spell up.

"I'm guessing-- something like a portal. Maybe? But I need more time to study it and I can't uh..."

"Do that with mummy man over there." she says.

    Immediately, Josuke turns his attention to the room at large. "Sorry, everybody! Didn't figure somebody'd be looking into the window this long after the crime unless -- WHOA!"

    A hurled knife?! It's not hurled AT him, but Josuke reacts anyway -- or rather, his Stand does, with a barrage of punches at the bandaged figure, with the expected, "DORARARARARARA!"

    This too is going to look rather odd to someone who can't see the Stand -- just like bolts of kinetic force just springing into life, aimed at the figure.

    As Serrah unfreezes time, Octavia is already reacting - Hauteclere snaps up in a smooth motion as if to deflect a thrown blade that is no longer coming. She utters a soft, startled noise, and then her brain catches up with her eyes.

    In the next instant, she whips her sword back, and brushes fingers along one set of runes on its blade, causing them to start glowing with a soft rainbow radiance. Not Holy magic, just Light-elemental; but the threat is still obvious enough, especially the way she's holding that sword. "Move and I will fire-"

    Blink blink. There goes Josuke.

    "...he certainly doesn't miss a beat, does he."

>> SUMMARY[Mariam] >> Throws up an Electric Shield in front of herself & Hooty thinks he's funny.

  While the others deal with their other investigative duties, Lucatiel focuses on the locket held at the end of her blade. A slight tilt lets it slide down the blade to the hilt, and once it's confirmed that the thing isn't going to incinerate the apartment building when touched, the woman carefully reaches out to pinch the chain with a glove and pull the rapier out, returning the blade to its scabbard.

  How she manages to open the thing with a glove on is anybody's guess. It does take her a second or two to work at it, because it's tiny, and she doesn't want to force it hard enough to break it. If there's anything inside it could be important.

>> SUMMARY[Lucatiel of Mirrah] >> LUCATIEL is attempting to OPEN the GOLD LOCKET.

    The knife sails through the air-- only to be halted by Serrah swiping it mid-flight in a time-freeze.
    "Tch..."
    The bandaged figure doesn't seem to be too pleased about that, as another pair of knives slide free from his sleeves, he readies for a fight. But it's short lived as he's immediately put on the defensive by Josuke.
    Whether or not the knife-wielding figure can see the imminent beatdown coming from the youth's stand, he makes a series of cuts at the air, knifes trailing a faint glowing light as he inscribes a series of complex runes in the air, forming a barrier that quickly begins to crack and erode under the barrage of blows. But it's enough to give him enough time to-- leap back out the window and begin running out the alley as fast as he can.
    The locket, when opened, contains a black and white photo of Mary Jane Kelly and another young lady, looking happy together. There's a distinct familial resemblence in the two, and there's a tiny inscription that reads 'To my cousin, Mary. Wishing you the best in becoming the greatest witch in the world'.
    Which just leaves the mirror. It's not exactly a portal, but a pocket space... Reaching inside it will find...
    A small space containing Mary Jane Kelly's true diary.

    "Ah, dammit!" Josuke remarks, at the figure's flight out the window. Of course, he's also going to look around and see if there's anything left behind, anything the figure might have dropped. It could lead to being able to track the person!

    Meanwhile, though, Josuke looks to the others. It'll take a while to go over what they found. He wasn't completely obliviousin dealing with the window.

    At least the window is probably fixed, despite the punch through it. Unless something's made it impossible, that is. So there's no more mess to clean up than there already is!

    Serrah stops for a moment and stares at Crazy Diamond's sudden punch-flurry delivery. "... No, he doesn't," she echoes Octavia. "Dude, you picked the wrong gang to --" She yawns. "... to mess with. -- Hey!"

    She lunges forward as the man makes a break for it, but she's still in the cooldown of the timestop, and she's just a little bit too slow to catch him. "... damn it," she mutters. "If I wasn't sleep-deprived ..."

    She frowns. "So, he's a mage," she says. "Or ... whatever the right term is. Definitely not how it was in my world ..." She turns. "Oh. Another diary, huh?"