It's Curtains Act 3 Test Drive

[stagemanagers]

1) CURTAINS UP

You’ve just woken up in some kind of dorm room, which is certainly not where you went to bed last night. Actually, do you even remember going to sleep…? Regardless, this isn't where you last were, and worse still - there's other people waking up in the same room with you, in the same state.

Talk to your roommates! Go out and meet everyone from the other rooms! Most of these people may be strangers, but you’re gonna all have to get used to one another. And who knows? There may actually be a familiar face in the crowd.

2) THIS PETTY PACE

By now, you're acquainted with everybody here and you're slowly growing bored. Bored enough to kill? Hopefully not. You'd better try to find something else to do. You can always go hang out with your castmates, or maybe try and whip something up in the kitchen! There’s even a band room to keep you busy! I sure hope you like music.

3) BREAK A LEG

Comedies are fun and all, but that’s not quite what we’re about here. You’ve all just been handed this week’s motive. What do you make of it? Is it one that might actually tempt you to kill, or did you get off lightly this time? Either way, maybe you’d better look around the room and see who else is having a rough time.

4) I LOVE PLAY REHEARSAL

It's Club Day! What's Club Day, you ask? Come to the classroom on the poster to find out! It looks like this week's club is Bread Club. Be wary, when you enter the classroom you'll face a shower of various bread slices but be rewarded with a surprisingly fancy layout of spreads and jams to go with them. Don't mind the oddly threatening poster on the far wall. He's just here to supervise.

5) CURTAIN

It was bound to happen eventually. Someone is dead, and now it's time to go off and investigate. Were they close to you? Are you, perhaps, feeling guilty? Either way, it's probably best not to leave anyone alone right now.

6) CUE MUSIC

Feelings in a murder-school can get pretty gosh darn intense. Sometimes you’ve just got to let it out. And hey, if you sing a song about whatever’s going on in your head, maybe someone will hear and come help you? Either way, this is a musical – there’s not really any reason not to sing.

[Mod Note: The song mechanic is meant to be fluid and simple. You do not have to produce your own song lyrics, nor are you required to use show tunes (although we do encourage it!). If you want to rewrite existing lyrics to fit the situation, go for it! Anything goes - if Mumford and Sons expresses your character’s current emotions, then break out the banjos. We want to keep the musical mechanic as fun and simple as we can to encourage our players to use it as much as they like.]

6) WILDCARD

Make up your own prompt!

--

Questions, comments, concerned? Reach the mods on plurk at slothbless (Lynny) and lluosogrwydd (Lu) and at our public mod plurk stagemanagers. Our official Act 3 FAQ can also be found here!

Comments

Anne Boleyn | Six | OTA

[green_sleeves]

[Curtains Up]

[Unfortunately for Anne, it's not the first time she's woken up in a weird place looking at people that she doesn't recognise. The vague familiarity of it keeps her from - well, - losing her head - but it's not exactly comfortable all the same. Her hands go to the choker around her neck, checking it's still in place, but once reassured that her scars are well hidden, she grins round.]

Oy oy, then. What's going on this time?

Bread Club

[Is it stereotypical for the French to love bread? No matter really: Anne follows her nose (and her stomach) and ends up eyeing up the jams and marmalades with noisy enthusiasm. She scrapes jams onto her plate without restraint and dips her fingers into the preserves to try them. When she spots the poster, she wrinkles her nose.]
Who's that supposed to be?

Curtain

[So someone's dead. That's... messy. And inconvenient. Anne frowns as she heads closer for a proper look.]

I mean, are we actually sure they're dead? Has someone thought to check for a pulse?

Bread Club

[whatyouwant]

[Elle cocks her head at the poster. She's only had once slice of flatbread with some hummus on it, but those jams do look really good...]

I don't know. He looks super grumpy, though.

Re: Bread Club

[green_sleeves]

He needs to get a life. Old codger!

[Anne grimaces once more at the poster, before laughing.]

Have you tried this one? I'm straight up loving this marmalade thing. It's like sugar on bread. Totally my jam!

[whatyouwant]

Oh, no thanks. This room is like carbs and sugar over load. I'm going to need to do so much cardio after this.

[green_sleeves]

Seriously? You've woken up in some weird place offering free bread and jam as their poxy compensation and you're worrying about your weight?

[Anne snorts laughter]

Hell, you only get one life... actually, scratch that. You get maybe two... or three lives to live and I intend to make the most of it this time. It only means there's more of me to love anyway!

[whatyouwant]

Well yeah. I don't want all my clothes to not fit anymore after we get out of here. Plus carbs totally make me bloat.

...But I mean one more isn't going to hurt anything.

[She takes one of the small cuts of baguette and considers the jam.]

This one?

[likemypicture]

[Anne probably hears the other Anne before she sees her-- she's ranting and raving as she makes her way through the hall.]

Where is that good-for-nothing wizard, worse than my ex husband, I'm tellin' you--- [Which is. Right about the time she rounds the corner, in all of her less than five foot glory. She pauses, as if she doesn't believe it, squinting at Anne, then-- up, that's new-- at her.]

Well. At least I'm not alone, this time.

[green_sleeves]

Well there’s a happy reunion for you.

[Anne grumbles, exaggerating her pout. She doesn’t make comment about the height. Maybe she hasn’t noticed... or maybe she’s quickly reasoned that they’ve been reincarnated into new bodies once before and it’s not exactly unreasonable to do it again. Still, she’s not one to show off the smarts. Not in this life anyway. So she barrels on.]

It could be worse. Imagine being stuck with Aragon? It’d be all, pray pray pray. Boring! Or Kat. She’d be totally freaking out about now.

[likemypicture]

Or Cathy Parr. [Barrel on, Anne. Anna sure is. Anna doesn't even need to punctuate why Catherine Parr would be awful to be stuck with. She's not one to speak poorly of the other queens, even in competition. But the look on her face, and the hand on her hip tells it all.]

And poor, sweet Jane-- [Even this is punctuated with a little wink.] No, no, we're in good company. Stick with me-- I'm the Queen of getting thrust into unfamiliar territories!

[green_sleeves]

Yeah... well at least they’ve got the best Queen here now. And, you know, the less relevant one I just happen to share a name with. No offence.

[She grins: she doesn’t mean it.]

They won’t know what’s hit ‘em here with this amount of awesomeness... and you!

curtain

[wanderlusttitania]

[Very much trying not to shake and failing at the sight of the dead body. She shuts her eyes and tries to keep a calm voice.]

How does one do that!?

[...nope, she sounds utterly petrified and she clearly hates it.]

Re: curtain

[green_sleeves]

[Anne gives her a scornful look.]

What? Like it's hard? [She bends down at the body before looking back at Sissi.]
Step one - you wanna be checkin' if all the limbs are attached, ya' know? And the head - 's a dead giveaway if the head's just rolling around not attached to the neck. Trust me on that one. [She grins, like she's just told a joke before moving swiftly on.]

So step two, check for blood. Like loads of it. It's a pretty sure sign someone's dead. Or you can stick your fingers on their neck - if their head's still attached, of course - and see if you can feel a pulse.

Wanna try?

[wanderlusttitania]

[internal screaming]

I don't...think I-I am the proper person for...why not you?

[green_sleeves]

Because I already know how to do it!

[She doesn't. But that's never stopped Anne before]

Come on, don't be a cowardly custard. You may as well live a little - he sure as hell isn't gonna!

[wanderlusttitania]

I tell you, I cannot-!

[Fists clench. Breathe in. Out.]

Living...

That is what I am trying to do!

get that bread

[violentenvies]

[Salieri has been watching this young woman flit around the tables, dipping her fingers into the various open jars, from where he's leaning on the wall somewhere in the corner, observing. It's taken quite a bit of effort to keep his face from expressing his distaste, making a mental note not to touch any of the spreads from here on out.

However, at that question, he can't quite help the response, low and drawled from him with a hint of sarcasm]

Whomever he is, I'm certain he wouldn't approve of your tasting methods.

[green_sleeves]

And neither do you by the looks of it!

[Anne cackles and licks her fingers provocatively.]

Hey, don't lose your head. It's not like I dared to lick my butter knife!

[violentenvies]

No, you only licked your fingers and stuck them in the jars. [now it's full on dry, near-deadpan sarcasm] Which is so much better.

[green_sleeves]

A capital crime, I'm sure!

[She shakes her head, chuckling again.] Keep your wig on. All that sugar in there will kill any germs before they grow anyway.

[She has no idea if that's true but it sounds good at least.]

[violentenvies]

[kill any what now

Like many odd things that are said by the many odd people here, Salieri is just going to roll with it and pretend he knows what germs are]

That is not nearly as comforting as you might intend it to be.

Curtain

[thatbeautifulsound]

[Lydia is already kneeling by the body, pressing the back of her hand to its forehead.]

Yeeeeep. Body's cold and [she laboriously attempts to lift one of the body's arms,] rigor mortis has definitely set in.

[Advantages of being a death-obsessed gothy teen include knowing the ins and outs of a dead body. And undead ones too, but Lydia doesn't think that applies here. If they had enough regret to let out a ghost, she would be seeing it by now, which is a pity because being able to talk to the deceased directly would save her a lot of time.]

Welp. [Lydia gets up, dusting off her dress.] Help me carry this poor sap to the science room. I don't think doing an autopsy in the hallway is a good idea.

Re: Curtain

[green_sleeves]

Ew. He looks like a puppet.

[She wrinkles her nose. Carrying a dead body doesn't sound fun, and Lydia doesn't look exactly like she's gonna be doing much of the heavy lifting.]

Why be predictable? Do it here and some of the others might come and see...

[She pauses. Anne had been a lady in waiting for years by the time she was Lydia's age, but in this day and age, teenagers didn't seem to have proper jobs. Especially not in a medical field.]

It might be more fun here? Ooh we could play a game. Guess what he died of? Winner gets first dibs at blaming someone?

[thatbeautifulsound]

God, that's morbid.

[On the one hand, their lives were literally riding on finding the culprit, and a semi-scientific investigation would help their chances.

On the other hand, what Anne is proposing sounds really funny, and it's not often Lydia gets to screw around with someone on the same wavelength as her.]

I'm in. I'm gonna guess... [Lydia theatrically taps her chin.] It'll look like blunt force trauma to the back of the head, but he was actually poisoned and got the backside of his skull caved in to disguise that.

[green_sleeves]

Nice!

[Honestly, Anne's just glad she doesn't have to lug a dead body anywhere.]

Though kinda suspicious, don't ya think? Just having a really good guess off the tip of your tongue?

[She winks though. She's not massively serious - though she also has no intention of dying (again) so she crouches down properly and pokes the body thoughtfully.]

Maybe... not poisoned. Too obvious. I think he's been suffocated with a pillow or something. Bashed to knock him out, so he wouldn't struggle and then suffocated. That wouldn't be a bad way to go, really. I think, if I had to choose again... I mean, the sword wasn't that bad. It was just kinda... knowing, right? Like, the waiting? If I could do it again, I'd ask him to just have it done there and then. Like this poor old sod.

[She snorts.] So, bashed and then suffocated. And from that, I'm thinking that the killer must have been smaller than him, worried about a fight.

[She looks pointedly at Lydia.] I'm wondering if I know any small girls who wouldn't stand a chance in a fight? [Anne smirks, as if this is all just some massive joke.]

[thatbeautifulsound]

Suffocating somebody with a pillow is a lot harder than most people think—it takes a long time to fully off someone like that. I looked up the logistics for trying it on Delia; if she woke up in the middle of it she'd be able to throw me off pretty easily.

[Lydia notices the quarter-joking half-suspicion in Anne's tone, but she lets it slide for now. Can't exactly blame her for wondering if the girl who talks about death all the time was the culprit.]

There's no winning with how you die from what I've heard. [Lydia shrugs.] The Maitlands wished they had more time to prepare if they knew, but if you do have time, you complain about how the dread's the worst part. It's... the same when you're watching someone die, too. I can say that much. [That last part is spoken more softly, but Lydia shakes her head, forcing away the melancholy. There's a dead body to mess with, there's no time to be sad when she can deflect being sad by being morbid.]

According to the B-man, the worst part about dying is the lines.

...I don't know what he meant by that, honestly.