[Mission #09] One looooong day... [Mith/Junzo]

[Junzo]

One of the nice perks of being a Marine was having the resources to take shore leave wherever one desired, if there wasn't a string of missions to do that took all of one's time. Junzo naturally took his shore leave on an Island renowned for its high quality steel and weapons in an attempt to try and learn something about good Blacksmithing. He had dabbled a little in the art, but had never really made anything that was of any worth. So with a few days of shore leave available to him, he set sail in a small one man craft headed for Dauntaun.

The Wind was a much more serious issue in a one man craft, both the presence of it and the lack of it. He felt out of control in this vessel at pretty much all times, but through the struggle he managed to get to the island he was aiming for out of sheer luck and a little bit of determination. Stubborn as he was, he wouldn't let a few rogue winds get the better of him. It was starting to get dark by the time that he docked on Dauntaun, so he rested in his ship before waking up for the new day...

He woke up with a crick in his neck from sleeping in an odd position, which made him a bit cranky but it was only what was normal for a free "bed". If only he knew that he would be waking up in the same place every day for the next indeterminate amount of time, he'd have opted for a room at a nearby hotel. But, poor as he was, he had decided to sleep at the docks. And so he began his day, packing up his meager possessions which included not much more than his precious heirloom knives.

Walking through Dauntaun was... interesting, to say the least. Smog covered everything, making it extremely overcast at all times of the day. And the city portion that Junzo had docked at was filled with skyscrapers bigger than he had ever seen! He was completely lost on where to go to find a good Blacksmith that he could observe without annoying them too much with random questions, so he just tried walking into a random building to see what was inside. He found himself in a Lower Class "housing unit" which was... less than desirable to live in. As fast as he had walked in, he walked out just as fast.

"Is the whole city like this? It's just quite... dirty... Where am I going to find a good place to spend my time?"

In the distance, the Melon Mill could be seen. Maybe he'd start headed back to the docks and take a look at the Steel Mill owned by that family. After all, it was close to the Marine docking area that he had used. Maybe he could learn something valuable too. After all, this island was known for its steel contract to the Marines. If they could make steel that even the World Government Navy was proud to use, then they must be a cut above the rest. Hopefully there was a smith there too and not just steel millers... But that was a wishful dream on Junzo's part.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Mission Details}
Mission 09
★★★☆☆
Somebody has been murdered, but the suspect’s identity is unknown! To make matters worse, it seems the day won’t stop repeating itself until you figure out the killer’s identity!

[Mithanil]

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Mithanil had been on this island for nigh on three days and he was already starting to have urges to burn everything to the ground; which was so unlike him normally. It was just that everything about this island seemed to bring out the worst in him. Even on the nicest of days the island was still covered in a thick veil of toxic smog that blocked out at least half of the sun's light, giving the entire place a grey pall that was frankly depressing. In addition to that the living accommodations were absolutely appalling; everyone was packed in like sardines into rooms that didn't even have proper soundproofing. One could hear the people in the room one over doing anything from having sex to trying to murder each other; given the amount of screaming and foul language Mithanil had heard over his last three days stay here the latter seemed far more frequent than the former. Frankly he was already sick of this island, and if he hadn't had to stop here during his travels in order to wait for a ferry service he would have never stayed in this abysmal city.

It was Mithanil's fervent belief that humans were never meant to be together in such large numbers for such an extended period of time. Something started to deteriorate in humans when they did, and the proof was easy to spot by looking out a window.

Pulling the hood of his formally white hoodie farther forward over his head Mithanil then adjusted the surgical mask that he had affixed to his face to ensure it would not fall off. Normally Mithanil hated wearing headwear of any kind and instead let his exotic skin and hair color draw people's gazes, but the pure pollution present in the air made Mithanil feel as if there was sticky grease clinging to him at all times, and he had decided to put on a hoodie and a surgical mask in order to prevent it from contaminating his hair. Whether it was actually helpful was debatable, but it made Mithanil feel better.

Only one more day until Mithanil could get off this forsaken rock, and he couldn't count off the hours fast enough.

Of course Mithanil still gathered a few looks as he passed through the streets. Not many people carried around a Halberd as they traveled, certainly not in this land of steel and firearms. It was enough to dissuade the few muggers who might have had the inclination to target him however, and that was just fine by Mithanil. He'd had enough trouble trying to keep his belongings safe from random pick-pockets as it was, and his supply pouch had definitely lost some small things during his three days on the streets here. Fortunately his medical bag was much harder to get into, and he hadn't lost anything important. It only added to Mithanil's stress and deteriorated his mood further, and as he continued his trek across the city towards his destination (there was one place in the entire city he could enjoy himself in) he muttered under his breath.

”...d forsaken rock needs dropped in a volcano. Purify it with fire until only slag remains....” Mithanil's voice was heavy with pent up aggression and frustration, and given his rather concealed appearance of white hoodie pulled up and a surgical mask on his face, one might think he actually meant his words and was heading somewhere to go about trying to perhaps burn a building down...

Junzo

[Junzo]

2

On his way towards the Melon Mill, Junzo passed by a man who was muttering to himself while wearing a surgical mask and a hoodie. ”...d forsaken rock needs dropped in a volcano. Purify it with fire until only slag remains....” Immediately, the Marine clutched at his knives on his belt and drew them. What was this man talking about? He was being very suspicious, with his face and head both covered, and he was talking about dropping the island into a volcano and purifying it with fire. The naive Seaman Recruit started to call after the man.

"Hey you! The guy in the mask! Stop right there!"

Whatever Mithanil attempted to do, Junzo would find an even bigger interruption as screaming filled the air. "Don't you go anywhere, I'm still watching you!" Running off to do his duty to investigate the screaming, Junzo hoped that the masked man wouldn't run off or do anything rash like attempt to burn down the densely packed island. The Marine just needed to learn better time management skills and focus on one job before he moved onto another one. However, in his mind, he was focusing on the more crucial of the two duties. Stopping a suspicious man ranked below investigating screaming because the screaming was more pressing. In Junzo's mind, at least.

The Marine rounded a corner to find a man in a lab coat dead on the ground. It appeared that he had been thrown from a five story window and had landed on his head, snapping his neck and leaving a bloody pool all over the ground. The smell was already starting to fill the air as the red liquid poured over the cobblestone and headed for the nearest drain. "Don't anybody move! Anyone who saw this happen needs to speak up and tell me what you saw!" Starting to panic, as he had never witnessed a murder before, Junzo tried to get as much information as possible out of the witnesses, completely forgetting the fact that the murderer might not have even had a chance to leave the building yet. Precious time was getting away from Junzo as he interrogated the witnesses... But what about the suspicious hooded man from before? What would he have done when he heard the screaming?

SPOILER: Click to show

Junzo: Limegreen

[Mithanil]

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The growing level of annoyance that was inhabiting Mithanil was given greater fuel when he heard a voice call out to him from close nearby, and the tell-tale noise of some kind of blade clearing a sheath made Mithanil inwardly sigh as he turned around. He spun around quickly while backing up three steps, his eyes staring at the person who had shouted at him levelly, the mask on his face easily hiding any emotion that might otherwise show. The man that he faced seemed younger than him; he was shorter with a bit of his baby-fat still showing on his face, and he didn't have an heir of control and confidence that most older combatants had. Yet the way he handled those dual knives. Yes, there was a level of precision there that Mithanil knew he couldn't muster with his own weapon. Mithanil was a Doctor, not a Soldier, and if it came down to a fight with this man Mithanil knew he would lose without something to balance the situation.

Perhaps fortunately for Mithanil the situation immediately changed just as Mithanil and his “opponent” squared off, a screaming echoing down the crowded streets. The man who had pulled the knives on Mithanil seemed to have some sort of conscious, because he looked at the direction of the screaming, then Mithanil, hesitation in his eyes, before breaking off and dashing towards the sound of the screaming. Mithanil decided to follow at a much more sedate pace, his halberd at the ready in case the screaming was caused by something still a danger. In the back of his mind Mithanil noted the direction the scream had come from lined up with the direction he himself had been traveling. It was likely that the scream had come from nearby the place he had been aiming for; the Dauntaun New Crafts and Clockwork Club. As he walked Mithanil stared upwards at the building it was housed in, a part of him already feeling resignation as he saw a shattered window on the third floor, one over from the left-hand side. That was Doctor Mick Plitzel's office..

Arriving on the scen of where the scream had originated Mithanil wasn't surprised to realize that the dead man on the floor was Plitzel. Stopping for a moment as he processed the shock and sense of loss that had just run through him, Mithanil eventually moved forward again. He knelt at the side of the dead man, beginning to look the body over for wounds and cause of death. Why? Because the amount of blood that was pouring out of his body was far more than expected from even a lethal fall that broke one's neck. A pair of gloves were pulled from his medical bag and Mithanil rolled the body onto it's back and re-oriented the head back into a semblance of normal position. After having checked to make sure that Plitzel was truly dead, of course.

Sighing sadly, Mithanil looked up ath te man who was interrogating everyone nearby. The noise was grating on his ears, and Mithanil wanted him to go away. So he exercised the most logical process to make an apparent detective leave. ”..What are you doing interrogating people?! The killer might still be in the building! GO CHASE AFTER THEM!”

Turning his attention back to the corpse Mithanil would begin a real autopsy, using scissors to cut the labcoat and shirt off of the man, uncaring of the fact that the blood on the ground was soaking into his pants at the moment. Mithanil wasn't a Marine, or a fighter. He was a Doctor, so as much as he wanted to rush up and go stab someone in the throat for murdering Dr Plitzel his best contribution towards any investigation that would be started over this was to perform an autopsy while the body itself was still warm, to determine the cause of death, time of death, and every little detail that might narrow down who the killer was...

Junzo

[Junzo]

3

Talking to people was getting Junzo nowhere. All they had to tell him was they saw a man being thrown out a window. Since it was three stories up, they didn't see anything about the person doing the throwing and most of them were too shell shocked to even have noticed anything else besides "OMG DEAD BODY ON THE GROUND!" This was absolutely futile, and frustrating too. Frantic because he had no idea what else to do, and had no superior officer to direct him, when the Seaman Recruit received an order out of nowhere he spun around confused.

It was that man in the hoodie again, this time wearing a pair of medical gloves and examining the dead body for wounds. He'd definitely notice that the wounds didn't look natural. Or perhaps they looked too natural, more like an animal mauling than a murder. Thick gashes were found in the man's back, an inch wide and covering the entire length of the man's body. But those wounds looked almost dried, as if he had already been dead for quite some time now... Why had the killer chosen to throw him out of the window now if his victim had been dead since about midnight?

Nodding at the command he was given by the Doctor, Junzo started to dash into the building to see what he could find upstairs. The first floor lobby of the Dauntaun New Crafts and Clockwork Club was not your typical apartment building nor office building. There were no shrubberies, no little vending machines of food, no visible welcome desk. Instead, it was packed with tables full of inventors and random doo dads and whatchamacallits. Such science went way over the head of the Marine. He was more inclined to be comfortable around fighters than inventors, but he had to be focused on the mission at hand. He had to find the stairs and get up to the third floor.

Scaling to the third floor took little effort for the young man. He stopped to get his bearings and make sure he had caught his breath from all the running, but he had to admit that he was lost. He wasn't sure which of the many offices on this floor he was supposed to go to. None of them looked particularly out of place, save for the one with a random guard standing outside it who just looked out of place. Like he wasn't supposed to be there...

[Mithanil]

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As Mithanil continued his autopsy of Dr Plitzel his confusion began to rise farther and farther. While there were indeed great lacerations on his back, as if he had been clawed by a large predator, there were also many bullet holes riddling the front of his abdomen. The most perplexing thing was that while the lacerations were old, the blood running from them thick, sticky, and nearly black at this point, they were obviously fatal. The bullet holes were much more recent, obviously having happened just before Plitzel was somehow thrown out his office window. Even the amount of blood loss was abnormal. The amount of blood that had spilled over the ground where Plitzel had landed was more than a human body could contain. By nearly an extra liter. It was as if Plitzel was suffering the wounds from two completely different people at once.

Irritated by these completely irrational findings Mithanil concentrated all the more on trying to find a cause for this strange happening, putting all of his mind to the task, heedless of his surroundings and the situation itself. Clothes were removed, flesh was cut, lead projectiles and tiny scraps of unknown matter removed from bullet wounds and claw marks respectively. Mithanil made sure to do the best job that he could given his circumstances; the multitude of medical tools that he carried with him filling the role of an entire autopsy suite. It wasn't easy, but eventually Mithanil managed to gather about as much data as he thought he was going to get from Plitzel's body alone. It was time to go up to the office and see what extra information that Marine had managed to pull up.

Cleaning and packing away his tools Mithanil wondered idly why the island militia hadn't shown up yet. It should have taken him at least an hour to perform that autopsy, probably more; he wasn't exactly sure. Peering down at his bloodsoaked pants he gave a quick sigh of regret. He really should have not gotten blood on his pants like that. Luckily he had a spare set of clothes to change into inside the Dauntaun New Crafts and Clockwork Club. With that in mind Mithanil took his labcoat off and placed it over Plitzel's inert body, hiding his head and torso from view. After that it was a quick sprint up the steps of the building to the third floor where the Club was located. Of course, as Mithanil burst through the stairwell door he realized that...the Marine was there?

"What are you still doing here? It's been like an hour since you started heading this way! Have you found anything in Dr Pli...Oh.." Mithanil let his complaints die off as he realized that there was a man standing in front of Dr Plitzel's office. A man that Mithanil had seen before. He was a hired thug for the man who owned the building they were in, a Mr Mortimer Donovan. He was a no-nonsense business man, and it wouldn't surprise Mithanil to see him already on the scene to protect his investment, but the next thing he saw perplexed him greatly.

The door behind the hired thug opened, and out came four different other thugs carrying various heavy objects and machines in boxes, grunting under the weight of some of the heavier devices. Mithanil was left speechless by this. There should have been no way that Mr Donovan would have had the time to organize the removal of all of Dr Plitzel's things this early after his death. In fact, Mithanil had to say something about this, and he stepped up to the man guarding the rest of them, "What are you doing with Dr Plitzel's things? How did you get here so fast? The man only just died an hour ago!"

The man gave Mithanil a look over, noting the heavy blood on his pants, and pulled a pistol and aimed it straight at Mithanil's head, "Back off, Doc. This doesn't concern you at all, but where'd you get the blood on your clothes, Doc? Just come from a morgue?"

Irritated, Mithanil snapped back at the man, disregarding the pistol aimed for his head, "I just finished an autopsy on Dr Plitzel. Now te.." Mithanil was quickly interrupted with an explosive snort from the guard, who glared at Mithanil.

"Impossible. Plitzel died late last night, his autopsy already been handled."

"I just performed it! He fell from the window of his office just over an hour ago. Look, I can see the damage in his office from here!" Mithanil pointed angrily at the open office door as Plitzel's things were filed out, and indeed the window looked to have been shattered from the inside out, only a few pieces of glass littering the floor next to the open space.

With visible confusion on their faces all of the thugs looked back into the room, noting the obvious damage to the window, and they one and all spoke the same words, "What the hell? That wasn't there before!"

Mithanil blinked, completely confused as to what was going on here anymore, and he turned to the Marine as if to ask him. "Please tell me you know what's happening."

Junzo