《Whodunnit ?》Chapter 17 - Pre-Planned Route
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"My dear guests. This riddle has been left by the killer. It is also important to note that we are slowly decreasing in number, so give careful consideration to who you choose to share your information with."
"For this riddle,
There will again be two sections.
To get past this first? You need to have good connections.
Follow the twists, follow the turns.
Once completed, you will not need to return.
The second clue will then be waiting with a burn. However, It's your choice if want you want to arise,
Will you claim the coveted prize?"
"What the fuck did that mean?" Michelle called to her group as they dashed back into the manor.
"Connections, connections." Nelson kept repeating one of the keywords of the riddle over and over again. "Electrical connections? Is there like an electricity room here?"
"It's worth a look" Reynold shrugged his shoulders as they the four climbed the familiar staircase.
-
"It's locked." Brianna confirmed as she tried to kick down the labeled 'Electrics Room' door for the second time.
"Well, what other connections are there are in this house?" Nelson asked as he looked around the familiar hallway.
Reynold rubbed his chin "Water connections?"
Michelle and Nelson made a face, "That'd be looking through the whole manor though. Surely the killer wouldn't want us to search for that long?" Michelle had doubts that the group should really search every room in Rue Manor which had a connection with water, which was practically every room.
Brianna grew slightly impatient "There are a couple of phones in the parlor, I know they don't work but they could have a clue on them?"
The group all strolled down the stairs, pretty confident there wasn't a clue on the first floor.
-
As the group of Nelson, Michelle, Reynold & Brianna searched downstairs in the parlor, Jamie, Natalie & Dan were searching the outside pool were closely.
"Maybe if you like dive in there will be a clue like stuffed in the pool filter?" Natalie suggested to Dan the idea of diving into the crystal clear water to look for a possible clue.
Dan scoffed "I'm not diving in that pool. I think I've gone off swimming for a while, I mean the killer killed Talia in the hot tub!"
As Both of the alliance members bickered back for several moments. Jamie decided he'd had enough of hearing it, and dived in. Not caring if he did have his formal attire on. To be honest, he secretly did want a dive since the scorching heat of Los Angeles sun was slowly killing him.
Dan and Natalie looked on in silence as the carpenter waddled around awkwardly in the water. A few seconds later Jamie arose to the surface.
"Anything?" Natalie asked.
Jamie ignored the alliance member and took another deep breath before submerging underwater again.
After four times of coming up to take breaths, Jamie climbed out of the pool, feeling confident there wasn't a clue in the pool.
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"So where do we look now?" Dan asked.
Natalie went into deep thought. She tried to think about what the 'twist and turn' aspect of the riddle was referring too. The social media marketer tried to remember the halls of Rue Manor, thinking if there was any part of the Manor which was deemed to have twists or turns.
Then she remembered. She cast her mind back to when she arrived at Rue Manor. She remembered the drive from the limo up the driveway that first day. She made note of how the driveway was pretty twisted, and also how the limo driver almost crashed because the turns were so tight.
The twenty-nine-year-old took off running.
"Where are you going?" Dan howled.
"The driveway!" Natalie yelled as she turned out of the garden and into the front of the Manor.
-
Michelle & Reynold took charge in the parlor, making sure to check the phones thoroughly.
"Dead," Michelle commented as she picked up the last phone in the parlor.
"Something isn't right here." Nelson rubbed his chin as he thought of the riddle again.
"Yeah." Brianna agreed.
"Arise," Nelson said again in his head.
"Arise. Rise." Nelson says to himself.
Suddenly the charity worker clicked his fingers together. "Hot air rises!"
Reynold and Brianna stared back at him, confused. However, Michelle knew exactly what he was talking about.
"Hot air rises in an attic. The clue has to be in the attic. Cmon!" Michelle charged out of the parlor, her alliance members followed.
-
"Look in that bush." Natalie pointed out the slightly hidden bush in the driveway to Jamie.
Dan, Jamie & Natalie had been searching in the bush area for a while since Natalie had turned the corner from the garden, however, it looked like they weren't getting anywhere. Again.
"Why are we always the ones who never get the clue? We've won a riddle like once." Jamie groans as he pulls out some leaves from the bush.
-
"Yes!" Michelle instantly celebrated as she opened the attic door, laid out on the small square table was seven identical prints of blueprints.
"Blueprints?" Reynold questioned as he picked up his sheet.
Nelson squinted at the blueprints. The title 'Rue Manor' gave away what the blueprints were for. Nelson followed each white bold line, but they all seemed to just connect to random places. He definitely was not experienced in following blueprints.
"Follow the connections," Reynold remembered the group.
"Found it," Michelle said quickly as she figured it out. The unemployed woman followed the two points which seemed obvious to her. The first point, the attic since they were in it right now. And the once built, garden shed. Both of the points connected but seemed to meet at a certain point. The certain point, however, was unlabelled and off location of the manor building.
Brianna turned the blueprints over and found the second clue.
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"Search the room for your escape, following it will show you how I watched without a scrape. Following these clues which connect will lead you to the unknown object, maybe even give you a closer clue to your suspect. "
"Search for your escape?" Reynold looked around the attic.
The attic in size was pretty small. So the group of four thought they'd find the clue quickly (hopefully).
Michelle checked under the table as of which the blueprints were on, and upon further instruction, she saw the wall looked uneven.
"Hang on a second," Michelle said to herself as she squatted down to the floor, lightly pushing the uneven piece of the wall it quickly cascaded. An eerie, wide tunnel was on the other side.
"Shut up!" Michelle gasped as she saw the eerie tunnel in full view.
"What is it?" Brianna asked as she peered behind Michelle.
Nelson and Reynold also bent down behind the girls and had a peek.
"It's a tunnel!"
The group of four quickly fumbled into the tunnel, it was probably wide enough for all of the seven guests to fit in. Reynold quickly went back to grab a torch before they all followed the tunnel's path.
"Where do you think this leads?" Brianna's voice echoed in the tunnel as they crawled.
"It leads to a blank point. So I'm really not sure." Reynold shrugged as he crawled.
After only a minute or two, the group reached the end of the tunnel.
"Oh my god." Nelson gawked as the reached the end.
The end of the tunnel was an open hole, after a tiny drop down to a concrete floor, the group could see this was some kind of mini lair. At the top center of the lair, the group could see there was a little peeping hatch that looked directly into the garage.
"So the killer was watching Greg!"
The group also noticed a small table (just like the one in the attic) laid out. There was a pair of binoculars, an identical set of garage keys and a weird square screen, almost like an iPad.
Reynold snatched the binoculars off the table. Upon covering them over his eyes, he could see that they were infrared. He saw how the colors in the room were all different. Dark red symbolised body heat, he remembered that from doctor training.
"Holy cow. These are infrared binoculars. Dark red means body heat."
"So the killer watched him. And the dark red color meant that he saw Greg behind the garage door?" Brianna asked.
"Would seem like it." Nelson shrugged his shoulders.
The group went onto the garage keys next. Michelle pressed the oval button in the center, and with a loud screeching sound, the garage doors came quickly opening up.
"These aren't the same keys Greg were given. He was obviously given the fault ones for a reason." Michelle commented, the biggest difference in both of them being there was no blood stains on this one.
"It would be so Greg couldn't actually escape." Nelson was pretty sure that the killer wouldn't risk the chance of Greg actually escaping Rue Manor and having the genuine keys.
The group of four then went onto the third and final item laid out on the table. The weird square screen, which reminded them of a tablet.
Pressing the 'on' button, Brianna jumped when a punishing, bright white light came on.
In the middle of the screen, the words. 'ARKON ENGINE PRE AUTOMATIC ROUTE: ON' were on a big black font.
"What's Arkon?" Brianna asked the others, not being familiar with the name.
Nelson squints at the screen and smiles "Oh! I have an Arkon. It's an electric car, you can make an automatic route on their app and connect it to your car."
The group also noticed that there was another setting. The highest possible speed limit of 160 was at its full capacity. Suddenly the estate bell rang, the riddle was over.
After a few minutes of getting their theories together, the group of four decided to turn back and crawl the tunnel back to Rue Manor.
-
Dan, Natalie & Jamie watched on silently as the group of four walked back into the parlor with wide smiles on their faces, knowing that not one of them would be scared tonight.
"I see that Mr. Jiggon, Mr. Grey, Miss Lawson and Miss Doan have found the answer to the riddle. But remember guests, anything can happen in this game. You know have several hours to get your ideas together and predict how Greg met his death. Until dinner guests, I will leave you all be."
Giles left the seven remaining guests be.
Dan didn't waste any time "Do you think that you are going to share information?"
Reynold made a polite scrunched up face "Probably not. Sorry, you have realise that if we gave you our information we could get the scared cards."
The minority alliance gracefully accepted their situation, for the other situations the minority alliance would normally try and fight back. But not this time, they knew their battle was well and truly over as an alliance. Dan tried to gain hope, trying to convince his group that they didn't know the key part of why Greg actually went down to the garage, But Jamie knew that the other four were smart and would work it out eventually.
The three of them soaked in the luxuries of Rue Manor, knowing that for one of them, it was going to their last day at the manor. They had bleak expressions on their faces for the whole day, even when the maids collected them from their rooms to state their cases. They had no information, no riddle answer and therefore. No hope.
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