Week Three - Task 08. - “Lost and Found”

[Katherine Laurier]

You have cleared a few things up in your own brain about the case, but you want further clarity. Thus far, you only know that the forest is extremely odd. The last time you went, it felt like there was a lack of life. The forest is inconspicuous from the outside, but it is as if in the corner of your eye in your peripheral vision, there’s just something peculiar you haven’t caught at the right time. Something that couldn’t quite be explained. In addition to that, you see marks and scratches on the trees that don’t seem very natural and just a very mysterious aura to the entire area.

It isn’t just the forest that confuses you and every other person hearing about the case, but also the question of where the villagers went or what might have happened to them that was truly fishy.

In an attempt to answer some of the questions you have, you go into the forest once again. It is the same as what you noticed before, but as you walk further into the forest, you notice an object beneath the shade of a tall tree.

Your eyebrows furrow and you lean down.

What in the world…?

Task:
Write at least 125 words in roleplay form about the object that you found. Describe it. Do you think it’s just an object dropped by an expert investigator or do you believe it’s something more? If so, where do you think it came from or what is its possible significance to the whole mystery? The sky’s the limit when it comes to creativity!

Alternatively, write at least 150 words about a time you discovered or experienced something unexpected, whether that be a material thing or something intangible, such as an object, a memory, a lesson, a new perspective, and so on.

This task is worth 15 beans/sapphires. You can earn an additional 10 bonus beans for completing all Week Three tasks by Friday, October 31st, at 11:59 PM (HOL time).

Upon completion of this task, an additional “task” in the form of a symbol or puzzle will be sent to you by me, Katherine Laurier, through Private Message within 24 hours. You can accomplish this as a means of earning more beans and sapphires, however this is not required for you to complete, just like any other “regular” task. Alternatives for the symbol/puzzle may be requested through the same Private Message. For more detailed information, feel free to check Information and Questions or ask me a question through PM!

[Galena May]

"There has to be something that I am missing", I thought to myself, as I loitered about the forest, deep in thought, and guided by intuition. "Something must be around, a clue, however small, or a new lead to follow". I saw some strange symbols etched onto the barks of the trees. The width and depth of the cuts on the bark indicated that they were made with a sharp and thin object such as a knife or a very skilled Severing Charm. They certainly weren't thick, rough, or irregular enough to have been made by an unskilled wizard, a blunt object like an axe, or something crude like a stone. The strokes were neat, precise, and equal in length, indicating that they were deliberately and carefully done, as if writing a deliberate message, not in a hurry. There were no rounded edges to the engravings, indicating that they could be a set of predetermined symbols, or perhaps an ancient script, perhaps runes. "If only I could discover what these symbols mean", I thought.
At the foot of a tree with no such markings, lay a strange, curious object. It looked and gave off the aura of something very much out of place. It wasn't something one would naturally find in a forest. It looked as though dropped by an alien. "But, what would aliens want with the population of an entire village? Assuming that they did have good enough reason, why would they leave a forest in return, instead of just the deserted land?", I thought. It didn't make sense. Such an extraordinary object couldn't have been dropped by another investigator either. It didn't seem like anything of much use in investigation or like anything I had seen any of the other investigators using. I thought and thought about the object, and what it could be used for, turning it round and round in my hands and feeling it all over with my fingers. I asked myself why there were absolutely no markings on the tree under which this curious object lay. The object was shaped like a pyramid (like one of the pyramids of Egypt, something that I was instantly reminded of) and was completely black in color. Its edges were very sharp and thin and could cut one's fingers if one wasn't handling it carefully, leaving a neat, precise cut, almost like that of a surgical incision. The black color of its surfaces were blacker than pitch black, and neither reflected nor refracted light. It was completely opaque and seemed to be an all-absorbing curiosity that absorbed all light that fell on it like a black hole. Its surface was hot to the touch, like black things on summer days are. It was absolutely plain and smooth, with no markings on it, not even an impurity or scratch, just absolutely smooth all over. I had never seen such a symmetrical and perfect object in my life. The only thing I was sure of until now was that if at all there was a being or person or beings or persons behind this mysterious occurrence, they were someone who were very precise to a fault. Suddenly, a possibility struck me out of the blue. The object was the instrument with which the engravings on the barks of the trees were made. The tell-tale width and depth of the cuts on the barks of the trees absolutely matched this conjecture. I proceeded to confirm this hypothesis by making a cut on the bark of a tree with the object and comparing the nature of the cut to the pre-existing marks, and voila, I was correct. That could vaguely explain why the tree under which the object was lying was devoid of any marks. Maybe whoever made the mark had to leave for some reason such as being discovered or being too late to further delay fleeing the scene, and therefore disappeared suddenly when they had reached that particular tree to mark, accidentally leaving behind their tool for marking on that spot. "Thereafter, where did they vanish to? Underground, or above?" I thought, "And who were they? Such a weapon wouldn't be used by a wizard or witch over the more convenient Severing Charm. Whoever used the object either didn't know magic or had some reason not to use it. Such precise strokes had to be made by a human or at least a very intelligent being, so any known magical creatures without sufficient intelligence were out of the question. Besides, who would use the mysterious color, black? The first thing I thought of was a cult. Dark cults tend to associate themselves with the color black. So, a Muggle or alien dark cult? Interesting thought, but merely a theory as of yet without proof! Not very useful."
Then, I went back to thinking about what the marks meant since I still couldn't make head or tail of who made them, except for having found the weapon. I studied the symbols on the barks of the trees once again, and tried to compare them to all the existing symbols I could dig out of my memory. Suddenly, a thought struck me. Since I had never seen such symbols before, there was a thin probability that they weren't symbols at all. Maybe these merely marked a path through the forest that leads right into the den of the culprits. The marks must simply be weird milestones. They must have kidnapped the villagers because they had a motive such as revenge or something to gain from the villagers otherwise they would have chosen a quieter, population-less area for their misdeeds. The forest must be a cover for their dwellings. There must be something in that area that ensured that they didn't take the villagers very far which is why they had to cover their tracks with the forest.
I walked out to the edge of the forest and followed the markings like a dog hot upon the scent of a trail. They followed a very clear path through the forest upto the tree under which the object had been dropped. This proved my hypotheses, at least partly. Now, the question was, from here, where?

[River Fenwick]

When I was a kid, I learned my lesson about the dangers of scissors the hard way. I hadn't been the type to take a warning of scissors seriously since the typical warning was "don't run with scissors," which I figured was a no-brainer anyway. One warning I never received about scissors was continuing to use a semi-broken pair since my young mind didn't seem to foresee the possibilities in which it could go wrong. Unfortunately, the last time I used it, it completely broke and slid across my hand when it did so, leaving a cut behind. It wasn't particularly bad, but I still have a scar on my thumb from it. Never will I again use anything partially broken, especially something with sharper parts like the blades in a pair of scissors. That experience taught me that eventually, it will break even more and possibly be worse than that time.

[Adeline Morior]

As I picked up the object and examined it more carefully, I realized it seems like a very valuable thing, or at the very least sentinel and I suddenly cannot imagine that someone would just leave it behind, not on purpose. Perhaps it was left by a previous resident or another detective? No, it must be the culprit behind this thing. I stopped my train of thought before it got too paranoid and went down some conspiracy rabbit hole with no return. I stand in thought for a moment, turning the object around between my fingers, thinking what could it be linked to. Some form of key perhaps? Magical object? I look down and try to find traces of magic on the item. Nothing is revealing itself. I must examine this closer back home.

[Luna Ravenlong]

As I was wandering through the forest looking for any clues about how it had appeared, a small object on the ground caught my eye. I approached it carefully, and, after casting a few spells to try and ensure it wasn’t dangerous, picked it up. It was a rock, covered in strange markings- runes perhaps? Though they weren’t like any I’d ever seen before- should I take it home and examine it more closely? Or would it be better to bring a runes master here? Who knows what the repercussions might be if this was removed from the forest…

[Lex Green]

A few years ago, in one of the productions I was in, I ended up going on for a role I didn't play, at a performance I wasn't even supposed to be on stage for. When there are younger cast members (I was about 13 or 14 when this happened), kids often only perform in half of the shows, to comply with child labor laws, so there are multiple sets of the children's cast that alternate shows. The group I was in all decided we wanted to watch the show when one of the other groups was on, so we were sat waiting in the audience. I'd worked with this company and creative team a lot before, so the director knew me well. Suddenly, they appeared next to us in the theatre, and asked me to come backstage. All us younger people were only in the ensemble for this production, apart from one, who had a named role - and the person in our group that had the named role hadn't come with the rest of us to watch. Apparently, the child who played the named role in the group that was supposed to be performing hadn't been feeling well, and they ended up fainting backstage (they were totally fine afterwards), and since none of the other people who played that role were in the building, they asked if I would play the role for the first part of the show, until one of them could get there.

[Cassie Williams]

I kept returning to the forest, not satisfied with the investigators' current rulings and lack of enthusiasm in examining what happened to the village, and why the forest was here now instead. Finally, this trip I at last had found something. It was a windchime, with a beautiful stained glass pattern on top depicting a little bird. Some of the chimes had broken off, but I couldn't see them nearby, which made me even more suspicious of this item and what it could mean. Had it perhaps been left behind when the village had disappeared? Were the other parts of the windchime still with the villagers? I wasn't sure if I should take the evidence or leave it for the investigators to hopefully find if they ever decided to do their job a bit more thoroughly.