>>13819
"Right, this way then," Gohda answers meekly.
You head down to the first floor, then down a hallway to the boiler room entrance. There, you find George, Shannon, and Rosa in front of the door about to unlock it.
"Ozaki, Gohda? What are you doing here?" Rosa asks wearily. They all seem on edge.
Before you can respond George decides to speak up, "Nanjo and Maria suddenly vanished, and we got a phone call that seemed to come from the boiler room. We were just about the check inside."
"We had to go to the servant room to get the only key for the boiler room because it was locked," Rosa further elaborates.

Not wanting to split up anymore, they force you to enter the boiler room with them.

>>13814
"Hey Battler, stop joking around this isn't funny!" Rudolf yells as he slams on the door.
After a few more attempts at trying to get Battler's attention, with no answer, Rudolf draws his gun and shoots at the lock to gain access causing your ears to ring from the impact. The door swings open when fired upon.

With the door open, from where you stand in the parlor you can clearly see that Battler has vanished from the washroom. The only other entrance/exit from that room appears to be a small window in the top left of the back wall, but the window itself is set and locked.

The storm continues to rage outside as a golden butterfly flaps its wings and glides through the backdoor to the boiler room. The door unlocks from the inside, swinging wide open. Slowly, from the depths of the forest, a limping silhouette approaches. As it finally reaches the light of the mansion it becomes clear that it is Kanon and his waist is heavily wounded. He shuffles through the open door, which closes and locks itself behind him.

Now in the boiler room, there is nowhere for the butterfly to go. Kanon stride-limps across the room, headed for it. No words are exchanged, but for the utterance continuously repeated by Kanon - "Kill."

Eventually, Kanon reaches out and crushes the butterfly in his grasp. A bright, golden light completely fills the room.

>>13821
Your group continues down the stairs, as a loud sound emits from below and shakes the entire staircase along with the hallway. "Ah!," Shannon cries out. Tow which George quickly responds, "What's wrong!?"

"Oh, it's nothing. I just bumped my arm," she explains while rubbing her wrists.

Upon turning back around, you notice that Rosa has disregarded Shannon completely and begun to run off down the stairs. As the rest of the group (including you) make it to the bottom, you find her calling out, "Maria! Maria? Are you here?"

>>13822
Rudolf, at a loss for words, suddenly leaves the bathroom and walks out the main parlor doors. Everyone is mildly surprised, but the group realizes they should probably follow him and proceed to do so.

>>13824
I do a survey of the room making sure to look for the phone.

>>13826
The boiler room has various tools and machines. No matter how hard you look, you cannot find a phone. Something is off about this room, your head is hurting just thinking about it. Eventually, you recognize a faint smell - and it draws your attention toward the incinerator in the centre of the room.

>>13827
I go over and open the incinerator assuming it is closed. Making sure to turn it off first if it is currently too hot to open.

>>13828
You are able to unhinge and swing open the door. The foul stench of burning flesh and human viscera permeates throughout the room in force. Although the fire has already died, it is clear that the body is still simmering. Despite this, the face is still mostly intact. From what you can recall, this is most definitely Kanon. Additionally, you can see his master key there as well.

The rest of the group is aghast, and someone (you're not sure who) can be heard vomiting.

Suddenly, a knock on the back door is heard. Everyone's attention is directed toward it, but Rosa, closest to the door, appears to hear something.

"Battler... is that you?" She asks.

After a short pause, Rosa's face changes, indicating she received confirmation. She moves to open the door...

With Rudolf running ahead, your group passes side rooms until reaching the main hall and climbing the stairs to the second floor. With you at the back of the group you can see Rudolf and Eva are already halfway up the stairs.

As you go to climb the stairs you feel yourself disorient slightly. It seems as if you're falling for a moment, but you realize you're not. You slow down, and feel everything around you do likewise, although the fact that you remain aware of this confuses you.

Out of your peripheral vision, you see one object unphased by the molasses stretching over time. The clock strikes twelve and chimes loudly.

The same can be said for Ozaki, as the door Rosa's pulling wide never opens, and he finds himself in a similar situation.

You both feel your perceptions expanding from the isolated sensations around your body to encompass the entirety of the island of Rokkenjima, and it is as you feel this that you know the lights are dimming and the air is stilling and the light of life in the eyes of those frozen around you grow dim and indifferent.

You blink once more and know the game has ended, the canvas removed from your eyes and the chains shorn from your ankles.

Welcome to the endgame. The rules are this:

You both have until Friday at noon (by the board's time) to email me your theory. This theory must include the whodunit, howdunit, and whydunit. The more detail the better. If you both send them before that date then you may start once I post saying so.

If there are aspects to your theory you cannot explain - why this character was here, why they did this, how this happened, et cetera - that is acceptable, as following the submission of theories there will be a final debate between you two.

The final debate will continue either until I decide to end it or you're both satisfied/willing to stop/concede(one way or the other).

Should you both present a sufficiently similar theory, you may, of course, simply argue with me head on as allies.

When the debate ends, I will select the theory which is most strong; this will be measured by simply pooling up whichever has the most supporting points, evidence, and intelligent observations under it's belt. This is not completely indicative of which is the most CORRECT, although I should HOPE that the stronger theory is also the more accurate one. It is at this point that the creator of the "stronger theory" may be considered the "winner over the other player", although whether or not their theory is actually valid (or even in the realm of possibility) is a completely different matter that I will debate with them in red.

(Again, if you both have the same theory, I debate you both and you're considered... tied, I guess.)

If there are any questions, you may also send them to the provided email privately. Moreover, since at this point I consider the mystery solvable, anybody else may also address their theories to me. These won't have any impact on the game, of course. Simply for fun. ;)

Due to Rika's request, I am extending the deadline of the theories submission by 48 hours. Completely understandable (and works better for me anyway, since I am very busy this weekend as it turns out).

Time is up. It has been decided we will move directly to a duel between Ozaki and myself. It will end once the mystery has been solved or if his theory is proven invalid.

Feel free to post your theory when ready, Ozaki. You can change any minor details if you wish because we skipped the debate.

>>13952
Alright then, let us start.

Looking through the game you can see one major motivation that would appeal to many of the cast; Kinzo's rant on the first day. He clearly said a bunch of nasty things to his children and constantly belittles them. Hell, all of the adults could be the culprit for all we know. Only servants were killed after that, meaning the culprit was clearly getting rid of Kinzo's followers, I imagine they all witnessed Kinzo making his will. Anyway, if we take the howdunits into consideration we can narrow the suspects down to a final solution I believe. Here is my main point.

All the murders were done on the first night.

That's right, we've got some trickery up in this game. Let us start from Genji's death.
Before discovering the corpse, Genji was in the kitchen watching on the food. Or was he? The truth is, only Gohda, Natsuhi and Krauss actually have said to see Genji at all during the morning. Rika heard Genji right in the morning, but there is nothing to say that was all a ruse. You may see where I am going with this.

In regards to Kinzo's death, there was shards of glass found in the towel, which (although redundant) probably was caused by someone breaking the glass in the towel to avoid making noise. They then placed the shards around the corpse and spilled some water to make some idea it was an accident. Of course not many people can easily slip on carpet, so that wasn't a very good cover up.
Then there was the keys in different rooms, but that is all void the moment we consider Genji's study key was used. Genji was simply killed first, or tricked into letting the culprit get into the study(perhaps to deliver the message we found burnt in the fireplace). Shortly after, Kinzo was killed and the closed room was set up with the use of the two study keys the culprit now had. Following this, they decided they had to get rid of Kumasawa too, which really wasn't too hard at this point.

There are a few ways I can see this working, but the easiest would be that Nanjo is an accomplice. He lied about losing a syringe and gave it to Krauss so he could hide it in the room. Kumasawa's door is simple to get past if you have a single master key, which they did, so it was only a matter of sneaking into her room during the night and killing her off silently. Of course Genji's was found in the kitchen, so there is something else we must explain.

Gohda is the final accomplice, but Genji's room was not constructed easily. After all if Jessica and Natsuhi just lied then either of them could have walked in and done the deed, but going along with my theory I would say otherwise. It went more like this; when Gohda came to ask Shannon to go find Kumasawa, Genji was already dead and his body placed in the kitchen. Gohda had locked the door upon leaving, with the keys inside, and left the stove on in order to get our attention after finding Kumasawa. Gohda is known to be new on the island, so most likely he has been Krauss/Natsuhi's pawn for a while.

At this point, although it should be clear now, I'll outright state that Krauss is the culprit, with Natsuhi, Nanjo, and Gohda as accomplices.

Following this, Gohda was tasked to place a letter in an attempt to ostracize some people. He simply waited for a distraction to be made causing everyone to split up
One of the most notable events in the game was when everyone disappeared in the study, however there was one thing in particular that was mentioned without an obvious reason.

>In the hallway you notice the floor is scratched in some places horizontally from wall to wall.
As you can see, this line was placed as if SEPARATING the main portion of the study. They never actually left the room, but the whole room was swapped with a replica! Some sort of hidden room type of thing. I wouldn't put it past Kinzo after all. Or they hide under another table or something. Honestly this part has gotten me good and I don't have any clear solution.

After that we found Nanjo dead, but there is something fishy about the whole thing don't you think? You purposely ushered me out of the room so I wouldn't investigate. Nanjo, being an accomplice, just faked his death. Plain and simple. The boiler room sounds were also a premade recording set up by Gohda in the kitchenette, or by Nanjo in another room. This could also have been how Genji called Rika in the morning.

Now we end up with Kanon. If you recall, my statement was that all the deaths happened on the first night. With Nanjo's faked death, Kanon's is a simple time trick. He was killed during the night and placed into the incinerator. We could only smell his body after opening the hatch, so it could have been there all day if needed. The whole room was simply locked with the boiler room key, which was put back in the servant room after its use.

As for Battler, he probably wanted to solve the crime himself or something, and locked the window from the outside after escaping. He found his way to the room by circling around the mansion.

That is my theory, what do you say Theon?

>>13953
Interesting, but quite a few things are incorrect. I will start with this.

None of the master keys were used to construct the closed rooms in this gameboard. The same can be said for Genji's study key.

>>13954
Wrecks like half my theory, but whatever, its more entertaining this way. I'll just rebuild each one.

For Kinzo's room they simply caught the door while he was leaving and held it open with some object so the key could be put into the room after killing him.

For Kumasawa's she was poisoned and locked the door herself before dying and fall out of bed, the syringe was placed into the room after discovery of her corpse.

For Genji's, while I was checking the windows Gohda and or Krauss had the time to pretend to find the keys on Genji's body. Thus making it no closed room at all.

How about this then?

>>13955
Eva had something to say about your Kinzo theory, remember?
>>13786

>>13956
Alright change of mind, Krauss just lied about the whole thing. The keys were never found in weird places or whathaveyou but it was all just to make it seem like an accident.

...Very good. On to a different flaw then.

Nanjo was killed in Jessica's room.

>>13958
You didn't deny that Nanjo faked his death though!
The plan was indeed to make Nanjo fake his death, but Gohda was ordered to kill him because he was being paid opposed to being loyal. While I was searching the room Gohda injected him with poison and we quickly left the room due to the planned phone call, thus leaving before we could see it take effect.
He didn't move because he had either taken drugs to make it seem like death, or he simply didn't want to give himself away.

>>13959
Hmph... this is going faster than I expected.

Explain Kanon's death.
Kanon was killed after Nanjo. The boiler room remained locked all day until Rosa unlocked it using the key.

>"All the murders were done on the first night."
It appears your main point was completely off.

>>13960
It is simple.

Kanon was placed into the incinerator alive and was slowly killed over the course of this game, he just happened to die after Nanjo died.

>>13961
Kanon died instantaneously. He was not killed inside of the incinerator.

>>13962
Then, a trap was made in the boiler room. It killed him and also put him into the incinerator.

Also a request, if you will. What is the status of the backdoor? Can it be locked with the key as well? I never got to investigate it after all.

Kanon was killed by a physical blow from another human standing right beside him.

The exterior door is similar to the kitchen's back door. The back door can only be locked from the inside and the key does not work on it. The large bar lock on the back door was set when you entered until Rosa unlocked it.

>>13964
Well then.

The back door was left open allowing entrance into the room.
This is directly referring to the red you made about the door being locked all day.

How silly of me. Shall I fix that?

The only time the back door opened was the single time at end of the game by Rosa.

Wow, umm well. How about...
Kanon has a twin of the same name and he was killed instead. Or he has DID or something.

Come now, you can do better than that.
Kanon has no twins. Shannon and Kanon are not the same person. The body you found in the boiler room was the same Kanon you were with when you first entered the kitchen.

I will allow momentary break, assuming we can move on to other matters.

Battler did not lock the window from the outside. None of the windows in this game were locked from the outside.

>>13968
Then how about, Rudolf quickly set the lock before anyone saw him. He was the only one who actually went into the bathroom I think.

Or the lock is broken and doesn't actually work.

>>13969
Rudolf did not set the lock on the window. Why would he do that?

The lock functions properly and was set.

>>13970
Then the same as my theory about the study. The room was swapped or something similar.

>>13971
No rooms were ever "swapped" during this game. This includes the study.

Ready to give up?

>>13972
Going back to Kanon's closed room then.
Rosa and company had already unlocked the door and entered the room before Gohda and I arrived.

>>13973
The door was locked when you and Gohda arrived. Rosa unlocked the door right in front of you.

>>13974
Stop playing with the red!
Rosa still could have relocked it, thus allowing us to see it being opened once we got there. It gets around the red.

>>13975
Very well.
Rosa only unlocked the front door a single time. Which was the same time you were there to witness it.

>>13976
There exists some other entrance to the room other than the doors. Such as vents. This is how Kanon could have gotten into the room.

>>13977
Really?
The only entrance/exits into the room are the two doors. They have not been tampered with in anyway and function just as expected. They were not removed either.

I'm starting to get the idea you have run out of theories.
Knox's 8th It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented.
Enough random guessing. I will be limiting your blues now.

One blue for each of the problems we have discussed.
How did Battler vanished?
How did the study group vanished?
How was Kanon's closed room constructed?
Three blues in total. Don't waste them.

>>13978
Well shit, all or nothing I supposed.

Battler never actually left the bathroom. Due to where Rika was standing she simply couldn't see him hiding behind the door or something similar. Rudolf either agreed beforehand to do this with him, or just freaked out and ran off before discovering him behind the door.

I never once entered the kitchenette. With the help of Gohda everyone hid in there while I was in the bedroom. They were all in it against me.

Kanon has been inside the boiler room all day, thus avoiding most of the reds. He was behind the door when it opened and he fell down the stairs which killed him. Rosa moved the body into the incinerator quickly before I was able to catch up to her.

>>13979
...
Battler was indeed hiding behind the door.

The group did not hide in the kitchenette.

Kanon did not enter the boiler room before Genji's death was found.

You did well, however I have to apologize for toying with you for so long.
After all...

Krauss didn't lie about Kinzo's closed room. The keys really were found where he said they were.

Genji's study key, master key, and the key to the kitchen were found on Genji's corpse by Krauss.

Gohda is not an accomplice, and he did not kill Nanjo. In fact Nanjo was already dead the moment you reached the door of Jessica's room.

Finally, neither Krauss or Natsuhi are culprits or accomplices.

Sorry, but your theory fails. I just wanted to watch you squirm a bit. Ahahaha.

---

Suddenly the world turns grey and everything freezes in place.

>>13979
Alone between the bookcases, the witch remains floating. It appears at some point she reached the climax of the novel.
A man crying and weeping as someone with a similar appearance to herself laughs as she kicks him over and over.

The witch sighs, clearly bored with this affair. As if speaking to the piece, she whispers.

"Do you need help? How pathetic. Try and remember, what has this whole farce of a duel neglected to mention? There was something there. Something far more interesting to you, right? You won with it, and it will help you win again. That was only the lock, you must find the key.

As if waiting for an answer the book is laid open in front the witch, and a small spark waits for the answer from the player.

>>13981
Out of nowhere, a man in white appears, pointing his finger in pride.

"I've solved it! The mirror riddle about the wolf and stars! It's referring to the demon list found in Kinzo's Study!

...You take the demons with stars by their name, and look at their numbers. Change the numbers into letters, and you get a string of characters 'enoizanaforp'. Reverse the string, and the word is 'Profanazione', Italian for 'Desecration'!

...Oh, you sly bastard! The name of this game is not Misdirection! It's Desecration! And you are the real Game Master, ...Ozaki!!!"

>>13982
The gameboard suddenly explodes in flashing lights and colors, suddenly Theon fades away as particles fly upwards into the sky.
Only Ozaki is standing on the stage now. The other members of seacats watching in the background as Kinjo makes his proclamation with Rika off to the side.

Slowly Ozaki gets up and starts to laugh. He stands up and says, "Indeed. I am Theon. I am also the gamemaster."

This is my mystery, but I had my friend Omni write everything for me in order to trick long time members. The blues I used during that duel were theories that Rika and other members of seacats were suggesting in Skype, so it wasn't just me dueling myself. The mirror riddle was heavily discussed in the chat by everyone, Kinjo was the first to recall that was the title of my 'next' game as shown here >>13470.
The game is over, and technically I am the winner. That being said, there is still a mystery to solve! I will now make an open theories thread for anyone and everyone to attempt to solve this mystery, more rules to come.

Oh and of course to keep all the silly theories at bay and to stop you saying that this was meta shenanigans, Ozaki isn't the culprit or accomplice.

Well then, let the real battle begin!"

The sky opens up and rain falls down.

>>13984
One by one the pieces of the gameboard come into place.

>>13985
The stage is set once again, and with it the final games begin.

>>13986
Open Theories Thread: https://archive.seacats.net/gameboard/res/13988.html