Post #2661098 in Tales Along the Poison Arrow, a roleplay on RPG

"Oh, right- no need to call me Prez. You can call me by a nickname if you want."

"Hmm...How about Eli then?" Marika answered as she brought her stuff towards her. "And you can call me...well, Mari's fine." Marika suggested. "Well, I'll help you unpack. We can get everything settled in faster." Marika stretched her arms as she made her way towards Elizabeth's stuff. "You've got a lot of stuff here. Good thing you two can carry all these. After this, I think I'll check out the adjacent room and the others nearby."

Marika helped with unpacking with the heavier items and placing them on the right spots. After finishing up in the room, she felt her phone vibrate. Apparently, Sei decided to give them a call and inquire about their progress. Marika excused herself to go outside as to not interrupt Elizabeth and her roommate.

"So you're already over at Lucia?" Sei asked.

"Yeah. Scary place despite the lighting and stuff. We're on the seventh floor too. So if anything happens, there's no way we'll be able to make a speedy exit." Marika joked.

"Why? Are you staying in the room in question itself?"

"No, the adjacent one. No way we're going to risk getting influenced by whatever is causing those suicides." Marika's tone dropped a notch upon uttering that last detail.

"I see."

"We'll start by investigating the room layouts. I'll probably go door to door and ask to take a picture of the rooms and compare them with 709 which is the room in question. Maybe a certain architectural detail is aggravating the circumstances? I don't know how human psychology works but, from what I recall, the mind is easily swayed by things like that." Marika sighed. She's managed to dig out some history which may serve as a reason for the place to be chosen. Next, she'll need to determine what is it with the place that aggravates said suicides. "Then comes the hardest...what is their motive for taking their lives?"

"Good luck with that then. I'm hanging up now. Still need to sort some personal stuff."

"Alright. See you around Sei." With that, the boy hanged up. Marika tucked away her phone in her pocket and walked towards the rooms on the other end. One by one, she knocked and asked to take a picture of the rooms in order to make her comparisons. "It's for a research paper. We're asked to study architectural and interior layouts--whatever that is. I'm not really an architect anyway." That was the excuse she gave the residents upon intruding. So far, most of the rooms looked the same, aside from the resident's personal touches.

Upon reaching 709, she suddenly realized that she has no way of entering the room. Grudgingly, she returned to their room and informed Elizabeth that she was heading downstairs. "Hey, I'm going back downstairs to borrow a key from Cel-san. I'll need to see what 709 looks like and how it compares with the other rooms in the vicinity."

So downstairs she went until she reached the front desk where Cel was quietly writing down something in a blue logbook. The older girl saw her and smiled. "What's the matter? Having second thoughts?" She asked, closing the logbook as she did.

"Maybe. It's too dark upstairs. At least compared to the other floors." Marika laughed. "Can I borrow the keys to 709? I won't take long. I'll just need to take a picture of the layout."

"No, sorry. Police have sealed up that room for a while. We were also asked to not let anyone in while the investigation is still underway." Cel sighed.

"Can't you--you know? Slip this one time? We won't even take five minutes and--it's for the good of the dorm and the investigation anyway." Marika whispered slyly at Cel who just shook her head.

"No way. Don't get me wrong, I like you girls--especially you Yukimura-chan. But, it could cost me this job. And to be booted out of campus which I really can't afford--well, you get it." Cel explained.

"Yeah. Don't worry, I was just teasing." Marika sighed in defeat. She did notice Cel seemed to be deep in thought for a moment before speaking up.

"You already went to the other rooms correct? Starting from 701 to 710?"

"Yes."

"Well, 702 has the same layout as 709 in that both are sandwiched between an occupied room and a storage room. You could use that as a reference. The only thing that would be different would be--"

"The view from the window. Okay, thanks a lot Cel-san!" With renewed enthusiasm, Marika headed back up to their room to inform Elizabeth.

"Hey, you all done here? I'll need you to accompany me downstairs outside the building. Oh, and I hope you've got good walking shoes with you."

Snippet #2661098

located in Unnamed City, a part of Tales Along the Poison Arrow, one of the many universes on RPG.

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