Awards Killing Game 2x2: Moon of Hope (Game Thread) - Grand Finale: Shoot The Moon

You KNOW I had to... huh? I'm 10 years too late?? I don't know about any of that. I'm just an old squid with some new tricks!



So, another young flipperflapper kicked the chum bucket, but I'm feeling more alive than ever! Rejuvenated, like I was given free refills for a Tacticooler! I could even... I could even...! No, that's still not working. Clod Clammit. You may be wondering how I got here, maybe even how I ended up healthier than that little ghostfish Mona over there! Well, I had a grand night out. One for the history museum. Here's how this old seadog remembers it, anyhow.

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When I stirred awake, I saw some newfangled laser tech in the West Gallery. It burned hotter than a pan of haddock, I'll tell you now. Ol' reliable Lyra waded right over to me when I called her, and we discussed a certain affinity I have for this Sun Stone malarkeybox. We made a deal of sorts... well, I don't know much about this stuff. But I had a theory.

I swam my way on to the Library, where I relieved Luke Atmey of the last fuel canister and lighter. Age before beauty, sonny! Then I raided the Metal Lab for scrap, including two pairs of handcuffs. I also spotted Lee Chaolan in glowing armour, Atmey setting the Coatroom ablaze in the 1F Hallways before he gets chased by Lee into the Plant Nursery, where he and a mysterious black-clad fella then start digging through the soil. What a weirdo! I also saw that nice young man Chad dressed as a firefighter. That's good of him. Service workers don't get enough respect these days!



And just before I get to the Train Exhibit, I see the darndest thing. Portricia Knightley, may the Salmonarch rest her soul, is leaving her bedroom and heading east. Right after, I hear some crazy cat noise coming from that direction. Huh?? I thought she was a... well, that's the last I saw of her anyway. May her gear have Quick Respawn nuggets equipped, and may her start point remain uncamped.

At the Train Exhibit, ol' Ghouligrab was poking around dearly departed Winter's body, before leaving with his precious goods. What a vulturefish. If you ever find my carcass, don't you dare make off with my bits and bobs - I'm saving them all for my grandsquids! After a while, I look out of the window and see Albina fighting a big chunk of slime and fish with a flail, before she hightails it down to the slide to avoid getting splatted. I would have helped, but I'm just an old squid. I don't know anything about that...

Little Mona shows up and warned me not to touch the train. I promised I wouldn't. And I meant every word! Well… every word except the train-related ones. I had a theory, y'see. A grand theory of stars and comets. I hear some rumbling, crashes and cannon fire, then some more rambsambling noise upstairs. Finally, that blasted Lee bumbles in and starts making a mess of the exhibit. Fortunately for me, Lyra finally decides to show up and splats the insolent little bugger with a sledgehammer. Kids these days. So violent!



Well, I needn't go over every little detail of my demonstration. It was quite shrimple. I tied us together, cuffed her to the train, set it all off, then set myshellf on fire. Y'see, my little theory was that this Sun Stone required a comet and a new star. And in my dream, I am the star. Fish. It's me. So when I started burning alive like a fried crab, I was sort of like the sun that they made this silly stone for. Well, that's when it all started to go wrong. I found a lovely purple gem in Lyra's pockets, which I thought I should hold on to in case I need to pay for the damages. Fortunately, it seemed to bring me back to life instead! Take that, suckerfish! They tried to krill me before, but I grilled myself back to life!

Anyway after that I burned the Aviation Exhibit plane down with myself in it. I was feeling a little overhydrated. What the shell, I still don't feel tip-top if I'm being honest. Alive, definitely alive, but...



I don't feel so good. Must be my knees...

Waluigi Time said:

Investigate the Clock Tower Movements and Belfry

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As you enter the Movements, you examine impressive, large gears spanning multiple stories in height, all looking quite dangerous to be caught between, but thankfully none of them are moving. From your records, the Clock Tower runs on its own power system separate to the Hydro Generator, but still connects to the Complex at large. The maintenance shaft granting access to the Movements only opens when the clock is nonfunctional, for obvious safety reasons.

Climbing the ladder, you arrive in the Belfry, a tall shaft which leads to a platform with the clock tower's clock face on it. There's heaps of GHOST bats nesting here, resembling those in the Crows Nest, and the late Sir Ratigan's special form. Due to the merged nature of the complex, the platform is surrounded by tree branches, making it hard to actually read the exact time besides midnight when looking at the clock from outside or in. However, now that you're here, you can see the clock tower stopped working well after the halfway point of the night.

Of course, nesting in the center of the clock is a glowing, purple shard. It's giving off a faint red aura.

A muscular looking red ghost with a menacing grimace fades into view, its spirit transient, and faint. It seems more like a distant memory than anything else.

"I, the Guardian of Strength, shall pass my power to you, should you keep this stone in your possession until the sun sets again."

Obviously, going by the way the Sun Stone was handled by your peers, you're gonna have to fight for this one with a vote instead of just taking it yourself at night.

TPG said:

Check the Plant Nursery desk for carvings, and check the new topiary in the Front Garden.

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You examine the Plant Nursery and its desk. You find the phrase JACK WUZ HERE roughly carved into a wooden preparations desk, which has been moved and turned to face the doors. The exotic garden has been thoroughly ransacked over the course of this nightmare, and the damage done to it two nights ago remains, with the bark from the trees stripped, and heaps of stomped, fancy vegetables and elemental fruit strewn around the place. Nonetheless, some digging has occurred tonight, and the steel trolley used for moving plants around is missing. A single flower that looks like a crimson eye is poking up from the ground.

Turboo said:

Scusi. If you could... investigate the Dark Lab, especially the trolley I saw last night.

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You examine the Dark Lab. It appears the augmentation machine has been used a few times last night. You find a few flowers in pots on a steel trolley, with one of them resembling the crimson eye flower from the Plant Nursery near the featureless steel wall that was examined during yesterdays twilight phase. The portrificationiser is running, with a painting inside. Some of the darklights have been taken again.

Yeah this is excellent progress alright. You guys are playing along with my game super nicely, so I'll let you keep putting these little rocks to a vote. I, of course, will nominate myself and very likely receive the majority vote anyway, but we have to make things look formal for the books.

Keep it up. I can feel Gadd rolling in his portrait already.

Turboo said:

Based on the composition of the scene, does it seem that Miss Porticia landed down below before the forklift did, or after? The damage to the corpus... it's hard to tell, as Vigil mentioned. Fascia and I aren't sure how to test.

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Vigil puffs his cigar indifferently. It seems the frequent nights of hearing the bell toll have taken a number on him, and now, his favorite clock is broken. Nonetheless, he complies with your query, and says he can't tell the before or after with what you have on hand.

He muses that the scene you encountered of Portricia slumped over one of the rock spires with no forklift in sight means its hard to determine which came first. He says she's sustained impacts on both sides of her body though, and mutters something about the differences between being struck by something heavy and being squished against a rock by something heavy.

Your result is ultimately inconclusive. He'd need to run some tests with a body.

Vigil suggests trying to recover the items at the bottom of the cliff for further analysis, and in Mona's absence, reminds you that Tanner can act as a backup... once. Tanner looks nervous.