Day 4: Abnormal Days

Asher looked up and eyed the cake resting on the table.
"Not even that looks appetizing after what we've seen so far..." he stretched.
"But man, I don't even know where to look!"

Trying to ignore the conversation going on nearby, Herbert quickly tried to stick the screwdriver into one of the many punctures on Oscar's chest, giving David a nasty stare before doing so. He didn't look happy about it, but it seemed to fit. He quickly took it out, grimacing at the coat of fresh blood on the metal, hoping nobody just saw that.
He casually wiped the blood off on the carpet. Monobear could clean it up, for all he cared. Back into his pockets the 'driver went.

Albert moved a bit to crouch down next to Herbert, again in a manner unfitting of someone wearing a skirt.
"Sorry my girl lunged for you like that," he mumbled, hoping only he would hear.

"...they're fingerprints, for sure." She headed over to Oscar's body and, trying to ignore Herbert, checked if any of Oscar's fingers had blood on them. His blood.

...

"...alright, well that's one thing down." She headed back to the table and Asher. "Those are the culprits' hand prints, for sure. Oscar's hands are clean."

Asher stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"Well, it's not like we can go around finger-printing everyone, right? How will this help?"

Eloise decided she'd investigate all the tables and chairs.
Looking at the files, it happened Early Night. Evidence could have been hidden anywhere by now.

Laura walked up behind Marci. "Well that's great. Except just as Asher said, we can't exactly do a fingerprint scan in the middle of this library, can we?" She wasn't trying to be sarcastic. It really was disappointing that they couldn't solve the murder this easily.

Under her breath, Laura muttered to herself. "Man, I can't believe I missed this one too. I really wanted to see it go down this time..."

"I have a few ideas. We'll discuss those later, regardless." She thought for a moment, then looked at the paper again, her heart clenching. "...I want to know what he was planning. I'm not sure if it has relevance, but I want to know."

Laura sighed and puffed her cheeks in frustration. "I dunno Marci, seems like another dead end to me. Unless you happen to write poetry about alchemy, there's no way we can figure out what kinda poo poo he was studying."

"Don't occultists know weird symbols too? Maybe they're similar- at least enough that Adda or whoever she is could get a basic grip?" If he could barely read English, there was no way he'd have a clue about some weird stuff like this. But that didn't mean it was a complete dead end.

Herbert nearly shot back when Adda-Albert-Albedo addressed him.
He stammered for a bit before he finally could say anything. "Et's... no problem, ser? Mam? Seram?" he stood back up, trying to get out of an uncomfortable position. Perhaps the table had some stuff. He quickly made his way over.

She looked at them both and nodded. "Asher, that's a good idea." She picked up the note and headed over to Albert.

"Um...there are a few weird symbols here. We were wondering if maybe you could try and decipher what they meant, exactly. I know this isn't your area of expertise, but...absolutely anything helps."

None of the tables or chairs yielded anything interesting, except for the big table. Dead center, and much larger than the others, it was obviously the alpha-table.

And on it was the book soaked with blood.
Eloise took note of chair's state. It had a few splatters as well and seemed to have been turned over.

She moved to the trash cans in the room now. Time to get dirty.

Albert watched as Herbert scurried off, then stood again. He pulled the notebook out from Adda's bag, and began to scribble some notes down. Things like, "It'll work out," "Stay strong for both of us," and "Be safe, my girl." When Marci came by he quickly shut the book.
"Um, I'll take a look, but no promises..." he took the page from her, and winced when he saw the other notes and doodles.
"She really made good friends... but I digress. All I can make out is that it seems more like a recipe than an actual message..."

"Any idea of what for?" she asked hopefully. If anything positive could come out of this, it was possibly figuring out what Oscar was up to. Who knows, maybe it was relevant.

Albert's judgement was interesting, but not particularly helpful by itself. "Yeah, what Marci said. A recipe for what?" She tried racking her brain for information. "I wasn't really paying attention, but what was Oscar doing yesterday? I remember him acting kinda funny, but that's about it."

"Nah, I can barely make out the symbols as-is and besides, there are no amounts given. It feels almost more like a shopping list of sorts then the recipe itself." As he read, his heart ached. The poor kid didn't deserve this.

Nothing in the trashcans. Of all the places to hide evidence, though, that'd be a pretty bad one.

She found herself wandering over to the other students now.
"Well, he's an alchemist, hmm?" She interrupted, standing next to Laura, "If he was making a recipe for anything it was probably...gold?...immortality?" She listed off what she knew about alchemists, which really wasn't much. The subject made her heart hurt though, that poor weird kid.

A memory clicked in the back of Laura's mind. "Oh, I've got it!" she exclaimed, pounding a crutch against the ground. "Water! That weirdo had tons of water bottles yesterday!"

Laura seemed proud of her almost useless revelation. "So uh, what could a load of water have to do with anything?"

She thought. "Maybe it was a warning system? That would go off, with the smoke detectors, when someone....tried to murder?" She sighed. "This is impossible."

Albert crossed his arms.
"Like I said, I'm not very well versed in this stuff at all. Still, I know water is vital to pretty much anything. I want to say its especially important to organic creations, but that's honestly a wild guess. He's the only one who knew what this all meant, and I'm afraid it may have died with him."

It was sad to think about, but Albert was probably right.
"Alright, I guess that settles that, more or less," she said, closing her eyes in thought. "Are there any other rooms we need to check out? There could be evidence in his room for all we know."

Eloise crossed her hands over her chest.
"I think we should go through everyone's rooms. We have to see if there's anymore evidence hidden and if you have something to hide then..." She pushed back her hair a bit, "You've done something wrong."

Frowning, she became a bit restless, "Well, that's if we even have any time left."

David piped up. "That's a good idea. There's also the kitchen, where the garbage chute is, but I think rooms are a better idea."

Asher nodded.
"If this was in early night, then the perp would've had all the time they needed to hide stuff. But that dumb bear could haul us off just when we're on to something, for all we know."