122nd ♫ | phosphor burned a silent mayday, my hand slipped with a dirty splash

[phaiinein]

The Murder Game Meme



You know the script. You wake up in a place you've never seen before, with a whole bunch of complete strangers and there's a mysterious voice or a mascot or what have you ready to let you know how things are going to work around here.

The rules are simple: You're trapped here, with no hope of release or rescue. You've been provided with all the basic necessities you need to live comfortably, and all you have to do is settle down and live out the rest of your days here in peace. But if you can't do that -- if you're really so desperate to escape that you'll do anything -- then there's one teeny tiny thing you have to do first.

All you have to do is kill somebody.

But it's not quite that simple. Every death will be followed by a period of investigation, followed by a trial in which the survivors will attempt to solve the mystery and out the culprit. If the survivors guess correctly and out the culprit, the killer is executed and life goes on. But if the survivors guess wrong, then the culprit is free as a bird and everyone else is executed.

Even with the promise of freedom, can you really bring yourself to kill so many other people?

tl;dr: it's a murdergame meme. TIME TO HAVE A BIG OL' MURDERGAME BLAST.


Settings

1. High School A classic! Doesn't matter if you're too old or too young to be in high school -- you've been enrolled and the only way for you to graduate is to kill a fellow student. But hey, the faculties are nice!
2. Tropical Island Weren't you just hankering for a nice tropical vacation? No? Too bad! You're going to have a nice sunny vacation at the beach and if you don't like it, just kill someone and go home. Simple!
3. Prison It doesn't matter if you don't remember committing any crime; you've been tried and found guilty of something or other and now you can go ahead and rot away in jail. If you ever want to see the sunlight again, better put that criminal mind to good use and get rid of your inmates.
4. Mall A huge mall stuffed full of stores, places to eat and all the regular amenities like deadbolted doors and the threat of death. It's like Black Friday but even worse because you can't leave and all the rest of the shoppers might actually kill you for real this time.
5. City Holy shit, you've got the run of a whole city this time around! Maybe with all this room to keep out of each other's way, you'll be able to make sure no one starts killing people. But probably not.
6. Cruise Boat YOU'RE ON A BOAT, MOTHERFUCKER. The accommodation is all five star, even if there's no one around to act as wait staff. The only snag is that you still have this whole murder thing hanging over your head – but on the plus side, they have those little drinks with the umbrellas in, so...
7. Space Station THE FINAL FRONTIER... Maybe you're familiar with space stations like this or maybe all this future tech is fascinating to you. Not like it matters either way, of course, because you won't be getting out of here unless you lay down a murder on someone.
8. Wildcard! None of the above scratch your murder itch? Go wild and come up with your own setting!



Downtime

1. Excuse Me, Who Are You? You've just woken up in this weird place and you have no idea what's going on. But hey -- maybe this stranger's more informed than you. Or maybe you can put your heads together and investigate what's going on.
2. Social Link Go! Well, if you're going to be stuck in here for however long, you might as well get to know the people stuck in here with you. You've got plenty of rooms to explore together and there's enough to do to keep you occupied. How do you plan on passing time without killing each other?
3. Vending Machine Woes Somewhere in this place there's a mysterious vending machine that spits out all manner of bizarre items and occasionally dispenses items that belong to you and the other people trapped here. You've got a fat stack of tokens and nothing to lose.
4. The Corners of My Mind So as it turns out, your lovely hosts have been fiddling with your memories. Maybe you're just discovering this now or maybe you've had a particularly upsetting memory regain you're dealing with.
4. Wildcard! GO WILD AND BE FREE (or as free as you can be here, anyways)



PUTTING THE MURDER IN MURDER GAME

1. Motive Your mysterious overseer has decided there's not nearly enough murder going on and so they've ~helpfully~ given you a little push to do the deed. Maybe one of your loved ones is in danger, maybe they're offering more money than you could ever dream of or they're threatening to reveal your deepest darkest secrets. Whatever is it, would you kill for it?
2. Murder WELL APPARENTLY, YES. Are you a killer or are you being killed? Either way, someone's not walking away from this alive.
3. Body Discovery Rise and shine, murdergame! It's a brand new day and someone's dead. Better get investigating!
4. Trial You know how this one goes. Line up all your evidence and sniff out the killer -- or sit there and sweat and hope no one works out you're the murderer. Will they go down with a confession or put up a fight?
5. Afterparty You've survived another trial, but more of your friends have died. Even without the executions, trials are a stressful enough affair. It's time to destress and lick your wounds and support each other.
6. Mastermind It's the end. It's time to uncover all the mysteries behind this murder game -- and find out just who trapped you here. Are they really an unconnected party, or is the mastermind someone among you...?
7. Freedom Just as it says -- you're finally free, but at what cost? Have those you love been returned to you, or are you still reduced to just those who made it to the end? Are you on your own, or is anyone here to help you? And more importantly, how the hell are you going to get home?
8. Wildcard YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO


OPTIONAL FUN

Lots of murdergames have in-universe public profiles for other characters to get the skinny on yours. If you'd like to fill one out to post with your toplevel, peep at the code below!

<center><b>Name:</b> NAME | <b>TITLE (Super High School Level, Ultimate, Champion, etc)</b> <b>Age:</b> AGE | <b>Species:</b> SPECIES | <b>Occupation:</b> OCCUPATION <b>Likes:</b> LIKES <b>Dislikes:</b> DISLIKES <b>Traits:</b> A HANDFUL OF NOTABLE TRAITS <b>Trivia:</b> A PIECE OF TRIVIA</ul></center>

Comments

[hexcrafter]

[The crutch was brought to lean against his shoulder; matching the brace on his leg in white metal accented in red and gold, a close look revaled it was made in two perfectly joined pieces; a detachable cane forming the handle and bottom half. Assistive devices that meticulously designed had to be not only customized, but personalized.]

[His hand curled around that white metal tightly, like someone seeking comfort in a distant memory.]

[Aqua was clever--too damn clever for Viktor to lie even if lying was a skill he had.]

...How much longer do you expect it will take before we find a way out of this?

[selfreliar]

...I don't know.

[The cottony static in his head wasn't just two nights' lack of sleep. Aqua was tired, soul-tired from constant vigilance, observation, and failure to see past the tricks, past the smoke and mirrors. Resourcefulness and un-teenagerly emotional perception only got a person so far.]

How long do you have?

[hexcrafter]

The kind of time that does not get measured in years.

[Too damn clever.]

I was born in the valleys beneath the city of Piltover. My family lived near the Fissures; the lowest habitable parts of the Undercity, where the toxic runoff of topside was at its worst. The air quality has improved in more recent years, but back when I was a child-...

[He trailed off, gripping the crutch like it was his sole lifeline.]

Aqua. I need to ask you to do something for me.

[selfreliar]

[Blinking, gripped suddenly in a fist of wariness and dread, Aqua responded reluctantly:]

What?

[hexcrafter]

I've kept a journal concealed in the back of my nightstand. Documentation on the situation, records of evidence, some rough notes on potential avenues of escape, and personal notes. You are resourceful and far sharper than you should have to be at your age; there is very little doubt in my mind you will be able to escape somehow.

...When the time comes, I would be...grateful, if you were to find a way to take that journal to Piltover, and give it to Councilor Jayce Talis. [No 'if something happens'; there was no point in even drawing up the equation to determine the percentage. Either time killed him, or one of the others would.]

There's no family left to notify. Just him.

[selfreliar]

[This was exactly what he'd been afraid to hear. Aqua's lips pressed together into a bloodless line as Viktor spoke until it came out in a rush.]

I didn't become a doctor so that--

[Catching himself, Aqua yanked his gaze away and covered his mouth, then his eyes. After a moment, he turned back to rearrange the medicine, his voice strained at the edges but once more restrained.]

Sorry. I mean... yeah. I'll do it. If I have to. [He took a breath and let it out more slowly.] But I'd rather you didn't talk like that. We... need your brain, you know. [Even more ragged:] And I can try to give you more time.

[hexcrafter]

[Viktor sighed, his free hand rubbing at his eyes in exhaustion.]

Even with this level of resources, it may well be too little too late. It would take a miracle to halt a lifetime of poisoning and the resultant damage, or so the Piltovan doctors seemed to think in not so many words. Taking up a futile endeavor would be a waste of our time and concentration. That energy is better directed at keeping everyone else alive.

[Dropping his hand from his face, he shifted in the chair as if his back was already starting to hurt, still gripping the cane like his only sense of security.]

No one understands your frustration like I do. I was working on a particular mad endeavor to prevent this outcome, but with those materials back in my laboratory...

[And the fact that said research was slamming against a dead end.]

...He's sentimental about the whole thing. You will probably get hugged and cried on, so you have my sincerest apologies for that.

[selfreliar]

That's even less reason to go along with what you're asking, you know.

[Maybe it'd be tolerable if Jayce were a cute teenage girl--

Craning over his notebook for a moment, Aqua ran his finger down a list of medicine components and interactions scrawled in Japanese until he found something he'd circled, then selected another bottle from the counter, then another. Once he'd gathered the ones he wanted, he began doling them out into the plastic compartments of a pill organizer, every so often double-checking his notes.]

It should be you. Getting cried on and hugged. ...You say you don't have family, but that sounds close enough to me.

[He snapped the pill organizer closed and turned again.]

I'm not actually a genius. I know I don't have the medical knowledge to cure you, Viktor. [It wasn't like Tokyo University offered a specialization in poisonous materials and diseases on other worlds--nor was Aqua a practicing doctor of any kind.] All I can do here is try to give your body and mind enough of a respite to keep going... until we all work a way out.

...

[He was looking not at Viktor, but at the floor between them, the pillbox still held between his hands.]

...Can't I do that much?

[hexcrafter]

...Some people would think that terribly cruel, Aqua. Trying to give a dying man hope that you can not possibly know will end in anything. Even a doctor should know when the prognosis is beyond salvaging.

[His tone was serious, but not admonishing yet. There was a difference between sympathy born of condescending pity and sympathy born of actual care. Viktor didn't have much experience with the latter, but he was learning to recognize it by now.]

Do not misunderstand. Dying now would leave me as less than a footnote in Piltover's history, a pointless life that was able to be of use to no one. This is not resignation; I despise the idea of having lived and died without purpose, and if I can avoid it, I will. But...do hajzlu, Aqua, think your process through to a conclusion. If and when this does not work, what will you do? Drive yourself to madness over what you perceive as your own failing? [relatable?] If we have seen nothing else here, we have seen that we can not save everyone no matter how we wish to.

[selfreliar]

[What about the point of Aqua's life? What about his living and dying without a purpose? Never mind saving everyone, if he could just save someone--if he could just make even a little difference, before it was too late--it would mean something, wouldn't it? There'd be a reason for him to have been here, this boy named Hoshino Aquamarine. A reason for him to have existed at all.

He took a breath, meaning to argue, meaning to plead that Viktor at least take the damn pill case and trash it in his own room if he really wanted, when the sense of his own cruelty sank its hooks in.

Sarina-chan, calling him mean for deferring her dreams to a sixteenth year she'd never see. Ai, softly telling him it couldn't be fixed.

A doctor was supposed to encourage his patients to fight, but couldn't bring his own feelings into it. So what if Aqua's soul already creaked and splintered under the decades of guilt he carried? This wasn't about him. It had never been about him.

He held his tongue, then let the breath out, sank to the floor, and sat there with his back to the cabinets and knees and limbs drawn up, tucking his face into the loose, tired curve of one elbow.]

Fine. I guess... maybe we're both at our limit.

[He'd once been the kind of person who would race across the country to buy rare merch of a patient's favorite idol. If he could do nothing else, Aqua could still go through those motions, pull on those memories to answer another's dying wish.]

Tell me about your councilor, then. How do I get in to see him?

[hexcrafter]

... [It was too cruel to both of them, and Viktor knew it. But cruelty and unfairness as facts of life came naturally to Zaunites; one scratched and clawed all their lives for the meager ground that Piltovans could simply step across.]

[Slowly, carefully, he picked himself up and stepped over to Aqua, settling himself gingerly on the floor and stretching out his bad leg.]

The Academy isn't difficult to find. Go there and say I sent you with a message; if he is not in the laboratory, Jayce will most likely come running at the mention anyway. Particularly given how long we have all been missing.

[He'd be miserable, but--well, Viktor was sure he would get over it. Piltover's golden boy had his whole life ahead of him, and after a while the details of Viktor's life would fade into the background of time.]

If the worst should happen to me--lie to him. Say it was painless and immediate. Better that than let him know the alternative, whatever that could be.

[His hands were shaking with a mixture of anguish and frustration; the frustration for his own miserable uselessness, and the anguish of knowing the best scenario still ended with him dead before long.]

I do not...want to hurt him. Or you. But you must understand that ideals and desires are only a foundation--while beautiful things may be built upon them, sometimes the construction itself has flaws.

[Sighing, he held out a hand for the container.]

...Science is trial and error. Oftentimes the result we get is not the one we desire. If I am to do this, that is something you need to understand.

[selfreliar]

[Aqua looked up blearily at Viktor from over the top of his arm. He hadn't expected to be joined on the floor, of all things; it was going to be hell on Viktor to get back up. The gesture made something dangerously like gratitude soften the corners of Aqua's gritty eyes.

He dropped the pill case into Viktor's hand.]

I know.

[Aqua wrapped his arms around his knees and pulled them closer, rested his chin on them, and stared forward into nothing in particular. Into the hospital room. Into the past.]

Pure science is all about the truth. Truth usually isn't pretty, or fair, but it's how the world operates. There's nothing we humans can do about it but work within what's possible.

But someone told me once... "Lies are the most exquisite kind of love." [Aqua lifted his gaze towards the ceiling. This tired, he could almost see a swath of stars above, the clarity of a night sky one could never make out above Tokyo.] Radiant lies that dazzle a crowd starved for beauty... quiet lies that keep people from being hurt...

[How many of those had he told his loved ones, all this time? Weaving some story for Jayce Talis, a total stranger, would be a cinch, if that's what Viktor wanted.]

It's okay. I'm not the kind of actor who forgets the truth while I'm performing. I know what the likely outcome is, and... let's just say this is the only way I can accept it. If I can say we tried... I'll be fine.

[He lied.]

[hexcrafter]

It is more than that. For all its difficulties and dead ends, science exists to create truth from dreams. Advancing, step by step, towards a better world as that flawed and useless foundation is built upon. Innovation gives people hope that tomorrow may yet be better than yesterday, no matter how ugly the realities of the world may be.

[Viktor had spent enough time on the labratory floor surrounded by notes and spare parts that he was used to the effort. He would be miserable about it, sure, but given the situation it seemed a worthwhile inconvenience. Leaning his head back against the wall with a sigh, he slipped the case into a pocket of his vest.]

Much as I refuse to accept the outcome my calculations continue to show me, the weakness of my own mortality remains an unchanging constant amidst dozens of variables. It is a disheartening thing to know, worse still to watch what little shreds of hope remain begin to fade. Even so, I have...not yet given up. Not until every last option is exhausted and every possible theory tested. Perhaps I'm just lying to myself at this point, but...what else is there?

[selfreliar]

[Hearing Viktor wax poetic about science is like listening to Ruby gush about idols, or Arima and Akane go on about acting. His obsession with it was comforting, in its way. It probably wouldn't fade even on his deathbed.]

Obviously, I don't think it's so wrong to keep fighting for your life.

You have something you want to do. More than that, it's something you're driven to do. Whether it's hope or lies that keep you struggling towards it, the chance to see it through is worth something, isn't it?

[hexcrafter]

[Despite being prickly and sarcastic at the best of times, Viktor was unfortunately an aggressively nice person.]

Of course it is. That chance is worth everything, I simply do not know where the lying turns into out and out deluding myself.

[selfreliar]

...

My unprofessional medical opinion is that it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, use it. In the meantime, I'll do everything I can, too.

[hexcrafter]

[Viktor huffed out a short laugh, pushing messy hair out of his face.]

I think I like that approach. Whatever it takes.

[selfreliar]

[Would Aqua have said something like that if he weren't two days running without sleep? Who knew. The point was--that he'd earned a point, because Viktor laughed.]

It's worked for me so far.

[hexcrafter]

...You know, I have never told anyone this, but...

[He let out a quiet sound between embarrassment and exasperation, pulling his good leg to his chest.]

I lied my way into the Academy. Someone like me could never get in, even on scholarship. So my parents saved everything they could for a uniform, and I acted like I belonged there--because that was what it took to make anything of myself.

[selfreliar]

[The words felt like someone else, someone far away from all this, was speaking them.]

...I... know what that's like.

[Reality slammed back in, and Aqua exhaled, ducking his head and folding his arms over top of it.]

Shit. Can we pretend I didn't say that? It's... [He wanted to say 'embarrassing,' or continue with some other word that would reduce the weight of that statement, but his exhausted brain gave him little more than static.] ...It's... I just meant I know the feeling.

[hexcrafter]

What's so shameful about it? I do not regret it--that simply is not the kind of thing I go around telling people.

[He raised his head slightly, watching Aqua out of the corner of his eye.]

What's wrong?

[selfreliar]

I haven't slept in two days is what's wrong.

[That was just deflection, though, and Viktor was smart enough to know that.]

Nothing's wrong. Not with doing what you had to, whether it was a lie or not. I just...

[...Did it matter at this point? Keeping up the act? Viktor was asking him to go back to his world to deliver the news of his death, trusting him with that and more. With so many dead, the possibility of death hovering so close to the rest of them, did the secrets Aqua had kept so fiercely all his life have any meaning at all?

Slowly, carefully, he said:]

I... don't usually go around telling people I've lied for years, either. ...I've never told anyone.

[hexcrafter]

Eh...so what? [Viktor shrugged, closing his eyes like Aqua had raised a concern that was absurdly minor in the larger scale of things.]

Where I come from, we do what we must to survive. Lie, steal, whatever proves necessary to keep from starving or worse. And what is wrong with that? Everyone lies, one way or another. The world is not yet so kind as to allow for unbridled honesty, and until that can be rectified I see nothing wrong with lying for one's own sake.

[selfreliar]

...And if it's not for survival? If it doesn't benefit anyone?

[hexcrafter]

That depends. Does it benefit you?