“Right- there was a kid,” Phoebe recalled.

“Yes. About a year after Bower, a student from the same high school named Nathan Garcia was also killed by that mace. Since then there have been 16 more victims, all murdered by various museum pieces: maces, clubs, spears. One victim was even beaten with the parrying edge of a swordbreaker! Did you know that? No leads. In order to convict anyone, you’d have to prove that they either stole or forged those artifacts.”

Image: A diagram with three circles arranged in a triangle. The circle at the top has a question mark inside and is labeled “the killer.” The bottom right circle has a portrait of Bower with the label “James Bower,” and the bottom left circle contains a portrait of Nathan, who has an elephant shrew aspect, and is labeled “Nathan Garcia.” Pointing from Nathan to Bower is an arrow labeled “student” and in the opposite direction is an arrow labeled “teacher.” Two arrows pointing from the killer to James and Nathan are both labeled with a question mark. End description.

“Any new ideas?” Julia asked.

“No, all my suspects are still Sage Valley High students and employees. But I haven’t had the time to investigate more thoroughly. Not with Connell and other fledglings to track down.”

“You think it could have been a student?” Phoebe eyed his frustrated expression. She’d heard about Bower and Nathan, but the other 16 murders were news to her. The idea that someone her age could be responsible for them made her uneasy. At the same time, it piqued her interest.

“Being in the murderer’s body, they felt like a teenager or a smaller adult. Plus they knew Bower’s habits, and the museum which houses the mace was one that their school took annual field trips to. However I’m still stumped on the motive. Bower makes sense; there were rumors of domestic violence against his wife and son, which proved to be true after his death. The killer may have wanted to retaliate-” Cat grimaced “-against him. But Nathan was just a child. Likewise, eight of the victims had previously been convicted of violent offenses while the rest had no criminal records. I believe Sage Valley is significant since it connects the first two murders, but I haven’t been able to identify any one trait that they all share.” He sighed. “As for how they’re obtaining those weapons, I hope it doesn’t involve time travel.”



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4.17.2023
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Hi, I’m back. My new apartment has been nice so far, it’s just been keeping me pretty busy on top of everything else. Also I nearly forgot to update because my cat wanted to go for a walk so I went out in my pajamas that id changed into after work and. one of my new neighbors saw.

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