Star Trek: Starbase 777 - triple-7s-casino

Charlotte stayed at the front of the group, mainly to set the pace so any tall people couldn’t walk way faster than her and leave her in the dust. Being extremely short was a curse. She kept her eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.. anything that looked like it belonged in the crime scene she envisioned. It was a murder mystery after all.. and Q seemed creative. Anything could happen here.

Jilla lightly opened the door with a confident strut. “Welcome all to the greatest house of sin on 777, Triple 7s!” She looked around the dark two story casino. “We have drinks! We have tables that I’m afraid are closed at the moment! There’s normally a nice Vorta around here somewhere but he’s unfortunately been Qnapped.” She said as she moved to sit on the bar. “Come in come in. Any booze of choice?”

“I am afraid that I do not have a mouth, so I will not be choosing any booze.” She said. If she could consume anything, she’d prefer a pastry anyway.

Veldan sat down at the bar. Yes he was of legal age (writer's note: outside the US), but other than that he'd never actually properly drank before. A Q based murder mystery semi-crisis wasn't the best time to start, he reasoned. "A glass of water please."

”Maybe find a way to light up your establishment?” Vellek walked in right after Charlotte, not bothering to really rush his steps while looking around at whatever he could identify in the dark. “Could be useful and help us look around.” This was not a pleasure visit and he couldn’t phantom why the Orion was treating it like one.

Jilla hummed. “I can check but I doubt it. Lights don’t come off here unless I say so or the powers off.” She said, rolling behind the bar. “I run a very reputable 24 hour establishment.” She said as she grabbed a water for Veldan. “Here you go sport! One second.” She said, quickly ducking into her office behind the bar and fiddling with some switches. “As I thought, Q turned off the power.”

"Whoops! Sorry, miss," chirped someone in the dark behind the bar.

“Do you have flashlights, maybe?” Really, a candlestick would suit Charlotte’s aesthetic better.

She blinked. “Hey! Hey, hey!” She said fuming. “Whoever said that better be one of my staff!” She growled. “Shaka! That better be you?” She said, asking one of her Gorn employees.

Veldan was mid-drink when the voice spoke up. Unfortunately he was not expecting it, and water ended up on the bar's surface combined with a light yelp of surprise from Veldan himself.

"Yes ma'am," the unfamiliar voice replied. "Just grabbing something for a table."

”Which table? Cause I thought the place was closed…” He begun to regret having stored his rolling pin before coming out of his store. It was never wise to walk around completely unarmed.

Jilla growled. She knew her employees voices well, and she had never heard this one. “No no, stop the shit Q.” She said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m not going to walk over to the table. Come here where we can see you.”

A very tired-looking Q glanced back over her shoulder, a tray of drinks in hand. All at once, the establishment was alive with patrons again, chattering nonsensically, laughing, playing. "What do you need?.."

She looked at the casino Q. “I don’t know, clues.” She looked around. “Also, stop messing with my establishment.”

"I'm not messing with anything, miss, I'm working. Or. Trying to," she backpedaled, setting down the tray at a table. "Good luck with your clues, but we're busy."

She wanted to slam her head into the bar. “It’s my casino! You! Don’t! Work! Here!” She said, as if telling Buzz Lightyear that space command wasn’t real.

3

Another big audible sigh. “Alright, if that’s how it’s gonna be… we’re looking for someone actually. Someone that might have come here before?”

"You can fire me when we aren't in the middle of a rush, alright? Whoever you're looking for, I hope you find them." With that, she vanished into the crowd.

”All your employees good with customers like that?” It was an ironical question, of course. Vellek was growing more and more impatient with their predicament. He looked around hoping to spot something promising. Why would Q bother to make this place look alive if there would be nothing?

It depended where he wanted to look. Around the bar? Around the tables? Or the machines?

She sighed and brought out a glass of whiskey. “Look around, just don’t mess with my machines.” She said with a sigh. “I’m going to see if I can find the most unfair employment contract possible, and get her to sign it.”

“I really should have gone to the bar.” She said quietly, breaking off to go look around the tables for anything out of the ordinary. She wasn’t a gambling woman, after all, the machines wasn’t her area of expertise. Waiting on tables was far more familiar to her.

And then he was on the move. Tables seemed like a good place to start. He had seen a quite fair share of fights break out due to gambling, people often were drunk and angry at losing that it became easy for accusations and violence to brew.

Hm. Is one of the panels on the underside of the table loose?

Well, Charlotte noticed that! Mainly because her dress snagged on it. So, she reached down, trying to remove it the rest of the way.

Carefully nestled in the secret hatch was a curved shard of blue and white ceramic.

Gingerly, she took out the ceramic. It.. was familiar, to her. Like it had belonged to a certain set of porcelain, for a teacup or bowl. She wondered if there were other pieces around.. “I’ve found something.” She called out, holding up the shard of ceramic. “It looks like part of a cup, or a tea set.”

She eyed Charlotte softly. Tea seemed to suit her whole gimmick. “Let’s see.” She said as she started looking around, leaving a half finished employment contract with the name Q on it (that seemed quite unfair!) on the bar.

She eyed her back, as much as she could with painted eyes. Why would it be in her casino, hm?

Probably not enough to be considered a murder weapon, but maybe enough to fit into collateral… or maybe even the motive. “Do you sport ceramic of this sort in your casino?” Honestly, of all the places Q left available, Vellek couldn’t see it being a natural part of any.

“Booze yes, tea no.” She said as she looked around. “Tea ain’t what our clientele looking for.”

“We should see if there are more shards around.” *Charlotte said, running her hand underneath each table as she walked to check for any more hidden compartments. There had to be more clues around.. she wondered what the others who had gone to different rooms had found.^

Nothing immediately obvious, unfortunately.. (edited)

”Well finding where it came from, could certainly help our cause.” He decided to leave the tables and look over at the machines. He never understood the appeal of those… but no stone should be left unturned. Q had chosen four establishments of party, drinks, gamble and amusement. Certainly there was a why to it.

“This isn’t a place for a tea party.. but I don’t think anywhere around here would serve tea. Maybe one of the bars would? But then why would it be brought here.” She said, confused as to why the cup would be brought all the way here if it didn’t originate here.

A scrap of cloth had been trapped between the seat and back of one of the chairs. Dark, smudged with flour.

Vellek looked at it suspiciously before carefully taking the cloth with his right hand. He could recognize a smudge of flour from miles away, if his own apron was anything of proof. What did the tissue feel like? Soft? Expensive? Simple? Did it look like the material of one of the bartenders clothes or even Q herself if he could remember it enough from the time she got way too close to his face?

Not expensive, nor overly plush. It was simple, and didn't look like anyone else's clothes.

He furrowed his brows. It seemed out of place. Everything did so far... Q was certainly not making this any easier. He quickly put the tissue inside his apron pocket. He knew what it meant and it brought him no comfort.

1

Charlotte hadn’t seen the fabric- which was a blessing to the killer, maybe, given that she was a clothing nerd and probably would have been able to tell where it had come from, or at least what it was made of. She wandered over to the machines as well, looking for anything else.

No beans.

They had looked around the tables, at the machines, tried talking to the Q employee with no luck, and found two items. The Romulan was convinced that not much more would be of use here, so he headed towards the exit, but before that passing in front of the bar just for good measure in case he noticed something else there.

Nothing of note but the Q fussing over another tray of drinks.

And with that he ventured over to the Events Hall, the same place they had come from.

Well, if there was nothing else… best to be on their way. Maybe they’d missed something in the room they started in. So, she followed Vellek to the Events Hall.

Korozysh looked about, squinting in the casino, looking for anybody distinctly non-Q. She felt uncomfortable entering this place on her own, but there could be something here the civilians were missing in the meantime.

No non-Qs around. The patrons were... Weird. Morphing into the background, blurred by force.

"Whatcha doin'?" chirped a voice from above Korozysh's head. Q was peering at her, hanging upside down midair.

Korozysh narrowed her eyes. "Oh, you know. Shouldn't a god alien be able to, like, read minds, or something?" She itched her own hands in discomfort.

"No, not really. At least— not that I care to right now. It's more fun that way." She did a little flip, folding her hands behind her back. "What are you looking for? Or, rather — what are you avoiding?"

Its at this point that Elohae proceeded to enter the casino. Well. Started to before he noticed the Q, paused and briefly considered the door out. It looked like a very good door out and that certainly happened to look like a Q. He then, well, considered how much danger they all happened to be in. Considered how it might look if he fully turned and departed out the way he'd come when he'd seen the Q to the Q and well. Reconsidered his initial cause, noping the f-beans out of there and instead headed inside and started to look around!

"Oh! Hello." Korozysh greeted the new guy, walking away from Q. "I'm Korozysh. Have you been looking for any clues?"

What the heck. :(

1

Elohae cocked his head at the other as he attempted to lipread a person who happened to not have the sort of face he was used to. It took some concentration, the Q ignored entirely, but he reckoned he caught enough, or hoped he did! "Hello!" The deaf Romulan signed in SSL then before he asked. "Do you know sign?" And reached into his satchel as he pulled out his assitive PADD. He'd asked the question, but well, he assumed the answer would be no. Saved time to do that, he silently mused to himself as he tapped rapidly on his PADD. Once he'd finished writing up a brief message, he presented it to the stranger! "Hello Korozysh, I'm Elohae." The message commenced. "I have been looking for clues, I was with the people at club Epsilon." "I didn't find much." The next paragraph then commenced. "I arrived late and was prevented from entry, but-" He angled himself a bit to try and ensure he presented the PADD only to Korozysh. "-We discovered that the bouncer at club epsilon seems to know a lot and poison, they started to talk a bit but clammed up as others approached." He then looked around, looked back to Korozysh and rapidly tapped out on the PADD. "Have you found any clues here, yourself?"

"Oh!" Korozysh blinked as Elohae produced his PADD. She wasn't familiar with sign, really. She'd learned a little in school, of course, but it'd been forever since she needed it. "No.. no evidence." She shook her head, waving her hair around, combed all to one side, flat. "I... went to the office, but everyone left." Throughout her explanation she occasionally sprinkled in bits of SSL, best she could remember. "I'm hoping there's something here. Maybe the Q staff could help."

When the other reacted as she did, Elohae smiled politely at them. Smiled, as he concealed within that smile and with a bit of posture control, concealed he hoped the fact he'd fully expected this. Or well, he'd prepared for this, hence the PADD. Not everyone happened to know sign, there also where different sign language dialects as well. So well. He preferred to be prepared! The PADD tighly clasped in one hand, still presented to the other, Elohae continued to lipread them. Did so even as he with the hand that held his PADD, tapped the button that triggered speech to text. Korozysh was hard to lipread, he'd discovered that rather rapidly. So, he'd adapted, the other watched for a time before, as she paused, he turned the PADD and tapped open his Speech to text app. He then rapidly scanned what it displayed to him, mentally filled in the blanks of what he'd gleaned through observation with the text and well. Proceeded to hold up one hand, signed in SSL. "One mo!" Then rapidly tapped out a new message. The other knew bits of sign, or seemed to have attempted to recall it and well, he appreciated it. But. There happened to be a Q problem. This conversation needed to be conducted quickly and the degree to which their signing happened to be scatter shot and fragmented necessitated adaptation. PADD more than sign, though Elohae occasionally signed, just as when he proceeded to sign. "Done!" And presented a new message to them! "Sorry to hear about that." The message initially read before it launched into the meat of things. Well, before he scrolled it down so it did so. "I assume that'd be when we all got summed back, right?" "I bet there'll be something here too." He allowed himself a sheepish look as he scrolled down again. Observed. "If it's alright, I'll leave talking to the Q to you mainly?" "Some of them seem to know sign, but I don't know if all the clones do."

22:32

He'd then scrolled the PADD again, as he idly noticed an option on the PADD that he missed. "They do however all seem to know standard." Elohae then turned the PADD around to fully look at it. Looked it over, experimentally pressed a screen button then mentally kicked himself. There was a text to speech option? Elements, that would have been useful to know earlier. He'd then twitched a bit, having remembered he had someone he needed to be watching and looked up at them. As he did, Elohae tapped the speech to text option, ready.

Korozysh squinted as she read, but nodded. "Yeah... yeah, okay, I can discuss with Q. You, uhh... look around?" She asked.

Elohae reckoned he'd caught at least some of what had been asked of him. Some of it, so he checked his PADD and then looked to her and just nodded. That all seemed fine enough to him. He then signed slowly in SSL. "Sounds good!" And followed that up with an affirmative thumbs up. He hoped that'd get his message across, well that and how he acted as he started to look around! While he'd never been to a casino before and fully intended to never go to one again once they were freed from here, Elohae had eyes. He was sure said eyes probably missed stuff and well, while he did set his PADD to speech to text again, he was fully aware how hopeless he happened to be when it came to hearing anything! So he just wondered around and looked to see if he noticed anything out of the ordinary. Be that someone who acted oddly or something that seemed out of place. Did so as he well, also attempted to work out what happened to be the norm here. Something that he hoped would help him with that.

Everything seemed to be business as usual. The Casino Q was busy dealing tables, fetching drinks, constantly on the move. The other had now vanished.

Korozysh approached the Casino Q, looking down at her, inquisitively. "Sooo... People been in here already. Know about anything they may have missed when they came here?"

"What?" The casino employee turned around to face Korozysh, all but glaring. "Yeah. People have been there. As you can see—" she gestured towards the faceless patrons— "plenty of people have been here. If you want something, please be more direct."

"Right," She nodded. "Where were the investigators looking around earlier when investigating the murder?" Perhaps this would yield some more productive answers.

"I don't know. They were poking around the tables, around the bar, making the patrons uncomfortable, and I'm, like, 90% sure I'm fired—" deep breath. She strained an obviously forced smile. "But, what can you do? When someone drops dead in a kid's arcade, things get a little hectic. It's a wonder we're not closed."

Elohae, having noticed what he noticed, just started to head around the tables. He continued to keep his PADD on speech to text as he did so. As he headed around, Elohae looked to see if anything seemed out of the ordinary about the tables. That and about anything that seemed to be on the tables that shouldn't. He wanted to see if any panels were loose or if anything seemed like it'd been moved. That or if any of the patrons happened to be acting odd. He wanted to work out if anything had been missed, be it concealed like the last thing that'd been discovered here.

The loose panel had already been investigated, and there was nothing more behind it.

"Ah. Did you see any, ah, interesting characters around here? Ignoring the investigative team?" Korozysh had the thought to check by the machines rather than the tables, if they'd been checked already.

"No, not at all." Very helpful, thank you, Casino Q.

The machines had been cleared out as well— everything was normal. (edited)

Having decided that well, there seemed to be nothing else around that could be located or gleaned by him, Elohae turned to Korozysh. He moved to be in their line of sight, proceeded to shake his head no and then signed. "Found nothing." With that, Elohae started toward the door!

Korozysh nodded, following him out. "Right."