[color=6ecff6]Optional Reading Continued

Lillian held within her hands another woman's undergarments, contemplating if she was more comfortable wearing a stranger's unmentionables than simply wearing nothing under her clothes at all.  It was a tough choice to be sure, but the longer she took on it the less time she had to catch a killer. With that in mind she opted to wear the undergarments as they were obviously clean. She then assembled an outfit using different pieces of maid's uniforms. The end result was something that looked exactly like a maid's uniform, but one that fit her relatively well. Her petite upper body mixed with a muscular and defined lower body made it difficult to get clothing that fit, which was why everything Lillian owned was made special for her. 

She found herself shockingly taken by the uniform and how it looked on her. All black, with a high lace collar, lace trim, and a white apron with a large pouch. It was tight fitting around the neck and arms, but not uncomfortably so, and the leather work boots she had found were mercifully designed for being on one's feet a lot. Surprised as she was by how much she liked the outfit she was the most happy about being clothed. 

After she had calmed down from her run in with the thief, she started looking around for some clothing -or some semblance of tools to open the stuck door to her own clothes- and stumbled across the maid's quarters. She found some tools to help with her investigation there, and some clothing, but nothing that would help with the door. She would have preferred her own clothes and her own, proper, tools; but there was simply no time to waste on the task as she had no idea how long that endeavor would last.

Clothed and feeling more herself Lillian returned to ballroom with the piles of corpses. She hoped to determine the cause of death as that might give her some insight into the workings of the killer. Despite having only been gone a few minutes the room had begun to smell rather terrible as over a dozen bodies began to release the various fluids and gases within them that needed to make their way out. Even if she could get her clothes back Lillian feared the maids would never be able to get the smell out. 

Taking deep breaths flooded her smell receptors with the foul odor rapidly, allowing every other smell to drown the foulness out. It was a trick she had discovered some time ago and was helpful for situations where the odor was bad, but not dangerous. Stench dealt with to some degree she began to walk around the corpse pile, deftly avoiding the discarded clothing even as he eyes remained on the bodies. There were no visible wounds, and the no obvious discoloration of the bodies; there were some scratch marks but Lillian was reasonably sure they had nothing to do with the murder. It was as if they all dropped dead at the same time, which left the only likely cause. Lillian walked over to the table covered in cups and had a look, finding out very quickly many of the cups were in various states of being empty, each holding the same dark purple drink. Poison was by all accounts the most reasonable option given the relatively unmarred nature of the bodies, however very odd that they all were effected by what ever poisons was used, almost simultaneously, as if they had all drank from the cups at the same time. Lillian did not recall that happening at any point proceeding the orgy, nor at the start of it. She had been in the changing room for some time and her nervousness had been quite the distraction from the goings on so it was entirely possible they stopped what they were doing to have a toast of some kind. 

She decided determining the poison might shed some light on the events and grabbed a cup that was only half full. She sloshed it around to kick up some aromas but found the smells of the room made it nigh impossible to tell, even with her trick, so left the room cup in hand to try again. Lillian then lifted the cup close to her nose and held it there a moment, gently sloshing it back and forth, allowing the aroma to waft into her nostrils without her having to breath in and risk poison finding its way into her lungs. There was an odd odor of unripen tomato's; as soon as she identified the smell Lillian threw the cup as far away from her as she could. The cup hit a wall and liquid exploded out of the cup before it fell to the ground and toppled over, spilling what remained all over the floor. Suddenly the colouration of the odd drink, and the effectiveness of the poison made complete sense. The drinks had been spiked with Belladonna, or possibly even completely made out of it's berries as they had a sweet enough taste a drink made with them could pass for wine. While in small doses it was possible to survive ingestion of Nightshade, if one were to use the plant's roots and refined the active poison down it would create a dose so large it could kill in minutes. Not to mention the advanced age of the members of the orgy meant they were all far more likely to be effected by even a small dose of poison. Belladonna was known to cause hallucinations, so it was likely the licentious cult members simply thought what ever spell or incantation they were invoking was working and pressed on till they all died. Hallucinations would also explain the appetent simultaneous death; it was likely each member died at different times and no one else noticed. Too enthralled by the supposed magic and their own lust. 

Lillian frowned at her own thought. While highly plausible it did not account for how every member of the orgy had been effected. Surely not ever single person became thirsty at roughly the same time. The most reasonable explanation was a toast of some kind had been called while Lillian was getting changed. To test this theory she re-entered the ballroom, taking deep breaths, and made her way over to the large book the host had been reading from. It was still wide open on the page he had been reading, and after a quick perusal Lily found that part of the orgy's ritual called for a toast where each member drank at the same time. The drink was even meant to be mixed with a plant, though it was not Belladonna, but Mandrake. A plant well known to be used in occult practices for it's hallucinogenic effects. Every member of the party did in fact drank at the same time and had even been expecting to hallucinate to some degree.

While anyone with means and motive could poison some drinks, only someone with advanced knowledge of the cult and it's practices would know which poison to use and how to use it. It was that line of thinking that allowed Lillian to create a fairly confident hypothesis as to who the culprit was. All she needed at that point was to locate some solid evidence to support her theory, then she would be able to take off after the killer. In search of that evidence she returned to the master bedroom and the satchel of goods the thief had left lying on the floor. She grabbed the bag and emptied the contents onto the bed and began to sift through it. There was nothing of note, just a great deal of expensive items that anyone incline to do so would want to steal. Lillian briefly lamented that the thief lost out on a big hall for nothing, but quickly pushed the thought aside, believing she would meet the woman again someday and could make up for her mistake then. In the meantime she began to search around the room, checking the usual spots people liked to hide important items in. She found a small box of pictures filled with photos of woman from around around the world in various states of de-dress, as well as a talisman of sorts that had been placed under the mattress. Neither were terribly helpful, though she pocketed the box of photos to dispose of later.

She gave the room one more search, and found that as she walked over a specific section of flooring she could feel it dip ever so slightly. A closer inspection reveled the floorboards in one corner of the room, dipped, slightly downward. She also found four indentations and a small series of scratch marks that abruptly ended. Lillian was very confident the item in question was an extremely heavy chest, and that it must have been the item in question the killer was after. The scratch marks, or more accurately their sudden disappearance, was rather clear as well. Some minor discoloration on the wall indicated there used to be a large piece of drapery or carpet hanging up at one point, but no longer was. The killer likely found the chest difficult to carry and took the carpet or drapery down to drag the chest along with. 

Once again Lillian frowned at her own thought. Based on the markings left in the wood, and the fact that there was deformation of the floor boards at all, indicated the chest was likely too heavy even when being dragged with a carpet. The most reasonable explanation as to how the chest was being moved, was the killer had at least one other accomplice. A secondary implication of that realization caused Lillian to run and pick up the sword she had left on the ground. The entire manor had been locked down, and there was no way to easily get out with a large heavy chest. Which meant the killer or killers, were likely sill in the building.
[/color]