"HELP! HELP!! SOMETHING HAPPENED TO SNOWFLAKE!" Merrybells exclaimed, running into the hallway.

Silverbells ran out of the break room and towards Merrybells! "What happened?" Silverbells asked.

"We were searching the bakery and I thought I found something and I turned to ask her but she was lying on the floor and she wouldn't respond to anything I was saying...." Merrybells said, turning towards Silverbells.

"Oh my goodness!" Silverbells said, "Did anything else happen? Did you hear anything? What did you find or thought you found? Did anyone else see or hear something?" Silverbells was panicking slightly. How could they still not be safe from this elf, even when they were in pairs.

Artsytoes rushed into the break room. She hurried to catch her breath and shouted, "I made an important discovery, I, I....I found Blinky's body in the plushie room. And something else, I found a ribbon in the room also, I don't know if its connected but maybe somehow this ribbon is connected to Blinky."  

Artsytoes slopped over on the nearest stool trying to regain her composure. This was a big discovery and hopefully it would move the investigation along.

Silverbells ran over to Artsytoes! "Okay so it seems like things are piling up. Blinky got knocked out in the plush toys room and Artsytoes found a ribbon. What color was the ribbon Artsytoes? Who wears ribbons? Did it belong to Blinky or someone else? And now Snowflake is knocked out too!" Silverbells said.

"A ribbon...?" Singsong frowned, and closed her eyes to think. Did any of them wear a ribbon? Then it hit her with a jolt. "Rosy! Rosy wears a ribbon!!" She shouted in accusation, her voice raising in anger.

Artsytoes tried to remember the ribbon, was it red, was it black. She couldn't remember, all she remembered was walking in and seeing  Blinky on the floor and thankful she didn't fall victim to the atatcker.

She spoke with sincerity, "I am sorry, I can't remember the color of the ribbon, I wanted to get out of there fast after seeing Blinky, I didn't want to be the attackers next victim."

"Oh poor Snowflake!" Kittybell was beyond upset now. Two elves in just a day or so? What was going on? A ribbon found near Blinky? Hmmm...there was two or three elves wore ribbons if she remembered correctly.

"Rosy does wear ribbons, but she was also with you and I during this search. How would she have sneaked out without one of us seeing?"

Singsong sighed. "You have a point there, Kittybell...." She chewed on her lip a little, humming to herself. "Still. Whoever caused Blinky's accident could be working as a team. That's always a possibility."

This was getting out of hand. Cosy could hardly hear the conversations over the rapid beating of his own heart. 

"They're GONE!?" 

He had asked the question far louder then expected; shouted, actually. The other elves jumped, and he meekly apologized for the tone of his question. He cleared his throat and began again; sadly the barrage of questions came louder and more panicked then he intended.

"Where is Snowball now?  You didn't just leave her there, did you?! What were her injuries? Is she..."

Cosy gulped. 

"Dead?"

That question hung heavy in the air as Cosy sat nervously in his seat, awaiting an answer.

Silverbells heard everyone talking. She listened carefully to everything they were saying. "Wait! So Rosy wears ribbons, but who else does?" Silverbells asked lost in thought, "And if Snowflake could have gotten knocked out while with Merrybells, doesn't it stand to reason that Rosy or any of the other elves could have sneaked off and gotten to Snowflake?"

Chiemycheer let out a sigh when he returned from the electronics room. "We found nothing. Did anyone else find anything?"

"Well Snowflake Was knocked out and Artsytoes found a ribbon by Blinky in the plush toys room." Silverbells said, "We are trying to figure out who wears ribbons as well as how someone could have sneaked away from the person they were with to get Snowflake..."

"...a ribbon, huh..."

Cosy was deep in thought, and reviewed the clues. The ladder was found in the plush toys room, indicating the place Blinky's accident. A ribbon was found later in that same room and now Snowflake had met the same fate Blinky had.

Suddenly, Cosy noticed something that was out of place. He turned to face Artsytoes.

"You were witness to Blinky's accident; AND you knew the perp wore ribbons?" Cosy felt his heart leap into his chest.

"Why did you not tell us sooner?"

"Wait a second Cosy!" Silverbells said, "I thought we weren't going to start turning on each other. And didn't we all just get back from searching? Artsytoes told us as soon as she got over here. What about the ribbon? Who else wears ribbons? That might be a really important clue and we can't start overlooking clues. Then there'd be no point in looking for clues in the first place." Silverbells let out an exasperated sigh. "What about every other elf? Did you guys find anything?" Silverbells asked.

Cosy opened his mouth to retort; but closed it. Silverbells still had a point, he had to admit that much. There were quite a few elves who hadn't spoken of their search yet. He wanted to hear what the others found before jumping to accusations; hard as it may be. 

He just hoped they would talk soon. Who knows when the next elf would be struck down?

Rosy followed Kittybell back to the break room, defeated at not finding anything. At this rate, finding out who hurt Blinky would be a lot more difficult than she had thought. But maybe the other elves had found something?

Rosy's thoughts were answered when Merrybells came screaming. Shocked, her mouth dropped open. Snowflake was hurt? What had happened? Tears filled Rosy's eyes. What was happening? Why were innocent elves being hurt?

The other elves seemed to ask the questions, and Rosy was taken completely by surprise when Singsong pointed her out. Her face turned bright red, and she instinctively covered her face with her hands! "I would never hurt someone!" she said, shaking her head.

Suddenly, she paused. "Wait!" she said, hoping she was being loud enough. "What if the ribbon doesn't have to do what the culprit is wearing, but what they do here in the workshop?"

"That's also a good point Rosy." Silverbells said, "So what could that mean? Again, let's not turn on each other. It might be better to just think of who could be the culprit. Also did anyone hear anything strange while searching? Maybe something that you didn't think was significant until hearing that Snowflake went missing? Did any other elf find anything?" Silverbells was really hoping someone had more to say. Maybe they found a clue or heard something that was a clue without realizing it. She was hoping they'd be able to put their heads together so they could get to the bottom of things.

"That's a really good point as well Rosy." Stated Kittybell. "Or it could always be just a random find? It was the Plushie Room, where we use ribbon to decorate a lot of the animals, right? So maybe it's not a clue at all and the person just left it there, thinking we would jump on the elves wearing ribbons? I don't know, just a thought. I didn't find anything in the Break Room when Singsong, Rosy, and I searched."

"If it were from a stuffed animal..." Cosy sighed. "Then why bring it back? There are too many bows and ribbons used on those toys; this one would have little significance. Unless there's blood on it or something."

"That's true...I guess the bow would have to have some sort of significance to it to make it stand out." Kittybell thought to herself for a few minutes. "Hmmm...I wonder. What if one of the elves who had to go home early was the one that hurt Blinky? And they left that behind, knowing we'd accuse someone who's still in the workshop, but in reality it was someone who's not even here?"

Quote :

The next "work"/search phase will start midday tomorrow

Artsytoes felt hurt that Cosy had accused her of hiding evidence. Here she was trying to help them and tell them what she found as soon as she could, the others seemed to take heed to what she shared. She decided not to let it get her down though.

She spoke up, "I shared the information as soon as I could, like I said all I found in the room was a ribbon- it could be a coincidence or maybe the culprit truly does have a love for ribbons." She said as she wrapped her hands around a hot cup of coffee. She was feeling on edge and for some reason coffee had the opposite effect on her, rather than hyping her up, it mellowed her out.

She wondered if they would be able to solve this mystery soon.

Eggnog slowly came stumbling in. During her search, she had been moving furniture and boxes of supplies, which was a lot of lifting for one tiny elf.

ooc:

"This is getting us nowhere. I say we look around one more time but if we don't find anything then we need to start taking more action! With first Blinky and now Snowflake, these guys clearly mean bussiness. It's not safe in this workshop anymore!" Eggnog took a moment to pause and gather her composure again. "I don't want to search alone again. Does anyone mind if I tag along with them?"

"Eggnog, if you'd like you can come with me on my next search." Silverbells said, "Does anyone have any specific places they'd like to search this time? I think when the time comes I'd like to search the Decor room." Silverbells looked at the other elves hoping they'd all know where they'd like to search.

"I'll be in the plastic toys area. We found something near the plush toys; so there might be something around the rest of them."

Cosy stuffed his hands in his pockets; a subtle and somewhat-efficient way of trying to stop his hands from trembling. 

"If anyone wants to come with, I'd appreciate it."

Singsong let out a low hum, and nodded in Cosy's direction. "I can go with you to the plastic toys area, if that's alright with you."

Cosy nodded back wordlessly in Singsong's direction; a nod of reached agreement. Considering the only clue was found in the only other toy room; it would make sense that a clue would be found in the plastic toys. There are quite a few ways one can hide an item discreetly in that room, Cosy thought. Especially in the room where plastic toys and contraptions of the like were manufactured. There had to be something there.

"Alright, it's me and Singsong, then. Where are the rest of you guys off to?"

Rosy bit her lip, trying to think of which room would lead to finding more clues. "I think...I'll go to the electronics room. It seems like a place that would be good for hiding clues, what with all of the gadgets and gizmos." Looking down, Rosy said quietly, "I would really like someone to go with me...I'm a bit scared of being alone at this point."