Mistakes And Illusions

**Mistakes And Illusions** is a case featured in *Criminal Case*. It takes place in the *The Search for Kassandra* chapter of Graecita.

## Plot

**You are experiencing the story in third-person view.**

It was nighttime in Nova Roma, Claudilla is in her bedchamber sitting on a chair and observing her reflection on the mirror, looking sadly at her healing bruises. Suddenly, a knock comes from the door and Tara the slave enters. Claudilla glares at the slave girl and asks her what she was doing here and reluctantly Tara warns her that Carolus will be coming and that he expects her “disfigurement” to be hidden when he arrives. Claudilla feels her bruises with her hand, she sighs and excuses Tara, crying once she’s gone. She was unhappy about how her life had become, unhappy about her infertility, unhappy about her marriage with Carolus but most of all she was unhappy about how everyone in the palace knows that he abuses her but they either don’t care or are too scared to do anything about it. She hears Audenzia singing from her own chamber and her blood starts to boil with envy and she was sure her bastard “sister” must be gloating over how her life ended up. Claudilla takes a deep breath and she starts crushing stones with mortar and pestle to make eyeshadow. She pours water onto the powder and then dips her finger on the mixture to apply in on her eyes to cover her bruises. But while putting on the eyeshadow, her hands get shaky and instead she throws the mixture on the ground. Taking a deep breath, she gets up and storms out of the bedchamber to take a stroll and reaches the open corridors of the palace. She admires the open landscape and walks toward the edge of the corridor, staring at the horizon and then down on the ground, dark thoughts filling her head. She climbs up the stylobate of the columns holding the palace and gets closer to the edge, her thoughts telling her to jump and end it all and she was so close but something was stopping her- fear of death. Too scared to kill herself, Claudilla takes a step back and this is when she hears a voice calling her. She turns around and fear rushes her blood when she sees an angry Carolus in front of her, demanding to know why she isn’t waiting for him in her room. Claudilla gulps, not knowing what to say but then Carolus smirks and asks if she was trying to kill herself. Claudilla doesn’t respond so Carolus tells her to go ahead and when she doesn’t do anything, he mocks her by asking if she was too scared to jump. He then grabs her arm to take off her ring, grinning as he offers to help her. Claudilla then sees the dagger he was holding and realizes that he wanted to see her at her room to assassinate her not tor try for a baby and she starts screaming for help but it was too late as Carolus pushes her against the edge of the corridor, causing her to fall to certain death. Audenzia hears Claudilla’s scream from her room and becomes worried, she runs to the door of her room to go out and check on her but the guards holding her prisoner stop her and one of them goes to the corridor, where they heard the source of the scream come from. At the corridor, the guard finds Carolus and with him was Claudilla, who lord and behold was somehow still alive. The guard says he heard Claudilla screaming and came to check what’s wrong and Claudilla assures him it was nothing and she just saw a snake in the palace but Carolus scared it away. Concerned, the guard asked if the snake bit her but Carolus steps forward, glaring at him and asks him if shouldn’t he be guarding the door of Audenzia’s bedchamber. The guard apologizes for leaving his position and goes back to his post.

At Mount Pelion, Marionette wakes up dizzy from teleportation, confused at where they were and how they got here as Jennifer tells her to get up. Suddenly, they hear Alex scream in pain and Jennifer rushes to him and concerningly asks if he’s hurt. Alex assures her he’s fine and it’s just a headache and that they need to get moving. Jennifer sneers and tells him they don’t need to rush to wherever they were going. Hesitant, Marionette asks if the place they are heading to really is that bad but Alex just chuckles and tells her Jennifer is being dramatic to which she rolled her eyes to. The trio reach the “cave” which was actually a tavern and they see a middle-aged-looking nymph collecting water from a waterfall. The nymph notices them, flashes them a smile and greets them, asking them if they needed a place for accommodation. The name was Chiron’s wife, Chariclo and when the group tells her they’d like that, she invites them into the tavern. Like Jennifer had described it before they left Graecita, the place was mostly packed with sweaty, hairy men of different species and Jennifer pinches her own nose, unable to handle the ‘stink of testosterone’. The men were loud and at one point someone tried to make a pass at Jennifer and Marionette who they push away in disgust. Chariclo finds an empty table and sits them there, handing them menus to order food from. She then starts to leave to give them time to scan the menu but before she goes the group asks her if they could speak with Chiron. Chariclo nods and goes to fetch her husband and while they are waiting, Alex asks Marionette what she thinks of the place. Marionette hugs her arms and expresses her discomfort, describing how she went to bars with more class and civil people than here. Alex chuckles and tells her she may feel uncomfortable here at first but eventually things will get fun, he then starts reading the menu and asks the girls if they wanted anything to eat but they both had lost their appetite. Eventually, Chiron was the one who came to take their order and recognizing both Alex and Jennifer, he welcomes them. He and Alex chat for a bit before he asks what is bringing them to his “cave” and noticing Marionette, he asks who is their “pretty friend”, making her blush. Alex introduces her and explains that she’s with them for a quest, asking Jennifer to spill the details as his concussion wasn’t allowing him to think. Jennifer sighs and tells Chiron about Sveta’s murder and how before her death she left them a prophecy where they have to find Kassandra of Troy, save her from whatever evil was haunting her and that she apparently had another prophecy for them that they needed to hear or else thousands of people would lose their lives. Marionette then picks it up from there and explains to Chiron that Alex told them he mentored Achilles and they were hoping he could tell them where Troy is located. Much to their disappointment, Chiron did not participate in the Trojan War so he is unaware of where its whereabouts but he smirks and tells them maybe Achilles himself could take them there. Hearing that Achilles was here, Alex gets excited and he asks Chiron where he was and right at that moment, Achilles barges in the tavern, holding a couple of rabbits he hunted with his arms. Achilles ignores everyone in the tavern and heads straight to Chiron to give him the dead rabbits and Alex starts squealing. Chiron asks Achilles if he tied a mare called Ocyrhoe to her posts and when he confirms he did, he introduces him to the group and Alex excitedly tells Achilles how honored he was to meet him. Getting the impression they were a group of fanatics, Achilles groans and starts walking away, calling out the name of a guy called Patroclus so they could leave. But Patroclus doesn’t respond so Achilles calls out his name again and again but no answer came. Getting impatient, Achilles asks Chiron where his cousin Patroclus is, but Chiron tells him he has not seen him in the “cave”. Achilles starts panicking and gets violent, he eventually dashes out of the tavern to yell for Patroclus and the group follow him, except for Alex who got another headache so Chiron sat him down to rest. Outside, Achilles’ hears the scream of a mare called Hippe, who Patroclus had taken with him, so he runs after the sound. Jennifer and Marionette follow him out of the curiosity and worry and the neighs lead them to a stream. There they find the mare tied to a tree, unharmed, and not far away from her the dead body of a young man with his throat slit open.

**You are now playing as Marionette Patrick.**

Achilles recognizes the corpse as his cousin and he starts shouting “NO!” several times, swearing revenge on whoever killed Patroclus. Jennifer and Marionette calmed down the warrior, promising that they’ll find out who murdered his cousin before he starts hurting random people. While investigating Patroclus’ murder, they suspect three people: Achilles himself, tavern owner and mentor of heroes- Chiron, and Anne Bonny- A resurrected pirate captain from the 18th century who found herself in the case. Since they were busy with the case and Alex wasn’t in the condition to perform analyses, Patroclus’ body was sent to Chiron’s wife who found that besides having his throat slashed, he had marks on the heel of his left foot which she recognized as being the result of a bear trap. Jennifer and Marionette went back to the Pelion forest for a quiet place to recap what they knew so far only for Jennifer to nearly get impaled by a flying spear.

The spear barely misses Jennifer but that was enough to make her scream. They turn to the direction the spear come from and see a teenage girl hiding behind the trees, but she gets away before they could go after her. The duo grab the spear and head back to the tavern and while Chariclo was analyzing it, they take another around it and they learn that Achilles and Patroclus weren’t just cousins- they were lovers too! And it wasn’t just the victim who had a love affair with Achilles, but he and Chiron had dated in the past too. Chariclo analyzed the spear and while she failed to find a match for the fingerprints on the spear, she points out that she recognizes a weapon as the property of a tribe settling in Mount Pelion that called themselves ‘The Lapiths’. Jennifer and Marionette decided to visit the village and ended up finding the girl who attacked them, who identified herself as Evangelia and swore that she only attacked them because she mistook them for centaurs who the Lapiths had a long-standing beef with. They’ve also found reasons to suspect Pirithous, a king of the Lapiths who managed to escape the underworld and returned to the village for sanctuary. During their investigation, Jennifer and Marionette receive news that Achilles is charging against the Lapith village and they rush there to stop him.

Jennifer and Marionette found Achilles in the village, holding a sword and yelling at the villagers, demanding to know which one of them killed Patroclus while they all were looking at him with fear. Jennifer steps in and uses her power to sooth-talk Achilles into calming down and turning away. Once he left the village, she and Marionette take another look around the village and they discovered that Anne Bonny’s crew tried to raid the village but Patroclus stopped them, which them interrogate Anne and Evangelia, who had also stood up against the pirates but received none of the credit and praise that Patroclus had gotten. Furthermore, they found out that Pirithous caught Patroclus peep on him while bathing in the forest and kissed him believing he’s a pretty girl, only to run away when he realized Patroclus was actually a man. After collecting enough evidence, Jennifer and Marionette went to arrest Evangelia for the murder.

Evangelia tried to sass her way out of the murder accusations but when Jennifer and Marionette laid out the evidence she eventually cracked up and panicking, she claims that the murder was an accident. This obviously confused the duo, who asked how exactly does one accidently trap and slit someone’s throat and she tells them that she meant to kill Achilles. Evangelia explains that life as a Lapith woman is tough, that while the boys get to go out hunting an do all sorts of fun stuff, girls are trapped in their homes where they are expected to do chores and were trained to become housewives by their mothers. Evangelia didn’t want this life and would often sneak out but always end up getting caught and scolded by her elders. She wanted to prove to the men to the village that their views are outdated and that women are much more than just housewives and thought the best way to prove this is by bringing them the head of the ‘indestructible’ Achilles. So she thought of a plan: She knew Achilles’ weakness which is the heels of his feet and in order to get him on that spot, she laid out a bear trap for him to accidently step on it and become vulnerable. And when got out the tavern to hunt, she hid behind the bushes and waited until he’s near the area she set the bear trap on. After a while of waiting, she saw a man in full armor riding a black mare and from afar he looked like Achilles and that’s exactly who Evangelia thought it was. While the man was tying up the horse, she threw a rock at the man’s helmet, getting his attention. The man ended up coming to her directly and shrieked in pain when he stepped on the bear trap she laid out. Evangelia then charged the man from behind and slashes his throat, she then removed the helmet so she could cut out his head only to release who she killed wasn’t Achilles and it was actually his cousin Patroclus. Evangelia panicked when she saw what she did and knowing that she’d be dead meat if Achilles saw her near his body, she ran away. Evangelia also admitted that when she threw the spear at them it wasn’t because she mistook them for centaurs but because she heard them talking to Achilles and wanted to kill them before they found out she killed Patroclus. Evangelia was brought to Achilles, who grabs her by the throat and starts choking her. Jennifer tried to charmspeak him into calming down but he punches her away. He was about to kill Evangelia, but Chiron stepped in and told him to stop, pointing out Evangelia is just a kid. Achilles lets go of Evangelia and yells for her to scram off, which she did with no hesitation.

After witnessing Achilles almost kill Evangelia, Jennifer and Marionette go outside the tavern for a breather and they find Alex sitting alone on a barrel, feeding Chiron’s daughters (the mares). Jennifer chuckles and asks if he’s not having a good time and Alex responds by telling her he is, but the noise is giving him a headache as he’s yet to recover from the concussion. The group start talking and Jennifer decides that they should go talk to Achilles, hoping he calmed down, but as soon as Alex got up to follow her and Marionette, he gets approached by an olive tree nymph who mentions she hadn’t seen him for a while and called him an ‘asshole’. Alex gets flushed and when Jennifer asks who the nymph is, Alex introduces her as Olive, his (ex)-girlfriend. Alex turns to Olive and asks if they could go somewhere more private but she tells him it would be unnecessary since whatever she had to say was for all of them to hear.

Alex and Marionette agree to hear what Olive had to say, who immediately lashes out at Alex for breaking up with her through a letter. Alex starts apologizing and tells her that he wanted the relationship to work out but the whole long-distance thing was difficult, but she tells him he could have at least broke up with her in person. Eventually after giving Alex a piece of her mind, she reveals why she wanted to talk to them. She explains that while she was chilling over the branches of her olive tree, she saw a satyr resting under the tree with a griffin and he was approached by a shirtless man with a brown and a red eye. She tells them that she got some really bad vibes from them and they kept mentioning some sacred items, they hadn’t mentioned what those items were but they were here to find the Hydra. Confused, Alex asks her what she was talking about, a chill running down his spine when he learns that the Hydra had regenerated at Mount Pelion. Marionette immediately recognized the description of the human as a match to the king of the Lapiths, Olive then describes the satyr’s appearance and Alex gets an idea on who it might be. Alex and Marionette start investigating the forest where they find a piece of paper stuck on the stream. The duo get it out and realize there was things written on it but it was erased by the water. They use their dusting kit to recover the content and see that it was a list of items with only one of the items being crossed out- ‘Chimera’s blood’. Alex got suspicious when he read the list as many of the items were dangerous to obtain and one of them even involves robbing a demigod. One of the items on the list was ‘Hydra scales’ which he and Marionette release must be why Pirithous and his satyr companion are looking for the Hydra. The duo decide to confront Pirithous about the list and he assures them that the list is just a ‘harmless’ hobby of his and the items are for his collection of trophies. Alex looks at the list again and realizes one of the items listed is ‘Ceberus’ tooth’ and he quizzes Pirithous by asking why he didn’t obtain that item while he was in the underworld. Pirithous took this question as Alex accusing him of cowardice and got super offended, lashing out at the satyr and demanded he and Marionette leave his village. After being banished, the duo talked briefly about Pirithous’ ‘hobby’ and they decided not to do anything about it for now as they already had plenty on their plate.

Jennifer and Marionette went to speak to Achilles, relieved to see that he’s calmed down after being forced to let Evangelia go. The duo tell the warrior that they came to him for a favor, explaining their prophecy and finally ask them if he could help them get to Troy. Achilles refuses but the girls weren’t willing to take ‘no’ for an answer and pleaded with him, and Jennifer even attempted to charmspeak him but Achilles had caught in on this quickly and blocked his eyes. Eventually Achilles got annoyed and he agreed to help them, but only if they defeat him in a game of latrunculi. Jennifer asks him what the hell that is, which gets him to facepalm and when he explained what the game is about, the girls eventually realize its basically chess. After getting a description of the game, they ask Achilles what will they have to do if they lose but he assures them that he wants nothing from them expect to leave him alone. He then tells they can go to Chiron and ask to borrow his latrunculi board so that they could start playing. Jennifer and Marionette do as they were told and Chiron tells them he wouldn’t mind them borrowing his latrunculi board set but there was one problem: some of the pieces in the set are missing and its impossible to play it without them. This displeases Jennifer but she and Marionette were not willing to give up yet and began searching the tavern for the missing dogs (latrunculi pieces). They couldn’t find the missing ‘dogs’ but what they did find was a portable sleeping hammock which someone stored a chessboard they could use to compete against Achilles. However, what they did not realize was that the hammock belonged to Anne Bonny’s crew and when she saw them scavenge through their property, she drew her sword at them and accused them of trying to rob her. Jennifer and Marionette panicked and they tried explaining themselves, telling her that they just needed the chessboard for one match. Hoping to convince her to let them borrow the chessboard, they explain their situation and at first Anne was disinterested but as soon as they mentioned the lost city of Troy, her eyes lit up. Eventually, Anne agrees to let them borrow the board and even offered to have Sinbad, their most experienced chess player to play for them, but in return she wanted for she and her crew to join them on their quest and be permitted to loot the city. Jennifer and Marionette were surprised by that request and didn’t know if it was a good idea to travel with pirates or not, but seeing that they could definitely make use of a ship to travel to wherever they’re going to, they agreed to take this deal.

**You are now experiencing the story in third-person view.**

After speaking with Pirithous and getting the chessboard from Bonny’s crew, Alex, Jennifer and Marionette went to meet Achilles at his table for a match of chess where they presented Sinbad as his opponent. Achilles looks at them cluelessly and asks why can’t any of them play against him and the group tried to act smart by pointing out he didn’t make any rules against someone else competing for them. Seeing this is how they wanted to play it, Achilles pulled aside one of his buddies, Jason the Argonaut to play against Sinbad. The match then begins and everyone in the tavern is watching. The two of them played competitively and the people in the tavern start placing bets on who would win. The match reaches a point where it looked like Jason needed just one smart move to win but before his turn came, Jennifer sees a mouse and starts screaming, getting the attention of everyone in the tavern. The mouse runs toward Marionette and enters her clothes and she starts screaming too, this when Achilles rushes to her and helps her take off her clothes to get ride of the mouse. Marionette was now semi-nude and all the men in the tavern start whistling at her and she quickly covers her breasts, when she notices Achilles staring at her, they both blush and quickly avoid each others’ eyes. While everyone was distracted, Anne Bonny’s child pirate Yating, who was hiding under the table, quickly swaps a few of the pieces on the chessboard, putting Sinbad at advantage. Ultimately, Sinbad wins and Achilles groans while the group and the pirates start celebrating. However, Achilles agrees to honor his part of the deal and take the group to Troy but before they go, he had unfinished business in Mount Pelion which he had to take care of. He tells Alex, Jennifer and Marionette that the reason he’s in Mount Pelion is that he received news that the Hydra monster returned and was causing terror to the creatures in the woodland. Achilles then says that he will not be leaving Mount Pelion until the Hydra is dealt with and the creatures living in the mountain could finally live at peace again. The group understood him and offered to help him defeat the Hydra. Achilles was hesitant, not wanting to put them in danger but seeing that nothing would convince them otherwise, he accepted their company and they all went out to look for the Hydra.

At Nova Roma, Carolus is in his bedchamber sitting on a chair alone, drinking and waiting for someone to show up. Suddenly one of Claudilla’s ladies-in-waiting, Anna Bertrama comes in and sensually reveals she heard he asked for her. Carolus gets up from his seat and welcomes her, grabbing her by her waist and slowly kisses her body while expressing his desire for her. Anna was feeling flattered by the gesture but not wanting to show it, she pushes him away and raises her nose and avoids looking at him as she goes to have a seat. Annoyed, Carolus asks her why she’s playing hard to get and she tells him that a respectable lady doesn’t mingle with married men. Carolus points out this didn’t stop her from messing around with him last time, to which Anna responded by calling ‘last time’ a mistake and that she only agreed to do it because he made it seem that he and Claudilla were separating. This made Carolus laugh and he asked Anna if she seriously thought he’d leave a princess for a lady-in-waiting and Anna replies by telling him he would if he really loved her. Carolus attempts to comfort her by assuring her he does, but he reminds her he’s a politician first and foremost and staying married to Claudilla is the closest he could get to being royalty. He then changes the subject by telling her he had called her here for another reason and explains that he heard rumors that there are rebels out there planning to overthrow Augustus. Worried, Anna asks him why he’s telling her this and Carolus asks her how close she is to Marissa Catonis. Nervously, Anna tells him that she considers Marissa her ‘younger sister’ and she questions him on why he is bringing her up. Carolus explains that he never liked Marissa and always thought of her of being too ‘idealistic’, especially ‘for a woman’. He then tells Anna that he doesn’t trust her and wants her to keep an eye on her, and asks if she’s up for the task. Hesitant, Anna asks what he would do to Marissa if she turned out to be guilty of treason, to which Carolus smirks and asks if he’s worried he’ll kill her. Anna stays silent and when Carolus promises no pain will come to Marissa, she agrees to keep an eye on her. Carolus tells Anna he knew he could count on her and he touches her thigh to initiate sex but she stops him and informs him she too has someone to say. Reluctant, Anna tells him that her moon cycle was supposed to happen last week but she missed and that she believes she might be pregnant with his child. Surprisingly, Carolus was delighted to hear the news, announcing that he finally has an heir to offer for the throne. Anna asks him wouldn’t the emperor mind that the child didn’t come from Claudilla and Carolus assures her that wouldn’t be a problem as Augustus once made his stepson the heir to his throne. Anna then asks what if Audenzia has a boy and he tells her this would be dealt with later. Finally, Anna asks about what would Claudilla thinks but Carolus simply smirks and tells her they don’t have to worry about her anymore.

## Summary

### Victim

* **Patroclus** (Found dead near the stream with his throat slit open)

## Suspects

AchillesChironAnne BonnyPirithousEvangelia
## Killer’s Profile

* The killer is left-handed.
* The killer chews wheat.
* The killer is covered with sapphire dust.
* The killer wears brown clothes.
* The killer has O- blood type.