The Dead Air of Murder

**The Dead Air of Murder** is a case featured in *Criminal Case*. It takes place in *The Kidnapping Of Persephone* chapter of Graecita.

## Plot

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

Norah busted into the Palace of Graecita, carrying a freezing Marionette with her arms, yelling Shirley’s name out. However instead, two palace guards show up inside, asking what’s wrong with Marionette. Norah briefly describes what happened at the docks before entering the guest bedroom and laid Marionette on the bed. After tucking her in the bed, she starts lighting the fireplace and at this point, Leonora was made aware of Norah’s arrival and she came to talk to her. Norah was relieved to see Leonora and began explaining what happened at the docks, but the queen was not listening as she came to talk to Norah for another purpose. Norah sensed Leonora’s disengagement and asked if something was wrong and she responded by asking if it was true she was seeing someone else while in Rome. Norah looked puzzled and asked who told her that, and when Leonora told her that it was Kaleb, she began cursing under he breath. Leonora pushed her to answer and Norah reminded her that the two of them were on a break, an answer that didn’t please Leonora so the two started arguing. The argument was interrupted by Shirley, who entered the room with news that devastated the two of them: Kaleb is dead.

Meanwhile at Mount Olympus, The crew of *H.L. Revenge* are flying over the realm on Apollo’s sun chariot. The chariot was being ridden by Hasuro, who was incredibly reckless, nearly bumping into other chariots, putting the others at risk of falling to their deaths, giving Yoyo motion sickness and Ophelia a panic attack. During the entire ride, Madelina was holding onto Zachary’s arm, which was driving Mia to jealousy. When the chariot finally lands, everyone was relieved to be on ground again but soon reporters came flocking to them, asking questions about Persephone’s disappearance, which shocked the crew as they thought the Olympians were going to keep this information confidential and wondered how the public came to know about it. Eventually, Hermes gets out of the chariot and he manages to shoo off the reporters, allowing the crew to spread out. Once the reporters disappeared, the group started discussing about Persephone, but suddenly Apollo gets distracted by Zephyrus, whose presence pissed him off and he began walking towards the man. Hermes tries to stop him but Apollo pushes him away and he charges at the winged man. The winged attempted to fly away, but Apollo catches him by his wings and begins beating him up and calling him names. The crew watch the fight amusingly, while Madelina whispers to Hermes, asking if they could talk. Maverick takes his eyes off the fight and he looks at Madelina and his father, wondering what they were talking about and Hasuro jokes about the possibility that Madelina is trying to hook up with Hermes, a thought that grossed Maverick out. Suddenly, a woman comes out of a carriage and breaks off the fight between Apollo and the winged man. The lady was Aphrodite, who yells at Apollo for attacking her son’s attendant and mentioned an event that happened thousands of years ago and how Apollo should just get over it already. Once she was done scolding Apollo, she turns to the crew and introduces herself to them. While she was greeting them, Hermes walks up to her and asks if she was the one who called the paps and Aphrodite felt insulted that he would accuse her of such unprofessionalism. However, she also got excited when she heard that reporters were interested in interviewing, but that quickly goes away when she looks at the crew and realizes that they aren’t properly dressed. She notices Madelina, feels her hair and comments about how damaged it is and she in particular is in great need of help.

**You are now playing as Mia Loukas.**

The goddess takes the crew to the news station where her Charites are doing their hairs and makeup. Aphrodite also goes on to explain what they should say while being interviewed by the goddess Eos. However, during the preparation, a cloud nymph barges into the makeup room and says that she saw a dead body while flying to the news station. Mia instantly gets up from her seat to take a look at the body and Natalie follows her. They get outside and they see a winged boy who had the appearance of a young teen, impaled by the TV Broadcast antenna.

Observing the body, Natalie and Mia found an arrow impaled on the boy’s leg, so it was clear what happened to him was not an accident and they were dealing with a murder. They decided to speak with the witness and it didn’t take long for Natalie to recognize her from Demeter’s fields and scorned her for letting the other reporters know about Persephone’s disappearance. After having spoken with the witness (whose name was Hyale), they began investigating the boy’s murder, eventually finding two more murder suspects: Daytime TV host, the goddess Eos, and Eros’ attendant- Zephyrus, who worked in the news station as a west wind reporter. They’ve also uncovered the identity of the victim: Ganymede, the Olympians’ cup bearer and Zeus’s personal servant. Natalie and Mia send the body to Hasuro and he made a comment about some weird aura that he’s sensing and how for some reason he has the temptation of shoving the arrow used to hit the victim into his bussy. While the duo were recapping their discoveries, a hundred-eyed giant towers over them and grabs them both with his hand.

Natalie and Mia scream as the giant grabs them, fearing that he might eat them. But to their relief, the giant threw this on a balcony where they landed next to the feet of a glamorous, ethereal-looking woman. The woman was none other than the queen of Olympus herself, Hera and the giant had brought them in her orders. The Olympic queen had heard about Ganymede’s murder and she warned the duo into finding out who killed him as soon as possible because if her husband finds out that he’s dead, he is going to blame the murder on her. Natalie assured Hera that she and Mia will find Ganymede’s killer as quick as they can and the goddess granted them permission to search up the Olympieion for clues. The duo find reasons to suspect Hera and Zeus’ daughter, Hebe who took up the job of a cup bearer after news of Ganymede’s death came to the palace. Furthermore, they learned that Hyale was mad at Ganymede because he humiliated her while she was making advances towards Zeus and that Eos tried to seduce the victim but he turned her down. Mid-investigation, the clouds of Mount Olympus got story and suddenly an image of Zeus is formed with the clouds.

Zeus has learned about Ganymede’s murder and he was furious. So furious that he announced that the killer has only an hour to give themselves away or everyone in Mount Olympus will be feeling his wrath. This obviously worried Natalie and Mia, and they were now even more determined in finding out who killed Ganymede. They decided to give the Olympieion another look and they found out that Zephyrus had been spying on Zeus and Ganymede’s interactions. They confronted him and he revealed that he’s been spying on them under Hera’s command. So, the duo decide to confront her instead and Hera opened up about how she felt about her husband’s infidelities and that she hired Zephyrus to spy on them, suspecting that Zeus was having a secret thousands-year affair with Ganymede but never managed to catch them on the act. Additionally, they discovered that the cup-bearing duty was originally Hebe’s but she was fired by her father due to an accident she made and was replaced by Ganymede, who according to Hebe, had made similar accidents repeatedly but was never penalized the way she had. In the end, Ganymede’s killer turned out to be Zephyrus.

Zephyrus was panicking as Natalie and Mia came to confront, and he accuse the two of trying to pin the murder on him because he’s the only one of their suspects who was wearing a quiver. While, they were trying to get Zephyrus to confess, Madelina approaches them and tells them she has something to tell them related to the murder. She tells the two that Hasuro asked her to analyze the arrow impaled on the victim’s leg, as he suspected that it had an enchantment and he was the right- The arrow had the same enchantment as Eros’ arrows of love. This basically confirmed that Zephyrus was the killer and he had no choice but to confess, claiming that the murder was an accident. Zephyrus revealed that while carrying out Hera’s orders, he fell head over heels for Ganymede and envied the tension he and Zeus had. So he started stalking Ganymede outside his interactions with Zeus and fell into the delusion that the victim was leading him on, so he was shocked when Ganymede flew away after he attempted to kiss him. Heartbroken, Zephyrus was determined to make Ganymede fall in love with him, so he put a love enchantment (which he learned from Eros) on his arrows, hoping to hit Ganymede with one of them and have him fall for him. He waited until Ganymede was alone and while he was flying to the news station, Zephyrus shot him in the leg. However, that caused Ganymede to lose balance and he ended up falling on the broadcast antenna, getting impaled in the process. Natalie and Mia took Zephyrus to be judged by Zeus, who wanted to kill him but because Eros and Aphrodite’s protection, all what he could was throw Zephyrus in a dungeon for eternity.

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

The crew of *H.L. Revenge* is on air. The goddess Eos asks them questions about Persephone’s disappearance and what they’ve learned so far. The crew answered the questions Aphrodite had instructed them to answer, but when they were asked if they had any clue on who performed the kidnapping, they acted oblivious, afraid that Persephone’s kidnappers are watching and will know they are on their trail. Once the interview was done, they left the station and they found Artemis waiting for them outside. The crew were relieved to find her and she informed them that the Olympic gods are all at Zeus’ palace and that the meeting will start in about 30 minutes. While walking alongside the goddess, Maverick spots an electronics store that sold TVs, videogames and gaming setups. He was surprised to see that the TVs are wireless and was even more shocked when Artemis revealed that they can work anywhere, even during voyages. He turns to Madelina and asks her if she has her debit card with her, which luckily she had, and she hesitantly handed it over to Maverick and warned him not to overcharge it as she already used up most of the cash back at Lykaon and is running low of it. Maverick talks about how he and Hasuro will have lots of fun at the ship and this is when everyone notices- Hasuro was missing. Ophelia asks if anyone knows where Hasuro is and Madelina revealed that she saw him leave the station just before their interview started. Mia becomes pissed and she asked Madelina why she hadn’t told anybody and Madelina simply crosses her arms and tells her that no one seemed to care when he was missing from the interview so she felt there was no need to snitch on him. Before Mia could say anything else, Ophelia stops her and tells her that they should just go and look for him. But before they went, Artemis tells Mia that Hebe was asking for her and Natalie, and she believes she may need their help.

**You are now playing as Mia Loukas.**

Natalie and Mia went to talk to Hebe, who was in the panic. When asked what was wrong, Hebe revealed that her father is still in a very bad mood over Ganymede’s death and because of that she is afraid of taking the cup bearing duty, knowing that a single mess-up could cause him to blow up. She recalls that in previous meetings, Ganymede would sing a beautiful Trojan song for the gods and she believes if someone sang the same song in the upcoming meeting, it could help put her father in a better mood and hopefully the meeting would run more smoothly. But the problem is, she doesn’t know or understand the lyrics of the song and she hoped that Natalie and Mia could go see if Ganymede kept a copy of the lyrics and the notes of the song. Afraid of the thought of Zeus blowing up themselves, Natalie and Mia began searching the Olympieion and in a bookcase, among other books, they found a little book which was written in a language that was clearly not Greek, with one of the pages marked. However, they recognize the dialect as Arabic dialect and since Madelina is half-Arabian, they decided to go ask her if she could translate the content of the book, she tells them she can’t because the book was actually written in Turkish not Arabic. But, she tells them she knows someone who can before pulling out her phone, entering an app called Désaccord, where she started a voice chat with a girl called Tahia. During the voice chat, Madelina turns on her camera, showing the book cover and the girl reveals that the title of the book is “Songs of Troy”. Hearing this, Natalie and Mia immediately guess the bookmarked page of the book must be the song Ganymede sang for the gods, and now they had another problem to figure out: Who will be singing it? As Hebe had hinted her lack of fluency on the Turkish language and they knew no Turkish person to sing the song in her place. This is when Madelina gets the idea of having Tahia teach Mia how to sing the lyrics and Tahia agreed to tutor her.

Wondering where the fuck Hasuro is, Ophelia and Mia looked outside the station for clues on his whereabouts. Unfortunately, they cannot find anything related to Hasuro but instead they found a broken accessory on the ground which they pieced together and it turned out to be an arm cuff. The cuff looked familiar to them but just to be sure, they inspected it to see if there’s a way to identify the owner and they found Apollo’s name engraved in the inside. Curious if the father and son had an alteration, judging by the state of the accessory, they decided to interrogate Apollo himself but he acted very vague about it, claiming he was wishing Hasuro good luck for the interview and something happened that led Hasuro into attacking him and then running off. Ophelia felt suspicious of Apollo’s story but she and Mia were glad that at least Hasuro was safe, so they returned back to their friends only to find that Hasuro had come back and his eyes looked puffy from crying. The duo asked their friends what was wrong but none of them knew as Hasuro refused to say anything. So they decided to talk to Hasuro themselves, and initially Hasuro refused to say a thing but eventually he cracked up and told them that Apollo kissed him. This revelation made Ophelia gasp, both from confusion and disgust at the idea that Apollo made a move on his own son. Tearfully, Hasuro explains how excited he was of forming a relationship with his biological father, and just when he thought they were getting along just fine, he learns that Apollo’s intentions were lustful and not paternal. Ophelia hugs Hasuro and comforts him as he cries on her shoulder.

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

After everything is sorted out, the Olympian Gods and the crew of the *H.L. Revenge* all gather inside the Olympieion, prepared for the meeting. Before the meeting was conducted, the following happens (Not necessarily in order):

* Due to his attendant getting arrested, Eros was forced to attend the meeting in-person.
* The wine god, Dionysus shows up fashionably late and invites everyone to attend a party he was throwing at the islands of Crete.
* Poseidon shows up to the meeting with two large eels, dead and ready for cooking. When Natalie sees him walk in, she was horrified, believing that the two eels he was holding were Flotsam & Jetsam and Zachary had to calm her down, suggesting they could be any other eels but them.
* Hera accuses Madelina of being her husband’s mistress. Madelina was confused until Hera brought up that “Thor” is Zeus’ name in “Norse Mythology”, where Madelina clarified that “Jane” was just an identity she went under to save herself from the Vikings and there was no way she’d sleep with a big, fat, hairy man who looks old enough to be her grandfather. This coming enraged Zeus, who able to penalize Madelina but Hera stops, telling him that she “likes that one”.
* While Mia is staring envyingly at Madelina and Zachary, Aphrodite whispers to her ear that she’s “on her side”. Mia asked the goddess what she was talking about and she responds with a laugh, telling her that she’s seen the spark in her eyes and knows that she’s still in love with Zachary. She then gives Mia words of encouragement, advising her to follow her heart and make a move.
* Ophelia kicks Apollo in the balls to punish him for forcing Hasuro into a kiss.

Eventually, Hades finally shows up and the meeting begins. When Demeter sees him, she immediately gets up from her seat and starts yelling at him, demanding to know what happened to Persephone. The other gods had to restrain her and bring her back to her seat, so they can all have a civil discussion. To calm down the mood of the gathering, Mia goes on a stage and begins singing Ganymede’s song, which Tahia had helped her practice, while Hebe is serving nectar to the gods. Hebe does a mistake and overfills her father’s cup, but luckily he does not flip out on her. The crew tell the gods all they know about Persephone’s disappearance: From Minthe stealing her identity, to them learning that she and Clytie had something to do with her disappearing and that the only lead they have so far is that Circe was involved and is currently in hiding somewhere in Northeastern Africa. This sparks up a conversation and the god began bringing up possible suspects behind the kidnapping, and Madelina decides to join in and brought up Sidney Fairclough. At this point, Mia was done singing and she warned Madelina not talk about him, that she had nothing to do with him and not to get involved. But Athena was interested in knowing more about that Sidney fella and asked Madelina to keep talking. Madelina brings up Bellanca’s abduction and while they were chasing her kidnapper, they found out that Brandi was talking with a guy called Sidney Fairclough. She explains that Sidney worked for a mysterious woman, whose goal was to dominate the world and for somehow that woman happened to know Mia, Hasuro, Yoyo and Maverick, and has a target on their heads. Upon hearing this, Athena becomes concerned about their safety and turns to her father, telling him that they can’t “send them in a quest”. Hearing the word “quest”, the crew groan, knowing that it meant the gods will have them rescue Persephone all by themselves. Zeus tries to assure Athena that they’ll be fine, bringing up their victory back at Grimsdale, but Athena snaps back by reminding him that half of their team, including her son, died during the war. Artemis backs Athena up by revealing that they also barely defeated Orion despite having the nymphs, huntresses and Xerdans by their side and they probably won’t stand a chance against the evil coming towards them. This offended Maverick, who was about to go on about how they are strong enough to face any evil, but stops when Mia gives him a glare that told him “Just shut up”. Eventually, things were settled and the gods sign them in for the quest.

The *H.L. Revenge*’s crew were underwhelmed by the gods’ decision, but they knew there was nothing they could do about it. Artemis approaches them outside the palace, and she apologizes in behalf of the other Olympians for putting them through this but the crew assure her that they aren’t mad at her and that they understand that she tried all she could to avoid getting them involved. As they started wondering how they could possibly travel to North-East Africa, Zachary sees a ship sailing on the Aegean sea and after taking a further look, he recognizes it to being the *Hamilton Laurent’s Revenge*. The crew were excited at seeing their ship back and began running down the mountain, all except Natalie. Mia notices Natalie wasn’t running and asked if she was coming or not. Natalie looks back at their mother before turning to Mia and telling her that she’s thought about it and decided she’ll be staying back to be there for her mother. She then looks at Apollo, rolls her eyes, and revealed that she’s also promised Apollo a date, so she’s kind of forced to stay for that too. Mia sighs, telling Natalie that she understands and respects her reasons. She then laughed and wished her a happy date with Apollo, which Natalie groaned in response to. Mia then joins the rest of the crew and they made it to the bottom of the mountain, just when Mary docked the ship. Mary gets out of the ship and the crew all surrounded her, happy to see her. Mehtab the cat also got out of the ship and jumped into Madelina’s arms (to feel her chest). The crew exchanged stories with Mary as they all entered the ship, and once they were inside, they were shocked to see all their stuff, which they had left in Graecita, were in the ship. The crew looked at Mary, asking her if she had sailed all the way to Graecita to get their stuff, but Mary denied it, saying none of the stuff were hear a second ago. They hear Madelina giggle and Maverick asked if she had anything to do with it. Madelina stares at him and asked him what he thought she was talking to his father about and Maverick jokingly tried to kiss her as a sign of gratitude, which she ran away from. Everyone laughed, except April who was glaring at him.

It was now nighttime. Yoyo, Mia and Ophelia were chatting at the ship’s dining room, while Maverick was setting up the gaming kit he bought at Olympus, with Hasuro’s help. Zachary and Madelina were sitting together on the sofa with Mehtab sleeping on Madelina’s lap. Madelina hears the laughter at the dining room, wishing she was there with the other girls, so she finally decides to ask the boys a question she’s been avoiding the answer for- why is everyone in the ship excluding her? The boys all responded with silence, making her cross her arms and sigh. Eventually, Maverick get the setup to work and now they could play. Maverick had bought four controller, so he turns to Zachary and Madelina, asking if either of them want to play. Zachary tells him that he would like to but he has to go outside to take over the duty of sailing the ship, and as for Madelina, she simply tells Maverick that she’s never touched a console so she doesn’t know how to play. Zachary goes to the deck and April leaves the bathroom, heading to the dining room. As she walks past the wreck room, Maverick asks her if she wants to play video games with him but she ignores him. Maverick, who’s been holding back his feelings, gets frustrated and opens up to Hasuro about how he’s getting sick at whatever game April is playing on him. Madelina, who was overhearing the conversation, asked Maverick if he ever thought about apologizing to her, but Maverick acts oblivious and asks why he would do such a thing. She reminds him of the girls he tried to flirt with back at Pompeii, which made Maverick roll his eyes and he told her there is no harm in flirting and it’s not like he made a physical connection with them. Madelina quizzed him by asking if the same logic would be applied to Savannah, which gets Maverick riled up and he tells Madelina to shut up and she knows nothing about what went on between him and Savannah. But Madelina claps back by telling him that she knows enough to see that he is a hypocrite for disrespecting April the way he did, despite experiencing the pain of being cheated on and that April has the rights to her boundaries and stay mad at him for crossing them. To this, Maverick had no response and he simply sighs, expressing regret for ruining his and April’s four-year relationship. Madelina tells Maverick that there is still hope for them and encouraged him to go talk to April and this time he should take responsibility for his behavior instead of trying to defend it. Maverick does as Madelina tells him and approaches April at the dining table, asking if he minds talking in private. April looks at the rest of the girls and they encourage her to go and so she and Maverick went into one of the cabins to speak privately. Meanwhile at the wreck room, Madelina thinks about what she possibly must’ve done that made all the girls turn against and although she failed to figure out, she suddenly remembers the day of the bonfire where she first met the team, she recalls making an insensitive comment about Mia’s necklace and realizes she’s never apologized for it and it may have jumpstarted Mia’s hatred towards her. Determined to mend things with her and the others, Madelina shyly approaches their dining table. Once they’ve seen her, the girls stopped laughing and they all stayed silent. Madelina smiles at them and says “hi”, but they brush her off until she spoke and told Mia she wants to talk to her. Suddenly, all eyes were on her and Madelina delivers a sincere apology to Mia about what she said about her necklace and that her comment was disrespectful even ignoring the emotional meaning that necklace had. However, Mia simply glared at Madelina and asked her why is she even bringing that up. Madelina stood silently for a few second before she sighed and told Mia that she is sorry for whatever she had said or done that had pissed her off. Mia’s glare got more intense and she asked Madelina why she was doing this. Madelina was dumbfounded and asked for a clarification and so Mia snapped and asked her why she can’t just leave her alone. Mia then admits she’s been deliberately ignoring and pointed out that it has been months since she’s last argued with her and asked Madelina what more could she possibly be asking for? Madelina took a few seconds before she answered and told Mia that she’s been hoping that maybe they could be friends and in response, Mia told her that will never happen and she should be grateful that she’s finally gotten off her back instead of getting catty with her. Madelina was hurt by Mia’s comment, as she believed they were cool now after what happened in Pompeii, but she kept on a brave face and looked Mia directly in the eye and said: “Marionette was right. I’m… I’m pathetic. I’m a fool for thinking I could ever be friends of you”, she then looks at the Yoyo and Ophelia and continues: “With all of you!”. She then stomps away from them, heading toward the door. Mary had just entered the ship and Madelina bumps her into her shoulder, ignoring her as she left for the deck. Offended, Mary looks at the other girls, asking what was up with her, but they all remain silent.

In Nova Roma, Audenzia Diodora is in her bed sleeping until a palace slave came into her room and woke her up. Audenzia covers herself with a blanket as the slave reminded her that today is the emperor’s birthday and she is expected in the living room. Audenzia was shocked, she had forgotten that today was Livius’ birthday and had not purchased a gift for him, but she gets dressed anyway and heads to the living room to celebrate with the rest of the palace. She hears [[Claudilla and one of her ladies-in-waiting snicker as she walks in, pointing out the huge amount of weight she had put on. Audenzia ignores them and takes a seat, she looks at Claudilla who was wearing a full face of makeup, but underneath all the coverage, she could see a hint of a bruise on her eye- Claudilla would never admit it, but Audenzia knew that Carolus has been beating her. But the sympathy was lost when the time to give Livius the gifts had come and Claudilla made a snarky comment regarding Audenzia bringing nothing for him. Audenzia then decided to ask Claudilla how her pregnancy was going, which left the noblewoman lost for words. For nine months, Claudilla and Carolus have been trying for a baby, who Livius had promised he would make the heir to his throne, but every attempt they made ended with a miscarriage. As Claudilla was trying to explain, Audenzia stands in front of Livius and revealed that she actually does have a gift for him. She takes his hand and places it on her tummy, announcing that she is with child. Carolus immediately gets up from his seat and accuses Audenzia of lying and that she’s only saying that to excuse the weight she’s gain. And he said that even if she was truly pregnant, her child has no right for the throne as she is an unwed woman who has no drop of royalty in her blood. However, the emperor stands up for her, claiming that the child in her womb is his. Carolus was speechless, he stands for a few seconds not knowing what to say, before storming out of the room with Claudilla and the ladies-in-waiting rush after them. Audenzia was left alone with Livius, and at first she felt triumph before Livius asked her the identity of the child’s father. Audenzia was silent and when Livius asked if the father was even in Rome, she shakes her head, revealing that the child she is pregnant with is Kaleb’s. Livius sighs, he congratulates Audenzia for the healthy pregnancy but he tells her he can’t make her child, his heir. Pissed off, Audenzia asked him for his reasons and he tells her that they can lie and say that the child is his, but they can’t keep on doing this, especially when the child grows up and ends up resembling his actual father. This answer did not satisfy Audenzia and she pointed out he had no issue with adopting any of Claudilla and Carolus’ future children, and he tells her that they are a different case as Claudilla is his cousin and so whoever child she has, would be related to him. Audenzia gets even more frustrated and tells Livius that she’s his cousin too and that the only proof they have against this is that her mother had an affair and they don’t know for sure if she is the daughter of Emperor Messalinus or her mother’s affair partner. Livius gives no response to that and looks out the window, where he spots several warships sailing toward his empire.

## Quasi-suspects

Tahia AleemMadelina AlonzoApolloHasuro HakuKing ZeusAthena ParthenosNatalieMary ReadApril ZhaoMia LoukasLiviusAudenzia Diodora
## Killer’s Profile

* The killer practices archery.
* The killer drinks nectar.
* The killer smokes opium.
* The killer has blond hair.
* The killer has wings.