Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!

CottonWolf posted:

What time frame are we looking at here? The Japanese held Manchuria from 1931/1932 to 1943, so it seems unlikely that there'd be a long running family out there. Do we know how old Kinzo is?

The story is set in 1986, and Kinzo is old. Do we know exactly how old? I didn't see that quickly riffling through, but he's got adult children that have almost-adult children. He's got to be 60-80. So he's born sometime between, say, 1905 and 1925. That makes him too old for the timeframe you suggest, although according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_occupied_by_Imperial_Japan, Japan held both Taiwan and the Kwantung Leased Territory during that period. Shandong is also a possibility; that seems to be in exactly the kind of weird grey-area status that would work. (It's times like this that I wish I were better at geography, in general.) The fact that this lines up actually makes me more enthusiastic about the idea - it's not a place an old established family ought to be, but it's exactly the sort of place a bunch of outcasts from the shittiest part of a branch family might have ended up trying to seek their fortune.

Does anyone know if there are particularly famous or interesting rivers in Shandong, Taiwan, or Kwantung? (If we're talking about maps, it seems more likely to be an actual river.)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
From Wikipedia. Here are all the areas Japan occupied prior to WW II.

Ryukyu Islands - 1874-1945 & since 1972
Kuril Islands - 1875-1945
Nanpō Islands - 1891-1945 & since 1968
Taiwan - 1895-1945
Minami-Tori-shima - 1898-1945 & since 1968
South Karafuto (Sakhalin) - 1905-1945
Kwantung Leased Territory - 1905-1945
Korea - 1910-1945
Shandong - formerly of German Empire - 1914-1922
Okinotorishima - 1931-1945 & since 1968

Edit beaten.

There are too many unknowns right now anyway. I think we need more hints from the story. Another clue from the siblings would be nice. Just being able to narrow this down.

MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Dec 21, 2016

NachtSieger
Apr 10, 2013


idonotlikepeas posted:

Does anyone know if there are particularly famous or interesting rivers in Shandong, Taiwan, or Kwantung? (If we're talking about maps, it seems more likely to be an actual river.)

I don't know about famous or interesting, but I remembered something my mom once said kinda in passing about Taiwan, so I went here and tried to find the river she was talking about. I ended up here. and this place is called out as being literally named "freshwater river." Granted, I don't think Kinzo accounted for Wikipedia, but... :v:

Either way, I got fuckin' nothing because this doesn't make any sense to me. Maybe someone else can pick up off from here?

witchcore ricepunk
Jul 6, 2003

The Golden Witch
Who Solved the Epitaph


A Probability of 1/2,578,917

idonotlikepeas posted:

The story is set in 1986, and Kinzo is old. Do we know exactly how old? I didn't see that quickly riffling through, but he's got adult children that have almost-adult children. He's got to be 60-80. So he's born sometime between, say, 1905 and 1925. That makes him too old for the timeframe you suggest, although according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_occupied_by_Imperial_Japan, Japan held both Taiwan and the Kwantung Leased Territory during that period. Shandong is also a possibility; that seems to be in exactly the kind of weird grey-area status that would work. (It's times like this that I wish I were better at geography, in general.) The fact that this lines up actually makes me more enthusiastic about the idea - it's not a place an old established family ought to be, but it's exactly the sort of place a bunch of outcasts from the shittiest part of a branch family might have ended up trying to seek their fortune.

I like your thinking here, and your earlier reasoning where you relate the key to Chinese/Japanese translation makes sense to me. I had Taiwan and China fingered in my last post, too... and I'm partial to Taiwan now that you mention timeframes, since it was occupied by Japan from 1895 and got bombed heavily during WW2. I haven't found any info on Shandong or Kwantung as far as damage incurred during WW2 goes (as per the conversation quoted in CottonWolf's earlier post), though they seem to have been important bases for Japan back then.

I looked for beaches/shores in Taiwan but that didn't net anything interesting. Here's a list of rivers. That's a lot. My brain hurts. To everyone reading this thread, sorry about the frequent posting; I wish we could talk about this in a chatroom!

edit: Wait, OK, so I checked out Tamsui River as per the post above, and it flows north into the sea, taking it between two cities, Taipei and New Taipei City. :aaa: Are those "the two"????

witchcore ricepunk fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Dec 21, 2016

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!
According to http://fishbase.org/country/Country...&vhabitat=fresh sweetfish were native to Taiwan, then destroyed, then reintroduced specifically from Japan. That kind of pattern would be appropriate.

So, potentially along that river, shore + village + two = key? I doubt I can be much help with this part, since I don't know dick about this region and don't speak Chinese or Japanese.

witchcore ricepunk
Jul 6, 2003

The Golden Witch
Who Solved the Epitaph


A Probability of 1/2,578,917

idonotlikepeas posted:

According to http://fishbase.org/country/Country...&vhabitat=fresh sweetfish were native to Taiwan, then destroyed, then reintroduced specifically from Japan. That kind of pattern would be appropriate.

So, potentially along that river, shore + village + two = key? I doubt I can be much help with this part, since I don't know dick about this region and don't speak Chinese or Japanese.

I'm excited about this but I feel like one of those witches is going to drop in and poo poo all over our theories soon. Oh well, Gunnerkrigg high five!

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
I have no red truth to offer for or against your theories regarding the Epitaph. Succeed or fail, you will struggle for the answer with your own power.

idonotlikepeas
May 29, 2010

This reasoning is possible for forums user idonotlikepeas!
I can't be any help with the geography, but in terms of the chapel door, George's reference to "m, b, t, q" probably means "million, billion, trillion, quadrillion". Combining that with Battler's earlier partial translation, the inscription probably just says 'This door will open only with a probability of one in [some obscenely high number]'. For reference, according to wikipedia, one quadrillion is about the number of ants that are currently alive on the planet. So if it's one in a quadrillion, the odds of that door opening are roughly equivalent to the odds of me selecting an ant, among all the ants on the planet earth, and you being able to pick that same ant by random chance.

witchcore ricepunk
Jul 6, 2003

The Golden Witch
Who Solved the Epitaph


A Probability of 1/2,578,917
So at this point, I'm just staring at this map of Taipei looking for the Chinese characters mentioned in the epitaph conversation. Maybe the "two" has something to do with the Lover's Bridge? Anyway, what happened to my life? If someone knows how to make this easier... let me know soon.

witchcore ricepunk fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Dec 21, 2016

AfroSquirrel
Sep 3, 2011

Tender Child Loins posted:

So at this point, I'm just staring at this map of Taipei looking for the Chinese characters mentioned in the epitaph conversation. What happened to my life?

I suppose you want to be like an explorer in the old legends.

SinisterTea
Oct 13, 2012
A quadrillion. Or as a Japanese person might say, a Kuwadorian.

EagerSleeper
Feb 3, 2010

by R. Guyovich

SinisterTea posted:

A quadrillion. Or as a Japanese person might say, a Kuwadorian.

:monocle: The surprises never stop coming in this thread...

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

If it were outside Japan that would also explain why Eva went there as on a vacation. I feel like we're getting somewhere.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?


October 5th, 1986, 10:00 AM



...!!!

My heart leapt. Because there, gaping wide, was an opened mouth in the eerie darkness.

"...Wh-What's this...? What is this...?!"

When I strained my eyes, peering into the darkness, I saw something that looked like a light switch. In addition, there was a switch with 'open' and 'close' written on it.



Eerily enough, it looked even more gloomy with the lights turned on. Near the light switch was that 'open and close' switch. It would probably open or close this, but if the open part happened to be broken, I might be shut away in this creepy underground area for all eternity... So for the time being, I didn't touch that switch, and as I readied my gun again, I slowly went down the stairs.

The ceiling was very high, so it didn't feel cramped. On the contrary, it felt as though a cool breeze was blowing upwards, and that creepiness seemed to form a sort of aura... As I readied my gun and carefully stared forwards, I descended the stairs...

The walls, the stairs, the lights... all of them were very old-fashioned. It was easy to suspect that this had been built back when the mansion had been constructed on this island. There were cracks in the ceiling, and water clung to the walls, constantly dripping down. That water fell into a gutter that had been set up alongside the stairs, then quickly and silently flowed into the underground darkness. As though it was telling me to go faster...

The staircase kept turning back on itself. I don't know how far down I've gone, but I think it's much deeper than one floor.



And there, characters had been written in a dark red paint. ...They had probably been written a long time ago.



My heart, which was already about to explode, jumped about even more as soon as I recognized those deep-red characters... There's no mistake... This is the last stop. Father's... Golden Land...!!

I calmed my throbbing heart, somehow regained my composure, and readied my gun again. But since, in the end, I couldn't open the door with my gun held in both hands... I lowered the gun, carefully hid my breathing, and opened the door...



:siren:Video: Gold:siren:

BGM: Rest

My first impression when I saw the room... was that it might be linked to one of the rooms in the mansion. That's right, it had exactly the same atmosphere about it as the sealed VIP room on the second floor. But this was underground, so there were no windows. There was only the solemn light of a grand chandelier.

But even though it was dimly lit by the faint light, the quality of the interior was more than enough to take your breath away. A bed with a canopy, and a rocking chair that looked like it would be comfortable to sit in. An extravagant sofa and carpet. The room was like a dream every girl yearns for at least once... And yet, since it was an underground hidden room with no windows, it felt more like the hidden house of a witch.

I'd never swallowed the legend of Beatrice, witch of the forest. However, after being shown this room, it certainly became hard to doubt that she actually had existed... and had lived in this room.



Even though I was completely shocked by this room, I carefully...no, timidly searched the interior with my gun raised.

And... at the back of the room, I found it.



My gasp came out strangely, like a bunny being choked. After all, after finding something like this, no one would be able to stop that kind of stupid voice from leaking out...



:siren:BGM: Happiness of Marionette - Omake:siren:

On the opposite side of the canopy bed, it was piled up in a massive heap... It was a mountain, a mountain of gold ingots!! Of course, they weren't piled up carelessly in a way that would damage the dignity of this room. A beautiful scarlet satin weave was laid on the mountain of gold, creating a beautiful three-colored mix between the red, the gold and the black of the deep darkness... It was as though, when the witch slept on this bed, the gold would be a respectful chamberlain waiting on her. Nobly, refinedly, gracefully, beautifully. It was attentively piled there with an imposing air...

When I tried to grab a single gold ingot, I was surprised at its weight. It was probably about 10 kilograms. Just this ingot would probably be worth more than 10 million. The Ushiromiya family crest, the One-Winged Eagle, was lightly imprinted on it. It was hard to tell whether it had worn away, or whether the impression had been made carelessly in the first place, but it was certainly the crest of the One-Winged Eagle.

Just how many ingots were piled up there? By doing a quick count here and there and judging by the height, there had to be a few hundred at least. My mind's already gone blank, so I can't do the math well. Even a moderate guess would put it above several billion yen.



In front of the mountain of gold, I spread my arms and looked up at the ceiling. A laugh without a trace of dignity flowed out from my entire body. I had no intention of laughing in a weird way, but... but, I couldn't hold back the happy feeling that was flowing through me. My older brother probably wouldn't accept his loss just because I found this gold. But from now on, there would be no changing the fact that I had been the one to find it...!

To steal away the Headship of the family, some more subtle bargaining would probably still be required. But after everything I've gone through until now, that's a completely trivial problem. Even if I lose out on the Ushiromiya Family Headship... I already have 20 billion yen worth of gold!!



"...But now I see that's just a lie! Just an excuse that the have-nots make for themselves!! In front of this mountain of gold, I've finally realized something so obvious...!! By using this money, I can give birth to all the happiness in this world! With this money, my husband's company is already saved. We will always be happy as a family. And I can even leave a vast sum of money to George...!! The rest of the relatives will eventually be ruined and disappear. At that time, George will use this gold, and just like Grandfather did, he will revive the Ushiromiya family's lost honor. George is the true successor to the Ushiromiya family!!"

It happened!!! My wish was granted!! That dream I have wished for ever since I was born into this world as Ushiromiya Eva... has been granted completely at this very moment...!! My husband and I will be happy for all eternity. And I can also give my only son, George, eternal happiness!! There's no way I'll waste it on foolish pleasures!! My older brother has chewed the Ushiromiya family to bits, but George and I will revive it! And that means I truly have succeeded the Ushiromiya Family Headship!!



That's right, after this, never again will we be smothered by sad nights. Congratulations, me. Congratulations, Ushiromiya Eva. Right here, right now, the sad half of our life will have its heart's desire granted.

"It's all thanks to you... I was given this chance because of your magic. Because of that chance, I was able to make it here...!"



So, it isn't just the power of my magic. This is our victory. Because of that, congratulations, 'us'.

"Thank you, me... Thank you, Ushiromiya Eva... I'm glad I didn't give in before now. I'm glad that I didn't drown in sorrow and forget to keep struggling...



BGM: None



...She saw a creepy, swaying human shadow blocking her path, and her dreamlike state was blown away.



For an instant, she believed that the true master of this room, the real Beatrice, had appeared. It seemed that the other person was also holding a gun. The two of them were pointing guns at each other.

And eventually, they each realized who the other was...

"...Rosa...?"



BGM: Black Lilliana

"That's my line. What business do you have in such a place?"
"...I shouldn't have given you that hint, Nee-san. If I hadn't, I definitely would have been the first to reach this place. Too bad."

It seemed that Rosa knew where this staircase went... and what was waiting ahead of her.

"You should talk. Even though I reached this place before you."
"...I worried too much about the sweetfish river. The sweetfish part didn't really matter that much at all, did it?"
"That isn't true. It was an excellent hint, wasn't it? Well, of course, maybe there was no need for it to be sweetfish. But when I heard that sweetfish are fish that go out into the sea, I was able to figure it out."
"...What's inside?"
"Why not see with your own eyes? It definitely won't betray your expectations."



"...Are you serious?"
"Of course. I'm the outsider of the Ushiromiya siblings. Even if Father had named me as the next Head, there's no way Nii-san would accept it. I try not to have such naive dreams."
"..."
"Let me see too, Nee-san. This proof of your victory. As long as I receive the proper portion that the siblings agreed upon, I plan to proactively acknowledge you as the true victor in this 'game'."
"...If you shoot me, then you'll have this gold all to yourself, won't you?"
"The same goes for you. If you shoot me, this gold will all be yours."
"..."



...Eva removed her finger from the trigger and held the gun upside-down. It was a position that she couldn't quickly shoot from. When she saw that, Rosa held hers the same way.

"...That's right. That plan of shooting the other and having all the gold to ourselves is attractive for both of us. But if one of us suddenly disappeared on this island while it's isolated by the typhoon, there would be a huge uproar. If we hid the corpse here, it probably wouldn't be found easily, but we couldn't be sure."
"...No matter how many billion yen worth of gold is on the line, it isn't worth the risk of committing murder. On the contrary, that would give Krauss nii-san and the others ammunition to wring us for all we're worth."
"I agree. It may have been a blessing in disguise that you're the one who showed up... instead of Nii-san or Rudolf. You're the sibling I trust most."
"...Thank you. And you're the sibling I trust most, Nee-san."
"..."
"...I want to see the gold too."
"Wanna have a peek? Now I feel like seeing it again too. Even though I saw it with my own eyes, it still doesn't feel real. Unless I see it together with you and confirm once more that it actually exists, it feels like the gold will turn to fog and disappear."

Eva started descending the staircase once more. However, she didn't carelessly expose her back to Rosa. Even though, at a glance, it looked like Rosa had lowered her guard, she definitely didn't show any signs of carelessness.

Quinn2win fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Dec 21, 2016

Aumanor
Nov 9, 2012
Well, congratulations on being the first winner of the witch's game, Ushiromiya Eva. You're probably the smartest person on the island. Too bad that you're still a terrible, terrible human being.

SinisterTea
Oct 13, 2012
I was thinking about this earlier, but I think there may well simply be two things happening simultaneously, but only tangentially related - the hunt for the gold, given by Beatrice (possibly Predecessor Beatrice/Kumasawa) and the murders, inspired by someone in the middle of a psychotic break, obsessed with the Legend of the Witch.

In other words, I won't be at all surprised if the game doesn't end here like it is "supposed" to.

resurgam40
Jul 22, 2007

Battler, the literal stupidest man on earth. Why are you even here, Battler, why did you come back to this place so you could fuck literally everything up?

ProfessorProf posted:

"...No matter how many billion yen worth of gold is on the line, it isn't worth the risk of committing murder. On the contrary, that would give Krauss nii-san and the others ammunition to wring us for all we're worth."
"I agree. It may have been a blessing in disguise that you're the one who showed up... instead of Nii-san or Rudolf. You're the sibling I trust most."
"...Thank you. And you're the sibling I trust most, Nee-san."

Unless you're trying to be clever and portray Eva's capitulation to greed and paranoia as a regression of her age to her younger self, I think this might be the wrong picture.

But yeah, I've never believed that the endpoint of the Epitaph is an actual, literal pile of gold, although it does not surprise me that the gold is real. It just seems too thematically proper for the "Golden Land" to be a metaphorical place of harmony and the end of suffering, not necessarily Heaven or enlightenment or what have you, but the achievement of happiness and peace... and it's also thematically proper that a mountain of gold- the oldest and surest symbol of Mammon, of unearned wealth that leads to conflict born of greed- serves as an impediment to that peace, rather than the end point. Because wealth this extravagant, just found somewhere, tends to be cursed. I mean, it's not like this wealth has made Kinzo any happier or more stable, has it? With such wealth at his fingertips, nearly all of his potential troubles are over, but he spends his days getting drunk on absinthe and mourning the one thing he can't buy. He even made a "spell" to get that thing, so I highly, highly doubt this is where it leads.

And something tells me the curse on this gold is going to get bigger, when these two ladies realize what's at stake and shoot each other to death in this room. "Tearing apart the two that are close," here we come.

resurgam40 fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Dec 21, 2016

oath2order
Oct 12, 2013

It's MAGIC. I don't have to explain shit!


resurgam40 posted:

It just seems too thematically proper for the "Golden Land" to be a metaphorical place of harmony and the end of suffering.

Nope, it's just fat stacks of cash.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
So this room sounds like his combo mistress den and nursery, maybe.

Danaru
Jun 5, 2012

何 ??
As much as Kinzo loves metaphors and double meanings, he loves literally having a room full of gold bars even more :v: I can dig it

witchcore ricepunk
Jul 6, 2003

The Golden Witch
Who Solved the Epitaph


A Probability of 1/2,578,917

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

So this room sounds like his combo mistress den and nursery, maybe.

:barf: I really hope that's not true.

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

So Eva's won. Going back to the 10 twilight speculation:

CottonWolf posted:

On the tenth twilight, the journey ends, and you shall reach the Home of the Gold.
On the tenth twilight, at journey's end, you shall attain to the power of the Golden Land's treasures, once and for the last time.


It seems that who ever speculated "the Gold" was Beatrice was on the money. It's literally Beatrice's home by the looks of things. Thinking about the "once and for the last time", that never really came up. So, speculation based on my initial thoughts on it.

I suspect Eva won't be in any of the future episodes. It could just mean that everyone can only win once, but that seems like it would be impossible to disprove. Her no appearing would be a much stronger "once and for the last time".

resurgam40
Jul 22, 2007

Battler, the literal stupidest man on earth. Why are you even here, Battler, why did you come back to this place so you could fuck literally everything up?
But if it is Beatrice's home... why haven't wee seen or heard about it until now? We saw the hidden manor in Rosa's flashback, and that wasn't underground like this is, and Beatrice said she only knew that rose garden... I guess it's possible that that was her bedroom, but she'd have to use an elevator to get there. I dunno, it just feels wrong to me... if for no other reason that the reward is incomplete- no resurrections, no granted wishes, no going to sleep for Beato.

And where the hell is this, anyway? Eva describes things as an industrial, mine-like place, and that hasn't come up before... is this somewhere in the chapel, like TCL hypothesized? I don't think we know anything about that building besides what we've seen in the chapel, so a hidden answer might be there, but to say so is to invite the anime, which leaves a sour taste... but drat if I can think of another building that's so mysterious.

Unless this isn't a building we've seen but some heretofore spot on the island, like a quarry or mine, or something like a lighthouse. Or somewhere along the coast like my mind keeps coming back to, drat its concrete nature.

vv Goddamn, a physical path... see, that's what I mean by concrete, I got too caught up in the water part to consider that a river might refer to a guided path as well as a spiritual journey or what have you...

resurgam40 fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Dec 21, 2016

Mister Olympus
Oct 31, 2011

Buzzard, Who Steals From Dead Bodies
I don't know, the coast only seems likely if it has to do with a literal river and the riddle is about sea currents or fish migration patterns or something equally weird and obscure. If it's a metaphorical river, then it could be anywhere!

Then again, "the path from Kuwadorian to the mansion" is as good a "river" as any.

Fabulousvillain
May 2, 2015
Congratulations! :golfclap:

EagerSleeper
Feb 3, 2010

by R. Guyovich
Question: in the last episode, where did Rosa find the three ingots of gold she was trying to escape with? Were those all the ingots that Krauss had found (I thought he only had one), or did she find this place before too?

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Weren't they in the church with the bodies?

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
The riddle isn't finished yet, I think; after all, there's still all the stuff about the key and the murder-twilights. Do you think we'll miss out on more murders? I don't. Beatrice isn't done yet. She's showing Battler this for a reason.

Moreover, until all the players acknowledge Eva, she hasn't really won. There's no reason to think that she'll survive for much longer. The same may be said of Rosa.

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Mister Olympus posted:

I don't know, the coast only seems likely if it has to do with a literal river and the riddle is about sea currents or fish migration patterns or something equally weird and obscure. If it's a metaphorical river, then it could be anywhere!

Then again, "the path from Kuwadorian to the mansion" is as good a "river" as any.

How does that relate to anything else in the riddle though? I can accept that physical path might be a river, but how does that link into everything else.

witchcore ricepunk
Jul 6, 2003

The Golden Witch
Who Solved the Epitaph


A Probability of 1/2,578,917

ProfessorProf posted:

"...I worried too much about the sweetfish river. The sweetfish part didn't really matter that much at all, did it?"
"That isn't true. It was an excellent hint, wasn't it? Well, of course, maybe there was no need for it to be sweetfish. But when I heard that sweetfish are fish that go out into the sea, I was able to figure it out."

Yesterday I managed to follow the literal "river" as far as I could in one direction, but now I don't know if that's the right way to think at all. Maybe it is a road, like you're all saying. But what does "quadrillion" tell us, and is there any way to relate that to the "key," which may be in Chinese? Is that a red herring, too?

So, "the concept of a river that meets an ocean"/road that meets the ocean (??) + village 里 + shore 岸 + quadrillion + Taiwan (??) = key? In what universe does that even begin to make sense?

witchcore ricepunk fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Dec 21, 2016

Aumanor
Nov 9, 2012

POOL IS CLOSED posted:

The riddle isn't finished yet, I think; after all, there's still all the stuff about the key and the murder-twilights. Do you think we'll miss out on more murders? I don't. Beatrice isn't done yet. She's showing Battler this for a reason.

Moreover, until all the players acknowledge Eva, she hasn't really won. There's no reason to think that she'll survive for much longer. The same may be said of Rosa.

Well, the murder is mostly extraneous to the riddle itself. All the lines about sacrifices are just instructions on how to break the code. I do wonder why the murderer is trying to link his murders to the riddle.

As for your prediction, Rosa and Eva might have just set themselves up as two who are close.

curiousCat
Sep 23, 2012

Does this look like the face of mercy, kupo?

CottonWolf posted:

It seems that who ever speculated "the Gold" was Beatrice was on the money. It's literally Beatrice's home by the looks of things. Thinking about the "once and for the last time", that never really came up. So, speculation based on my initial thoughts on it.

Thank you! :shobon:

But what we really get from this is... there's two homes of Beatrice, right? This room, and the mansion out in the forest somewhere. Now Rosa's seen both, so she can confirm whether they're the same or different. But if we operate under the assumption that they're different, then I think we can piece together a little bit more. Especially if we look back at Virgilia. We've seen two people named Beatrice, correct? The older, and the younger. Are(/were) they both real people? Young Beatrice was confirmed by Rosa. Kinzo is probably the only one who could confirm the older one... but what if this is Beatrice the elder's room?

EagerSleeper
Feb 3, 2010

by R. Guyovich
Why does Kinzo keep someone hidden in an underground bunker for years on end? :gonk:

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

curiousCat posted:

Thank you! :shobon:

But what we really get from this is... there's two homes of Beatrice, right? This room, and the mansion out in the forest somewhere. Now Rosa's seen both, so she can confirm whether they're the same or different. But if we operate under the assumption that they're different, then I think we can piece together a little bit more. Especially if we look back at Virgilia. We've seen two people named Beatrice, correct? The older, and the younger. Are(/were) they both real people? Young Beatrice was confirmed by Rosa. Kinzo is probably the only one who could confirm the older one... but what if this is Beatrice the elder's room?

That's a good idea. Though if Virgilus, Kumasawa and oldBeatrice are the same person, it opens up more questions than answers. If Kumasawa know's this place exists, why didn't she tell anyone? What's the benefit to her?

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug

EagerSleeper posted:

Why does Kinzo keep someone hidden in an underground bunker for years on end? :gonk:

Why does any other awful person do it? :smith:

witchcore ricepunk
Jul 6, 2003

The Golden Witch
Who Solved the Epitaph


A Probability of 1/2,578,917

CottonWolf posted:

That's a good idea. Though if Virgilus, Kumasawa and oldBeatrice are the same person, it opens up more questions than answers. If Kumasawa know's this place exists, why didn't she tell anyone? What's the benefit to her?

It could be that she was getting paid to keep quiet. What's one bar of gold when you have 10 tons' worth of them? I hate to think that a nice lady like her would be an accomplice to incest/rape/false imprisonment, though.

resurgam40
Jul 22, 2007

Battler, the literal stupidest man on earth. Why are you even here, Battler, why did you come back to this place so you could fuck literally everything up?

Tender Child Loins posted:

It could be that she was getting paid to keep quiet. What's one bar of gold when you have 10 tons' worth of them? I hate to think that a nice lady like her would be an accomplice to incest/rape/false imprisonment, though.

Well, maybe she doesn't really have a choice... She could be being blackmailed or otherwise coerced, or maybe she's just as much of a prisoner as Beato.

This is all an assumption on our parts, though, just like last time it was revealed there was a secret living place on the island. A secret room for holding- two of them, in fact- is not exactly good news, though.

Mister Olympus
Oct 31, 2011

Buzzard, Who Steals From Dead Bodies
Maybe nobody consistently lived there and it was just a place where Kinzo could scamper off to and sleep in sight of his mountain of gold.

Alopex
May 31, 2012

This is the sleeve I have chosen.

Mister Olympus posted:

Maybe nobody consistently lived there and it was just a place where Kinzo could scamper off to and sleep on his mountain of gold.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
We already know that Human Beatrice stayed in mansion and was free to move about to a certain level.

So we know she was not locked in this little bunker.

  • Locked thread