Warrior Cats: Choose Your Own Adventure (COMPLETE)

[Arcaii]

The moon is in the west by the time everything is in motion. Your eyes have adjusted to the darkness now, and you're certain that you could stroll around in the uphill woods without so much as a stumble now. Your body has set aside its weariness for the moment, because whatever may happen to you, you're ending this whole thing by the afternoon.

Cinderpaw is a massive help - even when you have her stow away Knotpaw's body in a bush until the morning, she doesn't complain. You carefully cover her with several different herbs (without rubbing them onto her) and murmur an apology before the two of you set out, both with ears set back and steps determined.

By the time you finished up with Knotpaw and are on your way to ForestClan's border, you've explained up to Crowcloud to Cinderpaw. She doesn't react much, instead carefully memorizes everything you've told her like you asked her to and giving you a nod when she's got in in her memory and you can keep talking.

You cross over the river and wait on the slopes for another cat to show up. By luck, a white molly with a red foot encounters you on an herb search. You politely request that she brings Thistlenose to the border, as you need her to help you with something. She takes one look at the glowering giant behind you and your own rather cold demeanor before promptly jogging off to get Thistlenose.

When she meets up with you, you quickly bring her up to speed from the past few weeks. She's surprised, but only asks, "So what do you need me to do?"

"I need you to come with us so that we have a third set of eyes combing the scene for clues," you say. "Plus, if one of your cats finds us, or one of our cats finds us, then we have an alibi for everyone."

"Okay." She nods. "What do we do first?"

Inspect the waterfall.
Trail Batstream and Beefur.

[Warriors13lover]

Inspect the waterfall

[cookie★]

Trail Batstream and Beefur.

[Pokechu12]

Trail Beefur and Batstream.

[Greenleaf]

Inspect the waterfall.

[shortstop]

Inspect the waterfall.

[Altias]

Trail Batstream and Beefur.

[~Moony~]

Trail batstream and beefur

[Arcaii]

Choices:

1. Inspect the waterfall
2. Trail Batstream and Beefur
3. Trail Batstream and Beefur
4. Inspect the waterfall
5. Inspect the waterfall
6. Trail Batstream and Beefur
7. Trail Batstream and Beefur

Roll says... 1: Inspect the waterfall.

"Right now, we need to check the waterfall," you say. "We're collecting as many clues as possible. If we can get physical evidence, that's even better."

With that, all three of you stride up the hill. You feel a confidence you haven't felt in a while, along with a glimmer of hope that's slowly getting brighter as time goes on.

Your eyes are almost fully used to the darkness within, but you entrust Thistlenose to lead the way and notice the smallest details. Cinderpaw sticks with guarding you two, making a wide berth around the scene of the crime and watching the woods in case your culprits come back. You don't think they will, but you can't be sure.

With your fellow tracker, you comb over everything. You find out that the apprentice - who Thistlenose informs you was named Ravenpaw - did actually cover up her scent later on, since there's a patch of mint that grows not too far from here.

"She didn't do it very well, though," Thistlenose sighs. "She wasn't always the most methodical of cats."

"But she may have been more helpful than we think," you say, nodding to the dried remains of blood on the ground. "I can't tell who's this is, but if she fought back as hard as I think she did, she might have given us a helping paw."

"What're your ideas?" asks Thistlenose.

You go over the ground again, talking. "I think it's likely that she and Knotpaw were fighting to begin with - Knotpaw wouldn't ask a stranger to come up here with her, especially not one that might've been aggressive. Beefur and Batstream knew that she would come up here somehow, so they followed her up. Maybe they let the apprentices exhaust each other, and then pushed them in."

"Knotpaw doesn't fight," says Cinderpaw quietly. "...Didn't fight, if she could help it."

"Which is probably why she was so battered up," you say. "But Ravenpaw was in worse condition. Maybe she fought back as soon as she realized what was happening, and the murderers had to fight her as well. Or Knotpaw was just feeling swipe-happy tonight, who knows. I wouldn't blame her."

As you talk, you feel something by your foot. It's very small and you almost miss it, but you quickly lift your paw and sniff at the ground. Another very tiny patch of fur, with some of the hairs nearly sticking to your nose.

"Thistlenose, I need your eyes," you say. "We need to get as much of this fur together as we can and keep it safe. Cinderpaw, can you get me a leaf of some kind? Preferably big."

Both comply immediately, and soon you have a collection of hair wrapped up in a beech leaf. You have Cinderpaw guard it while you and Thistlenose continue searching.

Thistlenose finds claw marks and scuffled dirt by the ledge of the river. From the size of them, you can guess that it was Ravenpaw. Moreover, you can still smell the mint, even though the scent has faded a little by now. You're leaning towards her murder being a case of mistaken identity.

Eventually, you can't find anything else. The moon is sinking, and a faint light can be seen over the river.

"We've gotten everything we can," says Thistlenose. "What should we do next?"

Inspect both bodies.
Follow Beefur's trail.

[shortstop]

Follow Beefur's trail.