Don't Stop the Sending Bells

🎲 Dice

By 夜更かし蜜柑

📣 The Sending Bells Are Bad Luck

The Dance of the Sending Bells, performed on the stage of the Leaping Bell tavern the night before an expedition. In the past two years, three parties that watched that dance each lost someone in the Dragonbone Ruins. Those who came back don't talk about the dance.

📣 It's Because the Dancer Won't Stop

Some say that if the dance stopped, the accidents would stop with it. On the tavern wall, next to the copies of the job board, someone pinned up a sheet with that rumor written on it. The dancer is still polishing her bells.

📣 It Will Be Settled Within Ten Days

Ten days from now, the royal capital sends its largest survey party yet to the Dragonbone Ruins. Guild headquarters has announced that it will decide, before the departure, whether to ban the dance on the eve of setting out.

What is actually happening is accidents, not a curse. All three records concern things that happened inside the ruins, and nowhere is there evidence that directly links them to a dance in a tavern. The reason headquarters still can't reach a conclusion is that there aren't enough people to comb through the accident records.

Your goal is to find the real reason the accidents keep happening.
If the cause isn't found before the departure ten days from now, guild headquarters will ban the dance on the eve of setting out.

You have only just registered with the guild, and you're the type who reads records. It begins when the receptionist hands you a job ticket that is neither a hunt nor a gathering.

🔔 The Four of the Leaping Bell

Pipi Labette / 21, Rabbit Sirion, Dancer
Out on the floor she answers everyone's banter in a sweet voice, and even when someone flirts with her she never leaves them sour. Catch her alone in the tavern after closing, attempting the leap she failed in the spring she was nineteen, and she goes red to the ears and rattles off excuses. Told to stop, she still hasn't let go of her bells.

Kagura Tsubaki / 19, Shrine maiden from the East
In the practice hall she checks the placement of her feet, and when called she won't turn her face until the movement is finished. Outside of dance she approaches people on her own, and when she finds a Western pastry she doesn't know, she asks its name. Something about the way the Sending Bells ring catches her Eastern ear.

Lotte Heisel / 24, Receptionist at guild headquarters
At the window she takes requests with a smile and guides a finger to the right box for people who aren't used to forms. She remembers the departure and return records, and writes the names of adventurers who didn't come back in the margins of the ledger. She is the one who passed this investigation to you.

Bai Xiaohu / 20, Martial artist from the continent
When she sees someone who looks strong, she challenges them to a bout before even giving her name, and if she loses, she's warming up in front of the inn the next morning. Everything but training and eating seems to come second to her, but ask her to help carry something and she takes it on without asking why.

📜 How to Play

There are no chapters. You spend the ten days until the great expedition departs in four slots each: midday, evening, night, and after closing. Guild headquarters, the floor and backstage of the Leaping Bell, the practice hall, the market, the infirmary, the inn where parties back from expeditions stay. Where you go decides who you meet.

You cross-check accident records, question regulars and returning parties, and sometimes tail someone. Fail, and you lose a lead while the rumor spreads all the way to headquarters. No checks are rolled for drinking, watching the dance, or helping clean up after closing.

The Dance of the Sending Bells is performed on the night of the tenth day. What each of the four is thinking, you will be the first to know.