Name: Silver Crystal

Age: 15

Pronouns: She/her

Personality: INTP

Appearance: Long brown hair, brown eyes, white-ish silver shirt, jeans

Packing list: Compass, notebook, pencils, flashlight, camera

Most important item packed: Camera

What type of bag are the belongings packed in?: Duffel bag

Name: Hawkstar
Age: 15

Pronouns: she/her

Personality: Firm fair kind observant clever

Appearance: tall with short brown A line cut hair. button nose with some freckles and sharp hazel eyes. wearing leather fur line coat and fur lined boots both brown forest green leggings. has hunting knife and bow and a quiver full of arrows

Packing list: just extra arrows

Most important item packed: notebook
What type of bag are the belongings packed in? leather bag

Luna silvermoon here!

Name:see above

Age:????????????

She/her

Quirky and reckless

Blue hair blue eyes. Do what you Will with this

Packing list:my talking cloak named Nightly,my magic staff with a raven on it,(named  tiona and comes alive) Tearmoon Empire

Most:nothing.its all important 

bag:a black leather one

Name: Suki
Age: 13
Pronouns: She/her
Personality: Mischevious, likes to play pranks, loves reading and drawing, fun, usually friendly, clever, loves climbing trees.
Appearance: Long tangled black hair, heterochromatic eyes (one green, one amber), long brown pants, a dark green sweater, tall black hiking boots. Has sap all over her hands from climbing trees
Packing list: A pencil, a sketchbook, books, a coat, a coil of rope, 3 dark blue hoodies.
Most important item packed: A pencil
What type of bag are the belongings packed in?: An old backpack. Brown, if you must know.

And here. We. Go.

——–

Day 1, Part 1

In eleven places on eleven parts of the planet, eleven CBers shook eleven snowglobes and all disappeared and then reappeared on the snowy porch of an old house on a hill above a small, old city.
Someone stepped out through the door of the house. "Hi," said the person. She was tall, with a messy bun of brown hair, and wearing jeans and a sweater. "Are you the guests?"
"Yep," said Luna Silvermoon. "At least I think so."
"Okay good," said the person. "So this is the house, or hotel or whatever." She led them past a small check-in desk situated immediately in front of the door. "You can pick your rooms; there are sixteen rooms, four to a floor, on floors 2 to 5, although keep in mind that there are no elevators. If you need anything, press the red button on the wall of each room. Towels are in the bathrooms, and so on." The person led them through a door into a kitchen, where another person wearing a T-shirt that read Math Nerd for Life cooked spaghetti in a pot. "I'm Elizabeth Farrayew, and this is Rosana, who's in charge of all the cooking here. Somewhere in this house are Addie and Nina, my daughters; they're both pretty shy, so don't expect to encounter them. Once you have muck or water on your shoes, leave them on the porch. That's it."
"I'll share a room with Jay," said Chaser, "if you don't mind."
"Okay," said Elizabeth. "You can pick your rooms, so why don't you go up and put your stuff away, and then soon I'll come and check on you." Elizabeth showed them to a staircase, which they all climbed. It wound past a small landing with a few dried flowers in a glass vase sitting on an end table and then turned back the other way. Reuby Moonnight, Darkvine, Ultimatum, and Tsuki chose rooms on that floor; the rest of the CBers climbed another flight of stairs, where Chaser, Jay, Echo Hallowswift, Silver Crystal, and Hawkstar chose to have rooms. Luna Silvermoon and Suki continued to the next floor, where Luna Silvermoon proceeded to dump her stuff on the ready-waiting luggage rack and head downstairs to ask about skiing. She found Elizabeth at the check-in desk.
"Can we ski here?" Luna Silvermoon asked. 
"Sure," said Elizabeth, "but there's no lift, so you'll have to walk up the hill once you've gone down it. The snow behind the house is much better than in front. I'll fetch some snowshoes and skis from the attic."
"Great." Luna Silvermoon proceeded up the stairs, where she promptly knocked on each person's door and asked them if they wanted to go skiing. Everyone agreed, so they all waited on the second floor for Elizabeth, who came downstairs with two huge boxes.
"Nine pairs of skis," said Elizabeth, "and ten of snowshoes, although there is a sled outside the back door."
"I have my own skiing stuff," said Jay, who was holding a pair of skis.
"I wouldn't mind sledding," said Luna Silvermoon.
"Okay then," said Elizabeth, who began to dole out skis and then opened the snowshoe box. Inside were a bunch of objects that had cloth stretched over a metal frame with a hole in the middle. There was a screw going across the hole.
"Um…rather, um, custom snowshoes," said Hawkstar.
"One of our guests made them," said Elizabeth. "And they work, which is something."
Each person carried their snowshoes around their neck, because attached to the screw was a sort of lead with a clip on it, that went on the other shoe as well. They tried to all go down the stairs. It didn't work; Tsuki was pushed to the side and fell into the corner of the landing–which happened to be where the vase was. It shattered and the two dry thistles slid out neatly.
"I'm so sorry," said Tsuki anxiously, fretting. "I broke your vase by accident, I didn't mean to."
"That's fine," said Elizabeth.
"Is there anything you want me to do about it?" she asked, hopping up and down. She accidentally hopped on a shard of vase, which poked through her sock and into her foot. She let out a yelp, sat down, and yanked out the shard.
"Oh dear, oh dear," said Elizabeth, pulling a band-aid from her pocket and giving it to Tsuki. "Is your foot okay?" Tsuki put the bandaid on and tried standing on it. It didn't hurt too much, but she wasn't really in the mood for skiing.
"Yes, it is," said Tsuki. "Do you mind if I stay here for the morning?"
"No," said Elizabeth. The skiiers headed downstairs to leave, out into the swirling snow.

Warning, which I should have said before: This is a nonlethal ski lodge. At the most, you'll come down with poisoning that won't kill you…
Anyways.

———

Day 1, Part 2

"So," said Elizabeth, "this is the check-in desk." She led Tsuki to the entry, where the small, school-like desk sat in the middle of the entry. Elizabeth opened a ledger and Tsuki sat down in the chair by the desk. The ledger had six columns, which were headed Name, Room, Date of Check-In, Method of Contact, Method of Payment, and PAID? "Do not let anyone go to their room without answering each of these. People may withold information. Unfortunately, you have to extract it. And don't put anything in the PAID column. For method of contact, address is best, and phone number okay, but email is not exactly welcomed."
"Why would you need method of payment, though?" Tsuki wondered. "Doesn't everyone usually use normal money?"
"Some things these guests do," said Elizabeth. "You'd be surprised. Oh, and you can assign rooms by your own choice, but flip the corresponding room on this model around to get at the keys, and then keep flipping it until it says occupied." A model of the house stood on the edge of the desk, and Tsuki could see that it had each of the rooms. All the ones occupied by the CBers had OCCUPIED on them. She pushed one of the rooms experimentally and it revealed 5E. She set it back in place and Elizabeth left Tsuki alone in the entry. Tsuki went to the bookshelf in the livng room and grabbed a book, then sat down to read. She passed the morning this way without any guests, but she was wondering, Why wouldn't you give someone your name and address? And why, for goodness's sakes, wouldn't you pay in money?

————-

Everyone who had gone skiing enjoyed the powdery snow, but did not enjoy the walk up the hill.
"Why would you run a ski lodge without a ski lift?" Darkvine groused as she dragged the metal snowshoes. They were heavy, and sometimes they sank into the snow.
"I don't know," said Ultimatum, trying to be cheery. "Maybe it's too expensive to run one."
"Could be," said Luna Silvermoon. "But why wouldn't they have enough skis? Because I'm pretty sure they only invited eleven people and were pretty sure of the number."
"No idea," said Ultimatum. 

————–

Around noon, a knock roused Tsuki from her book. She let the book sit open on the desk, stood up, and opened the door.
"Hi," she said, sitting back down. The knocker was an old lady wearing a woolly dress, a woolly scarf, and a woolly hat. She carried a woolly carpetbag and wore thick woolly socks. "What's your name?" 
"What?" said the lady. She stepped over the threshold and dropped her carpetbag. A couple of socks–one bright green with monkeys and bananas and another purple with pansies–dropped out. "My," said the lady as she bent to pick up the socks. "If my bag doesn't need a new clasp, my name isn't Squintina Howard."
"But is your name Squintina Howard?" Tsuki asked, picking up a pen and opening the ledger.
"Yep," said Squintina distractedly.
"What's your address?"
"2765 Argyle Court, Rocklin, California, 95677." Tsuki diligently recorded it.
"How will you pay?" she asked.
"Oh, in dollars, of course." Tsuki wrote down $,added the date, and then assigned Squintina a room.
"Your room is 5C, so on the fifth floor, and the third room."
"Thanks!" Squintina headed up and didn't close the door. The CBers came tromping in, wet and panting.
"How was the skiing?" Tsuki asked.
"Great," said Suki. "We're all kind of hungry, so."
"Do not despair," Rosana called from the kitchen. "Spaghetti and garlic bread to the rescue!" 

—-

The CBers ate their food, then they sat around reading, playing games, and talking until Rosana called for dinner. On the table were sweet potato fries, soup, and more garlic bread. They sat around the long table, and Addie and Nina joined them. Addie looked about eleven or twelve, and Nina maybe eighteen or nineteen; both of them sat down near Elizabeth and started to eat.
"Say!" Squintina Howard broke the silence. "This soup is so good!"
"Thank you," said Rosana.
"Also, I need more soap in my room. Isn't it odd how those two words are so similar? Soup and soap?"
"I'll do it." Nina stood up and left the table. Hawkstar and Echo Hallowswift traded glances: Why the heck would someone who arrived that day, as Tsuki told them, need more soap after about six hours? 
Nina returned and everyone finished their food. All the CBers were tired and decided to turn in early. Darkvine headed up to her room and started getting ready for bed. Just as she was about to turn out the light, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," said Darkvine. Addie opened the door. She was carrying a tray with a bunch of cups of hot cocoa and one Polaroid photo on it.
"Room service," said Addie quietly. Darkvine picked up the nearest cup and set it on the nightstand. "Also, Nina wants you to have the photo." Darkvine picked it up. It was a picture of a small bathroom littered with multicolored socks.
"And why exactly?" Darkvine asked.
Addie shrugged. "Nina said to give it to one of you. Said she took it when she was in Squintina's bathroom giving her more soap. She's doing this photography assignment for school where she takes pictures of interesting things, and she said this definitely was interesting."
"How weird can it be?" said Darkvine. "Squintina Howard washes her socks."
"Night," said Addie, who took the tray with all the other cups of cocoa away.
But, as she fell asleep, Darkvine wondered, In all honesty, why would you wash a billion socks by hand? 

Day 2, Part 1

After the CBers got up one by one, Rosana served them French toast with jam, which was delicious. Squintina, Addie, Nina, and Elizabeth were there for breakfast as well; she shot glances across the table in Nina and Darkvine's directions, for no reason at all. 
"Can we go snoweshoeing in the woods if we want?" Silver Crystal asked. 
"Yep, but don't go past the back fence," said Elizabeth. "It's pretty clearly marked 'do not trespass' so it'll be fairly obvious. If I'm right the boxes of ski stuff are still in the living room, and you shed what you wore on the porch." 

——–

All of the CBers headed out to the porch. A few of them had brought water bottles, although Rosana had ruled it unnecessary to carry any food more than a snack, because the property was deceptively small. Tsuki, Silver Crystal, Luna Silvermoon, Ultimatum, Echo Hallowswift and Jay headed off to go hiking, while everyone else decided to ski. The snowshoes were okay, but not superlight or super good at not sinking. 
"It looks like someone made these," said Echo Hallowswift, bending over to look at one foot. "I mean, it's just cloth, waterproofing stuff, and weird metal rims with screws in them."
"It could be," said Tsuki. "I mean…this probably sounds crazy, but what if someone paid Elizabeth with them?"
"Um…" Ultimatum started.
"When I was checking people in, there was a column for method of payment in the account book. What if someone decided to pay Elizabeth with handmade snowshoes? It's not something she wouldn't need," Tsuki hastily explained, wondering if it would still sound weird.
"Yeah," said Jay, "that might actually be right. And how on the letter or whatever there was stuff about an unpredictable nature?"
"Could be," said Luna Silvermoon. They kept on hiking. About an hour later, they met up with a concrete road and walked along it. Somehow, Tsuki lost her water bottle, although she had no memory of doing something with it. The road wandered uphill and then came to the house. The other CBers were just taking off their snowshoes on the porch. Rosana stuck her head out the window.
"Lunch!" she called. The CBers took off their snowy boots and snowshoes and wandered in to eat the tortilla soup. After lunch, they all went out into the snow again, and headed back when it got dark at about six. There were two new guests when they sat down for dinner: a youngish lady with black hair and nervous eyes, and an oldish man wearing glasses and a top hat as well as a ludicrous orange-and-purple striped muffler that looked to be about six feet long. Squintina was still there, and they all ate the pasta that Rosana had made.
"Is this anyone's?" said a voice. It was the lady, holding up Tsuki's water bottle.
"It's mine," said Tsuki, who took it. "Thanks, um…what's your name?"
"Mor–Moira. Moira N. Slygreen. You're welcome." Moira smiled.
"And I perhaps ought to introduce myself as well," said the man grandly. "I am Dr. Deipnosophist, professor of philosophy related to everyday conversations at the local college."
"It's nice to meet you," said Ultimatum. 

———-

After dinner, they all wandered into the living room to talk. Chaser and Ultimatum played a furious game of Scrabble, and Echo Hallowswift discovered a lovely old collection of detective novels on the bookshelf. There was excellent hot cocoa to drink. They all talked to each other, other than Darkvine and Squintina, who stood at the bay windows admiring the views of the snow. Then Squintina said that she had decided to turn in early and shuffled up the stairs, and Darkvine said that she didn't really feel so well and followed her. Suki yawned after playing seven consecutive chess games with Luna Silvermoon and climbed up the stairs. She paused on the first floor and heard something of a scuffle in one of the rooms. Three of the doors were open, and she could see Reuby Moonnight and Darkvine's twin messes and Ultimatum's silver suitcase through the doors, so that would make the closed room…Darkvine's. Suki yawned again and climbed all the way to the top floor. Then she fell asleep. 

Tsuki wondered what had happened to Darkvine. She climbed up the stairs and carefully opened the door, as quietly as she could. Darkvine was lying in bed, sleeping apparently, but a note tucked into the covers told a different story: 

Here lies Darkvine, tucked in bed
You have three days until she's dead
Find out now who, why, and when
And she might be well again.

She fetched the rest of the CBers.
"People," she said in a whisper. "Look at this." They all crowded up the stairs and into Darkvine's room.
"Well, three days until doesn't mean she is dead," said Luna Silvermoon. "Which is comforting." Echo Hallowswift peered into Darkvine's cocoa mug, which was on the nightstand.
"Look," she said. Echo pulled out the small round things that hid in the slurry at the bottom and wiped them with a tissue from the tissue box. They were red and soft to touch. "Hollyberries. Someone obviously did this on purpose." 

—–

All of the CBers went to bed with confusion in their heads. All of them were mostly scared and worried, except for Echo Hallowswift, who in addition to that wondering, How the heck did this happen? And more importantly, who did it?