Dee Langley, costumed as "the black knight"

It took a second before you could even make heads or tails of who you were seeing. The faces of the other guests were pretty familiar to you after spending an evening interrogating them, sharing a dinner, and so forth. This person's face was entirely hidden by a black, visored helmet, complete with a red plume, somehow upright and proper looking compared to Eric's. You couldn't make out a hint of their expression...

That said, the rest of their body was not so well-covered, allowing you to see dark-skinned arms. There was no way the person was Yara, judging by their figure, so it had to be Dee. After seeing the helmet, you'd expected she'd be clad in full medieval armor to match your outfit and Eric's, but it was not quite so. Instead, she wore what fantasy buffs might refer to in a derogatory matter as "bikini armor," consisting of a chest piece with armor fashioned to imitate the curvature of breasts and a mail loincloth over the front of the groin and the butt, secured by a shiny belt with tassets. The gloves, boots, and pauldrons were a bit more appropriate for actual protection, but the bikini wasn't doing much more than covering the vitals.

Not that the point of this was physical protection in the first place.

Thankfully, you didn't spot a weapon on her person, not that there was really any place to put it. That said, she looked pretty well fit to fight if she wanted to. What was revealed of her body was very athletic. She was extremely fit for her age, with her toned arms, legs, and abdomen on display. Not built like a brick house the way Burnhilde was, but still, she had a sort of boxer's physique. You wouldn't be surprised if she had some moves as well.

She probably didn't want to show off quite as much as she was... the chain-mail bikini section wasn't covering a whole lot. But she wore it as well as one can wear embarrassing fetish armor.

If being seen this way bothered her, it was hard to tell. Her body betrayed no emotions and her face was hidden, not that it was very expressive at the best of times. "Malcolm Wolf. I trust you slept well? You're the last to wake up." She crossed her arms, indiscreetly craning her neck to see how you were dressed. "Hm. Getting into costume, I see. Is there more to it than that?"

You winced, holding up the crown for her to see.

A sound came from inside her helmet that might have been a chuckle... no, she wasn't the chuckling type. She shifted her stance a bit. "Ah. A crown. Fitting."

You told her that you didn't see yourself as some sort of king. This was all out of your hands. All you wanted to do was find the perpetrator, as badly as anyone did.

"Ha. Yes. Right. You know, I came here with the intention of working together with you today. But..." she began, then tilted her helmet slightly, looking down at the crown in your hands. "I believe now that there are two possibilities. The first: that you are in their pocket. The second: that everything around you will be twisted for your benefit. Therefore... my safest option is to be far away from you. It seems to happen, right? When you meet people alone, they lose their minds. First Wanda performs fellatio. Then Tallula becomes your personal lap dog."

You protested, saying that it was all a set-up; none of it was actually anything you'd caused! Whoever was behind all of this was just doing an impressive frame-up.

"Still, you can't blame me if I don't want to hang around you. Please, keep your distance from me today. If I'm cursed or... whatever is happening to people. Then this case may go completely unsolved," she sighed. "So I'm going to keep as far away from you as I can. However..." the detective paused, reaching to straighten her tie and finding nothing, then awkwardly lowering her hand, "If you find something like a clue anywhere, then we may have something to talk about. Until then, you're a danger to me. Whether you're a criminal or an unwitting accomplice."

You clicked your teeth, watching the sway of her hips in low-cut bikini armor as she walked away. You could actually see the dimples of her musculature above her ass-cheeks.

"If you stop staring at my ass, it'll go a long way towards me trusting you."

How did she know?! Either way, you had little choice but to let her walk away and finish getting in costume. Today was going to be a rough day. You really couldn't hold it against her if she still didn't trust you, after how you'd made her the scapegoat last night, but you hoped there was a way to smooth things out so it wasn't like this all week.

--Note: all previous suspicions, affections, and clues have been reset for a new day--

--Someone's suspicion of you rises--

--Check notes in the game tab--