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The Goatman Was Real

Summary:

Jaron discovered a secret base in the snow near Red Team's base and found 4CVIT's dead body inside.

Notes:

Hi mods we wayfinders are trying so hard I promise

Claiming: Murder Mystery, Secret Base, Snowed In, Tattoos
Matching on Legundo & YeahJaron and Murder Mystery
Claiming a mercenary tag for Snowed In if possible

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

In the end, despite his fervant disbelief that the Goatman was real and not Legundo himself, Jaron had been the one to find proof of the Goatman's existence. While he was trying to find that swamp Legundo mentioned passing through on his way to camp, a clearly disturbed pile of powdered snow caught his eye, he explained to his team as he led them through the pale garden. He hadn't looked closer right then, but when he returned to the area the next day, he noticed that the same spot had changed even more. He had soon found himself inside a secret base with 4CVIT's dead body on the floor.

The goat horn was on top of 4C's corpse, the narrow end jammed into his body in the middle of his most recent tattoo. (Jaron wasn't in the habit of memorizing his friends' tattoos, but with a slime like 4C every tattoo that hadn't already dissipated was pretty recent from what he'd seen). It was of a goat, which provided further evidence to the whole recent-tattoo thing. Although, the Goatman hadn't appeared until after 4C's disappearance, and nobody had seen him since the first day. Had he given himself the tattoo?

Jaron was the one to snatch the goat horn and bring it to his mouth in a single movement, blowing the horn even as hands grabbed at him in shock. He ignored their looks of disgust at taking an item straight off a corpse and not even wiping it off before using it. 4C was a slime, there was no harm in ingesting a bit of slime! The horn's sound confirmed it, it was the same low, haunting noise that had been plaguing the Red Team's base. What were the chances someone had found another of the same kind of goat horn that the Goatman had in the short time since the game had started?

Their suspicions turned to Legundo first. He was the one who'd been bothered by the Goatman the most, had been obsessing over his identity and location. That was when Jaron brought up his new evidence, that he had seen the goat with only one horn while he was retracing Legundo's path to find the swamp, and wasn't it interesting that the secret base also fell along that line between Legundo's spawn point and the camp?

Eventually someone theorized that the Goatman hadn't been 4C, but a person still with the team who took advantage of the missing team members to cause chaos. Or it could be one of the other missing people! Maybe the real Goatman had killed 4C to then frame him. Perhaps it was Jaron, just trying to cause chaos like usual. How could they be sure it was actually 4C's base?

With the dawning consensus that 4C's murderer was most likely one of them in the room at that moment, Legundo started to herd everyone towards the base's entrance, wanting to continue the discussion at camp where they'd all be safer. He began to wade through the powdered snow, moving as quickly as he could to avoid the steadily encroaching threat of freezing damage, until his head popped out into the air where the snow was falling so thickly he couldn't even see.

His heart sank. It wouldn't be safe for anyone to leave in weather like that. The mobs had already been difficult enough to survive without armor, there was no way they'd all make it to camp alive if they couldn't even see the mobs to fight back. He returned through the snow to inform the team of their situation: they were stuck in a tiny room with a dead body and a murderer among them.

Notes:

Among us