Be sure to read the previous chapters for more information on prizes and how the Quest works!
Sign-Ups
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III

The dawn arrives dark, wet, and dreary. Water sheets down the thick glass panes of your window, and you can see nothing of the world beyond. Just clouds, thunder, and rain.

A note has been slipped under your door, sometime in the early hours after you’d finally managed to get some sleep. It’s signed by the Archmage.

“As host and caretaker of your wellbeing, I offer you my humblest apologies for the disturbances through the evening last. I thank you for your compliance, however I beg your indulgence once more and must ask that you continue to remain in your quarters until further instructions have been received. This is for your own safety, and the safety of others.

I apologize once more for the inconvenience I’m sure this must be. Rest assured, this is highly unusual, and I will do my best to compensate everyone fully. At the very least, explanations will be given in due time.

Faithfully yours,
Eidolus Buchanan, Archmage”

A knock comes at your door mere moments after you’ve dressed for a day indoors. You hesitate, just for a breath, hand on the latch. After the night you’ve had, the strange sense of danger that loomed in the dark, you are wary. The unfamiliarity of the voice on the other side does little to comfort you.

“It is safe to answer,” the voice declares, accent heavy but clear. “I’m Detective MacLeod, Malcolm MacLeod. A body’s been found in the castle. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Welcome back to the 2022 edition of my Epic Quest - Darkwater! 

Here’s how the Epic Quest works: I will host an activity each month that plays into the story being told. You’ll earn small prizes for each activity you complete - like points, HPD, or cash shop items. You’ll also earn XP points, and the player with the most XP points at the end of the year - December 2022 - will win the grand prize:
1. A fully coded tabbed layout from me featuring a graphic themed after this year’s quest and
2. Matching animal CSS and
3. A 1-year upgrade

The runner-up will receive:
1. A custom coding slot for simple layout (scrolls or expandables) and
2. A 6-month upgrade

Participate in the Epic Quest activity every month of the year, and you’ll earn a special prize:
1. An official HP achievement and
2. A store pair with 100k points

If you haven't joined yet but would like to, check out the sign-up thread to create your mage! You must have a mage created before you can participate in the activities.

If you have any questions about the quest, prizes, or how it works, don’t hesitate to message me!



After a harrowing night filled with a mysterious threat of danger, the last and most mysterious of Cairnhart’s guests has arrived at your door with grave news: someone has been murdered in the castle. In order to get to the bottom of the crime, everyone has been separated, and the good Detective Malcolm MacLeod is questioning every possible witness.

GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT

To start off the activity, you must message me! You will be given one untruthful statement. You will then come up with two statements that will be truthful. These statements should come from your character, not you as a player, and should revolve around your character’s activities, backstory, motive, or alibi. These three statements will be your two truths and a lie. 

The only rule when creating your two truths is that they cannot conflict with the lie you’ll be given. For example, if your lie is “I was alone at 11 o’clock,” you cannot make one of your truths “I was with someone at 11 o’clock” as it makes it obvious that the lie has to be one of these statements. 

The NPCs will be providing their three statements below, and you can use those as examples to create your own.

Once you have your three statements, reply to this thread with all three! All three statements must be posted here in order to earn your prizes.

You have until 11:59 pm HP time on May 26th to post your statements! Anything posted after this time will not count!

BECOME THE DETECTIVE

Each of you will now get to take on the role of Detective MacLeod! Take a look at each character’s statements and try to guess which is the lie, but do not post your guesses here! Make a list of your guesses and message them to me. Remember to include the NPCs in your list!

I will tell you which ones are correct, and which are wrong. If you get any guesses wrong, you can guess again, however you only have two more chances to send a list of guesses to me! This means you can only send me your list of guesses three times. On the third message, what you have is what you’ll be awarded for!

You may message other players and try to figure out their lies before sending the list to me! You can guess as many times as needed when messaging other players about their lie, but keep in mind that you must still compile your list and send it to me by the deadline in order to earn your prizes! Some players may not respond on time or at all, so don’t rely on that method or put off sending your completed list until the last minute, or you might miss the deadline.

You have until 11:59 pm HP time on May 30th to send me your list of lies!

PRIZES:
Posting your two truths and lie: 3 XP
Each correct guess sent to me: 1 XP
Participation: 10 extra energy on an animal

ATTENTION PLEASE

In order to ensure that the game is fair and everyone is sportsmanlike, I will be enforcing the following rule going forward (for this activity and all others that follow):

If you are participating in the Quest activity and are online during the week of the activity, you MUST reply to any and all messages sent to you over the course of the week's activity - up until the deadline. Failure to reply to messages from other players (as long as they were sent in a timely manner) will result in you forfeiting your activity prizes.

Participation in the Quest activity means that you have initiated your participation for the month, usually by messaging me or replying to the activity thread indicating that you plan to participate and intend to earn prizes for the month. Repeated offense will result in deduction of XP points and/or disqualification from the year's Epic Quest.

This is in an effort to dissuade intentional sabotage of other players, which is something I never thought I'd have to do with this community.

Feel free to take screenshots when sending messages to other players so that I can confirm whether or not this rule has been broken from now on. If the deadline approaches and you haven't received a reply, message me and we can work out a solution to make it fair for you!

Noted! :D

*salutes* Noted!

Also noted!

Disappointing you have to do this, though :(

To be clear, it's one thing to suddenly drop off and not complete your participation because you haven't been online to reply to messages. It's another to be actively online, actively participating throughout the week, and choosing not to reply to messages in order to prevent other players from earning a higher score or even completing the activity.

This is the first year I've had to seriously reconsider a lot of my planned activities because they relied too much on player integrity, and that's a big bummer :/

IS THIS LIKE A D&D THING ON HP?