While Albus had done his fair share of investigating in the night, he hadn't come up with anything conclusive. Why? Because there wasn't anything conclusive about the case. The player Corpse Collector was a fairly standard player to begin with. Pretty much non-noteworthy and would have, in most likelihood, remained so, if not for the commotion she caused in Deep Ground a month ago. That is, she emerged into notoriety when it was revealed that she was hacking Deep Ground. But even those details were sketchy.

Albus did some digging and found that shortly after the Black King, Moon Rider, announced the opening of the Ebony Strykers, a wave of dissolutions spawned in several guild halls for no discernible reason, and then the Deep Ground program was crashed. That's to say, it was taken down momentarily. The fact was, the only reason Corpse Collector gained her infamy was the fact that the Black King wanted her out of Deep Ground for good. Albus dug deep to find that information, a relatively minor forum mention was all that covered it. And apparently, the Corpse Collector was taken down during the down time, when the Deep Ground program was put down for a day for maintenance. Which, in itself, was suspicious. The DGP was allegedly down for a [i]day[/i], uncommon as it was. The events that followed, however, were far more intriguing. Specifically, the capture of Corpse Collector and the deaths of the 4 kings.

One thing to note was that Corpse Collector, who was arrested on the grounds of 'abusing system programs', all but disappeared from the public eye. While this wasn't exactly strange, there were no records of her interrogation (assuming there was one) or records of conviction (assuming she was actually arrested). Albus had even checked hospital records in case she was in a coma, but nothing. Absolutely nothing could be found. Another thing to note was the deaths of the 4 kings.

Albus wanted to look at the autopsy records for the teenagers who'd served as the Kings to find that they weren't there, or at least, hidden extremely well. Albus couldn't figure out the reason why. There shouldn't be anything to hide concerning the death of the 4 kings, it should be simple to find the cause of death. But it just wasn't there, which he found suspicious. But Albus could at least conclude that their deaths, the Corpse Collector incident and the Masked Man, were linked. Or at least, Silver Jester knew about both of them.

When Albus woke, he found a message from Silver Jester, the Masked Man he'd met yesterday in deep ground, addressed, it appeared, to everyone. One look made Albus sigh in annoyance. The Masked Man was trying to pin the identity of the Black King onto a boy called Michael Faye, which was stupid. Moon Rider was definitely a girl and Albus knew of Michael. He was definitely a guy. But what made Albus annoyed was the fact that the Masked Man was trying to pin the murders on the Black King, essentially pinning the blame on Michael who was most likely innocent. And why did this annoy Albus? Well, where do the reasons end?

First of all, it was rather annoying when people talked vehemently about things they had no idea about. It was even worse, however, when people intentionally say things they don't believe to mislead others into making rash judgements. Secondly, Silver Jester painted himself as a comrade, a person willing to fight for 'justice' alongside like-minded 'warriors', intending to break the tyrannical rule of a guilty King. Thirdly, the blatant lie about Moon Rider Causing the deaths of the kings. This part was impossible. The DGP had many fail-safes in place to ensure that no lasting physical or psychological harm would be done to the users. Also, Moon Rider couldn't have possibly killed all of the kings, in one night, especially when the program was allegedly 'down' for the day, no matter how strong she was. Assuming she was alone, at least. Albus could see the lies weaved through grains of truth, obscured by the fog of confusion. It was propaganda, pure and simple. Albus could see this much, Silver Jester was trying to make people turn on Moon Rider. But Albus wasn't sure why he was pushing the blame onto Michael, an innocent party. It annoyed him because the Masked Man had all the answers, and he didn't have any. He felt like he was being played, and that annoyed him.

Albus walked down the halls towards his classroom. He would've liked to stay in his dorm and research some more, but he had appearances to keep. In Purple Crown academy, you could spend all day on the DGP, or you could spend time in classes. Albus did both, while appearing only to do one. On the surface, he was a model student. And while many people knew he played Deep Ground, no one knew his avatar's identity. Albus needed to keep up appearances, after all. He smiled at the ridiculous thought. With the things going on around him, keeping his façade probably wasn't his number 1 priority. But he did it anyway. Appearances need to be kept.