That night, CJ and Jasper returned without having found Shelby. "I think," CJ ventured, "Hallie might need to go looking for her tomorrow. If you can find her alive, that would be great, but you're the only way we'll know if she's dead."
Everyone was quiet as they readied for bed, heads filled with questions and worries.
Alesha, for her part, was too riled up by the moon to worry about Shelby and what had happened to her. It was the Full Moon tonight, and it was taking every bit of her concentration to keep from transforming on the spot and running off into the distance along the beach. How was the call of the moon so sweet?! It reminded her of the pull that the Chaos Moon had back on Elantris, yet somehow softer, gentler and more predictable. Like a trilling lullaby instead of a chaotic symphony.
Barely 15 minutes later, when Alesha wasn't even sure that the others were asleep, she couldn't handle it any longer. She got up from her leaf bed (now covered by a rudimentary lean-to she had constructed during the day) and dashed off into the night.
Tristen held on a bit longer than she had. Whether it was because he hadn't transformed before or because he simply had better self-control, he laid in his leaf bed for 10 minutes longer than she had. That was long enough to observe that a few people had (at least subconsciously) noticed her leaving and either stirred subtly or rolled over entirely. When he got up, he took note of who had moved since he couldn't see faces while lying down. Then, he ran off in the same direction as Alesha, wondering if it was too late to catch up.
----
3rd day on the Island
The next morning, a solemn group gathered for breakfast. No one was particularly eager to start a conversation, considering that they had a group member missing for no reason, even if it was the least-liked Shelby.
CJ asked Hallie to start searching for Shelby at once, which she did. Everyone split to accomplish various survival tasks.
Alesha got up, intending to retrieve materials for strengthening their lean-to's, but CJ stopped her. "Alesha, we need to talk."
He sat her down on a log and he squatted in front of her, unexpectedly bowing his head and putting his hands together in a pleading motion above it. "Alesha, I know you're the Werewolf, would you please use your transformation to kill Westley as soon as possible?"
"... What?" Alesha asked, dumbfounded. Where had that come from? How did he know? And why did he want Westley dead?!
Looking up at her shocked expression, he laughed and scratched his head. "Right, yeah, I should explain. Sorry. Let me back up a bit."
He got up and sat on the log next to her, pulling a palm-sized creamy white orb out of his inventory. "My role is Seer. Once per day, I can look into this Crystal Ball and divine the secondary role and goal of a single person. I can even see details like the Special Penalty. On the first day, because I wanted to believe you, I used it to investigate Layla. Luckily, it works just fine on dead people. That's when I found out that she was a Vampire, and about the Special Penalty where Vampires die if they try to turn a Werewolf -- because of that, I became certain about your role as well."
"Huh," Alesha said. "I was wondering if her penalty was something like that. Guess it was."
"Yeah, haha. True to all the fantasy lore about the rivalry between Vampires and Werewolves, am I right? Hahaha!"
CJ was genuinely laughing, but Alesha couldn't bring herself to. Not when the System was right about something so stupid -- and which it shouldn't have any knowledge of. Just what kind of being was the System, anyways? And how did it have so much random knowledge about the most useless things?
"Anyway, sorry. Right now's not really the time for jokes, is it? As for last night's divination, I carefully went through everyone to ascertain whose roles I didn't know yet. I'm a Seer, you're a Werewolf, Layla was a Vampire, Tristen was a Sickly Child before you turned him (yeah, he got lots healthier, it was hard to miss), and Hallie's the Coroner. That's where I was at before going on a walk with Jasper. She was the only one who knew that Olphen had become a Vampire, so I asked her if she knew how that had happened. I was lucky she did. Not that it really matters, I suppose, but it could have.
"So it turns out that the Priest role, which was his role before it changed, was assigned the task of curing turned Vampires, with the harsh penalty that if he failed to cure any, he would become one himself. Since Layla died before turning anyone, he thereby inherited the Vampire role."
Alesha nodded in understanding. That explained a lot.
"That knowledge didn't end up helping any, but since Jasper is… Jasper… I asked her if she wouldn't mind sharing her role with me. She did, and I happened upon a crucial bit of information thanks to her." He leaned forward, folding his hands together eagerly.
"Her role is Witch Doctor. Her ability is where the crucial information comes in. Once and only once, she can curse one of a list of five roles, thereby stealing their secondary role and goal from them, permanently. This isn't the important part, though. The important part is in the list of roles. They are: Coroner, Priest, Seer, Vampire Hunter and Serial Killer."
He paused for dramatic effect.
"Is what I said just now sinking in? We have a literal Serial Killer on this island with us right now. And that Serial Killer is Westley."