FIRST TRIAL

[bathymetric]

[ Eventually, time seems to run out. Davy Jones takes a lap around the boat, rather tersely instructing everyone to gather in the theatre.

Once everyone is inside, he herds all of you onto the stage, which has been cleared save for the controls to the elaborate pipe organ built into the room. ]

Step lively, passengers! There's a long ride ahead of ye!

[ And once everyone is on that stage, Davy Jones sits at his organ and begins to play. It's not a familiar song to any of you, and it doesn't sound kind, but it does sound wildly complicated. Or it would be, for someone who can't play with his many tentacles.

As the piece begins, the stage begins to descend. Well, at least the part you're all on, as well as where Jones sits at the organ. And it keeps descending, at least through a few floors before long. The elevator shaft is dark, the music echoing until it fades, the controls apparently too far from the pipe organ above before long. Jones sits in silence as the cramped ride continues. Dull bulbs set into the wall provide just enough illumination to tell where you all are, but the walls are thick steel.

You have to have descended several floors, you imagine, when light starts to creep in at the edges of the platform, along with voices. They sound distant and distorted, but the first thing you hear when the platform breaks into the trial room is men singing, rough and distant.

You can also see the... surprisingly somber room, considering where you are. The walls and floor are all made of glass, allowing you a view of the sea as the ship you now stand on the very lowest deck of pushes through the water. Lights illuminate enough to tell that it is indeed water out there, but the water is perhaps not the most interesting thing out there in the dark.

Below the ship, illuminated by a ghostly aura, sails (for lack of a more fitting word) The Flying Dutchman. If you look closely, sailors more monster than anything else man the deck, and seem to be the source of the song. Davy Jones casts the ship a sad look, then stops a foot on the floor and the song quiets. ]

Take your places, passengers. Ye have this chance alone to find the killer among yer number.

[ In the center of the room stands a circle of sturdy metal podiums. Carmen's seems to be almost... decades older than the rest, coated in rust and barnacles. In the center hangs a circle of screens, currently switched off. ]

If there are questions, I am going anywhere no sooner than the lot of you.

[ Jones moves to look out the window, leaving you all to talk amongst yourselves.

Welcome to your first trial. ]

Comments

[jibunwo]

I don't know how relevant this is, but there was a whole unpeeled banana left in the library.

...If it isn't relevant, can whoever left it there perhaps refrain from doing that again? [were y'all raised in a barn]

[leaveittomother]

Carmen seemed to be the one in the library but I honestly don't know why she'd do that.

[Alice is the one who leaves shit everywhere.]

[magycks]

What, just placed there deliberately?

[jibunwo]

[madam you are a duck and while he isn't going to address this, he's been thinking it for two weeks.]

That, I can't answer. I don't believe it was dropped given the state of it, but it is difficult to say for certain.

[magycks]

[ thank u so much for noticing, robot!!! ]

Look, it's a banana. It doesn't take much force to mess it up. [ She pauses. ] ... Wait, when you say unpeeled, do you mean the peel was on or off? Never can get my head around which one is supposed to mean what.

[ this is ic confusion and i'm so sorry ]

[jibunwo]

I mean that the peel was off. I didn't even see it anywhere nearby, so I have no idea where the peel itself was.

[magycks]

Well, it obviously wasn't a midnight snack, then. What sort of degenerate doesn't just peel as they go?

[jibunwo]

The kind who leaves whole bananas on the floor of the library.

[Absolute monsters.]

[magycks]

I mean, I guess someone needed the peel itself? But at least eat the evidence, in that case! Were they raised in a barn?

[calx]

[ ...wat. ]

Was it oxidized?

....mods, banana check please

[jibunwo]

[i just wanted to say 'banana check']

[bathymetric]

[ That's one fresh (relatively) banana! ]

[jibunwo]

It wasn't--it didn't appear bruised or anything, either. Whoever left it there likely did so very recently.

[scouserer]

What, so they just decided to have a light snack after murdering someone?

[jibunwo]

Apparently not, since it wasn't even eaten.

[deathmagnetic]

...then the chance has increased for it to have been left there on purpose. As a red herring.

[jibunwo]

An extremely stupid red herring, should it be one at all. I would hesitate to dismiss it entirely, but perhaps keep it in mind while we evaluate the rest of the situation. For all I know, we may have to revisit it later.

[deathmagnetic]

It's only natural we may. Every single little piece of evidence will need to be examined and re-examined closely if we want to leave this farce of a trial alive.

[scythegun]

[absolutely nothing of value to add, just trying not to laugh at the joke]

[calx]

Banana's oxidize within 30 minutes to an hour. The face that it has not, assuming this is not a variant of banana that I have not encountered before, leads me to believe the murder took place very recently.

[ Actually did Lelouch take the banana with him, how is it looking now if so! ]

[jibunwo]

[who]

[he left the banana in the library like a fool because he wasn't about to carry a banana around on the off-chance it meant something]

[silentscout]

If anyone killed in the last hour, they either didn't shower or their hair is still wet.

[cethflayn]

[A whole unpeeled banana you say?]

That...that is most unusual. The fruit and drinks bar at the Jimmy Buffet was thoroughly mussed, and it did have bananas available.

[jibunwo]

Maybe it's more relevant than I thought. Did it look as though there had been a fight there, or was it merely in disarray?

[cethflayn]

I - I am not sure. There was broken glass and spilled liquid everywhere - oh!

[Time to submit evidence!]