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

[scouserer]

Yes. Scratches.

[yes, the banana peel was incredibly fascinating.]

[queceracera]

So the Lala is going around sniffing everyone's hair like a pervert and nobody went around checking to see which of us has claws?

[Occasionally, Scott Pilgrim can be helpful.]

[scouserer]

[Constantine shrugs.]

I think it's pretty easy to see it from a brief glance--unless people happen to be, like, cats with retractable claws.

[queceracera]

There's two robots and a duck here.

[leaveittomother]

[Wait.]

Wouldn't metal scratch against metal fairly easily?

[sharddrive]

[Yeah, yeah, he sees where this line of thinking is going.]

Probably would, yeah.

[sharddrive]

...Do you think ducks have retractable claws?

[ignobel]

I mean... she has hair, and supposedly magic, and she talks.

[JUST POINTING OUT THAT THIS IS NOT HOW DUCKS WORK.]

And you're a robot hedgehog. And he's-- [pointing at Data] --a robot guy. And that guy-- [pointing at Zero] --is something else? Hell if I know.

[deathmagnetic]

That can be easily remedied.

[calx]

I would check everyone's fingernails as well.

[ Not sold on the claw idea, but hmm. ]

suddenly, hand check

[deathmagnetic]

Very well.

[ He'll turn to everyone else. ]

Let me see your hands; it'll be easier if you hold them up, and take off any gloves if you're wearing any. There may be someone among us who have does happen to have claws, and even if that's not the case, there was a fight. Hands and fingers are easily injured under those circumstances.

The killer may have also taken a shower, but doing so won't mask bruises, broken fingernails, or broken fingers. There's also the fact that scratches could've been left behind by those who have metal hands.

[ So, you know, he's going to be coming around to check for anything off about people's hands. ]

[leaveittomother]

[Since she suggested it--! She'll show off her hands. There's some weird rubbed off tattoo things on the back of one of them but that's been there since she's arrived so nothing new.

Also no claws or anything. Clear, here.]

[jibunwo]

[He did seem to consider if this was a hill worth dying on, so to speak, but at least it wasn't anyone insisting on taking off his mask.]

[After taking off his gloves, Zero has ordinary and uninjured human hands.]

[magycks]

Oh, we're really grasping for straws now, aren't we.

[sivard]

[No claws here! Just blunt fingernails.]

[scythegun]

[Sigh... Fine, he'll take off his gloves...

Anyway, no signs of injury or anything noteworthy here! He takes good care of his hands, so his nails are perfect, thank you!!]

[sharddrive]

[Well, Reika was already checking his hands over here, so whoever's close enough to want to can get in on that.]

[His right hand is made of shiny silver chrome; except for a few small spots on the inner joints and fingers that appear scuffed and scratched.]

[cethflayn]

[Nothing off about Flayn's hands! They are proportionate to her body and free of blemishes or claws.]

[hypnowhip]

[There's nothing to find on Sylvando's hands! They're clean and uninjured, and his nails are likewise clean and well taken care of.]

[paucipan]

[What do you know, Plumeria has perfectly normal human hands. There's nothing off about them here.]

[onlyyoucan]

[Sara has to set Emily on the podium to show her hands, but they're normal.]

[dokkalfheimr]

[Her hands are fine? No injuries and certainly no claws.]

[hellahighwater]

[ Pretty normal looking hands! Two-week old nail polish that's chipped to hell and back but that doesn't look particularly new. ]

[ltcommandroid]

[For all that Data's a robot, his hands do pretty much resemble normal human hands. Sure, the complexion is weird, but he's definitely got skin (or a skin-like substance) over whatever metal must be in there, and his fingernails are basically short, normal human ones.]

[silentscout]

[Have some hands!

He keeps his nails cut very short, probably by biting them off. Also his hands are very obviously working hands, they're calloused and such.

But nothing unusual about them beyond that.]