unknownseas | FIRST TRIAL

[ 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. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[As this trial seems to finally reach its head, the sounds of activating speakers and a bit of static cut through the somber tension. And a familiar, aggravating tone greets you all.]

- Okay, I- God, why did I pick these pretzels - Yo, what did I miss?

...Well, looks like you've all been busy. Found all the clues and solved all the riddles? Perfect! Looks like I got here just in time for the best part.

[On that vague statement, the screens on everyone's podiums illuminate as one. Each one changes to display a typing bar and a digital keyboard.]

This part is simple: just enter the name or title of who you think murdered Fedora the Explorer, and hit 'enter'. Whoever gets the most votes will be punished, so. Try to go for the guilty party, huh?

> Shard

I don't wanna.

[Oh, suck it up, Scott.]

You ready to die then?

[ Oh, the jovial, relaxed tone Chloe seems to have is gone now. ]

'Cause that's what you're saying. It's him, or it's us. There's no third choice.

(no subject)

queceracera - 2021-02-06 21:25 (UTC) - Expand

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queceracera - 2021-02-06 21:26 (UTC) - Expand

You could at least say her name!

[She's not mad at Shard - shit's fucked, everything's real fucked - but Flayn is always down to be mad at Mr Flamethrower Captain.]

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cethflayn - 2021-02-06 21:21 (UTC) - Expand

> Shard

[No hesitation. Lady Freyja's life was at risk, after all.]

[For all he'd gone on about murder, Zero looked like he was willing to back it up; for better or worse, he didn't hesitate.]

>Shard

[Constantine doesn't hesitate to type in his vote--SHARD. But he doesn't look happy about it.]

If I'm being honest, mate, anything we do seems to be a losing move. You've gotta take it up with your murder mystery designers.

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Are you calling us by title, name, or silly things you come up with as you're going...?

[Well anyway!! There's no hesitation here.]

> Shard

[Data stares at the screen for a moment, expressionless. Just give him a second to work through what his morality program has to say about this.]

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> SHARD

[ ...Huh. Making choices about who lives or dies... She guesses this is probably how Max felt, all the time. ]

> Shard

[ Not even hesitating. ]

That's Carmen to you, jerk!

[I mean, this poor voting panel is probably going to end up dented before long with how hard she's hitting the buttons, but SHARD's name does get entered more or less correctly.]

[Welp. The things one has to do.

It takes him a moment to gather enough courage to do it, but, well...]

SHARD

[Even if he tries, he just can't seem to get upset at either Shard -- or Carmen, if she turned out to have intentions to attack that robot. Upset Shard almost killed them all? Certainly. But, well...he mutters, inaudible for everyone but himself:]

Thanks, I suppose.

[His home is safe. Whatever the Captain had been planning wouldn't happen, right? Even if it may or may not have been what Filbo had imagined, it was safe.

And being even remotely thankful about it given two people died is, probably, makes him feel the most awful he has felt in two weeks]

Edited 2021-02-06 21:21 (UTC)