FIFTH TRIAL

[bathymetric]

[ It's not terribly long, once everything has been found, before Davy Jones heads out to round you all up once more and take you into the theatre. At least plenty of you are around the same area, so it probably doesn't take terribly long.

The ride down to the trial room is the same as ever - a blast of the organ, a slow descent. It's really starting to become clear, though, just how your numbers are decreasing. You're already down three, counting the absence of Chloe, potentially more when you come back up.

The crew of the Dutchman is singing as Jones lets you out into the trial room. ]

To business, passengers. I am about if you need guidance.

[ The circle of podiums is less populated than ever. So many of you are islands now, so to speak.

The song dies down, the waters quiet.

Welcome to your fifth trial.. ]

Comments

[leaveittomother]

What happened, then?

[dokkalfheimr]

How should I know...? I wasn't there.

[leaveittomother]

Neither was I but there's only one person we found who likely was there.

[dokkalfheimr]

That sounds like your issue.

If you misvote it's to your detriment. As it stands, I was not present for anything you're claiming that I was there for.

[leaveittomother]

Well, Decus might have died before you arrived. I don't want to die either but I don't exactly have any hope of returning to my own world, either.

[magycks]

Oh, come on, Reika. [ wow she's really saying a lot of first names for the first time during this trial...! ] She's not going to just tell you that.

[leaveittomother]

[Reika laughs out loud. Like an honest belly laugh.]

Of course I know that. If she has any suspicions if on the chance she's innocent it would be best to say them now.

[dokkalfheimr]

Why? So you can propose that they also poisoned themselves while treating themselves for wounds they hadn't yet sustained?

[leaveittomother]

Aha. That's not at all what I was suggesting. I was suggesting she poisoned herself by accident while treating a different poisoning. Which obviously didn't happen but at the start there was nothing to go on otherwise.

Then again, I suppose for a woman who cannot control her emotions and lacks subtly maybe thinking you could go this long without confessing is wrong.

[silentscout]

It's not Freyja.

[Despite earlier beliefs, he just doesn't believe it now.]

Magica, you know about oils. You made a bottle of it that you have here.

Did you do this?

[magycks]

I didn't make anything, I poured a bunch of loose aromatherapy juice into a bottle of—

[ But halfway through snapping back at Lalli, something seems to occur to her, and a slight change comes over Magica. It's not, like, the curtain falling on a culprit who's suddenly given up, it's not that explicit. ]

Okay, so what if I did?

[silentscout]

[WELL.

He looks at her.

Then looks at this going on over there.

Then back at her.

Then back at Filbo and Freyja.

Then he looks to Chloe's podium as a distressed noise escapes him.]

[magycks]

Good point, it does look like she's about to confess everything.

[leaveittomother]

[Hm.]

If you did, you've gotten soft.

[Hey, that seems like the thing that would push Magica into a confession.]

[magycks]

Oh, yes, I've gotten real soft, killing my bunkmate and the one living person on this boat who didn't despise me in cold blood.

[leaveittomother]

I don't despise you. [That means I have to have feelings!] The fact would be that it wad done out of empathy...

That would make you soft. Though, judging by other things I think Lalli was just stretching.

[magycks]

Oh, he definitely is. There are ways to execute the bare bones of this without getting all sappy about it, but to propose I'd actively lace something I openly admitted to knowing about, then target two people so easily connected to me? Please. I'd at least go for the taro flavor.

[leaveittomother]

I'd think you would have actually poisoned it enough to kill not just to irritate.

[magycks]

Thank you. Also, and not to blow my own spot up, just pop onto the top deck — there's monkshood right there.

[leaveittomother]

Honestly, I'm not surprised. I thought that point was obvious enough to anyone.

[jibunwo]

Excuse me?

[magycks]

Look, just go with it, I want to see who reacts to this.