FIRST TRIAL

[bathymetric]

Alright, that seems like more than enough time to poke around the crime scene. Gather at the vault door, won’t you? It seems that for many of you it will be a short walk.

[ Once you’re all gathered at the vault door, Angel meets you there and quietly taps a keycard to the side of it. There’s an enormous whirring and grinding from inside as various mechanisms within the door move and whir - until with one last shuddering thud, the door starts to swing inwards, revealing a fully-glass tunnel leading off the side of the plateau the base is built on. Small lights built into the floor illuminate as you walk forward, until finally they light up an enormous elevator, perfectly capable of holding the twenty-four of you.

Angel comes too, putting a few numbers into a keypad just outside the door and inserting her card key once everyone is inside. She’ll gestures to get in if anyone seems unsure, but doesn’t really speak or enter the car herself. ]

Going down.

[ And down the elevator goes, leaving the lights of the facility behind - from here everyone can even see some parts of the facility you don’t have access to, it’s bigger than you realized. But it’s a long and uncomfortable ride to the depths, at least a minute or two before the elevator stops.

When the doors open, enough lights flash on to show that you’ve reached the ocean floor, some distance below even the depths you knew before. Lights around the outside of the massive glass dome you've found yourselves in illuminate the barren depths of the sea, with little if any ocean life to currently disrupt it.

At the top of the dome, among the lights, is an outward-facing circle of five or six different screens, each showing the telltale spiral that indicates The Professor is as present as he ever is.

Below them, of course, are the podiums, a circle of simple metal stands with some kind of video screen embedded into each, though they’re turned off for now. Each of your names is carved into one of them, though the podium constructed for Aela seems to have been just set to display a blank red light.

The screens lower down until they’re too close to eye level for anyone’s comfort. ]

Welcome to the trial room. You have as long as you need to discover who among you killed The Huntress. Once you have, I will explain further action. Take your places.

[ The screens rise back up - welcome to your first trial. ]

Comments

[blackmass]

If you insist, but let us not forget the incentive to all this. We have no way of knowing if her secret was one she deemed worth killing for.

[philoxenia]

... That's true.

[ she hates it but also: fair ]

[fivestagegod]

...Her secret was going to endanger people she was close to. She said she didn't plan on acting on it because she didn't know if the Professor could actually do what he claimed, but she seemed bothered by the fact that this would drag other people into it. She said that she wouldn't care if it was something that would just affect her, but seeing as it wasn't...

[...Yeah.]

[lovelikeyou]

[ain't that a mood]

[philoxenia]

[ ...... the biggest oof. ]

I-I see. [ That's... incredibly relatable. ] ... Thank you for letting us know.

[fivestagegod]

Don't mention it.

[...He doesn't sound apologetic, granted, but at least he sort of gets that she's bothered by this.]

I'm not exactly married to any one theory right now, it's just something to consider.

[blackmass]

...Unfortunate. But it does answer my questions as to the plausibility of the situation.

[fivestagegod]

I last talked to her about this on Tuesday, so it was a few days ago.

[In other words, more than enough time to change her mind on acting.]

[onefuture]

[...geez, that's...]

So she had some high stakes.

[fivestagegod]

To be fair, I think a lot of us did. My own secret wasn't really going to endanger anyone, but it wasn't exactly great, either.

[...]

It's not something we can just overlook in her case though, yeah.

[onefuture]

[Lif just kind of. Crosses his arms a bit.]

I suppose you're not wrong. It is an angle we have to consider.

[But--]

Aela does have more honor, however, than some are willing to credit her for. I sincerely doubt that she would have snuck up upon anyone.

[nothingcanstop]

It was before he threatened us...but she told me she didn't want to play by the Professor's rules. She'd cooperate out of spite, if anything.

I think that's important to keep in mind.

[ She got you, Lif! ]

[onefuture]

[Thank you, duck mom. Someone's gotta defend the fight girl's honor.]

[philoxenia]

[ team aela rise up ]

[baitless]

She said as much to me, as well. I would like to believe in her, certainly, although I must admit that we have all been put into something of a difficult situation.

[fivestagegod]

[...Lif. Buddy.]

You are seriously trying to argue that a hunter and a mercenary would not sneak up on and kill someone. That's an actual argument you just made.

[Like. Do you know what either of those words mean.]

I liked her too, but let's not act like she wouldn't ever do anything that she's noted for doing.

[onefuture]

[There's really no stopping Lif from honestly just tensing like hell at that and glaring daggers, but--

No. He's not about to get in an argument here. Rose and Jasper have already proven that it's a bad idea.]

...Fine. Noted. But I simply disagree that she would allow herself to do such a thing, when other ways would have been available.

[fivestagegod]

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'd really like it if Aela wasn't the jerk here. But it's not something we can just dismiss out of hand because we like her. That's all I'm saying.

[onefuture]

[He still doesn't look happy, but...]

...I suppose that you have a point; perhaps I am blinding myself, here. It is a possibility that we cannot dismiss, but...

I do hope it's not one that proves to be true.

[archboxer]

So the possibility that it was self-defense is still there. How unfortunate...

[fivestagegod]

That's one way of putting it.