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

[obstagoodboy]

[So folks might have noticed that Piers wasn't really around much at the investigation. There's good reason for that: he was busy getting sick the whole time- guess who's never seen a corpse or the like before!

He's always pale, but now he looks kinda green as he drapes over his podium. But he's here to do his part... ish]

[onefuture]

[Well, this is just perfect, now isn't it. Everything about this trip seems to have been tailor made to put them all on edge, from the long ride down (showing that there's far more to the building than they've been allowed to roam in), to the screens that seem keen on putting themselves very conveniently in front of them...

All of it's so deeply frustrating, though perhaps that's just Lif's perspective. It's already bad enough that he's angry and tense about this whole situation, but...]

Then I suppose we should begin, then. What was everyone able to find?

[philoxenia]

[ honestly the only the good thing about this nonsense is that she's next to someone she trusts

Anyway, she looks pretty pale and shaky which like. Understandable. Her cell phone (hers, not the one they've all been provided) is on the podium in front of her. ]

... At Ema's guidance, I took photos of the scene. If... anyone wants to see them, I can bring my phone around to show.

[bogwife]

[As if examining a woman's dead body hadn't been enough of a reality check now they're all being led into some kind of mock courtroom. The elevator ride hasn't been too bad, other than cramped, utterly new and confusing. Zerinda's never actually been in a courtroom before either, especially not one as technologically advanced as this one, and from the moment she sets foot inside she decides she hates it.

She takes her place at her the pedestal with her room number on it, squarely between Zelos and Shelley, and hugs her dark cloak a little tighter around herself.]

...This sucks.

[archboxer]

[Of course the Professor had prepared just in case someone did break, as he knew they would. Great.]

Thank you, Mira and Ema. That was a good move. For those who did not go into the library, it had been greatly disturbed.

It looked like someone had started throwing books. There was even one that did not belong to the original collection.

[She has The Lusty Argonian Maid with her sitting on her podium. She... might have read through it briefly. Who would want such a poorly written book?]

[emberserker]

Eloquent. Did you find anything?

[onefuture]

...That may not be a bad idea, so we can all be familiar with the scene of the crime.

[...Then again he's also looking at Piers, who's green as hell, but--]

I can begin passing it down the line; anyone who doesn't wish to see the contents, pass it to the next person.

[He'll hold out his hand.]

[emberserker]

Either she did it to fend off her attacker, or her attacker did it to throw her off, but the former's more likely. Then again, she was supposedly a great hunter and killed all those creatures on her profile, so this seems a bit amateurish, doesn't it?

[philoxenia]

I'd... rather take it around myself.

[ It might be a little inconvenient for her, but... ]

[drladysounds]

Could she have hesitated while fighting? To avoid killing a person?

[archboxer]

I would not be so sure... she seemed rather impressed by my boxing. I feel that she might have been able to do well with her fists without the books. The latter could be a possibility as well.

[snackooed]

I was responsible for looking over Aela's body with Zerinda. Based on her rigor mortis, it's likely that Aela died a few hours before the morning chime, though I can't provide an exact time of death. Cause of death was one clean horizontal wound across her throat, which cut right through her carotid. However, she had multiple other wounds and bruising; a cut on her upper left arm, a broken wrist and bruising on her right, as well as bruising to her ribs, on the right side.

There was a blood spray next to her body that was significant, but while I couldn't get exact measurements of it, it did appear to be slightly smaller than the typical spray that would come from a wound to the carotid. Nira helped investigate that one. And as Mira stated, she took pictures of the scene relatively thoroughly, which we can use as a reference material.

Has anyone been able to find the murder weapon?

[bolderfell]

...Are you okay.

[What does he have to pay Piers to throw up in the other direction?]

[philoxenia]

She was a great hunter, but... could it have been she was taken off-guard? Or... maybe it was someone she didn't want to harm for whatever reason.

[bogwife]

[She bristles a little but straightens up before she answers.]

I helped examine her body. Her, ah, her wrist was broken. I'd imagine with that and the state the library was in it had something to do with her fighting back against whoever attacked her. She also had a cut on her left arm- [She extends her own arm, making a slicing motion across her upper arm with her fingernail.] Right about here.

[emberserker]

That's possible. A person might be another thing to most people.

[onefuture]

Of course.

[...That makes sense, actually, you go do you Mira.]

[hardnosed]

It was in the think chamber.

[ And she just kind of... leans over Ema and Alice to call to (yell at) Therion. ]

Hey. Show them the knife.

[bolderfell]

[Therion wordlessly holds up a Ziploc bag with a knife from the vending machine and a little bloody water in it.]

[fivestagegod]

...Aela doesn't seem the sort to resort to that, unless she was disarmed somehow. She was carrying one of those knives earlier in the week; I don't see why she wouldn't have faced an assailant directly. She was very proud of her combat ability and all.

[emberserker]

Perhaps. What do you know about Aela's capabilities, then?

[obstagoodboy]

I'll be alright. Got everything out earlier.

[philoxenia]

[ you're the best zombie man

She'll go ahead and start going around the circle, cycling through the photos to make sure everyone's had a shot at looking at them! ... And she tries very hard to not think about the fact that one person in particular is far more familiar with them, but it's fine! ]

[hardnosed]

[ Jasper does not love this! While she's no stranger to being at the bottom of the ocean, to put it as lightly as possible, and the tons and tons of water hanging over their heads give her no pause, the trip down to the dome feels like being herded around by an obvious inferior. It's not in her nature to let that feeling pass without complaint, so she stands around, taking up way more space than she needs and silently resenting this, the whole way down.

She shouldn't be here. This shouldn't be in her purview to begin with. He could have kidnapped some twiggy little Zircon if he wanted a trial. Also, the top of the screen is like half an inch from her hair! ]

Right. Let's get this over with.

[emberserker]

That's true, but she admitted herself that it was dangerous to be out at night, even if she did it constantly.