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

[emberserker]

That's true, and there didn't seem to be quite enough blood in the library. Unless she's secretly something that hasn't got much blood. You never know in this place.

[bolderfell]

...Figure that's probably what the killer was trying to wash off.

[He moves to stand sidelong and raises his hands, holding one protectively in front of him, pretending to hold a knife in the other.]

You stand in front of someone and cut their throat--

[He makes a slashing motion, then drops the stance and gestures at himself.]

--you'll get their blood all over you. Even if you're off to the side. It sprays hard.

[snackooed]

That was my theory as well. The carotid, in particular, is notorious for that, though it's not quite as exaggerated as you may see in fiction. Still, it's certainly quite the spray, as anyone who's seen the body can attest to.

[ Subconsciously, she brings a hand to her neck as she explains. ]

There were no voids in the spray, though...that is to say, there weren't any obvious holes in the spray that indicated something got blood on it and was removed from the scene. You can look at the pictures if you'd like a reference.

[fivestagegod]

But there was less blood than there should have been, correct?

[snackooed]

That's right. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get an exact estimate of how far the spray traveled. Normally, we use a ruler to measure the distance of the bloodstain...but compared to the norm, there certainly was less than is typical, from a wound of that size and depth.

[fivestagegod]

...Nira said it looked like it happened while Aela was on the ground. Is it possible the bruising and what have you is from someone throwing her to the floor? That would solve the problem of an allegedly prolonged fight, in that there wouldn't have to be one. Slam her to the ground, slit her throat from above. Killer is mostly out of the way of the blood spray that way.

[snackooed]

She would need to be thrown hard on her right side down, such that the impact would bruise her arm, ribs, and break her wrist. It is possible that those injuries all come from the same impact, against the ground, but it would have to be a pretty powerful impact. It almost seems like it would be less out of place for a fall than a throw.

[archboxer]

[... She has an idea.]

What if the throw or fall came from some distance?

[emberserker]

What, like off a bookshelf?

[archboxer]

What if someone very tall picked her up?

[lovelikeyou]

Does that mean they...did it from behind her?

[Surely by that point, Aela was more than aware enough not to allow that?]

[blackmass]

That would indeed be the best way to go about it. If one were to mount a surprise attack against one more skilled in combat or simply more powerful, a single strike to the most vulnerable part of a human body would be the ideal sneak attack.

[nothingcanstop]

But it wasn't a single strike. She had that cut on her arm.

[blackmass]

Allow me to rephrase: In terms of a killing blow against a stronger or faster enemy, to cut one's throat from behind would be the most efficient method.

[why do you know this, father kotomine]

[thieviusraccoonus]

Sneak attacks from behind are the most effective.

[why is he agreeing with this.]

How do we know the attack came from behind though?

[blackmass]

If someone standing before you has their throat cut, the attacker would be at least splattered with blood. Either such an attack came from behind or, as Birkin suggests, she was lying down.

[hardnosed]

The last theory is the only one that explains the blood that isn't there.

[archboxer]

That seems to be a rather strange idea to throw out, yes.

[lovelikeyou]

I don't know how they could have gotten behind her after attacking her...but there must be some reason they didn't get blood on them. But if it happened when she was on the ground, then...

[well, she sort of thinks they'd still get blood on them??? but they couldn't be behind her at least]

[lovelikeyou]

But by the time they were in a library, it wasn't a surprise.

[blackmass]

If we are to theorize that the killer was able to get behind her, might I theorize the concept of two assailants? If such positioning should be fact, then I fail to understand how a skilled hunter would allow an attacker such an advantage unless she were distracted.

[lovelikeyou]

Only one person could land that killing blow. The other, if there was one...they wouldn't have any reason to cooperate now.

[Someone might have done it if they thought the experiment ending meant everyone went home, but now, wouldn't a co-conspirator just die with the rest?]

[bolderfell]

...Yeah. Library's not a bad place to lay an ambush. Even then... the profiles said she's a damn good hunter. She'd know how to fight in a tight spot like that. If she was distracted or taken by surprise, it must've been a trick she hadn't seen before.

[philoxenia]

An unexpected trick... and an unexpected person--or people--maybe.

[bolderfell]

Then... maybe they were even more off to one side? I'm not sure where they could stand to have most of their body out of the way, but maybe...