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

[onefuture]

I suppose that it is.

[Lif's perhaps surprisingly calm when he answers that much.]

But I've never been one for large crowds. And I gather that such a night would have gathered a great many of people.

[emberserker]

Perhaps, but haven't you also got your share of regrets you won't tell? With the week's incentive, you'd already had suspicion cast from the first day. So I'm not certain that's quite enough, you see.

[onefuture]

Ah, yes. You did find me quite suspicious from the very first day, didn't you? Thought that I'd been the one to bring you all into this place, if I recall correctly.

[...He is, very noticeably, avoiding the first part of that. But for all the tenseness and anger in Lif's posture before this...

Well, he's perhaps surprisingly calm.]

[emberserker]

Don't take that tone with me! You have an answer, now spit it out!

[fivestagegod]

No one is obligated to tell you their secrets, Anna. Especially when you've already made your assumption on the matter plain.

[emberserker]

You stay out of this.

[philoxenia]

This involves all of us. None of us can just stay out of it.

[emberserker]

Ugh, fine. Very well.

[fivestagegod]

Fine, fine, keep making enemies. You remember what I told you about that, surely.

[emberserker]

[onefuture]

You're a smart girl, Anna. A very smart one, and I mean that much with the utmost respect for your abilities.

[And for what it's worth, it does sound genuine.]

Surely, you can draw a conclusion from this much, no?

[emberserker]

We've all been talking about Aela's abilities as a hunter and who could possibly outmatch her. Well, you're a general, are you not? So naturally you'd have just as much experience, against opponents who weren't mindless beasts, at that.

[onefuture]

[Hm.]

You're not wrong, at any rate. I wager that I would be able to match her quite easily. We've even sparred a few times here, though she had the lead on me in terms of wins.

[emberserker]

Even if you lose, that doesn't mean you can't defeat the person the next time. You only come back with more knowledge and preparation. And I'm sure at that point, she wouldn't have been suspicious of your approaching her, even if she was the wary sort.

[But that look...]

General of a place you hate, the profile said, didn't it?

[onefuture]

[...Yeah, that calm look is gone, and Lif is suddenly very tense again.]

...Yes. And what exactly of it?

[emberserker]

That kind of contradiction would have a reason, wouldn't it? Likely a motive that you wouldn't want to share around.

[onefuture]

Perhaps it does.

[fivestagegod]

I've got a guess as to what your secret is, and unlike Anna I'm trying really hard to not just yell it out in front of God and everyone.

But you're totally fine with dying here because of it, aren't you.

[onefuture]

And what exactly is your guess?

[drladysounds]

But that means you would know how she fights. You'd know what to do in a fight when it really counts.

[Which isn't really a good thing, given, well, how Lif is falling under suspicion]

[baitless]

...

[He doesn’t look mad, just disappointed...]

...I don’t particularly want to suspect you, but if you are responsible... I don’t want to drag your secrets out of you, but please don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.

[onefuture]

[sorry about that, seteth]

[hardnosed]

You're the one who brought up the washing machines when [ jerking her finger upwards ] that one showed himself.