unknownseas | THIRD TRIAL

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THIRD TRIAL

[ Two bodies this week. As a result, it's a little longer before Mayor Fontaine's voice calls out over the loudspeakers. ]

All right, that'll do, all of you. Get to the bathyspheres. Trial time.

[ There's fewer bathyspheres this week, aren't there? It's starting to get really noticeable. One by one, alone or in pairs, you descend into the depths. The bottom of the seafloor, a place no human life was meant to travel to unassisted. It's dark, until it isn't, the same bio-luminescent slugs as before lighting up the area and revealing the great glass dome in which the trial takes place.

Within, three more podiums have gone dark. They remain empty as you all gather around into the circle.

The projector clicks on, and you see the silhouette of Mayor Fontaine above you. ]

We all know why we're here. Florida Man and Cryptobro got themselves got. Up to you to figure out who did it, or... well, you know by now.

[ Welcome to your third trial. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I see. We don't have things like that where I'm from, so I looked it up because I didn't know what it meant. Would that possibly explain the, ah... The wounds on Hagakure as well?

[The shrapnel that we couldn't find a source for.]

Yeah, it would.

His hair was burnt up, too.

If these grenades formed with any kind of solid material that later disappears, then it might explain those.

[Hmmm...those shrapnel wounds with missing shrapnel does seem to hint there's shenanigans afoot. It would be time-consuming to take out every single piece of shrapnel, and it would leave obvious marks of tampering on him. There must be a magic source of power involved, she figures]

It said "fire grenade" though. Grenades don't necessarily contain shrapnel, so I assumed it was more like a timed release of the fire with maybe a small explosive aspect.

It could be. They could have used one to blow up the barricade...maybe the fragments just happened to graze him?

[He'll look around at this; he's not actually that experienced with explosions, certainly not enough to know if that's plausible.]

...Wait.

[pls note that neither dandy nor icki like where this is going]

Frou Frou mentioned that there were side effects, right? What if one of their powers got outta hand?

Could it...

Can they do that?

They mostly mentioned effects of the injections themselves, as well as descriptions of what might happen to your...ah, you, if you used them. I had some odd things happen to my hands.

It's not impossible. With the right positioning, Yasuhiro getting blasted with pieces of the barricade and the fragments just grazing him without getting embedded is a plausible scenario. It would require a certain distance from the exploding barricade. If you're too close, you're likely to get burns, and the shrapnel would certainly get embedded into you. Yasuhiro would have to be some distance away from the barricade.

[Aiba thinks for a moment]

That said, if the shrapnel came from the barricade, pieces of it should be present on his clothing and hair as well. No explosion shrapnel would target only his face.

[And if it would, well, the damage would have been really serious]

Edited 2022-07-09 21:44 (UTC)

Well, there were burns for sure.

On his hands 'n stuff, too. And the hair.

Did you find anything on him that could classify as 'shrapnel'? On his clothes, or on his hair. Splinters, pieces of furniture, metal...

No, nothing.

Just the purple stuff.

From the plasmids, I'm pretty sure.

It was on his hand.

If it was splinters of wood, could they have...burned away?

[He feels like he's reaching, it's obvious in his tone.]

There would be burns inside the shrapnel wounds. Residue may also be present -- solids undergoing combustion leave residues behind, after all.

[The shrapnel wounds might be too small to check properly for such things, though, so maybe those existed and was missed. You never know!]

Is a grenade like that the most likely way they got into the lobby, then? Given that the doors were destroyed and the hinges were melted...

D'you mean to say that they... Flew?

[From the effects of the explosion, he means.]

I'd hope not...?

[dandy what the hell]

...From the look of it we have multiple grenades going off. One in the church, and then one in the lobby. So I'd assume that our culprit knows and seems to understand explosives, is that correct?

[...and seems to like them, but that's a moot point.]

Hm, that's true.

[All signs are still pointing to combatants! Vholran comes to mind, especially because the guy has no consideration for anyone else, but he's not gonna accuse him just yet.]

Had to be someone handy.

[#TEAMHANDY rip]

'Specially if they were also good with a larger weapon.

Actually, was that stuff still smoking? Because the stuff in the church was still, like, on fire.

And the residue seemed from the plasmids seemed new.

...It should have faded after about half an hour, actually. It always did whenever I used it.

Wait.

That doesn't make any sense. We were lookin' at bodies n' shizz for over an hour. You were there, you know!

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visiblepattern - 2022-07-09 22:03 (UTC) - Expand

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fuckingguy - 2022-07-09 22:05 (UTC) - Expand

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bootyhunter - 2022-07-09 22:08 (UTC) - Expand

Nothing was actively on fire, no - so whatever occurred in the church happened after everything in the lobby, then?

It could be that we have the entire timeline backwards or it could be that the damage in there... happened... afterward...

[She trails off, frowning.]

There was, like, smears in the blood kind of implying Jason tried to pull himself away from where he initially fell. What if he set the grenade before the killer got him and it didn't go off until afterward?

More on fire than the pile of ash in the lobby, is what I'm saying.