Fifth Trial

[bathymetric]

[ There's a long while of examination before the Mayor speaks up. There's plenty of evidence to pick up yet again this week, after all. ]

Annnd that's going to do it. Wrap it up and head to the bathyspheres, kids, you've got some business to attend to.

[ The bathyspheres take you all down, down, into the now-familiar dome below the city. The similarly familiar red glow persists until the lights properly turn on - the projection of Fontaine's silhouette is gone, of course, replaced by that same flickering "please stand by" message. But your mayor's voice is still the one that speaks over the increasingly empty circle of podiums. ]

If you somehow need a reminder of why you're here, three of you are dead. Get away with it, killer or killers, and the execution room gets to really work overtime today. But I guess if you wanna live, you should find who murdered three people. Could be important for you guys.

[ Welcome to your fifth trial. ]

Comments

[honeyedtea]

[ Mielle looks inclined to be Difficult about this until she realizes it'll be Mafuyu checking her over at which point she largely lets it happen without fuss because... honestly I can't even give any other excuse than She's A Lesbian at this point.

She has a few light scrapes and scratches on her hands that aren't consistent with any of the evidence (but are consistent with, say, someone trashing their room in a tantrum because they got caught out for attempted murder). Otherwise she's completely clean. ]

[capreelcious]

[ Floyd doesn't argue about cooperating this time! He'll pull off his t-shirt so people can inspect.

No injuries! ]

cw: unintentional self-harm

[inaclearing]

[Brett will go ahead and remove his shirt. He's not wearing the Star Trek uniform this time, it's just one of his regular outfits.

His torso and arms are clear. Beneath his fingernails, there's traces of blood...but he turns his hands over, and there's what seem to be a few corresponding crescent-shaped cuts on his palms. Brett stares at them.]

Oh...

[allatonce]

[Joy pulls off her suit jacket. She's wearing one of the hand bra underneath so, like, there's not a lot being hidden here. There's several scratches going up her arms, though—think "tried to make a cat do something they didn't want to" scratches.]

[fuckingguy]

Brett, as you are the one checking... how old do those look?

[ he can't just sprint over and eyeball his knuckles, that would be weird!! ]

[onemillion]

[Oh dear...]

I doubt I need to remind you, but make sure you take care of those once we're out of here, alright?

[As ever, he's ill-equipped to handle the emotional side of it, but his voice is gentle.]

mods?

[inaclearing]

[Using his expert opinion as a guy who is really not an expert in this, how old do they look?]

[fuckingguy]

Then... [ this is not a fun thing to suggest, but! ] It was probably someone's tears, yes?

[inaclearing]

He was -

[Well. Forrest already said.]

[asymptotes]

[ It's tough to tell, like - Drakkon's hands are kind of Like This all the time? So yes, the damage is fresh, but it's usually fresh - and isn't terribly inconsistent with the idea of waking up and getting a couple drills in on some dummies instead of going out to hunt bodies - and you've never really seen him go out to hunt bodies anyway, so! ]

[inaclearing]

Yeah....yeah, sorry.

[He scrubs a hand over his face. Maybe he'll, uh. Drink some of that (now probably kinda cold) coffee after all.]

[inaclearing]

[Brett kinda shrugs.]

I don't know. They look fresh - but we aren't really looking for this kind of thing in the first place, are we? Not a lot of signs anyone got punched this time...unless I'm missing something.

[inaclearing]

These are from Rain again?

[allatonce]

I locked him in my room with Sans to prevent another Bortles accident. Neither of them were very happy about it.

[But also she kind of didn't realize how lucky she'd been so far with them not following her into crime scenes! So it felt necessary!]

[fuckingguy]

No. Not a lot of signs. But...

It is just, I have really tired of this shit where we don't push people, and then we just keep on doing this for ten hours.

[inaclearing]

Probably a good idea.

[okay he didn't MEAN to bring the penguin to the murder!!!]

[asymptotes]

Look, I don't want to run around in circles any more than anyone else here, I get it. But start throwing full accusations over little maybes and we waste a bunch of time anyway, you know? Either way, I'm always open to questions. Might not actually be a karate teacher, but it's true.

[allatonce]

[look, she knows that! but also her pets are also kind of dumb sometimes... and she let Rain run around in the field on a leash so.]

[visiblepattern]

Must I remove everything...?

[As usual, the make of his dress is enough to ensure that his arms can be seen easily; it's one of the ones with a little capelet, you can easily see up to his shoulders. No injuries are visible.]

[asymptotes]

[ After the comment explaining: ]

And that's why I stick to dogs.

[allatonce]

He didn't attack me or anything, he was just squirmy once he figured out "put Rain back in the room" wasn't a game. Same as if you're trying to clip a dog's nails or something and they freak.

[specialyellthing]

[Zinda wriggles out of her jacket and t-shirt—- standing there in her bra just long enough to show that there aren’t any fresh injuries on her. Then the t-shirt goes back on.]

[inaclearing]

No...no, you're okay.

[We literally just talked about pushing people, but look okay maybe Brett is biased here]

[asymptotes]

And yet cats do it so much more often.

[ A light shrug. ]

Dunno. Last thing I want to do is derail the trial with "cat person dog person" discourse. We might never escape it.

[allatonce]

I'd much rather do that than stand around here going in circles, but you know. Here we are.