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

[visiblepattern]

[Forrest takes a moment to just breathe and calm himself; the last time they were here was bad for him, and he's now isolated podium-wise.

But as before, he has due diligence to perform.]

Jonathan's body was found in the nightclub near the bar. He seems to have collapsed in the middle of...well, not having a very pleasant time - he was crying and seems to have been very upset judging by his expression.

From what I can tell, he was poisoned. His lips and fingertips were blue, and the signs we've seen with previous poisonings were otherwise there. He was holding Hagakure's prayer beads, and his other hand appeared to have been wet at one time? He had small bits of paper sticking to the skin on his fingertips, but it was in a fragile, flaky sort of way.

He also had wounds on his neck - a pair of puncture wounds, evenly-spaced. Somewhat in the way carnivorous animals do? They missed anything vital, however, and they seem to have been made after he died. I'm...not sure what that's about.

[fuckingguy]

[ there's a beat, before: ]

Are you fucking shitting me?

[visiblepattern]

...No, in what way?

[fuckingguy]

... sorry, Forrest, did not mean to snap at you. It is not like you put them there.

But, from what you are talking about it sounds like someone was trying to make it look like I bit him.

[visiblepattern]

But that's so pointlessly horrid...!

[He is so sure Nandor didn't do this?]

[fuckingguy]

It doesn't even make any sense! Even if I would kill Jonathan, which I would not, I would be dead if I drank the blood of someone who was poisoned... or at least very ill. And I have told all of you guys as much!

[visiblepattern]

And whomever did that to Jonathan certainly did it after he was poisoned, we can say that definitively. The wounds didn't bleed very much, if at all; besides, if they were for the purpose of draining blood...I'd assume you know where the major blood vessels are by now, Nandor, and this didn't puncture any of them.

[fuckingguy]

Normally, I would not mention it in detail, but that was... eh, mostly because Jonathan was here. Yes, I know where to bite.

[honeyedtea]

At least whoever was planning to frame you was too stupid to do a passable job of it. With any luck, they'll have made the rest of this easy for us as well.

[ she's not even pretending to be nice anymore.......... ]

[sastruga]

It's a bad frame job. Zero stars.

[they're both rude now]

[fuckingguy]

It is, indeed, shit work, but I appreciate you all saying it.

[ listen, even he knows they're not doing it out of affection for him, but still!! ]

[specialyellthing]

The girlies got it right.