SECOND TRIAL

[bathymetric]

Time's up, boys and girls. Please gather up your evidence and make your way to the vault door.

[ The process of heading to the elevator and crowding in remains the same as last week - Angel leads you all to the elevator car, then stays behind as you make your slow descent to the dome below. You might not even notice if you aren't paying attention, but... the cart is already less crowded than it was last week. You certainly won't be able to avoid noticing it if your numbers dwindle too much further than this.

When the doors open on the trial room, it's just as bleak a place as last week. ]

Take your places, won't you? And this time, you all know what's at stake. No more... funny business.

[The number of podiums displaying that red light is higher now - Damien, Lif, and Piers are all represented by blank spots now, no tasteful covers or anything normal to mark their passing, just a red glow and a gap in your number.

Cheery!

The screens raise up to the ceiling to give you all room to see, and the Professor's final words before the trial begins ring out: ]

Find the killer, leave alive. And killer? Try a little harder to stop them from doing that than the last one in your shoes. Call out for me if you require anything.

[ Welcome to your second trial. ]

Comments

[archboxer]

We do not know if those ages are accurate, either. Why would the Professor give us accurate information?

[snackooed]

I can confirm that all of mine is accurate...

[nothingcanstop]

...Mine too. A little insulting aside...

[fivestagegod]

Absolutely. Mine's actually pretty rude if you know a few things.

But I'm not going to say it's not accurate, either.

[drladysounds]

He is...well-informed.

[To put it delicately. Full accuracy here, too]

[emberserker]

In my case, he knows far more than plausible, though considering he brought me in from somewhere he shouldn't have been able to, that unfortunately checks out.

[fivestagegod]

I have yet to hear people complaining about their profiles being inaccurate, actually, and the majority of us have admitted that theirs are correct. "We don't know if the Professor is lying on our profiles" is a weak defense that stopped being viable a while ago.

[archboxer]

Admittedly, that is true...

[baitless]

...well, it’s not as if typographical errors never happen...

[HE WAS SO FINE WITH THIS NEVER COMING UP. WHY DID IT HAVE TO COME UP????]

[archboxer]

[She... wasn't going to say anything but thank you, Seteth.]

[fivestagegod]

...By that logic, you're either 27 or 26 and you look a lot like neither. But it was a good try.

[baitless]

...

Oh, I don’t...? I thought that was accurate enough...

[fivestagegod]

...Does it really not occur to you that we've been letting the undead wander around unchecked, we have literal magical rock people in the room, and no one is questioning the 99-year-old twentysomething with a 204-miles-per-hour baseball pitch about exactly how and why that is? We literally don't care that you're ancient.

[drladysounds]

Besides it's not like we don't have more important things to worry about, like the murder mystery extravaganza we're trapped in.

[People's ages would be so much fun to prod and poke about if it wasn't for the deth and terror]

[precognit]

If you have something you'd like to say to me, William, you can at least use my name.

[baitless]

...

Is it, perhaps... particularly unusual to say that I am the elder brother of a teenager instead of any other familial relation....

[mouflon]

Maybe, but Rhea told me that she's closer to a hundred than she is thirty, and she sure doesn't look like it.

[ Sorry Seteth you are now suspicious by association. ]

[fivestagegod]

Well, if her age is comparable to Seteth's that technically wasn't inaccurate.

[mouflon]

Exactly what I was thinking. It makes that detail a lot harder to write off, in any case.

[archboxer]

First, it is rather rude to ask a woman her age and secondly there is no evidence that I am... or that Seteth is that old, for that matter.

[But she hadn't mentioned it because she didn't want to cause a fuss but now that she's been brought up herself!]

[blackmass]

Rin, must you make a weekly habit of this?

[he's not saying 'don't antagonize the pope', but time and place.]

[mouflon]

I'm not the one who brought up the question. If she didn't want people speculating, she shouldn't have let that piece of information slip just to win an argument.

[hardnosed]

Not for everyone.

[ LOOKS... AT ROSE... ]

[bolderfell]

He doesn't just want us to run around in circles. He wants something out of this whole process--out of us solving these mysteries, playing these games. ...I admit everything on my profile's correct, more or less.

[archboxer]

That does seem to be the case, yes... I apologize, I merely wished to raise the possibility.