THIRD INVESTIGATION

[bathymetric]

So the mood, test subjects, has been a little... rough, maybe. The vibes, they're not great for a lot of you. Even some of the normally calm and/or collected among your number seem to have let this week's motive get to them, and when the lights click on on Friday there are some among you who may well just assume there's a body to find. It wouldn't exactly be unreasonable, would it?

But hey, maybe you all held out! Maybe this can be a turning point in your fight against The Professor and his motives, and you can come together to tell him off once and for all! Wouldn't that be nice? One nice week.

Well, only one way to find out if that's an option.

Comments

[snackooed]

[ Tell her about it. ]

Do you guys know the procedure by now? Touch as little as you can. If you need to touch something, let me know first. If any of you see Mira, let her know that I'd like her on photo duty again, if that's possible. We've figured this out before, and we'll do it again, okay?

[ Let's climb up and take a look at poor Seteth, here. It was a wound to the heart? Let's take a closer look... ]

[bathymetric]

[ It's a pretty severe wound! It's not difficult to surmise this as the probable cause of death.

Something's kind of off in the wound itself, though, if you feel like getting your hands a little dirty... ]

[snackooed]

[ Wait, hang on, we don't need to actually dig our hands inside these things, we're not savages in this profession! They may not be quite the same as forceps, but those handy-dandy garnish tongs from the bar area will make a fine substitute...

Is there something stuck in there that we can pull out with those? ]

[bathymetric]

[ Yup! They appear to be shards of black metal!

... you also get a fun look at the literal rock in here about where a heart should be, but. details. ]

[snackooed]

Wait, what the heck..? A stone?

[ The black metal is good to put away for now, but can you tell me more about this, er, rock..? ]

[bathymetric]

[ WELL...

It looks like this, but with this symbol on it! A very normal thing to find in a chest, one might say. ]

[snackooed]

[ ...Weird. It doesn't really seem like it would be a good idea to take it out or anything right now, but she'll definitely have Mira take some photos of it and ask for second opinions.

For now, let's see if there's anything else up with his body. Are there any other wounds that are apparent just by looking at him? ]

[bathymetric]

[ There's a few notable ones! First off, there's a decent-sized cut on his left arm. ]

[snackooed]

[ Nothing stuck in this one, right? Any indication of what kind of weapon caused it that she'd be able to tell at a glance? ]

[bogwife]

I feel like we have this down to an art by now. [Your favorite body poking assistant is here to help.]

[snackooed]

For better or for worse, I think you're right. But what do you make of this, uh...rock?

[ She seems like she's a bit at a loss for how to handle it... ]

[bogwife]

[She's already tied Princess to the bar so she won't wander into the crime scene or, Ancestors forbid, jump in the wave pool so she crouches down next to the body and squints.]

Did someone put that into his chest afterwards or-? [What the fuck is Femblem?]

[snackooed]

I actually don't think so. I mean, it's where his heart should be...

[ What the fuck is right. ]

[bathymetric]

[ did i forget to mention it looks like it has veins

thats not important to this case it's just kinda fucked up ]

[snackooed]

Could it be that this thing was circulating blood..?

[bogwife]

That's- hm. [Don't like that at all!!] It has veins so that would...make sense... [She grimaces. Dwarves may have been born from the Stone but Seteth is most definitely not a dwarf and this is not what dwarves look like on the inside.]

Did you find anything else in the wound aside from the, ah, veins?

[snackooed]

[ Ema looks like she enjoys this just about as much. But anyone alive for as long as he was must have had some peculiar biology... ]

I found some pieces of black metal. Presumably from the weapon that pierced his chest...

[philoxenia]

[ sup sis she's here. ]

It doesn't ever get any less awful...

[ She hates this actually! And god... Poor Rhea... ]

[snackooed]

[ Oh, Mira... ]

Once we're done taking our pictures, you can have Rhea come back in and make sure she gives him his rites, if that's what she'd like to do. But right now, I...well, it seems like we have another anomaly on our hands here, Mira.

[ Where are her M&Ms? Better yet, where the hell are her Snackoos? ]

He's obviously passed on, from the wounds and his pulse. But if not for those, you wouldn't be able to tell at all, so I can't tell when exactly this happened, unlike the others. His body is...er, it's obviously pretty special. Different from the way yours and mine work, for sure.

[ No one ever wants to make her life easy. ]

Take a look at his chest, and you'll...I think you'll get what I mean.

[philoxenia]

I'll do that. She-- she should be able to, if she wants.

[ ... but she listens and uh. She's sure she won't like what she finds, and sure enough, when she looks at his chest-- ]

W-what-- What is that?

[snackooed]

I can't be one-hundred percent certain. But given its position in his body, and the veins on it, my hypothesis is that it's his heart. Or, rather, that it serves the same function as one. The wound around it is a pretty critical one, so I'm fairly certain that getting stabbed there with a blade was his actual cause of death.

I feel like, given that theory, actually removing it might be a bad idea, though. But call it an investigator's hunch, but I think whatever it is, it's going to be important at the trial later, so if nothing else, that's the shot we need. Both the stone itself and the insignia on it. Of course, all of these other wounds are important, too...the scrapes, the splinters on his right hand, the big wound on his upper left arm...

[philoxenia]

[ God... poor Seteth. ]

I-it's a good thing we have pictures.

[ She looks so pale; maybe she should be a little more used to this, being the third time, but... Ugh. She focuses on steadying her hands, taking a couple good pictures of the wound, the stone, the insignia--everything Ema mentions, she snaps a picture of. ]

He-- he really deserved so much better.

[ Then again, everyone else did. Everyone else does. ]

[snackooed]

It shouldn't have happened to him.

[ The way he spoke about his family...maybe she's sobered up a bit, compared to the expedient approach she tries to hold her investigations to, but she's playing his words about his "sister" from last week over in her head.

"The absolute light of his life"...they're strong words, but of course, she understands the sentiment. To her, Lana is the same. Everyone else in the facility has one, too.

Otherwise, this motive wouldn't have been so very, very hard. ]

We'll take care of it together, Mira. All of us will. ...I'm sorry, again.

[ That she has to keep putting her through this every week...she can't help but feel guilty, to have to wrap her up in this. ]

[philoxenia]

[ ... yeah. Noah had been the same. Still is, even if he's gone. Mira's hands tighten on the phone, and there's something else behind her sadness now. Even back in her world, she'd never been this angry.

But Ema's words-- her apology, strikes her sharply. She shakes her head. ]

Ema-- Please don't apologize. I'm glad to do this, to help in any way I can.

[ But she wishes... she didn't have to. Mira finishes snapping the photos, and then looks again at the stone in Seteth's chest. ]

... Rhea would know more about this. But I think-- If it's possible, if she thinks it's safe to, maybe she could-- take it. S-so she could take some part of him, back to their home. Last rites are well enough, but... maybe she could give him as proper a burial as possible once this is all over.

[snackooed]

We'll finish snapping up the rest of the scene, and then we'll talk to her. Hopefully we'll have enough time before the trial starts. I don't know the proper procedure when it comes to handling these...but if she does, then we should probably defer to her judgment on it. I imagine she'd want to help as much as the rest of us do.

[ And this definitely isn't the time to be cagey on answers. Anyone can probably see that.

Still, it's never easy to see Mira like this...and yet, week after week, all she can really do is say-- ]

I'm with you.