FOURTH TRIAL

[bathymetric]

Alright, that's quite enough time. Move along towards the trial, if you would all be so kind. You know what's coming.

[ It's routine by now - go to the vault door, get let into the elevator by Angel, head down to the trial room... it's hard not to notice the losses on the ride down by now, though. Your numbers are starting to really dwindle, even if you're often spread out enough not to notice as much normally. The trial room and its podiums, too, seem more than ready and willing to remind you of the same. The red glow of the empty spaces is constant, potentially unnerving. ]

Remember that as there are two victims to consider, up to two votes may be counted at the end of proceedings. As always, I am but a direct address away, however rude you choose to make it.

Find the party or parties responsible for the deaths of your comrades. And to those parties: Good luck.

[ The screens rise!

Welcome to your fourth trial. ]

Comments

[bolderfell]

It was. There was just enough to reveal blood between the hall and the shark tank. Ema didn't get in there on her own; she was killed there and dragged or carried.

I think someone might have been trying to get us to think Ema killed Shelley, and then herself, out of remorse.

[lovelikeyou]

What?

[THAT isn't something that would have ever occurred to Rose at all!]

Why would we think that?

[archboxer]

To stop us from searching for them.

[She doesn't like this!]

[lovelikeyou]

Well, yes, but...I don't think that's a conclusion I ever would have reached.

[maybe it's some kind of naivete, but...not about Ema, at least.]

[archboxer]

It is a gruesome thought but if we did not have certain evidence it could have been on the table.

[mouflon]

They probably should have gone for something less gruesome than the shark tank, in that case. Seriously, who would do that when there was a rope right in the cartography room?

[ ...thanks, Rin ]

[bolderfell]

She bled, though. Harder to hide evidence of that if you leave a corpse hanging from a noose.

[mouflon]

I know what you're saying. I'm just saying it was a bad gambit, if that's what they were going for.

[hardnosed]

By letting sharks eat her alive?

[bolderfell]

I'm not saying they did it well. It hid the blow that killed her, didn't it? We don't know which of the weapons Anna found it could have been, if any.

I'm just saying, maybe that's why they positioned Shelley's body like that, too. To make us think her killer regretted it.

[mouflon]

That I can agree with, at least. Though, when you put it that way, we don't even know if the dagger is what was used to kill Winters. Can't test it for any traces of blood, and maybe they want us to think it's a weapon they got from elsewhere and not one of their own, right?

[fivestagegod]

...If that's what they were trying to make us think, it seems a bit pointless to have left the blood spatter in the hallway. It's pretty obvious someone died there and it wasn't Shelley.

I think it's more likely that there was something about the blood they cleaned up, specifically, that they were trying to conceal. Was there anything off about it?

[lovelikeyou]

...maybe they left prints in it, or something?

[we've had footprint evidence before]

[fivestagegod]

That's what I'm thinking.

[nothingcanstop]

A distinct footprint. Or...at least one that'd give us a place to start.

[lovelikeyou]

If that's what it was, they did a good job.

[We can't know what it was they were trying to hide now. Well, maybe, if she works back from that...]

Maybe it was someone who could be identified very easily that way? Like, there would be...something unusual about it? [look she's not saying giant feet out loud but some of us got giant feet]

[bolderfell]

...If that's something you can tell with the luminol, Ema didn't get a chance to show me.

[fivestagegod]

Oh my god, please think. I'm talking about marks. Footprints. Anything immediately and visibly unusual that would have been seen had it not been cleaned up.

Mods?

[bolderfell]

...Well, if she was carried, I can't imagine there not being a footprint or two in it.

[But I guess that wasn't a thing I asked about in the investigation! Mods, could Therion have made anything out in the blood trail?]

[bathymetric]

[ Nope! Just a blood trail, relatively uninterrupted. ]

[bolderfell]

I didn't see anything like that, though. It was pretty consistent. Maybe she was dragged.

[fivestagegod]

[there was an attempt, thank you therion

that said this is going to annoy the fuck out of him]

All right. It's still going to bother me, but all right.

[lovelikeyou]

[Hm, she can see he's still bothered...]

Maybe they meant to clean up all the blood, started in there where they already were, and ran out of time?

[fivestagegod]

That's a possibility, yeah. We don't have a time of death for either of them.