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]

Why? Don't figure I come off as the type to help anyone.

[fivestagegod]

You don't. But I think it's interesting that the weapons case was broken rather than lockpicked, and that you didn't point that out in your own defense.

So either you're leaning really hard into the unpredictability thing, you're admitting to being pretty much the worst thief ever, or you're helping someone.

[bolderfell]

Wow. If I have to be honest, I kind of figured it didn't need to be said.

[He shakes his head, looking towards the wall.]

What about you, Birkin? You've gotten pretty good at woodworking yourself, haven't you? After all that time with your puppets.

[fivestagegod]

Not really. It's pretty easy to figure out how to nail things together. Carving's a different story.

[bolderfell]

If you say so. All right. If I was involved, why would I use what was left of the luminol at all? I could've just as easily sprayed it somewhere I knew there wasn't any blood at all.

[fivestagegod]

Because everyone would question why the hell you did that, for one thing.

[I MEAN??]

[bolderfell]

Did anyone even know I knew what this stuff does? Ema showed me two days ago. We obviously wouldn't have it in Orsterra. Please, think.

[fivestagegod]

If you didn't know what it did, why would you have sprayed it at all, or not asked? There were others in the room, from what's being said.

[bolderfell]

Exactly. So I knew how to use it, and I used it, and I found that blood trail, because I want to find the killer, Birkin. It wasn't. Me.

[fivestagegod]

You found something ultimately useless, that would have been obvious to anyone who can put a simple sequence of events together. Unless the point of cleaning up the blood was to get Ema or someone else to use the luminol on something pointless, and not on something we should have been using it on instead.

[reallyhatesharks]

It's more suspicious not to find blood, isn't it? Besides, Anna and I were in the room too.

[bolderfell]

Yeah, and would either of you have blinked if I didn't know what the hell this thing was, or how it worked?

[reallyhatesharks]

I think Ema showed that stuff to everyone, she was so excited about having it.

[emberserker]

But Therion's got a point. He only learned a few days ago, and he rarely tells anyone anything.

[reallyhatesharks]

Okay, in that case: shouldn't he have asked us how to use it? It's weird either way, honestly.

[archboxer]

Let us say you killed one of them. It would help you live if you helped the person who killed the other. Of course, this is just an assumption.

Mods?

[bolderfell]

...Maybe so. Hey, Professor?

If there were two killers, one for each of the victims, and one got caught but the other didn't, who gets executed?

[bathymetric]

All killers must be discovered for the exercise to be counted a success. The successful killer would live, and all other parties would be executed.

[bolderfell]

All right. So if I were helping someone, now would be the time to say it, because I damn well don't want to die.

The problem is, I don't know. I wasn't there, and I wasn't involved. I didn't even make that hook. I can't think of a way to prove that to any of you, so I'll just have to find their killer myself.

[nothingcanstop]

[ A moment. ]

I trust... [ She looks at Therion, hoping he'll meet her gaze. ] I trust how much you want to live. Have you seen anyone else whittling? ...Or at least talking about it?

[bolderfell]

[He looks... surprised, a little, and then he shakes his head and pulls his scarf up.]

No. And the only one I've really seen spend time in the workshop is Birkin. I don't usually work in there myself, so maybe someone else has.

mods?

[archboxer]

[Hey, out of curiosity, that grappling hook? It's carved out of wood but... does it look like it's machine carved?]

[bathymetric]

[ it's good, but it's not that good. hand-carved for sure. ]

[archboxer]

Therion. Let us say you did not kill anyone; for the moment. Did you carve anything that could have been used as a grappling hook? Something that could have been left with the other woodworking objects?

[bolderfell]

...I don't think so. [He rubs the inner corners of his eyes.] I gave a dancer to Anna and a dog to Mira. I... was working on something for Ema, but I hadn't quite finished...