THIRD TRIAL

[whimsicalism]

THIRD TRIAL

THE CONTAINMENT CENTER

Still hungry, and perhaps with some new fashionable shoe colors, the students are herded into the elevator, which is lined with a plastic tarp this week. With the elevator becoming a perpetually emptier space, there's plenty of room for the Prefect herself to squeeze in next to everyone else, standing at the front of the group and ineffectively covering the side of her head with her free hand as soon as the tearing screen of metal and high-buzzing florescent lights kicks in.

The descent this time takes the group of students past several new chambers. The first is occupied by a grotesque caricature of a lunch lady, who ladles unidentifiable pitch black goop onto a constantly rotating line of trays as she smiles at the group with a single tooth. The clown, ever present for the show with his dwindling collection of balloons, rides a tiny tricycle through pools of spilled acrylic paint, the wheels squeaking as they paint out blood red patterns on the cell floor. The last chamber the students will see before arriving in the trial room is completely empty, save for a cloudy grey fog that blinks inside it like a thundercloud.

Instead of the usual black ram emblem on the telecom screen, the Principal's flame-wreathed silhouette is visible this week, though his chair is turned away from the camera and only the outline of his back seems to be visible. There's an empty container of Rocky Road ice cream sitting next to him on a side table, the spoon still balanced in the carton. The entire trial room itself smells like the lunch time rush at a cafeteria or fast food restaurant, the smells of grilling meat, roasting vegetables, and sweet dessert occasionally passing through a chamber that is completely devoid of any actual food.

With some hesitation, Nanami goes to the desk next to the podiums and takes her old seat. She glances back at the projector screen, then her shoulders slump forward and she leans down against the desk.

"It's happened again. Valmont, the... Boss...Baby. Has been killed. Maybe this really will go on forever, until no one is left... Anyway, you need to find out what happened if you want to live and not starve. ...Don't forget the rules. Get started."

As she finishes speaking a sheep walks around the trial room, handing everyone an apple and some graham crackers. Of course, even Nanami gets a small treat. The Little Brother glances at the shape of Father in his chair before quietly placing a finger to it's robotic face only for the angry voice of your Principal rings out. "Hey! Don't--ah, forget it. That'll get you through the trial. Maybe you'll bust a gut or something. What are you waiting for?! You heard Miss Kiryuu, start already!"

Investigation | Podium Layout | Locations | IC Profiles | IC Rules | IC Evidence Presentation | Evidence List | NPC Questions | Dorm Map | Paint Map

OOC NOTES

Welcome to the third trial! Consider this your reminder to make sure to get in your Week 2 AC by tomorrow's weekly post and to start getting your Week 3 AC ready to submit. Make sure to get your regains in by tomorrow night!

Remember, if you can carry it you probably can bring it. We mainly want to discourage corpse desecration, if we can, so while the body itself isn't allowed into the trial most things are. If your character has access to a piece of evidence and you don't know if you can bring it in, you can either ask the mods privately if that's possible or by pinging them in the post itself. If a piece of evidence is forgotten, you can either assume retroactively that someone did or that the sheep brought it in to make sure that everything is tidy.

As always, just put MODS in the header of your comment to get our attention for any clarification.

Good luck!

Comments

EVIDENCE PRESENTATION

[whimsicalism]

[Paint us a picture.]

Re: EVIDENCE PRESENTATION

[lets_dewey_it]

_{[Dewey places the towels he found in the Laundry Room on his podium.]} These were in one of the washing machines. They have dirt stains, and when I first got them, they were damp, like they've been in the washer for a while.

[shinedsobright]

[crunching the apple, it is the best apple of his life. Especially after what he did to himself in the investigation. RIP Fret's tastebuds.]

Thamks, sheep! You're my bavorite! Aw, I can't get enough! [he monchin'.]

Anyway, somefing red-brown dissolved in a spot of the pool in the sens-dep room, dunno for sure what it was though! Probably blood? It was bitter!!

[Meanwhile, the tasty bonus adds +2 to Fret's defense score!]

THE BODY

[canreallymove]

[Yeah, ok. He'll take the food. His hands were shaking after the body search.

He had to focus. Deep breaths, and...he brings Nicole out and turns on his notes.]

Ok...here's what we got.

Dylan and I checked the body out. The dude died probably five to seven hours from when we found him. He had a slit throat, but he had two injuries on his neck. The way it looked, though, Dylan and I were pretty sure that both injuries were made by the same weapon, and...probably at the same time. This is because, um, the way the cuts looks were...curved?

Also his shoes were gone, and there were drag marks leadin' from the dorms to where his body was, at the entrance to the playground. He also didn't have a lot of blood around him. I think you guys can figure out what that probably all means-he wasn't killed where his body was found and his shoes were taken away because it had somethin' important on them.

[He rubs his nose nervously. He hopes he's doing this right. Also, here's a picture he scribbled super quick.]

Also, the paint. We all saw it, right?

Also, did I miss anything, Dylan?

[cellpreservation]

[You're going to have to hold up until he finishes devouring those graham crackers first. Okay? Okay.

Once he's got that much in him, he holds up a garbage bag.]

I found school shoes in the oven... I think. They were burning, and it caused a bunch of smoke.

[They also, if anyone wants to examine them, smell terrible.]

[temmapathy]

[Emma starts out by unrolling a piece of paper that she's scribbled a quick map of the rooms and their corresponding paint colors on.]

There was paint dumped in front of all the rooms, though not much in front of 21. I also found a trail of blood that looked like something was dragged towards where Valmont was found. I'm guessing that was...him.

Oh, and there were also a few spots of blood in front of Dylan's door.

LETTER

[holyironmade]

Carrie told me about investigating Valmont's room.

It is very strange... because I thought he... imagined a future at my side.

NPC QUESTIONS

[whimsicalism]

[The Principal, Little Brothers, and one very hungry Prefect.]

Little Brothers

[temmapathy]

Can you sense when anyone goes over the playground fence?

[keyringwitness]

Little Brother? Could you get everything set up for a body check?

Pre-Trial

[keyringwitness]

[For the first trial, Yasu was a nervous wreck, constantly glancing around and behind her and trembling. For the second, she was almost too numb to function until she finally reached her podium.

Now, she's cool and calm as she pages through her grimoire, looking through what little she was able to glean and trying to assemble all the pieces in her mind. Yasu doesn't know whether she should be relieved or worried that she's finally getting used to this.]

...so much of this just doesn't make sense. [Edward's inexpert staging of the crime, Reika's numbness leading to sloppy mistakes... the scenes there were chaotic, sure, but now...] So many pieces don't fit...

[She purses her lips.] Although if it was easy, that would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?

[copycut]

[ Kuro leans in, peering around Yasu's shoulder to get a peek at the pages of that grimoire as well. ]

What's bothering you, Yasu-chan?

[hashtagwoof]

[ The comforter is back, though instead of being rolled up it's neatly folded and put under his podium. Guess he didn't bring any weapons this time...

Though he does smirk as the sheep comes around to hand him his treat. Good sheep. Thanks for noms. ]

Possible Timeline Note

[canreallymove]

May as well get this out of the way super fast and first.

Ok, so I did do a quick patrol through the school last night. But here's the thing-there was nothin' wrong when I was looking around. No body, no paint. Nothing.

So...the murder probably happened after I patrolled.

[hashtagwoof]

What time did you patrol?

[cellpreservation]

[After eating the crackers first thing, he'll get through the apple a little (but not much) more slowly.]

I checked the kitchen, by the way. I mean, he already told us there wouldn't be food until after the trial, but... there really wasn't anything to eat there yet.

[holyironmade]

After the trial. That was the promise.

[She puts her graham crackers on Kuro's podium and her apple on Hunter's. Her voice is thin from the continuing fast, but clear. Harsh.]

I do not want to hear "he was a jerk, but" or "at least it wasn't her". The eventual result of such words will be unpleasant for you. You are welcome to speculate on Valmont's character just as long as it is in the context of the evidence before us.

I spent most of my time on the way here making sure that I did not step in the paint, so I am still familiarizing myself with the evidence. However, there is something that strikes me as poetic about the scene before us. Green is comprised of blue and yellow, isn't it...? Is it possible that this is the key to the mystery of the paint in the dorm room?

[canreallymove]

Huh? How so?

ORDER OF EVENTS

[keyringwitness]

A- Alright. I think we need to take a step back and look at things from a new angle.

First of all, let's establish the order of events of the crime. It's simple compared to the last one, but once we know the basic timeline, everything else m- might just fall into place.

[Yasu opens her grimoire, where she's written her notes about the crime. She was already taking things seriously, but after the chaos of Edward's trial, she's on a whole new level of dedication.]

As for the murder itself, judging by the knife he had in his pocket and the letter, Valmont left his room with the intent to murder Dylan. I can't think of any other reason why he'd leave with a knife and then make a beeline to someone else's room. His murderer must've interrupted him before he got the chance, though. Taking a guess at what happened... Valmont reached Dylan's door when the culprit attacked him, aiming for a clean neck slice. They missed, just barely grazing him and leaving a small bloodstain. Then Valmont turned around, and tried to close the distance to defend himself. Or, er, maybe he ran?

T- That's all just speculation, sorry. After the initial graze, the culprit slit Valmont's throat in the middle of the floor and dragged him outside to the playground, where we found him.

Although we don't know why yet, the culprit entered the sensory deprivation chamber after the crime. A neck wound bleeds a lot, so some of it would've gotten on the culprit no matter what angle they attacked Valmont from. From there, we can assume that the culprit dried off and deposited the towels in the laundry room. The blood probably washed off in the sensory deprivation chamber, which would explain the color discrepancy between the towels and what was in the water... although wouldn't more of the blood have gotten on their clothes first? Hm...

This leaves us with a few questions.

[Yasu starts counting them off on her fingers.]

One, where did the dirt in the sensory deprivation chamber come from? Valmont was killed inside the academy, so there couldn't have been a struggle, and he was barely in the playground anyways. How could the killer's body have gotten so dirty as to leave so much mud in the water?

Two, why did the culprit bother taking Valmont's body into the playground? Considering the rest of the scene, I don't believe they were trying to hide where he was killed. Nothing else points to that.

Three, why were Valmont's shoes in the oven? That's just bizarre.

Four, where did the rest of his blood go? If your throat gets cut, you obviously, um, bleed a bunch, and there wasn't enough blood pooled under Valmont's body even without what he lost while he was dragged away.

Five, why did the culprit spread the paint? That splash of dried blood by Dylan's door was under the paint, and the trail must've been spilled around the same time given that they're equally dry. So the killer was the one to splash all that paint around, not Valmont.

[Yasu pauses, thinking for a few moments.]

I... might be able to answer one of those, actually. Is it possible that Edward wasn't the only blood-drinker in the class? If someone, um, drank from Valmont's neck-wound, that would explain how it got on their skin rather than just their clothes, and why there wasn't as much blood as there should've been.

[copycut]

The last two times, the culprit's shoes pointed us to them. [ You know, at least partially. ] Most of us walked through the paint when we stepped out of our rooms this morning, didn't we? Maybe they were trying to cover up blood or dirt on their shoes, in a way that wouldn't single them out.

ADORABAT'S TIMELINE THEORY

[violence_ensues]

Umm... I think I've pictured together what happened.

Starting off, I think the killer didn't kill Valmont in the dorms, but somewhere else. Since the water in the sensory deprevation room was weird, wouldn't Valmont have been killed in the sensory deprevation room? The two didn't have to be in the dorms for Sonic to miss 'em.

They... um, maybe the killer wiped off whatever was on Valmont with the towel in order to cover their tracks. And- and then they waited for a while for the bleeding to stop. They put the towel in the angry washing machine to try and get rid of any evidence it had on it. After Valmont stopped bleeding, the killer took him to the dorms.

The killer then cut Valmont's neck to try and get it to bleed in order to try and fake a crime scene. Valmont's body wasn't bleeding much, which is why there's so little blood. The killer dragged Valmont to the playground and set a hunting knife on him for whatever reason and went back to the dorms.

Then, the killer dumped paint in front of the dorms, dumping the red paint last and then entering their room.

[canreallymove]

...which means either way, we're still lookin' at the red rooms for our killer.

SPITBALLING

[lets_dewey_it]

...This is probably a stupid suggestion, and probably makes no sense in Yasu's timeline, or anyone else's for that matter, but... there's a dirt road beyond the fence. Maybe that's where the dirt came from?

And what if his message wasn't about the intent to murder someone, but the intent to run away?

Maybe he turned back after hopping the fence, going back into the school...?

I'm expecting this idea to have glaring holes in it, and explains nothing else about the paint, the dirt in the pod, the shoes in the oven, the insufficient amount of blood in the playground, all of that, but... that's the only reason I can think of that dirt was even involved at all.

[temmapathy]

Would the Little Brothers have sensed that?

[She's already turning to sign at the nearest one, of course.]

WEAPONS CHECK

[canreallymove]

Ok, ok, ok. So. Let's assume we're dealin' with specific weapons, right? Namely Throwing weapons and/or curved weapons. Just to cover our bases on both the one injury and two injury...stuff.

Ok, so who among us had either of 'em? Step forward and let us know!

...I'll go first. I got a sword that's curved, a lot like what Adorabat described, but I put that in my drawers along with the other weapons. Not like I'm gonna use them anyways.

[violence_ensues]

Dylan's got my combat knife, in his room, but I don't think either of us are good at using it. I also got a bear trap that Yuta gave me!

[keyringwitness]

I'm assuming that the Principal wouldn't want us "little brats" running around in dirty clothes after the Little Brothers have gone to all the trouble of doing the laundry. So we can assume that if the towels were put through the washing machine, any and all dirt stains would've been removed.

So the towels were used to dry and caught some dirt that didn't wash off in the pool.

Which means...

[She turns to Dylan, offering the towel.] Dylan. Can you sniff this and check the scent against everyone else here? With the dirt getting on the towel after the culprit had washed off, then that means you should still be able to match the dirt's scent to someone, right?

MODS

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

[sigh]

Yeah, I can do that.

[Taking a big whiff of that towel-any chance he already knows the scent on it?]

HAND CHECK

[keyringwitness]

I think I have a, um, bit of an idea.

[Deep breaths, Yasu. In and out.]

We've all been assuming that the paint was applied roughly around the same time. But what if it was actually spilled by two people, Valmont and the culprit?

Valmont spilled some paint first to make some kind of alibi trick so he wouldn't be suspected of Dylan's murder. But before he could finish, he was killed himself... and the culprit had gotten paint on their own shoes because of his trick. Blood was spilled, and the culprit finished Valmont's job before cleaning their own shoes, likely using the towels to clean up their footprints... and also, on accident, soak up some of the blood that was spilled.

Because all of our soles have paint on them, we can't check them for unusual cleanliness, but if nothing else this does eliminate people who don't wear shoes. And... [Yasu pauses, then snaps her fingers.]

I need to check everyone's hands. If you're applying enough pressure to a towel to mop up a bunch of blood and paint, not to mention how vigorously you'd need to wash to get all that off, chances are that your hands will be rubbed at least mildly raw.

Let me take a look... [And so Yasu goes around to check everyone's hands.]

[keyringwitness]

[First, though, she shows off her own. No signs of unusual amounts of pressure or vigorous washing being applied, she's clean.]

Throwing something out wildly different

[violence_ensues]

[Adorabat flies over to examine Emma's map and copies it down. But taking into account the positions of the paint cans that we've handwaved Carrie told everyone about... Just a little modification and... There! Adorabat shows off what she drew.]

Um, this may be nothing, but if we go by the fact that the killer threw the paint cans down last... maybe they threw the paint FROM inside their room? And the only rooms that would fit are 1, 8, 9, 14, and 15.

[cellpreservation]

Wouldn't that cause a splatter pattern on the edges...?

A sudden question

[violence_ensues]

[Adorabat gasps, suddenly thinking od something.]

THE CUTS ON VALMONT! How were they!? Were they up and down or side to side!?

[It seems that Adorabat wants to know the angle of the cuts.]

[canreallymove]

[Holds up the the badly=scribbled picture he made.]

VOTING

[whimsicalism]

Oh, come on! You were so close!

[The sheep start moving around and handing out ballots once more.]

Just vote again, alright?! I need another gallon of rocky road...

Re: VOTING

[lets_dewey_it]

_[Yuta.]

EXECUTION: You Can't Catch Me (CW: scratching, unintentional self harm.)

[whimsicalism]

"Mister Takizawa, I can't even be bothered with your little challenge. If you think you can win in a 'fight' then fine. You can even have your little power back. I think I know someone as childish as you who will be happy to 'play' with you, brat." Father doesn't even look around when the votes are in. He yawns from his chair as the sirens begin once more. For a third time the ceiling opens and a container descends.

Yuta vanishes from the trial room, appearing in the container. He raises his hand and waves his hand defiantly at the group below. At first nothing seems to appear in the room next to him. There's just a shimmer of purple on the glass of the container. Suddenly Yuta stops waving.

A young child's voice echoes in the mind of everyone present. ...let's play, Yuta. Tag, I think. I'll give you three tries, if you don't... catch me... you'll break.

The voice grows silent as Yuta glances around at the container. His brow furrows in concentration. His hand reaches out, trying to locate the sound of the voice. A glimmer of purple shines on the edge of the container; he reaches out. The glimmer is encased in something before it fades.

One.

Yuta frowns again, turning on his heels to try to catch another glimmer of light on the roof of the container. Again, the light fades as he misses.

Two.

The last glimpse of purple is behind him. He reaches out once more, trying desperately to encase the purple light in his grip. The giggling of a young girl echoes in every mind.

Three... you lose, Yuta. Break, now.

What happens next is a blur of activity. Yuta starts scratching at himself. His face, his neck, his arms, legs... he keeps trying to get at something that the group below can't see. At best it looks like some kind of rash is crossing his skin. The scratching continues, drips of blood falling to the container.

Almost as soon as it starts the movement stops. Yuta falls to his knees, then to his side. Yuta Takizawa is dead.

The giggling of a child echoes in your ears as the container is taken away from view. "Always childish, that one... tag, bah. Go back to your rooms!" The sheep look at each other in dismay as they herd everyone back into the elevator as Father starts to stretch from his chair.

[violence_ensues]

Aww, phooie. You almost had it, Yuta...