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

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

...he tried to kill me...

[A part of him wanted to say it wasn't true, but...with all the evidence lined up, and knowing Valmont was-well, the way that he was...]

He...he was going to kill me, if someone else hadn't...

[canreallymove]

Dylan, don't. Don't think about that right now.

[He'll come over if he has to, but.]

You're alive. That's what matters. And stayin' alive is what you gotta do.

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

I-I'm sorry, it's just...

A lot. To think about, right now.

[violence_ensues]

[Bat hugs.]

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

[Bat hugs forever and always.]

[cellpreservation]

Do you remember if he made a promise with you last week? Or was he talking about someone else?

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

He-He didn't-

[And then it hits him.]

The-the talisman! He-he wanted to kill me for...a piece of history?!

[temmapathy]

Talisman?

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

It-that's what he called it? It was this-stone octagon with a purple rabbit carved on the front. I got it from the vending machine. When he saw I had it, he...he said it was his attacked me for it.

It's...it's still in my room...

[violence_ensues]

[It can be added to the memorial wall after the trial.]

[temmapathy]

He couldn't even ask politely?

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

Apparently not!

And I told him-if he'd just said please, I would've given it to him, and we wouldn't be in this mess-

[He just. Lets out a frustrated growl.]

[cellpreservation]

With everything else going on, that's what got him to act?!

[SERIOUSLY VALMONT??]

[canismajorcontrolfreak]

FOR SOME REASON, YES!

[Not even trying to hold back his anger over this now. Not sad anymore. Human tried to kill him for something he could've gotten if he was nicer. Patience is worn thin.]

[holyironmade]

I... I cannot accept this reasoning! Valmont may not have been the strongest, and he may have favored Dylan as a target over the others, but he was not extremely weak. He also had heard our reasoning about double and parallel homicides - targeting both Dylan and the intruder would be an option. We also see that the culprit gave Valmont an extremely mild injury. It's true that he could have been shocked by this injury. Perhaps even run away. But explain it to me. Explain how the culprit got close enough to graze Valmont, but not so much as a single thread of clothing, let alone blood, was cut by Valmont's knife...! You expect me to believe that the culprit caught up to him, stabbed him in the neck where he was standing, somehow caught the body so it did not bruise when it hit the ground, and did all this without a single drop of blood on Valmont's knife? That his clothes are as straight as the day they were custom tailored? Oh, perhaps they washed the knife, that is completely dry?

I'm aware that it will be beyond belief on basis of character, but I believe that it is possible he knew he would die that night. That he recognized the greater good described by his "classmate" and submitted to their plan.

[violence_ensues]

Wait... you mean... he had someone kill him in order to stop everyone else from starving!?

[holyironmade]

Surely whoever killed him wanted to keep us from starving. We know Carrie would have accepted that fate. We know that both Reika and Edward had the overall group in our hearts.

I believe this is IC knowledge

[violence_ensues]

And if I member, you didn't want to eat any food for us to have more.

[canreallymove]

...Yeah, she and I got into an argument over it.

Both at the public meeting and reiterated at start of trial. You good.

[holyironmade]

Yes. I still have not. Not until his killer is executed. Those were the conditions.

There would be no particular reason for my fast if I wanted to participate in the ultimate sacrifice. I believed it would be realistic to endure until Friday and interrupt Father's ritual. I do suppose I was wrong.

Unless perhaps the killer was a person with a twisted sense of justice who had been patient and merely wanted to punish Valmont for targeting Dylan. But I doubt it.

[temmapathy]

He did fall down crying after I kicked him once. If he was on the ground when they killed him, the blood wouldn't get on his clothes, would it?

[For the sake of Jeanne's current state, she does not add "like a baby."]

[holyironmade]

I see no tearstains on his face, no bitten nail. He was not intimidated enough by your approach that he could not devise a plan to hide behind me. I highly doubt that the stupefaction would be so complete, but I have withdrawn my objections in light of Yasu's suggestion that the first strike was thrown instead.

[keyringwitness]

...I don't think we should take it as a given that the first attack was up close. H- Honestly, given how cleanly his throat was slit, I'm inclined to think that it was the opposite: the culprit threw one weapon, but just barely grazed Valmont. Valmont then turned to confront the culprit and get into range to defend himself, but his throat was slit in the middle of the dorm before he could get a single attack in.

[holyironmade]

Threw it?

...threw it?

Threw... it...???

Yasu truly is a genius.

...I accept this line of reasoning. I even accept that he could have been stupefied in this stance, and lunged at. As long as you do not posit that the first wound was in intimate range, my objections are withdrawn.

[canreallymove]

...

The "greater good"?

[Yes, Sonic, the greater good.]