FOURTH TRIAL

[whimsicalism]

FOURTH TRIAL

THE CONTAINMENT CENTER

((CW spiders))

The Principal's hateful dismissal of the latest murder still ringing in the halls, the students are ushered with much more force and hurry into the elevator this time. There's a certain amount of urgency to this descent that hasn't existed before, as if some great force is beginning to run out of patience with Ira Academy's slowly dwindling student body. The cold, pre-autumn gloom grasping at the upper levels has permeated these basement areas as well, and an uneasy chill wind rips through with no discernable source.

In their holding cell, the monsters all pace with more restlessness than usual. A bipedal crocodile monster tall enough to barely fit inside his cell without hunching rams his snout repeatedly against the front wall, blood stains gathering on the glass--and perhaps, if one looks close enough, some hairline cracks. A horde of black spiders with poisonous red markings spin nervously in the corners of their cells, wrapping up anonymous but distinctly humanoid figures in their webs. The clown makes everyone a balloon dog! How nice of him. He slits it open with his knife and leaves the shredded ribbons of rubber dangling from his fingertips.

Though the audio is clearly on and the Principal's view into the trial room seems undisturbed, the video feed on the projector screen is cut off today. Instead of the ram emblem or a visual on his firelit office, nothing but a wall of black stares back.

Nanami opens her mouth to introduce the case as soon as everyone is at their podium, but she's cut off by Father's angry, disembodied voice before a single world can leave her mouth.

"Sure, let's keep it up with the bread and circuses. If you don't get that then you should have paid attention in history class! I won't be surprised if you spend the whole afternoon trying to figure this one out, just to waste my time. Find out who killed The Dependable Dog, or you'll really find out where they all go."

Investigation | Podium Layout | Locations | IC Profiles | IC Rules | IC Evidence Presentation | Evidence List | NPC Questions | Labyrinth Map | Playground Map

OOC NOTES

Welcome to the fourth trial! Consider this your reminder to make sure to get in your Week 3 AC by tomorrow's weekly post and to start getting your Week 4 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. 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]

[The dog days are over.]

LIBRARY STUFF

[hashtagwoof]

[ Hunter only brought some torn white fabric with him today. Why? Because he actually investigated this time and had no time to prepare anything else. ]

Okay, I went to the library and found this thing draped over a window latch and a rolling ladder thing about thirty centimeters from that window. Scratch marks everywhere, on the ladder and windowsill... Even found some on some nearby shelves. Going off this alone, I have reason to believe the scratches came from Dylan's nails while he was trying to run for his life.

Carrie also found a book in a plastic bubble, and I'd like to get a better look at that now, please.

[violence_ensues]

I also found out that the window to the library can be opened.

[hashtagwoof]

Yeah, but was there anything outside the window?

[keyringwitness]

[Yasu is at least recovered enough to participate in the trial... although judging from the set of her shoulders and the waves of silent anger radiating off her, her willpower is more of a result of sheer anger at the culprit than anything else.]

...it's evident that some kind of struggle took place, spanning from the hallway to the library. With the weapon on Dylan's back that I caught a glimpse of, the same kind that Fret brought to our investigation on Monday night, it's evident that he was prepared for a fight as well. Considering the damage on the back of the weapon that's consistent with the state of his body, I doubt it was planted on him post-mortem either.

So the question then becomes: how did the fight start? I can accept that Dylan brought the weapon with him to patrol the hallways, but where and why the fight began are both crucial questions.

[temmapathy]

The culprit probably had the rope ready in advance as well...maybe they were using it like a lasso? [She shudders a bit.]

[temmapathy]

[Emma drops her hamper to the side, where Reika once stood. She pulls out the baggie of ropes, dumping them out in front of her and thumping the podium to get everyone's attention before signing.]

I found ten jump ropes in the room where we found Dylan. It looked like they were tied together, before someone cut them apart again. Most of them were just cut near the knotted area, except for this one:

[She holds up the pieces of the tenth jump rope so everyone can see, before she continues signing.]

There's...some fur on that longest piece of rope. I think it's pretty obvious who it came from.

[hashtagwoof]

Hm... Looks like they were trying to make a longer rope... Or a snare. But why chop them up like that?

[holyironmade]

Something very strange transpired outside the main building, in the playground.

[She passes around a sketch that is going to be very convenient since she discovered the area all by herself!]

A window on the second story was broken... I suppose it is the science lab. I could not find where the glass went, though. The wall surrounding this area was covered in blood... and there was also some blood on top of the playground equipment.

THIRD FLOOR HALLS

[lets_dewey_it]

A vending machine was caught in a bubble. There was a full bag of potato chips on the floor next to it. Adorabat saw clawmarks and a bit of dried blood on the floor. There was a struggle there.

[hashtagwoof]

... What kinda bubble?

[violence_ensues]

The claw marks came in short bursts and lead directly to the library and the vending machine was one of the ones in the middle.

[keyringwitness]

...now that's strange.

[Yasu thinks for a moment. Her voice has lost all of its usual stuttering quality, rather than lacking most of it like it did in the previous trials. She almost sounds like a different person.]

The only reasonable assumption is that Dylan took aim at someone with the PBW, missed, and hit the vending machine instead... but I doubt someone he was engaged in active combat with would've bothered to idly purchase a snack from the vending machine, and the placement of the chips suggests that they dropped it when they were attacked.

Was Dylan the one to start the fight?

I doubt he had any intention of actually murdering anyone, but based on what we know right now, that's the only reasonable explanation for this part of the scene, at least in my view. So why...?

The Body

[canreallymove]

[Sonic closes his eyes. He's the only one left to look over the body.

Think about what we know.

Well, here's what he knows right now. He gives the group a glare to signal his disappointment, if not his rage.]

Dyl...what happened to him was way past wrong. There was definitely some kinda fight he got into-he was covered in bruises and cuts, and his tail was messed up. A lot of those cuts had glass in 'em, and...his paws. They were also screw up, but those had wood splinters in them.

The Puppy Bubble Wrapper was also all dinged up, so even if we dunno the exact time of death, I can guess that he was attacked while he was patrollin' somewhere.

[He swallows.]

He...he was strangled. He had marks around his neck that matched the jump ropes that were all cut up in the same room. The only part of his neck that didn't have them was the part the PBW was strapped against.

...

There was one more thing.

[Presents the baggie with the plastic bio-hazard label in it.]

Found this in his mouth. He probably ripped it off something with his teeth, because it was stuck in there when I checked him out. And that's all I got.

[violence_ensues]

Puppy Bubble Wrapper? What's that?

CLARIFICATION

[whimsicalism]

[The plastic is yellow, too.]

[holyironmade]

...entertainment.

[Jeanne, who had seen absolutely none of this, is absolutely seething with rage by the time Sonic's description is done.]

The principal... had asked this week's culprit... to provide more entertainment.

SCIENCE ROOM

[copycut]

I found some strange stuff in the science room.

[ Atop her podium, Kuro begins to array the physical evidence she's brought with her: a scalpel, a used lint roller, and a tattered biohazard disposal bag. ]

The scalpel and lint roller were lying next to each other, on top of one of the tables in the middle of the room. I found some rope fibers on the scalpel, and the lint roller is covered in dog hair. I don't think anyone needs three guesses to figure that one out, do they?

On the other hand, the disposal bag... [ She holds it up to indicate the toothy holes punched into it. ] It looks like Dylan bit it. [ Then, carefully, she turns the bag inside out so that everyone can better see the blood on its interior. ] What's even more interesting, though, is the blood on the inside. Look — see? It's smeared, like someone put something bloody inside and then took it back out again later.

But... The most interesting thing I found there was the broken window. It looked like Dylan had been thrown through the glass, but not from the side you'd expect. I found blood and glass on the inside of the window, meaning he was thrown in from the outside — which also means our culprit threw a 26 pound dog through a second story window from the ground level playground.

[temmapathy]

Wait...there was an open window in the library, right? What if he was dangled from the library window?

LABYRINTH

[shinedsobright]

[Fret holds up his baggie containing a chocolate bar. It looks a bit shaken around by now, but still basically in the state it was found in. Squares of the chocolate are missing in a way that seemingly suggests they were neatly snapped off one by one, and it is about half gone.]

I found this candy bar in the maze. It was right next to a spot on the ground that'd been cleaned ... just like, a really obvious half circle wiped into the fake dirt over there, though the rest of the dirt was normal.

I dunno if everyone knows this, but chocolate's poisonous to dogs. If I had to guess what got wiped, might've been that he barfed some up.

[temmapathy]

It wasn't disguised at all?

[canreallymove]

No way...who would do that to him...!?

[hashtagwoof]

So, wait. First he got poisoned, then he got strangled?

[holyironmade]

But it is snapped off so smoothly. It seems they did not simply force his mouth to clamp down on about half of the bar. If the culprit forced the separated pieces into Dylan's mouth, would that not contact with the chocolate in a way that would linger on their fingertips?

[keyringwitness]

Hm... perhaps the culprit restrained Dylan somehow and tried to feed him chocolate to kill him slowly? Then when they got up to take a break from force-feeding him chocolate, Dylan got out of his bonds, threw up, and then tried to use the PBW to-

No, that doesn't make sense. If the culprit had him captive like that, then I doubt they would've let him keep the weapon....

[Yasu snaps her fingers.]

Wait. What if the culprit has been slowly poisoning Dylan? Sneaking chocolate into his kibble, or something similar. Dylan eventually found out and used his nose to track down whoever was putting the chocolate in his food with the intent of confronting them, following the trail to the walking labyrinth. The chocolate was likely left in the walking labyrinth as bait so the culprit could ambush him with the lasso.