FIFTH TRIAL

[whimsicalism]

FIFTH TRIAL

THE CONTAINMENT CENTER

There are two more dead this week, and some unusual locations led to some unusual and interesting evidence. Once the students have had time to scour the affected areas and collect their clues, Kakuya's lilting telepathic voice guides them back to the elevator. Everyone now has plenty of elbow room - and plenty of carrying space to bring down the evidence, living creatures and all.

In addition to the constant strobing of the lights and the scream of metal chafing against metal, those who can tune into the softer noises in the background might hear snippets of a song on their descent. Though the lyrics are garbled and unintelligible as any other song playing in the soda fountain, a muffled crooner keens in the distance. The familiar clown whose presence is a constant despite the shifting cells, however, is 32 22 flavors and then some. He precariously balances a multi-scoop ice cream cone in one patient hand, all of its assorted scoops unpleasant and sickly colors. Multiple punctured balloons hang down from his other arm, wrinkled and dripping what is probably chocolate sauce. A cohort of aliens that look like every mid-century American fantasy of the little green men from outer space hone their weapons in silence. For the most part, every monster looks less restless now, but the hunger hasn't faded from any of them. If anything, it's intensified. If anything, it looks like they're biding their time.

There is, however, no sign of Father in his new prison. If he's suffering from the consequences he faces, you won't get the satisfaction of seeing that just yet.

Without the stark light of Father's telecomm screen, the trial room is a little bit darker but no less brutal. There's no longer a Prefect's desk visible by the podiums. Nanami, with nowhere to go, stands around aimlessly for a few moments, fidgeting, before finally taking a petulant seat on the open floor.

Kakuya, herself, is no where to be seen but the faint sound of flute music announces that she is watching. A voice echoes in the back of your mind as you return to your familiar podiums.

"It... looks like two of you are gone... Find out who killed... Koishi and Carrie, won't you? Kakuya... won't mind if you don't but don't... give up right away, okay? That would be no... good."

She laughs in her familiar, childish way. "Kakuya... wants to see what... you do this time... friends. Let's... start."
Investigation | Podium Layout | Locations | IC Profiles | IC Rules | IC Evidence Presentation | Evidence List | NPC Questions

OOC NOTES

Welcome to the fifth trial! Today's trial image is the famous eldritch cafe illustration by Jeff Paul Johnson. There are two dead this week, and success will entail solving both murders. Despite the shakeup in the management recently, there are still NPC question sections available.

Evidence Reminders:

• If you can carry it you probably can bring it. While the body itself isn't allowed into the trial, most things are, including live animals.
• 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 or the original finder otherwise can't present it (an emergency, etc), 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]

[We sure hope no one took a swim on a full stomach.]

Re: EVIDENCE PRESENTATION

[lets_dewey_it]

Adorabat and I saw the same thing: Carrie had a bit of blood on her fingers. We think she wrote the "Don't trust" message.

What I found on my own is the message has a bit of a smudge next to the letters. I think Carrie must have died in the middle of writing the message.

There's scratches around the floor by certain chairs and a table, but the furniture itself was in its original positions, meaning they must have been scraped across the floor before being put back.

Lastly, there was a smoothie glass, and two school notebooks. The smoothie was spilled all over the notebooks and I can't read whatever was in them, but one of the notebooks had a page torn out of it.

[canreallymove]

“Don’t Trust”…?

[copycut]

If she just wanted to pass on the name of her killer, I wonder why she decided to start with that... I guess it must have been someone most of us would give a pass to, or someone we're all taking a bit of a risk by trusting as it is.

[ She means Yasu when she says this, but. Like. At this point it's so much conjecture that she doesn't think it's worth a by-name call-out. ]

MODS

[temmapathy]

Hey, can I see those notebooks?

[Emma will take a sniff. Does it seem like the smoothie is what got spilled on them?]

[whimsicalism]

[The sight of it alone would make you think that but the smell also confirms it. It’s a bit faint now, though.]

[copycut]

[ Kuro walks in with two boxes of breakfast bars. She tears one open and sets them both down on top of her podium. ]

There was a big mess in the kitchen... Kind of like someone was looking for something in a big hurry. The knives were arranged on the counter, in a nice line from smallest to largest. It looked like one of the larger ones was missing... but not the largest.

I also found this.

[ Kuro offers up a drawn diagram. There's no writing, but it appears to be a depiction of how to use a string to move a broom in front of a door. The paper has been torn into large pieces. ]

[temmapathy]

[Emma waves her broom at Kuro.] Do you think that diagram's showing what this broom was doing?

[copycut]

Mm. [ Kuro nods. ] I think the biggest question is whether it was meant to keep someone out, or keep someone in.

MODS

[violence_ensues]

[Diagram...? Adorabat gets out the stolen notebook, the one with all the blueprints on it, and begins looking through it. Is there one with a broom in it?]

MODS again

[keyringwitness]

[Could this device be used to move the broom in front of the door if the door was closed and the one activating it was outside the room?]

[whimsicalism]

[It looks like the string is drawn under the door so it seems reasonable.]

[temmapathy]

[Emma raps the broom she's been carrying on...Valmont's podium? Seems she's choosing to stand there now.]

I found this broom with a long string tied to it near the door of the ice cream room. There were some marks on the wall that seem to match with it scratching against there. There was also a blender with part of a smoothie inside, that seemed like someone'd drank a lot of it. I have no idea what they mixed in there, but they definitely scooped some vanilla ice cream and then didn't put the lid back. Also, the ice cream scoop is missing.

[keyringwitness]

Combined with Dewey's account of all the furniture inside the soda parlor getting rearranged... is it possible that Carrie tried to barricade herself inside? She formed some kind of barricade against the door, using the broom as a centerpiece, but... hm, that doesn't quite add up.

KOISHI’S BODY

[canreallymove]

[Deep breaths.]

Ok, so. The, uh, girl we found in the pool. She was hit on the head, which I’m pretty sure is how she died.. She also had a bruise on her tentacle.

…also I don’t think she died in the pool room. There was a puddle of water and some weird vanilla stuff between the pool and the door. Might have been blood too. There was also a lot of water on the edge of the pool, so…I think she was dumped there.

[keyringwitness]

Her name was Koishi, Sonic.

I know she's difficult to fix in your mind, but... please. It's painful when nobody remembers your name.

[canreallymove]

…….crud Koishi. Got it.

I, uh, didn’t really talk to her much. I’m sorry about that.

Carrie's Body

[violence_ensues]

[As Adorabat watches the monsters flit by as she goes down, she tries feeling scared. She tries feeling afraid. Anything to give even the smallest scrap of food to sate their hunger. These monsters are terrifying, Adorabat says to herself.

Yet... she can't help but feel anything but pity. They're hungry. And Adorabat unfortunately isn't scared of them. She sighs and heads to her podium when they reach the bottom.]

I looked at Carrie's body, which was face down. There was a stab wound on Carrie's chest. I couldn't really tell how deep it was, but I believe it came from a straight blade. And it looked like it didn't come from any weird angles.

Her shoes didn't look like they were messed with any, but I did find multiple wounds on her arms, most likely created in self-defense. One thing about them was weird, though, as Carrie's bracelets were still on her arms. They weren't taken off.

Carrie's finger had blood on it, most likely used to write something. And aside from thatm I didn't see any other wounds or marks.

[Adorabat looks to Sonic after saying all of that. DID SHE DO GOOD?]

[canreallymove]

[Nod! Good job!]

[violence_ensues]

[keyringwitness]

That's strange.

[Yasu hums, cupping her chin.]

According to Kuro, one of the larger knives in the kitchen was missing. It's not that much of a leap to assume that was the one used to stab Carrie.

If it was a head-on stab like you describe, and the size matches what was missing from the knife lineup that Kuro found, then I doubt the wound was shallow enough for Carrie to have survived for long enough written that message on the wall using the blood from her chest, and the defensive wounds were too shallow to do that either.

Is it possible that she wasn't really the one to write that dying message?

[canreallymove]

Yeah, I gotta agree. And with the smudge…

It could be that the real writer is the killer.

[shinedsobright]

[In the elevator, Fret was panting a bit from running away from Nanami! But his evidence is secured, if rather jostled in their bags.]

These two were each stuffed into one of the vending machines. We got an ice scream scoop with blood swirled into the melted vanilla, and the equally bloody knife.

I dunno if they thought no one would see em' because of the flaps over em', or what. But the blood's gotta be why a scoop was taken from the ice cream, right? Probably in a hurry, if they couldn't even put the lid back and they had to stash it all the way over there.

[gotnothing]

[ A sort of. Incredulous look. ]

In the vending machines? Seriously?

[violence_ensues]

Was there anything else in the other ones?