FIFTH TRIAL

[whimsicalism]

Is everyone finished? Good. It's time for a trial.

[The ride to the court room is uneventful this time. There's no breaking of bones or porcelain when you land. The podiums are rather empty, especially now that there's only twenty portraits even if there's twenty one podiums still. Huh. Fancy that! It's almost as if the Storyteller was still bitter.

Though, there definitely feels something off about the court room. It sort of feels like you're being watched but you're not sure.]

Seven is Dead. Time to find out who's responsible. Time for a trial!

Comments

[octopups]

Um... I think your theories sound pretty good, but... I don't think even Seven could have pulled the tree out of the ground by himself.

The dirt around it seemed like... like maybe someone had loosened it up on purpose, for some reason? Maybe they wanted that one tree to fall over?

[battlestations]

You mean like... if the rope was tied around the tree so it could be easily pulled to fall?

[octopups]

Yeah, like... maybe the trap was tied to the tree, and the person led Seven to the trap, somehow, and they knew that when his leg got hurt he would try to run away, and so they made it easy for the tree to fall over on him when he did?

[battlestations]

They could have lead him to the trap with Mr. Stripey-pants if he was looking for it. Although it'd mean they threw the head and the toy in the zoo as misdirection, and I'm not sure how likely that would be.

[octopups]

Hmm... [Pondering]

The zoo is downhill from the tree, right? Could... could his head have... rolled?

[battlestations]

I... I suppose that could cause an eye injury, if it happened. But would there be stains?

[He pauses.]

Feeding it to animals could have been to hide something too. Not sure what.

[golden_king]

Maybe a more identifying kind of injury that only the culprit gave him which would narrow it down more?

[battlestations]

True. We'd need more information from DD to figure out what sort of attack that would be. It sounded like they were eating the back of the head, maybe?

[xxxx_me]

I found the darts stuck in the dart board, so if they really hit something, the killer would have needed to remove them to hide them there instead.

[battlestations]

It's not a bad theory. The darts hit Seven in the back of the head, but it doesn't do much to faze him - they dent on his skull, and the killer puts them back while burning the fabric.

[xxxx_me]

I'm still wondering about the burned fabric. There's no chance anyone burned themselves in the fire or anything, is there?

That's something you have to run under water to help with, isn't it?

[battlestations]

If they were willing to stick their hand all the way into the fireplace, I doubt we'd have been left with a scrap. That would be unbelievably sloppy...

[xxxx_me]

Yeah...

Sorry, I'm running out of ideas.

[Weh.]

[battlestations]

It's fine. We're all a bit stuck at the moment, at least in terms of how to corner this perpetrator.

[Like he still thinks it's Gavroche, but he was pretty humbled before by his wrong suspicion of dogs]

[strictura]

If anyone had a burn on their hand or something, I think Amdi would have noticed it when he sniffed us.

[xxxx_me]

True...

[Droops.]

[strictura]

You did a good job verifying how the water gun was used, though.

[ So don't feel too down. ]

[golden_king]

I mean, it's possible...though only if someone was wearing gloves among us that'd block Amdi being able to smell it.

[xxxx_me]

Yeah...

[Sigh.]

[imozon]

They were eating all over the head, really, except the eyes.

[battlestations]

Eeeew....

[imozon]

Yeah.

[strictura]

We decided the eye injury was from the darts, didn't we?

[battlestations]

That's how it seemed to be, but if everything happened at the treehouse and the head rolled, it would alter our theories a lot. I think we were on the right track before, though. I mean, we certainly have a dartgun.

[ballooncaged]

I think Seven would have dug up the tree and then lifted it, but whatever.

If the tree fell over, I guess that would be a big enough shock for his head to fall off and roll away. Maybe even the animals eating it covered up the marks you'd expect in that situation. Though it wasn't even that round...

If the culprit fed it deliberately, then I think it's because they wanted to make sure the head was decisively injured too.