WEEK SIX: TRIAL

[retellers]

WEEK SIX: TRIAL (22 remain) Rise and shine, gremlins. Hopefully you found it in you to make and eat breakfast, despite yesterday's news. At 11am, everyone will receive a message on their PHS, simply stating: Please go to the Emporium at 12. Shortly before 12pm, every participant will feel compelled to move towards the Emporium, if they aren't already there. No exceptions! Though they will have to navigate around shelves and merchandise and the like, everyone will fit neatly inside the room. Once all the participants are present and the clock strikes twelve, the doors lock behind them. Three of the Leaders are there with them: Wolf, Rabbit, and Fox. Wolf speaks. "Nine hours. You know what to do." ༶•┈┈⛧┈｡o°✥✣ 　　 ✣✥°o｡┈⛧┈┈•༶ Hello, everyone, and welcome to the seventh trial! For the next nine hours, the characters are expected to discuss among themselves, ask questions, examine the bodies of the victims, look over the evidence found yesterday, and revisit locations as needed in order to find the culprit(s). There'll be a one hour break from 5-6pm EST, where no mod tags will occur. Before the trial is over, please remember to place your character's vote over on the voting page. Voting will close at 9pm EST/6pm PST, and will serve as our activity check for the week, so please be sure you get your vote in before it ends unless you have contacted us previously. If you have any questions at any time, please let us know by pinging us on Discord!

NAVIGATION locations ₓ˚. statuses *+:｡ ic profiles :ₓo ic rules ･ﾟﾟ･｡ audience requests murder proposals ｡✧o private conversations ･ﾟo｡ curfew ･ﾟ✧ memories

Comments

QUESTIONS

[retellers]

[ Rabbit is sitting behind the counter, her hands folded on her lap. Fox stands a bit away from her, arm in cast as is normal for this week. Wolf is as usual leaning against the wall behind the counter, arms crossed. A picnic basket full of sandwiches sits on the counter, along with the fingerprinting kit that has two uses left. It's getting dusty. ]

[chanteuser]

Can I get some bandages, please? Emet-Selch is bleeding through his current ones.

[ she says with the air of someone who has been part of an effort to stop an ancient ascian bleeding all over the carpet for the past six days. ]

LOCATION REQUESTS

[retellers]

[ Reply here if your character is asking the Leaders to take them a location to (re)investigate. ]

[axecessory]

[ ... ]

Can I check out room... Lyra? Whatever Won's room is. [ was. ]

BODY

[retellers]

[ Three steel autopsy tables are now in the Emporium, standing in a corner of the room. Sheets cover them and, presumably, Ochako and Chiron's corpses are underneath one. The other one is empty.

Reply here if your character wants to examine a body! ]

CHIRON

[evocationary]

[ ):

time to examine horse dad. with GLOVES. i refuse to get poisoned again.

what's the general impression, first off? ]

INVESTIGATIONS

[retellers]

[ Once a location has been requested, a mod will post a sub-top level will be posted under this comment. ]

LYRA

[retellers]

[ They have to walk because Fox can't teleport. Anyway, here they are. Go wild. ]

EVIDENCE

[retellers]

[ Various evidence is automatically available for examination, as well as anything else that characters find or bring to trial.

Reply here if your character is reexamining any of the evidence. ]

[sacredchants]

[ henlo. can she compare the rsvp to the memory book and see if any of the handwriting in there matches?? ]

CURFEW

[sacredchants]

[ pretend that this cripple can get everyone's attention somehow. ]

We know the drill by now, right? Where was everyone and what was the deal with everyone?

I stayed with Alphinaud, Soo-Won, Ange, Hilda, and Zuko at the boardwalk on Thursday. When we woke up, we felt a little competitive when it came to the carnival games... Or, you know, would if they weren't all trashed.

[dianxias]

[ giving izumo an embarrassing thumbs up

anyway. ]

I was at the beach, with San Lang, Miss Jeanne, Miss Dorothy, Claude, Rufus, and... Miss Ochako.

We were talking very strangely yesterday. [ a beat, and xie lian claps his hands together, smiling. ] "Dude".

investigation summaries

[discernments]

[ As soon as it becomes apparent who's missing, Jeanne - noticeably falters. Her knees give, and she holds onto her standard as if it's a lifeline. It takes a moment, a beat longer than it should for her perhaps, before she brings herself back to her feet and straightens.

She's fine.

She taps her standard against the floor and clears her throat. Her voice is calm, carefully so. Her expression is blank, carefully so. ]

If you could all tell us if you found anything last night, that would be appreciated. There is much ground to cover, and - Soo-won to find, it seems. We all know what we must do today, and I hope we can finish this well.

[ please put locations in your subject header! thank you! ]

boardwalk (stalls)

[arcsplainist]

[ Alphinaud nods once, stepping forth. ]

Together with Claude, I had taken a look along the boardwalk where the stalls are set, and immediately upon our arrival was the utter mess of the place obvious. 'Tis as if the force of a storm blew through... Indeed, I could be convinced it had, for I can think of little other reason why the ferris wheel had fallen upon some of the stalls, or whom else plowed through the area in whole.

But I digress. Allow me to recite our findings in the order they occurred: As Claude discovered a sword within a pile of stuffed animals, I had found a shield deeply embedded within the walls of a stall—both can be found with the evidence. I trust we will, as usual, discuss who could have owned such a weapon. There is also the matter of the snake, in which Claude deemed of import to turn in with the rest of our findings. [ For some reason. It's just a snake. ] Worry not—it is dead.

Anyroad, within another stall was another wedding reservation left behind; on it, Dorothy and Xie Lian's names are penned. [ And should they be around, Alphinaud will look up in their directions. ] Should either of you have an explanation for why that may be, doubtless so I am far from the only one who would wish to hear it. In this same stall, a target had been shot at with a firearm—something I know can be hard to come by within the Realm. I propose we name those who own any of these weapons, and, if at all possible, compare the bullet found to the ones available to us. You may find it with the rest of the evidence, as well.

[ a beat, then: ]

—Ere you wonder, we attempted to look within the ferris wheel for aught else. Though we had not, I will mention that mine own weight was enough to risk toppling it over. [ So, a hint to the rest of you who wanna give that a shot! ] Take that as you will.

SNAKE-WON

[sacredchants]

[ hello?? have some screaming??? A SNAKE IS SUDDENLY NOT A SNAKE AND SHE'S BEING CRUSHED BY A CORPSE?? or more like a corpse is crushing on of her injuries anD THAT FUCKING HURTS.

still. i...guess she will say words and not just scream (in pain). ]

S, SOO-WON...!

[reconnective]

[well. that's bad. he's nyooming over to a.) grab this damn corpse and b.) try to stand izumo up.]

Can somebody grab Izumo? [please make her sit. her leggy! once she's taken care of though he's going to just finagle soo-won toward the examination table so someone can look at his body.]

CHIRON'S BODY

[evocationary]

[ well, okay, after she takes a minute to duck behind the counter and quietly lose her shit, she claps her hands. don't look at her too closely, her eyes definitely aren't rimmed red. ]

Chiron was found in the ocean, so. That probably explains why his skin and lips are blue. He's still wet. His eyes are bloodshot, too.

He's got broken bones and bruising all on his right side. Mostly his right side, anyway. There's no discernable pattern. His baskets are missing. I don't know if that means we missed them anywhere or he just left them in his room, but. Maybe we should look for those.

I don't know, maybe he got pushed off of something high and then fell into the ocean. Or something fell on him. He's pretty heavy. We had to get Goat to teleport him out, so I'm just. I'm, uh, not sure how he got there.

Someone else can double check to see if he's got something I missed if you want, I don't want to look at him being dead anymore.

[reconnective]

[fair and valid...he's just going to lean against her.]

...it's possible some of his stuff got washed away somehow, isn't it? People found his bow and an arrow at the beach so maybe he still had his things. [let's talk about that and not about chiron being dead because that's not okay.]

LYRA - SOO-WON'S ROOM

[axecessory]

[ well soo-won's body is here just in time for them to get back! cool. hilda pointedly does not look that way as she goes over some findings. ]

Won left me a note while I was sleeping—it said to check his room. There were these notes and pens in his closet... I think everybody should take a look. He addressed a lot of us personally, and—I don't know. Maybe there's a clue.

[ first set of notes
second set of notes ]

[evocationary]

[ yoink she shoves her note in her pockets immediately and flees ]

OCHAKO BODY RESULTS

[dianxias]

[ once xie lian has everyone's attention, he speaks up. his voice is somber. ]

...The cause of Miss Ochako's death was a gun shot to the head. If there is someone who knows things about guns who would like to check it further, you may be able to discern something more than I could.

She also has a wound on her left thigh that could be a graze wound from a similar weapon. Her other injuries were either old, or from the effect, this week.

In her hand, she was holding a few strands of brown hair. [ he holds them up for inspection. ] I will set them with the rest of the evidence.

[ .... after that, he just. bows his head. that's all. :c ]

[chanteuser]

[ jesus christ that is the last thing she wanted to hear today, xie lian. ]

♫ gimme a head with hair, long beautiful hair ♪ (HAIR CHECK)

[canned]

Excuse me, everyone!

[Alphonse loudly claps his metal hands together sometime during the fight to smooch Xie Lian or whatever adult drama is happening over there]

When she died, Ochako had a handful of someone's hair. It might be hers, but it's most likely her attacker's.

I'd like it if everyone could take their hair down and let me compare these strands to theirs. [he's polite as ever, but there is a hardness to his request that suggests he'd prefer not to have to force anyone or ask again, but can

please note hair color and length, just for quick reference! thank you~]

[evocationary]

[ she doesn't seem to mind. here is her hair - it's very long, like down to her butt almost, and it's blonde! magically. thanks, rsvp. ]

state of the gun..... the not whole gun....

[horologia]

[ how is she getting attention? idk, but she is, after returning from the evidence tables. ]

We are still missing pieces of the disassembled gun. The trigger and trigger guard, specifically.

[ for those of them here who'll know what that means. ]

I don't recall anyone mentioning having found them, so likely they're still out at one of the scenes, somewhere. That, or in someone's possession.

There's enough of it there that I can say it was a revolver, though. There's no particular damage to the pieces, so we can pretty safely say it wasn't broken apart forcefully, or anything like that.

[supremity]

[ Is he throwing himself into doing more stuff so that he can avoid Xie Lian and Dorothy? Yes. Don't worry about it they have three murders to solve. ]

Do we have a list of people who had guns, previously? I know Ochako had a few, but... I don't know enough about them to say whether she had a revolver or not.

POCKET CHECK!

[dianxias]

[ now that that's over...(is it over? he's probably still holding dorothy's hand.)

anyway. ]

For the sake of everything, let's empty our pockets as usual, yes? That includes divulging any magical items you still have, such as the invitations.

[ im gonna reply mine here in a sec ]

[misstrust]

[ Yeah, Dorothy is still holding the hand of her gay best friend.

Anyway!!

Her pockets only contain her PHS! ]

I never used my RSVP, since I'm against making people act against their will [ UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE ] but I still have that flower from last week.

THANKS, SATAN (item check?? )

[cuedoves]

There's a good chance someone will lie, but I also want to know if anyone got anything from the... carnival..... thing. With the donkey kids. And the... Satan guy.

[supremity]

[ Mouths "the Satan guy," disregard his journal display name. ]

No, actually. Only a "congratulations" message with one of those - [ vague handwave ] - smiley faces.

handwriting update

[chanteuser]

[ henlo, it's alex ]

I checked the writing on the RSVP against some notes Ochako and I made last week. It looks like it could be the same writing.

[supremity]

[ A glance to Ange, from their earlier talk about the RSVP and who might have written in it. ]

Thanks for checking, Alex. We just have to figure out the intent of it, now, but at least we can narrow it down to her writing and not chase our tails over that part.

snoo-woo

[discernments]

[ She is so calm and so okay. She clears her throat for attention. ]

Soo-won's lower body was sandy, so I imagine he was at the beach at some point. There seems to be what may be a bullet wound in his left leg, on the upper half.

Soo-won's neck is broken. There seems to be some kind of print on it. It's oval-shaped and was about the size of my hand, give or take. [ Take it with a grain of salt, mod said. ] As he was in the form of a snake at death, I wonder how that affected how his wounds appear now, but that's something to consider.

I think any other wounds he had are older ones or from what we all received at the beginning of the week, but - he never really mentioned when he was hurt to me, so I can't confirm that.

I may have missed a few things because I am not medically trained. [ And it hurts to think of the person she knows who was. ]

Um, he had a few things on his person. Some photographs, painkillers, his PHS, a Dragon Scale. [ Does she know it needs to be capitalized? Who knows? ] Bow and arrows and a kitchen knife.

[papasha]

Thank you. [He pauses for a second.] I'm sorry.

[About what happened to Soo-won, he means.]

Hair results!

[canned]

[after making his way around the room and checking everyone available, Alphonse waves for attention again]

Okay, thank you, everyone!

I had a pretty close look, and even though both of their hair is pretty long I think what Ochako pulled out matches closest to Miss Dorothy and Master Xie Lian. [his voice sounds almost apologetic, even though the point of checking was to identify suspects]

I'm not sure how it connects to the RSVP and...everything that happened because of that. And I can't tell exactly whose hair without magnification.

[misstrust]

[ Dorothy honestly looks bewildered. ]

... I-- why?

[ First the RSVPs, then this? ]

STRIP CHECK / OUTFIT OF THE DAY CHECK

[supremity]

[ Still only one-handed, Hua Cheng has come and gone throughout the trial to make sure that the usual spot for strip check is set up. He's also throwing himself into, ah, avoiding Xie Lian and Dorothy. He's not in a great mood my dudes, this is not a tubular trial, so, here we are. Once again, his left sleeve of his inner robe is pinned to his shoulder, his red robes are up with various other things, and he has enough of a commanding voice that he can get attention without the Teacher Clap. ]

We're seven weeks into this. If you don't know the routine by now, I don't know what to do for you. [ Everyone has memloss but he doesn't care, this is a repetitive motion level of ingrained into trials by now. ] If you're volunteering to help check, do so now. If you have a preference for what gender checks you, make it known. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, let's get moving - we have three deaths and no concrete answers, so let's not waste time.

[ There is still the heavy implication that despite being down an arm, he will truss you up for causing problems. ]

CHATTER AND SHITPOSTS

[supremity]

[ Respond here with your shenanigans of dragging your feet/hemming and hawing/refusing to submit, suggestions, interacting with fafa/others, etc. ]

FEETS

[sacredchants]

[ with a thud in the distance of something idiotic happening between two very specific people, izumo is gonna be here to help with foot check. if only because she's tired of having to walk around. PEOPLE COME TO HER. ]

What was that..?

[ hmmm. either way: ]

I believe there are some footprints that we have need some comparing, so let's have it.

[supremity]

[ y'all hear sumn, like two boys being stupid


anyways, big boi feets ]

FERRIS WHEEL FUCKERY

[arcsplainist]

[ Guess who's back! It's the dumbass duo, Sora and Alphinaud; despite the loud crash just a while ago, the only person who looks a little roughed up is Sora. Anyway! ]

We are returned, with... unfortunately, naught to show for it. The ferris wheel was empty, should you be wondering, as was the area where it originally had been. However, one thing to note is that the wheel has not been broken in any way—it appears to have simply been... moved.

If there are any thoughts, I would be willing to hear them.

[misstrust]

... Is Sora all right?

[ anyway. ]

Could it have been due to an item of some sort? Something that would allow something like that?

gun info + fingies?

[dianxias]

[ clap clap! attention time ]

As far as I can identify, it appears that the guns in the sandcastle were both a match for Miss Ochako's guns, and it is likely that the parts of the others are hers as well.

I think it would not be a bad idea to use the fingerprinting kit we have left on either one of the weapons, or the shield - I think the shield would be a better option, because there shouldn't be any sand to obscure the prints, and... with the way it was shoved into the wall, I think it was likely used in conflict.

[stillnot]

[ clementine nods... ]

The shield sounds like a good idea to me.

THEORIES

[riegan]

We have about two hours left and three murders to solve still. Anyone have any ideas they want to share before it's too late?

(Theories, truth cookie reminders, u know.)

[soulus]

It isn't an idea . . . but I do have the cookies from before.

Truth cookies!

[soulus]

We're entering the last hour.

I have two cookies. Whom should I feed?

[dianxias]

The most logical choices are myself and Miss Dorothy.

FINGIES...

[evocationary]

Hey, so uh - there are four fingerprints on this shield, like - which of these are Alphinaud and Claude, you guys are the ones who found it? Any suggestions on which ones to grab?

[ she's gonna just hold it out with gloves on. y'all. ]

[uhhhmagic]

[Uh, just going to do charades instead. He wants to look at the shield? To see if any of the prints make more sense.]