15strangers | FINAL TRIAL

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FINAL TRIAL

FINAL TRIAL

[Once everyone has managed to gather every piece of evidence they can get their hands on, there is, at last, a sense that they can go up to the top on the elevator that works. Granted, with access now granted, they probably could have gone up at any time, but it they would have been ill-prepared for what might be up there.

In any case, they might not have needed to worry.]

[Barbara will no doubt recognize this place as where Marie brought her just the previous week. It is a master control room, filled with buttons and levers that line the walls. However, the dome also allows for a view of what's outside - of the skies, the stars, the planets. The alpine valley the Base is situated, with its bubbling waterfall, and the crystal-clear blue lake it empties into, surrounded by flowers below the Base's base. The lake itself empties into a crystal clear river that looks to be narrow, but deep and rapid.

In the center of the room, near where the elevator rises out of the floor, is a chair, with a giant plush of that cheeky raccoon snuggled into it. Once everyone has come into the room, the elevator melts into the floor with a slurping sound. Now, everyone is here - and there's only one seat, meaning almost everyone will be standing for the duration of this discussion. There's no food or drink here, either - the Titled will have to make do with whatever they brought with them.

There's is a rumble below, as the Titled, together with Bottson and their menagerie of animals - gather together for one last trial. Everyone and everything in this universe may be at stake, and ultimately, either they all go home - or no one will.]

[It's time! The objectives are simple in this trial. It's time to finally answer the questions the Titled have about why they are here - and face the Mastermind of the Base.

Most importantly, though - who's got dibs on that chair? It's the only one in the room!

In any case, good luck, Titled!]

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[ Baku is doing... Better. Honestly he's mostly still pissy. ]

...

[ Poking the giant stuffed animal in the chair. ]

This child has an unhealthy obsession with this raccoon. Sorry, yes, the entries.

Actually that's surprisingly relevant, Miss Halley wrote about the raccoon in her entries.

The raccoon isn't relevant at all beyond an unhealthy obsession. Really. There was a playroom from Hell full of them, some of them destroyed. I don't want to think about it.

[And meanwhile, Texas Man is having himself a Moment because he looked up at the dome. The sky. They can see the sky.

It's not the sky, of course. This isn't Earth, and that isn't Earth's sky, but it's a sky, and after so long without so much as a window the sight's enough to set Jonathan's eyes streaming again.

He swipes the tears away, and they don't continue, but he can't help laughing at himself.]

There was a statue of it in what I'd guess is her bedroom. Found it with my shin... and she's probably not a kid anymore, there were cigarettes there too, in the desk. She kept writing about how she was... born to end this universe or something like that. Even though she started sympathizing with "it", with her, and maybe caring about the kid.

Still, all of that, and... she's not here.

[He wasn't really expecting someone on a throne tossing a wineglass at him, but really... once you hit the throne room, the boss is there, you dodge some fireballs and armpit bats and go home, right?]

I think I found the last of the journal entries. The ones I found talk about a....baby. And about us. They end with Halley-san's departure, so we were here before she left.

Edited 2018-08-17 16:30 (UTC)

The baby was apparently destroying everything in here.

[ He swallows. This is an uncomfortable subject to him, a little too close to home. ]

To be fair, if we're inside a person, it's to be expected. Babies grow. But on the bigger subject: I'm not sure Miss Halley will be able to go through with it if there's sympathy involved. It's a charmingly human thing, really. The ability to choose one's fate, regardless of what's decided for them.

I'm not sure how far her sympathy goes... The baby is born, Halley-san didn't want him to watch his mother die, but seemed resolved to kill her.

Then why isn't the lady dead yet? It's easy to kill a person.

[ I MEAN. YOU SHOULD KNOW. ]

Kid's old enough to be going to school, looking at what Nagisa found... I can't keep all the time straight.

My point is, from our perspective, she left over four weeks ago. If she was really intent on killing the person we're in, that person should be dead. I think she can't bring herself to do it.

[ Not commenting either way on how he views that tbh ]

But time moves weird here. That's got to be important somehow. And Marie said we had a couple of weeks, which should be up right about now, but... if time moves faster in here than it does outside, which it looks like it does, then... I don't know, I'm not the one who does the thinking, I just hit stuff!

Based on the dates, roughly a thousand years passed here during the child's first year. Even the deadliest poisons take some time to kill once the sumptomskick in.

If it's been only a few hours on the outside...that would fit, right? And on the inside it sounds more like a war than an assassination - those take time, too.

Okay but Marie said a lot of things. And honestly, if we're sitting at the deadline and nothing at all has changed? I don't see why it would now. The only thing that's really changed since the first week is the return of our memories and the fact we have access here.

[ A shrug. ]

We'd have seen some effects by now, is what I mean. Not immediate death, but... Something?

Remember, we've been isolated in "enemy" territory. Halley-san intended to leave.

It'd be foolish to let your escape route be affected by your own sabotage.

Intentions mean nothing when it comes to actual action. Resolve means more than intentions, and resolve is easily broken. If the body is poisoned, it won't matter where we are. Something would be changing. There'd be something. I know far too well how fast poisons work on a body.

[ A girl on the floor as he opens the door to her room, pale as a corpse and pained flashes through his mind. He'd only been gone a few hours. Just a single errand. ]

Changing, yeah, but we had no way of knowing what was even outside this base until very recently. We haven't been able to see the changes because they'd be outside this base.

["Which of them are worthy?" Nagisa's blood boils at the memory. Sick in the head, watching the victims suffer fevers, coughing up blood...]

I mean I'd imagine we'd feel tremors or something. It's not going to be all visual. A body shutdown isn't going to spare anywhere.

That's true....though maybe the base's support systems were designed to manage that. I've been on a spaceship before; this isn't exactly the same, but it's not like this would've been designed without the process of her death in mind...