THE SECOND TRIAL

[strangerpeople]

THE SECOND TRIAL

[Soon after the finals clues are found, there is a beep on everyone's watch. Then, the Conductor's voice echoes through the jail once more.]

Attention. All passengers of the Eventide, please come to the building in the courtyard. If you are not a passenger, you must have a ticket to enter.

[A ticket? Oh boy. And everyone's suspicions are confirmed when they come to the courtyard and find people-many of them who had been fleeing the prison that very morning-queuing in line to enter the building. Not the Strangers-they are immediately escorted in.

They find themselves in a courtroom, with them sitting at podiums in the center. Above them in the ceiling is a retractable dome; all around on the walls are large screens, so people can watch the proceedings no matter their location. People are filing in, even as a recorded voice drones that the jail isn't responsible for lives lost during the trial-or the sentencing.

Hm.

Lilac is in the judge's seat, the pangolin in her hands. Nearby, the captured animals-sans the rabbit, for some reason, and the sheep-are inside another pen that has been set up. The force field seems to have been quickly erected. After announcing the court proceedings and registering her right to magistrate, as she did the previous week, she clears her throat.]

THE WATCHFUL	THE CAVIAN	THE BRITTLE	THE FORLORN
				THE ENGINEER

You all know what you must do. You have your evidence, and you must decided who is responsible. Remember-every vote counts. And...just pretend you're alone again, if it helps, I suppose.

[There's not much else to do. There is the option to ask for the concessions they are selling to everyone, though its mostly water and popcorn. Otherwise, you are once again on a time limit. This time, the audience is watching. Their eyes stare hungrily at every action.

The trial for the murder of Atsushi Nakajima, the Rushlight, has begun..]

Comments

[charmingheroine]

So, then, the wax King found might have been... he didn't have blood anymore, did he?

[overworker]

There wasn't any blood when his head came off so I think that's a safe assumption to make. His insides were probably all that way then.

[biddentodance]

If- If all of him is wax, then how could he be...

[eternaldivide]

... Maybe rather than a human's weakness, we need to think about a candle's weakness.

[telecosmetic]

But...he wasn't melted or anything, right?

[eternaldivide]

No. He was gouged out. But that by itself doesn't explain the cause of death, either.

[katzenpfote]

That is a very good question, actually...

[overworker]

I assume... it must be magic. The way his body was, wax was just... replacing what made him function as a human.

[She wishes she could say literally anything else.]

[technicolourdifficulties]

Magic, or the laws of reality were simply told "This is fine. As long has a man has blood, he can survive, no matter what is serving as said blood."

[charmingheroine]

So he didn't bleed melted wax. If that's the case, then... you can't simply wash wax off in a sink, I didn't suffer through Home Economics For The Lowest Common Denominator to go and forget that. You need very hot water, which would explain the showers, but... there wasn't any fragmented or melted wax in the computer room, right?

[technicolourdifficulties]

...Which suggests that his body was deliberately placed in the computer room after the fact to obscure where the murder took place.

[biddentodance]

Doubt that. [Caleb took the head away so he can't show it but-] Back of his head had a...dent in it, kind of corner-shaped. Best guess is he got hit with the computer monitor I found lodged in the wall.

[eternaldivide]

Maybe that's how his head fell off, but I don't... think a monitor can be used to create the other wounds seen on his body.

[charmingheroine]

And its cord wasn't under enough tension to do any of that, not if both halves were still right beside each other.

[biddentodance]

Both halves of...?

Think the monitor was set up as some kind of trap? To go flying at someone's head?

[charmingheroine]

If it was, why was the cord still close enough that I could tell the two ends matched? It doesn't make sense.