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

[technicolourdifficulties]

[A sudden, dawning realization.]

...If the docility levels of some of the animals were lowered, he may have been mauled.

[zackthekiller]

Mauled...?

Wait, didn't someone say there were soul eating animals running around?

[dragonmouth]

...that might not be the only possible culprit. If it was his soul they wanted, they might be able to have it without damaging the body.

[eternaldivide]

[ That would explain the.. animal but-- ]

If he was mauled would any evidence of that retain shape in wax? There wasn't anything like claw marks or imprints in his wounds ...

[biddentodance]

If they were gouged out later, to hide that...

[eternaldivide]

... Regardless of whether or not it was an animal's doing initially, it's what I was thinking. That they gouged him out later to hide the penetrative trauma that killed him.

It ... could explain the shower. But I don't know if it'd explain the wax found there.

[biddentodance]

The wax that was gouged out, maybe? Had to go somewhere... Unless you found it in the room?

[eternaldivide]

There wasn't any in the room. So the wax in the shower must've came from Atsushi. Which means that depending on the amount of wax found isn't it possible that he was gouged out there?

[biddentodance]

Possible, but....don't know how likely that is. Pretty certain that the monitor knocked his head off, and that had to happen in the computer room.

[eternaldivide]

But the monitor didn't kill him, so maybe that was to cover things up? But it'd make more sense to gouge him out at the showers than to carry the wax there.

[biddentodance]

Lighter than a body...

Had thought- tried to use the monitor first, but then that didn't work, so they went for stabbing or mauling or gouging or whatever they did to him. But...guess that doesn't have to be the case....

Monitor had to have hit the wall with considerable force to get stuck like it did.

[technicolourdifficulties]

I imagine it was an attempt to drain it down the sink that went poorly. It must have been frustrating to find that after such a draining process it didn't work.

[Goddamnit RGB...]

[eternaldivide]

[ RBG why ]

... So did they carry it there from the Computer room to do that, or did things happen in the shower room.

[otherworldlyking]

[ RGB, plz x2

He just yawns...he wants to take a nap, tbh. ]

It'd been easier if they just did it first in the shower room, right?

[eternaldivide]

[ Mithos nods. ]

I .. believe Atsushi might have been gouged out in the shower room and then brought to the Computer Room after...

[otherworldlyking]

Then they went through the trouble to make it look like it happened in the Computer Room, and thought releasing the animals would help with making it look that way. Not to mention, the distraction.

[eternaldivide]

That does seem to explain most of it, doesn't it? I wonder if something in the shower room was used to initially cause his death, as well.

... Charlotte mentioned hot water, but is it possible for that to have penetrated him instead of melting him like a normal candle would?

[otherworldlyking]

If they used it to penetrate a hole into him, it could.

[ ... ]

...That the reason it looks like they went through the trouble to cover up the "weapon"? I thought it was a waste of time to bother if they'd used something like a knife or something else sharp to kill him somehow, but if it was something else more unique, it could make sense.

[technicolourdifficulties]

[He puns in stressful situations, and it's a Problem.]

It seems like it would be an awful lot of work to bodily haul someone to the shower room only to put them back in the computer room. While that doesn't entirely discount the possibility, it does seem more likely that it occurred in the shower room.

[unwittingking]

Yeah, I think the wounds would've looked a little different from a mauling.

Unless he had...bite marks or something.

[He's pretty sure most animal's first instinct in a mauling: BITE]

[otherworldlyking]

There'd be a difference between a monster's teeth making marks and someone using a weapon to make that carving.

[eternaldivide]

Yet there was neither present.