WEEK 2 TRIAL

[probe]

POPULATION: 28

Rise and shine, little sinners. Did you rest well? Hope you weren't too perturbed by the events of the day before. Things seem to be perfectly normal throughout your morning, but at 12pm, everyone will receive a mass text message to their phone.

Proceed to the conference room.

Whether you agree or disagree, soon you will find yourself physically moving toward the conference room on the bottom floor, filing into the room and taking a seat in one of the vacant chairs. Two metal boxes sit at the end of each table along with a collection of pens and colored notecards. At the head of the room, Greed, Wrath, Despair and Sloth patiently wait as the TV above them displays a message.

Victims: Vlad Masters, Steven A Starphase, Luca Valentino

Once the last participant enters the room, the door will swing closed behind them and lock them inside.

Greed is seated at the end of the table with a series of papers in their hands. Wrath is sitting sideways in a chair, leaning against Despair, feet in Greed's lap, with their phone out, taking selfies. Despair seems to be holding still to allow this. Sloth is dead asleep, head down on the table and snoring. When some of the last few people enter, they startle awake suddenly with a yelp which gets everyone's attention.

"Ahh, I'm up! Wow, it's time already?! You guys have 9 long hours to figure everything out!"

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

Hello, and welcome to your third trial! Over the course of the next nine hours, characters will have the opportunity to discuss, investigate and theorize about the events of the day before! While mini-investigations were held yesterday, today is the day characters will have time to examine the body of the victim and explore relevant locations.

There will be a mod-tag break between 4pm EST/1pm PST to 5pm EST/2pm PST. While the trial may continue and players can tag each other, mod-led threads such as questions and investigations will be on hold.

Finally, while voting is not mandatory, we do have a voting page should characters wish to vote! Please be sure that your vote is in by the time trial finishes (9pm EST/6pm PST) if you wish to vote.

Good luck, and have fun!

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Comments

QUESTIONS

[probe]

[The Avatars are just vibing here at the table.

Wrath lets their feet slide out of Greed's lap and puts their phone down, glancing up.

Sloth is floating half an inch above the chair at the table. A foot-tall scroll hovers beside them, partially unraveled.

Despair has their arms folded on the table, observing quietly. Their clawed hands have black fabric strips wrapped around them.

Greed has their arms folded over their chest, a clawed finger tapping their elbow as they seem to pointedly look around the conference room.

If you have questions, or comments, all four of them look up at you.]

[holeful]

[Wandering over.]

What's on the scroll, Sloth?

EVIDENCE CHECK

[probe]

[If your character would like to examine a piece of evidence, please comment under this top level indicating what they're checking and how. That said, please comment under the body toplevel if you are comparing a piece of evidence against a wound, or any part of the victim's body. Thank you!]

[headmt]

[it's a little early but I would likest to look upon ming yi's blood boot. bloots. anything obvious on immediate examination. what do these nine eyes of mine see.]

BODY CHECKS

[probe]

[Once everyone has settled into the conference room, the sound of a motor begins to rumble as three platforms rise from the floor between the two tables. On these tables lay three white plastic sheets.

However, upon first glance, it seems as though the body is in pristine condition. You may have to look elsewhere first before examining the figure.

If you would like to investigate a body, please comment below with the name of the victim in your header.]

BODY UPDATE

[probe]

[While Ming Yi, Gojou and White are gone on their investigation to the music room, all who remain in the room may notice that the table in the center of the room with Vlad's body glows just slightly. With a soft creak...

...the body jolts as if electrocuted, knocking itself back onto the table as the sheet covers it once more.

Investigate?]

INVESTIGATION REQUESTS

[probe]

[As the Avatars continue to watch the proceedings of trial, they are also available to request a field trip for an investigation. When you approach, all four will look up at you.

Please state where you would like to go and an Avatar will escort you.]

[sistocracy]

We would like to visit the Common Room, if you don't mind.

[a gesture to law and mahito!]

INVESTIGATIONS

[probe]

[Once a location has been requested, a sub-toplevel will go under here for all investigations to be threaded out and to keep things organized.]

COMMON ROOM

[probe]

[unfortunately with sloth, they all have to walk! :'( but luckily! it's... right next door! wow!

sloth floats ahead to lead them to the common room, and then gestures for them to go ahead as they stick their head around the door to look inside, too.]

Try not to, like, die!

CURFEW and..?

[maelstroms]

... let's get started with where we were, who we were with, and what was seen Thursday night and Friday morning. That seems to be becoming routine at this point.

[ See: Ming Yi, flanked by Shi Qingxuan. He hasn't done much to take center stage when it comes to trial days so far, because he doesn't want that level of attention. But once things get rolling, and the Avatars aren't trying to kill each other this week, here he is, deadpan gone and something more attention grabbing coming out. ]

First off, whoever took my shovel? [ Because his arms are crossed but the shovel is nowhere to be seen. ] I'm not stupid enough to use something everyone's actively seen me with as a murder weapon or to bury evidence, so I hope you got some good use out of it. Secondly, I'm submitting my boots as evidence - when I woke up on Friday, I felt them pinching on my feet, and found blood on the soles that wasn't coming off Friday, but appears to be fresh now and I've done my best to preserve them. Do with that what you will.

Third, this happened in the garden. Qingxuan and I found ourselves with Vlad, Primrose, Sheila, and Medb on Thursday night, where the plants were determined to hit us over the head. I had my shovel then and was using it to keep the plants from hitting me. In the morning, the roses had turned to stone, and the shovel was missing and my soles had traces of blood.

[shiftingwinds]

[shi qingxuan is, in fact, flanking ming yi. and though she looks a little shaken still - her cheeks are a bit pale - her expression is more angry than anything.

she's tapping her fan - folded, at this point - against her hand.]

Trying to cast the blame on someone else for what you did is just low. Whoever killed these people, and whoever's trying to frame Ming-xiong, we're going to figure you out, and you're going to regret it.

[yeets myself into doing opening prep at work i'll be busy for a bit until i get settled but just know sqx is here and Ready To Go]

MINI INVES RESULTS?

[liuli]

[ hi its mr marquis of order who can't clap his hands today because his left arm is still totally limp at his side, sleeves loose. someone please get him a sling, he's aggressively ignoring it.

anyway, nice and loudly when the attention of the room is gathered: ]

If you went out to search for evidence yesterday, what did you find? Let's start quickly and make a list of locations to search, so we might be able to get through them all with efficiency. There will be a lot to do - and most importantly, we need to find the spots that three of them died, so we can begin examining the bodies. [ a beat ] As long as we have some sort of remains.

[ please. not again.

anyway: ]

Top priority for search goes to places that hints of evidence were found yesterday. Be as detailed as possible in your description.

[alteracion]

[ TIRED, EXHAUSTED, HATEFUL: ]

There was porn playing in the common room. [ and because she's not that much of an asshole she'll expand: ] Lenore and Mineo saw it too. It was set on a cruise ship, and the bit that was playing on loop was people "doing it" in a hot tub. There's a hot tub in the common room too, so...

[ whoever did this to me i hate you ]

LAST WEEK?

[holeful]

[Fukuda clears his throat.]

I know we can't really start discussing theories about the deaths of Steven, Luca, and Mr Vlad until we have some evidence...

So I was thinking. It may have been an accident, but we did belatedly catch Tamaki's killer last week. So I'm asking if anyone might have any ideas about who killed miss Grell or Kaz. Especially given what's been happening this week.

[bonetiddies]

Yes, if you killed them, please raise your hands.

MING YI'S BLOOTS

[headmt]

[these is red bottoms, these is bloody shoes]

Alright, the boots. Seems as if they're relatively undamaged - certainly haven't been soaked and dried off or anything like that - just have a bit of blood on the bottoms as if someone stepped through blood. Smeared, not soaked in. Blood's fresh, but that could be magic as much as anything, since it couldn't be wiped off yesterday.

Here's my thinking: perhaps someone took them off of him in the night when they stole the shovel, and tied them back on Ming Yi's feet too tightly? Hence the pinching. Or, because it was an illusion, a hint to indicate whoever messed with them had bigger feet than he did. Just spitballing on this one.

[shiftingwinds]

...that would make sense to me. If someone took them and then put them back, they wouldn't know how tight he normally wears them.

[...]

And I can confirm it wouldn't come off. He said it wouldn't, so I tried it, and, well - [she shows off her sleeve, which has no blood on it] Nothing.

ITS FEET I GUESS

[headmt]

[with the tone of someone losing their will to live:]

Shoes off. Let's look at some feet, I suppose.

[Anyway, shoes will be inspected inside and out, soles for any signs of `stuff` or `blud`, feetsies for injury, and, size.]

[aubins]

[ have his feets and shoesies, molly.

oh do we need more deets. his shoes are clean and there's a little pen doodle at the bottom that says yuri killed everyon--no. they're clear. no blood.

his feet are also lacking injury. ]

powers check

[chevaleros]

[ vira is Very Tired so she's just going to rattle this off like a report. ]

To review, everyone received a power related to their sin.

Despair was the Protector, which caused someone to fixate on a loss for 24 hours.
Lust was to create plant life.
Envy caused irrational jealousy for a day.
Wrath could make someone angry for 24 hours.
Gluttony could select one body part to make larger for one day.
Greed encourages one to indulge in their aspect for 24 hours.
Sloth could make someone go still for one hour.
Pride causes pain for five minutes.

These powers were rendered ineffective by the time we received our new rewards on Friday, which means we'll have difficulties confirming whether they were used or not. But the victims may have had their powers to defend themselves... or perhaps their assailants used theirs.

[ someone gave themselves yaoi feet ]

In any case, we should likewise report our new rewards, as well as relevant powers overall. While the Avatars have confirmed they could not have been used for these latest killings, they could still play a part in anything that occurred after Thursday night.

[fatalattraction]

...I get most of them, but what do plants have to do with lust?

Oh, and now I can make someone blind for 24 hours.

LUCA BODY RESULTS

[aubins]

[ well, after a good old bit of a corpse touching, yuri is here with the deets: ]

So. Luca's body.

He was dressed as I remember was before we all passed out, but he was really pale – probably because someone cut his throat. It's a clean, intentional slice, with no evidence of multiple slashes in different directions, and it's... not too deep? Maybe around average depth.

There were two puncture wounds in his stomach as well. Both were about an inch or so from each other, and around the size of a dime. They weren't as neat looking as the cut on his throat, and were covered in mostly dry blood. Neither of them went all the way through to his back, when I checked.

He also had a bruise on his head? And a few small puncture wounds with needles sticking out of them – plant needles, rather than sewing needles. There were a lot of them on the front of his body actually; in his shirt, the front of his pants, and when I checked his limbs he had some in the front of his legs, and some stuck in his hands as well.

[ …


….


…... ]

Also his left hand was huge when I first looked at his body. It deflated not long after I started checking him over.

[bonetiddies]

. . . Plant needles?

STRIP CHECK.........................

[sengokus]

[mineo here…. presenting himself for roasting….. he breathes in deeply like he knows what’s coming.]

I tried to ask for a screen for propriety and I didn’t get one. Despair-san said that us trying to be polite and mindful of each other – it’s getting in the way of progress. So I think that means how we’ve been separating it based on politeness. If we really hate this, I mean… I guess you can steal a sheet from a body, but I think that’s kind of in poor taste. And I think Despair-san’s right.

So… I think we should at least take it into consideration and not fight about it because we’re running the clock, and if you’ve really got reasons to hide from everybody else, we can try to still make it fair. But as the default… Sorry, but we gotta check for injuries more thoroughly and openly now. We’ll try to maintain dignity as much as possible.

More importantly what we’re looking for are combat injuries, since it sounds like things got violent. Starphase-san’s profile said he’d a combat veteran too. I’ll point out that we confirmed that even if you used the healing pod, you can’t isolate which injury you want healed. So people completely uninjured have to be noted. When you’re looking over people, try to discern if it was a combat mark or… you know. [lewd stuff]

That said… I still need help. So if you can help look people over, please do. [and PUFFING UP A LITTLE] Just be respectful about it! Don’t be weird! No gawking or shaming or stupid shit! Or else you’re getting your ass kicked!

And – even if I’m not the one pointing this out! Check everybody! Nobody checked me last week and I didn’t even realize until the end. I don’t know if we checked Yuel-san either. [he’s pouting but at least he has a tendency to be honest. he actually bows at the waist] I’m sorry for my oversight, and if it makes it harder to trust me! [he’ll straighten up then] So let’s not forget.

RESULTS

[sengokus]

music room!!

[enfangs]

[THEY'RE BACK as white waves gloved hands full of cacti, some with blood on them.]

The floor was covered with these things. Some of 'em got trampled on and stuff. Music sheets and furniture were all over the floor. Also, the DJ's playing normal music again, so I dunno what was with the brass. Maybe it's about the tuba?

[he gestures to the dented tuba they presumably brought back.]

That was... Gojou, where the hell was it? The center of the room? Oh, right, there was also two spots of blood on the way there. Like, a little bigger than my hand? One was under the cacti, one was above them. And there was an area where all the cacti was flattened, but I dunno what was up with that.

[he puts down some cacti to wave his phone, which has pictures on it.]

Found a piece of chalk and a weirdass message. "My strikethrough cra strikethrough bread"? Gojou also found someone's late night dinner or something and, uh... Ming Yi found shit too! Yeah! Blood on the wall and cloth or whatever.

Anyway, in conclusion, the room was a fuckin' mess.

[gojou and ming yi please chime in]

[aubins]

Cacti? Hang on, can I take one of those for a moment?

...

The chalk was probably Luca's. He had some in his pockets, and on him on Thursday night. And the ... spots of blood, how big were they?

COMMON ROOM RESULTS

[touchups]

[BACK THEY TRUNDLE now with some STUFF.]

So! Nothing else in the common room was super messed up, but there was a trail of big footprints leading from the hot tub to the medbay. There was also another thing that looked like it could be a hand print near the hot tub, closer to my size than Lenore's, so we should probably check that.

[Prepare for incoming handcheck with flea.]

The hot tub water was red, too, but nothing else was in there. Nothing really looked wrong with the hot tub itself, either? Uh... [HIS BRAINCELL.] Oh - there were like, scraps of some kinda clothing on the way to the elevator? Nothing in there, though. We couldn't get into the medbay either, so those might be some places people wanna check out. Nothing else seemed weird, right?

[Glancing at the other two, just in case they have anything to add.]

[dotcom]

Do you thing the footprints could have been the size of Ming Yi's boots?

VLAD BODY CHECK

[commedia]

So, it seems our local scapegoat met a terrible fate! Poor man.

First of all, he was naked. It seems that the killing blow was a wound to the neck, and it appears it cut over a vein. It is surprisingly deep, around a few inches, so perhaps a stab wound, of sorts? There are also crumbs of some kind of chewed pastry in his mouth.

It seems that Vlad may have fought with his attacker, or at least tried to defend himself since there are cuts and stab wounds all over the forearms and they look similar to his neck wound. Otherwise, he has some healed wounds which I assume were from his adventure the other day - a healed chest wound that goes all the way through it to the back, and some animal-like bites near his elbows and on his calves.

Otherwise, strangely enough, nothing on the feet! So I still do not know if he had anything to do with those shoes or not.

[dotcom]

Maybe that's the bread that's mentioned in the message the others found?

KITCHEN RESULTS

[housewolf]

There are some croissants on the floor in the hall, and leading in the direction of the music room. There are some bloody footprints leading into the kitchen from the elevator. I took a picture, but it seems like they're about the same size as both Fukuda and my feet. Ming Yi's boots again...?

There are blood splatters in the sink. About half washed away?

We also found some half-melted and burnt plastic gloves in the trash.

Am I missing anything?

[holeful]

I think that was all we found? Ah, I grabbed these;

[Holds up some non-burned gloves]

For comparison. If we need them.

STEVEN BODY CHECK

[nodo]

[ did i even bother to care if law was touching steven's gross smashed everything with his bare hands? no. does it matter? also no. what matters is hewwo i have body results and law is simply unamused at this point. was he ever amused?? also no. ]

To keep things brief, Steven's head was smashed in to the point where roughly about half of his head was left. It looks like it was crushed or damaged by something blunt. His face was also beaten up by something equally as blunt. It was hard to say whether the blow to his head came from above or from the side.

[ you know...bc...of how bad it looked. MOVING ON. ]

There's severe bruising around his neck with what appear to be rope-like burns around his neck. Judging from other wounds around his neck, I would offer the possibility that he was partially strangled before his head was crushed in given that his neck wasn't broken.

[ so, you know, he was probably doing a struggle before the worse bonk known to man??? now excuse this doctor as he is going to see what the lot of you have to say about evidence. ]

[dotcom]

Hm, how strong do you think someone would have to be to cause that much damage?

ROOM 5

[alteracion]

[ when they come back in, grace is immediately doing a will smith pose at molly with the bloody shovel ]

Molly found the shovel! Totally a murder weapon, and shoved into Ming Yi's closet.

[ and no snooping was done whatsoever ]

[headmt]

[hi he has a bloody shovel]

White, clean your room.

the writing was on the wall..................

[toesies]

[BACK FROM THE REC ROOM... SO QUICKLY...]

We found another message in the rec room's wall, near the beanbag chairs. Yuri confirmed it was Luca's handwriting. It said: Went to get breakfast, be back soon. XOXO.

So... you know, that's not what I would do if I was ever about to get murdered, but okay. [Also...] By the way, did the guys from the music room snap a pic of the message they found? I want to compare handwriting.

[aubins]

[ yuri is literally walking back from doing that because i bent time and space. ]

It's Luca's handwriting.

evidence: tuba

[chevaleros]

[ okay, here's this tuba. ]

This was the instrument found in the music room. It looks like it was played only briefly, and there's some notable damage. One side of the bell is warped, and the neck is dented and scraped in a downward direction. Some of the valve tubes are scraped the same way... these are not like the cacti, more substantial than that.

One of the valve keys was broken, and it doesn't quite seem like it'd match striking a body. 

If someone was using it... I'd suspect they were larger than I am. It's quite bulky. Enomoto had an easier time dealing with it than I did.

[sengokus]

Was it just... knocked over...?

[please he doesn't understand the tuba at all]

Maybe thrown...?

hand check!

[touchups]

Hey! Mind comparing your hands with mine, so we can get a better idea about the whole hot tub thing?

[He'll hold his hand out for comparison! Let a flea touch you.]

[enfangs]

[aki why

but hand!]

SHOVEL

[headmt]

Shovel bashed Steven's head in. Spade part is beat in, bloody on the underside. Hand prints on the handle - maybe someone already had bloody hands by the time they decided to pick that shovel up to start whacking? They've also got bigger hands than me, so easy to narrow down who's they could be.

It was just placed in Ming Yi's closet, and I still believe this is someone's attempt at a frame up. There were no bloody footprints to his door, so I think someone delivered the shovel as the last step on their journey around the place. Might be a good idea to try and lay out the order of what happened with him.

Just a stab at it: Someone took Ming Yi's boots and shovel, found Steven at some point, choked him and may have done something bloody and terrible before bashing his head in. Then returned his boots, now with blood on them, tied them back on too tightly, and deposited the shovel in his closet.

[alteracion]

So... either someone lucked out that they found the shovel and Ming Yi in there before Steven, or it was someone who was staying in there?

chapel findings + misc info

[fatalattraction]

[ have two smol girls returning from their gore adventure! both of them look really grossed out. like. almost like they're gonna be sick? it's fine, probably, especially as misa starts to report. ]

So... Despair took me and Yuel to the chapel, which I guess is where we were supposed to go the whole time? We found a lot of blood, mostly under the altar and on the carpet... there was one spot specifically where the blood soaked right through one of the pews. In that spot, there were, um, pieces that... are probably whatever's missing from Stevie's head. I could only really tell there was a tooth there, but I'm pretty sure that's where the rest of it came from, too...

Knowing what we know from previous trials, that means he was most likely killed there, then taken out of the chapel and dragged or carried to the elevators, because of the way there were bloody footprints way bigger than mine led from one point to the other. So... that's what we found there.

[ she pauses for a bit, but before she can walk away to find a barf bag or something, ]

Oh! And it smells like something plastic-y was burned inside there too, but we couldn't find the source of it. I don't really know how that ties into the rest of everything else? —And, we know from Despair that someone entered the med bay that night but didn't leave anything behind. [ she looks back at yuel?? ] Was there anything else, Yuyu?

[headmt]

Blood look like he was lying still or moving around when he was bleeding?

separating the evidence top level...

[bonetiddies]

[Maybe this is silly to do before the other teams come back but why the hell not, it's 8 PM.]

At the least, I think we can surmise which evidence belongs to which murder now.

We know that Steven’s was quite the blood soaked affair. He was choked and had his head bashed in, likely with Ming Yi's shovel - meaning this killer also likely made use of Ming Yi's boots. A pair of bloody and burnt gloves were found in the kitchen. The gore on the gloves included brain matter and skull fragments, and were therefore likely used by his killer. The killer was bloodied - blood was found in the sink.

I also believe that this killer is the one who rinsed the blood from their body in the hot tub and then made their way to the med bay to recover, and left watery hand and footprints there.

[So there's that one.]

Luca and Vlad’s murders were clearly connected. Luca appears to have decided to leave the rec room for a snack, and left a message saying so. He went to the kitchen, got croissants, and somehow made his way to the music room. Vlad was also eating a croissant.

There was a struggle in the music room. A plant power was used - likely Luca’s, but it was turned against him, and he had cactus needles in his body. Both Vlad and Luca’s necks were slashed open with scalpels.

I honestly have no idea what happened there.

[fluffier]

Was it Vlad that took Ming Yi's shovel...? Steven had burn marks around his neck too, didn't he? Maybe Vlad tore up his clothing to make a rope to strangle him and that's why there were shreds of his clothing around?

[ scratches her head ]

I dunno if the clothes by the elevator were the same as the clothes in the music room though.