Fourth.

[trustfellows]

As the fourth week comes to a close and Friday morning dawns like the rest of the week before it, with the chiming of the clock and the doors to the kitchen unlocking, it seems, for a brief moment, that everything will be normal. For a given degee of "normal", anyway – perhaps some are on edge because there's a definite pattern that's been happening here, but for a few blissful moments, everything seems quiet. It doesn't last long; eventually, Jericho's voice can be heard over the public-address system. He doesn't sound as excitable as usual, though perhaps that can be explained away with the content of his message: "Hey. Just so you know, we've kind of got a problem this morning. Nothing catastrophic or anything, but you might want to get into the foyer so you know what's going on. We'll be waiting." You might want to go.

Comments

[trustfellows]

[So what are you doing here, exactly.]

[heritrix]

[Let's check out the cut in her arm first. It's the left arm, yes?]

[ninehundredlives]

Take some gloves if you're going to do that?

[But otherwise, she's fine with sitting back on this one.]

[heritrix]

Yeah, I'm on it.

[As a mage, you can kind of get away with not having them, but she probably should with this.]

[trustfellows]

[It is! It's also the one that's been giving her trouble since she got here, and now that it's exposed it's fairly plain to see why - it seems she had some sort of infection there at one point. (Standard infection, not like...zombie-troll infection.) But it seems to have scarred up neatly by now, given time and access to antibiotics and stuff here.

That said, it's a pretty long gash. Deep, too.]

[heritrix]

[Rin was just talking to her about this arm the other day too. Sigrun said it was an old wound, but this doesn't look old. It's scarring up nicely, but it looks more recent aside from that, if I'm understanding this right? That's probably an incidental thing.

At Susan's insistence, Rin's going to get some gloves really quick, then come back to this to check out the gash proper. Long and deep, huh. It's probably a safe guess it was made on the inside of Sigrun's arm. Rin actually knows a fair bit about anatomy, so she's going to be doing a mental check of all the important veins and muscles that would have been cut into as she inspects it. Is it a clean cut?]

[trustfellows]

[It's incidental, yeah, and not related to solving!

That said, the cut itself is on the inside of her arm, and it's definitely clean and consistent with having been made by a knife or dagger of some sort. The sort of thing that was done in one go and without hesitation.

It also seems to have started from the portion of her forearm further from her wrist and worked up, as opposed to near her wrist and working down toward her elbow.]

[heritrix]

[That's a little unorthodox, isn't it? Hm.

Is there anything else worth noting about this arm, or is it okay to move on to checking Sigrun's pockets? Elda needs a key, it looks like.]

[trustfellows]

[You are not done with the body entirely, but you are good on the arm! Go ahead and get Elda Sigrun's key, it's in her pocket.]

[heritrix]

[Yeah, given the wound she definitely wanted to inspect Sigrun's body further. But alright! The key has been passed on.

Since we're done with the arm, Rin is going to be checking out the positioning of Sigrun's body before proceeding any further. She had to touch it a little already, but she was focused on the extended arm, so it hopefully hasn't been disturbed too much. Is there anything about the way Sigrun's situated that seems unnatural?]

[trustfellows]

[Actually, no - there's some blood spray on the bar consistent with the wound happening over the bar itself, as well as a bit of smearing that implies her arm just kinda dropped off to her side like it was when she was found, but it doesn't look terribly unnatural or inconsistent in any way.

...There's also the matter of the blade she's holding; her right arm and hand are on top of the bar, so it's in full view.]

[heritrix]

[Yeah, she was... Getting to that. The dagger is evidence, so Rin will be loosening Sigrun's fingers to take it from her now, expecting to find blood on it. Anything to note about Sigrun's right hand or arm as she does this?]

[trustfellows]

[Her grip seems a little loose on the handle, which is notable, but other than that there doesn't seem to be anything too weird there.

That said, there very much is blood on the blade, as much as you would expect from the injury. There's nothing unnatural about the blood pattern on the blade of the knife itself, either - it hasn't been wiped off at all, and the blood hasn't been smeared on after the fact.

The dagger is also very noticeably Sigrun's - it's the same knife she was showing off at the party, with various etchings on the blade itself. So it's not something that came from the kitchen, nor is it a common drop.]

[heritrix]

[Rin's going to set that aside there, with a greater degree of care than she wants to. She keeps wanting this to not be what it looks like, dammit...

Let's look the rest of the body over now, focusing on the face and neck area, seeing but refusing to acknowledge Sigrun's peaceful expression. Anything off here? As clean as this crime looks, Rin's not expecting to find anything like bruises, but maybe the whiff of something in the air. A smudge of blood by the mouth or, anything strange.]

[trustfellows]

[There's nothing off here, no - the rest of her body actually seems to be fine, which isn't really going to help those suspicions.

...Granted, there's also something else on the bar that's possibly not going to help those suspicions, either, if you want to take a look.]

[heritrix]

[Well, she is, because of course she is. What do we got?]

[trustfellows]

[We've got what looks like a piece of paper with some writing on it, shoved off to the side. Not very far from the body, but out of the path of the blood.]

[heritrix]

[...oh. Okay then.

Rin reaches out for the paper, a stoic look on her face. What does the note say?]

[trustfellows]

I'm pouring one last one out, and then doing this to reset the timer. This note is so you don't tear each other apart at the trial, if they make you have one. I'm taking responsibility for my actions now.

Keep trying to get out of here. You'll make it, just don't give up.

- Captain Sigrun Eide

[heritrix]

[That note is being folded very neatly because if she didn't control herself she'd crumple it to be taken to the trial room for later, along with the dagger.

Anything else, or are we good here?]

[trustfellows]

[One more brief thing, regarding the note -

It's not in handwriting that's immediately and definitively recognizable as belonging to anyone (that is, it definitely isn't Aligula's, nor does it belong to anyone who's sent notes around for a party) but it's also generally unrecognizable at least partly due to the fact that it seems very hastily-written.

It's not hard to believe that Sigrun was in a hurry, judging by how quickly all of this happened; then again, it's something to make note of, anyway.

Other than that, we're good here. o/]

[heritrix]

[Roger that! It's definitely something Rin will keep in mind, thank you.]