Take Responsibility.

[trustbound]

And once everyone has done what they need to do and gathered at that bottom of that stairwell in the dormitory, the door before them once again seems to unlatch and swing outward, lightly and of its own volition. It's the fourth time in the span of about a month; perhaps there's some strange, dark sense of familiarity in it. Perhaps, too, that stairwell leading further down is beginning to feel familiar, dark and unwelcoming though it is; the courtroom is still illuminated at the bottom of it, sending a slight amount of light up the stairs and guiding everyone down to that stark room made of concrete and steel. The podium circle stands still and silent in the center, waiting for everyone to take their place around the darkened pit below; once again, there's been a change in the circle itself in the form of three more podiums joining the ranks of the deceased. Fern, Tabby, and Sigrun all have their places in the circle marked with black cloth and a photograph in greyscale, keeping watch over all of you in a manner both unseeing and vaguely judgmental. As always, the thirty-sixth podium stands blank and unoccupied among you. Once everyone has found their place in the circle, Jericho can be heard over the public-address system; he seems to have collected himself at some point during the investigation, it shows in his voice, as little as anyone really wants it to. "For better or worse, Boundless is no longer among you. I'm sure you guys all know what that means by now, what you're here to do. And before you ask, because I know it's going to come up eventually and now's as good a time as any - yeah, we'd have you down here if someone tries to be a big damn hero for the group, because someone's still dead because somebody fucked up. It just means the dead person and the guilty person are the same person. So you know what, the game's the same, no matter what happened here - innocent against the guilty, fourth time, let's go! And as always, do your best!" Twenty-six Participants remain. However many leave this place is up to you.

Comments

[blackmass]

...Why wouldn't you? I obviously know Jericho no better than the rest of you, but his incentive regarding our secrets held a reasonably clear limit--'whatever's in there is going to be made known to everyone if you don't kill someone by the end of the week.' I have no doubt that had no one been murdered, their timer would have claimed one of us and all of those secrets would have been made known.

I see no reason to assume anything else he offers remains on the table, but as I may be alone in that perhaps our hypothetical culprit knew no better.

[chessturner]

That's a good point. Let's confirm it with the Coordinators, just in case.

[blackmass]

By all means, if you wish to ask, then go ahead.

[do y'all expect him to put forth effort]

[matchbreaker]

So your theory's that "end of the week" means "end of the time limit" as opposed to just being the full week?

[ That... actually does make sense, now she thinks of it. ]

[blackmass]

I am presuming they are one and the same, given the timing of events this morning--that our time limit is one week, perhaps give or take a day.

[matchbreaker]

I don't agree that Tuesday to Friday is a week, but... yeah, that could make sense to assume. You wanna ask Jericho about it?

[blackmass]

I did say 'give or take a day', but there's no need for semantics. One of you is more than welcome to ask for clarification.

[matchbreaker]

[ but Jericho doesn't like her to begin with???

Kicks Fern's podium again. ]

[heritrix]

No, I agree with that as well. [She sighs and shakes her head.] It was my assumption after last week's trial as well. He had those secrets prepared without delay.

[blackmass]

[sucks having to agree with him, doesn't it]

He certainly seems to detest wasting time.

[heritrix]

[This was no doubt a hurdle of her childhood she had to overcome eventually, with Kirei as her teacher; having to admit more often than not jerkass knows what he's talking about.]