Take Responsibility.

[trustbound]

This investigation seems to have been difficult for many; while your time here hasn't been particularly easy on anyone, it's been eight straight weeks of people dying, of losing those you care about - or at least, losing those you had some sense of solidarity with. There's only about a quarter of your original number left. Either way, however, there are some things that remain constant, even if your numbers do not - the corridor down below the dorms, the way the door sounds when it unlatches, the gentle outward swing of the door. The darkened stairwell that it leads to. The courtroom. The podium circle remains in the center of the room, the spots marked out from the dead having increased in number yet again; Aligula, Hibiki, Sayaka, and Alex all have had their podiums altered, draped in black with greyscale portraits set atop them. They'll be keeping an eye on the proceedings today, for better or for worse. As always, the thirty-sixth podium remains blank. Once everyone has found their place in the circle, Jericho can be heard over the public-address system; he doesn't seem to have settled any from the investigation. "Attentive and Submerged are gone - and trust me, for at least one of them, it's better for everyone that way. Maybe you disagree with that, maybe you don't, I don't really give a fuck - and at least for the guilty party, their deaths might be their ticket out of here. So it's probably better for them, anyway. Either way, I'm pretty sure I don't need to tell you what you're here to do. Once again and as always, it's the innocent versus the guilty. Whichever side wins is mattering less and less every week, isn't it? Even so, you should still put some effort in, just to satisfy the dead - so you know what, do your best!" Nine Participants remain. However many leave here at the end of the day is up to you.

Comments

[matchbreaker]

[ Honestly, Elda considers going to the blacked out portrait of Sayaka, picking it up, and throwing it across the room. She thinks better of it though, just... walking up to her own podium. She tosses the used Stun Grenade she found on the first floor staircase at whoever looks likely to handle it (probably Luca given he's close) and says, in a dull voice, ]

This was in the first floor staircase, maybe we all ran past it.

[ And then just settles down onto her podium. She's wearing one of Aligula's lolita dresses as she has been all week, but there's basically no life in her as she leans against it there, squeezing and molding Ditty. Most of her bravado she blew on her rage during the investigation. ]

[hesperos]

I kind of went past the art studio and headed straight for the art storage room first. I found one of the red paint cans wide open and a lot of the paint was missing from the can. Also, I checked out one of the boxes of clay and found that some of the clay was missing.

When I walked back into the art studio, I noticed it was feeling warm in there, but that'd be because the kiln was still warm too. Looks like someone had used it for whatever, and there was nothing inside.

[bloodisthicker]

Shut up, Jericho.

[it's petulant and childish but he's done on several levels. regardless of who the fourth was. he's so fucking done.]

...anyway, in the seventh floor stairwell, I found a trail of red paint like the one we saw in the library. Part of it was smudged, but it was a little hard to tell what had actually smudged it.

[chessturner]

That indicates the trail left on the stairs was made of red paint -- unless someone believes it was a different substance?

[chessturner]

I see...so somebody threw that stun grenade down the stairwell?

[perpend]

I looked through the chemistry lab. Several large plastic containers were missing.

[matchbreaker]

[ No response other than to dig her nails into Ditty until he whines, at which point she lets up, giving him time to become a cube.

Hell if she knows. You work it out. ]

[hesperos]

[ ... ]

Yeah, I'm gonna think that it was made with the paint. That's what makes sense to me, anyway.

[chessturner]

Wasn't the cat covered in red paint? The cat may have smudged it -- it did seem fond of rolling around in paint.

[perpend]

Blood, especially that much of it, has a very distinct smell. It does make it sound like that's the most likely possibility.

[bloodbiter]

I imagine the purpose of the paint was to lead us to the library, then... For whoever set that trap.

[bloodisthicker]

That's what I was thinking, yes.

Also, I presumed the cat could have been responsible, but I'm not going to rule out the possibility the culprit has paint on their shoes now.

[hesperos]

Wonder why that is. You think they were using those to help get rid of something?

[bloodbiter]

Do you think it would be worthwhile to check everyone's shoes, or... Would they have changed their clothing?

[heritrix]

[...Well, Rin's just going to alternate standing by Elda or Tarrlok at any given time for this trial, lord knows there's enough empty podiums for it. But for the start of this in presenting her evidence, she's probably actually near Rideaux, because of how much the evidence they found connects to one another.

Also they have props? They have so many props. Rin also has a pair of the ghost goggles, for some reason, that she got off Elda before coming in here, but those are ignored for now.]

Someone really had their work cut out for them in the library with this one. A trap was setup on a bookshelf nearby them, high in the shelves. It was simple, but would have taken time and careful attention to detail to set up.

[She's still getting out all her props here. And a diagram if anyone needs it? She drew a diagram.]

I wasn't there, but we found this heavy necklace by Sayaka's body. As you can see, there's some string attached to it, too. [Rin holds up the talisman, the kind you can get from the vending machine, and sure enough it has some string attached.] It was probably hanging in the air or somewhere nearby. When Sayaka pulled it, it set off the trap.

[And here's where the diagram comes into play, with Rin pointing out each part of the set up as she found it.]

The string was attached to a block and a homemade spring mechanism that someone set up in the shelves, which was designed to launch the weapon Rideaux found. There were two more strings lined in the blade's path, though, and it cut them when it was fired, setting off the next parts of the trap.

[...EVERYONE FOLLOWING ALONG SO FAR? Breaking to make sure (and so I'm not holding things up forever/sake of digestion), but she'll keep moving right along the diagram if everyone's got it.]

[chessturner]

That indeed seems possible...although it may not be strong evidence. [Kyrie crosses her arms. She doesn't like how she has to poke holes on theories, but it'll be necessary] If the paint was fresh enough for it to stick to the cat, it may also be fresh enough for some of us to stain our shoes with paint while we ascended upstairs.

Perhaps we should look for something that'd be more exclusive to the culprit? If clay was used for something, the culprit may have some clay on their clothes or in their hands.

[perpend]

It's possible, or to carry something.

Has anyone found anything that might shed light on what they were used for?

[bloodisthicker]

It depends how long ago they set all this up... and also whether or not they would've noticed they stepped in paint.

[bloodisthicker]

Right, of course. I wasn't going to suggest a check right now because of that fact, because I think it's probably worth figuring out what other evidence we should be looking for along with that.

[heritrix]

I thought there was a sound like a gunshot everyone ran up into the stairs after. It must have actually been the stun grenade.

[bloodbiter]

Perhaps if we run out of leads on the future, we can check then.

[heritrix]

I agree with Tarrlok, that said, I doubt it was the cat. I've never seen Dewey leave the library. Have any of you?

[bloodisthicker]

Right, that's what I'm thinking. We should probably match it up with other evidence, all things considered.

[matchbreaker]

[ Ah, that's right, there was a loud bang, wasn't there?

She rolls Ball-Ditty on the podium, but hey, no, someone else field that. ]

[heritrix]

Mm. Rideaux and I found them in the library. [She was getting to that, in the long presentation about the trap they found.] They were filled with water that was dumped out on the floor.