Take Responsibility.

[antitrust]

And when the door at the bottom of those stairs unlocks and it swings open gently of its own accord, allowing everyone back down into the courtroom, there are decidedly fewer of them than there were just a few days ago. The change in the podium circle is massive this time; Dio, Logan, Marty, Yuuri, Hibiki and Mordecai have all joined the ranks of the deceased, their podiums adorned with black cloth and greyscale photographs. Furthermore, the mass of shadows in the pit at the center seems agitated again, shifting and breaching upward toward the glass if one looks at it long enough. It's been something of a bad week, to put it gently. Not that it's evident from the Conductor's behavior; as usual, the proceedings are being watched from behind that panel of translucent glass behind podium 30, and he'll speak as soon as everyone has found their place in the circle. His words are a bit more rapid than usual; he seems interested in this one. "Temporal, Lucent, Vivacious and Universal...all four of them have been taken from you. Does whomever is responsible for this really deserve your compassion? There can be no hesitation; you should offer no mercy. It's you against the guilty. Take control of your fate, and hold them responsible." Thirteen Participants remain. You've lost five people this week, and eight since the last investigation; we'll see how many more you lose today.

Comments

ROUND UP

[openterrain]

... I think we all got distracted. Let's get back to what we know.

First off, the murders themselves. Mordecai and Marty were both stabbed. Marty was set on fire in the hallway, but Mordecai's body was left alone.

We know someone used alcohol to burn Marty. A bottle of it was missing from the bar and found broken in the hallway. Another broken bottle was in the bar itself, but it was probably empty when it broke. That, and someone cleaned it up. There was a dead chicken and some salt mixed with pepper in the bar, too. Youko found some of the pepper on Mordecai's body.

And some reason, there were darts and billiards in the hallway with Marty's body, and the floor around him was wet and mostly undamaged by the fire.

So what are we missing?

Re: ROUND UP

[icysemblance]

Thanks, Jean.

We're missing that item of Mordecai's wife, some sort of robot part fixer? If I understood it correctly.

The floor around Marty's body - was that blood, alcohol, or water?

[ninehundredlives]

I think it was just water. Alcohol would have burned, and - there really wasn't much blood at all.

[icysemblance]

That makes sense, I just wanted to doublecheck.

[blazeit]

I've got some shit to add. The murder weapon for Mordecai was probably one of those swords from the vending machine, they might've stolen it from the king. If that's the case, then the stab wounds could be from a knife they got from the king's weapon stash as well.

... One of the rooms of the victims is really empty, but the other was super messy. There's definitely multiple things missing from Mordecai's room. I don't know if anything was missing from Marty's room, but I'm guessing not. Both their keys are missing, and both their rooms were unlocked.

[ninehundredlives]

One of the weapons that stabbed Marty might have been a sword.

But there were two.

[blazeit]

Two different stab wounds... and two different wound patterns, I'm guessing?

... I'm gonna regret this, I bet, but... could the darts be relevant here.

[ninehundredlives]

The smaller wound looked...deliberate, I suppose. Clean. It would have been fatal on its own.

The larger one just looked like someone was angry.

Do you think a dart could have gone that deep? I never used them...

[perpend]

Dear gods....

[Why do they have so many violent people in this place??]

[withabigsmile]

...Maybe the sword was too heavy and tough for them to use, so they went with something lighter instead?

[ninehundredlives]

They got at least one good hit with it. Probably, anyway - and then there's Mordecai.

[withabigsmile]

Then what's the point of switching weapons?

[blazeit]

Well now, that's just fucked up. I wouldn't know about darts, but... hey, Youko, you were in the games room, right? Can you tell us more about the other, non-body stuff going on there?

[clearasmud]

Um...

Okay, there was the sword shoved behind the cabinets. There was the pepper on Mordecai's fingers. There was a personal item in his vest pocket, but no key anywhere. There was "S", and there was the darts and the billiard balls outside in the hall.

[blazeit]

Personal item?

... And for that matter, billiard balls? That's... a really weird thing to be just randomly outside the hall.

[icysemblance]

You'd really have to mean business to get a dart that deep, and I think the needle would break off in the process.

[ninehundredlives]

There weren't any needles.

[icysemblance]

Huh. They didn't?

[icysemblance]

So we have a missing weapon, too.

[announcemyvictory]

And nobody found it? I know we looked everywhere.

[blazeit]

There's missing stuff all over, isn't there? The two room keys. Mordecai's wife's thing. The second stabbing weapon... and the stuff from his room as well.

I dunno about our murderer, but if I had lifted all of that stuff, I'd probably stash it all in my room. Because nobody else can get to it like that.

[withabigsmile]

...Well, we do have someone that's known for stealing stuff and stashing it in their room.

[Man she's out of guesses this is a shot in the dark-]

[clearasmud]

We do.

[ fuck you tabby ]

[blazeit]

That's... true.

[ He's now staring at Blue hard because said person is also good at stabbing people and good with fires, so there's that. HE DOESN'T WANT THIS TO BE A CORRECT SHOT IN THE DARK. ]

[perpend]

Two different injuries...