fourth trial

[airlockedmods]

[As the last of the evidence is gathered, the voice chimes in with a call to come down to the courtroom.

In the slowly swindling podium circle McBurn and Shadow's portraits have been added and the green in their scrolling names replaced with red.

Jamie and Bolton are waiting on their floating platform, back in black and ready for a trial. Jamie still looks tired and his posture is a little more slouched than usual but he's here and there's not much else they can ask of him right now. Bolton's put on his usual showman's attitude despite the dark circles under his eyes, and he spreads his arms to make the announcement.]

Welcome, Champions, to the courtroom. Eleven of you have entered, but - in the best case scenario - only ten of you will leave. You all know the drill by now: compile your evidence and figure out who the killer is. If you vote correctly, the culprit will be executed and the rest of you will be allowed to go back upstairs.

Remember, there is no time limit but I'd advise you to keep things interesting.

Comments

[cyan_maid]

Well we have been investigating things all day, so far.

[stitch_in_time]

Maybe it was accidental? If there was a fight in the bar an' things got out of hand, someone might've tried running and ended up at the pool... whoever the aggressor was followed, and the temperature controls ended up as collateral.

[refusedtoleave]

She was. Though I'm not sure what possessed her to just jump in like that, if the ice hadn't thawed as much as it had...

[tasteslikesurvival]

Maybe it was Shadow who smashed it and then jumped in?

[Kurumi, you're not helping.]

[kingshaming]

...though if he was in the cold pool, his body would not show the correct signs of death. It was common to find bodies nearly untouched in the snow near the Ice Village. I've seen it.

He may have died much earlier.

[cyan_maid]

And if Shadow had fallen into the pool at that point...how did the ice work in that pool anyway? I've never been in there.

[bylight]

That's because sometimes she doesn't think before doing something.

[She's calling you out, kid.]

[ratherdoweddings]

I guess that's true. We should at least check what we do have on, though.

[imnotfat]

I don't think it'd be useful to disguise having touched water. That has a million different explanations.

But it'd be useful to disguise the smell of chlorine. Especially from hair, that tends to keep smells better than anything else.

[It's not an accusation yet, but he's not discarding his suspicions just because she was dry before]

[cyan_maid]

Then would the smashing have been accidental? If you're running from someone, you wouldn't purposefully break the controls of something that could impede your escape.

[refusedtoleave]

And if we wear them, they'll just get in the way if we have to check for injuries again.

[Also wearing new clothes, for that very reason.]

[yukionna]

There's a control panel for turning the ice on and off. You press a button and the room gets cold, and the water freezes.

[cyan_maid]

Then why wouldn't the time of death reflect that?

[stitch_in_time]

You think maybe someone else was already in there with the surface freezing?

[Well that would just be depressing as hell. Almost worse than the other possible reason for Shadow jumping in.]

[bylight]

There's probably coils under there, which the machine controlled.

[cyan_maid]

Well you're not going to glean anything out of smelling her hair now, Mister Togami.

[Don't you go there, buster]

[refusedtoleave]

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by now.

[Do you feel judged yet Kurumi?]

[kingshaming]

I suppose it depends on if the Overseer's give us the literal time of death based on our PIPs, or just the estimated time.

[cyan_maid]

[Eeuuuugh]

Yeah...I'd rather we have things that are easier to work with for clothes, too, and not wait for something to appear in those dumbwaiters out of pure luck.

[cyan_maid]

Well it can't freeze immediately. Even if the temperature drops significantly in such a short time, it takes time for the water to freeze all the way through. I mean, the top is likely to get icy first...

[cyan_maid]

Unless they were actively trying to sabotage us - which would make for a very poor "experiment" - I don't see why they couldn't give us an exact time if the PIPs are that tuned into our vitals.

[tasteslikesurvival]

Maybe? I don't even know. Maybe he was so mad he wanted to show the Overseers they didn't control him?

[YOU AREN'T HELPING.]

[voltrounds]

What if he slipped on the ice and hit the controls?

[tasteslikesurvival]

I don't know.. I thought maybe he wanted to get revenge on the Overseers.

[yukionna]

Would he be heavy enough for that? He was a fairly small...hedgehog. [ She was going to say "person" but. Uh. ]