week 4 - trial

[productions]

week four trial



[At 9 AM precisely, the old grandfather clock chimes once again, and the doors to the drawing room are opened. They will remain open until everyone has come inside, after which they will shut behind them. It is not possible to leave on your own, although perhaps if you have a specific purpose the hostess will allow you to go, as long as you are accompanied by a partner.

The room is set up comfortably, with several tables by the fireplace set out to assist with the trial. The Hostess will also remain in a seat near the fireplace, next to the scales on the mantle. At lunch, the doors will open to bring in a large meal on an automatically rolling buffet, and at 3 PM, tea and finger sandwiches will be served. You'll be able to enjoy the trial in comfort, of course, but the information cards set out on tables will not allow you to forget your true purpose here.

At 7 PM, the trial will adjourn for the day. Players will be escorted by the Hostess to the ballroom, where dinner and wine will be served until 10 PM, at which point players will be required to return to their wings in groups with their wingmates and will be locked in their bedrooms until 8:30 AM the following morning.]

victim



suspects



Character Statuses
Setting
Manor Rules
Cheat Sheet
Voting

Comments

Kanaya's Room

[speakveryclearly]

[Though neither Beat nor Belarus has ever been in Kanaya's room, there is a certain resemblance to what Rapture and Anastasia saw two weeks ago. Not much sleep occurs within her very neat bed. Her closet contains in chronological order the outfits she has worn so far; when before the Minatsuki murder dress was the rightmost with its gloves stuffed into the pocket, now it's almost in the middle. The short-sleeved dress she was wearing on Wednesday occupies the rightmost position today. A black evening gown, with the Virgo symbol in jade green stitching on the breast, occupies a prominent position in the increasingly slim "unworn articles" part of the wardrobe. As for accessories, the obligatory twenties hats and gloves are out there, including the hat with a veil she was wearing on Wednesday. Black gloves seem to have been picked out to go with the evening gown.

The desk is closed. On its surface are both her album of information cards, left behind this time, and the sketchpad people have seen her using in the parlor. To go with the pad she's gathered pencils, of a few different types for artistic purposes, and with much difficulty even obtained a pen with jade green ink.



The item in the cabinet is the most striking and unusual. A black sphere a little smaller than a soccer ball, it does not roll because its surface is covered in small spikes. The spikes are not uniform in shape or size, though none are more than a couple of inches long; some curve, some are almost conical, some are dull nubs. The only consistent trait is a three-sectioned chromatic composition: they are red-orange at the base, orange in the middle, and yellow-orange at the top. In this respect the spikes might alternately be called horns in their resemblance to Kanaya's.]

[respecting]

[Beat's checking the cabinet first, but he doesn't have a clue what to make of this ball thing. He can't figure out how it's an incentive either... these motives are a lot less straightforward than he had been picturing.]

That's just weird, yo... [Though he hasn't missed that the spikes look like Kanaya's horns. Mmmaybe they're... horn... extensions? Kanaya did seem to like fashion, so he's wondering if this is some alien beauty equivalent, like a weave or fake eyelashes. That doesn't explain the ball part though. After staring at it a bit, he goes to look at the drawings. Maybe there will be something like in Dave's case!]

[speakveryclearly]

[Drawings in this order:

• A dress meant for Kaoru.
• A brash teenage boy's "superhero" outfit.
• Honestly almost losing it sketches of someone with the initials A.L.
• Just a little thrown in there for Michael Altman, though you can only tell by the M with a horizontal line through the right half suggesting an A. Black, collared, dark psuedomedieval look like you might expect from an empire.

Plenty of pages are still blank. The first one is by far the best; her subsequent drawings have more and more revisions, mistakes, and crossed out portions.]

[respecting]

[flipping through them, pauses to laugh at the second one]

Heh heh! This guy a fairy or somethin'? What a dork...

[Ignorance is bliss. Beat scratches his chin at the other two, before deciding the sketchbook is probably unrelated and putting it back.]

[respecting]

[That aside, he figures he'll at least have a look at the clothes. The outfit worn on Wednesday seems the most relevant, so he'll start with that - looking the evening gown up and down, picking up the hat and gloves in turn.]

[speakveryclearly]

[Those black gloves have actually never been worn at all. The fabric they're made of is so nice there are practically smudges visible from being moved into position. The evening gown has no such taint, having been only handled indirectly by its hanger.

All the hats in the wardrobe have holes for her horns. The one from Wednesday has a Virgo symbol on the band, and a veil - kind of like what the Hostess wears. When she's wearing this, her glowing white skin would be a little less distracting.

The short-sleeved dress from Wednesday is a little wrinkled from having been worn once, fine other than that.]

[respecting]

[It all seems legit. What about the Minatsuki murder dress? Though he doesn't really register that they're in chronological order or remember that this is when she wore it.]

[speakveryclearly]

[Well, there are still those little bloodstains on the front, so that might jog his memory.

Just like before, and odd even without any context, the gloves are clumsily stuffed into the front pocket.]

[respecting]

Whoa- [He almost freaks out about the bloodstains, but then remembers that this is a robot murder they're investigating so they're probably irrelevant. And then he remembers she discovered Minatsuki.] Oh wait, never mind.

[Beat looks back up at the gloves. Hm... he doubts something she wore two weeks ago is that important, but they are a bit odd. He'll pull it out anyway.]

[speakveryclearly]

[For "something she wore two weeks ago", the soot on those gloves is peculiarly fresh. More of it is on the left glove - transfered to the right mostly through the proximity inside the pocket.]