WEEK 3 - TRIAL

[productions]

week three 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

[pasodoble]

Well, where else could a person fall from here? If it wasn't down the elevator and it wasn't down the stairs... the roof top? A tree outside?

If he fell somewhere outside, surely there would be dirt or something on him, right?

[throe]

Unless the culprit has the skill of being weirdly meticulous in a short amount of time, you're probably right. We could always get people in the Ruby Wing to confirm when they were in their rooms for the night and work out a time from there, I guess. The culprit would need a time frame where no one could hear someone falling.

The only possibilities would be the stairs or— [ She holds her palms outward. ] Bare hands. I'm not a doctor though, so I can't really say anything about the broken bones themselves. Just that it seems plausible that they pushed him first, then stabbed him just to make sure he was really dead.

[terriblesister]

Yeah... that's the part that doesn't make much sense.

With all that blood, he'd have to be stabbed down there, right? I mean, we searched through the entire house...

[throe]

They could have stuffed him into the elevator first and stabbed him for final measure.

[ Rapture says it so easily only because she's handling this as a hypothetical situation. ]

[terriblesister]

It's not that... I mean, he was a mess, right? Wouldn't the fall have been enough?

[throe]

For all we know, he could have still been alive after he was possibly pushed down the stairs. Maybe the killer knew, maybe they didn't.

He was a deadweight worth a special artifact or $1,000,000, what makes you think they wouldn't want to make sure?

[terriblesister]

[...Yuzu swallows.]

...Because it gives us more evidence. With the sword, we know what one of the items was.

[throe]

Where else would the blood and stab wounds come from then? Unless they used their own knife, but why go through the trouble of asking for a katana when you're going to use something entirely different?

[terriblesister]

...That's not what I meant.

If you've pushed someone down an elevator shaft, why bother to stab them at all? It just gives the investigators more to work with.

[throe]

But it's clear he's been stabbed, wether it's from the katana or not. What other reason would there be to explain it?

/2

[terriblesister]

I meant it's unnecessary, so there's got to be a reason! Would you just stab up a dead...

[terriblesister]

[...oh. Right. You probably would, wouldn't you.]

[throe]

[ Rapture just waves her hand through the air, tossing off the comment as if it's nothing to be concerned about. Her lips do curl into a smile though. ]

Think of it this way: the culprit pushes the victim — wether down the shaft or down the stairs — maybe they hear signs that the victim isn't dead. Trying to make sounds to catch someone's attention or just normal sounds of pain. The culprit realizes the victim isn't dead, so he has to finish him off somehow. For his efforts, they have been given two items: a katana and something else.

The culprit, realizing that if the victim is alive it means the chance of getting caught and losing their bonus prize, uses the katana to finish the job. Maybe they've thrown him down the elevator so they climb into it to stab him, maybe they pull him from the stairs and stab him, before pushing him into the shaft. Perhaps they discarded the katana because they knew it would have been impossible to hide?

[terriblesister]

...Multiple times though?

If he was injured and... helpless [CAN WE MENTION HOW DISTRESSING THIS CONVERSATION IS RIGHT NOW] he'd be... easy to finish off...

[throe]

Would it have been better to let him lie there in misery, trapped in a small box with no one to hear his anguished cries?

[terriblesister]

[RAPTURE...

Yuzu shivers slightly.]

I-It's not- I meant they could have killed him quickly! He was stabbed a lot wasn't he! It's too much!

[throe]

Three weeks into this game and you think someone is going to consider that pushing and stabbing someone might be 'too much?'

[terriblesister]

Yes!

[throe]

Well then, what do you think would constitute as 'just right' for this case?

[pasodoble]

When the body is brought in, we can look for evidence to see if he fell outside or not. Or well, I suppose everyone else can.

( Since it probably wouldn't be a good idea to let any of the suspects touch the body just in case they hide anything. )

I haven't seen the body for myself so I don't really know... Bones can break after death. And if the body was found on the front, like the report says, could the bruises also be from after death?

( see: Livor mortis, not that Spain really knows the name off the top of his head or exactly how it works so oops. )

[throe]

The area could always be searched again for evidence of blood outside the shaft, but if was stabbed first, then pushed, the killer would have to be extremely fast to not get blood anywhere except the shaft.

[pasodoble]

Let's say he was stabbed after being knocked into the elevator shaft... There aren't many ways to end up down there, you know?

He would have had to been knocked down from one of the other floors and then the killer would have to run all the way down to the basement to finish the job. Or they would have had to fight in the basement and push him in from there.

[throe]

Depending on how the fall went and the time it happened, it could be possible. If it was late enough for most people to be asleep and no one heard the fall, then the victim would have had no way to escape. The culprit could come down to the basement, open the doors, and finish the job.

[pasodoble]

Unless he fell unconscious... that would mean he waited in the elevator until the killer came to finish him, doesn't it?

( That is. Really grim. How old was Dave? He was one of the younger ones in the manor, wasn't he? )

[throe]

It seems plausible. The audience likes gruesome murders, which means the game runners probably set it up that way to ensure it's being watched. They have to top last week somehow.