The Wordsmith (
wordsmithery) wrote in
trusthell2017-01-28 12:01 pm
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Take Responsibility.
There's a door at the juncture of the building, to the south of Room 10 and to the west of Room 16; it blends well with the wall, and it's difficult to notice unless you're staring directly at it. Either way, however, it's just appeared to be dead space – after all, were it something vitally important, surely it would have been unlocked before now, wouldn't it? The Wordsmith has promised to provide for you all. That door is open now. It's hard to say when it opened; it simply...seems to have, without anyone visible unlocking it. But the fact of the matter is that it's open, and the room beyond seems to be a holding area – somewhere to wait while the elevator beyond the threshold arrives. Its doors opened without it being called; it seems it was sent from elsewhere, given that there are no call buttons anywhere to be seen. The doors slide open, revealing enough space for all of you; it won't be terribly comfortable, but it'll be safe – the ride itself is fast and smooth, without any alarming shaking or noise that implies you should probably be concerned about the contraption. It's noticeable, though, that the elevator is bringing you upward. The door opens into what seems to have been, appropriately enough for a university, a grand lecture hall – it's all polished wood and no windows, with several rows and aisles of seats to be occupied by students set behind long tables for note-taking and doing assignments. Each individual area is outfitted with vaguely outdated-looking lamps designed to make it a little easier to see exactly what one is writing. The front of the room, though, has been cleared out and remodeled, in a big way, and that's where the aisles lead you, clearly where you're supposed to go - in the center of the room is a circle of podiums, thirty in total, arranged so that everyone standing at them can see each other. So everyone can look each other in the eyes, if they so choose. The podiums are interlocked - there's no cutting across the center of the circle, and for good reason, it looks like there's a lot of nothing down there where the floor should be - and each is bearing the title of the person who's assigned to stand at it. No names, just adjectives, emblazoned across two brass panels on the very top and the front of each podium. (They're all the same height, but the smaller among you will find that there are a couple of steps behind your podium, leading up to a raised platform for you to stand on so you can see over it. It's a little more dignified, at least, than needing someone to fetch a box.) All of the podiums are identical, outside of the abovementioned physical accommodations, except for the one intended for Adelina. The podium that should bear Securing's title has had a black cloth draped over it, and a copy of Adelina's profile photo is sitting on top of it, framed and colorless, an image in greyscale. To the north of the podium circle, behind where everyone is standing, is the lectern – a tall podium raised several feet off the ground, presumably where the professor delivering the lessons for the day would stand such that they could be seen and heard by everyone in the room. For the time being, however, that particular podium is empty. That doesn't mean you won't be addressed, however; once you've all found your places, the Wordsmith's voice can be heard above any ambient noise that may be present. 'In accordance with Rule Seven, the party responsible for the death of Securing must avoid detection in order to end the exercise here at the university. Which means, naturally, that you will all be given a fair chance to foil that attempt. That is why you are all here today. To the innocent: seek justice for your fallen Apprentice. To the guilty: be prepared to take responsibility for your actions, should they succeed.' |
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[he says, doing his best not to look pale and shaky.]
What was all the probably blood red stuff, then? It was literally eveywhere, and I didn't get a look to see if her back was ripped up.
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Um... I...guess we should go over all of the evidence we've found so far. [ She'll start. ] I was in the hallway, and a puddle of the blood smears was on the ground. There were a lot of footsteps around the same size, and one looked kind of funny...like it was cut off halfway.
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[So a trial, huh...well, that's an intellectual match, and Kyrie is all for battles of wits]
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[Of course, she didn't get to stick around to find out what it was.]
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She's not looking much better at her podium, though she's ruffling around in her pockets for a second to set out her findings: a room key and a bag of some loose fibers. ]
I found these on her trunk in her room. The key was on top of it, and... the fibers [ she'll tap those in particular ] were on the corner of the trunk. They look like they came off of her dress.
[ So not any school uniform they got here. ]
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But if this's ending the course if they get off free with it, why do this whole charade?
[ Nothing in the rules other than the foreboding word "terminate" said that they had to or anything. At least she's pretty sure? ]
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Why the hell would anyone eat a tomato out of a can?
[This is... Well it's not entirely relevant, but it's a little relevant. Promise.]
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...This is absolutely sick.
[As he takes his place, he drops a school uniform on to his podium.]
I found a school uniform in the sink, one of the standard-issue ones that we all seem to have received. There were some red stains across the uniform that appear to match up with the ones in the hallway. There were also a few stray hairs on it - long, curly, brown.
The uniform appears to be medium-sized, and does not appear to be Adelina's. In fact, it appears a little too small for her. Given that, I think we can surmise that the culprit wore this while committing the crime.
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[He can't think of anyone else who has hair like that. Unless someone is wearing a wig or something.]
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MODS
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[He's not going to look at Guzma during any of this trial if he can help it. Ugh.]
In terms of pattern - there was a large amount of it on the door to Adelina's room, looking more like something had impacted it than a proper splatter pattern.
There was also a trail leading away from the door, before it ends abruptly.
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I'm 4 doors away from her, and I don't remember hearing anything.
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What's more exciting is that he has evidence to present so when he finds a break, he clears his throat loud enough for everyone to hear and holds up a baggy for them to see.]
I don't know how important this actually is to the case but I found this little guy next to the "blood" smears.
[It looks like a small metal chip, covered in the same "blood" as everything else.]
Looks like it chipped off of something, and it's sharp... dunno what it came off of but it's pretty weird that it was near the crime scene if you ask me.
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Mods!
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Boot check part 2?
Alright, all of you all with the suspect shoes, toss'em over! Let's see if there's a bunch of tomato on there.
[ And given her vampire senses she'll sniff them too to see if they smell like there's residue. ]
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[They're clean.]
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Herding cats, part 1
Let's take a moment to go over what we've determined so far.
First, we know that Adelina was strangled. The marks on her neck indicate that the murderer had small hands. The red substance on her body was crushed tomatoes. The same kind of stains were found in the hallway where they stopped abruptly. There were boot prints in the stains; Elda has been kind enough to inspect boots for matching stains.
There were signs of a struggle in the hallway, given the tomato spatter. I believe Adelina was killed in the hallway and brought to her room after her death based on that fact.
There was a school uniform with long curly hair on it, a chipped knife, and a scrap of black cloth found in the laundry room. Officer Wilde found a metal chip near the tomato stains that matches the knife. Adelina's school uniform was found in her room, and the uniform in the sink was too small for her, so it stands to reason that it was worn by the murderer during the crime.
The hair matches Adelina's description, and Kyrie brought up a point that I believe is accurate: the hair seems to have been taken after Adelina's death. There was a small blood stain on her forehead that is consistent with someone ripping some of her hair out.
Did I miss anything?
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Has it yet been confirmed what the scrap of black cloth might have been? It wasn't part of the uniform, was it?
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GENERAL SHOE CHECK
AFTER THE STARTLING REVELATION THAT the boot footprints actually might have belonged to Adelina herself, Orihime's gonna do yet another foot check.
please cooperate kimbley--or nah]Everyone! Adelina-san was wearing boots when Ziegler-san checked her body, and they were covered in the red stuff, so...the bootprints I found probably belonged to her. That means that we need to do another shoe check for everyone else, too! The other footprint also seemed to have been made by a pair of shoes, not bare feet, so the culprit was wearing their shoes at the time!
If you could please hand over your shoes so I can check the soles and look at your shoe size as well!
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GENERAL HAND CHECK
[Her hands are average sized for a 5'8" woman and there are no injuries.]
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[PLEASE STOP CHECKING HANDS HES GOING TO HAVE A STROKE]
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BLACK CLOTHES CHECK
The fabric...if we compare it to those wearing black, we can likely find our culprit, either by matching the type or finding the rip it came from. ...aah, those matching the hand size are of course of highest priority.
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Kyrie doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact there was a match with her coat. Instead she smiles coldly, as calm as ever]
My, what a development.
But let's face it, that's no more than a tear in my coat. Who's to say I didn't always have that rip? And what's more, are you going to base this whole murder just on that little piece of cloth?
The so-called evidence you have against me is circumstantial at best and completely misleading at worst. If you want to gamble this many lives on an accusation on me, the least you could do is make a little effort and give me something more decisive than simple black fabric.
Until then thinking I'm the culprit is no more than a childish action.
[Shall we play chess?]
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SELECTION.
[The Wordsmith's voice cuts in, before the Apprentices bring today's body count to two.]
On each of your podiums there is a list of your titles. All you need to do is select the one you wish to hold accountable for the death of Securing, and the rest will be taken care of.
There is no individual penalty for an incorrect vote, but the majority of you must be correct for only the guilty party to take responsibility.
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She may have kinda confessed, but she isn't going to vote for herself]
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Re: SELECTION.
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Re: SELECTION.
ACCOUNTABILITY.
Until for a moment, briefly, those go out too.
The room is cast into total darkness, the sort that not even shadows can dwell within; before long, however, the oppressive pitch black is dispelled by a bright, almost blinding light coming from the center of the podium circle.
It's a pit, illuminated from inside, with the floor a good distance down from where the podiums are set up around it; on second glance, though, it seems almost like an arena, with doors set up beneath all thirty podiums that seem designed to slide upwards, leading off somewhere beneath the Apprentices' feet.
Now that the room is illuminated, another thing is going to become clear to those who can pull their gaze away from the pit below – Kyrie Ushiromiya is gone. She isn't near her podium, and she isn't anywhere else in the room that you can see, either.
Perhaps it's only natural to look back down again, though, once that much has been ascertained; even if it isn't, the soft grinding noise that comes from one of those doors opening – the one beneath Podium #1, where Kyrie had been standing.
She wanders out into the circle, calmly but slowly – the past several hours haven't been kind on her ankle, after all. However, she received her title for a reason, it seems; she isn't moving out into the open, she won't make her way to the center of the circle, but she isn't hugging the wall, either. Just waiting to see what's coming, taking in everything with a gaze that's both cold and resigned.
That changes a little, however, when the darkness returns.
It isn't noticeable at first, maybe – it isn't the all-encompassing blackness that had flooded over the room when the lights went out, it's far more subtle than that. Perhaps your first indication of it won't come until Kyrie's gaze darts up, landing somewhere about midway up on one of the nearby walls, above Door 25 – Adelina's. There's a patch of darkness there, pouring in from god knows where and running down the wall it's emanating from, shadows and pitch pouring down like a break in the tap, slowly streaming in small tendrils at first before picking up into a proper flow, the darkness weighted like water that's been contaminated, like silt.
It doesn't behave like water, however; it hits the floor and it doesn't spread out, it remains clustered tightly together, building in mass until there's enough of it to creep out, hugging the curved walls and taking the long way around – toward Door 21 and continuing clockwise, almost as though it wants to make sure that Kyrie is watching.
And Kyrie most definitely is watching.
She remains still for a moment before she seems to decide that, sprained ankle be damned, she's going to try to retreat to the safety of whatever lay beyond her own door; she shifts her weight, steels herself and bolts, wincing in pain but coldly determined not to drop. And to her credit, she doesn't.
What does drop is the door, sealing her inside the pit with...whatever that thing is.
Her next thought seems to be to move toward Door 25, to prolong the time she has to think, to assess the rest of the room, but that's about when the...mass, whatever it is, decides that it's done playing games; the speed with which it pursues her is enough to overtake, particularly with the injury.
And with nothing left to do and no weapons with which to fight, Kyrie does the one thing she has left; after all, it's not like she has anything to lose - she braces herself and she kicks the thing. Once, twice, aiming for wherever the nearest approximation of its face might be.
This seems to be a mistake. It doesn't flinch, it doesn't draw back; it simply wraps long tendrils of shadow and smoke and silt around her ankle.
And it drags her down.
Kyrie drops hard onto her back, kicking the thing again for good measure as she goes; the dark tendrils just wrap higher and higher around her body, like a snake, like a constrictor, finding purchase on her legs, her hips, her chest - ]
Goodnight, Pragmatic.
[The voice of the Wordsmith can be heard easily over Kyrie's struggles against...whatever that is in the pit; it isn't long before the darkness has overtaken her entire body, and then it simply seems to flatten out like weighted water once again, the occasional tendril swirling out across the floor like it's trying to see if there's anything else down there.
Whatever it is, whatever composes it – it seems that the darkness has eaten her whole.
After a moment, the Wordsmith speaks again.]
You did your jobs well enough.
That's all for today.
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