trusthell | Take Responsibility.

The ride up to the courtroom occurs, as before, after an allotted period of time for investigation; the elevator waits patiently for you at each floor - third, second, first - before sending you upwards and on your way to the courtroom high above.

As always, the trip is a smooth one; granted, after everything that the morning had been, any small comfort that fact may bring is likely not helping much.

There are three less of you this time around, a fact reflected in the podium circle standing in the middle of the room; Alani, Milla and Chiyuki have all joined the ranks of the deceased, their podiums draped in black and their portraits in greyscale keeping a watchful eye over the rest of the trial circle.

There's still no one present in the lectern above; however, once everyone has found their place in the circle, the Wordsmith's voice can be heard throughout the room.

"I can see that matters are beginning to seem dire for you, Apprentices. I am sure that you all cared for Sympathetic in some measure—all except the guilty party.

And now it falls to you once again to determine who that is. For your own sake as well as Sympathetic's, hold her killer accountable and have them take responsibility for their actions."

Twenty-four Apprentices remain. We'll see how many remain at the end of the day.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, so...I checked out the Infirmary.

[Judy has her notebook flipped to a page titled INVESTIGATION, though not a whole lot is written for pieces of evidence.]

All the drawers and cabinets were thrown open, and things inside looked like they'd been picked through. As new rooms open up, I've been trying to keep an eye on what things are where in the event of more cases like this...and nothing was missing. It looked like someone was looking for something, but didn't find what they wanted.

There was something else missing, though. A cold pack from the freezer. Unless someone else found it, that's awol.

I didn't see anything of the sort. If there was a fight, is it possible the killer was injured? I'm afraid I can't see a cold pack being of much use to Chiyuki, given what Doctor Ziegler is saying.

I was thinking the same thing. It would make sense, wouldn't it? We've been checking for wounds and injuries during these trials. It would have been smart to bring down swelling with ice if they had a visible bruise or something like that.

Quite so, if they'd caught on that injury checks seem to be a developing trend.

How clever of them...

For swelling, sure. But wouldn't a bruise still be visible now?

[He. May know a thing or two about minor injuries. Don't ask how it's a long story.]

Right... A bruise would make the swelling go down, but the mark would still be there.

There are ways to cover things up, and we have a lot of stuff available to us where someone could have gotten creative. It all depends on the evidence, what we find was missing or out of place...that sort of thing.

Not necessarily. A cold pack would have reduced both swelling and bruising from an injury. If the culprit treated themselves soon enough, it's possible they stopped the bruise before it could really set in.

Oh...oh! Right, that makes sense! If you use it early enough then the bruise won't form!

[ earth to hime, you're too privileged with your healing powers ]

If everything's been looked through but nothing's missing, then our killer friend here was probably looking for something to help fix up whatever injury they had quicker than an ice pack would. That sound about right?

[Judy hums a thoughtful noise, tapping the end of her pen against her notebook.]

It sounds plausible to me. I'm not extremely knowledgeable when it comes to injuries, but if they were looking for ice right away, they would have gone to the freezer first, not rummaged through everything else.

That's what I was thinking.

[Nick gives a small shrug.]

I mean, I'm obviously no doctor here but that's pretty much the only thing I can come up with. Unless they were looking for some sleep aids to help rest their poor little murderer head after a job well done.

... So, either way, could it be the culprit has quite the injury on them? Should it be something that is checked for?

[ He thinks about it for a second...this isn't exactly his specialty here. ]