Take Responsibility.

[wordsmithery]

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.

Comments

[tsugomori]

[ ... ]

Well, there was a huge explosion and all, so it's possible. Although, I'm not sure what evidence they would try to hide or destroy.

[avoidcomplications]

Sodium azide is a highly dangerous chemical. There's no way someone would be stupid enough to risk even touching it unless they knew what they were doing or they were desperate to destroy something.

[tsugomori]

They did seem to know what they were doing -- or thought they did.

[ He takes a breath. ]

After all, there were a lot of things in that room, I'm guessing that is one of that things that may have a toxic label on it.

[ Hearing the explanation given regarding it, that is. ]

[avoidcomplications]

Presumably.

[...hm.]

Would poison have even worked on her?

[tsugomori]

She was a mannequin, so I suppose not, but...

[ ... ]

I don't think the culprit knew that, and it's possible the culprit didn't know about the secondary effect of that chemical too.

[avoidcomplications]

If that's the case, it's a miracle we're not all dead. If that had reacted to anything there would have been a serious problem.

That said, perhaps our suspects can be limited to people who initially reacted with surprise to learning what Chiyuki was; in other words, who didn't know?

[matchbreaker]

[ It has to be basically everyone, right? She'd been so secretive with it ...

She's not going to speak up there, she's surprised anyone else seemed to know at all ]

[neverheardofhim]

That... might be difficult to figure out, unless she told someone who she told.

Pretty easy to say "Oh I knew that."

... That said, I didn't know.

[avoidcomplications]

That's certainly true. But most of us did seem honestly surprised when the doctor mentioned that to begin with. I didn't know either, for what it's worth--I only even spoke to her once or twice.

[foundfate]

That wouldn't matter. If she got hit in the game room first, it would have been easy to figure out something was different about her.

[avoidcomplications]

I suppose that's true, isn't it? Unless the killer completely missed the paint flakes and broken pieces, which seems unlikely.

[foundfate]

Exactly. And actually, it would make more sense for the killer not to know about her being a doll, then. Because if they knew, then they wouldn't have tried to attack her.

[introspects]

They also may have not known that they had made a bomb, too. They could have only tried to poison Chiyuki-san's drink in hopes that it would kill her, and if there really was a struggle, then they may have thrown the glass at her not knowing it would cause an explosion.

...Which would explain why they were looking for a way to cover up their injuries...

[tsugomori]

[ He'll just chime in from here-- ]

That sounds like it makes sense.

[feistytrader]

...If that was the case, wouldn't the explosion be in the bar?

[alchemicals]

I didn't know, but you can ask the people who were with me in the chemistry lab last week - I hate poison. I was trying to get rid of the stuff that most people would know about, because I like the idea of being able to eat without dying all over, but unfortunately it restocks.

[feistytrader]

He set it on fire. It was really cool.

[...He's helping, okay-]

[matchbreaker]

Who else is a frequent flier in the chem lab then, Kimbley?

[ Let's get some sort of suspect pool.

Or maybe she's just hasty ]

[alchemicals]

[You know what, apparently he'll quit ignoring you for trials, because that's a good question.]

I've seen Lusamine in there, and Varric likes to play around with chemicals once in a while too. I don't think Varric is too accustomed to what we've got, though, and Lusamine tends to just come in there and sigh about her poor abused elder god.

[introspects]

...If the killer wasn't intentionally trying to make a bomb and was only looking for a way to poison Chiyuki-san, they wouldn't have had to really have knowledge of the different chemicals, would they?

[matchbreaker]

Varric also tried to make bombs the other week.

[ Inhale, exhale. ... Actually ]

Kimbley. Did you teach anyone about explosives? I don't know a darned thing, but you do.

[elepe]

The only reason I've been in there is because Ms. Marker scared me when I tried to use the storage room to write in.

[Can't a woman have a quiet place to write without creeping terrors jumping out from the dark]

[matchbreaker]

She still ate and drank as far as I saw. But at least where her skin was flaking, she didn't feel a lot of pain.

[ She did wince, but she said that was possibly in her head... right. ]

[avoidcomplications]

I can't say I understand how that would work, but very well. Still, in order for her to be poisoned she would need muscle fibers, kidneys, a bloodstream--anything I'm sure most of us rather assumed she had.

[tsugomori]

Oh, I see. So maybe she could still be poisoned. But, clearly, it still didn't work out that way.

[ Hmm, he tilts his head a bit. ]