trusthell | Second.

Second.

Friday dawns fairly quietly this week; unlike last week, there's no blood splashed around the hallway, and there's very little that seems amiss at first glance. It's almost enough to make one think that nothing happened last night – that maybe the incentive was ignored, that maybe rational-minded camaraderie may have won out over the desire to escape the Vault.

That impression will last you until somebody decides to head upstairs.

They won't get past the stairwell without noticing that something is definitely amiss - while there notably does not appear to be a body, that doesn't mean that something isn't there regardless.

You might want to check that out. Just saying.

>Explore?

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...That's not a pearl, is it?

[Well shit.

Do these fragments lead anywhere, or are they just all on the stairway?]

[There are more of them clustered a short distance away. A lot of large ones, actually. Enough to make it obvious that even if there's no blood or a body, that gem is very definitely not attached to her face anymore, and it's been rather thoroughly smashed to ensure that it stays that way.

Pearl is dead.]

[Oh.

...

...

Well.]

That's a lot of rocks.

[brilliant, siggy]

[ Oh my god. Oh, no. Aqua's been quiet this whole time, but that sharp intake of breath... ]

Pearl...

[okay, hang on, he kind of recognizes this, uh]

You know, that looks like the... ornamentation, I suppose, Pearl had on her forehead.

[...oh, shit, wait.]

...she told me she wasn't human, so does anyone know if that was... ah... vital?

I.... don't have a clue.

I thought it was some kind of decoration.

[....]

We should look for a body, the killin' doesn't look like it could have happened here.

[...WELP, there's the announcement...]

...I guess that confirms it, then. The rest of her has got to be somewhere, even if it isn't here.

...We'll have to look for her, I guess.

Pretty brutal, just leavin' a part of her for people to find.

I... I don't know.

[He really didn't get to speak to her much, but...

She called herself a 'Crystal Gem', didn't she?]

[What is everybody- ...oh.

Ohhh, that's. Okay. Right. Um.]

It's possible her soul was in there, if she was at all like the monsters I know.

[And that's...kind of blank, really.]

...ah.

Well, that's probably it, then. Where's the rest of her, then, though?

[A...bout that.]

Who knows? Non-humans don't always leave bodies, darling.

...well, that makes things a little difficult, since having a body to examine would be helpful... I suppose it's worth looking for. I at least appreciate knowing ahead of time that there may not be one to find.

Is...that what this is?

[Colress had come up the stairs after noticing a small commotion going on. He didn't realize right away why everyone was so mortified by the broken stones. He hadn't gotten to speak to Pearl much.]

How worrisome...we can only hope that it wasn't vital.

Edited 2016-03-11 17:26 (UTC)

There's no blood or anything...so maybe it wasn't a murder, right? Unless it happened somewhere else...maybe, I dunno, she fell on the stairs and it broke?

If it is that simple, then we just have to locate Pearl herself.

[He doesn't sound very optimistic at this point though, considering the rest of the reactions and conversations he's hearing.]

You'd know better than me, Cherry. There's not too many clams where I lived.

[They're pretty at least. Sigrun almost wants to collect them to give to someone.]

[Frowns and crouches a bit.]

I'd say it is. Someone must've stepped on it.

Really don't think that's it.

There's the option it came from the vending machine, but if it's not, it's hard to step on something attached to someone's face.