Take Responsibility.

[kingmakereffect]

And once the allotted time for investigating comes to a close, those elevator doors at the end of the first-floor corridor open up; the ride down is fast, smooth, and understandably tense as far as atmosphere goes. You're down to less than half of your original number. The doors slide open and the podium circle comes into view, standing stark against the black-walled courtroom and encircling that pit in the center; Misa and Aqua have joined the ranks of the deceased, photographs in greyscale watching the proceedings from their podiums draped in black. Of course and as always, the deceased aren't the only ones watching; the Kingmaker will make his presence known once everyone has settled at their podium, his voice sounding out through the room for all to hear. "Resilient has been taken from you. Maybe this time the guilty party will actually succeed at fulfilling Rule Seven, seeing as this is the sixth try and all. Whether they manage it is up to the rest of you." Thirteen Survivors remain. However many will be down by the end of the day is up to you.

Comments

[notjustawriter]

[Gabriel looks pretty uncomfortable today, but that probably has to do with the empty podium beside him.]

What was... what was the state of her body? Do we know how she died?

[cherryblooded]

[When he gets to his podium, Cherryblod sets three vending machine items down where everyone can see them - a broken ukulele, a tuning fork, and a vibrator.

All three of them have blood on them.]

I found these in the workshop. It didn't look like there'd been a fight, but these and some of the heavier tools - the ones that could be used as weapons - were scattered about and bloody.

However. The blood on all of the items I found has no pattern to it. If any of these were the murder weapon, then they'd have a pattern.

Did anyone find anything else that could have been used to kill her?

[ratingspoint]

[.........Uh.]

Why a vibrator?

[He's pretty sure that's an indication that it's being used wrong.]

[cherryblooded]

Why indeed. It's not as if a workshop's the kind of place you'd want to use one anyway.

[Wood chips. Sawdust. Gross.]

[amygdalae]

[If it wasn't obvious before, its certainly obvious now just how much they've lost. Only thirteen of them now--and after this, there will be twelve.

It just doesn't stop.

Bruce only casts a passing glance to the four empty podiums to his right before he focuses back onto the events at hand. They've lost so much, and today they will lose more - but they have to keep doing this, one way or another. If they lose now then they lose everything, and the cycle will continue.]

...here's my report on the body.

[He takes a moment to settle himself before he continues.]

The cause of death is extreme blunt force trauma to her head from the right [he uses his hand to more or less cover the general area on his own head where she had been hit] - I say 'extreme' because the force had been enough to cave in her skull. Upon closer inspection of the damage done I found that she was not hit once, but multiple times with an object that most likely has a dull edge on one end and a sharper edge at the other, as there are also shallow puncture wounds on her head.

Despite the damage caused, however, there is not as much blood on her as there should have been. Her face is clean of blood and there are remnants of older blood trails on her shoulders and neck. The dress that she was found in also has very little blood on it.

In addition, there are also bruises all over her body, most likely from a struggle beforehand; they're more concentrated on her right than her left, although her left shoulder has a large bruise that seems to have come from another impact injury. All the bruises that she had on her occurred before death.

...she was also wearing this. [Bringing up the gold bracelet that she had on her wrist for all to see before placing it down.] I took it off just in case if it was hiding anything underneath, but it wasn't.

[captainobnoxious]

[Guuuuuess who has it!! Just guess. Bet you'll never guess who.

Sigrun will gladly show off her wrench which, like the previous items, has blood on it. But it's smeared blood.]

I found this in a sink. It's definitely from the workshop, I've been in there enough this week to know.

[... She'll set her bottle of hydrogen peroxide down too.]

And this, too. In the woman's restroom. The whole room kinda smelled like it too, and in another sink there was blood and water to boot. I mean, along with some of this stuff.

[isafraid]

Well... you're probably right on that mark. There's really no small shortage of things that could have been used to kill her.

[Speedwagon sets some evidence of his own down onto the podium: the toolbox and the device.]

Found these in the music room. Also, the rest of the room was a bloody mess, instruments knocked down or broken entirely.

[goodforsomething]

Keep it in your rooms, ya creeps.

[amygdalae]

[he's got you covered, buddy]

[captainobnoxious]

You can't judge people on their tastes, Cherry.

[Or how lonely they might get at night??]

[cherryblooded]

Is that key Aqua's?

[cherryblooded]

You're right, I can't.

It just seems strange to even have one there in the first place.

[ratingspoint]

...Great. Usually we don't have a weapon when someone's got a head injury. This time, she could have been killed with like eighteen things. That's cute.

[notjustawriter]

What a creep.

[cherryblooded]

Murder case. Relevant.

[goodforsomething]

Could've been. The door to her room wasn't shut.

[amygdalae]

[...you're in a weird angle from him Sigrun, he can't read what you have.]

What does the bottle contain?

[goodforsomething]

Sounds like someone's overcompensatin' for somethin'.

[cherryblooded]

Think we knew that already.

[By, you know, them murdering Aqua.]

[isafraid]

[....um]

You're saying that thing could have been used like a murder weapon?

[captainobnoxious]

Yeah, I can't think of why either.

[...]

So, um. Was... there anything that was broken in there? Like some stuff someone might've been working on? Just wondering.

[amygdalae]

Do we all have ours on us right now?

[Can't hurt to... check?]

[isafraid]

It was sitting on the bench right beside her. Don't know why, but nothing's working when you try to turn it on.

[or that. that might just be him being awful with technology.]

[notjustawriter]

Wait a minute.

That means there are at least four possible murder weapons. I guess it's possible all four were used, but... it's a little odd.

[cherryblooded]

And it's not as though her dress has pockets, from what I recall... On the other hand, it would be convenient if it was the culprit's.

Not expecting much, but just in case there's a way to solve this in five minutes, does everyone have their keys with them?

[He'll pull out his key from his pocket.]