fourth trial

[facultwist]

"I think you've found everything you're going to find. Go back and regroup with Isabella."

Isabella awaits you all in the Conservatory, a room all the emptier for the missing flowers. But there's a trip down into the catacombs to be taken, and Isabella leads the way. The trial room is where it's always been, and it's not a long walk.

Half of the desks are now draped in mournful colors, though the pool in the center is just as bright as ever. Firelight flickers through the chamber, casting wayward shadows upon the walls.

The evidence has been found. The stage is set.

"Two of you are dead. The same rules apply as last week. Good luck."

Comments

[ergine]

[ "Oh, we're being called. Let's go, ███████."

As Kohaku arrives to the chamber, hand-in-hand with Doloris, only then does she realize she has left something behind: the tea kettle and tray of snacks she had set aside, following the interim headmistress's latest threat. She throws a glance back to the tunnels, but after a moment's deliberation, she decides it isn't worth it to ask if she can go back to retrieve it.

Instead, she takes a seat—not at her assigned desk, but at the empty one between Doloris and Tiera. ]

Miss Dorothy had no external injuries. [ There is no point to preamble, so she explains the results of her examination bluntly. ] Her fingertips and lips had turned blue, suggesting that she had been asphyxiated. There was some redness on her nose and the area around her lips, but no bruising on her neck to suggest strangulation, so she was likely either smothered, poisoned, or some combination of the two.

A couple of her nails were chipped or broken, but there wasn't any blood under her nails or bruises on her hands... And the make-up around her eyes was tidy, which means that if the culprit did smother her, she must have already been incapacitated beforehand. What's odd, though, is that the heel of her shoe had blood on it—like she had stepped into a puddle of it particularly hard.

[ A small pause, and then she adds: ]

There is one more thing—her body had been intentionally arranged. She was tucked in beneath a riding blanket like she was asleep, and another had been folded beneath her head like a pillow. She was wearing a crown of chrysanthemums and roses, and her hair had been fanned out around her head like a halo. [ Beneath her desk, Kohaku's hands wring. ] I think... The culprit was more than just respectful. I think Dorothy was being displayed as a martyr.

[tomestones]

[That last part is... Well, they aren't going to focus on it for now.]

Given what I found, think it's safe to say she was poisoned and then smothered with the cushion when she couldn't really fight back. Not sure how the blood on her shoe or on the floor fits in to this, though.

[shellhawked]

Someone cut a bunch of chrysanthemums and roses from the conservatory and there were some bloody footprints in the conservatory by the planters. Depending on the order they were killed, it could be Kana's blood on her shoe.

[curdle]

[ This is the first time they have had a murder and Thomasin has not seen the bodies. It makes it both more and less real, to feel her stomach lurch but witness no evidence until they all gather in the conservatory, and Kana and Dorothy are conspicuously absent.

When they file into the trial room, she's going to stand next to Mariko if she'll let her, hovering over the back of her chair, but she leaves her evidence—an absolute fuckton of aluminum foil—on her own desk. Eventually, she takes a brief recess to present it. ]

I saw a trail of muddy footprints going to and from a trashcan before the cafeteria. The prints were smaller than mine, though I can only estimate now, for I had no phone to take pictures... and there was blood mixed in with the mud. A small amount, but enough to see. The trashcan was locked, but easily undone. Inside, atop the rest of the trash, I found this.

[ She starts unwrapping the fuckton of aluminum, eventually revealing a small Tupperware full of bright green liquid. ]

There were five separate layers of aluminum foil wrapped about this container. And inside... I cannot be certain, but does this not look like antifreeze?

[ And she'll stick around long enough to answer a few questions and hand it off to anyone who wants a look, but after that she's going back to Mariko! ]

[rosewitch]

[Anthy will just. Quietly swap desks with Mariko again so she and Thomasin can be next to each other. Don't mind her gathering up her Wet Seeds.]

[rednails]

[Mariko, needless to say, is having a hard time with this. She should have done right by Dorothy and assisted with the investigation, but all she could do is cry, full-body sobbing out of everyone's way (where she might be in earshot but out of sight). This is what happens when a woman stands for something, when she holds her head up high, unafraid to be steadfast in her values. Dorothy meant more to her than she can express, maybe even more than she understood.

She wears her Briar Rose choker to the trial, a piece that she's worn on-and-off the past few weeks. Now, she wishes she'd worn it daily.

Mariko takes Thomasin's hand. Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy and her attempt at a smile is awkward at best.]

I still can't believe it.

[tomestones]

If I were the sort to gamble, I'd be willing to bet that this is what was used to poison Dorothy. Looks pretty similar to me.

[UGH, how awful...]

Whoever killed her was thorough. It was kinda weird how neat and careful things were in the kitchen.

[goldendoll]

[ of course, at this point, doloris and kohaku arrive hand-in-hand. doloris looks tired and a little haunted, tying her hair back as she settles in at her desk and pulls out her phone. there's really no point in waiting around anymore. ]

I examined the stables while Kohaku was examining Dorothy's body. Near her horse Milton's stall, I found this bloody piece of black fabric caught on a splinter? [ she holds up the bagged evidence, and she'll pass it around if anyone wants a better look. ] It seems like a match for part of our school uniform. The wheelbarrow outside had been freshly used, with snow and mud on the wheel, and it had a long trail behind it. And... I have pictures from around the stable. The splinter, the wheelbarrow, and...

[ she hesitates, like she's not sure what to make of this part. ]

Milton had something red in his teeth. I have pictures of that, too.

Mods

[hootheart]

[Since Tiera was helping calm Milton down-would she have gotten a better look at whatever was in his teeth?]

[rosewitch]

[Anthy looks somehow even smaller without Chu-chu on her shoulder, hands laid out flat and fingers spread on the now-familiar desk in front of her. It's cool, warming under her touch. She closes her eyes briefly before she speaks.]

The lounge was destroyed, with furniture knocked over, everything knocked off the mantle, and a painting impaled on the lamp — the painting of Aloysius Monroe. I don't know if that's of any significance because it all really did look accidental, but it might be.

The coffee table in particular was turned over, and around it were a number of items that make me believe that Arima-sama and one other person were there before the room was destroyed. In no particular order:

Saruwatari-san's Encyclopedia of Urban Legends was on the floor. A paper crane was used as a bookmark — I believe one of Arima-sa— -san's [she told you to she told you to] rather than Saruwatari-san's based on the quality.

Under the overturned couch, I found an empty broken teacup that in all likelihood was broken and lost under the couch in the process of whatever left the room in such disarray. Nearby to it, I also found a used teabag that had been opened and re-closed — in other words, tampered with. Other than chamomile, it contained pale grey and black seeds that had been roughly ground up. I deeply apologize, but I wasn't able to identify them. However—

[She pulls out three (3) sealed plastic baggies full of. Wet plant. One is roughly pale grey, one is roughly black, and one is clearly chamomile. They are all very, very soggy.]

I separated them out to the best of my ability so that they can hopefully be more easily identified.

[Anthy has spent so much time staring at seeds that her eyes are crossing, folks.]

Mods

[hootheart]

[Tiera walks over, leaning down to peer at the seeds. Can she tell what they are?]

[curdle]

So Kana was in the lounge when she drank the tea. She had Rinne's book with her, and Rinne's crane. Would she have overturned things in the lounge if she thought she were drugged?

[ because she didn't know Kana that well, but the scene Anthy describes sure does seem like a lot! ]

[tomestones]

[There's nothing for it but to get into it. There will be time later to mourn the deceased and curse the Interim Headmistress, but for now, they need to focus on their own survival. Dagr grips the sides of their desk and takes a moment to breathe before beginning.]

I examined the kitchen. First of all, there was a strange massive gouge in the baseboard near the sink. It was smaller and thinner than what could've been made by a knife, so I'm not sure what caused it. [About three-fourths of an inch deep, according to the mods!] The cabinets above it were also scratched up, though none of those marks were as deep as the one in the baseboard. Weirdly, the knives were untouched.

There was also a tea kettle left on the stove and two teacups in the sink. The counter appeared to be wiped down too. The teacups were stacked in the sink.

One teacup contained tea, the other - with Dorothy's lipstick smeared on it - contained something thicker and green at the bottom, mixed with the tea. [Mod confirmed that it looks like antifreze!]

I went through the trash as well. [Let it never be said that they are not thorough.] Found a couple of teabags: one chamomile and two Earl Gray. The latter were Dorothy's preferred tea. Deeper down in the trash, I found one of Satsuki's first aid kits. It seemed untouched. [And nothing was missing.] Weirder still, even deeper down were empty seed packets? One was for lettuce and the other for black caraway. [Also mod confirmation that they look like they could've come from the conservatory where Hawke was investigating.]

There's more, though. Over near the table on the floor, there were several spots of blood, about the size of a quarter. Considering how tidy the area looked, it stood out. The drop nearest to me looked a little weird, though? It was askew like it was pushed in diagonally around the blood drops. Didn't look like the blood had been disturbed by anything. There was a seat cushion next to the blood which was wet with saliva and marked with a deep bite mark and Dorothy's lipstick. On the other side there were a lot of scratches, and it looks like it could've been made with fingernails. I also found flakes of light pink nail polish which would've been a match to Dorothy's.

Finally, [dear god this is a lot] there's something weird about the tea bags here? I brought them so someone else can check them out.

[About half of the chamomile tea bags look like they've been tampered with. There's some kind of ground-up seeds mixed in. The mixture is pale and greyish and black. It will match what Anthy found in the lounge! Here are the mod comments for reference for anyone who would like to examine this closely! And Dagr remembered to get pictures of everything else, so at least there's that.]

[rosewitch]

Oh! Do you have the packets still?

[RATTLING HER WET BAGS AROUND!!]

[thanoptical]

Sounds like someone smothered someone with the cushion. Well, Miss Dorothy, I mean. That sounds like she bit the cushion. I don't think she'd be going around biting seat cushions for fun.

[thanoptical]

[Satsuki is... not looking well. She slinks to her desk, ignoring the pile of empty desks to one side of her. She takes a deep breath as she begins to speak. It's distant as if she's reciting something from a medical journal. Not out of disrespect but just because if she started to focus on things she'd break down.]

I found Kana face down in one of the loveseats on the conservatory upper floor. Her throat had been slit from one side to another. Due to the smoothness of the cut I doubt she had been conscious when it happened and due to to the lack of arterial force behind the blood it's very suspicious. Due to both of these factors I think we can assume she was already dead when her throat was slit, possibly to obscure the true cause of death but I can't say for certain. [Satsuki was very upset so it could be wrong.] There were also no defensive wounds at all. There wasn't any signs of poisoning that I could tell but I won't rule that out since I can't tell any direct cause of death.

[She clears her throat.]

The last piece of evidence is that her hair was messy on the back of her head. Like she'd been laying on her back for a while, considering she was found on her front is also suspicious. I'm sorry, I can't point to any direct cause today.

[iseedollpeople]

[Two, again.

Though she’s dodged being next to an empty desk all this time, the emptiness is getting closer. Mei glances at Dorothy’s desk, then Kana’s. Finally she just looks down at her hands, voice quiet.]

There were wheel tracks down in the tunnels, full of mud. There was also some snow. They went from near the church entrance out to the stables. One big track, two little tracks on either side. Seems like it was the wheelbarrow.

There were also some footprints. About my size, in flat shoes... Mostly muddy, with a little blood.

I don’t know what they were transporting, but everything was pretty dry, so it must have happened in the night.

[thanoptical]

My guess is they were moving Miss Dorothy. A body is heavy and to move someone from the kitchen to the stables would take a while and a lot of effort.

[tomestones]

Seems pretty likely it was Dorothy's body, after she was poisoned and smothered to death.

[That just... it sounds so damn wrong, but they can't allow themselves time to get stuck on it. Keep moving.]

Do you think you could narrow down who could've made those footprints?

[shellhawked]

[Hawke walks down to the catacombs with a supportive arm around Satsuki's shoulders and a momentary reluctance to let her go to her desk alone when they get there. This has become routine now though and Hawke is making a point not to look at the sea of empty desks on her side of the circle.]

There was a bloody gym towel on the loveseat next to where we found Kana's body. Based on the amount of blood on it, it looks like it's what was used to wipe off the knife used on Kana. [She has it here and even thought to put it in a plastic baggie from the kitchen.] As for the rest of the conservatory, someone had left gardening shears near one of the planters and cut a lot of chrysanthemums and a few roses from the first floor. I found some bloody footprints tracking from the planters to the door and snapped some pictures.

[She pauses to pinch the bridge of her nose, exhaling a slow breath.] Someone had gone through the garden supply cabinets too, specifically the seed storage. The organization isn't great so I couldn't immediately tell what was missing or how much but someone was clearly going through them.

[rosewitch]

I think the seeds that ended up in the tea were most likely what was missing from storage. [Occam's razor. But you never fucking know around here. Sometimes people build chlorine bombs.]

shoe size check

[iseedollpeople]

Judging by the matching footprints in the cafeteria, conservatory and tunnels... We're looking for someone around my size.

[...]

You can compare to me, then. Also, show me the bottoms of your shoes, just in case.

[The culprit's probably changed or cleaned their shoes by now, judging by the amount of preparations and setup in the scenes, but you never know.]

[thanoptical]

[Satsuki just is going to put her sneakers next to Mei's. Like the rest of her they're covered in blood.]

injury/weapon check

[goldendoll]

[ she sighs, shrugging off her coat to show the slightly oversized black shirt hanging loosely on her shoulders, tank top straps visible. ]

Okay, everyone, two things. First, just a patdown from everyone to see if any of us have what could have been the murder weapon for Kana on them, since it wasn't found. And, um... Kohaku, Himemiya, Mariko, Alena, Mei, I'll check the rest of you for injuries, too, if none of you mind? Uh, as for me... Kohaku, can you check me?

[kickdownthatwall]

No problem. I am good to go when you are!

Catherd

[thanoptical]

[If they don't find out who killed Kana--they would all die. She wouldn't be able to at least look at the person who did it in the face. She wouldn't blame them but... she needed to find them. So she could vote.

Satsuki stands up, clearing her throat.]

I'm... sorry for interrupting but we're not finished yet.

For what we know about Kana is that she probably drank something, knocked herself out, and then had her throat slit. She had nothing to do with Dorothy's death and probably died afterwards. We don't have a murder weapon. I'm... not sure. I think that's everything.

[ergine]

I don't think it should be too hard to figure out. It's just a question of who has the requisite knowledge and tools.

VOTING

[facultwist]

[ The loudspeakers crackle to life, but it's a second before the Headmistress speaks. ]

... Vote. One or two culprits and- you know the rest.

[kickdownthatwall]

... You could always just tell us terms of stupid curse and quit this nonsense. Or whatever it is.

>Anthy Himemiya

>Kohaku Fujou

....

Ptooey.

EXECUTION - veneficarum terminus est (cw passive suicidality)

[facultwist]

Two for two. You have your culprits. Let’s… not draw this one out.

[ The moments before an execution are familiar. Darkness. The projector. You’ve seen the same three times before this.

The two culprits, Kohaku and Anthy, stand back to back in the middle of what anyone here will recognize as a nearby lake. The surface is frozen over beneath them, and their arms are tied to their sides. Scratched into the ice around them is a message, in the same writing as the weeks before. ]

FIND YOUR WAY TO SHORE.

[ It is easy to see the pattern of the thin ice out on across the lake, and the nigh impossible challenge set forth for the two poisoners. You may even start to think about the path that they might take, how there are footpaths that are probably good enough, if not perfect. There is indeed a path to salvation, it’s just a matter of waiting for the two to take it.

But they don’t.

Kohaku is the first not to move. She simply sits down. After a moment, Anthy follows suit.

A long moment passes. Two long moments. Before long, it’s been a full minute. No death waits where they stand, but neither murderer longs for life enough to try for it. And so the execution stands at an impasse. ]

Ooooor maybe we are drawing this one out, okay.

[ They show no signs of moving. There’s another long pause. But then, something shifts in the scene. The ice begins to melt in spots, until it spells out: ]

THEN DODGE.

[ The Headmistress, uncharacteristically distressed: ]

NO, what are you-

[ But she cuts out, replaced by the CHK-CHK-CHK static of the announcement in last week’s execution, bursts of static interrupted by a simple. ]

What must. Be done.

[ The first stone flies, and it isn’t large enough to do more than leave a gash in Kohaku’s forehead. But Kohaku has endured worse, hasn’t she?

The second stone flies, hitting Anthy in the gut. Then a third flies, bigger. And more. And more.

It’s not drawn out. It’s not long. Because by the time the two have been bludgeoned out of consciousness, the weight of the rocks breaks the ice, dragging them into the water from which they do not emerge. All that’s left is streaks of red sprayed across the white, and the wind as the blizzard starts to pick back up.

Anthy Himemiya and Kohaku Fujou are dead.

The lights come back up. ]

Fuck, shit, I… just get out. All of you. Go have your afterparty. Isabella, make them another cake or something since you’re so fucking nice. Management has to have a fucking meeting!

[kickdownthatwall]

[...........]

We are dealing with too many layers of evil ghost witch or something. I am going to make blini for dealing with all of this, I think.