TRIAL IV

[lesmodsalouette]

Trial

Another Saturday, but this Saturday is your last Saturday. If everything holds, if everything works out. After all you've been through, are you capable of being an optimist? The carnival calls regardless, furniture arranged around as they always are with banquet table and pit in the middle.

This week's new offerings are: a fluffy loaf of a certain type of rye bread, a hearty beef stew and an assortment of fresh pies with candied fruit and cream.

For the last time, find out who killed two of your own: G'raha Tia and Sariel.

(( OOC: Welcome to your first trial! You'll have 7 hours (until 8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT) to vote one (1) person guilty of murder. As this is scapegoat style, a correct vote is not necessary. Please remember to vote unless otherwise discussed with the mods, as that is our AC for this game ))

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garden - body & general

[uiscebeatha]

[ Cain is here to report. He stands, expression hardened, like an officer ready to issue orders. This side wouldn't seem so unusual for him if it weren't for how it...almost feels as though part of his natural brightness has been snuffed out.

On his hip sits a sword, and on his right ear hangs a silver twist earring. ]

I spent the night in the gardens along with Bradley, Hwylryn, and Sousuke. I woke up next to Sariel's body.

[ Who knew the biggest patch of dirt for him to sprawl out on would also be a popular choice for corpses to sprawl out over! He never wants to do that again. ]

Both livor mortis and rigor mortis had set in by the time I woke up. He had likely been dead for some time at that point. And, uh... He was in really bad shape, as you can see. [ Gestures to where Ish keeps the bodies. ] I'm not really sure where to start, so I guess I'll go from the top.

Most of the blood pooling under Sariel's body was concentrated beneath his head. I assume this was due to the bullet wound through his forehead. Someone more familiar with firearms may be able to understand that wound better than I could. Additionally, his hair was a mess and a many of his feathers were ripped up and ripped off.

The entire body was covered in tears. These tears cut through his clothes down to his flesh, making him a bloodied mess. The cuts generally went vertical, some more at an angle, but none were of uniform length, and while there were some sets of parallel tears, it's not a consistent pattern. The tears through to the flesh are clean, which suggests to me they were caused by something sharp.

On that note, I did find glass shards stuck in his wounds, which could be a possible cause. His body also faintly smelled of gunpowder, and there were splotches of soot over him, too. [ He has a thought or two about this, but he won't voice them here. ]

Moving on, his right shoulder was dislocated, and the cuts on the upper part of his right arm were pretty deep here. On top of that, the entire lower half of his right arm was missing. The flesh and muscles at the site of the wound looked torn, and the edge of the bone [ (the humerus, but this isn't a word he knows) ] was sticking out and fractured. It seemed to me that his arm was ripped apart at the elbow.

While moving him around, it felt like some of his ribs were cracked. These didn't line up with the cuts. But there did seem to see lots of dark bruising over his chest and back underneath the blood. While I don't want to rule out a fall completely, which I'll talk about later, his one remaining hand had the knuckles bruised red and scraped shallow. It feels more likely to me that there was a fistfight before he got severely cut up.

That's it for Sariel.

[ When he's done speaking, he'll pull out a piece of paper from his back pocket. ]

Hwylryn also helped with the investigation of the surrounding area, but we're excusing him from reporting. [ Gestures to him. Understandably. Mans might be getting kisses now but he's lost way more in this past week. Forgive him. ] I have his notes here, and I'll read them for you.

[ ahem... ]

"The wall of the balustrade in front of the castle doors has a large blood smear on it." I saw this, too.

"Right under the large stain of blood on the wall (noted above), there is a very bloody patch, shaped like a puddle, in the grass below." [ After a breath, Cain looks up to give his personal thoughts— ] Like I said, Sariel's injuries didn't seem indicative of a fall, and that drop isn't very far. I'm not ruling this out yet, but I want to consider other correlations first.

"Not far from the wall is a disturbed patch of ground that smells of gunpowder. There is a small box-bomb buried there." Hwylryn picked this up and gave this to me as well.

[ Produces the box-bomb from his pocket and gently places it down nearby. ]

"There is a bloody trail and flattened grass that leads from the bloody patch-slash-puddle in the grass, to the disturbed patch of ground, to where Sariel's body lies."

I also found these tucked into a nearby hedge. [ Cain pulls out from his pocket four eggplant-shaped sacks, made from fabric from the craft room, and also sets them down nearby. ] They were already empty when I found them.

[ Folds the note and pockets it again. ]

This concludes our report.

[safetycheck]

[ Nothing helpful to add here atm just. HELLO? WHAT THE FUCK? ]

[baebladie]

...I believe the wounds between G'raha and Sariel share some similarities.

[safetycheck]

Parallel tears, gunpowder...

[ And to two of the kindest people here, at that. Yikes. ]

[baebladie]

[ A nod in her direction at this.

And also, at the subtle insinuation. ]

[simulacres]

You're saying that the arm was ripped off? Not cut?

[baebladie]

[ Blade gives a nod. ]

...Seems to be the case, given what Cain said. That his arm was torn off.

[ Which is...hm. Sure is something. ]

[simulacres]

That sort of thing takes a lot of strength, doesn't it?

[ obviously. ]

I wonder if the cuts are from him crashing through the solarium's window. I... he has feathers, right? So it's possible that he crashed through the window and... I don't know, broke his arm in a certain way?

[uiscebeatha]

Yeah, that's what it looked like, considering the shoulder, too. It's...a messy wound and not a really a pleasant sight.

[oncefallen]

[He's inhaling sharply but yeah, still not saying anything.]

[uiscebeatha]

[ ...Glances over at Ish and Clover... ]

If this was done by the same person, then that would make sense.

[oncefallen]

[Oh. Oh.

Vanis doesn't say anything, but his hands folded in his lap are trembling.]

[baebladie]

[ Vanis is having a hard time of it, isn't he...?

A glance on over in his direction. ]

[safetycheck]

[ Ah...poor Vanis... ]

[arbalestrier]

[After listening to Cain's report, he walks over to the box as if to confirm what it is.]

The bomb is mine. I buried it last night.

[simulacres]

What?!

[arbalestrier]

[His expression doesn't change much, but a sheen of sweat appears all over his face.]

It wasn't intended to be lethal. It was supposed to serve as a deterrent against moving in and out of the gardens. Anyone who stepped on it would have received minor wounds at most.

[uiscebeatha]

[ Thank god he said something first, taking the onus off Cain.

Cain looks to him and nods. ]

I noticed you were roaming around the garden last night. I'd like to think Sariel—or Sariel's body, as it were—tumbled over it and triggered it somehow.

[ Basically, he thinks this is a coincidence. ]

[arbalestrier]

[He nods.]

It does seem that way. But I miscalculated... I was only hoping to deter any attackers.

[coldseep]

( yeah it's a good thing cain is doing the reporting because it appears there are three corpses on the body table!

... hard to tell but hwylryn is still alive. i'm late to trial so at some point early in the trial hwyl came in, looking like death itself, and while everyone congregated to discuss, it appears he climbed onto the table with the bodies and curled up between the mess that is the two of them, and closed his eyes to let tears roll down his cheeks softly.

he's doing fine. he's doing great. therapists hate this one weird trick. (maybe someone should... get him down from there to lie down elsewhere(?)...) )

[uiscebeatha]

[ Oh, c'mon bro, not over there...

Once Cain's done discussing the evidence, he's going over to the table and gently shake Hwylryn. ]

Hey. Let's get you somewhere more comfortable.

[coldseep]

( noooo... five hundred more years....

he seems to curl up a little more into himself, hair getting everywhere and. the blood seeping into some of his clothes and hair apparently, per mods. thanks ish for keepin the bodies real fresh,

softly, his voice gentle but ragged at the edges; a little raw: )

... There's nowhere like that for me right now...

[whileaway]

Ah. This explains the arm.

[uiscebeatha]

You found the arm?

[whileaway]

Yes, in the larder.

[with the rest of the castle's meats and things, which has terrible implications as he's discovering.]