RECORDING 6: THE SECOND TRIAL.

[foundationmods]

The worst has happened... and now you're all here, in the living room where you first met Todd. As all of you enter, the Vessel is there - Olympia, staring balefully at you in all of her robotic glory.

On one of the tables away from the center is a small enclosed box entitled 'VOTES', with slips of paper nearby and a pen. It's sufficiently away from what will be the 'main' action, but not enough to really give anyone complete privacy as they vote.

Once everyone is inside, the doors automatically shut and lock themselves, leaving you trapped in here with the Vessel...and each other.

One of you is a murderer...however, in this game, the guilty do not need to be voted out. As long as there are enough people voted out that matches the victims...then it will be accepted.

...But, can you really let someone get away with murder...?

The choice...is up to you.

VICTIM: JACK MORRISON
PEOPLE TO VOTE OUT: 1

WEEK 2 VOTING

Comments

Evidence

[foundationmods]

Greenhouse - Area Around Body + External Examination of Body

[eyeforai]

[Another Saturday, another trial. Because of yesterday's incident, he's stuck without his usual trench coat for like the second fucking time this stay as it hangs to dry in his room, and is instead wearing whatever he filched from the dressing room last night which is just a simple dress shirt and jacket combo. Boring, but serviceable.

Anyways, he'll pull out some pictures of the relevant exhibits and a plastic bag with the half-eaten fruit (which... probably looks pretty disgusting right now considering it's been a day but yolo) and present them on a table.]

We investigated the greenhouse. I'll let Gin cover the details of the surrounding area while I take care of what I found around the body.

Jack was shallowly buried underneath a poisonous berry bush at the far end of the greenhouse, with his arm sticking out from under the leaves. The arm looked partially skeletonized, although there were signs that he clawed at the dirt, indicating that he was probably still alive at the time of the burial.

From what I could tell, the plant grew from his stomach and basically had its roots entangled all around the inside of his body, which is what led to the skeletal appearance, although it hadn't seemed to have reached his chest and legs yet. You can probably ask Dr. Romani for details of the internal examination.

Anyway, after we took care of the plant and uncovered the body, I found that there was blistering on his fingers and similar blistering around the mouth, underneath all of the blood. I also found this [gesture at the fruit in the baggie by his head--it had a large bite taken out of it along with some traces of blood, so he probably ate this before he died. Besides that, there were no additional wounds or signs indicating that any kind of struggle took place.

From how stiff he was and his body temperature, I'd estimate that his time of death was around 1-3 AM on Friday morning. There were also some small scuffs in the dirt that led away from the body, but there wasn't anything else to provide a clear trail.

[He crosses his arms.]

I think we should establish what everyone's alibis were for Friday morning when Jack was killed.

[impyroverished]

So...the fruit burned his mouth, that's what it sounds like. What kind of fruit is that?

[And how the hell did it exist inside this place, too?]

mod ping?

[tsunderine]

... Can I take a look at that?

[the fruit that is]

[she wants to see if there are any traces of magic on the fruit that she can sense]

[onemolife]

[ Yikes. That's a gruesome death ]

[cw_suicide]

So it's easy to assume there's some kind of magic involved. Or else someone brought something with them to poison the fruit in that way...

[boardreversal]

[He doesn't have anything to offer to that, but holy shit.

Even if he has to think that it was staged to look like that, it still must have been a horrifying sight...]

...Like some kind of messed up story...Poor Morrison-san.

[Actually, it sounds like something right out of Beatrice's playbook, but he can't say that.]

[noneforall]

Hmmm, that's some impressive ability if they were able to skeletonize a guy that big.

[Like for real, beefy dude fertilizer here.

And like, he does sound kind of impressed, kind of curious, but also wrinkling his nose because corpse apples and corpses.....]

How much do we know about the properties of that apple, anyway? It would be quite odd if he was still willing to eat it with blisters forming everywhere.

[tsunderine]

I was with Doctor Roman when we found the footprints, and he has photos so ask him if you want to see them.

They're dirt footprints. To be more specific, a small footprint, with a small stride, coming from the greenhouse and leading towards the bathroom.

[accrowed]

Got any more details about how small a stride it was? There's a difference between someone walking calmly away and someone dragging themselves unsteadily.

And were they in the middle of the hall or closer to the wall, like they might've been leaning against it?

Bathroom

[soupervillain]

So I think me and Subete [ damn! need a minion name for that guy too ] were the first ones in the bathroom yesterday? And we noticed someone had taken a shower late that night. Or... maybe early that morning. They weren't on the list. I dunno if that's important?

Also, I found this in the trash.

[ Giovanni produces a piece of paper in two halves, with an unusual symbol drawn on it. ]

Are all these stars and shapes anything anyone recognizes?

[cw_suicide]

No one uses the list.

[said distractedly as he's looking over the drawing]

Well, those are pentacles and hexagrams, but aside from that... nope.

[tsunderine]

I don't necessarily recognize it, but... it looks like a magic circle, or something similar.

[ghostricked]

After Sho got found out by smell, I wouldn't be surprised that a culprit would be more careful...

[sageking]

Let me see that paper.

[zweivoltage]

It's nothing I recognize, but Miss Tohsaka might be close - this looks rather like a seal, but why is it torn in two halves?

[Though he'll wait for Gilgamesh's word on it]

[boardreversal]

[MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM don't like that DON'T LIKE THAT DON'T LIKE THAT

Hey, why is he looking more upset now than he did when he was taken hostage last week? It is a mystery.]

Isn't that...a magic circle, or something?

[DON'T LIKE THAT!!!!!]

[golden_dream]

More sigils...

[frowns]

Internal examination of the body

[finalring]

[ well, roman is definitely not looking very good. he is in a distinctively different outfit, this time a dress shirt and old suit from the dressing room. he is still, however, wearing his typical white gloves. ]

I... performed an autopsy on the body of Jack Morrison. Important things to note is that, similar to Date’s results, I found that his throat and esophagus had similar blistering from the poison. Aside from that, the... source of the bush all originated from, what I think is a machineel seed that was in his stomach.

[ he will set a ziplock bag down with said seed, labled “DO NOT TOUCH” ]

The poison of the apple was fast-acting, and from the seed came the roots which...grew equally as fast. They were in his lungs and heart and, from the clotting that formed in the organs, I can safely determine that he was alive as the bush grew from inside him. By the time we found him, he was almost entirely bloodless, which leads me to believe that this was the source of the bush’s rapid growth.

[deadanimemom]

[Yuri leans in to look at the seed. She sure isn't touching that, even with the ziplock bag around it.]

There weren't any seeds like that in the greenhouse. I went through everything this week.

[onemolife]

[ Flinching at that. Sucks when you were playing pool with a guy earlier in the week and having a good time...

and now you find out he died like this. ]

[boardreversal]

[JESUS CHRIST.]

That's....

[Honestly it's less the magic then it is the absolutely horrifying part that's got him turning white.]

Then...does this mean whoever gave Morrison-san the apple intended for him to die...? I mean...

[...]

...And are you o - no, sorry...that's a stupid question.

[No one would be okay after seeing that.]

[impyroverished]

Nothing in this place can be harmless, can it? First the radioactive makeup, now the murderous plants.

[Everything is out to kill them, everything is bad. Great! Just what the already miasma-induced fear Emil is full of needed]

But...how would the killer know this would happen? Do you think they gave him the fruit knowing this would be the result? Maybe they had done something like this before coming to the mansion?

[noneforall]

[The wrinkle in his nose intensifies because wow, that's even messier than expected.]

Perhaps the seed should be checked for signs of magic too?

[Like, without touching it, who knows how y'all's weird magic senses work. Wear proper PPE or something.]

Greenhouse - Everywhere Else

[foxetious]

[Gin is also present, and also not in his normal attire. He's a bit more conspicuous than Date though, considering he's in the field agent with a jacket thrown on, and Shinsou in its scabbard clutched in one hand. His other hand has his own relevant pictures, that he adds to the piles of others for people to peruse.]

There was one set of dirt footprints leading out of the greenhouse, for starters, but two sets inside the greenhouse. The big ones were, of course, Jack's. Looks like they were moving planters around before they started breaking from plants growing. None of the shards had blood on them, but considering the body that makes sense.

[His smile gets tense for a moment, not especially enjoying what he's going to say next.]

The bush was rather irritating, so unless you want to end up like we were, don't touch the bucket.

[Near his foot there was indeed a bucket of broken plant bits, just enough for a sample. He had collected a couple broken branch ends (carefully!!) while they were still frozen, which isn't the case anymore. The outside is fine to handle, but there's a cloth next to the bucket anyway, since Gin wasn't taking any chances.]