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

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?]

[zweivoltage]

That's a good question, I know of highly toxic berries, but never something that actually burns like that.

[baitless]

In fairness, nothing else about this resembles any plant I’m familiar with, either... I cannot claim to be a botanical expert, of course, but...

[foxetious]

The fruit he ate wasn't the same as the ones that grew on the bush, so I doubt the plant is normal at all.

[A gesture towards his bucket, where there's some red berries amidst the branch bits.]

[baitless]

Oh, I see. That just raises even more questions...

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]

[foundationmods]

[Nope! There are no traces of magic.]

[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...

[tsunderine]

There's no magic indication on the fruit itself, I can confirm that much.

[as far as she's aware, anyway]

[notbymyside]

So you're saying this grew naturally?

[That's. A horrifying thought.]

[tsunderine]

Not necessarily.

It's just that the fruit itself isn't magical in nature.

[onemolife]

There were sprouts early on Thursday, so something was helping the plants along.

[notbymyside]

That is true, but I assumed someone was using plant magic on them. I saw a few people in the greenhouse this week doing just that.

[cw_suicide]

So the fruit itself was not magic, but could the growth have been?

[tsunderine]

Yes.

If I checked the plant's roots, I probably could have had a better idea if it was used or not. Of course, let's just take that with a grain of salt for now when concocting theories.

[cw_suicide]

Noted.

[oxidegreen]

When I tried growing plants with magic earlier in the week, the only things that grew were aloe and cilantro.

[impyroverished]

It could be the killer had means you didn't? There just has to be some way, but if it wasn't 'magic' then...

[Hm...]

Could it have been with something they brought? We all had some personal items, maybe they had something that could have done that.

[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.

[impyroverished]

Maybe he had gloves when he grabbed it? How fast would those blisters form, anyway?

[Date, Gin, any insight about that?]

[foxetious]

The rash happened first, and the blisters developed after. It was not instant, but neither of us was willing to eat the fruit either.

[noneforall]

And if there were gloves involved (on the victim's end), they probably would have been found on the scene, no? I don't think any were mentioned...