week one: trial

[getawaymods]

WEEK ONE: TRIAL

Morning dawns bright and early the day after the announcement of the dead, and as the sun tracks its way across the sky, the voice's message is likely not far from anyone's mind. The fire in the ruins still burns, though as the minutes tick by into hours, the flames slowly begin to subside.

Finally, the sun reaches its highest point just as the flames in the ruins sputter out. A low, deep thrumming sound echoes throughout the entire island, which turns into ringing, a drawn-out signal that grows louder and louder until it seems as though all other sounds on the island fall to a hush.

It is then that the lighthouse beacon becomes illuminated, drawing them all to the southern beach. That same voice as before rings, audible throughout the entire island.

"There are those of you who hope to escape from this with clean hands... well, I suggest you discard those hopes. You are all participants in this game, and you will all be complicit in the sacrifices that take place here, or else you will not have earned your passage home.

You have until the sun vanishes beneath the horizon. Choose your next sacrifice, and choose who will dispatch them. Speak the names of your choices into the conch. Failure to cooperate will result in a fate worse than death.

...perhaps you should investigate the deaths. Would it ease your conscience to condemn someone to death whose hands are already stained with the blood of a sacrifice? The bodies are out there, and the evidence as well... but you will have to find it yourselves.

Tick-tock, tick-tock! Your time starts... now."

Once the entire group has gathered, the lighthouse's beacon flickers out.

It is time to choose the next sacrifice... and hopefully, to catch a killer.

Good luck.

OOC NOTES

Welcome to your first trial, everyone! This trial will take place from 9am PST/12pm EST/4am NZST, and will last until 6pm PST/9pm EST/1pm NZST.

There will be a one-hour trial break from 1pm PST/4pm EST/8am NZST to 2pm PST/5pm EST/9am NZST. We recommend that you use this time to get something to eat if you haven't yet already, play some Animal Crossing, or even just take a quick nap. During this time, no mod tags will go out; we also ask that players refrain from starting any intensive threads such as interrogations, strip searches, hair or injury comparisons, etc. While we're not going to say you're not allowed to tag during this time, we also don't want anyone to miss out on anything important during an official break.

Please remember to have your character cast a vote on the voting page! Voting is mandatory, as it functions as the activity check for the game. If you do not cast a vote by the time trial is over, your character will be killed off. Please contact the mods prior to the end of the trial if something comes up and you are prevented from voting (i.e. 504 errors, etc).

If you have any questions, please go ahead and ask! Your mods and fellow players are always here to help. And most of all... have fun!

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Comments

anaido is a adeado

[wisterin]

[ Shinobu claps her hand very cheerfully, very forcefully. It's almost like she's angry? No, surely not. She looks very composed with that smile on her face. ]

Hello! I've looked over Anaido-san's body. It seems like he fell to his death in a very brutal manner. There's almost no point on his body that isn't broken or bruised, as if he fell on top of those very sharp rocks in front the lighthouse where he was found.

[ Smile smile smile. ]

His pants were torn, and there were jagged tears. There were similar scratches on his legs. His hands were also scuffed on his palm and fingertips. There is also a bump on the right of his his head from blunt force trauma.

I imagine if the lighthouse is investigated we'd have a better clue of what happened.

[fishingforcompliments]

[well, that's grotesque. flayn looks a little faint.]

How terrible...

[wisterin]

[ Her expression softens to something more sympathetic. ]

Yes, it's quite terrible. Do you need to sit?

[fishingforcompliments]

[she nods and... she's just going to find somewhere in the sand to sit down]

...knowing that he was alive up until you and the others found him... what an awful way to go.

[wisterin]

[ She offers Flayn a canteen of fresh water. ]

It truly is. The murderer couldn't even give him the mercy of a quick death.

[fishingforcompliments]

Thank you...

[Flayn is just going to sit here and hydrate for the duration of the trial break.]

...It feels... very, very cruel. But it also makes little sense. If he was still alive when they left, there was a risk that he could have identified them... was there not?

[wisterin]

Yes. So either the murderer didn't check to see how quickly Anaido-san died, or they didn't care. There were footprints in the sand, so depending on how many sets there were... could give rise to a different theory.

[ That she won't voice until then. ]

[lacking]

[She pales immediately, covering her mouth with her hand.]

Anaido-san... Did someone hit him on the head, then...?

[wisterin]

Yes, that seems likely. It doesn't seem quite as forceful an injury as the rest of his body.

[ Her expression softens with Neena, too. ]

Please sit down for a moment, Tanzawa-san.

[lacking]

[She nods, taking a deep breath and then... finding a spot to plop down.]

I'm sorry. I'll... I'll be useful in a minute. It's just— [...] Thinking about him, slowly dying, alone and in pain... That's too cruel.

[wisterin]

It's all right to take a moment.

[ She kneels down by her side. ]

No one should die in that manner.

[lacking]

... Thank you.

[She sighs, still looking queasy.]

Why couldn't they give him a kinder death? He was such a nice man.

[wisterin]

That's a question best left once we find out the culprit.

[ Or if the culprit is Anaido himself somehow, well. ]

[overruns]

...Thank you, Miss Kocho. [ Having to look over his body when they'd just dragged it off the rocks yesterday was cruel. But there's no time to crumple over emotion. ] This information could be invaluable, though I do not know what sense to make of these other signs of struggle.

[ Scratches??? ]

[wisterin]

The scratches on his legs look like they were made while he was moving. So it could have been done during his fall somehow or it was done to try to immobilize him beforehand.

[ She tilts her head to the side in thought. ]

For his hands, he may have been holding onto something or trying to push something away that was abrasive.

[ It's hard to say without knowing more. ]

[overruns]

[ He tries to imagine what sort of story the wounds tell, but it's difficult. ]

Perhaps he was trying to climb the lighthouse after all... Maybe someone was attempting to grab at his legs from there.

[ He doesn't sound sure about anything, simply mulling aloud for conjecture's sake, and it still doesn't line up with the footprints. What, then...? ]

[wisterin]

I think...

[ Because if Anaido was trying to climb the lighthouse...]

We'll have to wait for the group who's investigating the lighthouse to return. Hopefully, they'll be able to tell us if they see more than one set of footprints and if where they were left behind will line up to what you're thinking.

[muragas]

[ Minako

pauses at the last part of the injury run-down ]

... Could you tell how old the bump was?

[wisterin]

It seemed to be older than the rest of his injuries.

[ Hm. ]

Do you know how he received that injury?

[muragas]

If it's the one I'm thinking of then... I'm the one who gave it to him.

[ she laughs, sheepish ]

[wisterin]

Did you hit on the right side of his head?

[muragas]

I'm not sure! When we first arrived here, back when Anaido-san couldn't remember his name, we went exploring on the cliffs together! Except we got to close to the edge and he slipped and fell.

[ and then died. yes, clearly Anaido has been dead this whole week ]

I caught him and managed to pull him back up, but in the process I swung him into the cliff side hard enough to knock him out. But he didn't seem to have a concussion, and he started remembering things after that, so...

[ she wasn't gonna question it ]

[wisterin]

[ i

minako, please question it?

Shinobu seems a little alarmed, but she smiles. ]

He did seem to have amnesia. If he didn't have a concussion, that may have been the luckiest thing to happen to him here. [ RIP. ] What did he remember?

[muragas]

[ haha, no? it's just like when the TV isn't working and you hit it and it gets better, right??? what's there to question ]

His name, what he was doing before he got here, things like that!