robowest | [ WEEK THREE

TRIAL

In the morning, the town comes back to life. Birds crow overhead, a snake nearby hisses, a lingering coyote dips behind a shop before disappearing into the wild. It's a frightening contrast to the stillness of yesterday but it doesn't mean it's over yet. After all, today is the trial.

The Sheriff stands on the porch of the Town Hall and brings his hand up to his mouth to let out a whistle. He'll thumb back to the Hall behind him and very clearly state --

"Trial time, folks. Get in here and figure out who did it."

And then he'll turn to leave before pausing and adding on,

"Bring a snack or somethin' too.

The Town Hall is set up more like a court house, a Judge's bench at the front but instead of at center, it's off to the side as if more for observation than participation. There's a table at the front of the room already holding a small box and a pad of papers and pen, for voting apparently. A side room containing only a metal gurney is next and today it's obvious why there's a gurney there at all with the corpse, resting right on top of it. Aside from that, there are rows for everyone to take a seat and it's only after everyone is inside and settled, that the doors close and the Sheriff speaks.

"Well, have at it. You've got till nine."

And then, he points to a clock on the wall that reads 12:00. Good luck.

Welcome to the trial post! Characters are free to discuss everything related to the trial here. They won't be let out of the room until 9PM when voting ends. Every character must vote and the voting post can be found here.

If there are any questions, please shoot a message to this journal or to

robowest.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

All right.

I'll be standing by.

[she sure is proud of you two]

[And now that that's done.]

All three of them were just victims. No roles, no special privileges, no Bandit status...nothing.

[exhales in a bit of frustration]

We're back to where we began.

Give me a moment. I'll summarize what we've found so far. I may have another angle we can look at this murder with.

... Great. Back to square one, huh?

Yeah, I guess so. At least we have a couple of hours this time.

[and then--]

Ah.

You did well, Percy.

[He's not sure which is worse, but it's good to know. So he bows his head and nods in response.]

The summary would be great, Milla. [Please don't tell him he did well, he's too conflicted at the moment.]

... Time to switch tracks, then. I wonder if the Sheriff would be willing to tell Milla how many culprits we're looking for now? It's been a couple of hours.

Yeah, maybe. That's the one really big piece we're missing. I don't know if I totally believe Nui's the one who killed Annabeth and Riku.

Framing her because she had a target on her back, then taking her out too...

[it seems possible.]

I want to retouch on that theory. It's too easy to pin Nui on it because if she was the killer, why leave her parasol right there? Higekiri left his scabbard with Manfred's body to cover for the other Bandit, but Sheriff just said none of them were involved with roles.

If she was dead, it'd be easy for her killer to grab the parasol and plant it in her room. Doesn't matter if there's a role involved if the point was to make it seem like she killed Riku.

Still doesn't mean she did it, so yeah. It'd be easy to plant everything.

We also don't know if Nui even knows how to use a sword. Or whatever attacked Riku.

Yeah. People would believe she did it. If they took her out first, left the parasol in the room... then charred up her clothes—

[he frowns, pretty deeply.] Still not sure this would all be one person, but it would be a good way to keep our eyes off whoever really did it.

It's a lot of moving around for one person, and if they were killed in the hotel why didn't any of us hear it?

[A pause.] The gunshot was loud enough for Yuna and Milla to hear, but I guess Annabeth wasn't. [Too isolated, too far away.]

We're definitely missing something about what order this happened in.

You think something about our timeline's wrong? [Hm.] And wouldn't we smell a fire, too?

Not sure, I just don't know that it's right either. Something just feels like it's missing or something.

[he does think it's really possible that nui was taken out but—]

Do we have any idea of where she was actually shot? [he's not sure if he missed that part, but if she was shot in the head, there should've been a sign of it—maybe that would give them a clue?]

Milla and Yuna found blood on the restaurant's porch. We've been going off the assumption it happened there, but... Maybe we're wrong.

(no subject)

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We all knew Nui was nuts. As long as there's even a sliver of evidence — none of us would hesitate to point the finger at her.

Maybe that's what our killer was hoping for.

Seems like as good a reason as any. We spend a bunch of time focusing on her, it takes the heat off them.

And so far it's working. We only have three hours left before voting time.

Yeah. Probably time to leave Nui out of this. She's... already gone, so it's not like we can vote for her anyway.

Not that I'm suggesting we keep hyperfocusing on her, but do we know we can't vote for the dead?

You think Scrap Heap would really let us get away without his happy funtime execution?

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