yuggoth | ( TRIAL

At exactly 11:30 am, all residents who are still asleep will be jolted awake by a sharp, burning pain that spreads across their whole body. A simple look will reveal no visible injuries, oddly enough, and the pain will fade away as soon as they're properly awake. Those early birds who are already up and about will feel nothing — except maybe a strange, mysterious sense of relief as they go on about their business. Lucky them.

Moments later, an announcement will come through the static-filled PA system:

"This is Craftly speaking. My apologies for the rude awakening [not really], but your presence is required in the Dining Hall. Our first trial is about to begin. Please do try to be there before noon. My staff members have simply too many duties to tend to, to be escorting each and every one of you out of your quarters. Good day."

And true to his words, anyone who doesn't make their way to the Dining Hall before noon will be dragged kicking and screaming regardless of where they've sequestered themselves. Sucks to be you, huh? Upon arriving there, however, residents will be given the menu, one copy of the rulebook, one pencil, one notepad, and a cheque folder. Lunch and dinner will be served at the appropriate times, and appetizers, desserts and beverages (of the non-alcoholic variety) will be available throughout the trial. All you have to do is ask one of the faceless men, and your food will be delivered to you in ten minutes or less depending on what it is.

The Dining Room itself looks about the same as it does any other day — save for the fact that the lights have been dimmed. Why this, you ask? Because the projector is now in use. Transparencies containing each resident's profile will be displayed on the pull-down screen, with one of the staff members rotating through the images every minute. The profiles of the deceased are included, and if current discussion deems it necessary to focus on one particular resident, anyone is free to ask the faceless man to pause on the appropriate profile for a while.

A small area has been sectioned off with a transparent, plastic curtain right next to the pull-down screen. Its use will become rapidly apparent once the victim's corpse has been wheeled in. Anyone who wishes to step into this area will be asked to wash their hands in the kitchen, and they will be given a pair of latex-free gloves and a hairnet by a staff member who is stationed nearby. Residents are required to dispose of both items before returning to the dinner table; a trash bin is available outside of the curtains for this purpose.

Evidence found during the investigation, on the other hand, will be displayed in the back of the room. Two, long tables have been taken out of storage for this occasion, and any items found by the residents on Friday will be displayed here for further examination.

Finally — a clock above the pull-down screen displays the current hour. Please do remember you have until 9:00 PM to figure out whodunit and cast your vote.

( victim )

Welcome to our first trial! Characters will be given nine (9) hours to discuss everything related to the investigation to hopefully solve the mystery behind this week's murder. No one will be allowed to leave the Dining Hall without explicit permission from the Innkeeper (and only then to take a tinkle), and all characters must cast their vote before 9PM EST. You may do so on this week's voting page.

If you have any questions or doubts, shoot us a PM or a PP over at

yuggoth.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If it was self-defense, will she be spared? Can we vote for Jason?

[Jason was nice and he liked him a lot but also Hana shouldn't be murdered so fast when they don't know??]

You can't kill a corpse. Someone's going to die.

[self-defense murder is still murder.]

Well that's a load of bull hockey. If she did it out of self-defense, it wouldn't be her fault at all.

Would you feel the same if he killed her in self defense?

[this is always an interesting moment in human logic. whether they can forgive a man killing a woman.]

Of course. It's just not right to punish someone for defending themself!

It's not right, but is it fair? To the dead, and those who valued them.

Well, no, not entirely, but in this case, the dead would have made the first move as a murderer, right?

Who knows? He's dead now, and no one can tell us his last actions.

Actually, um, that isn't true. On this menu, it says someone among us can commune with the dead. Of course, that person could have been Jason but the odds are statistically in our favour that the person who can is still alive.

You think this person is going to out themselves to have that skill just so they can get killed tomorrow night? Please. Only the most stupid person among us would trust us all to not take out such a convenient loophole.

And besides, even if they can talk to the dead, there's nothing saying the dead can talk back. It'd be unfair if we could just divine the answer like that - and it's not easy to pull back the dead for anything.

Ah, right, someone might try to bump them off. [He. Didn't actually think of that okay.] But I assume at least they would talk back in this case. But now that you've brought that up, that role really is in a pickle. They could have already shot the breeze with Jason and know all the details but be unable to reveal it.

They'd only be able to guide us through hints and trying to make things more obvious than they already are. A sad fate, really.

I suppose we have to hope someone magnanimous was assigned that role and will use it well to guide us.

Maybe if you make nice with everyone, they might throw in the effort. Just for you.

[do the leg work for us, Jake.]

I kinda doubt this was self-defense. The wire was wrapped around Jason's neck from behind, right? Plus there'd be a lot more signs of a struggle on both him and Hana if he attacked her first and she managed to overpower him.

Hmm, I guess, but... [Ugh he doesn't like any of this.] I mean, I suppose that is tough to deny...

[Ughhhhhhhhhhhh he doesn't want this.]

...yeah, it's pretty terrible either way, isn't it? [She doesn't really want to believe there are people here who could just kill someone innocent so easily, but self-defense might be even worse under the circumstances.]

[Ultimately self-defense really would be worse and he has to admit that, since it means they'd be killing someone relatively innocent.]

It is. I just can't fathom jumping the gun and offing someone unless there was a really good reason right now. I keep going back to that possession bit but even if that's true, it's not like we can spare the person.

You'd be surprised at what people are willing to kill for. If her family or loved ones were being threatened...[She trails off with a resigned sigh.]

This is all just a distraction anyway. We need to figure out a way to get out of this game, not play along with it.

[Hearing that, he nods and gathers himself up.] That's right. Maybe we're too late to save Jason and... probably D.va at this point, too, but... there's still an awful lot of folks we can spare.

[Aloy gives him a smile and a nod back.] I don't know if we can stop people from killing every week, not if they're determined to do it. But if we can make it as hard as possible for them, or figure out why they're doing it, that'll be a step forward anyway.

Yes, exactly! I should hope the majority of us at least wish to put an end to this game, so we'll work together as best we can to do so.

( TRIAL - WEEK 1 )

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