Week 8.

[trustfelling]

WEEK 8 Despite the week of peace - or in some cases, because of it - it seems that the stream of deaths is going to continue unabated; if anything, there's been a sharp uptick this week. Yuri Lowell, Angel Hyperion, Naoto Shirogane, Aymeric de Borel, Isaac McDougal, and Ferid Bathory have all joined the deceased. In one week, you've dropped from over half your original number being alive, to almost two-thirds being dead. But surely things can only go up from here on out, right? Saturday is given to regrouping and sleep; on Sunday morning the clock chimes as it always has, but at least there are no bodies to find today. The night before wasn't necessarily a peaceful one, however; you'll probably feel a bit groggy when you wake up, and it seems you've regained something that you didn't realize you'd lost... Another set of doors has opened up, once again branching off of the eastern corridor and leading toward the south. Go ahead and explore as much as you like; you've definitely earned it this week. COMPETITORS REMAINING: 11

SUNDAY | MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY

[OOC: Welcome to week eight of Trustfell! Don't forget to save your threads for coins and the activity check, and don't forget to submit this week's activity check and memory regains!

If you'd like to get in contact with the Adjudicator, you can do so here!]

Comments

[oasisrose]

[Furniture? Huh. Furniture is probably not dangerous, so she stops hesitating and opens the door all the way. But still, that probably won't be enough. She needs a light of some kind...

Well, the chapel's right behind her. Do candles count as too religious to keep in here, too?]

[trustfelling]

[They do not!]

[oasisrose]

[Great! Are they lit?

If not, Jean brought a few things along for what she assumed was going to be a hunt for more keys. A lighter from the vending machine was one of them. Candles are not difficult puzzles.

So, she'll take one candle, and head into the dark room with it for a better look.]

[trustfelling]

[They are not, but candles are not, in fact, particularly hard to figure out. So! Off you go, Jean.

This place does appear to be the land of imposing furniture; so many cabinets, a couple of chests here and there. Thankfully nothing on the floor in the immediate vicinity of the door, though.]

[oasisrose]

[Hmm. There's something that bothers her about these pieces of furniture.

These are all things that need to be opened. And they do already have a second key. ... somewhere. Who has that other key, again?

Well, maybe that one was just a duplicate. The only way to find out if these are locked is to try opening them. Having explored many dungeons, her instincts naturally draw her towards one of the chests. She approaches and attempts to lift the lid.]

[trustfelling]

[It actually will open easily enough; it seems there isn't a key required!

That said, it looks like it's being used to store clothing of some sort - or at the very least, like that's a lot of fabric in here.]

[oasisrose]

[This room has been suspiciously normal so far.

Let's lift up the topmost piece of fabric, and see what's actually in here. If it's clothes, it could tell us more about the owner.

And if it's not clothes, then... who knows?]

[trustfelling]

[Good idea, Jean.

Doing that will reveal that it's definitely clothes; this one looks like a jacket that's...probably really familiar, actually, given that it came into question during the last trial - blue with white trim and piping, gold embellishments in the form of epaulets at the shoulders and gold braid on the right side...

Very much a uniform, very much Amestrian. Looks about Isaac's size, given that Isaac was pretty tall and reasonably jacked.

Huh.]

[oasisrose]

[She balks at it for a moment. There's no question in her mind that it's Isaac's. Yes, even though it's a uniform, and even though there's been multiple people here who came from the same worlds. After seeing him wear it for all these weeks, this look is firmly cemented in her mind as "Isaac".

But why is it here? Her mind jumps to some conclusions, but maybe it's not what it looks like -- after all, didn't Isaac pull a spare uniform out of the vending machine? It's possible that she just found her way into the prize room.

She's going to start pulling more clothing out of the trunk, laying them out neatly on the floor.]

[trustfelling]

[There are definitely some interesting things in here, the further she goes - things beyond the rest of the uniform, anyway. Things like a violently green hospital gown, and that one outfit with the boots that Ferid was wearing at the fashion show (the one that...was not his, but still), and that distinctive...thing with the stripes and the boa that hasn't been seen around the land of the living since the second week.

It's all looking super-familiar, is what I'm saying.]

[oasisrose]

[Fern's gown. Then both of her guesses were wrong, because her first guess was that this was where the belongings of the dead were stored.

She takes a moment to contemplate the possibilities -- they could start wearing pieces of their fallen friends' uniforms as a way of keeping them in this fight, symbolically. Also, extra clothes should make laundry easier.

Well, let's leave that aside for now, because there's still a lot of questions to answer and a lot of other furniture in here. She returns the clothing to the chest for now, keeping the lid open to make it easier to track what she's already gone through.

She opens up a nearby cabinet next.]

[trustfelling]

[Well, there's very definitely something in here, propped up against the back of the cabinet.

...A very definitely person-sized something.]

[oasisrose]

[Don't tell me.

Is the person-sized something a person?]

[trustfelling]

[Are you going to use the candle to check what it is, are you going to just reach in there and see what you get...

How are we going about checking on that.]

[oasisrose]

[She's not going to risk thrusting her hand into a corpse. Who does she look like, Ferid?

She holds the candle up to illuminate the inside of the cabinet.]

[trustfelling]

[Well, no, but SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO CHECK THESE THINGS...

That said, though, the person-sized thing seems to be slumped back against the wall, almost sitting in the confined space; the candle will definitely make certain details very clear very fast - the dark clipped-back hair, the plain-colored clothing, the small frame...

It looks for all the world like Mozu.

She seems peaceful, almost like she's sleeping; closer investigation, however, will reveal that she's not breathing at all, nor does she move or react at all to the candle's light.

So yes, Mozu is (still) dead, but just the same, it's pretty undeniable that there she...is. Somehow. Inexplicably.]

[oasisrose]

[For a moment, Jean stands there, not moving or making a sound. She simply covers her mouth with her free hand, as if to help keep herself from starting to cry.

She had only seen Mozu's body briefly, when she went to retrieve the girl's room key from Ferid. Seeing her like this, now...

Speaking of how she looks, though. Does she still have the same injuries as before?]

[trustfelling]

[She does not.]

[oasisrose]

[What in the...?

Okay. Jean's going to turn around now, and hold up the candle again to illuminate as much of the room as possible.

And she's going to count the cabinets, just to make sure she comes up with the number she thinks she's going to.]

[trustfelling]

[If she's hoping she'll come up with nineteen, she's wrong. There are a lot less than that.

When it comes to the actual cabinets, there are six of them.]

[oasisrose]

[Yes, actually. She was hoping for nineteen. So where are the others?

Well, never mind that for now. Let's see who we have here, and look for a pattern.

Taking a deep breath for courage, she walks up to the second cabinet, opens it up, and shines the candle inside.]

[trustfelling]

[She'll be greeted with a similar sight when she does so - something that's very obviously a body, propped up against the back of the cabinet as though asleep. This one is also familiar: dark-haired and wearing a distinctive blue outfit.

Naoto, looks like.]

[oasisrose]

[All right. She thinks she's got the pattern down now. After all, Naoto had spoken with her about Juri, and made it clear that she was actually sympathetic to his viewpoint. At the time, Jean didn't understand why, but started to catch on to some big reasons during her last conversation with Juri.

Unfortunately, if that's the case... two jump to mind that Juri didn't use titles for during their execution. Walter and Ferid. The two people who she would have been okay with never seeing again.

But still, let's be thorough. Onto cabinet number three, checking inside the same way.]

[trustfelling]

[This one seems to break pattern a little.

The setup is the same - the body propped up against the back of the cabinet, the features settled easily as though asleep - but the person inside is familiar for a completely different reason, that reason being "you may have seen him as recently as this morning." And you'd know if you had - the black bandages on his arms and obnoxious orange coat are distinctive, as is the green hair revealed by the way the hood is dropped back.

Terumi.]

[oasisrose]

... ... ...



Wait, what?!

[She couldn't internalize her reaction this time. That's how much she's thrown for a loop by this one.

Is she going crazy? Is this some kind of elaborate prank, set up by Terumi just to mess with her head?

You know what, just in case, she's going to double-check that this one is dead. She's no medical practitioner, but being trained in killing people means being trained in testing if your victim is dead or just faking it. Is there a pulse?]