MIDNIGHT/DAY 2 - suspicion

[protoshepherd]

[ In the spirit of Ace Attorney, the game where murders happen but NO ONE ACTUALLY SEES THE ACTUAL THING EXCEPT FOR THE PERPETRATORS…

The night has ended. You might have ousted someone, but NOTHING HAPPENS. You go back to your rooms and you find some samurai dogs by your bedside. At least there's food. Better than nothing. But you feel tired. It's been a long and stressful day. Could you even sleep at that rate?

In the middle of the night, you might hear a loud thud. If you wake up (or if you were already awake) and check the hallway, you'll find a bust—or its remnants—by the mirror closer to the Hawthorne and Gavin rooms. The statue is coloured… pink? Magenta? Well, whatever.

Behind the bust is a body… a dead body. Yup, that's right.

If you approach it, you'll find the dead body of Myriam Scuttlebutt. There's no box, just the young girl. If you saw her without the guise of her box, you'll realise that she isn't wearing her school uniform. She has a green jumpsuit on. Her arms were raised and had some red markings on her wrist, as if her hands had been tied. An awl was lodged in her abdomen. Dried blood by her wound, as if the blood had seeped through from her wound.

Myriam Scuttlebutt has been taken out by the allies of the Bad Badger. You have all been warned. You should have expected this.

If you decide to do a headcount, you'll find that one team is missing. One team with two members in it. The room to the Engarde room is swinging open. Do you check it out?

Upon entering, you'll find Matt Engarde's corpse placed conveniently on a chair. You'd think it's Matt, anyway. He seems to be wearing the Nickel Samurai costume. He's seated with his head facing the ground. There's a scarf on his neck, placed rather too tightly. Did he did from strangulation…? By the chair is an open guitar case, and a vanity with a wine glass on top of it.

By the only mirror in the room is Simon Keye's body, hanging frrom the ceiling. Nearby is a coffee table, and an envelope with the police department's seal on it. Whoever opens it will read a letter that reads "proto badgr kill."

If you go back to the library, you'll find Myriam's mirror still standing, but it doesn't function as a mirror anymore. You'll find a portrait of Aristotle Means instead, like a huge picture frame. A huge X painted in red covers about half of the portrait. The same goes for Matt and Simon Keye's mirrors - except Simon's mirror also has Matt's face on it. L O L.

The other mirrors have names again… although if you count, there seems to be only ten teams now: ]

Poll #16504

This poll is closed.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 10

ho bad badgr?????? vote for edgeworth safe

Furio Tigre Team
0 (0.0%)

Redd White Team
3 (30.0%)

Dahlia Hawthorne Team
3 (30.0%)

Jacques Portsman Team
1 (10.0%)

Morgan Fey Team
0 (0.0%)

The Phantom Team
3 (30.0%)

Horace Knightley Team
0 (0.0%)

Luke Atmey Team
0 (0.0%)

Daryan Crescend Team
0 (0.0%)

Kristoph Gavin Team
0 (0.0%)

[ If you've still got an appetite, there are calzones (WHICH IS BASICALLY THE GRANDFATHER OF PIZZAS - THANK YOU PARKS AND RECREATION) and sushi (NOT BURGERS) that is edible in the dining hall. If you are thirsty, here is a water dispenser, as well as a bowl of punch. Not alcoholic. ]


----

[ 00:01 MARCH 3 EST: Day 2 begins, and a new suspicion poll pops up. ONLY TEN TEAMS REMAIN.

00 MARCH 4 EST: A clue will be given. Suspicion poll closes at MIDNIGHT.

00 MARCH 5 EST: Ousting poll gets put up! ]

---

CLUE!!! (Handcuffs can be broken, feel free to play around with it.)

Comments

[doubledefense]

I'm afraid I don't follow, Ms. Wright. You're looking for significance in an act we've both agreed isn't significant.

[stagewright]

Look, even if you voted just for the sake of voting, you had to pick one name or the other. Why don't you have a reason for picking the name you picked? Did you really give it so little thought?

[ Because she'd expected...more, from the person who trained her dad, somehow. ]

Even if it wasn't going to be a deciding vote and couldn't change the tide, even if it was under duress, it was still a life or death vote. Why did you pick that team over the other one?

[doubledefense]

Neither team had sufficient evidence for a true conviction- and I had nothing to argue for either team. In that case, voting with or against the majority accomplished only that.

I understand that you have to follow whatever contradictions you find, but it would be sloppy work to leave something like that in the open, if I had inside information, or something else to hide.

[devilsworkday]

...You know, with that in mind, I have a question of my own for you, Miss Fey - and I ask this with no hard feelings whatsoever.

May I ask who received your first vote, earlier in the day?

[doubledefense]

This is a bit embarrassing, I'm not certain if I got my vote in on time or not. Things have been a bit... disorienting.

If I did cast a vote, it was for Miss Hawthorne. She's made an attempt on the lives of at least three people present, with varying levels of success, and has made her desire to do so again quite publicly clear. Bad Badger or not, we're all safer with her out of the game.

But I haven't cast a vote in the current poll. Neither of the votes on her are mine.

[devilsworkday]

And if we were to ask you how you would have us vote now, what would you say?

Assume "anyone's direction but mine" isn't a valid answer. I would like a name.

1/2

[doubledefense]

[ she looks at her own shackled hands, then ate everyone else indighted in the clue ]

...............................................................

[doubledefense]

I still recommend the execution of Dahlia Hawthorne.

[stagewright]

...Keep in mind if we do that and she's not a bad badger, you might be sacrificing an innocent life for that. Are you really willing to do that?

[ Piping up from the side, here. ]

[doubledefense]

That woman is not innocent! Listen to yourself! For most of you, you have nothing but conjecture on which to base a choice of three. As a party named in the clue I have a choice of two. Even putting it like that, being asked to condemn someone to death on so little is beyond reprehensible. I won't participate based on the rantings of a poltergeist, and certainly not on the accusations of a philandering phantom.

How do we know a word any of them have said is true? But there is a woman who not six hours ago tried to put a hit out on Maya!

[stagewright]

Ma'am, is Pearls innocent?

[ Said very, very firmly. ]

She could very well be who you're sacrificing in order to murder Dahlia Hawthorne. So could I. Or Daddy. Or your own sister, or yourself. Because if all of this follows the same pattern it did last night, someone we don't vote for will die. As long as those three "bad badgers" exist, I presume. So, in order to get revenge on someone, you're gonna sacrifice one of us in the night just so you can kill someone who, while not a good person, probably isn't a bad badger. Dahlia Hawthorne is one of the least likely culprits for that particular title.

[doubledefense]

Damn your bad badgers! Damn the good ones too! Until I see a shred of real evidence that and of these people are truly guilty I won't be sending them to their deaths! I just go Mr. Armando back! I won't lose him again, and I certainly won't advocate the execution of two perfect strangers to save my own skin!

[stagewright]

No, but one team was more suspicious than the other. At least, a majority of us did come to that conclusion - do you mean to say that you intend to vote at random each time just...because?

All we have to go on is people acting suspicious, so far. We kind of have to accept that this isn't set up so that we can get a "true conviction". But in the absence of that, we can at least have the decency to give each team on trial our full consideration and...do our best, even though it's haphazard and we have to rely on our instincts and how people act.

The contradiction here is that you didn't even attempt to pick the team you thought was more suspicious, or to give your vote any consideration at all, while every other team at least did - Uncle Larry and the two on trial aside. That's sloppy, too, you know.

[doubledefense]

Be that as it may, I disagree that it's grounds for suspicion.

Did you have anything else you'd like to ask about?

[stagewright]

...I don't think there's anything else you can help me with, no.

[ Since the questioning is going nowhere fast. ]

[talldarkbitter]

I have a question... For you, Miss Wright. Am I right that your argument for suspicion is that Team Redd White didn't vote with the majority?

[stagewright]

No. I didn't think it was that suspicious, but it was something we had to ask. The only thing I did find suspicious was that she couldn't explain her reasoning for how she voted - I had assumed she had one.

[ a...pparently incorrectly

she's still kind of surprised at that. ]

I asked so we could discount it from consideration, I didn't expect the answer to be "just because why not".

[talldarkbitter]

Actually, that's not what she said at all.

Let me help you. Miss Wright, what did the vote yesterday accomplish? What happened as a direct consequence of the majority vote?

[stagewright]

...Mr. Armando, I specifically asked if she had a reason for voting as she did. Had she said "so I still voted, but didn't hold direct responsibility for contributing to a kill vote", that would have been fine. She didn't say that, though. I asked multiple times if there was any reason she voted for Mr. Gavin's team, and each time she said it wasn't significant and that she had no real reason.

She pretty much said what I paraphrased. I didn't vote for her, but you can't spin it so she didn't answer like she did.

[1/2]

[talldarkbitter]

I don't think you understand.

Her vote towards the Gavin team wasn't significant. Because by that time, the majority had decided it was Engarde's team that would die.

[2/2]

[talldarkbitter]

Redd White's team is one of the two that can claim that they did not have a direct influence on Engarde and Keyes' death!

[spiritpearls]

Mr Armando, wouldn't you agree that every little thing should be examined in a case like this? Even things that might not seem important, or when it's obvious the people aren't suspect? I think that's all Trucy wanted to do, was check into what little information we have. For curiosity's sake.

[stagewright]

Correct! The only way to completely clear anyone from suspicion is to ask all the questions we can, right? ...Just ignoring anything that was odd wouldn't do any good, since it could be thrown back in our faces later.

[talldarkbitter]

For curiosity's sake...?

[ A frown. ]

Miss Fey, people's lives are at stake.

[spiritpearls]

I'm well aware of that. I don't mean curiosity's sake as in "just because", I mean because curiosity is the only way for us to find clues. By looking for things that make us go "huh, that's curious" and looking for the reasoning behind it.

Trucy wasn't accusing my cousins of any wrongdoing. If she had been, I assure you I wouldn't stand for it. It was a question she wanted answered, so she asked. There's nothing wrong with questions, is there?