fourth trial

[stagemanagers]

[As the investigation ends, you'll hear Hester's voice inviting you to the auditorium. As this happens, the twin doors on either side of the concession stand, across from the gym, will click open. You can enter on either side; both go to the same place.

When you enter the auditorium, it's dark. There's only the small lights along the walkway behind all the seats, just enough to illuminate where you're going. There's a central path between the seats, down towards where you know the stage must be. That's where you must be going, right? As you pass each row of seats, the lights at their ends flick on, marking your procession and slowly making more and more of the room visible. Shortly, you can see your destination: a circle of podiums stationed in the orchestra pit, below the lip of the darkened, curtained stage. They're all identical, labeled with a cast member's name. Varian and Salieri, side by side, now have theirs draped in black crepe and with a framed monochrome photo of them on top.

When you reach the podiums, the lights above the stage finally come on. The Wizard is once again waiting for you. Beside it Hester is slowly lowers in on her bubble. There's no flashy costume this time, just a plain black dress belted with green satin around her waist. She sits in her seat with her head down and her hands in her lap like she's trying to make herself as small as possible. As if, if she tried hard enough, she could just disappear despite the lights on her.

The mechanical head, with glowing green eyes, is installed above the stage and the still-closed curtain. Even if you were standing on the stage, it'd be well out of reach. It peers down at all of you, its motions fluid, and speaks with a booming, artificial-sounding voice:]

Welcome to your fourth trial, everyone. It's time to determine who was responsible for the murder of Salieri. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves and work together - you'll have to show teamwork if you want to leave this room alive.

Comments

[employeeoftheyear]

[Spongebob probably had to have been dragged into the auditorium to participate. He is silent, for a long time, before he quietly speaks up.]


...Please... if this was an accident please whoever did it speak up now. I promise I won’t be mad

[brokeforgood]

I will.

But if you tell me now I might hurt you less.

[defyingfrigidity]

[Mmmmmm.....]

Is it really fair to make those kinds of threats? Everyone was ready to condemn the person who killed Rina, but when we found out the truth, everyone's feelings changed. Maybe... this is the same situation?

[She'd wanted to bring that up to Benjamin, too, but... uh. He's honestly kind of scaring Elsa right now.]

[comeandfindme]

[ BIG MOOD ELSA. Please don't mind that Peregrine's maybe...standing at Connor's podium to be next to Janis. No real reason. ]

[brokeforgood]

Yes. Yes it’s fucking fair.

I don’t care which one of you did it. I’ll destroy you. [Shes scanning the room, making uncomfortable stares at literally every person there.]

[sugarlumps]

...Don't look at me, I didn't do it. Salieri was cool, he understood my princess angst.

[defyingfrigidity]

Did you feel that way after it was revealed that a scared boy killed someone he loved on accident?

[God, Elsa hates herself the minute she says that. She doesn't mean to use Varian or Rina like that, but this is just. It's the same thing as last week. As when Mumble died. They can't just... make assumptions, or think that someone deserves to die for what might very well be an accident.]

Farrah, I understand how much you're hurting. Really, I do. [Seeing Anna frozen out on the cold fjord, forever trapped in one last moment of protection for a sister who only shunned her for years, feeling any sense of life or purpose draining out of her as she held her unmoving sister for the first time since they were children. The one thing she'd kept on living for...] But if this was all some tragic accident, again, we can't just... write someone off as a monster for this...

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[Cassandra grimaces, but doesn't say anything. Only giving Elsa a sympathetic look. Just how much had Elsa dealt with in her past...?]

[brokeforgood]

No, but that was different, that was—

You don’t understand! No one does! Only he did—- You have no idea what it’s like! [She jerks her eyes upward, to the bubble, staring at her with a cruel intensity.]

He believed in me, the first person—- he loved me when no one else did! Before any of you! He made me think I could be more than a hopeless loser girl who no one understands no one understands, said I could be better, better—-

[She turns her gaze, fierce and unyielding back upon the rest of the room.]

One of you took my dad.

[comeandfindme]

[ And I don’t understand how everyone is just going on with their lives like nothing happened. Because I don’t have a brother anymore.

Peregrine does understand. Not exactly. But she understands this.

It's why she knows anything she says will fall on deaf ears. Because you have to fuck up yourself, irrevocably, to realize what you're doing. So when Farrah looks at her, Peregrine just averts her gaze. ]

[barberic]

[The life, the raw anguish in Farrah's words, breathes something like life back into Benjamin.

Enough that he reaches over and puts his right hand on her back, quietly supportive but enough for her to choose if she wants more or less, and leans close to murmur to her:]

He wanted you to be able to live. The only way forward now is to work together to make the murderer pay for this.

[defyingfrigidity]

I do know! Maybe not with Salieri, but I know the pain of losing the one person who believed in you. The one person who reached out to you when you were trapped in the dark, falling and falling with no way out... the one person who made you want to live.

[God. No matter how better things got for them after her coronation, Elsa will never forget, until the day she dies, that the first time she was able to hold her sister after thirteen years was after she'd died. It's a scar that will never heal, and no matter how many times she sees Anna's smiling face now, she'll always see her scared, worried, frozen expression in her nightmares.]

We'll find out who did this. But we can't just assume that this was intentional, or they're not hurting as much as we are... for all we know, whoever did this might be hurting as much as we are.

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[Oh. Oh... What has happened over in Arendelle that Cassandra hasn't seen? Whatever could have caused Elsa to develop these worries, these fears when it comes to losing the people she loves...? Cassandra doesn't know what to say beyond the simple platitudes that, yes, they will do their best to find the responsible party.

But she can do one better: reaching across to the other woman, putting a firm hand on her shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.]

[defyingfrigidity]

[Elsa reaches up to cover Cass's hand with her own. She may not be looking at Cass, but she can feel the way she's looking at Elsa right now. She can feel the concern.

Later. She'll... she'll talk later.]

[tailor_made]

[From her gilded bubble, even without looking at the orchestra pit, Hester flinches.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus speaks up, hollow-eyed and clinging to Eurydice's hand like a lifeline. ]

He was laid out on a length of cloth from the costume room. Almost respectfully. I don't... I don't know if it was an accident, Spongebob. But whoever did this...

[ He can't finish the sentence. Was it respect, really? He doesn't know. ]

[mcfife]

Accident or not, Monsieur Salieri was highly regarded by all of us. As much as they desired him dead, they still had some sense of respect for him.

[As for the rest of the group, though...]

[themuseabandonsyou]

I know. We've only been here a short time, but. He was a brother to us. A father. A friend. I can't - I can't imagine anyone would do this on purpose, but.

[ He shakes his head, biting down on his lip to fight back tears. ]

[howtheworldwas]

[ Eurydice keeps her head bowed low, not looking up from the ground. She's also clinging to Orpheus, although she seems more...distant. ]

Why would they do that. Why would they want us to find him like that.

[themuseabandonsyou]

I don't know. Better than - [ He chokes, swallows, and tries again. ] Better than leaving him where he fell? But not by much.

[barberic]

Do we have any indication where he fell?

The cloth underneath him had absorbed a lot of blood, so he clearly was still bleeding when he was laid out on it. Which means he was either carried on it, or it happened close by. But there should be blood somewhere else... Even with the blade still in the wound, it would have gotten everywhere.

[It did get. Everywhere. Looks at Benji and Farrah and everyone else who was practically rolling around on stage with the dead body.]

[themuseabandonsyou]

Peregrine and Janis said they found some in the library. Which, um. You probably heard. But it sounds less like it was from a wound to the heart and more like - maybe what you saw, on his hand.

[sugarlumps]

Uuuugh, if this was another accident it'd be so fucked up.

[mayavericks]

[Maya didn't exactly want to be on murder island so... She's gonna head over and sit with him.]

We will figure this out, Onii-san. I promise.

[employeeoftheyear]

[Spongebob accepts this and leans his head against her.

Oh... that’s a new word for him.]

Onii-san...?