Chapter 1: The Trial

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Chapter 1

The Trial
^{The Murder of Axel}

As you investigate the death of Axel you all hear a voice echo throughout the building, you recognize it as Cessair's.

Cessair: "I reckon that is enough time to investigate this case. Everyone, come to the Casino! This is an order from your Starless Overlord!"

Recognizing that disobedience means death, everyone heads down to the Casino and heads over to the third of the room with the large roulette wheel. Nearby you see Cessair, Silver Mask, and Itriot in their robes from before. They stand near the roulette and point everyone to a spot around it as they arrive. You take this time to look at the Roulette if you haven't and realize it has a rather strange design. Instead of a normal roulette, this only has 16 possibilities, and on each of them is a picture of a participants face. You find yours and stand behind it for the moment.

Before long, everyone has arrived and is situated around the Roulette Table. Cessair steps forward.



Cessair: "Welcome Clash Participants. You all find yourselves here due to the attempts of one of you to ascend. That one now seeks to end all of your lives to take up their place as Starless Lord. The darkness encroaches upon you all. If you should seek to survive the darkness, you must find the one who summoned it and cast them into the fire! This is the Trial for the Murder of Axel!"

Cessair: "It is time to deduce or die! Let us see how your luck holds out!"

-Cessair spins the roulette table and it spins rapidly around, never seeming to slow down.-

Cessair: "When the roulette stops, its time to vote! Show me what you have uncovered in this Darkest Clash!"

-With the image of Axel's dead body lying on the ground in your mind, you prepare to determine who among you killed him so that you won't die in a place like this!-

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Owen: "Guess I'll start. It looks like Axel's head wound was what killed him. Any objections?"

[Ryo Asuka]

Ryo shook his head.

"I have no objections old man. The only wounds on Axel's body were the head wounds and the bruises on his stomach and chest. Meaning that the head wound was probably what killed him."

[John Dark Souls]

Mishy seems to be covering his ears and head with his paws with his head looking down gaze set straight on the spinning roulette. In the meantime mumbling in a voice he thinks nobody would hear but is a bit louder than he thinks since he can't hear it with ears closed.

"Oh no oh no oh no, Mishy was so shocked by murder actually happening, Mishy completely got absorbed by thinking how could such a thing happen to actually do anything towards finding out how... How would I ever apologize to everyone... Think Mishy, think!"

[Exusiai]

"Even if we can confirm the wounds on Axel, we still don't know what the murder weapon was.
The bruises along Axel's stomach are shaped like points, but even a pen would be unable to leave those marks without puncturing his skin.
If we did find out what caused those injuries—Yes, it would help, but the culprit could have likely dropped it by now."

Nanashi abruptly stops his train of thought, waiting for any input, before rambling on: "I think finding out the time of the murder would be more pressing.
The last time I saw Axel was the afternoon before we found his body. This was before the elevator broke down. When I knocked on his door this morning to ask if he wanted to join for breakfast, he wasn't inside.
I'm not entirely sure yet, but I believe Axel may have been murdered the previous night."

Nanashi looks expectantly at the other trial-goers. It seems that the middle-schooler is waiting for a reaction or opposition from the others. In fact, he is practically hopping on his side of the roulette table.

[Ryo Asuka]

Ryo stares at the waste of space that is Mishy and judges harshly. Upon hearing Nanashi, Ryo decided it would be best to try and give his alibi. In fact, he had something very important to offer up.

"So, yesterday I had the mishap with the elevator. I was stuck inside when it broke down. After it was fixed, I immediately went to my room. That's when I noticed that my comforter was missing and my nightstand had been moved to my closet. I swear if I find out whoever moved my stuff without my permission..."

Ryo calmed himself down before proceeding.

"Anyways. I never really thought the nightstand was particularly interesting, so I just decided to lay in my bed. However, I could not sleep since I had the overwhelming sense that somebody could attack me at any moment. So I stayed awake all night until 5 am when suddenly I heard the washing machine going off downstairs. However, I decided to wait until more people were awake since I didn't want to be murdered and all. But then somebody slipped a note under my door."

Ryo dug around in his pocket and pulled out a folded up note. This is the note. This note says 'Your Laundry is in the Washer'.

"That's when I finally went to the laundry and found my bloody, ripped comforter inside."

Ryo looked around angrily at everybody.

"Which means now I don't even get to sleep in comfort. Anyways. The door to the room that Axel was found in was locked. Also, if we assume that the culprit was the one to put my comforter in the laundry and slip the note under the door, they would have had to go through my room to leave if they had committed the murder and locked the door. But, I was awake all night and did not see anybody. Meaning the culprit either committed the murder before I went to my room or the culprit did it after, left the downstairs room unlocked and left through it, and came back and did the room locking later."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Pierrick: "Are you saying that someone TELEPORTED between the crime scene and your room?!? This culprit must be a magnificent Magician! And if they could do that, couldn't they just bypass the door anyway?"

[Ryo Asuka]

Ryo shook his head. Had Pierrick even bothered investigating or was he spending his days gambling and not even concerned about Axel's murder.

"Since you did not even bother looking at my room, I will spill it out for you. There was a hole cut into the floor of my closet that leads directly to the room Axel was found in. Meaning that the culprit more than likely used the hole to get between my room and the room axel was found in."

[John Dark Souls]

Mishy who stopped covering his ears noticing conversation starting overheard Ryo and after good few minutes of struggling to decide whether to ask or hold silence seeing as Ryo obviously didn't have good impression of Mishy, finally decides to ask.

"Uhm... Mishy knows its a really stupid question, but seeing as you already probably already think of Mishy like that, Mishy is gonna go ahead and ask anyway... Are you sure your door was even locked during whole 'returned to your room and noticed things moved or gone' thing..? Mishy sometimes returns from working as mascot only to realize he forgot to lock the door out and then proceeds to spend a good time searching if anything is gone or if anybody sneaked inside..."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

Pierrick: "Haha! I see, I see! But you know Ryo, you shouldn't make fun of people for doing what you ask them too. I didn't search your room because its your room! Though its a failure to have done it, I'll be certain to investigate your room whenever I feel like it in the future! Haha! You clearly don't mind!"

[Ryo Asuka]

Ryo turned to Mishy. Finally, a decent question from the waste of space.

"I was still shaken up over getting stuck in an elevator, so there is the chance that it was unlocked and I did not notice. Which means that the culprit could have locked the room below mine, came up through the hole, moved my nightstand back over the hole, and left through my door before I arrived."

Ryo then turned to Pierrick annoyed.

"That's not what I meant. You could have looked at the hole from the room Axel was killed in."

[The City [EclipseZwolf]]

-Pierrick pouts a little-
Pierrick: "But it was dark in theeeeereeeeeee...."

[Exusiai]

"About those holes, there was also one in my room at the time I took a picture.  Unlike the one found in Ryo's room, mine leads to a different room of the empty apartments.
It was really dark, but I managed to drop down through the hole safely. Although I didn't get injured for it, it appeared that I couldn't climb back up without help or something to stand on.
As for what created those holes, I found sawdust in the room that I fell into, and I immediately too a picture of it. Snap!
There was a lot of sawdust left on the nightstand of that room, not to mention the closet, which leads me to believe that whoever broke into my room had used the nightstand to support their weight in order to create an opening.  You don't have to necessarily be a magician to do all of that. 

Nanashi fumbles through his inventory for a moment before producing physical photographs of the missing floor in his closet and room one of the empty apartments.

Nanashi simpers at the simple keypoints. He draws a hand over his mouth as he mumbles with a more concerned tone.
"What I found odd was that none of the nightstands in the empty apartment rooms that lead to Ryo and my living quarters were placed beneath the opening when—at least not in the photos I took. Of course, the culprit could have returned to remove them later on, but the door to the scene where we found Axel was locked, meaning that the culprit would have only the way up as an escape route in order to keep said door locked. It would also have been painfully noticeable if the culprit decided to drag the nightstand back to its original position after we found the body."

"At one point, I thought the telling sign of whoever broke into our rooms would have sawdust on them, but the only person I noticed with sawdust on their apparel was Axel. The culprit must have wiped the sawdust off early on, though; in Ryo's room, a bunch of rags and hand towels were hidden within the clothes in his closet. As you can guess, these rags and whatnots had sawdust on them."

His organization of the bundle of photos gradually improved as he took out each one in accordance to the topic, reminiscent of a presentation.

The boy, gaining momentum in his monologue, suddenly pivots towards Ryo to holler: "Thank you for letting me investigate your room, Ryo!"
He returns to his usual cheerfulness as he returns to his thoughts.

"As for when the holes were made—I'm not all too sure myself! I could surmise that the hole in my room wasn't made the night before we found the body. I returned to my room close to six in the evening, so even if I was asleep, I would have definitely heard if someone was sawing out a piece of the floor in my room... And that's about it!

I did talk to Ryo earlier, though, and he mentioned something about his umu- comforter! Yeah, that's the word—comforter. It had some blood on it, and the only blood we've seen so far was from Axel's head wound. There isn't any cuts or grazes on the body to note, but his head was hit enough times that there's a... lot of... blood. According to Ryo, the person ended up throwing Ryo's comforter in the washing machine by the staff quarters.
The washing machine makes a lot of noise, meaning that we would have heard it from even our own rooms. I don't have any recollection of hearing anything that loud, though.
In what situation would the sound of a washing machine have not been noticeable.
The correct answer is the night—when everyone should be asleep! This would explain how some of us didn't hear the washing machine, despite how loud it is.

[Snakeperson]

"I did not investigate whatsoever. My alibi is also quite boring as I was with large groups of people for most of my time. As such, I will keep it short and simple and tell you all information that might be important to this trial.

I last saw satone yesterday ((day 1 of my alibi)) at 8 AM. She told me she didn't want breakfast and was going to rest. She seemed rather unwell. Also, I aimlessly walked around the fourth floor between 3 PM and 5:30 PM before going into my room. The rest of my alibi should become clear when other people share theirs as I was with others at all times."

Lloyd stares at his shoes for the rest of the trial.

[Ryo Asuka]

Ryo was impressed by Nanashi.

"I agree with that. When I heard the washer it was loud enough for me to hear because I was already awake, but it was not loud enough to wake anybody who was asleep. Meaning that only the people awake at 5am could have heard it."

He then pondered how the culprit got back up without a nightstand before realizing it.

"Is it possible that the comforter was used to climb back up? One side of the comforter has a large gash in it. Meaning it could be possible that the culprit put the hole of the comforter around something like the nightstand in my closet and used the comforter as a rope to climb up. If that was the case, that would explain why the comforter has blood on it. Any blood on the culprit would have gotten on it as they climbed up. Then, upon reaching the top, the culprit could have used my toilet paper to clean the rest of themselves off before taking the comforter to the wash."