FIFTH TRIAL

[splitaseam]

[As the Stretching Room descends, there is a long pause before Oogie says anything.]

What? You wanna 'nother speech? You ain't getting one!

[New day, brand new epitaphs for our dearly departed awaiting in this graveyard.

Here lies Demyx
All he wanted was a heart
But he ended up torn apart

Here lies Kiara
Our most beloved kitty
Now ready to sit pretty

Here lies Tip
She wanted to think ahead
And ended up torn to shreds

Only a dozen of you guys left, think you can figure out whodunit?]

Come on, I ain't gettin any younger here!

Comments

[sixfingeredstan]

...It's a piano, not a person. Ascribing human characteristics to it is simply ridiculous. It clearly had some part in this whole affair, but it can't exactly hold a knife.

[amadeusrockette]

It's a magic piano that ate a person, only possibly because someone else forced it to! [She loves the piano, but she also knows first-hand what it does when you startle it.] Magic can apparently do anything, one of you would probably suggest it eventually.

[outsidethecircle]

Even a magic piano can't leave handprints.

[amadeusrockette]

Handprints? [That's the first she's heard of them.] Where?

[outsidethecircle]

Someone found a hand print in the bedroom hallway. Even if a piano could somehow skin Kiara I'm sure it couldn't do that.

[kindaruledatit]

....How big were the hands?

[outsidethecircle]

I don't know. I just heard Jiminy I think talking about them? I was in the bathing room. Someone washed up a lot of blood there.

[kindaruledatit]

Oof. I saw that. [Some of it.]

It's probably from the skinning.

[outsidethecircle]

Probably but I'd think there would have been more from that? They washed up in the sink after all. Unless they were just trying to be careful.

[kindaruledatit]

Well.... it was in the bathing room wasn't it...?

[Ah...]

[outsidethecircle]

Yes. Which is why I'm wondering why they didn't actually bathed.

[kindaruledatit]

I doubt they really had time, you know? And maybe the blood and stuff could have just gotten on their clothes and arms or something. Taking a full-on bath could have been tricky.

[outsidethecircle]

Maybe but it seems weird to me.

[amadeusrockette]

There wasn't a lot of blood in the ballroom, and it didn't look like anyone cleaned up either. [She pauses.] But they did smash up some of the lightbulbs.

[kindaruledatit]

...Wait, what? Lightbulbs?

[amadeusrockette]

Yes, um. [She carefully reaches into her pocket and pulls out what is clearly the glass of a lightbulb.] Three or so of the lightbulbs in the ballroom were smashed and on the floor nearby.

[kindaruledatit]

[She taps her chin.]

There was glass in the trophy room. Broken, too.

[outsidethecircle]

So it didn't happen there, either.

[sixfingeredstan]

Give us some credit, Julia. I have twelve doctorates. I'm pretty certain I can work out what even a magic piano can and can't do.

[amadeusrockette]

And I have seen you accuse people on less.

[sixfingeredstan]

The piano is not a person!

[terribibble]

[Oh my god does he have to corral his dang boyfriend best friend]

Stanford, I don't think -- this isn't an argument we need to be havin' right now.

[sixfingeredstan]

But it's—

[He turns to look at Fiddleford, incensed, and then his shoulders slump.]

Alright, alright. Fine.