INVESTIGATION 1

[umbralant]

INVESTIGATION 1

The clock strikes eight. The intermittent showers that dominated most of yesterday had, at some point during the night, escalated to a complete downpour that drenched the streets. Maybe that's why the morning might almost feel refreshing today—while it can't be said that the birds are chirping and the sun is shining brightly, the breeze is cool without being frigid while the sky is bright with the half moon.

Nevertheless. The deadline for Tuesday's motive was laid down as Friday, and amongst the pleasant earthy smell of the rain may be a tinge of something else.

Well now, how shall you spend this morning?

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[pr159]

[ Okay, you know, he's been standing back and monitoring this as a Supervising Physician, but honestly it's fucking ridiculous that they're all letting this guy do this.

So, when Shin moves aside to update his drawing again, Rideaux is just going to kind of shove his way past him to take his place. ]

All right, I think you've had enough fun here.

[ He shakes his head. Lord. Anyway.

1 - First off let me clarify because I am dumb and having trouble picturing this so I am clearly off to a great start -- is this purple discoloration more on the sides of his legs and it's clear in the middle/against the ground, so like blood WASN'T pooling at the bottom?

2 - Does all this discoloration appear to be bruising, or does it look like something different since we're specifically calling it discoloration? ]

[umbralant]

[Wow Rideaux! Some people just wanna touch corpses okay!! Let them live their lives, be free, etc.

1. The blood has definitely pooled! It's just that there's blanching where his actual skin was pressed up against the ground because blood vessels compress, you know how it is.

2. How familiar are you with corpses and postmortem changes, Rideaux?]

[pr159]

[ 1. Gotcha 👍

2. A lot more than I am LMFAO... people die a lot on Spirius missions. And, uh. Around him. By coincidence, of course. ]

[umbralant]

[Totes by coincidence, Rideaux is a pure and innocent soul who has done nothing wrong!!

In that case though, it should be obvious that the discoloration is primarily coming from livor mortis rather than any real bruising (although there's a little of that scattered around too). ...Basically what we mentioned above re: blood pooling, essentially.]

[pr159]

[ He is the finest and most upstanding citizen.

He will let this corpse have his pants back, then... but he's going to go back to the torso here to check that out for himself, and he will remove his sleeves to get a better look at his arms just in case there's anything going on there besides the dislocated elbows/wrists.

Also, do the broken ribs seem like they happened from a fall or is there any sign of any direct impact from something besides the ground? ]

[umbralant]

[Thank goodness for the pants, Elliot would surely approve from the afterlife if he probably wasn't already put off about the knife guy being one of the people examining him.

But since the sherpa jacket is presumably coming off, Rideaux can definitely tell that there's a lot that was broken there like, all over his body. Some of the fractures may not have been as obvious with the outer layer but checking out his arms will show that there's a lot of bone fractures there. However, there's nothing else that really sticks out beyond more lividity and bruising.

Also, yes, the broken ribs definitely seem like they happened from a fall.]

[pr159]

[ Consider it revenge for shoving him on day one.

Back to the hand wounds -- do the abrasions look like he was fighting or trying to defend himself from anyone? Does the peeling skin look mostly like skin slippage from being out in the rain for hours? ]

[umbralant]

[The abrasions and peeling skin look more like he just had a bit of rough time with stone. Because I'm dumb and forgot to mention that there would probably be a least a little grit in the wounds, even with the rain.]

[pr159]

[ Like bits of rock? Is the stone under the body damaged? ]

[umbralant]

[Yep! Although not so much because the rock is damaged or anything, it's more like 'if you have a sub sandwich with a lot of sauce and it falls onto a stone driveway you'll probably pick up some grit in your lettuce because the Earth aspires to inconvenience you'.

Something like that.]

[pr159]

[ The irony is that while you were giving me this tag I was downstairs getting ice cream and dropped a big scoop of it on the floor and had to throw it away.

All right. So, we said a few times that there wasn't much blood -- at the scene in general, around the head wound, on the hands. Does this seem consistent with what the rain would have washed away or is this still noticeably less blood than there should be? ]

[umbralant]

[That tag cursed you before you even realized you got it, rip scoop of ice cream.

To clarify, there is quite a mess of clotted blood directly under Elliot's head and the top part of his chest, and it's definitely less dilute compared to what is found in the surrounding area. Some of it's still clumped up in his front bangs and caked on his face, and there's a corresponding amount of it kind of just stuck to the stone beneath him so needless to say there was probably a pool there at some point in time.

...So more or less, the amount of blood probably wouldn't look too off.]

[pr159]

[ So does the blood under his face look like it dripped down from the head wound, or does he actually have wounds on his face that would account for it? The head wound is a little more toward the back, right? ]

[umbralant]

[Most of it looks like it was from the head wound and like. Basically taking a swim in his own blood, yes. Whatever wounds (mostly abrasions, scrapes, bruising) on his face are miraculously light and don't contribute that much to the general mess. Sometimes you're just lucky with some things and not others.

As for the location of the skull fracture, it's closer to the top of his head, but actually more to the front, although barely. It is also consistent with what you'd expect from hitting a flat surface at high speed, so, y'know.]

[pr159]

[ And does it also look like it has rock bits in it along with the skull bits? ]

[umbralant]

[Just a little, yep! Also some light rock bits are caught in his hair too, since he's looking that closely.]

[pr159]

[ God. What the fuck even went on in this brain he's looking at.

All right, I swear to god I'll wrap this up soon -- Rock bits are all about the same color as the stones around here? Including the ones in the hand abrasions? And those are on both the fronts and backs of the hands? ]

[umbralant]

[It got smashed to hell is what went on. There are even some brain bits on the nearby cobblestone tbh, it's not pleasant to stare at.

Also yes, rock bits are the same as the cobblestone and what on the hand abrasions! They're on both the front and back, yeah, although slightly worse on the front like at that lump of muscle at the base of the thumb.]

[pr159]

[ WELL HE MEANT MORE WHEN IT WAS STILL HAVING THOUGHTS AND TURNING THEM INTO ANNOYING ACTIONS but thanks that's charming

Welp, if there's nothing else blatantly obvious on the body that hasn't been looked at already, he'll probably wrap it up there... If he looks up from down here, how much does that dangling statue up on the clock tower look like a real person, anyway? ]

[umbralant]

[LOOK, WE'RE PICKING THROUGH THE REMAINS OF A DEAD BODY HERE, YOU NEVER KNOW...

There's nothing else about the body that hasn't already been addressed, yep. And looking up from here... it's passable? The clock tower is pretty tall and while it probably swings in the wind more than a person ought to, it's dark enough that it can probably be a little ambiguous.]