closed mingle: welcome to amity island.

[highflights]

[ Kara has cleared out a landing site just outside the area of the ship Mimi was camped in. Each member of the party has been given a rough map marking the more thickly forested areas, contours marked for hills, and an arrow in the water indicating the general direction back to the underwater base. There are Xs for where the old shipwreck emerges through the green, but only those visible from the air, if you're on foot you're on your own. In Kon's handwriting, the maps are all labelled Amity Island in block letters. The wildlife is friendly unless provoked; we can't vouch for the plants. ]

[ The body itself is in a sturdy wood coffin resting on a bed of freshly dug earth, the lid can be easily pushed off. Time to get cracking. ]

[ ooc info about the island can be found here and here. any questions should be directed to the mods at the second link. ]

Comments

[despairing_hope]

So it's possible it took her several days to suffocate?

[He frowned a little.]

I think we need a more though look with tests. I'm not a medical person though, so I'll have to trust in Tsumiki san And Valentine san back at the base. It would be easier to make a guess as to what might have happened if the body hadn't been moved....

Speaking of, have you seen them yet? A detailed account of what they originally found should be helpful.

[bonomial]

I sure as heck hope not, but it is possible. [The briefest of disturbed expressions flits across Don's face.]

Definitely agree on the tests being necessary. I've gathered some samples myself, but I'd trust Valentine's work. [As much as he doesn't trust her - and he trusts her more than he'd like to admit at this point - he sees her obvious skill and intelligence as important assets.] Is Tsumiki the girl who did the autopsy?

[despairing_hope]

Yes! Tsumiki san is the Super High School Level Nurse. She's very skilled with medicine. She even helped me not die from a rather severe disease once. I'm sure with the right facilities she can be a great help to learning more.

[bonomial]

[Totally remembering that "rather severe disease" thing, if only because that's something he's sort of hyper-aware of. Guess who also almot died of a rather severe disease?]

In that case, she'll be a great fit here. We're always in need of good doctors - just take a look at what kind of messes we got into with the Jellyshroom sickness. [He smiles, but it's a bit strained. Still working on that...!]

[despairing_hope]

I heard about that. It worries me greatly to think that it's just lying around dormant at the moment.

[And despite himself his worry is clear on his face.]

Valentine san explained it to me when I first arrived. It must have been rather awful to suffer such an epidemic.

[bonomial]

It wasn't too bad, honestly. The worst thing was probably dealing with all those sick people in such a small space.

Another Jellyshroom epidemic shouldn't happen again; Valentine's made a vaccine. [There's a note of admiration in his words.] She might be scary, but she's brilliant when it comes to medicine.

Anyway, if those two are analyzing the autopsy, we're bound to learn important information. Even so, I've taken my own samples. [Perhaps he can put his own knowledge to work here?]

[despairing_hope]

I heard, I'm glad to hear that. Though, I have to be a little careful about vaccines myself.

[He laughed lightly trying to move on from that topic.]

I'm positive they'll find something, or at least have more answers if they don't find anything. Either way it should help fill in the picture of what happened here.

[bonomial]

The most important information we can find out is what's up with Mimi's lungs. If there's any particulate matter in there, we might be able to rule out whether she died of smoke inhalation or whether she was choked to death.

[Those are the two main probabilities here, as far as Don can tell.]

[despairing_hope]

That is important, but it's not the most important information. The most important information is understanding who was here and why they were here. Even if there is smoke, or signs of compression they don't mean much without a motive and a culprit. Understanding more of what was going on here and seeing all the pieces will help put the narrative in perspective.

[bonomial]

[This is a startlingly good insight. Just what kind of person is this?]

Unfortunately the mechanics are the easiest to figure out here. I think that by having a solid idea of how exactly she died, we might be able to rule out some potential culprits.

Of course, if you have any good ideas on how to figure out a motive... I'm definitely open to it. You sound like you'd have a few thoughts. [Or maybe a lot of thoughts.]

[despairing_hope]

[ A person too smart for his own good but didn't know it. ]

We know she suffocated so for the moment that's all we need to know. The details of how will be relevant later. The motive can probably be deduced after we know more about what she was doing here, which was most likely research. However there are a number of things that don't seem to match up... so organizing those would be best. And of course exploring every inch of this island and especially the space ship and the camp site.

We also need to uncover who the foot prints belong to. Right now they're the most likely culprit.

[bonomial]

Dirk said that there wasn't any info in the records about aliens on board. Do you think Footprint Guy showed up after? Of course, then we'd have to wonder about why the Pulse didn't bring their ship down...

Maybe a stowaway? [Don has experience being one of those.] Not that that'll help us narrow down what kinds of aliens humans are in contact with. That sounds like something URSULA might know, though.

[despairing_hope]

I have some outlines of the foot, as well as photographs so perhaps we can find a ma5ch. Either way identifying that person is probably one of the most important things we can do. After that we need to know what she was doing that was worth dying over. Since it looks like she was doing some sort of research it's probably something she found or something she was close to finding or looking for.

[bonomial]

[Don nods, pondering exactly what would fit these descriptions.]

Okay. So the first thing we need to do is figure out what this guy is. I don't know whether we can get a lock on URSULA this far out, though. Has anyone tried?

[despairing_hope]

We'll have to consider a lot of things and make a list to follow up later when we go back. So, instead of focusing on the questions that can only be answered once we leave here, we need to focus on the questions we can answer while here. Also, keeping an idea of what might have happened will make investigating different from not having any.

For the moment it's safe to assume that the owner of the foot prints had been there a while and had worked with the victim at the very least. If not worked with, familiar with. There's far too many warn areas to assume they had only been here once.

[bonomial]

Good point. So what does that mean? If they were friendly, is there maybe evidence of them turning on each other? If they weren't, are there separate sites where they were living, until whatever happened with this death?

If we could find evidence of separate living sites, that might help make one hypothesis more plausible than the other.

[despairing_hope]

We'll assume they were friendly and work from that angle first. With that in mind we simply have to figure out the why of it. Again, I feel this incident is rooted in whatever was being researched. If we keep those things in mind when investigating it will be easier to either dismiss those ideas or confirm them and then narrow down what else we need to look into.

[bonomial]

The most obvious kind of research here is biological - those animal dissections were clearly looking for something, and the records were very thorough. Do any of us know what Mimi was supposed to be doing on the Aurora? Maybe she's some kind of geneticist.

[despairing_hope]

I don't, but I'm sure the others might. Of course my actual knowledge of this place is really limited, but I'm sure I can at least offer my observations.

And who knows, maybe I'll end up in the right place at the right time to find something useful!

[bonomial]

That's just about what any of us are hoping for this case. [Don laughs a little bit.] I have a habit of being in the right place at the wrong time - or vice-versa. Here's hoping that doesn't work against us now.

[despairing_hope]

Oh, that is a bit unlucky isn't it? Well, if we do end up at the right place but wrong time that would also be interesting, and I would like to see that potential too.