SO BELOW - EVENT LOG

[pluviosamods]

SO BELOW

With a slightly bump that can be felt throughout the ship, progress levels out. The skies above are threatening rain, but there aren't any drops falling from the sky... Yet.

Not that you'd know it, looking out the windows. A foreign ocean stands outside, on the other side of the glass - the ghost of an ocean, long gone from the truth of this world.

Just like so many other things, which have become visible to those who are willing to pay attention.

This is the event log for SO BELOW. Information for the first part of the Event (days 15 and 16) can be found here, along with sign-up options for the second part of the event.

Comments

[highjustice]

"If anything, my experience indicates the opposite," Neuvilette says. "It is people who have not been given adequate care in the past who are the most in need of it." He's patient, but very firm about it.

[airplaneskyward]

“Like, good people who have been ill treated, yeah.” Like Casper. “But not like… scum.” Like him.

[highjustice]

"Who is it that decides which is which?" Neuvillette says. "I have known people considered upstanding members of the community who committed foul deeds behind closed doors, and desperate criminals who took the first chance available to them to change their paths. I do not consider anyone to be so far down a dark path that they cannot change it, and often the first step in that change is having someone outside of themselves who believes them worthy of respect."

[airplaneskyward]

Shang Beida stares blankly at him. “Worthy of respect?” Him? “I am like, the actual least respectable person alive.” Should he say that to the Law? Too bad! Too late! “Nobody respects me. I don’t respect me.”

[highjustice]

"You would not be the first person I've met to express such a sentiment. It is not a compelling argument." It's never too late to turn your life around and start respecting yourself. "Sometimes it is not sufficient to bring about change. But I lose nothing, Master Shang, for treating you with all the due care and respect that I would give to any other person - and to not do so, I would lose something irreplaceable."

[airplaneskyward]

“So you just… are such a good person you have to respect everyone indiscriminately.” That’s sort of reassuring. It’s not personal respect for him.

…what does he even say now. “Uh. Th…ank you? I… need to wash this.” He’s dripping bloody water on the floor.

[highjustice]

"If you wish to be a bit reductive, I suppose." It's faintly amused. "But that is simply a starting place." In other words: risk of being respected as an individual has not passed.

Also don't worry about the bloody water there are like four ship drones waiting for you to no longer be standing there to clean it up.

"And you also need to replenish your blood supply, so I will meet you there," Neuvillette says.

[airplaneskyward]

"Starting what?"

"I... okay? I cultivated, I'm fine..." It's not like he can stop Wet Justice following him to the laundry room, though, so... sure?

He starts down the hall towards the laundry room, a drone following him to clean up the trail of drips of bloody water. "...Sorry, Ship."

[highjustice]

This particular drone is more of an overgrown roomba, really. It beeps a short acknowledgement in response to the words.

Neuvillette nods and turns off for the cafeteria; after a while (imagine a Some Dozen Minutes Later screen), there's a knock on the door of the laundry room, followed by Neuvillette entering with a cafeteria tray.

It's mostly loaded down with liquids - chicken and rice soup, a glass of water, a mug of tea with a paper condiment cup full of honey beside it, and a glass of fruit juice - as anyone from Fontaine would have guessed ahead of time, but there's also one of the chicken sausages in a bun, a few dumplings, and a boiled 'egg' sliced into rounds. Protein is important to replacing lost blood.

"I wasn't entirely certain of your tastes, so I brought a bit of a variety," he says, as though that explains everything.

[airplaneskyward]

Shang Qinghua turns when the door opens and... stares blankly at Wet Justice entering with a tray loaded with enough food for three people. He... doesn't know what to do with this. Was... Wet Justice that worried about him?

"Ah... thank... you?" What does he... do now. He doesn't think anyone has ever brought him food before other than servants, and generally that's potentially poisoned. He doesn't actually feel like there's a notable risk of Wet Justice poisoning him. He is incredibly, incredibly confused again. Still.

The laundry is just soaking right now, so he's just... standing in the laundry room in his inner robes, staring in bafflement at Wet Justice.

[highjustice]

Neuvillette, for his part, steps past the bewildered man to set the tray on the nearest folding table (as in table intended for folding things). "Sigewinne has told me that red meat is best for blood loss, but hopefully this will be sufficient," he says, filling the space Shang Qinghua isn't evidently together enough to fill. "That said, if you experience any continued dizziness after, you should probably go to the clinic. I can finish your clothes, if need be."

[airplaneskyward]

"Ah, no, I-- I'm using my own laundry powders and everything, it's, um. Not... compatible with the Ship's shit really. Also I'm fine. And it's Casper's clothes too. Um. I... th... ank you? Wait I said that. Um. I... will... eat?" He wanders over to the table and stares dubiously at the sliced 'egg', then shrugs and picks up a slice. It isn't any more questionable than any of the other food on this damn boat, and clearly he's not going to get away without eating something here. And he guesses protein is probably good for him or something. He eats it. It tastes like egg. The plants on this boat are fucking weird.

[highjustice]

"I assure you, I could manage," Neuvillette says. He does not mention that he's been doing Furina's laundry as well as his own. In the bathtub. "It would be impressive if you managed to find a water-related task I could not muddle my way through."

As it is... Well. He walks over to the bin of robes and takes a look. And if there's a slight blue tinge to the water when Shang Qinghua goes back to work, washing the ever-present anxiety out of the clothes along with the bloodstains for both young men, well, it would only be to their benefit.

Sigewinne really is rubbing off on him.

[airplaneskyward]

He is actually sort of hungry, now that he's eaten something. He rapidly demolishes the chicken sausage bun, because it's easy to pick up, and eyeballs the soup. It's very western soup, but it's probably pretty good. Yeah okay fine he'll eat more of the food. Halfway through the soup, he manages to actually pause to answer. "I, um, I don't mean to... um, denigrate your... water? I just... it's laundry? I'm good at laundry, I'm from An Ding peak, I have done so so much laundry, and you are a judge, it would be ridiculous to make you do my laundry? Especially because I'm fine. I do not need to go to the clinic. I'm not dizzy."

[highjustice]

"Despite what you and a significant portion of Fontaine may think, I was not born a judge," Neuvillette says, his voice light with amusement. He leaves the laundry where it is, ultimately. "And have been given baleful looks by laundresses a number of times for a tendency to go lake diving in whatever I might have been wearing at the time."

[airplaneskyward]

Shang Beida stares at Wet Justice's fancy judge robes. "Like... like what you're wearing right now, kind of... clothes that you... lake dive in?" He guesses the rice paddy thing was... totally normal for him.

...what a fucking weirdo. Huh. Kind of humanizes him.

"...how do I convince you that I'm fine?"

[highjustice]

"This is what I wear most days," Neuvillette says. "Trials have been known to develop quite suddenly on occasion." Such as in the middle of a much-anticipated stage magic performance - Okay, no, even by Fontainian standards that was an unusual circumstance. The fact that both Neuvillette and Furina were in attendance was most likely the point of what the criminal thought would be an easy frame job.

"I'm satisfied that you've eaten," Neuvillette says. "I simply didn't want to make a rude exit. If you're sure you'll be fine..."

[airplaneskyward]

"Trials... develop... suddenly? They aren't like... scheduled?" He feels like trials are pretty goddamn scheduled on earth, not that he's ever been in an earth court for anything ever.

"I'm sure. I'm all medicated and cultivated and not bleeding from the face and currently unable to have the same qi deviation again. I'm fine."

[highjustice]

"Usually they are scheduled; however, occasionally circumstances develop down unusual paths. For example, there was recently a murder in the middle of a theatre performance; since Furina and I were both in attendance, and there was no way the culprit could have exited the theater, we held the trial immediately after a relatively brief investigation."

He brushes invisible dirt from his sleeves, and adds, "Generally it is not quite that dramatic, but there is a priority placed in Fontaine on resolving such matters as quickly as possible. Accordingly, my regular work is frequently interrupted to deal with the aftermath of recent arrests. A nighttime altercation in which a man is killed will usually come to trial by no later than mid-morning, if the perpetrator was arrested at that time, and if not, then as soon as they are found and taken into custody."

[airplaneskyward]

"I'm pretty sure on Earth they just like... put people in a holding cell until it's convenient to schedule a trial. Not like... just... immediately... 'they must be here so I'll have a trial right this second'. I mean. I think. From the crime shows I've seen, and like... Ace Attorney games. I have never... probably even seen a judge in real life in my first life? Or ever, I guess, I don't think there are judges in Proud Immortal Demon Way, like, Cucumber-bro's trial was just like, all the sect leaders..." He's so distracted and mentally altered he doesn't even remember or care if Wet Justice knows that he's a transmigrator.

[highjustice]

... He does not, but given that given that it seems the man is comfortable enough to stop rambling, Neuvillette is not going to call attention to it. It's the first time it hasn't felt like Shang Qinghua is at the bottom of the ocean compressed by the water pressure, after all.

"If we had waited, then it is quite likely that a grave miscarriage of justice would have occurred," Neuvillette says. "Some of the evidence was almost unremarkable, and the intended victim of the crime would have disappeared entirely and been unavailable to give testimony about her attacker."

Maybe your world should consider having more on-the-spot trials.

Still, Neuvillette says, "I find that a number of people who don't have experience in the courtroom can be confused about the role of a judge. My job not to prosecute crimes, nor even to decide which are worthy of prosecution, with a few exceptions. My primary role is to keep the courtroom in an orderly state, deliver verdicts, and address sentencing." Even now that he is no longer beholden to the Oratrice for the final verdict, he does not consider verdicts to be entirely his decision. One who can read the emotions of the crowd can easily enough tell the audience's verdict without having to do something as formal as polling them.

[airplaneskyward]

"I mean, that still seems weird, but I'm... glad it worked? Surely you don't just hold a trial exactly where you are at that moment no matter what, though, it was just like... coincidentally somewhere usable? Like, if you're... in a... I dunno, fuckin grocery store, and someone manages to not notice you and robs the till, you don't just... manifest the apparatus of justice and hold the trial in the produce aisle. Right? ...That rhymed. Huh." He's mostly fine but he is still a little bit tilted. Not fully loopy, but not not loopy.

"But you like, you're... justice-man. You enforce justice. That's the whole, like, thing, right? Like a really mundane superhero except you do have superpowers they're just like, water instead of... I don't even know what a justice superpower would be. Wonder Woman's lasso that makes people tell the truth? That's not even a superpower that's an artifact. Whatever. Um. No wait you have the empathy thing that's sort of justice-y. You can like, feel if someone's guilty? ...You really don't prosecute shit if you could feel my qi deviation and your reaction was to see if I was okay." The motormouth has just sort of started running on its own now. Not being able to feel fear properly might actually be a state he should not have left the room in.

[highjustice]

"The Opera Epiclese is in fact also the courthouse, yes," Neuvillette says. "The 'apparatus of justice,' as you so term it, is underneath the stage behind the curtain and mechanically lifted when needed, and the prosecution and defense boxes are also viewing boxes, though some shows reserve them for the use of narrator characters and the like."

"And the emotions I am able to sense from people are not admissible evidence in court for a reason," Neuvillette says firmly, "even beyond the fact that there is no way for anyone else to verify my accounting. A woman whose husband is missing may feel guilt because her hands are stained with his blood, yes - or it may be that she blames herself for failing to stop him from leaving the house on the night of his death. And I have encountered plenty of criminals who were guilty beyond doubt in the legal sense, even so far as to turn themselves in, who felt not a scrap of guilt or regret in their hearts. There is very little correlation."

[airplaneskyward]

"Wait, your justice has an actual apparatus? What the fuck is it? I was being metaphorical I just meant like, a jury and shit! What does it do? I am so confused by your entire justice system." He has also forgotten he was trying not to swear at the Law.

"...so you can sense guilt but you don't think it like. Signifies anything." That's uh. That's. Reassuring. Given his basically constant state of guilt and anxiety when he isn't full of bullshit xianxia medicines. His mouth keeps moving despite him. "Even though I came out of the room carrying bloody clothes after experiencing guilt that was probably visible from space."

[highjustice]

"The Oratrice Mecanique d'Analyse Cardinale is a divine artifice created by the Hydro Archon, and technically speaking the final decider of verdicts. I do not know the full details of its inner workings, but my hypothesis is that it uses the emotions of the audience as the basis for its decisions, as a form of jury. It takes the form of a set of massive, ornate balancing scales that tip from side depending on which direction the audience is swayed towards - guilt or innocence."

Before Shang Qinghua can begin on further questions, he adds, "My role in the court includes the reading of such verdicts; the Oratrice is incapable of any form of administration or indeed direct communication save for the printed messages sent to the seat of the judge. It also does not address sentencing, which is left to my discretion, barring minimum and maximum sentences enshrined in the legal code."

As to that last, Neuvillette simply says, "I had no reason to disbelieve you when you said that it was yours. You have dried blood in your ears, by the way."