[Definitely not subtle. All that's missing is a horse's head on the doorstep. No time to voice the sarcastic commentary out loud, though, because Pal already moves on to more alarming news.]
The second? [Things are really going out of control. Natsuno tries not to think about how it's the second time today, but at least the third this month.] What happened?
[About as subtle as a brick to the face, for a fact. But roasting this mystery blood culprit over their penchant for heavy-handed dramatics can come later; Pal's next few words certainly make for alarming news, and now it's Jade's turn to match Natsuno in terms of moderately visible concern.]
More messages like these, in other places besides this cabin hall? ...Or something else entirely? [Jade's thoughts are, naturally, also leaping unbidden to a certain incident in the first week of the month. Another bloody death, then? Possibly related to the blood here, in some way...?]
[For a pointed moment, Palamedes' gaze settles on Natsuno. Yes, interesting you should notice, this is actually the third time in less than two weeks when Pal has been forced to go poking around in pools of blood. Lucky for Natsuno, this isn't the time to retread past wrongs.]
No, not a message. [He exhales.] Caesar Salazar was killed in his cabin last night. The killer left quite a mess, though he or she has so far managed to evade detection.
[The whole business makes Pal shudder. He has only just gotten over the fear that Natsuno's killer would come after more people, only to be faced with a new threat. Given what happened last time he was trapped in a confined space with a mysterious murderer on the loose, he is decidedly worried.
But perhaps this clue will lead them somewhere closer to the truth. Pal steps forward towards the door and lightly traces his fingers across the message, staining them red with blood. Then he frowns, digs a small jar of ointment out of his pocket, rubs a bit of it on his fingers, and tries again.
[The name is...very, vaguely familiar, after extensive time spent on this ship. One of the more senior passengers at this point, perhaps--though Jade has never met this person himself, he thinks. Still, merely the night before...with the killer unknown. And now this?
Jade's thoughts are half-affixed upon this new matter, as he watches Pal approach the door and set his fingertips upon the bloodstains with that familiar sort of focus. ...Though him reaching for that ointment is rather new, he realizes. Followed by Pal actually cursing under his breath, there--
Blinking, Jade draws forward a step, and then at least manages to stop himself short. It's prudent not to intrude too close upon a given area until Pal's finished inspecting it, probably, but...]
[Pal doesn’t immediately offer much of an explanation, continuing to mutter to himself.] The blood is fresh, for Emperor’s sake. I should be getting more than this…
[He sighs and scrubs his hair back from his face. The gesture leaves a smudge of blood on his forehead.] The blood doesn’t belong to the person who left the message. The messenger is [he squints, screwing up his face] male and anywhere between fifteen and a century old. Which is absolutely bullshit.
There is one interesting thing. The blood is human. But only sort of. [a beat] The same can be said of the blood left behind in poor Salazar’s cabin.
[That's... really vague. Not to mention that apparently their messenger can be just about anyone, unless they narrow it down by figuring out which male passengers are into horror cliches.]
You mean the blood in that cabin isn't Salazar? [Did the killer just... leave different blood for ambience or something?] Or that the killer also wrote these messages?
Don’t look at me like that. Yes, sort of. [His irritation isn’t really meant for Natsuno, though. Pal is just tired of clues that don’t make sense.
He’s also tired of having people show up dead.
He gestures at the message on the door] Technically, it’s human blood. It has the molecular structure of human blood. It has the DNA of human blood. But something isn’t quite right about it. I just can’t put my finger on it.
…Not Salazar’s? Oh! No, sorry. [He takes a notebook out of his pocket at flips to the last used page, forcing his swirling thoughts into a coherent order.] Salazar’s blood was Salazar’s blood. But I was able to examine the sample barely an hour after his death, and it still showed signs of his attacker. Who was about twelve years old and also not quite human.
...So this blood is not Salazar's, but sourced from elsewhere. The culprit behind this message wasn't the one that murdered him, either...but has still left a similar not-quite-human trace of strangeness, upon the blood here?
[Jade watches as Pal pulls the notebook out, restructuring the given explanation slowly in order to check for mutual clarity; for his part, he certainly doesn't begrudge the young man his currently rather scattered state. Quite the day he's been having indeed...and these readings truly are strange.
Almost inexorably, Jade finds his glance drawn back to the blood on the door anew.]
That's certainly an unusually vague reading, where the culprit in particular's concerned. [He's seen Pal exercise his psychometry enough times to know that under normal circumstances, he can derive a great seal of fairly precise information. More recently, he'd readily been able to pin down Jinx's age range back in that closet--but here...] That indistinct range, in the age...seems somewhat similar to the conflicting readings you get from items native to this ship. Would you agree? I wonder if there isn't something actively interfering with your psychometry in a similar way here...
[Would the other doors hit bear the same readings as well, for that matter...?]
[Jade is kind enough to settle Palamdes’ thought process into an order that makes sense, and he nods.] And that’s only the beginning. Complicating matters further, it appears that Salazar was killed by a revenant possessing the body of Rich Goranski. While I’ve no proof that these messages have also been left by a possessed passenger, it may explain the disparities in my reading. [A grim smile] Or, as you note, Colonel, it may be that the ship is just fucking with me. Again.
[He reads over the message once again] Who is Luke?
Possessing--you mean to say...a body was overtaken by a revenant on this ship? ...The ghosts that generally render maintenance here?
[Rationally speaking, Jade's fairly certain those are the only ghosts that do exist on the ship--this place being, otherwise, a pocket dimension of the captain's own making, and seemingly only ever inhabited by ship passengers past and present. But that would be...
Well, that opens many questions all at once, now doesn't it?]
That...might bear relation, to the overall absence of that maintenance lately. --We cannot discount the similarities you've found in that unique strangeness, either, between Salazar's murderer and whoever left this message here. I do wonder...
[Jade trails off about there, well on the way to sinking into some thoughts of his own now--except that Pal's going on to ask that. Which--brings him quite abruptly back to the present, in turn. Jade's posture stiffens just slightly, as his glance snaps from staring at the door to staring at Pal instead. Unbidden, an odd expression flickers across his features for a moment, overtaking his earlier frown of thought; it's not a happy one. ...Though it's at least not actually directed at Pal himself, necessarily. Just...]
...Luke was a friend of mine, back home. He's not a passenger here. [Clipped, and still--a bit hollow, despite his best efforts, though with another beat Jade's pulling his composure back about himself with a slight breath. He doesn't look at either Pal or Natsuno, now, as he focuses on the door once more.] ...Which has implications in its own right, actually, considering the contents of this message. I haven't--there are very few people here, who would know who he is. Yet I cannot imagine any of them pulling a stunt like this...
[--At least, not when they aren't possessed by ghosts. But...]
[They're talking about possessions and angry ghosts, but it's not until Pal asks about Luke that the air grows colder. Natsuno still remembers how it was when he asked the same, too embarrassed by these awful mugs to truly understand the effect the Luke one had on Jade.
So once his roommate is done explaining, Natsuno moves on like nothing happened.]
All the messages seem kinda personal. Do you know "Arthur" from 127?
That is precisely what I mean. [He frowns in thought, his fingers flexing at his sides with the pent up energy of his many, many questions. The idea that the possession (possessions?) might have something to do with the lack of ship maintenance had crossed his mind, and yet…] If there is a relation, that implies that there are significantly more possessions than we currently know about.
[And isn’t that an unsettling thought.
The temperature in the hallway drops about five degrees when Pal mentions Luke. He watches Jade without blinking, unable to discern what exactly has caused the darkness to fall over the man’s expression. Clearly, Luke was a particularly important friend. And very probably, something terrible happened to him.
Which makes the note even more cruel.
Pal doesn’t say I’m sorry because he doesn’t think Jade would take it well. Better, in this case, to stick to business.] At least that narrows down our list of suspects. Who knows about him?
[Then he turns to Natsuno.] They do, don’t they? Though I’m afraid I don’t know Arthur. Do you know anything about him?
[More possessions beyond the one that had killed Salazar. Just how many souls have been utilized to act as drones for this ship? Far more than there are passengers, no doubt--though Jade's fairly certain that he himself isn't currently possessed by anything, at the very least. Looking back over to Pal at length, he can't imagine the other man might be either--surely a necromancer of his sort would notice such a thing, if not already have innate measures against it. For that matter...
Yes, business. It's strictly business, here, and it's a tone that's appreciated. Jade's tone mimics Pal's neutrality in turn, in the end, strengthened by the quiet solidarity of dodging neatly around the more, emotional aspects, of all this.]
Currently--Rita, Yuuki, Ava Starr...Tear as well. She and I were both friends back home. But that's where the list ends, which leaves things very limited...perhaps too much so. [After all, Pal claims to have picked up a reading of a male, nebulous age notwithstanding. And the only male on that list is Natsuno....who still stands at the corner of his eye, as he speaks. But Jade hadn't even looked directly Natsuno's way, as he'd listed his name evenly alongside the rest. Seems entirely unlikely that Natsuno's currently possessed either, after all...as startled as he'd looked at the blood himself, and hardly exhibiting anything in the way of murderous intent at the moment either. ...Surely, then, there must be some other factor they're missing here?] ...The captain does have access to detailed personal information pertaining to each of us--there's a possibility that information could have spread in other ways...
[Jade's falling silent to mull over such thoughts, from there, while Natsuno answers the other question about this 'Arthur'. Not a person he's met himself, he's pretty sure...possibly a newer passenger here. (And already acquiring an oddly personal grudge?)]
[They almost clock him there, but then Jade is being so helpful by suggesting the information spreads in other ways. That's the things about four-eyed nerds, sometimes they're too smart for their own good.
He's not entirely off the hook, of course, but at least "Tear" won't be suspected. Worst case scenario, he will use his host's other power to throw them off the trail. His own powers were stripped away when he was pulled to the ship so long ago, while this kid was just playing defense while holding back on everything else he can do! Not one bite, not one visit to the gym or fight club to hone his physical prowess.
Well, he's going to give this body the respect it deserves. It's gonna be GREAT.
In the meantime though, he should answer Pal's question:]
Same as you. Never met him or his roommate, if he has one. I only know his name because it's written in the message.
[The first part isn't even a lie! Natsuno never met the man, but word spreads... especially when you ask your allies how to fuck with someone.]
[Palamedes looks thoughtful for a long moment, and then slowly turns his head to examine Natsuno. His expression isn’t accusatory, but he certainly looks curious.
Perhaps if he hadn’t spoken to Bash, Pal would be less likely to weigh the possibility of Natsuno’s guilt. That man had been fooled into thinking the ghost was a man he loved; could another ghost fool him and Jade into thinking their notoriously taciturn friend was in full control of his body?
Perhaps. But Pal has no proof, and only scant evidence. If he acts without being certain, things could go very badly indeed.]
You have a good point. We have little sense of what these revenants are capable of. They could very well have their own methods of communication. [For a long moment, his gaze continues to bore into Natsuno; then he sighs and looks back at the bloody door.] Hell, they might be holding secret meetings in the morgue to exchange information. That’s what I’d do.
Well, I suppose we can at least be sure that you're probably not one of them, or else you've certainly just blown those secret meetings out of the metaphorical water.
[A flicker of humor there at last, though it's a brief and very dry thing. Pal's leveling a longer look Natsuno's way, but Jade's eyeing the door once more around this time, misses the instance of scrutiny. ...He truly doesn't care for it, after all, even if he was the one to float it. The idea that such personal details that ought to be kept vested may very well be currently ferried about between murderous spirits, about now.
(No other message could have been so effective, really, in thoroughly distracting Jade as this one does. Which sure is working out in somebody's favor, about now...)
Still, though. All that aside--]
So, the blood in itself--it's indistinct in your readings, then? Doesn't appear to belong to any one particular individual? [Pal had nothing to say, it seems, about any actual demographics where the blood itself is concerned...]
We should check the morgue anyway. See if there's someone there with the same blood.
[Aw yeah false leads, he's NAILING this. Pal's curious glance is noted, but not acknowledgement. Just you wait, he thinks, I'll tear your noodle arms off their sockets, beat you up with them and once my friends take your body I'll have someone put them back. But first you should raise an army of skeletons, I wanna punch a skeleton...
Go on guys, Notsuno's just dreaming about murder over here.]
[Oh, Notsuno. Oh, you dear psychopathic ghost boy. Do you know what happens to people who underestimate Palamedes Sextus and his noodle arms?
Nothing good, is what.]
Or maybe it’s a trap. Maybe, if I were possessed, I’d want to lure you there.
[Okay okay, maybe that’s a borderline unfunny joke, given the situation. But also…he’s not wrong. They have to be vigilant. Without falling into a whirlpool of mistrust, they need to remain aware of the precarity of the situation. Not for the first time this month, Palamedes is reminded of the events at Canaan House, of the mysteries he wasn’t able to solve in time, and the people he wasn’t able to save.
Again, Pal glances at Natsuno, this time the look a bit more surreptitious. After a beat, he nods.]
A very good idea. [The blood on the door is still faintly damp and sticky, so Pal takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes away a bit of it. It’s not the most scientific way to collect a sample, it it will work for these circumstances.] And there’s no time like the present. I don’t think there’s much more I can do here, anyway.
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come_sailaway
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The second? [Things are really going out of control. Natsuno tries not to think about how it's the second time today, but at least the third this month.] What happened?
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More messages like these, in other places besides this cabin hall? ...Or something else entirely? [Jade's thoughts are, naturally, also leaping unbidden to a certain incident in the first week of the month. Another bloody death, then? Possibly related to the blood here, in some way...?]
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No, not a message. [He exhales.] Caesar Salazar was killed in his cabin last night. The killer left quite a mess, though he or she has so far managed to evade detection.
[The whole business makes Pal shudder. He has only just gotten over the fear that Natsuno's killer would come after more people, only to be faced with a new threat. Given what happened last time he was trapped in a confined space with a mysterious murderer on the loose, he is decidedly worried.
But perhaps this clue will lead them somewhere closer to the truth. Pal steps forward towards the door and lightly traces his fingers across the message, staining them red with blood. Then he frowns, digs a small jar of ointment out of his pocket, rubs a bit of it on his fingers, and tries again.
After a few more moments, he curses softly.]
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[The name is...very, vaguely familiar, after extensive time spent on this ship. One of the more senior passengers at this point, perhaps--though Jade has never met this person himself, he thinks. Still, merely the night before...with the killer unknown. And now this?
Jade's thoughts are half-affixed upon this new matter, as he watches Pal approach the door and set his fingertips upon the bloodstains with that familiar sort of focus. ...Though him reaching for that ointment is rather new, he realizes. Followed by Pal actually cursing under his breath, there--
Blinking, Jade draws forward a step, and then at least manages to stop himself short. It's prudent not to intrude too close upon a given area until Pal's finished inspecting it, probably, but...]
--What is it?
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[He sighs and scrubs his hair back from his face. The gesture leaves a smudge of blood on his forehead.] The blood doesn’t belong to the person who left the message. The messenger is [he squints, screwing up his face] male and anywhere between fifteen and a century old. Which is absolutely bullshit.
There is one interesting thing. The blood is human. But only sort of. [a beat] The same can be said of the blood left behind in poor Salazar’s cabin.
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[That's... really vague. Not to mention that apparently their messenger can be just about anyone, unless they narrow it down by figuring out which male passengers are into horror cliches.]
You mean the blood in that cabin isn't Salazar? [Did the killer just... leave different blood for ambience or something?] Or that the killer also wrote these messages?
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He’s also tired of having people show up dead.
He gestures at the message on the door] Technically, it’s human blood. It has the molecular structure of human blood. It has the DNA of human blood. But something isn’t quite right about it. I just can’t put my finger on it.
…Not Salazar’s? Oh! No, sorry. [He takes a notebook out of his pocket at flips to the last used page, forcing his swirling thoughts into a coherent order.] Salazar’s blood was Salazar’s blood. But I was able to examine the sample barely an hour after his death, and it still showed signs of his attacker. Who was about twelve years old and also not quite human.
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[Jade watches as Pal pulls the notebook out, restructuring the given explanation slowly in order to check for mutual clarity; for his part, he certainly doesn't begrudge the young man his currently rather scattered state. Quite the day he's been having indeed...and these readings truly are strange.
Almost inexorably, Jade finds his glance drawn back to the blood on the door anew.]
That's certainly an unusually vague reading, where the culprit in particular's concerned. [He's seen Pal exercise his psychometry enough times to know that under normal circumstances, he can derive a great seal of fairly precise information. More recently, he'd readily been able to pin down Jinx's age range back in that closet--but here...] That indistinct range, in the age...seems somewhat similar to the conflicting readings you get from items native to this ship. Would you agree? I wonder if there isn't something actively interfering with your psychometry in a similar way here...
[Would the other doors hit bear the same readings as well, for that matter...?]
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[He reads over the message once again] Who is Luke?
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[Rationally speaking, Jade's fairly certain those are the only ghosts that do exist on the ship--this place being, otherwise, a pocket dimension of the captain's own making, and seemingly only ever inhabited by ship passengers past and present. But that would be...
Well, that opens many questions all at once, now doesn't it?]
That...might bear relation, to the overall absence of that maintenance lately. --We cannot discount the similarities you've found in that unique strangeness, either, between Salazar's murderer and whoever left this message here. I do wonder...
[Jade trails off about there, well on the way to sinking into some thoughts of his own now--except that Pal's going on to ask that. Which--brings him quite abruptly back to the present, in turn. Jade's posture stiffens just slightly, as his glance snaps from staring at the door to staring at Pal instead. Unbidden, an odd expression flickers across his features for a moment, overtaking his earlier frown of thought; it's not a happy one. ...Though it's at least not actually directed at Pal himself, necessarily. Just...]
...Luke was a friend of mine, back home. He's not a passenger here. [Clipped, and still--a bit hollow, despite his best efforts, though with another beat Jade's pulling his composure back about himself with a slight breath. He doesn't look at either Pal or Natsuno, now, as he focuses on the door once more.] ...Which has implications in its own right, actually, considering the contents of this message. I haven't--there are very few people here, who would know who he is. Yet I cannot imagine any of them pulling a stunt like this...
[--At least, not when they aren't possessed by ghosts. But...]
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So once his roommate is done explaining, Natsuno moves on like nothing happened.]
All the messages seem kinda personal. Do you know "Arthur" from 127?
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[And isn’t that an unsettling thought.
The temperature in the hallway drops about five degrees when Pal mentions Luke. He watches Jade without blinking, unable to discern what exactly has caused the darkness to fall over the man’s expression. Clearly, Luke was a particularly important friend. And very probably, something terrible happened to him.
Which makes the note even more cruel.
Pal doesn’t say I’m sorry because he doesn’t think Jade would take it well. Better, in this case, to stick to business.] At least that narrows down our list of suspects. Who knows about him?
[Then he turns to Natsuno.] They do, don’t they? Though I’m afraid I don’t know Arthur. Do you know anything about him?
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[More possessions beyond the one that had killed Salazar. Just how many souls have been utilized to act as drones for this ship? Far more than there are passengers, no doubt--though Jade's fairly certain that he himself isn't currently possessed by anything, at the very least. Looking back over to Pal at length, he can't imagine the other man might be either--surely a necromancer of his sort would notice such a thing, if not already have innate measures against it. For that matter...
Yes, business. It's strictly business, here, and it's a tone that's appreciated. Jade's tone mimics Pal's neutrality in turn, in the end, strengthened by the quiet solidarity of dodging neatly around the more, emotional aspects, of all this.]
Currently--Rita, Yuuki, Ava Starr...Tear as well. She and I were both friends back home. But that's where the list ends, which leaves things very limited...perhaps too much so. [After all, Pal claims to have picked up a reading of a male, nebulous age notwithstanding. And the only male on that list is Natsuno....who still stands at the corner of his eye, as he speaks. But Jade hadn't even looked directly Natsuno's way, as he'd listed his name evenly alongside the rest. Seems entirely unlikely that Natsuno's currently possessed either, after all...as startled as he'd looked at the blood himself, and hardly exhibiting anything in the way of murderous intent at the moment either. ...Surely, then, there must be some other factor they're missing here?] ...The captain does have access to detailed personal information pertaining to each of us--there's a possibility that information could have spread in other ways...
[Jade's falling silent to mull over such thoughts, from there, while Natsuno answers the other question about this 'Arthur'. Not a person he's met himself, he's pretty sure...possibly a newer passenger here. (And already acquiring an oddly personal grudge?)]
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He's not entirely off the hook, of course, but at least "Tear" won't be suspected. Worst case scenario, he will use his host's other power to throw them off the trail. His own powers were stripped away when he was pulled to the ship so long ago, while this kid was just playing defense while holding back on everything else he can do! Not one bite, not one visit to the gym or fight club to hone his physical prowess.
Well, he's going to give this body the respect it deserves. It's gonna be GREAT.
In the meantime though, he should answer Pal's question:]
Same as you. Never met him or his roommate, if he has one. I only know his name because it's written in the message.
[The first part isn't even a lie! Natsuno never met the man, but word spreads... especially when you ask your allies how to fuck with someone.]
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Perhaps if he hadn’t spoken to Bash, Pal would be less likely to weigh the possibility of Natsuno’s guilt. That man had been fooled into thinking the ghost was a man he loved; could another ghost fool him and Jade into thinking their notoriously taciturn friend was in full control of his body?
Perhaps. But Pal has no proof, and only scant evidence. If he acts without being certain, things could go very badly indeed.]
You have a good point. We have little sense of what these revenants are capable of. They could very well have their own methods of communication. [For a long moment, his gaze continues to bore into Natsuno; then he sighs and looks back at the bloody door.] Hell, they might be holding secret meetings in the morgue to exchange information. That’s what I’d do.
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[A flicker of humor there at last, though it's a brief and very dry thing. Pal's leveling a longer look Natsuno's way, but Jade's eyeing the door once more around this time, misses the instance of scrutiny. ...He truly doesn't care for it, after all, even if he was the one to float it. The idea that such personal details that ought to be kept vested may very well be currently ferried about between murderous spirits, about now.
(No other message could have been so effective, really, in thoroughly distracting Jade as this one does. Which sure is working out in somebody's favor, about now...)
Still, though. All that aside--]
So, the blood in itself--it's indistinct in your readings, then? Doesn't appear to belong to any one particular individual? [Pal had nothing to say, it seems, about any actual demographics where the blood itself is concerned...]
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[Aw yeah false leads, he's NAILING this. Pal's curious glance is noted, but not acknowledgement. Just you wait, he thinks, I'll tear your noodle arms off their sockets, beat you up with them and once my friends take your body I'll have someone put them back. But first you should raise an army of skeletons, I wanna punch a skeleton...
Go on guys, Notsuno's just dreaming about murder over here.]
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Nothing good, is what.]
Or maybe it’s a trap. Maybe, if I were possessed, I’d want to lure you there.
[Okay okay, maybe that’s a borderline unfunny joke, given the situation. But also…he’s not wrong. They have to be vigilant. Without falling into a whirlpool of mistrust, they need to remain aware of the precarity of the situation. Not for the first time this month, Palamedes is reminded of the events at Canaan House, of the mysteries he wasn’t able to solve in time, and the people he wasn’t able to save.
Again, Pal glances at Natsuno, this time the look a bit more surreptitious. After a beat, he nods.]
A very good idea. [The blood on the door is still faintly damp and sticky, so Pal takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes away a bit of it. It’s not the most scientific way to collect a sample, it it will work for these circumstances.] And there’s no time like the present. I don’t think there’s much more I can do here, anyway.