Cabinets of Vials

[Vester Lombard]

There are hundreds of vials of various colors containing chemicals, powders, and capsules. Many of them are unlabeled, but even the ones that are don’t sound familiar.

[Peach Blossom]

Peach entered the room. She looked at all of the vials and wondered what they were used for. She didn't recognize any of the contents.

She listened as the announcement came into the loud speaker. When everyone arrived, they should take time to consider their options. She hated that this vote would mean that only one person would survive.

When it came down to it, she didn't feel like she could use one of her votes against someone she had never even met. This game was so unfair.

She tried to distract herself by looking at the viles, looking for some sort of label that may indicate if the contents were poisonous or a biohazard.

[Clementine Abbot]

"You must be Peach," Clem said entering the lab. "Can't believe we've made it this far without running into each other."

She saw Peach checking out the chemicals and pills on the shelves. Clem picked up a random bottle. "Wouldn't be a bad way to go, huh? Considering how all these other tributes are getting picked off."

Clem put the bottle back. She had seen other tributes fall into a dark place of hopelessness. She couldn't let that happen to her, not when she was getting so close to the end.

"It's been pretty bleak in the rooms I've been in. How are you all holding up?"

[Peach Blossom]

"Nice to meet you! It is crazy that our paths never crossed. You know, my parents were going to name my younger sister Clementine, but then they opted for Grape instead. We all have fruit names...family business." Normally Peach would have blushed but at this point, she was too exhausted to care.

"It's been bleak in my rooms as well. In most of the rooms I have been in there have been signs of some sort of monster. People have generally been pretty nice, which is surprising considering the circumstances."

[Clementine Abbot]

"Grape... and I thought my name was awful," Clem said aloud. "Sorry, sorry," she stopped herself. "Trying to work on this whole saying exactly what's in my head thing. It's been getting me into trouble lately."

"You've had a monster in your rooms too? This thing seems to be everywhere. You don't think we're supposed to mix together some sort of poison or bomb with all these, do you? They teach you anything about chemical warfare on that fruit farm of yours?"

[Carac Ashdown]

Carac’s face brightened up slightly at seeing Clementine.

“Glad to see you! Yea we had some sort of blue sea creature that followed to a pool.” Carac looked at the chemicals. “Maybe if we brought them over to the lab we could figure out what they are? I dunno”

[Clementine Abbot]

"Carac! You had me worried when you went off alone to the training center the other day. Things didn't quite go down the way I expected in the Media Library, but I guess we both made it out alive anyway."

"Blue sea creature... that's new, right? Are there multiple monsters?"

[Nilla Nightsand]

Nilla wandered from the control panel she had immediately been drawn to upon entering the room to the gathered tributes by the cabinet of vials. Her eyes began to dance over the chemicals looking for the blue spray bottle. She paused for a second to turn and smile at Clem, “I haven’t seen you since the buffet line. I’m glad to see you’re still with us.” She genuinely meant it but her search for the spray bottle was taking her precedence.

Taking a step back to look at the whole cabinet at once she spoke aloud to everyone there, “In the security footage a man who was messing around with chemicals sprayed himself down with a blue spray bottle. There’s a very good chance that it’s some sort of repellent for whatever has been killing us off.” She frowned at the vial cabinet trying to coax the spray bottle out of hiding, “If you want to see what I mean, turn the silver key on the control panel.”

She sighed and took a minute from her frenzied search to breath, “The rules for this round are rough too. They want us to just choose fast and not have a chance to talk about it. When it comes down to it I can’t just immediately use my two votes right away.” She smiled at Carac, “and you’re here trying to help everyone. When I vote that’s going to make it really hard to vote for you let alone...” she imitated Vester’s glib time, “SUPER vote for you.”

“Anyway...” she looked back to the cabinet, “do any of you see the blue spray bottle?”

[Nilla Nightsand]

Taking another moment of pause she turned back to the other tributes, "By the way when you check that silver key to see the security footage you may want to try hitting the red buzzer. The password is v3st3r...its on the wall behind the machines the orange toggle turns on. I don't know why you'd just leave the password out in plain sight but..." Nilla shrugged, "It opens the way to a containment chamber and there's some interesting," she paused, "well what's not there is interesting. You should check it out for yourselves."

"Oh and," she smirked before turning back to the cabinet, "if you hit the enter key...it seems Vester tried his hand at a singing career before settling into killing tributes."

---

_{(Seriously if you watch far enough into the video I think that's supposed to be Vester in universe)}

[Vester Lombard]

Nilla finds a blue spray bottle in the cabinet.

[Nilla Nightsand]

"AHA!" she exclaimed holding the bottle aloft. "Now I just have to..." she pointed the spray bottle at herself but hesitated, "Maybe I should make doubly sure that's Vester in the security footage first..."

[Peach Blossom]

They teach you anything about chemical warfare on that fruit farm of yours?"

Peach laughed, "No knowledge of chemical warfare... unless you count waging chemical warfare on plants... I know my fair share about pesticides."

"Great sleuthing, Nilla!" Peach said as Nilla found the blue bottle. "We probably need to look for the red vile as well... it sounds like a two part deal."

Peach looks amongst the shelves for the red vial.

[Vester Lombard]

Peach recognizes the "Permethrin" label on the blue spray bottle and also finds the red vial labeled "Dufour's gland pheromone." The red vial gives off a sickly sweet smell.

[Clementine Abbot]

"Ah! I've smelled that before!" Clem said suddenly. Finally things were starting to click together. "Yesterday, I followed that scent through the rose garden and found Farathil's body. He had a small hole in his neck, just like Nikolaii did. The smell was so pungent, I almost puked. ALSO, He had this communicator," Clem pulled a portable electronic device from her pocket, "and he was trying to reach his wife or lady friend on it. He wrote this big long message --"

Clem stopped herself short. Should she be telling this to everyone?

"Anyway like I was saying, Farathil died! What the fuuuuck!"

[Nilla Nightsand]

Nilla ran back over from the security room, "Guys, I'm like 99% sure the person filling the shot glass with this stuff and spraying himself down was Vester. The time stamp on the video was the day of the feast at 2:20pm." She paused for effect, "That's after the commotion with him storming away and right before Farathil ordered everybody a round of shots."

"I think he dosed Farathil or maybe all of us with the red stuff and sprayed himself down with the blue stuff...like a repellent," she held up the spraybottle, "I don't know about you guys but I think its a really good idea to spray ourselves down."

Looking to Clem she inquired, "Does that device work? Can it send messages out?" she realized she was rattling off questions but she was this close to putting all the pieces together, "What did the message he tried to send say?"

[Clementine Abbot]

Clem looked around nervously at the others and clutched Farathil's device tightly to her chest. She took a deep breath before saying, "Look I know I'm the odd one out here. You're all more popular and have more sway in the votes than I do, so I'm as good as dead. But being the only survivor from the rose garden, I do have ONE piece of the puzzle that y'all don't have. I do also realize that withholding any information would probably only further make you want to kill me. But there's a chance that maybe Farathil's message was important and you also need it to survive whatever's out there. So I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to hear it, you gotta let me live."

She stared at them for a moment, and then smashed the communicator on the ground.

[Nilla Nightsand]

Nilla didn’t even know how to react to that, “Well...I was going to suggest we look for ways out of here rather than playing into their hands but...”

She shook her head to clear it. The last thing they needed right now was group disharmony so she took a deep breath and added, “Its clear they originally had no intention of killing all of us this year...so for all we know the Capitol isn’t even happy about what’s going on right now.”

Nilla looked between the gathered tributes, “Instead of smashing things...if we work together and prove Vester orchestrated Farathil’s death and find a way out of the training facility we might not even have to kill anyone this time.”

“I don’t blame you for smashing it though Clem,” she added earnestly, “the arena changes the way we think and act and I think all of us know that.”

[Carac Ashdown]

There was a lot going on and Carac had had a hard time following all of what’s going on at the moment.

“Clem, I don’t quite understand what was on there, but how did you think that work. When would you tell us after we all let you live?”

“Also what are we spraying ourselves with?”

[Clementine Abbot]

"That's right. If I make through I'll tell you what I know. And if I die, it dies with me."

Then she added for emphasis, "And I'm sure it's very important!"

[Carac Ashdown]

Carac was never good at explaining himself.

“No I mean, how does that work. Won’t we all be dead? When are you going to tell us? The only way you’ll know we voted to save you we’ll already be dead.”

[Nilla Nightsand]

Nilla looked to Carac, "You do know Vester is only killing one of us this round right? The one with the lowest score."

[Carac Ashdown]

Carac looked puzzled.

“No, I must not have heard correctly then. I thought it said only one made it out tonight.” Carac re-evaluated everything. “That was a pretty crummy thing to do Clem. I had helped you this far and I still could. You didn’t have to smash it.”

[Peach Blossom]

Peach looked at the broken device with a feeling of confusion mixed with shock. "We can work this out! The best way for us to get ahead of the situation is to stop, collaborate and listen to each other." Peach looked to Clem, hoping to find common ground, "Look, Clem, I can't tell you how this all works out in the end, and I can't tell you what is or isn't important but I can tell you that we are meant to work together."

Exasperated, Peach continued, "What did the message say, Clem?"

[Nilla Nightsand]

As they waited for Clem's response Nilla suddenly went stock still as a bolt of inspiration shot through her.

"What if..." the wheels in her head were spinning, "What if we took that red stuff and put some in each of the three containment cells in the room Vester's password opened...and then we spray ourselves down with the blue spray. Then we wait and when the creatures show up and investigate the red liquid they seem to be drawn to in their respective original homes we close them back in their three respective holding cells and shut the containment room door behind us relocking it with Vester's password?"

"If all four of us work together: one at each containment cell and one at the control panel..."  she broke out into a grin, "We just might be able to pull it off!"

[Clementine Abbot]

Clem looked around at each one of them. She desperately wanted to tell them and she started to tear up.

"I want to help," she said. "I want us all to get out of here with as much of a fighting chance as we can get. I mean, I want us all to live, but let's be real: that's clearly not going to happen. As awful as it is, I don't see another way I even have a chance at coming out of this alive. Your votes outnumber mine, and I know y'all weren't planning on sparing me. I just met you Peach. And Nilla, we only barely talked at the Feast. And even Carac, you've been such a great leader, but in the Media Library you said you would vote for me and then you went against your word, so how do I know that won't happen again? Don't you see? I don't have any options."