Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[STINK he/him]

Something poetic. Inspiring? No, it’s too early to do something like that. Hopeful? An option, though not needed currently. A third word to round off the pattern? Possible, though I cannot think of one. Yet this does suffice for an introduction, no?

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my honour for the next few days (if that guy in the audience doesn’t get me first) to present to you a piece of mine that I have been working on for at least some years, if not my whole life. I am Smirkai, and this is but a simple tale.

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The sky was there, as it is wont to do. So too is the ground, and many other earthly elements. Fallion’s Tears was also there, which was good since I wasn’t quite sure if I was at the right place at the time. The coach-driver was also there, looking at me with a face that I wouldn’t describe as happy or generous.

“Where’s your ticket?”

A fair question, for you see my supposed ticket was in fact one of the few things not present in Fallion’s Tears or indeed the world. It may not be the answer he is looking for, but as a gentleman I must dignify his question with a response suiting my station.

“My good sir, it does appear that this ticket you speak of was something that I should indeed have at this minute. But doesn’t this raise the question then of why exactly do I not have it and where did it go? I can answer those questions with one word, Charity. You see along this fine journey of mine I have realised the plight of many a people and so you see the ticket that I should be holding at this current time is in fact in the hands of some poor child somewhere, representing the hope they might have to move on to a better life at some point in the future”

The driver, surprisingly so, is not a fan of this. 

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I must bid this story adieu for now, as I would not want to recount what the driver then said to me and possibly shock anyone in the audience. Suffice to say, I am now looking for any companions or possibly a home to serve my unexpected stay in quaint Fallion’s Tears and of course while I cannot exactly pay with material goods, would not my stories and presence be enough of a payment for some?

I am Smirkai, and I really need someone to help me out here.

[Kasimir he/him]

Just a reminder that rollover will occur in under two hours. In the meanwhile, here is another batch of rule clarifications:

• Can a Rioter self-target?

It is possible, but their vote would be removed.

• How many actions are there in a Turn?

Depending on the actions you have available (e.g. metal, Spiked kill), you have one action per Turn. Voting is not an action.

• Can a Rioter change a vote to a no-vote?

Yes. They can.

• What happens if a Rioter and a Soother target the same person's vote?

The vote manipulations cancel out and the vote is unaffected. If the Rioter has placed a vote, their vote will be nullified.

• Will Rioting show up the same as Soothing?

The vote tally I will give you will reflect the original voters - only the vote totals on each player will change. So suppose that Kas and Ren vote on Wyrm, but shock at this sudden act of betrayal from Kas has led to vote manipulation taking place. This is what you'll see in the final tally:

Wyrm (1): Kas, Ren

Players will not be told whether this is Soothing or Rioting.

I should also clarify what @Araris Valerian has said since things have changed as of my submission to the Committee - I'm no longer using the vote counting script as I'm test-driving El's new fancy spreadsheet. (Thank the gods for automation!) As a result, my requirement for bolding and retraction is to ensure I can track your votes correctly as I am, for the moment, only human  And very old and very tired. Please have mercy on me and help me not mess this up, okay?  

Edited February 28, 2021 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

Reading Books.

Derrick doesn’t like ties...

Edited February 28, 2021 by Ashbringer
Color

[Mat he/him]

2 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

;-; c'mon man. you want a pick up line? is that it? xD I've RPed in LG66 (which you should be able to remember) and I've started out RPing in Kas' previous game MR43 (see here) (which you wouldn't because you didn't play it). That game had cosmetic role too, so basically games with cosmetic role or incentive to RP, I do. Besides, you can't expect me not to when I've chosen such a fun role. I mean, I have a whole doc (granted it's only 1 pg rn) filled with pick up lines before the game! :P. Just to confirm, the second smaller RP post was because Illwei wanted someonetto post so she wouldn't have to double-post, cause I can see how the second post might look odd.

It wasn't the RP itself, it was the RPing and nothing else for a long time- though I should mention the suspicion I had from this was fleeting, and completely gone because of your blue text post from yesterday. Village reading you now for similar reads as mine but you always gotta be careful of a pocket...

8 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

Reading Books.

Derrick doesn’t like ties...

It was Reading (4) and Books (6) when you posted this :P.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Derrick is going back to sleep and doesn’t like surprises either 

[Quintessential she/her]

AHHHH I was supposed to wake up at 7 or something like usual and have plenty of time to catch up but instead I woke up at 9:20 and it's taken me until now (9:50, ten minutes before rollover) to actually do that. 

While it does worry me that the Books train has managed to pick up without too much opposition, I suppose they'll still give us information no matter how they flip, and anyway I'm pretty sure they're too far ahead for me alone to change anything, so I'll leave my vote where it is : P

 

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

9 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

 Ties hurt us (Devotary, in case you didn’t realize that, seems like you were thinking ties exe someone, but they don’t), so I want to avoid ties as much as possible.

Ties ten hours before rollover when there's still plenty of time for things to change are fine, not end result ties.

It's a bad idea to be around at this time. In the future, votes will most likely be several hours before rollover and then not changed. For this cycle though, I'm pretty much null on Reading. Voting on FlyingBooks should at least give more information.

 

[Flyingbooks]

Well, I'm dead and it doesn't matter whether I do a self-preservation vote or not, but Reading I guess. Come on, the ONE LG that I'm not an elim I get executed on the first day?

 

Lasalen's ducks are left to anyone who can catch them and/or stop them from destroying the workshop.

[|TJ| he/him]

Forgot to add Ventyl among my mild village reads.

15 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, just want to say that everything Illwei is doing does feel elim-y to me still. I will be keeping my vote on her. I watched the last MR, and while this isn’t the only reason I’m voting on her, her current post style and almost...defensiveness for awhile there feels very similar to how she played in that game. Plus what she’s posted in this game already is enough to make me elim-read her. 

Yeah, no this is Striker's most suspicious post so far me. Earlier in the game, he admitted that Illwei felt similar to the last game (i.e. LG73, in which Illwei was village) and that he tunneled on her in that game, but still wants to vote on her this game. This post, he changes his tune to saying he's similar to the MR48, in which she was elim. Which is it? If she was similar in both games, why is it tipping the scale towards elim this time?

Hmmmmm sliiiightly paranoid that Gears is using TMI to defend Illwei in the post voting for Books, but for now, more village points for the vote on Books. Revisit if Illwei and Books flip village.

13 hours ago, Tani said:

This is the first game of SE or even online mafia I've ever played.

I see, my bad. You mentioned you played something (Avalon? not familiar with it), but I still feel that the newness is sliiiightly overplayed.

13 hours ago, Quintessential said:

Third of all, @Dannex are you really going to leave your vote on me? Over a joke? :P. And @Tani it would be nice of you to remove your vote from me too, if you feel like it 

Gahhh, now I'm feel paranoid -.- This is the same thing you did in QF50 -_-'.

I am ignoring Devotary at this point because I always read her as village -.- [yes she seems village now too]

And sorta skipping a few Gears posts because they are long and there's no tiiime. Will get back to these.

9 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Okay. Interesting. Okay. Illwei, Books. Like Gears said, everything with them coming after me a whole bunch for something pretty minor and then forming an opinion out of nowhere as soon as they were questioned about something seems odd to me. Plus I’d like to ensure a lead on one candidate over the others. Ties hurt us (@Devotary of Spontaneity in case you didn’t realize that, seems like you were thinking ties exe someone, but they don’t), so I want to avoid ties as much as possible. Ties aren’t as fun if they don’t RNG or kill both players  (I’m sad at you @Kasimir about that )

Okayy, feeling a little better earlier, but someone earlier said Striker/Books not e/e. I donno about that it looks like Books has *checks* 4 votes to Illwei's 3, so there's hmm not much reason for elim!Striker to shift to Books after going after Illwei so strongly. Hmmmm

SKIPPING ASH's BIG POST - COME BACK TO THIS IF THERE IS TIME

Flyingbooks

Also, I think Reading has been dying early recently.

[Mat he/him]

---Reiterating again that I think we're killing a villager today

Don't know what that will do for y'alls reads of me but I figured I'd better say it

[Flyingbooks]

I do havfe a slight suspicion that Matrim is an elim who knows that I'm a villager and is trying to look good after I flip village. Not a very strong one, but keep an eye on him.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Flyingbooks

[Wyrmhero he/him]

Hi everyone. 

Kas is busy, so I'm in charge of the game now. Before he died disappeared mysteriously with no witnesses, he wanted me to post that the Turn is over and nothing you do after this post will be counted.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Wyrmhero

[Mat he/him]

1 minute ago, Flyingbooks said:

I do havfe a slight suspicion that Matrim is an elim who knows that I'm a villager and is trying to look good after I flip village. Not a very strong one, but keep an eye on him.

;-; I was trying to help you cmon now

ninja'd sorry- wait a minute

Edited February 28, 2021 by Matrim's Dice

[Kasimir he/him]

Night One: Strangers In This Town

“Strangers in this town
They raise you up just to cut you down
Oh Angela, it’s a long time coming
Oh Angela, spent your whole life running away.”

—’Angela’, The Lumineers

Small village like Fallion’s Tears, everyone knows everyone. That’s how it feels, sometimes. There are people here whose many times-great grandparents knew each other, back when. Take Leas Fel, for instance. Far as anyone can remember, there’s always been a Fel in Fallion’s Tears, if not in the area. El once speculated that words shift over time. Maybe they do. She figured the name ‘Fallion’s Tears’ had its roots in the Fels. 

Seems possible to me. What do I know about names, or how they shift? I knew someone, back in the day, who pored over maps and histories. Said the Mir that flows down from the mountains and runs past Tremredare was named after someone or other in House Heron. Wouldn’t surprise me, if it was. We name things after people all the time, as though we’re terrified we’ll vanish. Drop through the cracks, and nothing will remember that we once existed, that we once were here.

Anyway, was a little rough for Wyl and I, moving in like that. I guess it’s how we’re built: we close ranks about our own, and we’re naturally suspicious of strangers. It’s as though there’s something deep inside us which tells us to protect our kin, our clan; which tells us that those not within our circles could harm us. 

First couple of weeks, people were polite, but they watched us, as well. And they whispered, of course. No one knew what to make of two strangers from Tremredare, I suppose, much less two washed-up former Watch, saying we’d open up a business and run our own investigations.

Can’t blame them, really. “Nothing ever happens in Fallion’s Tears,” they tell us, over and over, as though by saying it, they could make it true. And they weren’t wrong, either. Back in Tremredare, it was all you could do to keep up, really. Crime never sleeps and all that. Watch drowned in cases: theft, assault, stabbing, murder, rioting… City as big as Tremredare, there’s always something going on, somewhere. Back in training, the instructors used to talk about the crime triangle: means, motive, and opportunity. And in Tremredare, ancestral seat of House Heron, and jewel of the West, there has always been opportunity for those cunning and ruthless enough to seize it.

Little wonder Wyl and I had our work cut out for us.

In a quiet place like Fallion’s Tears, though, we’d be lucky to stumble on anything big. Usually, it’s something odd—theft of ducks, or someone getting cheated of their boxings. Sometimes, it’s a wary wife, sometimes it’s a jealous husband. Stunningly boring, utterly predictable, and you want a good deck of cards to pass the time while on stake-out. But it pays the bills.

High-profile cases though? Wyl was right: anything like a murder in Fallion’s Tears was like a large stone chucked through a storefront window. Shards of broken glass everywhere. Everyone was running scared.

Problem is, when people are scared, they aren’t thinking. Can’t afford that, really. You have to push past the fear and keep thinking. Fear is the mind-killer, as they say. 

And sometimes, fear can have fatal consequences.

 

 

Later in the day, Mayor Wilson called a meeting in the town square. Most of Fallion’s Tears showed up. Kast did, too. The volunteers had helped to clean up the shed, and he’d made a few quick sketches of the scene for reference. In Tremredare, they sometimes used chalk to mark the position of the body for reference, but he wasn’t going to get his hands on chalk here, so he committed it to memory instead. 

The spike made him feel uneasy. Corpses on the blood-slicked floor of the safehouse, and laughter… Kast shoved the memories deep down, into that single vault in the memory palace. Not now, he told himself. Not now.

He stuffed the spike into a small cotton bag. He wanted to forget about it, but it was a constant ominous weight, reminding him that sometimes you couldn’t run away. Not even somewhere like Fallion’s Tears. Sometimes, old ghosts haunted you anyway, with ruin for their eyes, and he woke up gasping at night, pathetically grateful he was still alive. 

Sometimes, old ghosts haunted you, and you had to pay your debts. Kast figured his bills were all coming due. Not the ones on the office, or his room though. Both Wyl and himself were usually good about settling with Arenta when the rent came due.

The first thing Kast did was the old investigator’s trick: he talked to the intimates. Neighbours were instantly ruled out. The stench from drying hides was awful, and Bart’d lived on the outskirts of Fallion’s Tears for that precise reason. This meant that there was no one to see any suspicious comings and goings, though Kast made a mental note to talk to Rowan and Slart, the town’s hunters. They might have seen someone, especially if Bart had died in the early hours of the morning.

Finding Pie Roayong was another issue. As far as Kast could tell, the kid had been okay with Bart. He’d always wondered what the tanner saw in the kid. Name and features like that, he was clearly foreign, and Kast hadn’t known that many to be kind, even to those of their own blood, much less a stranger. But it seemed Bart had been kind, even though Roayong was fairly downcast, answering most of Kast’s questions with a flat monotone. No, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual. No, he wasn’t sure his adopted father had enemies. No, Bart wasn’t in debt—Kast resolved to check that out with the local moneylender, anyway. Sometimes, people kept these things from their own families, out of guilt and shame. And it wouldn’t be the first time that unpaid debts were the motive for murder. No, there was nothing unusual, Bart had been heading out before dawn to check on the hides, and he’d spoken briefly with Roayong which was at least helpful, as it gave them a definite upper limit to the window in which Bart had been killed.

“I want them to pay,” Roayong said, flatly. He seemed strangely emotionless to Kast, but Kast supposed it could have been… Grief did strange things, he thought. Sometimes people reacted differently from how you expected.

Sometimes, it was something else altogether.

“We’ll find your father’s killer,” Kast promised, clapping the kid on the shoulder. He didn’t know if they could. Sometimes, the hardest thing you could do was to admit you didn’t have what it took to crack a case. It was too early to give up at this point, though. 

But you never told that to the vic’s family and friends. He hadn’t really thought about it, once. He’d come since to see that a single murder had more than one victim: that the lines of pain and sorrow and loss radiated outwards from that one death, touching all those the victim had laughed with. Had loved. 

It put steel in his spine. They would find the killer. They had to.

But the spike. It haunted his thoughts, all the same. If this was a simple murder, then what was a bloody, Lord Ruler-damned spike doing in Fallion’s Tears?

Perhaps it wasn’t a Hemalurgic spike. Perhaps Kast was jumping at shadows.

He didn’t know. Pain stabbed him in the hip and the knee. It wasn’t a good day, and he wasn’t as young as he once was. He limped over to where Wyl was watching the gathering crowd. He supposed it was a former Watch thing: you got used to being an observer, and you did it reflexively. There were whispers of the murders and the koloss, and Kast wasn’t sure he like the mood of anxiety and fear that seemed a humming undercurrent here.

“Any luck with the Mayor?”

Wyl shifted to regard him. “Moderately,” he said, drawing on his pipe. “You?”

“Got a timetable,” Kast said. “Other than that, working on leads.” 

Wyl smiled. More a slight upturn of the corners of his mouth. “Good,” he said. He seemed distracted. “Brief later?”

Kast made a few mental adjustments to the list of things he had to do. You had to be flexible, in this line of work. Get your priorities right, and shift them when you had to. Back in Tremredare, a case could be suddenly on the boil, with the call going out to the Watch. Sometimes you had to drop what you were holding and get moving immediately. “Sure. I take it the Mayor was helpful.”

Wyl shrugged. “We’re about to find out.”

 

 

Mayor Wilson was one hell of a persuasive woman, Kast would give her that. 

As she spoke about how the talk of the koloss was just that: rumours, talk, empty air, everyone knew that the koloss were under the Lord Ruler’s control, Kast noticed Wyl tense up, out of the corner of his eye. Strange, that. 

“What is it?” he asked, pitching his voice so the others wouldn’t pick up on it.

Later, Wyl signed. Well, all right, then. Kast supposed that made it two of them sitting on pieces of information, though he wasn’t looking forward to actually having to talk about it. Wyl knew just enough, and if he’d had his way, Kast wanted it to stay that way. His hand tightened about the cotton bag with the bloodied spike. 

“But someone here must’ve killed Bart!” one of the villagers was calling out.

“It’s been two murders,” shouted another. “How many more of us do you want dead before we act on this? Everyone remembers what it was like when someone killed Leas Fel, and for all we know, the killer still walks among us!”

“Please,” the mayor called out. “I need everyone to remain calm. Yes, it is distressing that Bart was murdered so shortly after Leas Fel—”

“He wasn’t just murdered,” the cordwainer snapped. “It was horrific! All that blood, and someone said the private eye found a bloody spike at the scene! Someone rammed a spike through him! If that isn’t twisted and fifty shades of fecked up, I don’t know what is.”

After all he’d seen, Kast agreed with that, at least. The scene had been staged, meant to appear gruesome, meant to terrify. And it was working.

The village meeting descended into shouting and finger-pointing, as much as Wilson called for calm. For some reason, Kast thought, her appeals were falling on deaf ears. There was something strange about this crowd, about how fast the mood was turning ugly. Almost as though…

At first, Variel the storyteller was deemed suspicious. Another stranger in Fallion’s Tears, so it was only natural. The villagers were closing ranks on their own, and the itinerant storyteller was a convenient figure of suspicion. They did not, after all, know him. But as further arguments broke out, with some defending Variel’s character and others turning on Illwei, the mood of the crowd shifted again and again, turning uglier and uglier, even as Wilson appealed for calm.

It wasn’t right, Kast thought, frowning. Wilson was usually more persuasive than this. It was why he didn’t trust her—he always felt as though she was trying to sweet-talk him into things, even if he’d rather not do them. Or at least, it was the haunting suspicion that you could never be sure at all.

He hated it. Hated the idea someone with a silver tongue could make him dance to her tune. And anyway, he wasn’t much for dancing, especially not with his leg the way it was now.

A hand gripped Kast’s shoulder. It was Wyl.

“Get Wilson,” Wyl breathed. “Get out of here.”

“What?” Kast asked, stunned. “What the hell, Wyl?”

“Can’t you feel it?” Wyl asked. “Look at them. They’re getting more and more worked up. They’re pushing and shoving. They’re getting more and more angry.”

He’d picked up on it, the way the crowd seemed exceptionally volatile, the more they worked themselves up. Perhaps it was just the crowd, but something tugged at his instincts, and Kast had long learned not to ignore his gut in this line of work.

“Too fast, isn’t it. And too volatile.”

Wyl nodded. “Find somewhere secure,” he said, urgently. “And get the Mayor out of here.”

“Yeah, and what’re you going to do, hold them off? You know the book as well as I do. Nothing you can do in the face of an angry crowd.” 

“Not alone,” Wyl said, meaningfully. “Erik.”

“Good,” Kast said. Time was, he’d worked riot duty in Tremredare before, both of them standing fast against the mob. He’d trusted Wyl to watch his six, just as Wyl trusted him to hold fast. Now, with all the weight of the years on their shoulders and his leg the way it was, he couldn’t help but feel as though it was all wrong, even though the rational part of Kast had figured out what Wyl was thinking.

“Also, I was going to find a damned Smoker. Because if you ask me, it looks a lot like someone’s fanning the flames.” He grimaced. “Emotional Allomancy. Gotta love it.”

“You don’t say,” Kast breathed. “I’ll get El.” Far as he knew, El was a Smoker, and El was steady. They didn’t need someone prone to losing their head in the tumult of a riot.

Emotional Allomancy. Someone wanted a bloodbath in the town square. And they didn’t care about how many people it would hurt, or how many lives might be lost in the process.

Wyl nodded in acknowledgement, his lips pressed together in a thin line. “Do it,” he said. “Go now.”

Cursing his leg, Kast ran. 

 

 

It hurt. It fecking hurt.

But it was only pain. And El could yell at him later for screwing up his leg again.

Kast ran, as best as he could. A dam seemed to burst as the crowd started to break into fisticuffs. The mood shifted, irrevocably, turning ugly, and then outright violent. He thought he saw the village alchemist, Lasalen, go down in the middle of the melee, even as Wyl was shoving through, trying to join up with Erik and some of the other volunteers. 

Honestly, Kast would take anyone with a steady head and heart over brawn in a riot. You needed someone you could utterly rely on, someone who wouldn’t break, someone who wouldn’t lose their cool.

He’d been that man, once.

A villager charged at him, and cursing, Kast swung his cane, jabbing it at the woman’s kneecap. She went down, and he limped on. Another one tried him, and Kast dodged with surprising grace—his hip screamed profanities at him, but it was only pain—and clubbed the man with his cane. Different from a staff, but you worked with what you had.

“Come on!” he screamed at Wilson. “You need to get out of there!”

“They’re killing him,” Wilson said, stunned. He recognised the blank look on her face. He’d seen it in recruits working the lines on their first riot. “The alchemist. Lasalen. The one with the ducks. The—”

“Later,” Kast snapped, and yanked at her, none too gently. “We go now.”

Damned if you did, damned if you didn’t.

They ran, and Kast hoped to hell that Wyl was watching his own six. A crowd like this was a maddened, bloodthirsty beast, and the thought struck him that if he had to go into business solo, he was never, ever going to forgive that bastard for having the temerity to get himself killed without Kast.

 

 

Flyingbooks/Lasalen was a victim of mob violence! They were a Regular Villager! PMs continue to remain open.

Quote

Flyingbooks (8): _Stick_, Ashbringer, Devotary of Spontaneity, Gears, Quintessential, StrikerEZ, TJ Shade, Ventyl, Young Bard
Shard of Reading (2): Araris Valerian, Fifth Scholar, Flyingbooks, Illwei
StrikerEZ (2): Matrim's Dice, The Young Pyromancer
_Stick_ (1): Experience Animation
Illwei (1): Mailliw73
Quintessential (1): Dannex

The Night has begun and will end tomorrow, 1st March 2021, at 2300hrs SGT (GMT+8). Apologies for the delay - work emergency came up, my gratitude to @Wyrmhero for kindly agreeing to take over for me and manage you lot. It's an unfortunate reality in my line of work that my off-hours are not always my own.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Kasimir

[Kasimir he/him]

Player List

Spoiler

1. @Matrim's Dice as Philico, the Magician Extraordinaire! - Come one, come all!
2. @Random Bystander as the village's random bystander and musician - Who wants to live forever?
3. @Gears as Roko the Basilisk, the gambling menace - Building a house of cards
4. @Quintessential as Tesse Mourn, resident metallurgist - Mixologist but metal
5. @Fifth Scholar as Iste Confessor, village scholar - I confess I'm interested in this one
6. @Shard of Reading as Joe, gambling duck wrangler who drinks - I'd be driven to drink too if I had to wrangle ducks 
7. @Araris Valerian as Arenta, grumpy landlady - or the unholy conglomeration of AG Araris and Ren, tremble with fear ye tenants!
8. @Dannex as Dr. Aliker - A doctor, just probably not the one you're looking for
9. @Elandera as a confused and overworked metallurgist - Whose order is it anyway?
10. @Ashbringer as Derrick, general madman and secret kandra - Twice the pride, double the fall!
11. @TJ Shade as Fleur Tieste, hopeless romantic and god of cheesy one-liners - Are you a Lurcher? 'Cause I think I'm pulled towards you.
12. @Illwei - definitely not an Elantrian
13. @Devotary of Spontaneity as Sonnah Cojic, alchemist - But probably not full metal
14. @Experience Animation as Shard, the crazy 'kid' in town - Here's lookin' at you, kid.
15. @Mailliw73 as Marll, a gambling cobbler who heard of Tyrian Falls - Beware beetles!
16. @StrikerEZ as Variel, a fastidious storyteller - Who will tell the story of your life?
17. @The Unknown Order as Obliteration, a Shard inhabiting one of his followers - Guess you could use somebody
18. @The Windrunner Supreme as Merritt Cavallo - Pending
19. @Ventyl as Niru, a watcher of ashes - Watch out, Ash, he's coming for you!
20. Flyingbooks as Lasalen, a Regular Villager
21. @Burnt Spaghetti as Roseanna Ghetti, an insomniac artist - But what is there to art in this village but an infinity of ducks?
22. @STINK as Smirkai - Smirkai, now that's a name I haven't heard in a very long time...
23. @_Stick_ as Sunny, the intrepid baking worldhopping dolphin - So long and thanks for all the fish!
24. @Biplet as Sara, the local tavern-keeper - Toss a coin to your keeper, o' valley of plenty!
25. @Daisy as Hadra the storyteller - We are the stories we live! The tales we tell ourselves!
26. @The Young Pyromancer as Pie Roayong, foreigner kid out for blood - His name is Pie Roayong. You killed his father. Prepare to die.
27. @Young Bard as Thiriel, social climber - Chaos is a ladder.
28. @Tani as Daux, duck poacher - The socially-accepted term is 'wrangler'.

Rule Clarifications

Spoiler

Right, bunch of clarifications:

• Yes, PMs remain open. They sort of have to, but my apologies for not including that in the write-up.
   
• If a Rioter attempts to move the vote of a Smoked person, will the Rioter's own vote disappear?

Yes. Smoking is not a roleblock, it merely renders the vote immune to change. As a result, the Rioter's own vote still vanishes.

• If a Smoker targets a Rioter, will the Rioter's own vote disappear when they try to Riot someone the next Turn?

In line with the previous ruling, that Smoking is a preservative, the Rioter's vote would not vanish.

• How do Rioters interact with Smokers? Must the person who the vote is moved to be unSmoked?

Okay, so first, let's distinguish between the Rioter's target and the vote target. To do this, I'll use a simple illustration. Suppose Ren has voted on Gamma. Now, because he's Wyrm, Wyrm is Rioting Ren's vote onto Kas instead. The Rioter's target is Ren, and the vote target, i.e. the target that the vote is being moved to, is Kas. 

Whether Kas is Smoked is irrelevant as Smoking only preserves Kas's vote. For Ren's vote to have actually ended up on Kas, one can deduce that Ren cannot have been Smoked.

Elementary, my dear Wyrm.

• Will failed kills be announced?

Yes - write-ups will announce the identity of the target as well as the fact they were attacked and survived.

• What happens if a Thug is Smoked and then killed?

First, it takes two kills to put a Thug down for good. Second, Smoking and Thug abilities do not interact. Nothing happens on this level.

• What happens if a Thug is Lurched and then attack?

I would rule that they would keep their passive life. The Lurch takes precedence.

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Kasimir

[|TJ| he/him]

2 hours ago, Wyrmhero said:

Hi everyone. 

Kas is busy, so I'm in charge of the game now. Before he died disappeared mysteriously with no witnesses, he wanted me to post that the Turn is over and nothing you do after this post will be counted.

Hi Wyrm! Definitely checked your account's past display names to check if it was Kas trolling again.

Also, three Soothers.... It does make Reading look bad... Gotta check the vote timings to see if the orders were sent before the players went to sleep, to see if it was village Soothers wanting to prevent a tie or elim Soother wanting to create one. Leaning towards the latter, because I think Reading was in the lead when everyone tuned out.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

5 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Also, three Soothers.... It does make Reading look bad... Gotta check the vote timings to see if the orders were sent before the players went to sleep, to see if it was village Soothers wanting to prevent a tie or elim Soother wanting to create one. Leaning towards the latter, because I think Reading was in the lead when everyone tuned out.

So, first off, only 2 votes were moved off of Reading, not 3. Secondly, Devotary was apparently moved to vote on herself. @Kasimir is that a mistake? I would’ve assumed we wouldn’t learn that Devo’s vote was moved, though I may have misunderstood the rules a bit.

Anyway, I’m going to go back through and look at the votes at some pivotal moments and see where players’ votes were to see what the goal of the vote manip might’ve been, but for now I’m just gonna do some preliminary analysis.

We’ve got two options: 1) 2 soothers, each of them moving a vote that ended on Reading (whether or not it was their intention to move a vote off of Reading is up for debate), and a Rioter, who made Devo vote for herself; 2) 1 Soother who cancelled a vote on Reading and 1 Rioter that moved Devo’s vote and was also voting on Reading at the time. I think option 1 is far more likely, though I wouldn’t be opposed to considering option 2 as well.

Anyway, this doesn’t make Reading look good at all, in my opinion.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Does anyone have a vote count from the end of the cycle? I’m seeing 4 votes missing, not 3?

[StrikerEZ he/him]

3 minutes ago, Mailliw73 said:

Does anyone have a vote count from the end of the cycle? I’m seeing 4 votes missing, not 3?

I just noticed a vote was also missing from Books. If someone had voted and their vote was removed, even if it was the only vote on a player, it would show they voted but the number would be at 0. I’m still confused by the Devo thing.

[Kasimir he/him]

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

So, first off, only 2 votes were moved off of Reading, not 3. Secondly, Devotary was apparently moved to vote on herself. @Kasimir is that a mistake? I would’ve assumed we wouldn’t learn that Devo’s vote was moved, though I may have misunderstood the rules a bit.

Can confirm this was in error. Kas was rushing near the end of the Turn >> My bad, corrected final tally has been updated and I've checked through the entries (...and this was El's amazing spreadsheet too, confounded by simple human error  ) 

For reference:

Quote

Flyingbooks (7): _Stick_, Ashbringer, Devotary of Spontaneity, Gears, Quintessential, StrikerEZ, TJ Shade, Ventyl, Young Bard
Shard of Reading (2): Araris Valerian, Fifth Scholar, Flyingbooks, Illwei
StrikerEZ (2): Matrim's Dice, The Young Pyromancer
_Stick_ (1): Experience Animation
Illwei (1): Mailliw73
Quintessential (1): Dannex

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Kasimir

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Looks like Devo is back on Books but there’s still a missing vote there. 

[Quintessential she/her]

Earlier that day, Tesse had headed out to the tavern. She normally didn't care for the crowded atmosphere, and preferred the comfortable solitude of her shop, but she’d decided she couldn’t be alone right now. She'd spent the past hours sitting slumped at her desk, head resting on a jumble of papers stacked upon it, one hand repeatedly opening and shutting the false bottom of one of its drawers in a kind of nervous tic. Click! click-click-click-click-clank. Click! click-click-click-click-clank. Click! Eventually she returned to some semblance of self-awareness, and decided she needed to get out. Out of town would have been preferable, but she'd already decided that would be unwise. So to the tavern she had gone.

She hadn't made it there, though. There was a crowd gathering in the town square, and Mayor Wilson stood at its front, giving some sort of speech. Tesse made her way to the edge of the crowd and tried to pick out Wilson's words over the muttering of those nearby. "...can assure you that those rumors are false. There are no koloss in the region, and if there were my scouts would know it," she said, nodding to Rowan and Slart. Someone in the crowd nearby jeered at the pair of hunters, and an argument broke out. 

At that moment, someone tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped, startled, and turned around to see her neighbor Willie standing there behind her. "Hey," Willie said with a lopsided grin, "so what do you think of all this?" Tesse blinked, trying to reconcile the compressed spring of tension inside her chest with Willie's cheerful face. "I--it's... crazy," she muttered. Willie smiled wider and, with a gleam in her eye, said "you wouldn't happen to have anything to do with those spikes, now would you? Working with metals and all..." 

Tesse would realize later on that it was a joke, but in the moment she took it as a threat. I'm onto you, it seemed to say. "What the hell do you think? No of course I don't have anything to do with this! How dare you accuse me of--of murder! That's what you're doing, y'know..." Towards the end her voice trailed off as she realized how loudly she'd been speaking before. She turned back to the crowd, and yes, they had definitely heard. Sides were taken, accusations shouted, and Tesse found herself wavering between them. She hadn't really meant it... had she? She didn't know anymore, but suddenly the idea that Willie might die because of what she said weighed her down like a lump of lead resting just below her heart. So as soon as another target was proposed, she added her voice to the cries for their death. And this time, it went through. 

Later, as Tesse stumbled home in a daze, two things occurred to her--"I should have done something" was one of them. The other was "perhaps I should stick to being alone after all."

VC from before vote-manip:
Reading (4): Araris, Fifth, Illwei, Books
Striker (2): Pyro, Matrim
Stick (1): XP
Illwei (1): Maill
Quinn (1): Dannex
Pyro (1): Bard
Books (8): Gears, Quinn, Ventyl, Stick, Striker, Ash, Devotary, TJ

Two votes were manipped off of Reading and one off of Books. That means we have... at least three Soothers? Wow, that's... well I guess this is a large game so that makes sense huh. Could also have been Rioters, since their votes are canceled when they move someone else's, but in order for that to be the case there would still have to be a third Soother to counterbalance the moved vote. 

Will say more but I don't want to get ninja'd again XD

[StrikerEZ he/him]

2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

VC from before vote-manip:
Reading (4): Araris, Fifth, Illwei, Books
Striker (2): Pyro, Matrim
Stick (1): XP
Illwei (1): Maill
Quinn (1): Dannex
Pyro (1): Bard
Books (8): Gears, Quinn, Ventyl, Stick, Striker, Ash, Devotary, TJ

Two votes were manipped off of Reading and one off of Books. That means we have... at least three Soothers? Wow, that's... well I guess this is a large game so that makes sense huh. Could also have been Rioters, since their votes are canceled when they move someone else's, but in order for that to be the case there would still have to be a third Soother to counterbalance the moved vote. 

Will say more but I don't want to get ninja'd again XD

We’ve got a few options actually. 3 soothers, 2 soothers and a rioter that didn’t vote, 4 soothers and a rioter (4th soother and rioter targeting the same vote), 1 soother and 1 rioter (the rioter would have to be someone who voted on Books or Reading). I think the first two are the most likely, with the last one being the next likely. I highly doubt we have 4 soothers. 

[Quintessential she/her]

I'm just going to assume that there were three Soothers, and only three Soothers, acting last cycle, because that is the explanation that involves the fewest convoluted cases and such.

One of the Soothers would have targeted one of [Gears, Quinn, Ventyl, Stick, Striker, Ash, Devotary, TJ]. The second and third would each have targeted one of [Araris, Fifth, Illwei, Books], and they can't both have targeted the same person. Here are voting histories for all of those people (with duplicates not included--I had a vote on Illwei at two points in time but she's only listed once, for example):

Gears: Books
Quinn: Striker, Illwei, Maill, Books
Ventyl: Books
Stick: Books
Striker: Gears, Illwei, Books
Ash: Books
Devotary: Books
TJ: Books

Araris: Reading
Fifth: Reading
Illwei: Quinn, Stick, TJ, Illwei, Reading
Books: Reading

So, basically there's a possibility that any Soothers acting were trying to remove a vote from one of [Striker, Illwei, Maill, Gears, Quinn, Stick, TJ], and then weren't on to see those people (edit: by which I mean their targets) move their votes, but it looks like it's more likely that all of the Soothers meant to remove votes from Books or Reading. Or, I guess, that they meant to remove the vote of a specific person they didn't trust?

Also, I'm sure this doesn't really need saying but there's likely at least one elim in [Gears, Quinn, Ventyl, Stick, Striker, Ash, Devotary, TJ]. I'd lean towards the later voters or the ones who had only voted Books, but I suppose take that with a grain of salt because both of those categories conveniently exclude me  

14 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

2 soothers and a rioter that didn’t vote

This wouldn't work, because we would see two votes removed and one vote moved in this case. We see three votes removed, but none of them went anywhere. The only way there could be a Rioter in play is if they did vote and there's still a third Soother to cancel a vote off of the same person that the Rioter moved their target's vote to.

Edit: Wait, why is this a double-post? Striker posted after me! I even quoted him... :/// 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Quintessential

[Mailliw73 he/him]

More to come tomorrow. Sunday’s are harder for me to have in depth stuff, sorry. 

I think out of the Books lynch that the Ventyl, Stick, Striker trio is where the elim is most likely to be.