Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

StrikerEZ 

Because it's probably going to either be one of us, or up to the vote manip.

[Kasimir he/him]

Time check: you have just under nine hours left before the Turn closes. Get those votes and orders in

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Striker(8): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Bippy, Pyro
Ashbringer(2): Young Bard, Stick, 
Gears(1): TJ
TUO(1): Ash
Pyro(3): Araris, Illwei, Striker
Maill(1): Experience

@Matrim's Dice Here's the actual vote count. 

Also...I've been thinking about what to say about your arguments against me and...I don't have much, but I will make a few comments. I've basically resigned myself to dying though, so I don't expect many people to change their minds about me at this point. Also wouldn't want them to, unless they could get the alternate exe candidate at least 2-3 votes ahead of me.

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

First off is this post, which I replied to here. The points here still stand- As multiple people have said, these ideas have plenty of holes that gave/give the vibe of a plan that looks good on the surface but benefits the elims. In this situation I don't think elim!Striker expected those holes to be poked so quickly

I mean...is it really so hard to believe that I just forgot that Smokers existed when I said my Seeker thing? And besides that, I really don't think there's very many holes in my ideas in that post. Sure, it was rushed, but that's because I typed it up in like 5-10 minutes. Of course I didn't think through every little thing for everything I was saying.

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

This from Striker casts massive shade on Reading, which I disagree with. More people did this but Striker was the first. I and the majority are of the mind that the manip doesn't particularly make Reading look like anything, so this is a massive exaggeration. Then Striker seems to shift opinions without saying it outright- post here- backpedaling on the accusation the manip was to save Reading and instead saying that we really have no clue when/how the manip was used.

I mean...I talked with Maill about the vote manip stuff in PMs, and realized that we really had no clue what was going on there exactly. I do still think it's highly likely that at least one of the removed votes comes from an elim Soother, I just don't think it's necessarily indicative of Reading's alignment since the order could've been placed well before the vote moved to its final resting place. 

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

And then the whole thing with Ventyl- not going to link every post but the first one is here . This could be read multiple ways, but now that Ventyl's flipped village I'm inclined to read it as an elim casting shade on a village Smoker. And who knows- maybe elim!Striker was planning to use elim!Smoker to do just that. Striker made it very clear his stance on this, and that sort of could be what got Ventyl killed. And maybe that was his plan, I dunno. (Assuming he's elim, that is :P. Which I am.)

And then I talk about how I think he's more likely village than not exactly five minutes after the post you linked (here is the post).  Plus Ventyl is literally the only person that said anything between the post you linked and the one I did. It's not like I got any backlash or anything and started backing off. I was literally just thinking through ideas out loud in the thread. And as I was talking through them, I was realizing that all of what I was saying was extremely complicated and really unnecessary and not at all worth the elims' time. Did I probably accidentally cause his death? Yeah, probably. Someone followed my lead too much.

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Not as much of a point against Striker because we don't actually know, but Striker pushes the assumption that the elims are ones to go for low-info kills multiple times. I mean, it's D1  Low info makes sense. I'm more curious of who they'll go for next

I'm not the only person ever that goes through and tries to make sense of who the elims might be based on who they're killing. If I remember correctly, Ash himself did something like this in QF50. Granted, I was an elim then, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it was incredibly wrong for me to make some assumptions based on a single kill and then see how those assumptions play out once we get more kills. Did I overstate my case? Absolutely. But when do I not act with far more confidence than I reasonably should?

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I'll finish it around here because I've about caught up. Worthy of note: When Striker voted Tani, it felt out of the blue to me. He said he's most sus of Maill and Tani out of the voters of him, which I read as possible distancing because I sussed both of them already and they've linked to him. 

I voted Tani because her hopping around a bunch on the votes was odd to me at the time. I've since backed off on that because it seems to be how she wants to play the game, and I'm not going to harp on new players' playstyles or anything like that. And...I mean, I guess you can read me as elim because I'm sus of people you're also sus of? But like...why?

Anyway, I got ninja'd a couple times, but I don't want to lose this because I ended up typing a lot more than I meant to and it'd be a shame if I lost this. I'm going to sleep after this. So, this will probably be my last post, unless I manage to get on sometime tomorrow morning before rollover. If I don't die, I shall be very surprised, to say the least.

EDIT: Of course one of the ninjas was Pyro voting on me and messing up my vote count. It's fixed now.

Edited March 3, 2021 by StrikerEZ

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

That's a lot of votes on Striker. I don't know why the elims would just throw away a teammate like that unless Ash was also evil and they decided Striker was expendable. Of course I know from personal experience that sometimes its less that the elims sacrifice a teammate than that they just don't speak up in time and get trampled by villagers. Anyway, if Striker is an elim then I'd say it's likely that either Ash is evil and/or the people fueling the Pyro mini train are evil. Seems like it would have been smarter to push someone who had votes in that latter case. It was also 5-4 Striker-Ash when Araris switched to Pyro with Illwei in third place with 2 votes, easily within vote manipulation range.  A Striker-Ash-Araris-Illwei train seems like a reach though and combined with not finding Ash incredibly suspicious, out of the possibilities e!Striker/Ash, e!Striker/Ash/Araris/Illwei, and v!Striker, that last one seems the most likely.

I don't know where that puts me since the Pyro votes just seem to be based on Araris's D1 read for something that I don't think indicates evil Pyro. We don't learn a whole lot from Pyro regardless of alignment compared to an evil Striker flip, but village Striker also doesn't say too much. Pyro wasn't suspicious of Books or Ventyl after their fates were sealed and floated an elim Coinshot theory if there were several village lurchers. 'If I'm vaguely suspicious I'm probably village' doesn't read well but is also pretty much true from what I remember. Or rather the strongest guarantee of Pyro being village is if they get exed early, so if they die today they'll be a villager but if they survive they're more likely to be an elim because that's how probability works. Time to test the variable alignment hypothesis I suppose, with Pyromancer. Since this is the last I'll be on for the cycle I guess I'll just find out what everyone else decides.

I was going to do more for Sonnah but I'm stalling out on her. Imagine that they're having to work overtime now that there's only one alchemist in Fallion's Tears. Takes up a lot of time that was previously spent supplying Terris resistance groups. One might have expected there to be somewhat less urgency with The Lord Ruler dead, but in fact with the rebellion seeming like it has a chance instead of being doomed to failure against the might of a living god, now is the time to shatter the might of the noble houses forever, ideally with the help of high explosives.

[Kasimir he/him]

9 hours ago, Quintessential said:

So Striker. I guess. I... ahhhh this is hard but I don't think starting new trains this far into the cycle is going to either help or work very well, so... yeah.

Reminder that your vote is still currently on Illwei  Don't forget to retract, you lot!

Edited March 3, 2021 by Kasimir

[STINK he/him]

Don't have to retract if you look at this voting going on like huh what

[|TJ| he/him]

15 hours ago, Gears said:

Inform me if I'm misrepresenting your arguments: You read me as elim because I seem overly informed as to the alignments of Illwei, Quinn, and Striker, and I'm defending them with such confidence that I must have inside knowledge, yes? I will take that as the compliment that it is and also point out that your argument hinges on the fact that I wouldn't defend my village reads as a villager. You assume that the only reason I would defend people that are under fire for no reason other than normal NAI things is because I know that they are village. Do you understand why this seems odd to me? You immediately discount the possibility that I genuinely read them as village. You assume that Illwei, Quinn, and Striker are village. You assume that elim!Gears would actually care about breaking out of the 'thunderdome' that had sprung up around Illwei and Quinn. Why would elim!Gears care about Illwei's death? Why wouldn't elim!Gears just let Illwei die? Gears status quo is to not vote D1. Why would elim!Gears violate the status quo to result in a world that is arguably identical to the one where they didn't? Why do you assume that Illwei, Quinn, and Striker are village?

I cannot recall you defending someone on D1 before at all. I cannot recall you commenting on Quinn-Illwei stuff in previous games at all. @Quintessential, correct me if I'm wrong on both accounts. You say "you immediately discount the possibility that I genuinely read them village", you're wrong because I did initially read them like that, but I felt was something off so I came back to them. "Why would elim!Gears do anything of these things", that's the reasoning I gave, to appear as a villager.

15 hours ago, Quintessential said:

This is something I'd actually noticed, and intended to point out but forgot: wouldn't it make more sense for elim!Gears to be defending me and Illwei if one of us (presumably Illwei, because otherwise he wouldn't have had to) is his teammate? Why do you assume that we're all village if Gears is elim? ( @StrikerEZ ) Edit: wait why did I @ Striker? XD I mean to @TJ Shade

It's the tone of his entire post, it sounds and looks more like his intention is to earn village points rather than to save a teammate. Like:

Quote

Why is anyone even voting Illwei? Defensiveness? Quinn, you're paranoid and tunneling.

That doesn't look like he's taking to e!teammate!you.

Quote

We do have a tendency to trap ourselves in unnecessary cages. Let's try and avoid that. Why is it between Quinn and Illwei? Because they're arguing? Can two villagers not argue?

This whole thing feels bah too performative and appearance sake-ish.

The "are you okay?" to Illwei also doesn't feel like e/e. 

15 hours ago, Gears said:

You assume that elim!Gears would actually care about breaking out of the 'thunderdome' that had sprung up around Illwei and Quinn. Why would elim!Gears care about Illwei's death? Why wouldn't elim!Gears just let Illwei die?

15 hours ago, Quintessential said:

It's not my fault that you keep saying things that either make sense, or that I was thinking in a kind of amorphous way but hadn't put into words yet!

My point 

Anywayy, I'll keep this on the backburner since no one seems to want to join me.

12 hours ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Is it just me, or is TJ weird this game?

Yeah, don't like this random shade thrown. 

12 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Okay, first off, @TJ Shade just want to say that, just because something like the Ventyl situation happened in LG67 doesn’t mean that everyone here would know that or prevent it or even want to prevent it. I was there and I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

9 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

 TJ (not 100% sure why, but some of that stuff with the LG67 thing just rubbed me the wrong way like...he was trying to make it seem like, oh of course we would've known not to focus on Ventyl if he'd survived

Striker, you died D1, and if I remember correctly, you clocked out of the game as I don't remember reading a lot of your stuff in the dead doc. I was personally responsible voting out Ventyl for the sole reason of claiming Edgedancer. And I felt this was the exact same situation would follow, as in he claims, elims leave him alive to create IKYK, and we'd voting him out later. And I never meant "we" as in collective "we", I would have tried persuading away from a Ventyl vote personally, but it felt like Illwei and Mat (and there might be one or two more I'm not sure) were reading him village, and that's why I was confused about the Coinshot's choice. Ventyl has never pulled any sort of gambit as an elim.

But this sort of wild jumps is what was making me think Striker is village sigh. I have no idea what elim!Striker's motive here would be? Like I fail to understand, if he flips evil, will people look at this and go - what? I don't understand.

And then I read Mat's post and now I'm confused. I'm still leaning village on think. On Pyro, felt weird he shaded Elandera right after her first OOC post about not OOC posting, and shading me. Hmmmm if I vote for Pyro now it's 8-5, and we had 3 vote manips last cycle... but I feel the more closer the vote, the more info we can get from it, and village manipulators might not be too enthusiastic to remove vote off Striker. 

Pyromancer Gears

Are you 3.14? Because I'm π-Romantic

Edited March 3, 2021 by TJ Shade

[Quintessential she/her]

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Reminder that your vote is still currently on Illwei  Don't forget to retract, you lot!

Illwei

(does it work if I retract in a different post? Uh. Or should I go edit it back into the old one?)

11 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

I cannot recall you defending someone on D1 before at all. I cannot recall you commenting on Quinn-Illwei stuff in previous games at all. @Quintessential, correct me if I'm wrong on both accounts.

You guys all seem to assume there has been serious Quinn - Illwei stuff in previous games... uh, I don't actually remember that? The first game anything like that really happened iirc was QF50, and that was just Illwei joke-voting me basically. Other than that it's happened in the MR but really nowhere else? (I'm almost inclined to think it's a tell that one of us is v and the other is e, since I was elim in QF50 and she was elim in the MR, but... XD that's probably tinfoiling). Anyway, to answer your question, no, I don't think Gears has really gotten involved in this kind of thing before (like, he didn't get involved in my D1 tunnel on Matrim in LG73 either, or in my C2 fake-tunnel of Dannex in QF50). The post itself still reads... Gears-y to me though.

[Kasimir he/him]

Final time check: under two hours to rollover. Anything left, better get it done soon. 

@Quintessential This works, no need to do it in the same post. 

[Stick. she/her]

Striker(8): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Bippy, Pyro
Ashbringer(2): Young Bard, Stick
Gears(1): TJ
TUO(1): Ash
Pyro(5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
Maill(1): Experience

My vote's sitting there kinda useless right now so uh. I never really got to analyse Striker's posts in depth, but I did go and reread them and between Pyro and Striker I think I'd prefer Striker to be lynched because I think his flip provides a lot more information for the village to look into, plus I don't know if I'm particularly suspicious of Pyro - I'm sort of gut-reading them village.

Ashbringer

Striker 

Edit: the cake is in the oven

Edited March 3, 2021 by _Stick_

[Quintessential she/her]

54 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Striker(8): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Bippy, Pyro
Ashbringer(2): Young Bard, Stick
Gears(1): TJ
TUO(1): Ash
Pyro(5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
Maill(1): Experience

*cough* you have TJ on both Gears and Pyro lol

We really can't get VCs right this game, can we...

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Quintessential said:

*cough* you have TJ on both Gears and Pyro lol

We really can't get VCs right this game, can we...

I am the GM and I can confirm this OTL

Alas, human (i.e. Kas) error continues to be my greatest bane...

[Stick. she/her]

1 minute ago, Quintessential said:

*cough* you have TJ on both Gears and Pyro lol

We really can't get VCs right this game, can we...

Oh oops

Striker(9): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Bippy, Pyro, Stick
Ashbringer(2): Young Bard, Stick
TUO(1): Ash
Pyro(5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
Maill(1): Experience

There we go...inb4 more errors xD

[Quintessential she/her]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

Oh oops

Striker(9): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Bippy, Pyro, Stick
Ashbringer(2): Young Bard, Stick
TUO(1): Ash
Pyro(5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
Maill(1): Experience

There we go...inb4 more errors xD

You have yourself on both Ash and Striker? XDDDDD

[Mat he/him]

• Striker (9): Mat, Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Biplet, Pyro, Stick
• Pyro (5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
• Ash (1): Bard
• TUO (1): Ash
• Maill (1): Exp

 

Edited March 3, 2021 by Matrim's Dice

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Matrim's Dice said:

• Striker (9): Mat, Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Biplet, Pyro, Stick
• Pyro (5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
• Ash (1): Bard
• TUO (1): Ash
• Maill (1): Exp

Good work. This matches mine  

[Quintessential she/her]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

Good work. This matches mine  

Is that because you copied yours off of his?  

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Quintessential said:

Is that because you copied yours off of his?  

El's spreadsheets are magic. But as they automatically build in vote manipulation, I've been trying to desist from c/ping into this thread to avoid accidentally revealing info I shouldn't >>

[Stick. she/her]

6 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

You have yourself on both Ash and Striker? XDDDDD

oh my goodness gracious 

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

• Striker (9): Mat, Supreme, Maill, Quinn, Fifth, Tani, Biplet, Pyro, Stick
• Pyro (5): Araris, Illwei, Striker, Devo, TJ
• Ash (1): Bard
• TUO (1): Ash
• Maill (1): Exp

 

Thank you xDD

[Biplet she/her]

@StrikerEZ O7

clarification: this is a salute

Edited March 3, 2021 by Biplet
Clarification

[StrikerEZ he/him]

So...any of @Matrim's Dice @The Windrunner Supreme @Fifth Scholar @Mailliw73 @Quintessential @Tani @The Young Pyromancer @_Stick_ @Young Bard @The Unknown Order @Biplet or @Experience wanna do some last minute vote shenanigans and move to Pyro?  If not, I may as well post this:

~

As the crowd descended upon Variel, he straightened his coat and began to tell a story.

"Once upon a time, there was a man named Strivel. He was known throughout the land as He Who Shields From The Execution...or just the Shield, for short. He spent his time going around the world, finding groups of people in need, and attempting to help them. Often, he would be attacked for this. Many people didn't take kindly to how he tried to help, though he did have good intentions. And he did his best to help the common man.

"However, he often failed miserably. Perhaps being used as a Shield from the execution...isn't the best way to help people. You see, Strivel often found himself in precarious positions. He'd come up with grand ideas, lofty ways of solving people's problems. And there were often many, many holes. Many holes. So, people tore his ideas apart...and often nearly tore him apart too! Strivel wasn't known for staying in one place for very long. Hard to do that when everyone there is calling for your execution.

"One time, he found himself in the precarious position of knowing who exactly needed to be killed to best help keep a town safe. So, rather than carefully lead the town in the right direction, he blurted out the names. He was promptly attacked and swept from the town, nearly losing his life. 

"One would think that Strivel would learn his lesson, but no, it happened again and again and again. There was always something that made Strivel such a good target for people's ire. Strivel took this in stride, though sometimes it hurt to know that everyone thought he was so terrible at giving advice.

"So, why am I telling this story?" Variel pauses as a man decks him in the face. "Well, I feel it fits pretty well, considering you lot are attacking me when all I wanted to do was just tell some stories and learn some of y'all's. I hope you feel terribly dissatisfied at not knowing what happened next to Strivel."

Edited March 3, 2021 by StrikerEZ
Typo :P

[Kasimir he/him]

And—time, ladies and gentlespren. Please cease all illicit activity and return to your homes, citizens.

[Kasimir he/him]

Night Two: Renounce My Past

“I lost, I ran
I started once anew
In northern grey, in drizzling rain
In salted slush and bitter hail
But the order as always merciless
It wants to see me fail
So the hunter is now the hunted
Past voices call my name
I renounce my past to live again.”

—’A Quiet Life’, Teho Teardo ft. Blixa Bargeld

Some men are like Wyl. You look at him, you know he was meant for this life. There’s a fundamental decency, right at the core of him. The same sort of decency that keeps him running back unflinching into the darkness when the rest of us’d rather tap out, stay down. Because no one else would. Because he felt some sort of calling, or some sort of inner demand to do so. Some of us were Watch because it paid, because it was better than starving. Some of us were little better than the perps we caught, really. There’s always five crooked Watch for every honest man in there, sometimes it feels like. 

Wyl was one of the best, the brightest. I think we all knew that, really. I think it killed him, the day they let him go. I really think it did. 

I remember what it was about. That one case they so badly wanted to bury. That one case. We all laid off it, as we were told. Good, dutiful Watch, right? But Wyl wouldn’t listen. Stubborn as pig-iron, that man, when he wants to be. When he’s got his teeth into something. 

He was skaa. Only skaa. She was a noble, an Erikell from the main line, blue blood dating all the way back to the Ascension and the founding of the Final Empire. The case was never going to go anywhere. “Drop it,” the Watch Commander ordered us. We all listened. We all knew the score. It’s only a crime if the vic’s a noble, or if vic and perp are skaa.

All of us except Wyl. 

I sometimes wonder what happened, that day. Why he chose to dig his heels in and die on that particular hill. Maybe it was the cruelty of it all. He’d died badly, that vic. What we found was no longer recognisably human. Wyl had gone quiet; terribly, coldly quiet as we got a few runners to come around with a cart for the remains. Maybe it was the day he reached his breaking point. There’s always this one case, this one instance of human perfidy, of the darkness that lurks within each and every one of us that makes you stop dead and say, “No more, no further.” 

Kreon Heron had him thrown out of the Watch. Don’t think anyone expected any different, maybe not even Wyl. Sometimes, you do what you have to, damn the consequences. Nobles protect their own, and not even a bright star is immune from political fallout, not when you’re skaa. The Erikells sent an assassin.

Hadn’t stinted, either. I knew him, you see. One of the best on the dark market, which seemed a little overkill for one skaa. But there were two things Gade hadn’t counted on: first, that Wyl was in fact a Misting. Hard to surprise a Lurcher when you’re carrying metal, after all.

And then there was me. I’d gotten the drop on him. 

Gade was one of the best, but there’s always someone better. And sometimes, you just get careless. Carelessness gets even the best killed.

Even bright stars fall, or are snuffed out.

You can’t help but feel sorrow at the passing of a star. Maybe it’s a cold existence, just shedding light against the uncaring dark. But someone’s got to do it. And the world’s a little darker, a little colder for their absence. 

So I killed Gade. He didn’t go quietly. Killers of his quality don’t. He fecked my leg up, if that’s what you’re wondering. Saved Wyl’s life in the bargain, but the way I saw it, I owed him anyway. It’s seldom second chances come along in our line of work. 

I didn’t expect one, either. Thought I saw my own death that day, looming over me, bloodied, spiked, wearing the face of someone I thought I knew. Loved, maybe. I don’t know if I loved her, really. Maybe I loved the idea of her. Maybe that day, I was seeing her, really seeing her as she truly was for the first time.

Many reasons why we left Tremredare. You don’t ice someone like Gade and expect no consequences. The Erikells had deep pockets, and longer memories. Kreon Heron had withdrawn any expectation of protection from Wyl. I showed up and turned in my commission that day. He didn’t say a word to me. Wasn’t really much to be said, see? I’d never been their bright star. Far as most of them was concerned, I was Wyl’s stray, and a crooked thing. What was it they say? ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.’

Think they may’ve been right about that.

Then we went into business. Been seven years, now. Can’t help but wonder sometimes where life would’ve taken me, if our paths hadn’t crossed. If Waes hadn’t been experimenting with the spikes. If Waes hadn’t talked her into going along. Maybe I liked to think of her as the one bright thread, woven through a life stained with blood. Maybe I was wrong. But no. I’d have been dead, I think. Without Wyl, without the Watch, I’d have been a dead man walking. I just hadn’t realised it yet.

I know I’m not a good man. I’ve seen what a good man looks like. I’ve seen it everyday for seven years. Longer than that, really, stretching back to that day he saved my life.

But sometimes, even this broken world needs bad men. We keep other bad men from the door.

 

Kast blinked blearily at the light flooding in through the office shutters. So much for actually heading off to sleep, he thought. They’d flipped a coin for the flat under the office—Wyl’d won and had promptly moved out, claiming he’d better things to do than live so near where he worked. So it was just Kast who lodged there, now.

El’s medicine had left a chalky, bitter aftertaste on his tongue, but he’d drowned it with the last of Wyl’s whisky. Probably yet another bad life decision, in a whole lengthy train of them. His leg was stiff, but as he stretched it out, the familiar aches and pains flared to life, with a litany of complaints. His cane was leaning against the battered sofa in easy reach, so Kast steeled himself and then reached over to grab it and leaned on it, hauling himself to his feet.

He was so tired and the whisky haze had mostly dissipated and he badly wanted something to drink. The bronze spike still rested on the table. Kast wanted nothing to do with it, even though he was fairly sure it didn’t carry much of a charge by now.

It hadn’t been a restful night. His heart ached, and he felt wrung out, after the talk with Wyl. Too many memories he’d rather stay buried. Wyl hadn’t pried too much about the killings back then, and with time, Kast thought the poison had drained from them. But just talking about it had brought it all back, in carmine clarity. The slaughterhouse that Waes and—that she had made of the safehouse. In his fitful nightmares, he hadn’t fought. Hadn’t fled. He knew that it wasn’t real, knew that it wasn’t what had happened, but he felt her tug on his emotions, Rioting the fear and the loss and the indecision, and then the spike punched through his heart in a welter of shock and agony.

He didn’t want to do anything, today, but what he wanted didn’t matter. He took one deep breath, and then another, stilling himself. He accepted the pain, accepting the exhaustion and the grief, and let them rise through him and breathed them out again. He had a job to do, and even if Kast didn’t feel like he was operating at a hundred percent, eighty percent was better than thirty, hands down.

He consulted the notes that they had begun to piece together yesterday. Kast had never been a fan of running a link chart at such a preliminary stage of the investigation, but Wyl was a fan of sloppy charts held together by twine and notepaper, pinned to the corkboard of the office. One of the threads had snapped; Kast shook his head, and copied the chart down with slate and chalk. The smooth sound of chalk on slate preoccupied him, and he didn’t have to think about the more unsettling aspects of the investigation.

When he was done, he consulted the chart again. They’d been operating off the assumption that there was some common factor between Leas Fel’s death. It was a reasonable assumption: given that Fallion’s Tears barely saw any murders, it seemed only natural that two killings happening within a week of each other were connected, especially since the MO was the same. As far as Kast could tell though, Leas Fel hadn’t been killed by a spike. He noted that down as a discrepancy, both on the LEAS FEL box and the BART box. Chalk dust drifted down gently, as he wrote.

He heard the jangling of keys and then the door to the office creaked open. “Still working over the cases?” Wyl asked. He looked just about as done as Kast felt, and Kast wondered if he should ask why. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “Everything else is on ice, anyway, seeing as the Mayor’s paying us to get to the bottom of this fast.” He added a few more chalked lines to each entry, consisting of what they knew about Leas Fel and Bart. Leas Fel, a middle-aged veteran from the local garrison. Kast had spoken to the man a few times, when he’d been alive, and from the wry amusement with which Leas Fel took in the various occurrences in Fallion’s Tears, Kast had the sense little slipped by him. Hard to put one over Leas Fel. He added that comment in parentheses.

Bart had been gruff, but kind. Took in Pie Roayong after all, hadn’t he? The most Kast knew about Bart was that he was a Seeker, though uncovering that secret had been fairly challenging. That was an actionable he added: talk to the local moneylender to see if anyone had reason to want Bart or Leas Fel dead. With the number of gamblers in town, perhaps there was some sort of debt that Pie Roayong hadn’t known about. He’d meant to do it the other day, but the riot had set him back. 

Wyl grunted in acknowledgement and left his coat and hat on the rack and stepped over to take a look at the board. Kast noticed the way he drew up short, just outside of Kast’s personal space. Enough that, had he been years younger, in his prime, and without that old injury, Kast couldn’t have struck at him. Old habits died hard, perhaps. But he couldn’t shake the sense that there was a wariness about Wyl today. “Someone got whacked. Kid by the name of Niru. They haven’t found the body, just footprints in ash that disappear and the word RUIN.”

“Huh,” said Kast, puzzling over that. “So, we have a stolen corpse on top of everything?”

Wyl shrugged. “Beats me. Coinshot whacked him, though.” And there it was, that faint edge of suspicion in his gaze. Kast thought he understood, though it hurt a little anyway. It hadn’t been that way for years. They’d had some kind of working rhythm established, but now that there were spikes and a rogue Coinshot in Fallion’s Tears…

It still hurt, Kast supposed. That the past seven years had seemed to count for nothing. But the investigator in him knew about the need to be objective, and he let go of that defensive flash of frustration as well. “Coinshot? That’s one hell of a different MO then.” He added that as a separate box on the chart—NIRU and then the connection to the Coinshot. 

Niru was a kid, by Wyl’s reckoning, which didn’t fit with the victimology where Leas Fel and Bart had been concerned, but Kast figured the victimology was already problematic anyway. Leas Fel had been no Misting.

“Sure is,” Wyl said. “One of the strangers disappeared, too. The one singing all those tunes. Word on the street is, someone saw her getting attacked. No one did anything.” His tone made clear his distaste for the situation. “Don’t think she died but she seems to have skipped town.”

“Don’t blame her,” Kast said. “Coinshot too?”

“No idea, possible knife attack.” 

“Puts her in the same vicinity as Leas Fel, possibly,” Kast thought aloud. He tapped on the slate with his stub of chalk, absently. “No idea if the MO is the same, but for the moment, seems a safe assumption.”

“Yeah.”

He filled in PIE ROAYONG for Bart’s intimates, while Leas Fel’s remained threadbare. “Add the Mayor,” Wyl said, casually. “She mentioned Leas Fel came by a number of times, and I get the sense they were closer than that.”

He chalked that in as well and frowned at the board. LASALEN? was yet another box, with a dotted line identifying the rogue Rioter that was no doubt on the loose. Kast didn’t think Lasalen had been the target though: the Rioter just wanted someone—or several someones—dead. Too many unknowns right now which meant they had clearly-defined actionables to start filling in the connections in the chart.

“How’s the leg?” Wyl asked, all of a sudden.

“Could be worse,” Kast replied. “Did it no favours, running around that day.”

“Mmm,” said Wyl. But that sharpness in his gaze wasn’t going away.

 

Variel the storyteller brushed ash and dust off his coat and cuffs as he sat on the wooden chair in the office. He was cut and bruised, but not in altogether bad shape, by the time they’d retrieved him from the mob. Douza had run to find them, and Wyl and Kast had set aside the case briefing. Neither of them had wanted to see another repeat of the riot in the village square the other day.

As it turned out, a group of villagers had turned on Variel, deeming him suspicious for his constant commentary and his own thoughts on the situation in Fallion’s Tears. By the time Wyl and Kast had arrived, things had started to take a turn for the violent. Fortunately, the volunteers of the newly-minted village Watch—or militia, Kast wasn’t really sure which they were at this point in time—had arrived with Erik to extricate Variel from the crowd, and Wyl had talked them into letting them take Variel back to the office for an interview.

“You can figure out what to do with him later,” Wyl said, firmly, and from the looks of it, that was a headache that Erik hadn’t wanted, anyway.

So now Variel was here, sitting in their office, and as Wyl talked him through the various events of the day, all Kast could think of was that something wasn’t right. Variel had been far too calm for a man facing an imminent death at the hands of an empty mob, and he didn’t know what it was, but something was tripping red flags all over for him.

Maybe it was the way he moved. Graceful, like a dancer. Or like a killer. It was the attentive way he sat, supremely confident, even though he was in their office, and really, in their power.

These things never left you. Kast knew. Kast knew.

They hadn’t patted him down, or conducted a quick body search. They’d been distracted, given the anger of the mob. They hadn’t checked, they’d simply assumed.

Assumptions got you killed in this line of work. As did carelessness.

“Let’s start again from the beginning,” Wyl said, wrapping up the interview. “You’re Variel, a storyteller.”

“I am a storyteller,” said Variel. “I like stories. I like listening to them, and telling them. Do you want to hear a story?”

Wyl raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“There was once a man named Valimar,” Variel said. “He lived in a place that was very far away, where terrible storms struck the land over and over again, scouring it. The people of this land had learned to live with the storms. They praised them for their glory and majesty. Not Valimar, though. He found them distracting when he needed to work. For Valimar had very important work indeed: making sure those he needed killed were killed.”

He stood up, and Kast tensed up. Simple muscle memory. The alertness never left you. He knew another killer when he saw one.

“I’ll skip the rest of the story, perhaps,” Variel said, quietly. “Save that Valimar found himself in a very, very dark place, and learned to appreciate the power of a good story. And I’m certainly not interested in his story ending here, so I’m sorry for what I’ll have to do.”

“Kast!” Wyl shouted. “Drop!”

Kast knew that tone, even before he had finished processing it. Too many years working together. He dropped reflexively, cursing as his bad leg immediately started swearing at him for the movement. The throwing knife that had materialised from Variel’s cuff swept through the space where he would have been.

Kast rolled and reached out for his cane, as the closest weapon to hand. He had to move fast, even though his body was punishing him for it; Variel had thrown with the whisper-quick speed of a practiced assassin, and the last thing Kast wanted was to fight someone like him in the shape he was now—

And then Variel coughed. Blood blossomed on his coat, where a bronze spike was protruding from his chest. It had been on the office table, forgotten about, until now.

Until Wyl had burned iron.

Right through the heart, Kast thought, stunned. That was some accuracy right there.

“You okay?” Wyl asked, turning to him and frowning.

Kast struggled to his feet. Wyl didn’t offer a hand. Kast wouldn’t have accepted, if he had. He had his pride. “Yeah,” he muttered, shaken. Memories of Gade flooded his mind, shaken loose. It was the pit-trap Kast hadn’t expected. 

It had been too long since he’d done wetwork, and his mind and instincts had fallen asleep, gone neglected.

“Thanks,” Kast muttered. “You think it was him?”

Wyl shook his head. “Think he just felt there was no other option,” he said, slowly. “He didn’t react to the spike at all. Didn’t seem to have much knowledge of it. MO doesn’t fully match either, not with how he doesn’t seem to like to get personal with his killing.” He looked over Kast and shook his head. “Getting out of shape there, doesn’t this make it the tenth time I’ve saved your life?”

“Ninth time,” Kast snapped. “That time in the Warrens doesn’t count, and you know it.”

This time, Wyl’s smile reached his eyes. “Nine, then. Surely you can do better.”

Kast let out a deep breath. “I guess,” he said, still shaken. He glanced down at the still body of Variel the storyteller, transfixed by the spike. He couldn’t help the strange, dark foreboding that stole over him, as a dark cloud on a clear afternoon.

Variel’s last story stuck with him, that tale of Valimar, and how he’d found his way out through stories, just as Kast had been thrown a lifeline in the form of Wyl and the Watch. Both of them had killed and killed, until their lives had forked and changed forever.

He knelt and closed Variel’s staring eyes, one by one. Tried not to feel as though he was staring into some kind of strange mirror.

You kept running from your past, Kast thought, and hoped very hard it didn’t catch up with you. Old blades like them knew this. And maybe if it did, you prayed for mercy, before the end.

He felt very old, and very tired, and very out of sorts.

“I’ll talk to Erik,” he said, at last. He’d have to make arrangements, at least, for Variel’s repose. A subject dying in custody...this was another thing Kast hadn’t at all wanted to deal with today. 

He filed away those emotions too, and got back to work.

 

 

StrikerEZ was interrogated! He was a Regular Villager!

Quote

StrikerEZ (9): _Stick_, Biplet, Fifth Scholar, Mailliw73, Matrim's Dice, Quintessential, Tani, The Windrunner Supreme, The Young Pyromancer
The Young Pyromancer (4): Araris Valerian, Devotary of Spontaneity, Illwei, StrikerEZ, TJ Shade
Ashbringer (1): Young Bard
The Unknown Order (1): Ashbringer
Mailliw73 (0): Experience
Araris Valerian (1): 

The Night has begun! It will end on 4th March 2021, at 2300hrs SGT (GMT+8)! PMs remain open!

[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, a Regular Villager
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, a Regular Villager
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, a Village Smoker
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

• Are there any circumstances under which a Rioter's vote does not disappear?

As mentioned, if a Rioter has been Smoked, or if a Rioter failed to vote.

• How do you determine a Mistborn's metals for the cycle?

I'm aiming to stay consistent with Meta's rulings, so as Meta did, I roll a d10 - 9 and 10 means I reroll, and if I land on any metals the Mistborn previously drew, I'll reroll once, so this slightly weights them in favour of getting new metals. Once they've gone through all 8, I repeat.

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

I guess my tendency to read Striker as elim is more a thing than I realized. Sorry about that :/

But why do I feel like I'm one of the only people on that train who actually suspected Striker?

I'm gonna need to reconstruct all my suspicions now. I was too sure Striker was evil ://