Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Stick. she/her]

1 minute ago, Tani said:

I am now the self-proclaimed joker. Joker wins if lynched.

SOMEBODY KILL MEEEEEEEE!

so are you asking to get killed or exe'd?  

[Quivil she/her]

Just now, _Stick_ said:

so are you asking to get killed or exe'd?  

Yes.

[Wyrmhero he/him]

Wyrm here again, performing such actions as befits a GM. Kas is unable to come to the phone right now, so I have been asked to tell you that the Night is over.

...But I don't see why you should stop posting, provided it's not about the game. If Kas wanted me to tell you to stop full-stop, he should have said.

So how are you guys doing? Good weekends?

Edited March 8, 2021 by Wyrmhero

[Quivil she/her]

5 minutes ago, Wyrmhero said:

So how are you guys doing? Good weekends?

Seven!

People, you need to KILL MEEEEE!

[Burnt Spaghetti she/her]

18 minutes ago, Wyrmhero said:

So how are you guys doing? Good weekends?

Been a relatively pleasant weekend for me. Aint dead yet! Coulda definitely used more sleep though. 

[|TJ| he/him]

19 minutes ago, Wyrmhero said:

...But I don't see why you should stop posting, provided it's not about the game. If Kas wanted me to tell you to stop full-stop, he should have said.

Spoiler

 

[Kasimir he/him]

43 minutes ago, Wyrmhero said:

...But I don't see why you should stop posting, provided it's not about the game. If Kas wanted me to tell you to stop full-stop, he should have said.

 

Why are you like this >>

I did not return with intense SAN loss from crunching through 500 cases with 1.3k left to suffer through to see you suddenly decide Gricean implicature is for n00bs, Mr Philosopher >>

43 minutes ago, Wyrmhero said:

So how are you guys doing? Good weekends?

Could be better I guess. Was having some hangups over my ex again but some friends and my bro were there so I'm grateful. Would've been nice if he'd actually been more supportive, like not funneling two attacks through my chokepoint, but nobody's perfect and he's a good bro  

Edited March 8, 2021 by Kasimir

[Elandera she/her]

53 minutes ago, Wyrmhero said:

So how are you guys doing? Good weekends?

Could be better, considering I had to work, but I'm almost to my "weekend" and a week off, so that's good.

[Kasimir he/him]

Day Four: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

“I met a young woman, her body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-going to fall.”

—’A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’, Bob Dylan

I went to a fancy dinner in Tremredare, once.

Long story there, and it isn’t particularly interesting. Kreon Heron was taking some of the more decorated men in the Watch to something fancy. Can’t say I liked it, but that’s Watch life for you. There’s a time to tell your superiors where to stick orders, and sometimes it’s an evening of smiling through gritted teeth as the upper crust sneer at common skaa like you with dirt in their veins. Honestly, the dislike’s mutual. Maybe Kreon Heron was all right as nobles went, but that wasn’t saying much at all. He had his hang-ups. Most of them do.

Plenty of reasons I split, in the end, that’s what I’m saying. Sometimes the only thing you can do for the vic is to refuse to look away. Maybe I’m just soft like that, but it didn’t seem right to me to bury that case, the way we’d buried so many of its ilk. Sometimes there’s only so much looking away you can do before something deep inside you cries out at the injustice. Call it basic integrity, maybe. Or just having a conscience. 

So we rubbed elbows with the nobles and the merchants and all the movers and shakers, tried to be on our best manners. We stuck together, though. We were Watch, and we stuck out like a sore thumb.

I remember what one of the nobles was telling another. Heron, by the looks of him. There was a certain resemblance there. Never caught a name, though. Likes of me have no reason to be making nice with the likes of him, at any rate. “There is one rule for industrialists and that is: make the best quality of goods possible, at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.” 

Figured him for a liar, right there. Anyone with a pair of working eyes can see the nobles squeeze us all tight, for every boxing, every clip. There’s a line there as divides those of us born into wealth and metal, and those of us born skaa, who got to work for barely a living wage. They hold the coin in their fists and the rest of us fight and step on our brothers for the clips they scatter. 

Sometimes, Kast tells me I get downright philosophical. Doesn’t take a fancy education, or any of those books he reads. You don’t get to work Watch for years and not become a keen observer of human behaviour, of human nature. Of the basic inequalities and faultlines that run through this society of ours. I ain’t a skaa rebellion sympathiser. Law matters too much to me to take it into my own hands, even now. We can’t burn it all down to ashes and rebuild. What’d be left? Without law, we’d cut each other up, make no mistake about that. Maybe the law is wretched, sometimes. Can’t say I like seeing Inquisitors go after skaa Mistings, being one myself. It’s a secret I’ve worked hard to keep, as one does, if you’re partial to staying alive. And sometimes, it’s hard, clapping the hobbles on a gixie who stole to keep her kids alive.

Maybe I’m a soft touch, but there’s one hell of a big gap between those who kill their fellows for casual cruelty and because some people are messed up inside like that, and those who steal to keep body and soul together for another hard day. 

Law’s the law, but you understand, I suppose, even as you hobble them and take them back to the wagon. Without it, we’d be right fecked.

But I can’t help but think they’ve got a point.

Go ask a Watchman, if you ever wonder about how fair life—or the law, really—is.

We know better than anyone else.

 

Wyl dreamed of thunder.

Then it wasn’t thunder, just pounding on his front door. Blearily, he got off the sofa and padded over to the door. He picked up the dueling cane on the umbrella stand, and hesitated over the weighted vest but left it be. Life in the Watch had left him wary. You made no shortage of enemies when you took criminals down, after all. Even after seven years in Fallion’s Tears, the habit had never left him.

The tracery of blue lines flared to life as he burned iron. He ignored the familiar lines in his flat, and focused on the ones he didn’t know, the ones that led outside the door. Wasn’t that much metal outside his door, and Wyl relaxed a tad.

It was either very good, or very bad. Usually, it meant trouble, but if it was who Wyl thought it was, it was a good sort of trouble, unless it portended ill.

“Wyl,” said Kast, exasperatedly, “If you don’t open that fecking door, I’m going to kick it down. I’m not that far into my retirement that I can’t wreck your home, old man.”

Wyl opened the door and stared, unamused. “Leave the door alone, it’s not done anything to you yet.”

“Dubious,” said Kast. He had his coat on, and as far as Wyl figured, he’d probably been out for a good chunk of the night. Stubborn bastard, hadn’t quite figured out how sleep worked yet. Wyl supposed that it was a bit optimistic, hoping that seven years in Fallion’s Tears had taught Kast the importance of getting some shut-eye. 

Strange, the way they’d ended up in business together. Time was, he’d have thought them enemies, operating on either side of the law. Kast had been a rusher, working with the Red Knives. Small crew, but audacious. Waes had never set his sights low. And Wyl had been Watch to the bone. They’d worked out a small truce between them, the way plenty of Watch and criminals did, because sometimes you let the minnows get away, traded information and wary respect. He’d worked the precinct enough to value having several ears to the ground, even if they didn’t see eye to eye on matters of what was right, but he’d always imagined that one day it’d end with him bleeding his life out, or Kast in hobbles.

And then Kast was bleeding his life out in the gutter because his crew’d gone utterly bonkers, and Wyl had, for reasons he supposed were altogether rather daft, had offered him an out.

Offered them an out, really. Putting Kast in hobbles wasn’t exactly on the top of his to do list, and one way or another, Wyl supposed he’d just rather avoid the annoyance and inconvenience entirely. Wasn’t like Kast was the sort to go down without a fight, he didn’t think.

And now it had been seven years with a business partner, after they both left the Watch.

Imagine that.

"You missing that beauty sleep or something?” Kast raised an eyebrow. Soot and ash streaked his face, and Wyl wondered if there had been an ashfall this night. “‘Cause this one’s big, and I’ve spoken to Mayor Wilson but I’m pretty sure you’ll want to see this, but not if you’re dead on your feet.” 

“I may need a cuppa first,” Wyl admitted. He was bone-tired, and if Kast was saying he had to see it, it was probably pretty damned big, and that was stoking his curiosity, at the very least. Especially if it’d gotten Kast to talk to the Mayor.

“Well,” Kast said, leaning against the doorframe. “Steel Crow’s gone. Burned down to ashes, but I reckon Hadra or one of the others could still keep the drinks flowing, at any rate. Cellar was entirely untouched, so that’s something. We’ve got a firebug in the village, all right. Neighbours mentioned hearing a lot of noises in the night.” He held out something in a soot-stained hand and Wyl peered at it.

A melted clip.

“Steel Crow’s a tavern,” he pointed out. “Handles coin everyday.”

“Dented, though,” Kast pointed out the mark. “And there’s been a body in the alley behind the Crow. Don’t think he was dumped. I think he died there. Wounds consistent with multiple projectiles, so coins. The madman, the one who claimed to be some sort of god called Obliteration? Who’d want to kill him?”

Wyl narrowed his eyes. “Tea first,” he said, resignedly. “Then let’s go out there and have a look.”

 

Smoke curled upwards from the ruined hulk of The Steel Crow, even as the thick mists swept across the streets of Fallion’s Tears. Wyl sucked in a deep breath. He’d been called to the remains of a glassworks in Tremredare before, after a great fire, and the stench of soot and charred flesh returned to him across the passage of the years, almost in the same instant, when he stepped forward to assess the damage.

Embers glowed balefully in the remnants of the Crow. The militia were already flooding the scene, and part of Wyl, the part that had worked his precinct for years in Tremredare, felt resentful at the strangers on his scene, even as they hauled buckets of water to put out the last of the blaze. It wasn’t his scene, Wyl told himself, taking in one deep breath and then another. Lord Ruler’s bones, the smouldering remnants of the Crow were still warm. He felt the heat against his skin. As he crossed the entrance, he noticed that a fresh layer of graffiti had been scrawled on the stone walls. These had remained mostly untouched, and Wyl supposed they would continue to be.

But there would be no one to restore the walls, with care, or it would no longer be the same, for Sara, the quiet tavern-owner, who listened and hated to meet the eyes of the villagers, who poured pints and fidgeted with the smooth countertop at the bar—Sara was dead now.

If she wasn't, she would've been among those at the scene.

The inside of the Crow was largely gone. The support pillars had been made of wood, and the roof of clay tiles. The tiling had cracked, and shattered as the support pillars went up in flames, as had most of the Crow’s interior. 

“Witnesses?” Wyl asked, aloud.

“One patron,” Kast said. “Clanal was there, having a drink just before closing hour.” He named the village’s moneylender, and Wyl was certain his own distaste showed. “Said Sara had excused herself and left out the back, so Ishak was going to lock up after her. She didn’t come back until Clanal was gone, though.” He gestured at the remnants of the Crow. “Don’t head in too far. Whole thing’s pretty damned unstable.”

Wyl grunted. “Still need to see, though.”

He picked his way carefully across the treacherous length of charred wood. He heard the steady tap of Kast’s cane and sighed. “If you put your knee out again trying to scramble across the rubble, I’m not going to say I bloody told you so.”

“Noted,” said Kast, “And ignored.”

Wyl rolled his eyes. “As expected. How many dead?”

“Sara, obviously,” Kast counted them off. “Ishak’s missing—we suspect he’s somewhere under the rubble.” He named the washerboy who did odd jobs for Sara in the Crow’s kitchen, and one or two others that helped out with the tasks that needed doing in an establishment like the Crow. “Clanal got out around half an hour before things went up, by my reckoning.”

“Ah, and how do you know this?”

“Place was fine when Clanal left. Was in flames when I’d headed out for a walk. I saw the fire and raised the alarm. Figured the militia would do a spot more good than I could, so I went right for Erik, and they came and set up a bucket line.”

“Right,” said Wyl. “Instead of sleeping like any decent person would?”

“Given your own recent ventures into insomnia, I don’t see you holding very defensible ground there, no.”

Wyl grunted and looked at the scorched detritus. “Don’t think it was our firebug anyway. The Rioter,” he clarified, at Kast’s quizzical glance. “Rioting a crowd is reckless. If they wanted to start a fire and didn’t care about collateral damage, they’d have started one at a more crowded time.”

“You think this was set, then?”

“Obviously,” said Wyl. “Look at the scorch patterns.” He’d noticed them, coming in, but they were more obvious now that they were down amongst the rubble and the ashes. “More focused on the inside than the outside. Longest in the fire.”

“Could be a kitchen fire. Cooking’s dangerous, you know.”

Wyl raised an eyebrow. “You know better.” Kast sighed, and relented. No reason for a cookfire to be burning, that late at night, especially once the tavern had closed. “Burn patterns should be more intense around the source.” He frowned, trying to lay it all out in his mind. Some of the Watch in Tremredare had sworn by something to organise their thoughts that they called a mind keep. Wyl wasn’t so sure about that, but in his head, he stepped into the Crow, and then—

“Kitchen’s that way. Where did you say Sara was found?”

“I didn’t,” Kast said. “But it was near the kitchen.”

“Back door?”

“Yeah. It’s the biggest security vulnerability, really, if you want to get in or out of a place. Opens to the alley behind the Crow, where the trash goes.”

Wyl pictured that: Sara, entering from the alley. Perhaps someone had surprised her, in the night. Perhaps she had fought back. But she’d died, in the kitchen of her own tavern. And then someone had set fire to the Crow, possibly to cover up. And Ishak and the others? Loose ends, perhaps. He felt the anger, and let himself be angry, at the callousness and the cruelty of it all. But they’d still struck after the Crow was closed. Perhaps they hadn’t wanted witnesses. Still, it felt like a different sort of MO from their Rioter. It was cruel, but it wasn’t reckless.

“Fire was worst in the kitchen,” Kast added. “Think there were jars of pressed oil there, or something. Hell of an accelerant. Hell of a way to go. Poor Sara.”

Wyl frowned. “She would’ve fought, or tried to escape the fire.”

It was Kast’s turn to frown. “You suspect foul play? I didn’t think so. I figured she was making for the exit and then was overcome by the smoke before she could get out and save herself.”

“Yeah, and the fire was worst in the kitchen, you said. Why would she head towards the fire? Walls were mostly unscorched. She’d every reason to go out the front door, not the back.”

“Maybe someone knocked her out,” Kast suggested. “Or maybe she went back for something. Dr. Aliker’s taking a look at the body, trying to get us something we can use” Times like this, Wyl sometimes forgot how nonchalant Kast was about these things. How nonchalant they were, really. Easy enough to reduce a person to just another body, just another case.

Just another ghost haunting your nightmares.

“And there’s something in the kitchens worth dying for?” Wyl wanted to know.

“Bunch of clips, all melted,” Kast said. “And this.”

He tossed it to Wyl, overhand. Wyl fumbled for a moment, surprised, but caught it. It had cracked from the intense heat, but he recognised the shape of it. And the specks of once-molten metal inside.

“She was our vigilante Coinshot?”

“Yeah. Looks like she kept some of her supplies in the kitchen, too. Must’ve gotten her metals from Palladiel, because I sure as hell don’t remember seeing sales to Sara in Mourn’s ledger.” 

Wyl hadn’t either. He said as much.

“Metals ain’t worth a life.”

“Maybe she was expecting to Steelpush her way out. Maybe she was tapped out.”

“Bah,” Wyl was exasperated now. “That’s speculation, and you know it.”

“Yeah,” Kast admitted. “But why burn down the Crow if you just wanted to ice Sara? That’s noisy and that takes time and attracts attention. And then our killer had to ice Ishak and the others as well. That’s plain messy and unprofessional.” Wyl narrowed his eyes but let Kast carry on. He had been the first on the scene, hadn’t he? “I’d normally associate that kind of excessive MO with vengeance, so maybe if Sara had enemies. Or if she was surprised by someone, but then we’re looking at yet another case, with an arsonist on the loose. And all of a sudden, Fallion’s Tears sees more crime than we’ve seen here in a couple years.”

“But you think it’s arson anyway, first.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Coinshot like Sara, if she’s the one I encountered, I don’t think a simple arsonist would do her in. And she’d see metal coming.”

“Not every Coinshot burns all the time, you know,” Kast said, quietly. “Or reflexively enough, at any rate. You only get that way if your life depends on it. Coinshots aren’t immortal.” He nudged at a chunk of splintered, blackened wood with his foot. He was favouring his left leg. He always was, these days. 

Wyl took the point. Still, Kast was being oddly stubborn about the fire, he thought. Even despite admitting that there were gaps in his hypothesis. He wondered why.

People changed, he thought. In their younger days, Wyl’d never have guessed he’d be drummed out the Watch in disgrace for refusing to drop a case, much less that Kast would turn out Watch after all. 

He wondered, though. Back in the Watch, there was a saying about how the past predicted the present. Not all those who were criminals were doomed to continue being criminals. But a lot of the men and women they put in hobbles, Wyl knew and recognised. And they’d continue to make the same mistakes and use the same MOs after release.

The Red Knives had burned down a bakery before, when the owner hadn’t paid the protection money in time. Did time change a man? Sometimes, Wyl wondered if all he’d done was to set the wolf among the sheep.

Yet, it’d been years in the Watch and another seven after that. Didn’t that deserve fair consideration, too?

“Boxing for your thoughts?”

Wyl grunted. “A whole boxing? Rich.”

Maybe call it intuition, then. But it didn’t make logical or visceral sense, that the tavern had been torched, and that Sara had just gotten in the way. It felt wrong, like it was putting the pieces together in the wrong order or something. If Sara had been their Coinshot, he’d faced her down. And the only way Wyl could see this night’s events falling out was if someone’d whacked her, and then set fire to the place.

“A couple clips, then.”

“Nothing much,” said Wyl. “Just the sense that this is more messed up than we thought it was.”

“You were right. Couple of clips is too generous, even.”

Wyl scoffed at that. “Not my problem if you’re too profligate.”

He gazed back at the smouldering wreckage as they picked their way out across the uneven ground and made a silent promise to Sara.

He didn’t approve of vigilante justice. As far as he was concerned, people taking the law into their own hands was a bad idea, and Sara’d done that repeatedly. 

But she deserved justice, no more, no less than the other dead of Fallion’s Tears.

And Wyl would see to it that she got it, even if he had to turn the screws on his own partner to figure out what the bloody hell was going on.

 

 

The Unknown Order was shot! They were a Village Smoker!

Biplet was killed! She was a Village Coinshot!

The Day has begun and will end at 2300hrs SGT (GMT+8) on 10th March 2021! PMs remain open! 

The Writing on the Walls:

Spoiler

Loss.

Too much        So many    wrong.        payoff?          Pain...

Friends friends Hello!..... hello?

....Hi?

They aren't listening.
I help you I help you come say hello!!!
Just don't. Its not- 
FRIENDS! I- I.... They hurt... why do they hurt...?
We are failing them.
I will help.
You will not.
You. will.
Hinder.

I want to help.            help help                Unsafe
Information. I. I have none. I have none. I have none.
You have no one.
LIES. LIES. LIES. LIES. NOTHING BUT LIES
Admit it.
LIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIES 

I have friends! I swear!
Do you though.
I. I trust.            Trust! Trust!

Blind faith in few. You do not trust. You live on the pure hope that they are not His, for if they are, you cease. Blind. You are BLIND. 
I see. I see much! I SEE MUCH. 
I know little.                 so little                      Lacking.

We fail you all! We are sorry!  we try we try. Soon! Soon! Promise!

 

Determination! Friends!    

We Seek.

Find. 

Help!

 

Hope        hope?           foolish optimism.           Hope hope hope! 

All. All will be well. Yes yes.

and

Spoiler

Hmm hmmm hmmmm hmmmmm

In the misty mountains there is something 

*nothing!*

shut up there’s definitely something there eh?

Spooky scary skeletons 

The post is here! A letter for you and for you and not for you but yes, one for you too.”

GM Announcement: @Tani has requested replacement by a pinch-hitter. While I'd prefer to have done this at the start of the Day Turn, i.e. at rollover, due to timezones being wonderful, I'll need to wait on three of the pinch-hitters on my list to get back to me. In the meanwhile, I have asked Tani to stop posting and PMing as in theory, that pinch-hitter will be starting in her place this Turn. Thank you.

 

---

Original write-up:

Quote

In which the GM furiously works to clear an unexpected 1.4k cases that fell into his lap, in which Wyrm is both a great help and a bother magnificent and the most glorious brother a man could ask for (stop messing with my damn write-up text >>) and a write-up will be edited in later, as I have a temporary reprieve but want to finish the D3 one first because retrospective continuity is a bigger struggle and you want your results more

 

Edited March 10, 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, a Regular Villager
3. @Gears as Roko the Basilisk, the gambling menace - Building a house of cards
4. Quintessential as Tesse Mourn, resident metallurgist, a Village Soother
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 as Shard, the crazy 'kid' in town, a Village Rioter
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, a Village Smoker
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, a Village Coinshot
25. Daisy / @Haelbarde 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, a Regular Villager
27. Young Bard as Thiriel, social climber, a Village Lurcher
28. Tani / @Condensation as Daux, duck poacher - The socially-accepted term is 'wrangler'.

Rule Clarifications:

Spoiler

• Dead do not Return. Stop it
   
• Please create your own PMs with pinch-hitters. You are also not allowed to add them to existing PMs, for privacy reasons. While they have been briefed, there will of necessity be a knowledge gap.
   
• Tineyes cannot be roleblocked by death. If they are killed in the Night, their message will still appear in the write-up the following Day.

 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

Maill

Does anyone know if Biplet claimed to anyone?

[Stick. she/her]

So that's why Tani wanted to die

Did Bip tell anybody if she had role claimed to anyone?

edit: ninjad

Edited March 8, 2021 by _Stick_

[---]

Maill

She didn't even claim to me and I tried reaallly reallly hard to convince her I knew she was the coinshot ;-;

[STINK he/him]

Can't get claims if u don't PM

It's that thinking meme

[---]

also that first Tineye message was a wild ride what

[|TJ| he/him]

Maill

[Gears]

Roko the Basilisk ran its hand over the etchings in the wall, staring at the messages. The implication was one of Connection to a stranger, of cold eyes made of steel, of blades in the darkness and cold. I listen, it murmured to the one who was not there to hear. All it wanted was to know. All it wanted was to have. But here, it was at a disadvantage. Here, it would have to wait for the Tineye to come to it. Seek, fly, find, fall. It wanted, it wanted, it wanted, it wanted to know. Tell me your secrets, it hummed. Tell me.

Oh right, people were dead. The tavern owner had been a secret Coinshot. Not Spiked, but perhaps as good as, what with their track record. So many corpses littered the floor. Someone should really get on burying those. Probably found by a Seeker, since Sara was new to the town.

But there was another issue to handle. "Marll, your life ends here," Roko declared, its eyes gleaming. "I saved your life once, never again." It pulled out a knife and held it close to Marll's throat almost gently, like a bitter facsimile of the embrace of an old friend. "Come quietly or not at all."

---

Just an aside to AnonTineye1: Beautiful. Glory. Shining like the stars of neverwhere and neverwas and falling. 

I would presume that Bip was scanned or claimed because they are new. Order was them, reasonable, they were suspicious.

Fifth is also noted, and I'll probably iso them later.

[---]

If I'm honest I don't think I've actually fully read any of Fifth's posts

[Stick. she/her]

8 minutes ago, Gears said:

"Marll, your life ends here," Roko declared, its eyes gleaming. "I saved your life once, never again." It pulled out a knife and held it close to Marll's throat almost gently, like a bitter facsimile of the embrace of an old friend. "Come quietly or not at all."

why? 

9 minutes ago, Gears said:

I would presume that Bip was scanned or claimed because they are new

I dont think she claimed - she was playing it safe in our PM when it came to letting out any information. Scan seems more likely...

[STINK he/him]

is this more PM voting shenanigans 

[Mat he/him]

1 minute ago, STINK said:

is this more PM voting shenanigans 

No

[Stick. she/her]

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

why? 

@Gears two questions here actually

1. Why did you soothe the vote on Maill (that is what you mean by "saved you once" yes?)

2. Why vote on him now?

Because in our PM last turn you admitted that Quinn's flip does not affect your reading on Maill  

 

edit: my post count rn is my birth year, nice.

Edited March 8, 2021 by _Stick_

[Gears]

22 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

@Gears two questions here actually

1. Why did you soothe the vote on Maill (that is what you mean by "saved you once" yes?)

2. Why vote on him now?

Because in our PM last turn you admitted that Quinn's flip does not affect your reading on Maill  

 

edit: my post count rn is my birth year, nice.

1. Vote was close, didn't want a tie. I ended up successfully preventing a tie, so I consider that a victory. Also, I really like the aesthetic of Roko holding a hand over Tesse's mouth as she struggles against the wrath of the mob, desperately attempting to speak and save herself but silenced by a cruel smile. Or Roko Soothing away her will to live, her struggles growing weaker and weaker until she finally stops fighting back. Gleaming eyes and echoing laughter and the reaching talons of the void. Honey and citrine and amber and gold. Comprehension?

2. Because no one else has been noted nearly as much as Maia. And you were the one to say trust instincts. My instincts say that my first instincts are lying to me and that Maia must die for illogical antics and general oddities. My read of Maia [as a Noted NAI] hasn't changed. However, they are the Most Noted. Also, I've been wanting to stab them for a while [not a "they're suspicious" stab, just a friendly stab], and this is a wonderful way to do that. I said I would do this in the iso!Wei. Did you not read the Ill!so? Exclamations and dramatic airs of shock and horror.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

2 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Maill

Does anyone know if Biplet claimed to anyone?

Not I. 

2 hours ago, Illwei said:

Maill

She didn't even claim to me and I tried reaallly reallly hard to convince her I knew she was the coinshot ;-;

How did you know? 

2 hours ago, Gears said:

Roko the Basilisk ran its hand over the etchings in the wall, staring at the messages. The implication was one of Connection to a stranger, of cold eyes made of steel, of blades in the darkness and cold. I listen, it murmured to the one who was not there to hear. All it wanted was to know. All it wanted was to have. But here, it was at a disadvantage. Here, it would have to wait for the Tineye to come to it. Seek, fly, find, fall. It wanted, it wanted, it wanted, it wanted to know. Tell me your secrets, it hummed. Tell me.

Oh right, people were dead. The tavern owner had been a secret Coinshot. Not Spiked, but perhaps as good as, what with their track record. So many corpses littered the floor. Someone should really get on burying those. Probably found by a Seeker, since Sara was new to the town.

But there was another issue to handle. "Marll, your life ends here," Roko declared, its eyes gleaming. "I saved your life once, never again." It pulled out a knife and held it close to Marll's throat almost gently, like a bitter facsimile of the embrace of an old friend. "Come quietly or not at all."

---

Just an aside to AnonTineye1: Beautiful. Glory. Shining like the stars of neverwhere and neverwas and falling. 

I would presume that Bip was scanned or claimed because they are new. Order was them, reasonable, they were suspicious.

Fifth is also noted, and I'll probably iso them later.

Wow. So violent... 

I know you’ve mentioned it before but I can’t actually remember and I don’t know where it was but why am I the most noted? Like you admitted, you ended up even soothing a vote off me last day. 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Arenta had piled all of her ledgers on her desk, and was looking through them, jotting down notes on sheets labelled with the various names of the townsfolk. Certainly after 3 days and nights of this chaos there was enough information to sort out the identities of the troublemakers.

I'm working on a pseudo-ISO of everyone, hopefully I'll have that up by sometime today.