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Night Five: Almost Human

This is Whyren Halcyon, senior researcher, lead on Project Replicant:

You know your worth. What’s more, you know that Heron Industries is well aware of it. The test runs of Project Replicant over the years have proven to be successful beyond your wildest dreams. Your creations enable Heron Industries to benefit from industrial espionage: small, limited steps, to be sure, but nonetheless, the promise of your project is there for everyone to see.

There are doubters, of course. And imitators. You know that researchers like Edrena have done work on their own forks of Project Replicant. Heron Industries does not like to place all its eggs in one basket, and this is the price you pay for pre-eminence. You pay it willingly.

This life is a gilded cage.

All the funding you could ever dream of, the ability to pursue and carry out any line of research you could ever desire with like-minded individuals—as long as your research is deemed to be of utility to Heron Industries. Once, this did not bother you. It does now.

You’ll be the first to admit that Heron Industries has extremely talented researchers, young bright stars from Elendel’s universities, on its staff roster—but you know, in your heart of hearts, where you will never, ever admit this aloud to anyone, that you don’t think any of them come close to equalling your expertise in your field. Most of the young hires are sycophants. You know why this is so: they’re playing the game. You used to play the game too, back when you were as young as they were.

Now, it just makes you sick.

You know when it all went wrong. When it all began to go astray.

You can never decide if Project Replicant was your most brilliant success, or your most damning failure. Perhaps your indecision is what makes you so unrelentingly harsh on Kesed: because you see your failure reflected in those watching eyes, every single moment. Maybe that’s why Sandhya set him to watch you: a final cruelty. Sandhya knows, of course. This is the knife she’s held to your neck, all these long years.

In the end, perhaps it is this simple:

It is lonely, so very lonely, at the top. And the fall from grace is a long way down.

When you and Kesed were working on Project Replicant, you had an equal. You had someone to talk to, someone to have heated arguments with. Someone who challenged you.

You don’t have that, any longer.

You privately suspect that the Pathian you contact doesn’t care at all. You’re not sure that you matter very much to Harmony (nor would you care to.) What matters is that you have an overlap of interests.

This isn’t a change of heart. You’re just sick.

The Pathian nods beatifically, as though you’re making excuses for yourself. You know better than that. This isn’t a tale about seeing the light, about discovering some sort of moral fibre, some sort of deep principles.

You don’t care a whit for the SynthKandra you free.

You don’t feel anything at all as you release them, as you slice into the security systems and bring it all crashing down. An old account that you used, a long time ago, in your misbegotten youth, back when you and Kesed were young and arrogant and believed the world was your oyster, back when neither of you had graduated yet.

You’d always liked the handle Erudito. Clever in more than one way.

The fact that Heron security reacted so quickly and called a lockdown is startling to you, and the fact that Sandhya calls you up and sets Kesed on you raises your hackles. You think it would be less cruel if she had set one of the anonymous mistrunners to watch you, but you know that Sandhya is fully aware of the tools she has to hand and selects them carefully to send a message.

“Of course,” he says. You wonder if this is what Kesed heard, once. Before he fell, too. There are many reasons one fails to love one’s god, after all. And there isn’t very much room for gods in this world of megacorps any longer.

You aren’t awed by the fact you’re hearing Harmony. And you don’t particularly care whether that’s judgement you hear in his voice. 

You think maybe Harmony doesn’t quite care for you, either.

And that suits you just fine.

This is what it is like to be Whyren Halcyon, right now, having stabbed your once-friend in the back, on the whispers of a neglected god.

 

6qR5MCSI7mJYgkyoCG9aWeGgq6TwT-zSfZwejpqCTcO_5Ea1w8uOdOuWDZ6ykOi6JT4IBNHfw8biYZ5C8uXlNecv7G-74xe2tuT0RN2y8Dj6YrzajTfPIHFDeM4Gsx-otedEPwmkIcn2-WU3GQ

 

Jack Ladrian was shot.

Certainty hardened in Scorpion’s mind, solidified to a single, sharp point of decision. She bent down to check on his status, but it was clear the wound was a lethal one. Which meant that the best thing they could do for Jack was to stop whoever’d killed him, for once and for all.

She was tired of being jerked around by the SynthKandra. Tired of holding back. Tired of running over the same old ground, again and again.

“Don’t move,” Scorpion said, coolly. She kept her gun levelled at Vulture, watched as the mistrunner swallowed and stood perfectly still. “You give me a single reason and I swear to Harmony I will end you, here and now.”

“Scorpion,” said Dragonfly, very carefully. “Are you sure?”

She was sure. Wasn’t she?

Doubts filtered through her head; the doubts she’d had but not expressed. There was Beagle, who for whatever reason, kept on insisting that she had to be a SynthKandra. Scorpion didn’t understand that. The SynthKandra had tried enough times to set her up. You didn’t spend that amount of energy unless whoever it was was a threat or a useful target.

You could rethink a decision you’d thought you’d already made, and discover that you weren’t as certain as you’d set yourself out to be. That there were oceans and oceans of grey between the earthen solidity of certainty and what you knew to be true, and the inferences you were making.

She knew that. But you couldn’t afford to second-guess yourself, running the mists. A wrong decision meant you were dead, but indecision killed green runners, always had. It was easier to recover from a misstep than from hesitation. 

In the steady light of the corridor, Scorpion made her decision again.

“Stop!”

Crocodile and Beagle ran, full-tilt, into the room. Scorpion wondered for the briefest moment what had happened to Dingo.

“This isn’t the time for argument,” Beagle said, firmly. “Hauer’s dead.”

Was that a flicker of amusement she saw, on Vulture’s impassive features?

“Heron hackers all killed,” Crocodile added. “Supposed to find them, then bad dog Dingo vanished.”

She noted, as well, that Vel and the other three mistrunners that had been sticking to her like glue had shown up. Practically inseparable, for the past few days. It’s made getting a read on Vel difficult at best. Finnicky at worst. Hard to know someone when you haven’t had much chance to watch their interactions with others. She never liked how Vel had damned Atari, though. “Where have you four been?” she demanded.

Vel ignored her, walking calmly up to Vulture and producing a knife and stabbing at Vulture.

“Whoa! Watch yourself,” Vulture said, catching hold of Vel’s wrist. Sharp reflexes, Scorpion noted “I’ve had one gun trained at me today, I’m not in the mood for more than that.”

“Vel?” Beagle asked, slowly. “Why are you trying to stab Vulture?”

Vel made a sound that could have been impatience. “This is a shock knife,” she said. 

“And how exactly have you gotten your hands on a shock knife when no one else has?” Beagle questioned.

Vel said nothing.

“I’m done with games,” Scorpion stated, flatly. “I’ve said it before: Vulture is suspicious. I can’t work with people who refuse to keep working with me, and I’m done with everyone standing around and pointing their fingers at me and then half-taking it back. Vulture’s suspicious, and everyone has exactly a minute to tell me why Vulture should live before I open fire.”

She frowned over at Vel’s knife. “And I don’t believe that’s a shock knife, either. It’s too easy. People con you that way: they tell you they have something that can work out who’s the traitor on a crew. It ain’t ever that simple, and it only works if you can trust the person doing the stabbing or the scanning unreservedly.” She raised an eyebrow. “Normally doesn’t work out that way. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Scavenger bird seems eeeevil,” Crocodile said, which Scorpion took to be assent.

Beagle shook his head. “I don’t like this,” he said, plainly. “But I think we can’t afford to be divided. And Vulture’s been too quiet, lately.”

Vulture shook his head, surprisingly calm. “This from the mistrunner who claimed to have tested me while I slept with a shock knife? The irony must be amusing. And we’ve been had once before by Cody Eight crying wolf. Surprising how Scorpion was involved with that as well.” He glanced at her appraisingly. “No, I think you’re a SynthKandra, Beagle. I think it’s convenient for you to hide quietly and try to manipulate us in the background.”

It was the most he’d said, in a while.

Vel said, “I concur. All it takes is for a little misdirection, and he’d have us all killed.”

A gunshot.

Scorpion was as startled as the rest of them. She hadn’t even seen Crocodile draw. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Crocodile was easily overlooked. Dismissed as being silly, as being several beers short of a six-pack.

“Oops,” giggled Crocodile.

Wide-eyed, blood soaking his shirt, Beagle fell.

 

Vo6XFxH_8tllisYT1wJNFB_8kS2OzOhZnd36ITd5b5Oy0COlNUPraU2Siwtqy2cwJPu-xyUT_c-sE64nmPVWLRQO9LW-cmbW5EXCzpKSDcGhH5KTTm9NTI80T-eI-x8OzgryBvFnvIZWJdfkgg

 

This is what it is like to be Kesed Arnkell right now:

Pain blazes across every single fibre, every single nerve of your body. You know, intellectually, that it is just pain. It is just angry white flaring in your flesh, gnawing on each nerve. But you can’t make your body respond to you.

You have been shot, stabbed, suffered broken bones, and been injured in uncountable, innumerable ways, in all the work you’ve undertaken for Heron Industries since Sandhya got her hands on you.

Sometimes, you wonder if it is worth it. But you do not wonder very much at all. Working on Project Replicant was impossible, when you came back from that work-induced collapse. You don’t remember very much about what you were working on when it happened. Overwork, says the psych they make you see. He prescribes you a cocktail of drugs and medications and you’re surprised you can even think straight by the end of it. Surprised your memories aren’t in more of a mess than they currently are.

There’s before that period, and after that period. The rest is holes, interlaced with white fog.

You don’t know why you act the way you do. You know you’re running. You just don’t know why. You know that if you really cared to dig, the old you would’ve figured out the circumstances of your collapse, the reason for the dream that haunts you night after night.

You just don’t care to.

You just don’t really feel, any more. You take solace in projects successfully completed, draw some sense of accomplishment from that. But so much of your fire, your drive, is gone, and without it, you are a painter half-blind, and what you do feel is a shadow of what you used to desire, what you used to dream about doing.

White, angry pain chews at your nerves.

You think you’re screaming. You’re not sure you recognise your voice any longer.

You’re not sure you recognise why your skin is peeling from your bones, why your flesh is translucent. You’re not sure you can think clearly through the white ocean of pain eating at you, eroding you.

Whoever ‘you’ are.

But you remember.

You remember this corridor.

You remember this room.

You remember, with a fierce, hot, painful clarity, because remembering is a pain all of its own. Because memory is the harvest we reap and the torment of our days. Because you remember, now.

You remember being locked in this room. You remember stepping into this room, your heart hammering in your chest.

You’ve never been much of a Pathian. Sometimes, you forget to meditate, to put in your earring and to listen to the silence for the whispers of your god. Sometimes, even fifteen minutes with Harmony seems like too much effort, and the bustle and the noise of the world and the grand plans and numbers and projects of the megacorps pile on your desk and draw you ever further away from him.

Your faith has never been strong. This has never been you.

But a few nights ago, you acknowledge this: doubt has entered your heart. Maybe it’s the way the SynthKandra bleeds, cries out, responds under stress. Maybe it’s the knowledge that the Identity implant you’ve been working on is so thorough, the simulacrum so convincing, that you can’t tell yourself that it isn’t Renar. That it’s just an ersatz duplicate of him, managed by the SynthKandra assimilating Renar’s Identity.

Whyren has always complained you’re a soft touch. It’s a weakness you’ve needed to hide, in this cold ruthless world of megacorps and mists.

But those few nights ago, something in you has snapped.

And you sit down. And you breathe it all out.

All your doubt. All the softness that you’ve tried to hide. All your worries. The knowledge that action will damn you, in Whyren’s eyes, in the eyes of Heron Industries. The knowledge that something must be done. The knowledge that you are a traitor, if you act. The thought that Harmony must hate you, here and now.

And you breathe it all out.

You sink into meditation more naturally, more thoroughly, than you have ever done in your life.

Everything swims to the surface, rises within you, every single emotion, every single misgiving. And you breathe it all out.

And when you are empty, when you have emptied yourself, Harmony whispers to you.

And you listen.

And that is what brings you here, that night, with a small Hemalurgic spike made from your own Pathian earring. A clumsy piece of work, but it will do the job. 

You open the door. You look at the prototype. You look at Renar’s eyes, glancing at you with hope. Easily a lifetime’s work. You close your eyes. You know what you are going to do.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to do what I think you are doing,” says Whyren.

And then you know, then, that this is the end for you.

You remember Whyren, desperately trying to keep you from doing what Harmony requested of you. You remember Whyren’s hands around your throat, strangling the life from you, and you can’t breathe.

You remember Whyren, on his knees, afterwards, crying out with alarm and regret, just barely beginning to realise what he has done.

You remember Whyren murdering you.

Your memories fracture at that point. You remember everything fading to black. You remember watching Whyren murder you. And you remember every single thing he has done, ever since, in an attempt to cover up that night’s mistake.

This is what it is like to be Kesed Arnkell right now, suffering, knowing, remembering, at long last.

 

6qR5MCSI7mJYgkyoCG9aWeGgq6TwT-zSfZwejpqCTcO_5Ea1w8uOdOuWDZ6ykOi6JT4IBNHfw8biYZ5C8uXlNecv7G-74xe2tuT0RN2y8Dj6YrzajTfPIHFDeM4Gsx-otedEPwmkIcn2-WU3GQ

 

Oxblood Beagle was terminated! He was a Mistrunner Close-Quarters Specialist!

Quote

Oxblood Beagle (3): Salmon Meerkat, Amber Vulture
Amber Vulture (2): Mauve Crocodile, Amethyst Scorpion, Ivory Dragonfly, Oxblood Beagle, Charcoal Hyena

The Night has begun! It will end on 10th May at 0100hrs SGT [=GMT+8]! PMs remain open!

Apologies for the time taken but I'm sick of owing write-ups and also I have kept a clean slate as a GM so far and am trying not to break my record. Please do not post until I have reserved the second post, as usual.

Edited by <kel>
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Rule Clarifications:

Spoiler

stuff

Player List:

Spoiler

1. Chartreuse Penguin - Jack Ladrian Mistrunner Infiltrator
2. Magenta Albatross - Mistrunner Infiltrator
3. @Salmon Meerkat - Vel
4. @Mauve Crocodile
5. Coral Swan - Atari Mistrunner Infiltrator
6. @Melon Dingo - AuRel
7. Indigo Weasel - Taken Combat Medic
8. Azure Mouse - Hauer Mistrunner Communications Specialist
9. Emerald Falcon - SynthKandra Field Operative
10. @Charcoal Hyena
11. Oxblood Beagle - Mistrunner Close-Quarters Specialist
12. @Amethyst Scorpion
13. Fuchsia Ostrich - Cody Eight SynthKandra Hacker
14. @Ivory Dragonfly
15. @Amber Vulture

 

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lol yeah

someone put me out of my misery.

Beagle claimed to me that they scanned Amber on N2, and they were village then. they missed the deadline N3, and scanned me as village on N4. if someone wants to counterclaim or tell me I'm lying about it go ahead, it's not like you really need to because if that vote manip was from the Elims then that will explain why there was no hop, as well as why we simply can't win.

I also think that Amber is Fuschia, not Emerald. the whole "conversation" that supposedly happened between them I don't believe happened

either way

yeah

there's one of [mauve, ivory, hyena], for a riot, to which i think it's Hyena, and then amber. If there are more than two then /shrug but yeah. Emerald is Hyena and Fuschia is Amber.

Salmon could be a third, idk. Not a prio.

but also, again, unless the soother is a Mistaken Meerkat, we've lost anyways.

Obviously there's no coinshot.

 

So game is over, but for postgame cred it's Hyena/Amber with a potential side of Meerkat? idk. Hyena, if the rioter, means that it was decided before.

Ivory makes some more sense to be the rioter over hyena, idk. Hyena's vote on amber wasn't good, and ivory was obviously trying to try and start another train. Amber ended up starting it though, using the beagle claim, which is strange that meerkat never questioned it.

but Ivory going off of beagle and onto hyena is probably a good interaction there. and then coming back.

Quote

Names

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Emerald Falcon

Kandra 1

         

Fuschia Ostrich

Kandra 2

Kandra 2

       

Magenta Albatross

           

Coral Swan

           

Indigo Weasel

 

Kandra 1

Kandra 1

     

Chartreuse Penguin

           

Azure Mouse

           

Oxblood Beagle

           

Amethyst Scorpion

           

Mauve Crocodile

           

Amber Vulture

   

Kandra 2

Kandra 2

Kandra 2

Kandra 2

Salmon Meerkat

           

Melon Dingo

           

Charcoal Hyena

     

Kandra 1

Kandra 1

Kandra 1

Ivory Dragonfly

           

anyways I'm the most clear now, ivory tentative second but coming back onto vulture just means that they are potentially a rioter candidate.

anyways, game's lost, gn.

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9 minutes ago, <kel> said:

Oxblood Beagle (3): Salmon Meerkat, Amber Vulture
Amber Vulture (2): Mauve Crocodile, Amethyst Scorpion, Ivory Dragonfly, Oxblood Beagle, Charcoal Hyena

thass a lotta stoppering of the stabby stabs. cants all be from de lims, which meeeen the towniesss who juss saved the scavenger birb shud probibababily do sum rethinkering of thingies.

 

On 5/6/2022 at 7:30 PM, Ivory Dragonfly said:

this feels too easy

vulture beagle

iffn you townie, which i trulies knot suree aboot, this kinda comment is eggsactamentaly wut is needed to save limmy lims. is only "2 ez" till sum1 say it too easy and then it not too ez cuz now their be contestements to the "easy" stabs. by flippin floppin ur stabs this way ('sooomin o' course u not lim uself), it oppennnz up the door for limmy lims to do this:

 

Quote

In hindsight I think that Beagle claiming seeker is a really good elim gambit, and so I think they are the best vote for this turn. Oxblood Beagle.

^dat was scavenger birb, btw^

n this:

2 hours ago, Salmon Meerkat said:

All it takes is one misdirection, and the game is over. Amber Vulture, Oxblood Beagle.

ur wording here, sammons is quitttteeeeee conveeeeeiiinnnieeeent. u say this as u doing the misdirection that u think shud end game cuz u evvvviilllllssss. evilly evvivlllyyy sooo supppereerer dupppeery evvvilllls.

gimme the sammon. i neeeds the sammon.

OH IF WE DOES AN X ON SAMMONS 2MARRROWWW AND IT BE SUCCCESSFFFULLLLY CAN I HAFS DE SAMMONS??????? i needs de sammons to compleate me varrryyy important mishon giveeeen to me by the drakey-drake from preivous game. is important. croc neeeds sammon. SAMMON.

 

ohhhh noees i probs gonna dies tonight so i donts gets da sammons. :((((((((((((  i donts wants to dies. not be4 me has da sammons in me hands n haffff finished da mishon drakie drake was not able to finnish. hehehe finnish. that be the word for the peeeple frum the land of finns, not the wordz for ending sumthing. 

inywaiz

On 5/6/2022 at 10:02 PM, Amethyst Scorpion said:

If Mauve is an elim then they're an elim but they're not a Kendra

 

Edit:

Actually there is a chance they're a Kendra. What they aren't is a kandra. 

heeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

:(((((((((((((((

but also :)))))))))))))))))) cuz i 'muuused buy dis. it mayk me laffff. lololololloollolololo

but srsly...........who r u????? or mayb that swipte juss be u phone not knowing wut kandra be so changin' it 2 sumthin it do rekoghnyz. buttttsssss anyway u jusss eggspuryens wut me haff happun allllllll da tiiiiiiimmmmmmeeeeeee when the word kandra be round. me phone allllllllwwwaaaayyyyyyyyzzzzz wants to say "no u dontsa meeen dat word u meeeeeaaannnnss u name of coarse" tho me phone often lik to ssuuuummm it no wut word i meeeen wen in fact it do not n it then mak me say sillly things. but rly is annnnoooyyyyyying, da word kandra izzzz. also als o also u cleerrly have guds ideas of de name of de person u think me cud be (n u rite, tho i not suppppooosss 2 say dat), and dis make me currrious who u r cuz i not sure they're bee meny kurruent peeps who knoes dat names and who it beloooonnnng too. not that other peeps cant have dat name. not like dat person the only person wid dat name cuz dey knot, buttttt is unkomon. und moooossttt peeps who knoes it dontsa plays whollleee lots. or maybe me jus dont knoes every1 who knoes it - which be possible since me havent eggsactly been keeepin it on the dl. i dontsa have gr888 wutever dat word is kas uzes 2 say peeple not protecting der id well. me brain forgotttsss wut da word izzz. >>

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1 minute ago, Mauve Crocodile said:

i dontsa have gr888 wutever dat word is kas uzes 2 say peeple not protecting der id well. me brain forgotttsss wut da word izzz. >>

I'll ask him because I'm too tired to parse that >>

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3 minutes ago, Mauve Crocodile said:

iffn you townie, which i trulies knot suree aboot, this kinda comment is eggsactamentaly wut is needed to save limmy lims. is only "2 ez" till sum1 say it too easy and then it not too ez cuz now their be contestements to the "easy" stabs. by flippin floppin ur stabs this way ('sooomin o' course u not lim uself), it oppennnz up the door for limmy lims to do this:

Note that soon after that, ivory flips to Hyena. I think that /if/ Ivory is the rioter we are looking for they would have been content to sit on amber, not switch last minute to amber after trying to start a new wagon. Amber not joining them on hyena implies that either ivory/amber is teamed and there is no 3rd, or that Amber/Hyena is teamed. if there is no third, then Salmon's comment doesn't make sense, yeah, because it feels like lvl 1 open wolfing.

And anyone who played AG7 would recognize your tineye messages. Which is basically why you're clear (to me) right now.

But yeah, If ivory is an Elim rioter then the vote would be-

hm.

If Ivory were an elim rioter, then no matter what train they were on the vote would be 2-2 with salmon off both trains.

mrr

Ivory isn't as clear as I'd like, the fact that they were on at EoD probably

probably means they're more likely to be an Elim simply because Amber was up.

Also saying it again, I was scanned as village last night by beagle.

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2 minutes ago, Amethyst Scorpion said:

But yeah, If ivory is an Elim rioter then the vote would be-

hm.

If Ivory were an elim rioter, then no matter what train they were on the vote would be 2-2 with salmon off both trains.

mrr

Ivory isn't as clear as I'd like, the fact that they were on at EoD probably

probably means they're more likely to be an Elim simply because Amber was up.

Also saying it again, I was scanned as village last night by beagle.

me think ivory probably mishtaycken townie. thas my gut - speshly cuz sammon and scavenger birb jumped on the openingz ivry made.

Quote

And anyone who played AG7 would recognize your tineye messages. Which is basically why you're clear (to me) right now

i was so conffuzzled about this cuz i was like "butttt i diddnt play ag7??????" but now i knoes wut u meeeen. me brain shud not haff taken soooo long to processs that. c'mon brain. wakkey wakey u been wak for over 2 hours now. tho i guess i not given me body food at aallllll tooday mayb that y u not processering so well. i shud probly rektifie that.

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4 minutes ago, Mauve Crocodile said:

cuz i was like "butttt i diddnt play ag7??????"

neither did i

didn't stop vulture from insisting he recognised me off the bat in ag8

gdi vulture

i don't even know u bro 

y r u lyk dis >>

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Just now, Mauve Crocodile said:

me think ivory probably mishtaycken townie. thas my gut - speshly cuz sammon and scavenger birb jumped on the openingz ivry made.

if so then it's just hyena, but you have the best perspective there i suppose as a not mechanically clear person. Not really, I think you're practically clear, potentially. If there's 3 Elims though, they wouldn't need to do vote manip there with three not on him. if there are three then they could have hammered normally.

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well it looks like were losing

whered all that vote manippery come from

tbh all of the village smokers shoulda been a warning sign hm

everyone with a vote manip probs evil

 

edit

also vulture gonna die

dont worry im a coinshot

i gotchyu

Edited by Ivory Dragonfly
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10 hours ago, Mauve Crocodile said:

cants all be from de lims

Why not? Two elims are in bodies they didn't start with and there's still third out there.

Spoiler

I ignore the confusion of Beagle getting shot to observe Vulture’s reaction to being stabbed. Sure enough, his skin and muscle part to reveal the bones of a SynthKandra. As he recoils in pain, I try to purposefully draw upon my SynthKandra shapeshifting abilities for the first time. Later on I’ll have time to test these abilities, but for now the best I can do is temporarily turn the skin on my face translucent so he can see I’m a SynthKandra like him. He looks at me sharply. He must know that I’m not one of his companions. Around us, the surviving mistrunners are beginning to get over their surprise at Beagle’s sudden death. Scorpion points at Vulture and I.

“SynthKandra.”

Crocodile starts to point her gun at us and I activate a smoke grenade. Vulture needs no instruction to use this opportunity to escape, immediately dodging out of Crocodile’s line of fire, and away from me. I try to follow him. It wouldn’t do to lose him at this juncture. Around me I hear cries of pain as the Terns take advantage of the distraction to test the other mistrunners with shock knives. Another gunshot goes off and I flinch. Who could that have hit? I exit the smoke cloud and pull my shock rifle from my back, looking for targets. As the smoke starts to dissipate I see Underscore escorting someone whose features I can’t quite make out to the nearest cover, while Tamara and Sal are engaged in a firefight with the evidently human mistrunners. Like Crocodile, those mistrunners are using lethal ammunition, and unlike me or the other Kandra we came her to rescue, none of the Terns can be assured of surviving being shot. Every second it takes for me to line up a shot is a second any of them could be killed. I gesture to Vulture to come with me and charge back into the fray without looking to see if he’s following me.

 

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The Turn has ended. The Aftermath might be a bit delayed, so I wouldn't stay up for it. But I'll commit to getting it up by - absolute latest - 0100hrs SGT tomorrow. Thank you for your understanding. RL is not on my side right now.

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Aftermath: Tears in the Rain

The world, Whyren was thinking, could make you do terrible things.

He was deeply, keenly aware he was not a good man. Thing was, he’d never pretended to be. That was the convenient thing about working for Heron Industries: they never demanded ethics from you, only ever brilliance.

This was why Sandhya had not cared. In a way, he’d acted properly to preserve the integrity of Project Replicant. Though the truth was that Whyren hadn’t really been thinking at all: he’d only panicked at the thought that Kesed was about to take a blowtorch to their lives’ work, and that the repercussions would be ugly.

He hadn’t meant to kill.

This was the truth. He hadn’t intended very much at all. He’d panicked, gotten desperate. And then at some point, trying to stop Kesed had become trying to kill him, and then he’d murdered his friend, and how did you live with that knowledge?

Whyren didn’t know at all.

He supposed he wasn’t terribly guilty about it. After all, he had saved Kesed too. From a certain point of view. Sometimes, he even believed that.

He had only been working with what he had.

“The instinct,” he had said, to the ghost of his friend, “was to preserve.”

“Don’t talk to me of salvation,” said Kesed, in that imagined conversation. “It was a convenient way to mitigate any fallout from what you’d done.”

He’d wanted to take it all back. Not regret, Whyren didn’t think, not quite. Just a reflexive attempt at undoing the night that had caused them both to do something quite terrible.

He felt it, the moment Kesed stopped resisting. Hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to process what was happening, to believe it.

But there the SynthKandra was, the prototype, the first of its kind that they’d both created, staring terribly at them with Renar’s eyes.

And then Whyren knew what he had to do.

He wouldn’t say that he’d never quite forgiven himself for it. Kesed—if it was him, and Whyren didn’t know, didn’t know how he could be confronted with a near-duplicate of his friend, didn’t know how he could be thoroughly convinced anyway that it wasn’t him, and hated it with a passion—didn’t seem to remember that night. Whyren wasn’t sure about the details. It was Kesed who’d worked on the Identity aspect of the project, not himself. But after the swarm of Heron medics and psychs descended upon him, it was clear as day that it remembered nothing at all.

It was just utterly, guilelessly, Kesed.

And Whyren hated it for it.

 

 

RykP72mwQrQ_TiGygXHK_KN1wptdSBu1m-bik14pOqgRDEF2cYYW-isMoVKz0xqRgzDSrN8f3DitARMxO781Yf-JDsOIvOzqWUhhABISke0Ze8U90AbK0E65z6FTLaLsWBlqP-Rqv8fqIWqbpg

 

Kesed would have said he made a choice.

But it was not very much of a choice at all. Perhaps that was how Whyren had felt, he thought, but he discarded the thought almost at once. The memory of hands, about his throat, choking the life from him.

The pain didn’t matter very much at all.

It was only pain.

He felt about for the knife and ripped it from him.

It hurt. It hurt terribly, and he had to fumble for it a few times, as his fingers didn’t seem to do what he needed them to.

But it didn’t matter.

It was only pain.

He looked at Whyren, and felt the hatred, the betrayal, and the terrible rage smoulder into existence within him, fanned to life like the flames of a great furnace..

“You bloody  bastard,” Kesed snarled, and then his own hands were about Whyren’s throat, choking him. “You drekking murdered me.”

 

lRjIBflXyRajXENe60QZqDY21Af0TtIz2GbmwunhUSed6EkqRp1kBiDTqpwf2465elvdm_kNvyvVUhgRWCoETvnpBOjP7I5WH9xBBZ9evo94mzY62FlXFkblMhTDYvb0H8EeVFOvBfAJ2-CeNw

 

AuRel, sometimes known as Dingo, slumped to the floor, and felt the burning in his lungs and legs abate only slightly.

He’d run. He wasn’t proud of it. But you did what you had to, and he’d seen the charnel-house that the SynthKandra had made of the Heron hackers, and didn’t want to be next.

Sure, Kesed’d been clear about the need to do something about the jamming. And maybe AuRel could’ve worked something, on his own.

But there was Solovey, her throat cut in a wide grin, and AuRel wasn’t sticking around to figure out who’d done that. If the SynthKandra weren’t hidden as the dead. He’d lost Crocodile somewhere. Just didn’t feel terribly motivated to find her again.

He wasn’t sure if he trusted Crocodile. Sure, she’d said she was a comms specialist, but all AuRel’d seen were a bunch of drawings she’d been pinning to bulletin boards. Far as he was concerned, Crocodile was unreliable, maybe a few crayons short of a set, and the last thing AuRel wanted was his life in the hands of a mistrunner he didn’t even remotely trust.

It wasn’t personal. He just didn’t think Crocodile knew what she was doing at all.

He heard footsteps, and looked up.

It was Vel, and three other mistrunners, the ones who’d kept to themselves and always stuck with her. AuRel felt, in that moment, a sudden surge of hope. Safety in numbers, and all that.

“You can’t believe how glad I am to see you,” he said. “Solovey’s dead. I don’t know where Crocodile went, we split up, and I got separated, and it’s important that we get comms re-established—”

“I know,” Vel said.

She shot him.

 

RykP72mwQrQ_TiGygXHK_KN1wptdSBu1m-bik14pOqgRDEF2cYYW-isMoVKz0xqRgzDSrN8f3DitARMxO781Yf-JDsOIvOzqWUhhABISke0Ze8U90AbK0E65z6FTLaLsWBlqP-Rqv8fqIWqbpg

 

Too strong, Whyren thought, gasping for air.

Too damned strong.

A thick bar of black was descending across his vision. A part of him wondered if that was how it had felt, when Kesed was dying. When he’d killed Kesed.

The old sin, the one it seemed that was glaring at him now, returned from the grave he’d buried it in. Sometimes you paid for what you did. It didn’t matter that it was years later. Grey in your hair.

He wasn’t going to be able to fight Kesed. Not like this.

He had wanted so badly to live.

But there was one last thing left. One desperate throw of the dice.

His vision blurred, Whyren fumbled weakly at his ear. With the last of his strength, he stabbed Kesed with it. Didn’t matter where. He just had to get it into flesh.

Leave it in the hands of a god.

He didn’t trust Harmony. Didn’t think Harmony trusted him, either. They had no illusions about that. But you needed each other, and necessity and reliance could look an awful lot like trust.

“What’s in it for you?” Whyren had asked, so long ago.

“You created life, of a sort,” Harmony said. “And you created it in chains, a reflection of my own kandra. Did you really not think I’d take exception?”

“No,” Whyren said, quietly. They had expected it. It was why the infusion of foreign Investiture was so important, to ensure the integrity of their constructs. Otherwise, the use of Hemalurgic implants meant Harmony could simply reach in and take control.

Some Pathian earrings, though, were Hemalurgic spikes of their own.

And Whyren had just stabbed Kesed.

 

lRjIBflXyRajXENe60QZqDY21Af0TtIz2GbmwunhUSed6EkqRp1kBiDTqpwf2465elvdm_kNvyvVUhgRWCoETvnpBOjP7I5WH9xBBZ9evo94mzY62FlXFkblMhTDYvb0H8EeVFOvBfAJ2-CeNw

 

Kesed felt the brief flash of pain.

Dismissed it. 

It didn’t matter. He had Whyren right where he wanted him. And that unrelenting rage wanted Whyren to suffer, wanted to strangle the life from Whyren.

The same way Whyren had murdered him, all those years ago.

But then, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t maintain the hold on Whyren’s throat. His grasp slackened.

What? Kesed wondered. 

But he was locked in his own body, helpless within the grasp of a greater power. No matter what he did, he could not fight it.

Harmony was in his head, then, an explosion of terrible glory and wonder, and there was nothing that Kesed could do except to rage against the unrelenting presence of the god.

“You do not want to do this,” said Harmony, gently.

“I do,” Kesed snarled. 

He threw himself against that iron grip, fought it with every single shred of his hatred, of his betrayal, of his rage. He needed to make Whyren suffer. Needed to make him pay. Vengeance sang through every fibre of his being, and after so many years of being Sandhya’s knife, Kesed was fully ready to unleash that lethality on Whyren.

It was like screaming into the winds of a storm. Nothing he did could weaken Harmony’s grip, which made them loosen their hold on Whyren’s throat.

Whyren collapsed to the ground, wheezing, rubbing at his throat, and Kesed hated him for it.

Memories flooded back in his head, as though they were the thundering headwaters of a river long dammed. Harmony had never wanted this. They’d created synthetic life, and in the image of his own kandra, and they’d never had a choice. That night, as Kesed slipped into the containment room, his heart hammering painfully in his chest, he was going to restore that choice to the one SynthKandra they’d made.

He was Kesed.

There was no other way for him to be, not with the memories this raw, this painful. Not after years, and years of wearing the man’s bones and his memories.

And he was the first prototype of Project Replicant, wearing Renar’s bones, with Renar’s memories, and watching with subdued interest and the barest flickerings of hope as Kesed entered.

How did you deal with the memories of two lives, colliding within you?

“You wanted them all freed,” Kesed said. The pieces were falling together, Whyren’s lies and the containment breach. “And here they are, killing the mistrunners.” The terrible irony of Whyren doing what he had killed Kesed for, years ago, struck him then, and he found himself laughing. “And still you take away my own choices?”

“Perhaps,” said Harmony, after a long moment, “I was too hasty, I think. And what would you do, with that freedom, Kesed?”

Kesed.

He didn’t know if he was Kesed anymore. Not quite.

But it was the name he’d used for the longest time. The memories so painfully vivid within him, demanding action, demanding vengeance.

He didn’t know. But that was the point of freedom, without constraints. Doing what you willed, for your own reasons, from the mere fact that you had willed it.

And the one thing that Kesed willed, the one hard point of certainty he’d settled on was that he was going to kill Whyren.

Harmony must have known this. Whatever Kesed had that passed for a soul, all of it was painfully open before the god’s gaze.

And still Harmony relented.

And still he had the distinct sense of Harmony vanishing.

There was an offer there, if Kesed thought about it. But he didn’t want to think too hard about it. Years ago, he’d found that his path brought him back towards Harmony. It was always possible, Kesed thought, that your path would take you where you least expected it.

But he didn’t want to think too hard about it.

He drew his gun.

One shot. It was cleaner than Whyren deserved.

Whyren looked at him.

Kesed stared back at him.

It was cleaner than Whyren deserved. Far, far cleaner.

He was not particularly surprised when he found himself holstering the gun again. Hadn’t even disengaged the safety.

“Thank you,” Whyren said.

“Don’t thank me,” Kesed said, harshly. “Get out of my sight. Do whatever the hell you came to, I don’t care.”

There was still the memory of a death that lay between them.

You could pretend that nothing had changed. That everything was the way it had been, years and years ago. More grey in their hair, now. And his wounds were knitting together, as though they had never been. He pulled the earring out of his arm, and dropped it on the ground.

“If I see you again,” Kesed said, and meant every word, “I will kill you. And not even Harmony himself will stop me.”

 

RykP72mwQrQ_TiGygXHK_KN1wptdSBu1m-bik14pOqgRDEF2cYYW-isMoVKz0xqRgzDSrN8f3DitARMxO781Yf-JDsOIvOzqWUhhABISke0Ze8U90AbK0E65z6FTLaLsWBlqP-Rqv8fqIWqbpg

 

Someone dropped a smoke grenade, and everything happened at once.

We never had a chance, Scorpion found herself thinking, submitting to a stab from the mistrunners with Vel. We never did.

She’d opened fire when Beagle fell. She wasn’t going to let Vulture get away with killing his way through the lot of them. It didn’t matter if the mission was lost. Any run you could walk away from was a good one, and as far as Scorpion was concerned, she had her professional pride on the line, and letting Vulture get away with it was a bridge too far.

But Vulture had vanished in the smoke, and Scorpion cursed.

There was Crocodile, whom Scorpion wasn’t sure about. Maybe an ally, but then Crocodile’d shot Beagle, for what was apparently no bloody reason. 

She shot Hyena.

She didn’t want to take her chances with Hyena, either. Hyena’d been too quiet, too willing to blend in with the others. Good place for a SynthKandra to hide, even without Vel’s posse of mistrunners presenting a potential problem. But they’d stuck to each other so closely, as thick as thieves, that Scorpion couldn’t see a SynthKandra replacing one of them. Which meant that if Vel was a SynthKandra, something Scorpion didn’t want to rule out, they were all in cahoots together.

Figured, though. She wouldn’t have put it past some of their number to be in it for their own purposes. Not everyone was a professional.

Hyena fell, bleeding. No sign of SynthKandra translucency, unless he was screwing with her. Dragonfly had disarmed Crocodile, though for whatever reason, he wasn’t taking her down. He winked at her when he saw her looking, and—

Oh, Scorpion thought, distantly. So there it was.

They’d never had a chance.

She didn’t know where AuRel was. Dingo’d a habit of vanishing, and Scorpion didn’t want to pin their hopes on AuRel, hadn’t wanted to from the start.

Vulture, Vel, and Dragonfly.

And those three mistrunners.

She was outnumbered, and outgunned.

It didn’t matter.

Scorpion had the feeling she wasn’t going to be walking away from this run, after all. But she was going to go down fighting.

She reached for the thermal detonator hooked to her belt, and pushed the trigger to arm it.

She’d see if she could at least take down one of them with her.

 

lRjIBflXyRajXENe60QZqDY21Af0TtIz2GbmwunhUSed6EkqRp1kBiDTqpwf2465elvdm_kNvyvVUhgRWCoETvnpBOjP7I5WH9xBBZ9evo94mzY62FlXFkblMhTDYvb0H8EeVFOvBfAJ2-CeNw

 

The SynthKandra who had, at one point in time, been Cody Eight, stepped out into the setting sun.

No sign of Whyren, now. He’d done what he promised, at any rate, and lifted the security lockdown. Dragonfly wasn’t expecting more out of him. 

The trick now, was to vanish so utterly that the Herons couldn’t find a trace of them. Cody Eight’s memories were still stored in his backups, and as much as Cody Eight liked to talk a big game, he knew his own share of tricks. Between Whyren slicing the footage and Cody’s knowledge of how to disappear, Dragonfly expected it would be a very long time before Heron agents caught wind of them.

Cody Eight’d seen his share of mistrunner flicks; cheap holo-dramas. Downloaded a bunch of them illegally. This was the bit after the heist, Dragonfly thought, where the team split up, went their own separate ways.

It’d been good, while it lasted. But that was it, and he felt no particular sense of obligation or kinship.

North, he thought. He was going north, to the Tyrian sea.

Cody’d seen a film about that, too. Hadn’t thought much about it, but there was a good line about the Tyrian sea. A warm blue, a place with no memory.

He thought about the last thing Whyren had said to them, before they parted ways.

Yeah, thought the SynthKandra who’d been Cody Eight. A warm place with no memory sounded like where he wanted to be, now.

Didn’t it rain there, in the north?

As he lifted his face to the sky and took his first breath of air as a free man, the SynthKandra who had been Cody Eight breathed in the hint of ozone as the leaden grey skies overhead rumbled with the promise of petrichor, of cleansing rain to come.

 

RykP72mwQrQ_TiGygXHK_KN1wptdSBu1m-bik14pOqgRDEF2cYYW-isMoVKz0xqRgzDSrN8f3DitARMxO781Yf-JDsOIvOzqWUhhABISke0Ze8U90AbK0E65z6FTLaLsWBlqP-Rqv8fqIWqbpg

 

Melon Dingo was killed! She was a Mistrunner Hacker!

The SynthKandra have won the game! Congratulations to @Fuchsia Ostrich, @Salmon Meerkat, and @Emerald Falcon! (As Taken, @Amber Vulture , @Indigo Weasel, and @Ivory Dragonfly win with them.)

As always, reserving the second post for player list, reveals, and docs. Please do not post until I do.

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Player Identities According to Illwei:

Spoiler

1. @Chartreuse Penguin - Archer
2. @Magenta Albatross - Archer
3. @Salmon Meerkat - Archer
4. @Mauve Crocodile - Archer
5. @Coral Swan - Archer
6. @Melon Dingo - Archer
7. @Indigo Weasel - Archer
8. @Azure Mouse - Archer
9. @Emerald Falcon - Archer
10. @Charcoal Hyena - Archer
11. @Oxblood Beagle - Archer
12. @Amethyst Scorpion - Illwei
13. @Fuchsia Ostrich - Archer
14. @Ivory Dragonfly - Archer
15. @Amber Vulture - Orlok

Player List:

Spoiler

1. Chartreuse Penguin - Jack Ladrian Mistrunner Infiltrator - @Matrim's Dice
2. Magenta Albatross - Mistrunner Infiltrator - @JNV
3. @Salmon Meerkat - Vel SynthKandra Infiltrator - @Devotary of Spontaneity
4. @Mauve Crocodile - Mistrunner Communications Specialist - @little wilson
5. Coral Swan - Atari Mistrunner Infiltrator - @Araris Valerian
6. @Melon Dingo - AuRel Mistrunner Hacker - @Tani
7. Indigo Weasel - Taken Combat Medic - @Archer
8. Azure Mouse - Hauer Mistrunner Communications Specialist - @|TJ| / @Ashbringer
9. Emerald Falcon - SynthKandra Field Operative - @Experience
10. @Charcoal Hyena - Mistrunner Field Operative@xinoehp512
11. Oxblood Beagle - Mistrunner Close-Quarters Specialist - @Bort
12. @Amethyst Scorpion - Mistrunner Field Operative - @Illwei
13. Fuchsia Ostrich - Cody Eight SynthKandra Hacker - @DrakeMarshall
14. @Ivory Dragonfly - Taken Negotiator - @Elandera
15. @Amber Vulture - Taken Enforcer - @_Stick_

Dossiers:

Things pending:

  • GM AAR
  • @Araris Valerian will issue more detailed instructions on what to do with your anon accounts; for the moment, suffice to say I have restored all accounts to their original players (saving in the case of Azure Mouse), and any SynthKandra who want to use the guestbook of an account they hopped into should PM the player to have their post added.
Edited by Kasimir
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Kesed means kindness in hebrew

Anyways, ggs.

Not really going to talk about my thoughts on the game because if anything it would probably spark people being defensive about the reasons they weren't active, or Kas defending the game design, but basically sums up to activity and vote manip imo, activity being everyone seeming fine with settling into whatever exe was easiest, and the kandra hopping into vote manip roles (assumedly, I have no clue what the roles mean, but there was soother and rioter action on the last cycle presumably)

All i wanted to do was die

 

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Hey everyone, since another AN has come to a close, feel free to update the Guestbook PM for your anonymous account with some details about the game. The entry should look generally like what I have below, although for this game adding in who the account got passed to would be interesting as well.

Quote

 

Game:
Real Username:
Role:
RP Character:

And then other comments below that.

 

 

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1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

so you're telling me archer triggered the swear filter

It had to have been purposeful but that's something that confuses me so much

and what outed his slot even if with inactivity and vote manip nothing i did in this game actually mattered because we had lost before we began.

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I had fun, thanks @Kasimir for running. We already had a chat about the distro and I'm sure he's gonna mention everything I could say in his AAR, so I'll hold off until that. Kinda wish I didn't get voted out for my role, and hoping this is a lesson to the newer generation of  SE players :P. When there are lots of Smokers, it means there's a decent chance there's a lot of things that can be blocked by smoking :P.

It was a bit convenient that I got voted off right as champs started though.

I'm not terribly surprised by the activity given that lots of people have finals about now, combined with AN games being a bit harder to stay on top of. But I do think we need to do better about not signing up for games we can't commit to seeing through.

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5 minutes ago, Archer said:

Technically no, because I think I typed out  r-u-s-t  for that. :P. 

but that's

it's not a normal place or wording

like

also i notice more and more people putting the "." after :P.

my influence is spreading

Edited by Illwei
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