Long Game 86: A Stricken Match

Fifth Scholar · May 23, 2022

Prelude: The Sign of Fire

As far as canalside inns went, the Sign of Fire was among the oldest, and the most reputable. The foundation stones had been laid, or so the legends went, in the days of the Deepness, the deep dark days before the Lord Ruler himself had slain the evil and ascended to divinity. Prelans and nobles alike tarried at the Sign of Fire, partaking of the house fare and the wine before their journey led them ever onwards, down the winding waterways towards Tathingdwen proper.

Everywhere you looked, Kais said, was water, taking you where the proper flow of things were, whether it was to Tathingdwen, or the water eagerly seeking out the Channerel, and from the Channerel to Luthadel, the beating heart of the Final Empire. (Kais wasn’t much of a poet. But the house wine at the Sign of Fire did that to a man.)

The water took you past majestic Torinost, where on a quiet day, the ash didn’t fall, and you could almost believe you lived in one of the days of legend, with skies a crisp, pale grey, and the air fresh and clear. Stories, mostly. And the follies of bards, some of whom wore bright copper bracelets that gleamed as they played the lute and the harp.

Count Olaf, the newly-minted head of House Ffnord, set down his wine glass. Anticipation warred with caution; caution won out. He had not been acclaimed as lord of House Ffnord by utter recklessness. Yet, even accepting the invitation had been some form of risk. The promise of House Ffnord entering into a business contract with House Jerzy had been subtle, but it was the sort of promise that you had to respond to, because of the sheer opportunity it offered.

Could House Ffnord afford to pass up this opportunity?

And then there was the caution there: why meet in the Terris Dominance? House Jerzy was a Western House, famous for its fine wines, answering to the Herons of Tremredare. What business did any Jerzy—or their representative—have, meeting at an admittedly celebrated inn with admittedly fine wine in a Dominance so far from their own?

So far, Kais had seemed painfully exacting. He’d wanted to know about the funds House Ffnord was prepared to offer, the state of House Ffnord’s previous ventures, figures, accounts, and schedules. A minor insult, really, that the head of House Ffnord had been met by a glorified secretary, but Olaf smiled tightly and swallowed it.

A newly-minted House Lord could afford only so much assertiveness. And the letter had the secret marks, etched into the edge of the paper, indicating authenticity and urgency. Which meant that the Synod, too, was keeping a close eye on things.

The thought brought him back to his wine glass. It was good wine, and Olaf felt his mood ease a little.

Tathingdwen was a city of secrets, and the Synod was the best-kept secret of all.

It was very much like the Synod to proceed with this level of skulduggery. Wheels within wheels. Generation after generation of Keepers, preserving the collective knowledge of the world within their copperminds, against some distant future where it might be needed. Always hoarding, in some desperate, blind faith. Risk endangered not just one member of the Synod, but the painstakingly-gathered treasure trove of human knowledge.

“I presume,” Kais said, “That we can trust to your discretion.”

He sketched it; slowly, with his index finger, the sign for authenticity again.

And there it was, and Olaf wondered if it had been just that: some lie to wrangle him north, to the Terris Dominance, when really, any true representative of House Jerzy should have been satisfied with a meeting in the West.

He made the recognition sign, slowly, deliberately, aggravatedly.

“Do you represent House Jerzy, then?” Olaf wanted to know. He did not like the feeling of having been used. He did not much like being led on a merry chase under false pretences, either.

Kais nodded. “This much is true. House Jerzy has been looking for new distributors with access to more lucrative markets. It was suggested that House Ffnord has those capabilities. The question of course is whether we have common interests, and the contract is suitable.”

“I believe we’ve spent the past hours establishing that House Ffnord has the connections that House Jerzy seeks,” Olaf said, tightly.

Two layers at once. Always deception, always another secret.

“Have you,” Kais said, a seeming non-sequitur, “Heard about that business in Frebarind? A nasty affair, that.”

“No,” Olaf said, tersely. “I can’t say I have.”

“I think you’ll find it—interesting,” Kais said.

The fire crackled with warmth and light, but Hazen still felt cold.

He unfolded the letter again, and read it, but the words never changed. They know, he read. They’re coming for you. Get out as fast as you can. It was tempting to dismiss it. The Synod was too well-hidden; generation after generation holding fast to the secrecy that was their chief tool of survival in the Lord Ruler’s harsh world.

But there were the deaths.

Ias had drowned; a simple boating accident, they said. Canal boats were well-known to tip over, if the boatman wasn’t careful, and the boatman had been drunk. It didn’t matter that Ias knew how to swim. He’d gone under the boat, and hadn’t been able to get to the surface.

Hadn’t stored pewter either, though Hazen wasn’t certain if tapping pewter would have helped. Perhaps it would only have meant that he would have drowned faster.

Ancestors’ mercy, Hazen thought. A terrible way to die, drowning. And Ias had always that bright smile, the one that lit up an entire keep with its warmth. The boatman responsible was dead soon after: an attempted mugging gone bad fast. They’d found the murderer, and had strung him up without mercy. But it didn’t matter. The boatman was slain, and Ias was gone; another source of brightness faded from the world. Perhaps he had simply burned too brightly.

But then there was Pashan, who had been run over by a wagon, and seriously injured. The wagon-driver had been distraught, and had sworn again and again that something had spooked the horse. Hazen did not think the man had it in him to lie, and yet the horse, a solid raw-boned draft-horse that was getting on in years, was placid, and Hazen would sooner swear that he was Mistborn than believe that the horse had spooked.

Pashan had died in her sleep, days after. Radur had been knifed in an alley while on the way home. There were only so many unexplained deaths you could accept, before you had to start to ask questions. Before you had to wonder if there was something more sinister at work there.

The Synod had sent them all to Frebarind. Hazen had been proud to accept the charge of leading the small branch of the Synod there. Frebarind was a bustling settlement, and the Steward of Tathingdwen was sparing no expense in investing in it. With the flow of funds came nobles and obligators, and various opportunities for the Synod to establish a presence in Frebarind and to listen in on the secrets and whispers of power.

Not everyone had liked this move. The traditionalists had claimed this was too ambitious; that the Synod’s place was in the shadows, that this stepped too close to attempting to place a hand on the rowing pole. Their place was not to steer the boat, but to keep to the shadows beneath the water. The pragmatists had claimed that this was their chance to establish a new presence, and every available opportunity to increase the Synod’s resilience should be taken; they could not always rely on secrecy to save them from the Lord Ruler. The historians had flatly claimed this was a distraction from their sole task to preserve knowledge and ignored everyone.

Did this sort of disagreement drive Keeper to kill Keeper? Hazen didn’t know. The thought was a distressing one.

And now, days later, a letter had come to him, borne swiftly by water, and by the secret channels and ways that the Synod knew of, and bearing the etched markings for authenticity and urgency and secrecy, and a dire warning.

Hazen bowed his head.

He was the head of the Synod-in-Frebarind. Leaving was deserting his post, abandoning those under his care. And yet the letter had come, but it bore only a warning; no strict orders to leave.

Decision made as swiftly as impulse; Hazen balled the letter up and tossed it into the crackling flames.

“No,” he said aloud. He had a duty, and he was charged with the protection and the safeguarding of the Synod-in-Frebarind. His place was here.

Even if staying here killed him.

The watchman cried the hour.

All was well.

Few were brave enough to dare the mists, although the nobles and the Allomancers among their number might very well claim the mists as their own.

In a small, unremarkable house in Frebarind, Hazen lay still on the ground, blood pooling onto the carpet. His arms were badly burned. The fire roared; the Keeper had stuffed it full of important documents, preferring destruction to having those documents used against the Synod.

A desperate move, perhaps. Or a dying man’s defiance.

It did not matter.

Flames spread across the wood-paneled study, and across the house, and in an hour’s time, the house itself went up in a shout of fire.

“Hazen,” Kais said, “Was a fool.” He looked at his wine glass, but his gaze seemed distant, recalling. “The Synod’s eyes and ears had received word that the Synod-in-Frebarind had been compromised, but we were not certain what the nature of the compromise was. I sent warning to Hazen. He chose to ignore it.”

An entire branch of the Synod compromised, Olaf thought. It sounded disturbingly familiar, as though it was the same story, the same pattern, playing itself out again and again. He thought of that business in Luthadel, and the obligators.

“And then he was dead soon after, and the Synod-in-Frebarind panicked. As though any reasonable person would not have been concerned after the first death!” He shook his head. “The Synod debated, of course. As always. The traditionalists screamed that this was the end, that everyone had to go back into hiding and the Synod-in-Frebarind had to be severed—” he made a sharp, cutting gesture with his free hand, “—forgotten, abandoned as lost. The historians didn’t care, but didn’t like the idea of abandoning our own. The pragmatists pointed out that cutting off the Frebarind branch meant we had no way of assessing the extent of the damage, or reasonably figuring out how much the Steel Inquisition knew, or how much trouble we were in.”

The Steel Inquisition. Words to chill the heart, even now. And as the newly-minted House Lord of House Ffnord, Olaf was sternly resolved to stay on the right side of the Steel Ministry. Even the lord of a Great House gave way when the Steel Inquisition got involved.

“Surely the most reasonable resolution was to assess the situation,” he temporised. “The Synod in Tathingdwen, no matter how well-informed, was too removed from the situation in Frebarind to make the necessary decisions.”

Kais nodded approvingly. “That was the conclusion they reached eventually, when wiser, cooler heads prevailed. I was in Tathingdwen then, because Lord Jerzy was attempting to negotiate cultivar access with another House, and could be easily dispatched to Frebarind.”

“How bad was it?” Olaf asked, curious in spite of himself. He had not heard of the Frebarind affair; he had been somewhat removed from Synod politics since his accession to the House Lord’s seat, and yet there had been something in the messages from the Synod of late. Something that suggested weight, foreboding.

“The Synod-in-Frebarind was thoroughly infested with Spiked infiltrators,” Kais said, with distaste. “I don’t know what Hazen thought he was doing, but it needed to be purged, to the root...”

Welcome to Long Game 86: A Stricken Match! The Terris Synod in the quiet town of Frebarind is threatened by Spiked servants of the Lord Ruler in their quest for the knowledge sought by the Keepers. Fail to root them out in this formerly sleepy town, and the last bastion of Feruchemy will be left vulnerable to his minions.

This game is a rerun of LG48, but features minor edits to a few of the Ferring roles, and a slight change to the action system as well. Otherwise, it should function fairly similarly. You may access the rules here. Clarifications asked from LG48 are already in the doc, so please check there first to see if your question has already been answered. Also, please note for story and character purposes that this is a prequel, as Olaf has not reduced Tathingdwen to ashes quite yet. He's getting there, though.

My co-GM for this game will be the wonderful @Kasimir. You have him to thank for the intro writeup, as well as all the writeups going forward. He will also be doing his best to fill your PMs with sarkastic commentary as he feels it is needed. The IM, to whom you may bring concerns, is @Devotary of Spontaneity.

I plan to begin this game in roughly one week’s time, on Monday 30 May at 10:00 PM EDT (UTC -4). Should rollover change prove necessary, or an extension due to untenably low player counts, I will make an announcement in-thread.

Thank you all and I look forward to a wonderful game! Good luck to all!

Quick Links:

Spoiler

Day One - Smoked Out
Night One - Flickering Luck
Day Two - Hope Rekindled
Night Two - Striking Sparks
Day Three - Stamped Out
Night Three - Burn the Witch!
Day Four - Brief Candle
Aftermath - Refiner's Fire

Player List:

Spoiler

1. Ashbringer as Faleast, a town crier surprisingly enthusiastic about announcing woeful tidings and most bitter lamentation as the destroyer comes upon us

2. The Unknown Novel as ExMach Inadeus, an otherworldly visitor and luck epic who claims power over chromium…at the very least

3. Matrim’s Dice as Jeral, a older gentleman who recklessly flouts the local gambling laws in hope of one day buying that gold-hilted cane-sword he covets

4. Steeldancer as Steel, a street beggar with a shadowy past and a desire to one day join the Tathingdwen Tautological Society of Tautology

5. Archer as Stann, a clerk with patchily dyed blue hair and immaculately maintained blue flipbooks

6. _Stick_ as Stick, Treasurer of the Tathingdwen Tautological Society of Tautology

7. Elandera as Eran, an old woman who misses her twin sister who lives outside Tathingdwen and hopes her garden is doing okay

8. StrikerEZ as Vardenwith, a Terris steward in training who is sadly not catching on very well

9. JNV as Venel “Sparky,” a noble kid who occasionally gets too emotional for their own good

10. Araris Valerian as Artwyn, a tired old carpenter

11. xinoehp512 as X the Executioner, a middle-aged lady who yells at her four bloodhounds in a thick accent

12. Alvron as Izzy Dedyet, who promises she has reformed her ways

13. Illwei as Eiwlil, an avid Jaist missionary who emphasises vigorous head-shaking in her preaching

(Note: if you do not give me a character description, I will give you a bad one. Please make one )

Edited February 15, 2023 by Devotary of Spontaneity

Ashbringer · May 23, 2022

5 minutes ago, Fifth Scholar said:

I plan to begin this game in roughly one week’s time, on Monday 30 May at 10:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM SGT. Should rollover change prove necessary, or an extension due to untenably low player counts, I will make an announcement in-thread.

~~Edit: nothing happened here, move along~~

Signing up as Faleast because I haven't done him justice in a while. I might not be super active and/or drop out of signups due to... well, the reason I was hesitant about running a game, but I literally have no idea. But this looks cool so here goes

I'll try and make sure to commit to being present if I do stay in, which I plan to.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Ashbringer

The Unknown Ajah · May 23, 2022

This starts after mine does, so I think I can pull it off.

I'll be ExMach Inadeus, a luck epic, who promptly had his powers shift to being a chromium ferring upon arrival to Scadrial, which happened because he took a wrong turn into a dark alley, which was luckily a wormhole to the cosmere.

Edited May 23, 2022 by The Unknown Novel

Mat · May 23, 2022

I’ll play. And I want whatever description you come up with, so my character’s name will be Jeral and that’s all you get to know

Steeldancer · May 23, 2022

Fifth is running a game? Count me in.

Archer · May 23, 2022

In as Stann, a clerk with patchily dyed blue hair and an obsession with flipbooks.

Stick. · May 23, 2022

I think I played this four years ago ( ͡ᵔ ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ ͡ᵔ) The rules can't have changed that much, right? Right? ~~I promise I'll read them~~. In as Stick.

Elandera · May 24, 2022

I'll join as Eran. I must avenge the death of my grandmother, who was killed unjustly for being a pewter ferring.

Edit: I have been informed this is a prequel, so instead I'll be Eran, twin sister of Era, who also claims to have been alive for an unreasonable amount of time.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Elandera

StrikerEZ · May 24, 2022

I’ll hop in as Vardenwith, a young Terrisman steward in training. Except he’s very bad at it and has only very narrowly avoided being executed for it.

Edited May 24, 2022 by StrikerEZ

JNV · May 25, 2022

Hi hi hi Ill play as Venel a noble kid with unfortubate nickanme of Sparky cause theyre very emotioanl

Araris Valerian · May 26, 2022

I'm signing up but still need some time to work out a character.

xinoehp512 · May 27, 2022

I lost this game when it was run the first time. Let's hope I have better luck this time. :P.

Araris Valerian · May 29, 2022

My character will be Artwyn, a tired old carpenter.

Fifth Scholar · May 30, 2022

Thanks a lot to everyone who has signed up already! The game will start in a little under 24 hours, so if you're on the fence, you still have a chance to hop in This game can run at its current playercount, but as always, the more the merrier the bloodshed is

Steeldancer · May 30, 2022

A bad one? Oh no. We can't have that.

I'll be Steel. He's a beggar on the street with way too many secrets that landed him there.

xinoehp512 · May 30, 2022

I will be X the Executioner.

**Alvron** · May 31, 2022

Izzy Dedyet is signing up. Izzy swears she won't burn down the Synod meeting place this time. Or was it that this is the time she burnt it down during a failed sacrifice to the Gods of Luck and Chance? Time will tell. Maybe.

--- · May 31, 2022

I want to join but don't want to make a character

Fifth Scholar · May 31, 2022

11 minutes ago, Illwei said:

I want to join but don't want to make a character

Kas and I have ideas then

48 minutes ago, Alvron said:

Izzy Dedyet is signing up. Izzy swears she won't burn down the Synod meeting place this time. Or was it that this is the time she burnt it down during a failed sacrifice to the Gods of Luck and Chance? Time will tell. Maybe.

WELCOME BACK

Mat · May 31, 2022

On 5/22/2022 at 10:32 PM, Fifth Scholar said:

Illwei as Eiwlil, an avid Jaist missionary who emphasises vigorous head-shaking in her preaching

Praise the Ja!

Kasimir · May 31, 2022

One minute in which to abruptly sign up for this game as Landis Khan and force Fifth to tear his hair out and redo everything :eyes:

Should I :eyes:

Some kels want to watch the world burn.

Fifth Scholar · May 31, 2022

Day One: Smoked Out

The fire crackled, consuming the logs. Olaf found his gaze drawn to the hypnotic dance of the bright flames, all but imagined he could feel their warmth on his skin. Fire, thought Olaf, solved a great many problems.

It was an insight he didn’t share with Kais.

A few tables over, a woman with the elaborate tattoos of an obligator listened to a pair of young nobles, no doubt witnessing some agreement or other. The next table had a rowdy group studying their cards, throwing dice with all the earnestness of youth.

Pah. Olaf did not feel half so young.

“What happened to Frebarind?” he asked, abruptly.

Kais flagged down a passing waiter, but to Olaf’s surprise, the man did not solicit more wine. Perhaps Kais wanted to keep his own wits about him. Instead, the waiter returned with a hot cup of spiced Terris tea, glowing a dark ruddy red in the firelight.

“Burned, of course,” Kais said, matter-of-factly. “Paranoia is a dangerous force.”

“But necessary.”

“But necessary,” Kais assented. “In our line of work.”

In general skulduggery, wondered Olaf, or in the subtle art of keeping alive the latest generation of a culture that the Lord Ruler had carefully controlled and curtailed and would most certainly lead to every last one of them being mercilessly executed if word of the Synod got back to Kredik Shaw.

He shivered. For a moment, the entire room seemed full of shadows and spikes.

“Frebarind burned,” Kais said again, quietly, almost as though to himself. He clasped the surface of his tea mug but did not drink, as though he was thinking to draw a little warmth from it. “But that came later. Without Hazen, the Synod-in-Frebarind was left leaderless, but they knew the Inquisition had its agents among them…”

Landis, now the acting head of the Synod-in-Frebarind, because he was uniquely qualified, being one of the few Keepers in Frebarind who hadn’t yet come down with a terminal case of death, felt ill-equipped to the task that now lay before him.

Word had come from Tathingdwen that the Synod was sending someone to investigate the situation. He shook his head in mute disbelief. Even now, the Synod favoured fact-finding and deliberation over decisive action. Hazen, Ias, Pashan, and Radur, all dead. There were only so many of them left, now.

Hazen burned in his own home. The thought alone made Landis want to seek the bottom of a wine bottle. Drowning in the wrong sort of water, he thought, with black humour.

Frebarind was changed, now. Four deaths in a row. Even where Frebarind knew nothing of the Synod, four deaths, one after another, and one so horrific as Hazen’s had drawn attention. Perhaps it was for the best. The Inquisition would have to be more subtle.

He felt like a hunted man. Eyes in every shadow. He was going to have to fill his bronzeminds just to be able to sleep at night. If sleeping was wise.

The gossip and chatter in the marketplace was all about the deaths. “Have you heard?” Sasanra was all but shouting, as she peddled her fried fritters to just about anyone who was willing to part with their coin. “The Frebarind Finisher strikes again!”

Ancestors, Landis thought, wearily, buying a greasy skewer from Sasanra. They’d already begun to name the Inquisition’s knife. For it had to be the Steel Inquisition. They’d known the stakes, from the beginning. Little reason to stalk and murder so many of the Synod.

He paused, mid-skewer.

So many of the Synod.

There was a traitor among them. Hazen had said as much, in their last meeting. Landis had refused to countenance this, had told Hazen he was being paranoid, jumping at his own shadow. And now, Hazen was dead, killed in his own home, burned, and the Synod was yet another Keeper smaller.

Four Keepers dead in two weeks. How did it get to such numbers?

A traitor, though.

One of their own worked for the Inquisition. Or at least one of them. Hopefully it was the newcomer, Raven. She’d arrived only two weeks after the first death to replace Ias and none of the Keepers had gotten to know her well yet. If one of the Keepers he’d known and worked with for decades had betrayed them all…

Landis threw the skewer away. He didn’t feel in the mood to finish it off.

“Dreadful lamentable news!” the town crier—was it Faleast, after the ashmount?—was bellowing at the top of his lungs. “Three bodies found in the canal last night! Was it the Frebarind Finisher? Or do we now have a copycat on our hands! The watch has agreed to put a price on the head of—”

Landis strode away. He didn’t want to hear this. Of all the damnable things the cursed watch could do. A price on the head of the Frebarind Finisher? Anyone could be the Finisher. Anyone at all.

Frebarind would wallow in blood.

But, he thought to himself, the watch wasn’t entirely wrong. Not about this. He needed to call a discreet meeting of the Synod, as soon as he could. The more of them watching each other, the better. Vigilance had its costs, but perhaps if they were careful enough, if they were watchful enough…Any agent of the Inquisition would find it hard to move against the last remnants of the Synod-in-Frebarind.

And if the Inquisition’s agents really were refusing to discriminate between residents of Frebarind and Synod in their strikes, on the view that harbouring the Synod made anyone in Frebarind as guilty by association, then they had a common enemy.

It wasn’t something he could go to the watch with, not even here in the Terris Dominance, but it was a start.

Hopefully, it wasn’t going to be an ending.

“Landis,” Kais said, quietly. “Hazen was a fool. The Synod-in-Frebarind would’ve been better off with Landis as Synod head to begin with. Hazen was always slow to act, even if he saw the danger. But it cost us precious time, communicating with the Synod-in-Frebarind. By the time word of Hazen’s death reached Tathingdwen and the Synod proper had decided to act…”

“Rash action kills,” Olaf felt obligated to say. Leaping blindly into the flames under the illusion that action was better than no action was just as fatal. And if you knew how to take the reins of power, if you knew how to nudge discussion so people believed, thought, and concluded as you wished them to…

“It does. But so does milling around uselessly in the hopes that blindly accusing each other will let the real agent of the Steel Inquisition identify themselves,” Kais said, acerbically. “Which, mind you, was more or less what was happening in Frebarind by that point.” Too many seemed to believe they had some special insight into others, some way of divining the truth of a man’s guilt from his behaviour. You could do that, maybe. But you always had to be careful that you weren’t believing what you wanted to.

That way lay the burning-pyres.

Not for the first time, Kais wondered if he had come to Frebarind too late. Or too early, depending on your point of view.

“No, of course not,” Olaf said, sharply. “They have to be induced to identify themselves.” Set fire to their holes, and sooner or later, they would have to emerge, like rats, into the light of scrutiny.

Kais nodded. “Induced, or otherwise discovered through preponderance of evidence,” he agreed. “Still, what Landis did right was to take seriously the warnings that the Synod-in-Frebarind was thoroughly compromised—though really, he would have to be thoroughly daft by this point not to notice—and acted on it, beginning an inquiry of sorts…”

Day One has begun! Welcome to the game! You should have received, or will be receiving shortly, your GM PM filled with all the information you need. If you suspect information to be lacking, such as starting charges, please let us know and we will fix it as quickly as possible. A few things got shuffled in the last hours...

There is an exe today. Ties are decided randomly, with no vote minimum to kill.

A reminder: If you wish to fill a metalmind, please, please, please PM us BEFORE posting. Some metalminds have fill conditions which you will accidentally violate if you post indiscriminately. Look at your role and description, and ask Kas or myself if you are confused.

As always, thanks to @Kasimir for an excellent writeup, and for handling the PMs.

This turn will end in about 47 hours, at 10:00 PM EDT (-4:00 UTC) on Wednesday 1 June.

Good luck!