Long Game 86: A Stricken Match

[Mat]

I quote when I voted for Steel to start discussion and you were like “yep that started a lot of discussion”

It would seem that voting for discussion or reaction tests doesn’t work all that well  

[---]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I quote when I voted for Steel to start discussion and you were like “yep that started a lot of discussion”

It would seem that voting for discussion or reaction tests doesn’t work all that well  

your vote for steel was nothing- it was an rng vote that didn't mean much and when you revisited it you didn't try and prompt anything from it, going "going back to my rng vote because people talked about him" or something

My vote was not an RNG vote and based on things TUN had done and went against my previous village read of him in thread.

[Alvron]

15 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

Or it could be Alvron, being Alvron. 

There is a very good chance of this.  

[Stick.]

That vote count kinda sad. Someone must have been filling copper or have tapped zinc for that vote to appear on me. Why did the exe go through when no one in reality had more than 2 votes?

Archer I could have died :(. That is meaningful

Out of the people tied for the exe I'm currently feeling the best about Striker, haven't gotten enough material from Alv to form a real opinion, and Mat idk 

I also think I should have a read on Archer...I want to say slight elim but this is just gut, I'll likely have a more solid opinion once I reread D1.

 

edit: nevermind that question about the exe going through >>

 

edit2: also nevermind the thing about alv not having posted enough material >> I have discovered that I've got nearly an entire page of the last turn yet to read

Edited June 2, 2022 by _Stick_

[Ashbringer]

What to do, what to do... a few things I want to bring up next day turn but I don't really know what I'm doing.

On the plus side, nothing to do for the next few days.

[Araris Valerian]

I suppose to have it out there in case I die tonight, I'd guess that 0-1 elims had votes on them D1. I think elims would suspect that a lot of villagers would be filling metalminds that would negate votes, and I suspected they would have acted a bit more if there was more than one of them likely to be tied for death. I also am gonna tentatively put Ash as village, Ash since there wasn't any counter to the votes on him. Of course there is a potential ploy here where one/both of myself and Mat are elims with Ash, but that seems too risky for a D1 play when there is already pretty low voting activity.

[Kasimir]

The Night is over.

[Fifth Scholar]

Day Two: Hope Rekindled

Frebarind Finisher or not, a heart attack in someone as young as Inadeus deserved investigation. The first person to reach him was Izzy Dedyet, who answered with a resounding ‘Yes!’ The crowd immediately mobbed his corpse searching for any sign that he had been the notorious killer. They uncovered lots of jewellery; rings, bracelets, bracers, necklaces, some of which looked to be pewter and others of shiny, silvery metal, but no obvious weaponry. 

Raven suppressed a sigh. If Inadeus’s death had been caused by foul play, it would be impossible to determine the culprit. She scanned the crowd for Landis. He’d been so far unable to protect his fellow Synod members, but he did influence in this town that she sorely lacked. She’d need his help in order to recover the body.

Landis went over to talk to the town crier, who was shouting, “Finisher Finished!? Will the killings that have plagued our fair city cease, or continue unabated? Only time will tell whether the river will run red with blood!” 

As Landis got closer, Faleast suddenly turned to face him, still yelling dire portents of the future. Landis shivered. Would the man still have that excited glint in his eyes if it had been his long-time friends and colleagues that had died? He gathered himself and spoke.

“Such an unsightly spectacle. Inadeus deserves to be treated with more respect than this. Unless it turns out he was the Frebarind Finisher,” he couldn’t stop himself from adding.

Right as Raven managed to spot Landis, she heard the town crier next to him announcing “Clear the way! Clear the way!” Evidently, he’d had the same idea as her. The crowd, having found nothing to indicate Inadeus’s guilt, obliged. She could have sworn he saw a lot less jewellery on the corpse than there had been a few minutes ago, but the body itself was still intact. She could carry it by herself, but it would be better if another person accompanied her to ward off doubts of her tampering with the evidence. 

Looking around for someone to assist her, she saw a young man in steward robes hovering nearby, clearly unable to decide what to do. Raven herself had been wearing robes just like those no more than two months ago, and they marked him as being able to follow instructions at the very least. Taking a few seconds to access her copperminds, she assessed that his name was Vardenwith, that he was a pewter Ferring, and that he’d done such a poor job controlling that as a steward in training that he’d had to run away from the family he’d been assigned to. 

Raven winced commiseratingly.  She’d also had to abandon her own steward job after being observed using gold Feruchemy, though Lord Devinshae had believed her a Kandra at the time. She’d fled before Steel Inquisitors who knew no Kandra had been assigned to him and might be familiar with more esoteric uses of Feruchemy could arrive. She was several years older and had Keeper training and the favour of the Tathingdwen Synod, while Vardenwith had none of those advantages. She motioned to him to help her carry the body and he obliged. He was tall enough to keep Inadeus level, but a lot weaker than he looked. “Storing pewter?” she asked.

He looked surprised, and a little suspicious, but nodded. “I need as much of it as I can with that killer on the loose.”

“You don’t think it was him?”

“I have to be prepared for anything. And I’m better at storing pewter than tapping it.” 

“You may have cause to tap pewter in the near future if the killings don’t stop. I’m sure you’ll be able to do so when it counts” Raven remarked. She considered discussing her own experiences with pewter but hesitated. She’d already said too much; he assuredly wasn’t the sole killer but there was no guarantee he couldn’t be working with the Frebarind Finisher.  

Vardenwith stumbled a few times but the two of them managed to make it to the infirmary where Raven worked officially. She was able to dismiss him before he saw what happened next. The Canton of Orthodoxy was very particular on the proper way to dispose of bodies depending on their station, and they did not permit the practice of cutting open corpses. Best not to let Vardenwith know that she planned on doing that very thing.

 

 

 

Hazen looked at the steward boy in front of him. He could hide his words, of course, but the contempt for his ineptitude was betrayed in the way his upper lip pulled up and grimaced at the mess in front of him. “You call that a controlled tap? You broke not just the plate, but the table! If you’re going to be a Brute in the Order–or, Lord Ruler forbid, the Synod–you’re going to need a lot more precision than that.”

Vardenwith shivered. Hands quivering, he silently took the pieces of the plate he had shattered and dropped them into the wastebin. He wasn’t sure what to do about the splinters of the table. He was sure Hazen would reprimand him for that too. No matter what he did, it seemed that the other Terrismen in training would always catch on more quickly, make fewer errors, progress through the ranks as he was shuffled from teacher to teacher. His assignment in Frebarind was a demotion in itself, really. All the “good” Ferrings were already holed up in Tathingdwen. He could see why. Hazen was an awful instructor, and Vardenwith knew that he’d become even jumpier and more nervous since he’d gotten here.

Which, of course, messed with his Feruchemy. 

He sighed, holding back tears at the memory of that ordeal and a hundred similar ones. That had been two weeks ago. Now Hazen was dead, and he was loose in Frebarind. He should have been ecstatic to escape his old life. But fear still gnawed at him. All the training and experience in the world hadn’t saved Hazen from the Finisher, and he failed to see how Landis would fare any better, even if the man was taking a more assertive approach. He’d spent most of the day inside, desperately storing strength in hope it’d do him some good later. But it made him tired, and when evening fell he was ready to fall right back in bed. He’d hardly been missed during the Day hours.

Something, however, stopped him. Maybe if he stuck around, he’d finally uncover some of this Finisher nonsense. Maybe he was useless as a Feruchemist, but he’d try to be a half-decent detective. He took to the streets, tapping a bit of his precious pewter for a burst of energy, and after filching a loaf of bread from the stores nearby, he headed out in search of the murderer.

 

 

Thirty minutes of searching later, and Vardenwith wished he was a Sentry. Or at least a Windwhisperer, so he could see through the darkness even with bleary eyes. If the Finisher struck at night, he was quiet thus far in Frebarind’s streets this evening. 

He leaned against the brick facade of the Laughing Salmon, still tired. His foot hit a stray object, and he looked down, seeing a discarded die lying face-up in the gutter. He leaned over to pick it up, examining it, and saw Jeral’s “lucky” dice he’d been throwing in the taverns the day before. It was now flattened, the marks distorted and the Allomantic faces lost. 

No, wait. He rotated it, and saw that one face still had discernible markings. But it was no marking he had ever seen. Two crescents, one spike and one dot. Like Pewter somehow, but..wrong, twisted, pointing down. Great. His metal couldn’t even survive the boot of a tavernkeeper. 

As he yawned, thinking his adventure over and the time for bed renewed, he heard another sound behind him. Pattering feet. He swivelled, and saw a hooded figure running down the alleyway. The Finisher! He had no time to duck out of sight–now was the time to put his abilities to use. He set himself, tapping strength as he felt his muscles bulge under his clothing.

The Finisher must have been tapping steel, because the figure crossed the distance in a quarter of the time which would have been reasonable for any human to attempt, and leapt into the air, fist raised with a long spike in it. Vardenwith recoiled. So fast! The spike whizzed past his shoulder as he swatted the descending arm with his own Pewter-enhanced one, but a kick from one of the Finisher’s legs drove the breath from his body. He realised belatedly that they had probably tapped iron during the descent. Full Feruchemists were unfair. Another reason he had hated Hazen.

Growling in the midst of his gasps for air, he clumsily swatted at where he thought the Finisher had landed, and was rewarded with a cry and the sound of crumpling bone. His wild, uncoordinated strike had hit a stray forearm which was unprepared for his clumsy movements. Apparently being a klutz had some advantages. He wheeled around, but the Finisher was already prepared. One, two quick stabs with the spike.

Vardenwith doubled over, bleeding. Still, the Pewter he was tapping let him continue despite the mortal injury. He swung again, a roundhouse blow which would have knocked the Finisher’s head clean off. Only hastily tapping the last of her Steel saved her, but as her head jerked back supernaturally quickly, the obscuring hood fell from the face of Vardenwith’s assailant. He gasped. “Stick!”

The Treasurer was not amused. “Deserving death, you should therefore die!” she hissed, swinging the spike like a sword. This was a mistake; the smooth side bounced harmlessly off Vardenwith’s arm, and he flicked his wrist, tearing it from her grip. Summoning the last of his Pewter, Vardenwith jumped forward and tackled Stick, tearing as many metalminds from her body as he could with wild hands. The two tumbled across the pavement. Vardenwith heard her ribs crack and smiled in satisfaction. There was a tinkling as her detached metalminds bounced across the cobblestones. Vardenwith thought he even caught a glint of gold.

“Not…useless…” he muttered, still clutching Stick in a viselike hug. He would crush her to death if nothing else could be done. Suddenly, a pain flared in his stomach. Then two. He lost hold of the Finisher, falling, gasping to the pavement himself. He had run out of strength in his metalmind. So close…

Stick drew herself up, coughing in pain. The second spike was still in her left hand. “In accordance with the Lord Ruler’s will, I will execute his every will and command,” she intoned. 

A flash, and Vardenwith too was vanquished.

 

 

Stick drew the spike out of Vardenwith’s heart distastefully. A mere Brute, and who knows whether the power would even take, or be worth selling. The society’s funds were running short, and the shorter they ran, the less they had to spend. It was a vicious state of affairs, and one Stick could remedy by her alliance with the Lord Ruler. Spikes with Feruchemical powers sold well. Spikes with those powers, plus a dead Synod, sold even better.

She grunted, unhappy that she had allowed herself to be nearly beaten. She tapped tin, one of her few metalminds still on her person, and looked about for the others, ready to scrounge until she found them, heal with gold, and call it a night. 

It seemed the Cosmere had other plans.

The first odd thing she noticed was that her metalminds were gone. Disappeared from the ground completely. The second was a blur of movement above her shoulder. Not trusting that she still had her steelmind, or anything left in said steelmind, she rolled normally, seeing a simple wooden staff go sailing over her head. A walking stick? She laughed contemptuously. 

She willed herself to tap everything she could at once. Based on the influx of sensory input, she figured she still had her ironminds, pewterminds, and one brassmind, in addition to her tin. It made sense–she had probably been subconsciously tapping pewter for some time to ignore the pain in her broken ribs. No zinc, which would have helped her think more clearly, but she cut the loss quickly. The metalminds she had were the metalminds she had. Time to use them. 

The walking stick swung her way again, and she tapped iron and pewter, hitting back viciously with her spike. She expected the flimsy wooden construct to shatter; instead, her assailant held firm. She again moved backwards, avoiding any retaliatory possibilities. How was she going to kill this man?

Before she had any time to consider, her assailant struck again. He must have tapped steel, to move as quickly as he did, because before she knew it her Spike hand was engulfed in a tightly wound layer of cloth. She struggled to pull it free, but her assailant had her. Frantic, she stored weight, and managed to pry her arm loose as it lost its physicality in the cloth bind. The spike, however, was caught. She could only watch as the stick descended on her head.

Thwack! She heard the sound and felt the pain, no matter how much pewter tried to dull the sensation, and crumpled to her knees. That was a pewter-enhanced strike if she ever felt one.  Thwack! A warm trickle of blood ran down her face. She tapped brass to cool it, but knew she was dying. Her broken ribs flared, the pewter unable to keep up with her injuries. Thwack!

When morning broke, the Frebirand Finisher lay in a pool of blood, in the very streets of the city she had once haunted.

 

 

By morning, Raven had her results. She’d found a small puncture wound in Inadeus’s arm, and her autopsy had revealed symptoms of poisoning. It wasn’t a poison she was familiar with, which meant a specialised toxin that wouldn’t have been available to the general public. Unless there was another group out to kill Feruchemists, it was undoubtedly the work of the Steel Ministry. 

She hurried over to the Synod meeting with her results to find all of the Synod members already deep in discussion. One of their enemies had been killed in the night, and she’d been a full Feruchemist just like them, and spiked no less. Only an hour into the meeting did she learn that Vardenwith was also dead.

 

 

Vardenwith (StrikerEZ) was spiked through the heart! He was a Village Brute and a member of the Synod! 

Stick (_Stick_) was beaten to death with a stick! She was a Spiked Full Feruchemist!

Day Two has begun! It will end in a little over 46 hours, on Saturday 4 June 2022 at 10:00 PM EDT (-4:00 UTC). 

Thank you to Kas for handling PMs and spreadsheet actions, and Devotary for helping with the writeup. More Olaf/Kais/Faleast content is heading your way soon, but we figured it was better to get everyone killed for your viewing enjoyment

There is an exe today, with no vote minimum. 

Once again, please remember to get in metalmind fill orders before running around doing every action available in the game. There have been few issues so far, so let’s keep up the streak

Good luck!

Player List:

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 Village Brute

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 Spiked Full Feruchemist

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 Village Brute; Synod

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

Edited June 3, 2022 by Fifth Scholar

[Mat]

...Spiked Full Feruchemist is a good kill. A very good kill. Nicely done, whoever that was. And Brute is apparently the role that gets you death in this game, which is too bad :P.

Is there any good reason not to have the person who shot Stick just claim it? A conf village would be nice, but it also would be a nice shot for the elims and I don't want to doom anyone just because they have good instincts.

Probably should go back and reread D1, now that I have an elim flip I should be more useful in analysis :P.

[Fifth Scholar]

In case you missed the edit, I forgot to initally mention that Striker was a Synod member. Carry on >>

[Ashbringer]

Faleast will wait for more mental processing and maybe some bonus content 

I'll go in my traditional camp of "claiming is up to the NKer". It's not a Coinshot situation, but there's... I don't think I've ever played a game where there's been fully available kills, with no limits. I don't see much risk, not unless someone does something really risky and gambles that the NKer was Striker.

If someone claims, someone claims and we can probably clear them. If no one claims, no one claims. If multiple people claim... deal with that later.

 

Also, I should vote before my brain forgets how time works again. I'll toss one on Elandera.

[Steeldancer]

Nice shot! Whoever pulled that off, good job. 

I would not recommend claiming publicly though. Seems too easy to false claim, cause confusion, and get yourself killed. 

This puts us up a fair deal, leaving us with much more time until LYLO. It also gives us information as well! I plan to go back and observe Sticks posts

[Mat]

I'd argue that multiple people claiming is the best case scenario :P. But that's fairly unlikely.

[Alvron]

Normally I wouldn't do this as it ruins the fun of everyone trying to work it out while I sit back smiling but storm it, I want to.

I killed Stick!  Or at least, I placed orders for Stick to be killed.

[Elandera]

I am not surprised to see Alv claim that. My first thought at seeing Stick's flip was "only Alv has that kind of accuracy." 

Just fyi, I'll be hit and miss this turn because part of it is during my niece's graduation celebrations. I'll do my best to keep up with things, though. 

Couple of quick reads (based mostly on gut): 

Alv = Village (pending confirmation of kill shot)

JNV = Very mild elim

Archer = Mild village

Steel = Mild village

[---]

I'm driving right now but thus needs to be said: if you shot stick and are not alv then don't claim and shoot him tonight. 

If you are not alv and didn't shoot stick, also don't counterclaim. 

1 hour ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I'd argue that multiple people claiming is the best case scenario :P. But that's fairly unlikely.

This is not the best case scenario. It both denies us the solid clear that we have in alv right now, and creates more confusion for us than the elims. 

With one elim down already and working with alv as cleared is enough to set us up for a pretty good shot at winning

I'll talk more once I'm home from work 

EDIT: and yes, I was roleblocked. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Illwei

[Steeldancer]

1 hour ago, Alvron said:

Normally I wouldn't do this as it ruins the fun of everyone trying to work it out while I sit back smiling but storm it, I want to.

I killed Stick!  Or at least, I placed orders for Stick to be killed.

flashbacks to LG83 (or whatever the Link one was) uh, yeah, I'd believe it

Edited June 3, 2022 by Steeldancer

[Mat]

If we get another claim, we likely have an elim out of Alv and whoever, but that’s unlikely so I’m happy clearing Alv. I too would have guessed it was him anyway  

[Archer]

Stann's mop of blue hair bounced to an imaginary beat as they obsessively poured through their flipbook. They were just getting to the good part when they got the news.
"What? Fullmetal Alchemist is dead??? Noo... oh. Well. Whatever, no one liked the Full Feruchemists anyway."
*
Good job, Alvron. Did you receive confirmation of your successful kill or could multiple people have submitted attacks on Stick?

Either way, my first thought is that this carves out a balanced way for a v!Copper to exist, perhaps even with some initial charges. If Alvron is the Copper, I'll be very disappointed at the lost clear potential.

Technically this was also an e!vote manip flip, but Stick's vote on Mat stuck and was not added to so I doubt that much happened on that front. By the way, between their potential to be a Copper and Stick's vote on them, I'm very committed to v!Mat right now.

Also willing to ignore JNV since Stick pestered them to vote. Less confident about that one though. 

Anyone want to claim intentionally moving a vote to Stick D1?

 

[Alvron]

Archer, I did receive confirmation that I killed Stick. However it is also possible that if anyone else placed orders to kill Stick then they might also receive confirmation. The odds of another choosing to target Stick is fairly slim though. But then, slim odds are what I do best so don’t count it out. 

[Archer]

Time for an Ashbringeresque POE. 

Removing Alvron and Mat for previously discussed reasons. 

Removing... oh wow, that's everyone who started N1 with a vote on them either dead or cleared. I'll broaden that to people who ended D1 with one. Removing Ashbringer and myself. 

By the way, I think Striker was likely killed because they were voted on D1.

Removing JNV because of Stick's interaction with them although my distancing alarm bell keeps dinging. 

Killing Striker after Xino voted them feels a bit on the nose for the elim team.

That leaves Steeldancer, Elandera, Araris, and Illwei as my shortlist of suspects. 

Might as well start with Illwei because they voted for v!TUN, an exe that Stick also supported at one point. 

[Araris Valerian]

I just did a brief reread looking at where Stick mention folks/was mention by them. JNV and Illwei both stuck out a bit, the former for being non-committal (something Stick herself pointed out), and the latter for having Stick as a top village read (though that was also qualified). There were others, I just wanted to put something out there so that maybe when I get back discussion will be a bit further along on the topic.

[---]

After rereading the rules I realize that the only village nk is the generic kill action, so i will modify my statement to: if you submitted a kill action on Stick then counterclaim alv. If you did not submit a kill action on stick do not counterclaim.

Village reads (in order)

Alv
Mat
Steel
Archer

Spew? Village tier:

Xino-

On 6/1/2022 at 11:24 AM, _Stick_ said:

What

 

edit:

you’ve got Xino and TUN mixed up I think

Before this I had just said I suspected TUN for something, and Stick corrects me to Xino. Would she have done that if Xino was her partner? I think not right now, it's not a solid village read but it's enough for at least this cycle til i see more from Xino. It's unneccesary attention onto Xino that I previously had directed on V!TUN.

Mat-

On 6/1/2022 at 2:42 PM, _Stick_ said:

Mat >:]
Also Araris/Striker maybe not E/E. Revisit at some point later probably 

My read on mat if based on things he's done/said, but also on Stick's vote on him here. He isn't the role that negates votes on him, and she isn't the role that negates her vote, as we see a vote on mat still in the night cycle vc. Her moving onto Mat and still no one consolidating after that implies that he isn't a teammate. The only way I would say this isn't applicable is if Araris/Mat are not E/E, and Ashbringer is a Skimmer.

this in addition to Mat's vote on Stick for a misunderstanding. I also just don't think this:

On 6/1/2022 at 2:53 PM, Matrim's Dice said:

That was a bad vote, I know. It was a tossup between Steel and JNV. Gimme a minute :P.

interaction happens between two Elims. If Stick was village then yeah mat could be an Elim, because this feels like an elim who was caught, but that goes away when you see that this reaction of feeling like he was caught was because an Elim voted him. If it was supposed to be staged then he wouldn't be trying to play it off like he does, instead either reacting lighter or blowing it up bigger. 

On 5/31/2022 at 2:04 AM, _Stick_ said:

Trying to work out whether I feel like Striker/Mat E/E based on that interaction.

---

On 6/1/2022 at 0:48 AM, Steeldancer said:

I couldn't find the rules because the link was a single tiny word in a MASSIVE freaking post. No wonder I wasn't able to find it until my third scouring of the post. 

So I'm keeping Steel in my village reads for now, but specifically posts like this- Either they're the base of my read or they should be the base of an Elim read.

Before this,
Matrim Calls it NAI
Archer calls it V
JNV calls it NAI (of sorts)

And that's it. Which does mean that Steel is more fixated on Archer than Mat or JNV imo, which is NAI unless JNV is an Elim, in which case Steel equity goes up. I think JNV is >rand Elim at the moment anyways, so it's not really something i care about exploring before getting JNV's flip.

On 5/31/2022 at 3:46 PM, Archer said:

Steel finding the rules on his own seems villagey to me. If I were evil, I'd worry that that edit looks like I got help from the elim doc. Or if I knew where the rules were the whole time, that'd be an interaction prompt and I wouldn't be so quick to end it. 

I'm probably going to village read Archer for this cycle. I like this post specifically, unless Archer and Steel are E/E. Yeah, it could be pocketing, but Steel is historically, recently, a designated misexe. To village read him off of something that was frameable as suspicious is villagery. Countering that though, Archer likes to play as if he was a villager. So the question is this could also be a TMI read of steel, but without other comments on steel there's no real way to think that for real yet. 

On 6/1/2022 at 3:21 AM, _Stick_ said:

Yeah, that was my line of thought more or less. I’m not putting too much stock into it, so it’s only a slight village lean. Additionally, Steel’s post recent post reminds me of LG83!Steel.

That, in addition to this, which feels like Stick is trying to appeal to Archer in a way. 

Also in re-reading, pocketing people as a villager isn't an irrational move Archer. Usually it implies you know that they're village, but in village's case it can be useful to just pocket everyone or whoever you can either to avoid being a misexe or to avoid being NKd.

I am also suggesting that if you are a role that, when filling, your vote gets redirected/nullified, think more about filling. Don't just fill because you want to have an action. While the communal nightkill exists, don't forget that our actual kill power is the vote, and if you make your vote nullified/random every cycle or most cycles simply because you want to have some sort of action to use then you basically forfeit that kill power to the Elims. Even if your ability is powerful, is it worth forfeiting your vote for that long? will you survive that long? Just because you have an action doesn't mean it's always good to use it- in a lot of cases it can be very anti-wincon in the end, so think about that.

Anyways, I've been all over the place so far, so where does that leave me right now.

Ashbringer
Elandera
JNV
Araris

Ash/Araris can definitely be E/E, if Mat is not a Tin/Zinc Ferring. if he is then they can only be e/e if Mat is also an Elim, which is unlikely fmpov.

At this point I am most comfortable with voting either JNV or Araris. Elandera I am consistantly wrong on, and Ash hasn't been in thread enough to fully read him imo.

One thing about Steel that I will say is that he seems to have gotten more confident since his return, and while that's theoretically expected just since he's been playing games, I want to associate that with an Elim rand- but will probably need a meta dive of sorts if i want to act on anything related to that read. so for now it's sitting in the garage gathering dust.

 

[Mat]

Wrote this post [Edit: the first half of it, at least] a few hours ago. And then apparently didn't post it :D.

Reread Notes:

On JNV, they light-defended Stick after I voted her (a vote I cast for incorrect reasons, so it's very possible they just understood Stick better than I did) but coupled with the already eh feeling I had about that post I'm more inclined to find this more suspicious than not. I like Archer's point about them, though.

I love the irony of Stick saying how statistically the freelance kill is more likely to hit a villager :P. Never tell Alvron the odds.

I'm tempted to read Stick/Steel interactions as e/e (Stick read Steel village, and asked me what my read of Steel was) but I'm reading Steel as village right now so idk.

Now I'm talking myself into a Stick/Illwei/xino team

• xino put Stick in the bad bucket but that was his only mention of her. (Reads as distancing, with the flaw in this reasoning being the other people in the bad bucket that got no mention). Had Illwei in village (again, alongside a lot of others). I don't think e!xino would be against killing Striker though.
• Illwei said she was going to join the Stick vote (never did) despite later putting Stick as village, and said she was most comfortable voting xino, yet voted TUN. Reads as distancing and not actually wanting to vote a teammate, respectively.

Case is a work in progress. Depends how the rest of the game goes, obviously :P. xino/Illwei don't have to be e/e to just be e, I think, but I don't want to get stuck on two targets until both of them die.

Updated reads below, @ me for questions about any of the placements.

Alv
Steel, Araris
Ash, Archer
JNV
Elan, Illwei, xino

I'll join Archer in voting Illwei, to start.

Edit2: I might like that post from Illwei enough to switch to xino

Edited June 3, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

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4 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

and the latter for having Stick as a top village read (though that was also qualified).

Also Stick was definitely not a top village read, I suppose I will be the quoter this cycle because I can.

On 6/1/2022 at 2:53 PM, Illwei said:

Mat, Stick, Striker, Araris, Steel all V.

Of everyone so far I am most comfortable voting Xino still, I think.

My village reads on Stick and Steel are probably not the weakest of the lot, but the ones i would most likely vote on if for some reason all my village reads were the only viable candidates.

This is the point in which I added stick into my V reads, and it was based on-

On 6/1/2022 at 2:42 PM, _Stick_ said:

Mat >:]
Also Araris/Striker maybe not E/E. Revisit at some point later probably 

This specific post, which i liked the emoticon. If Mat had moved back to Stick I would have probably joined him, honestly.

Now right now I'm trying to think about if I should be Elim reading Araris based on this post as well, since the comparison to Striker and subsequent Striker NK is making me wonder. Stick made two striker "not e/e" comparisons on D1, and then with Striker flipping it makes me wonder if it was supposed to set up Araris/Mat for the future.

Not something I'm thinking about right now though because it implies Stick was sure she wanted to flip Striker early on (which maybe she was, if the Elim doc had figured out one of the Synod members. That might imply that one of the Striker voters was an Elim, or the main voter.

This then leads to Xino, who I'm calling village for now.

--

Araris also now voting JNV makes things kinda ??

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

xino put Stick in the bad bucket but that was his only mention of her. (Reads as distancing, with the flaw in this reasoning being the other people in the bad bucket that got no mention). Had Illwei in village (again, alongside a lot of others). I don't think e!xino would be against killing Striker though.

I also want to think more on the fact that people generally find Striker to be suspicious. I do pride myself on being a good striker reader, but usually even you fall into elim reading him. More likely the main striker V readers are going to be Elims with TMI who think he's villagery because of TMI, and the main striker pushers are going to be Villagers.

Yeah, i know this contradicts what i wrote directly above about striker pushers being evil, but it doesn't contradict my read on Xino, which stays.

@Matrim's Dice thought on my point about V!Xino in my above post?