Mid-Range Game 36: The Northern Wind

[DeTess]

And this cycle is now closed.

[Stick.]

...

[DeTess]

Something had changed in the Northern wind’s hangar. There was still a lot of shouting and running around and accusations, but to Cole it seemed like some direction had appeared. People where asking questions and establishing Alibis, rather than rushing about spouting rumours and chasing monkeys. Or whatever those pets of Quill where supposed to be.

Most of the day passed without serious incidents she needed to get involved in, until at the end of the day. A large group of workers had gathered once their shifts where over, and their discussion was quickly becoming more heated.

“I’m telling you, Second of the sky is up to something! He left early, probably to plan his nefarious plans!” One person conjected. “No, it’s Auseor that’s been manipulating things behind the scenes.” A second voice interjected.

“Everyone, I’ve found proof of Stick’s actions.” Auseor approached the group. “I found this in her locker. Behold, the tools of sabotage!” He set down a large toolbox with a clunk and opened it. “And would you look here? A detailed blueprint of the bridge with red circles marking where it was sabotaged!” She turned towards the foreman. “I’m certain there’s more proof to be found, but this seems fairly conclusive, no?”

Cole shook her head in disappointment. “I’d have expected better of you, Stick. Someone call the police. They’ll handle the rest.”

“But.. but.. You’ve got it all wrong!” Stick protested. “Yes, those tools are mine, as is the map, but I’m not the saboteur, I swear! Please, you have to believe me!”

But no one did.

***

The next morning the workers arrived to find the hangar doors sealed. A very frustrated looking foreman Cole was waiting at the doors flanked by two officers. Once everyone had gathered, she spoke up.

“As I’m certain will come to nbo one’s surprise by now, the saboteurs have struck again, likely in revenge for our finally catching one of their’s yesterday. Someone took a frying pan to the communications equipment and scared away all the messenger pigeons. The reason I’m gathering all of you here is because someone else detonated a dung-packed explosive in the mess hall.”she held up a couple of slips of paper. “We know that some of you where in the mess hall this evening. I’d like everyone that left a message to come forward and claim theirs.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over the group. “If you feel too embarrassed about the contents now, maybe you should have thought about that before making improbably claims about your physique or sharing snippets of your fiction. You can either come forward now, or these gentlemen here will start collecting samples of your handwriting to figure it out the hard way, and I’ll make certain you get assigned to cleaning the mess that used to be the crew’s mess.”

A moment more of silence, then various workers and crew-members started coming forward to claim their message.
***

The crew mess has been sabotaged

The communications hut has been sabotaged

_stick_ has been fired. They were an NITC engineer

Lopen is visiting the hospital

Vote tally:

• (2) Alvron: MrakeDarshall,  , _Stick_,
• (3) _Stick_: StrikerEZ, Amanuensis,Devotary of Spontaneity
• (2) Devotary of Spontaneity: TheMightyLopen
• (1) Burnt Spaghetti: shanerockes,

(Not so) anonymous messages:

Quote

Captain's Log: Day 1265
Three and a half years later and I'm still stranded on this Shard-forsaken planet. I learned early that the temporal anomaly Khriss sent me to investigate was a one-way tunnel, and that First of the Sun's perpendicularity is not fit for human travel. Most people think of the Pantheon as dangerous, but it's really only the tip of the iceberg. The Cognitive Realm here is so much worse.
It's a miracle I survived my brief visit to that place. If not for Nereim, I'd have lost a lot more than my right eye.
I miss her so much. I've had a lot of time to reflect, and she was right. I loved Khriss, but she never truly cared for me. I broke my oaths for her, and without them, I am empty. A hollow shell of a man. Though that shell may be as hard as a Chasmfiend's, if someone were to carve into my chest, I'm certain they'd find no heart left, gem or otherwise.
It's a blessing and a curse that I no longer hear Nereim scream when I call her to my side. No agony in the world can compare to what it felt like, hearing that. Even so, I miss it. At this point I can't even remember what Nereim's voice sounded like.
Perhaps if I find these saboteurs I'll be able to redeem myself. Not that I'm hoping.
I lost hope when my spren became metal and my blood became ice.

-Saluden Leiken (Amanuensis)
 

Quote

Does anyone know where i can find a sizeable amount of glitter? Some shadows around here could do with a bit more sparkle in their life. Smile.
-3rd of sunset (burnt Spaghetti)

Quote

hello, world!

-Quill (Mrake Darhsall)

Quote

I thought of a use for doing another message! I am a Doctor, which is why I'm visiting the hospital. I'm gonna heal BR, unless someone else gets hospitalized that I think is a higher priority. Feel free to make suggestions(but mostly focus on the lynch please). I feel BR is almost certainly village, otherwise why would she have used her ability when they were sabotaging her area. I mean, it could be a WGG of sorts, my paranoid brain could certainly come up with a theory, but it seems like she's village to me. Anyways, I think that's it.
- Dr. L
-Themightylopen

Quote

"I don't have a lot of options left, so I'm sending a message here. Aman has convinced me not to visit the hospital. I hope we can trust his advice. QF38: rgBja ri wcwetibw qgi reuws ri gwko nw"

-Auseor (Devotary)

Airship parts:

Spoiler

1. crew mess sabotaged
2. aviar holding area (sabotaged)
3. bridge(sabotaged)
4. communications hut sabotaged
5. ship’s laboratory (sabotaged)
6. brig(sabotaged)
7. starboard engine
8. port engine
9. sky crane
10. gas bag (sabotaged)
     

player list

Spoiler

1. Xinoehp512
2. Lumgol Eight Thousand Five Hundred and Twenty-Ninth of the Just a Smidge After Twilight... or, I guess, Twi for short
3. StrikerEZ
4. BrightnessRadiant, biologist - Hospitalized
5. Ventyl
6. Elandera NITC worker.
7. Amanuensis as Saluden Leiken, a Willshaper Worldhopper from Roshar.
8. Ax's boyfriend as Arr K. Thousantoo, an ancient worldhopper who recently recovered from his incident with the constabulary. NITC Messenger
9. MrakeDarshall as Quill, a hemalurgist by trade who was marooned on First of the Sun quite some time ago, and has survived mainly by virtue of his... Er... "pets"
10. Devotary of spontaneity as Auseor, a merchant working with a group of salvagers.
11. Mark
12. Shanerockes
13. _stick_ NITC engineer
14. TheMightyLopen
15. Alvron as Second of the Sky
16. Araris Valerian as fourth of the moon
17. Burnt spaghetti as 3rd of Sunset

This cycle ends Sunday 21st of July, 12:00 (noon) Amsterdam time.

[Amanuensis]

Oof. I didn't expect Devotary to switch her vote too  sorry Stick

ED1T:

I'm more than a bit confused, however. If Stick was indeed an NITC Engineer, why did she not repair twice, let alone claim?

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis
added "more than"

[Young Bard]

10 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

I'm a bit confused, however. If Stick was indeed an NITC Engineer, why did she not repair twice, let alone claim?

The lynch comes before the repair action in the OoA, which answers part of your question at least.

[DrakeMarshall]

RIP. That’s probably game over.

Welp, third time’s a charm or something. Might as well vote Alvron.

[Amanuensis]

Of course it does.

*INTERNAL SCREAMING*

I'd like to request a pinch-hitter for being so dumb.

ED1T:

On the bright side, 7 players are now guaranteed not to be the elim!Engineer, and if we lynch them today, we now know they will not be able to sabotage another ship part. So either this is LYLO or we have 2 turns left after the fact.

ED2T:

And with those 7 players confirmed (at least one of them is 100% evil, imo), our list is significantly narrowed. I don't see a way in which Alvron isn't evil at this point.

ED3T:

11 minutes ago, Young Bard said:

The lynch comes before the repair action in the OoA, which answers part of your question at least.

Bard can I get a full OoA just to make sure? I looked in the main thread and didn't see one.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[Young Bard]

11 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Bard can I get a full OoA just to make sure? I looked in the main thread and didn't see one.

Lynch
Non-sabotage/attack actions
Engineer
Elim Kill

[Amanuensis]

8 minutes ago, Young Bard said:

Lynch
Non-sabotage/attack actions
Engineer
Elim Kill

Which means the Trapper ability is effectively a roleblock against the elims as well. Please, please, please let there be one out there who will become active this turn.

@xinoehp512, @Mark IV, @shanerockes, @Ventyl, @StrikerEZ, @Araris Valerian: if one of you is the Trapper or a Village Engineer, I think it's time to claim. The eliminators aren't going for kills anyway, which means our only hope is figuring out role distribution and ensuring the right roles get used in the right places. Otherwise the village is doomed.

ED1T:

Mark is cleared in the same way I was for the first two days (hasn't been online since Tuesday), and Ventyl was last online 3 hours after the previous thread was posted, so chances are we can trust him too.

Now that I think about it, the two saboteurs last night have to be among Alvron, Striker and Shane.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[xinoehp512]

Just a vanilla, sorry. Otherwise I probably would have put more effort into this game.

[Amanuensis]

Just now, xinoehp512 said:

Just a vanilla, sorry. Otherwise I probably would have put more effort into this game.

Okay. I probably buy you're a villager, too. If you could send the GM's a PM saying you want to leave a message in the mess today, I would appreciate it a lot, though.

[xinoehp512]

Can I do that if it's busted?

[Amanuensis]

5 minutes ago, xinoehp512 said:

Can I do that if it's busted?

I believe the sabotage just makes it non-anonymous, but I may be wrong.

ED1T:

Looking at the rules again, I'm probably wrong  

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[Amanuensis]

Accounted-for Players:

• Lumgol (D1 Navigator)
• StrikerEZ (D1 Spotlight)
• Amanuensis (D3 Mess Message)
• MrakeDarshall (D3 Mess Message)
• Devotary of Spontaneity (D3 Mess Message)
• Mark IV (D3 Offline)
• TheMightyLopen (D2 + D3 Mess Message)
• Araris Valerian (D3 Hospital)
• Burnt Spaghetti (D3 Mess Message)

Unaccounted-for Players

1. Xinoehp512 (Claims Vanilla)
2. Ventyl (Nearly Completely Inactive)
3. shanerockes
4. Alvron

Really should have kept my vote on Alvron.

ED1T:

@Devotary of Spontaneity why did you decide to switch to Stick last minute?

@MrakeDarshall, did you anticipate the Mess being sabotaged? Your message was the most generic, so I'm curious what your mindset was going into writing it.

@Burnt Spaghetti you've been viewing the thread for a while now. Thoughts?

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[Araris Valerian]

I’m rather vanilla. Also, I came up with an unstoppable plan while away, but it won’t work while the crew mess is sabotaged. Alvron seems like a reasonable option for the engineer, but Ive got lots of time today, so I’ll take a little bit before I vote. Also, Brightness didn’t have much to say, her only action saw an interaction that was a vote. 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Araris Valerian

[StrikerEZ]

Whelp, I’m sorry Stick. If I had been around to see the chaos that was the last couple hours of rollover, I probably would’ve taken my vote off you. 

Also, speaking of that: what the heck happened in those last two hours? I’ve only got my phone right now, so it makes it hard to look back at things and type a post. I’ll be going through and looking at things once I get home and have access to a computer.

Preliminary thoughts: it would be way too easy for one of those inactives to be an elim. I’m super paranoid that we’re about to have a hammer on an active village player while the “inactive” elims laugh from the shadows. 

[Amanuensis]

44 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Whelp, I’m sorry Stick. If I had been around to see the chaos that was the last couple hours of rollover, I probably would’ve taken my vote off you. 

Also, speaking of that: what the heck happened in those last two hours? I’ve only got my phone right now, so it makes it hard to look back at things and type a post. I’ll be going through and looking at things once I get home and have access to a computer.

Preliminary thoughts: it would be way too easy for one of those inactives to be an elim. I’m super paranoid that we’re about to have a hammer on an active village player while the “inactive” elims laugh from the shadows. 

Essentially Devotary was up for the lynch, but new information determined she was honest about requesting Sak from the Aviary. We switched our votes to Alvron over her, but then I made a joke vote switch to Stick that ended up turning into an actual lynch when Devotary switched as well.

I'll admit, while it's impossible for Devotary to be the elim!Engineer, I am a tad bit worried she is on a team with Alvron and used the situation as an opportunity to delay his death for another sabotage.

[Araris Valerian]

@StrikerEZ It doesn't really matter right now if the inactives are elims. We have to find the elim engineer this cycle or we lose. Proof that Mark IV isn't the engineer:

Spoiler

He physically hasn't been online to send in a sabotage order. Same thing for Ventyl, although technically he could have sent in the order right at the start of the cycle:

Spoiler

Times are Pacific, by the way.

 

4 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Now that I think about it, the two saboteurs last night have to be among Alvron, Striker and Shane.

Your missing Xino in this list, since we only have his claim of vanilla to go by. Also Lumgol, I think? He can't be the actual engineer, but he could have sent the second sabotage order in.

1. Xinoehp512 (Claims Vanilla)
2. Ventyl (Nearly Completely Inactive)
3. shanerockes
4. Alvron
5. Lumgol
6. StrikerEZ

So two of these six have to be elims, and one of the bold names has to be an elim saboteur, if I'm understanding everything correctly. And almost certainly not Ventyl.

@Amanuensis, maybe I'm missing something, but why do you believe that Xino is village/vanilla? I quickly skimmed the rest of the game and it didn't look like he had posted at all before this cycle. While Xino is normally quiet, I don't buy that we should count him out. 

Edited July 19, 2019 by Araris Valerian

[StrikerEZ]

8 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

@StrikerEZ It doesn't really matter right now if the inactives are elims. We have to find the elim engineer this cycle or we lose. Proof that Mark IV isn't the engineer:

I hadn’t checked his profile when I made my post. My point still stands that xino could be the elim engineer. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ventyl claimed to need a pinch hitter to make us think he hasn’t been putting in actions. I’ve definitely been able to get on the shard during brief respires from doing things for the funeral. 

I just got home, so I’ll be going through and rereading everything at some point. 

EDIT: I forgot to respond to @Amanuensis: I’m still not sure about Devotary. Her reasonings have all seemed sound enough, but I know that she’s a good enough player that that doesn’t mean much. I’m just worried that if she is an elim, she made it seem like there was a frantic struggle to not get Alvron lynched as a way to frame him. Maybe I’ll change my mind during my reread of everything. 

Edited July 19, 2019 by StrikerEZ

[Amanuensis]

14 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Your missing Xino in this list, since we only have his claim of vanilla to go by. Also Lumgol, I think? He can't be the actual engineer, but he could have sent the second sabotage order in.

1. Xinoehp512 (Claims Vanilla)
2. Ventyl (Nearly Completely Inactive)
3. shanerockes
4. Alvron
5. Lumgol
6. StrikerEZ

So two of these six have to be elims, and one of the bold names has to be an elim saboteur, if I'm understanding everything correctly. And almost certainly not Ventyl.

@Amanuensis, maybe I'm missing something, but why do you believe that Xino is village/vanilla? I quickly skimmed the rest of the game and it didn't look like he had posted at all before this cycle. While Xino is normally quiet, I don't buy that we should count him out. 

Xino is a distinct possibility, but I was giving him the benefit of the doubt since I was an elim with him in a recent game. The fact that the Engineer sabotaged all 3 days is a bit of a stretch for his level of activity imo. He'd be at the bottom of my list compared to Alvron or Shane.

As for Lum she is most certainly the Navigator that revealed Striker's action D1.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Amanuensis

[Araris Valerian]

Seems like if the goal was to use the Mess to clear people from being the engineer, anyone on the elim team not sending in an action would be in on that. So while it isn't relevant for today's lynch, I'd hazard that (exactly? if there are 3 total) one of the following is also an elim:

1. Aman
2. Drake
3. DoS
4. Lopen
5. Burnt

And I'll tentatively cross Aman and Drake off of this list, for their level of contribution the last couple of cycles. If there are exactly 3 elims, and Lopen is one of them, then lynching a non-engineer elim would reduce the number of sabotages by 1, since only the Engineer's action would go through. I'm not sure if the elims would have thought of this, but it makes me read Lopen as a bit more village. I think that makes my proposed elim team Alvron, Shane, and Devotary, with Alvron as the Engineer. Also, during Cycle 1 Lopen probably didn't take any action besides voting, since his interaction with Lumgol is what Brightness saw.

Edit: I suppose I also could be a non-engineer elim as well. But I'm in this last group, so we don't need to bother with that at least this cycle.

Edited July 19, 2019 by Araris Valerian

[Devotary of Spontaneity]

6 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

why did you decide to switch to Stick last minute?

It was presumably for the same reason you did, the fact that Stick felt the need to break the tie. It turns out that Stick had a very good reason to avoid the possibility of the lynch. If you and Alvron were evil together, you would have thought that Alvron was going to die. Even if you didn't end up voting for Alvron, there had to have been a better way for you to ensure that Alvron wasn't lynched than to convince me to vote for him, even if you did tell Stick to keep her vote on me. What was the reason for that anyway? I can only conclude that neither of us should be allowed to make snap decisions at the end of the cycle. Alvron can't have been a worse target, even if he ends up being innocent after all. 

3 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

Your missing Xino in this list, since we only have his claim of vanilla to go by. Also Lumgol, I think? He can't be the actual engineer, but he could have sent the second sabotage order in.

1. Xinoehp512 (Claims Vanilla)
2. Ventyl (Nearly Completely Inactive)
3. shanerockes
4. Alvron
5. Lumgol
6. StrikerEZ

So two of these six have to be elims, and one of the bold names has to be an elim saboteur, if I'm understanding everything correctly. And almost certainly not Ventyl.

Do we have any actual proof that Lum is the navigator? All I remember is Lum claiming to have used her role C1 and gone for an Aviar C2, and Aman decided that she must be the navigator and clearly couldn't be the engineer. We don't have a lot of other suspects; I think the list is Xino(claims roleless), Ventyl, Mark, and Shane. Technically Alvron, but I really think he would have claimed. I'd like to hear @Lumgol confirm navigator, and which Aviar she went for C2.

[Amanuensis]

1 hour ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

It was presumably for the same reason you did, the fact that Stick felt the need to break the tie. It turns out that Stick had a very good reason to avoid the possibility of the lynch. If you and Alvron were evil together, you would have thought that Alvron was going to die. Even if you didn't end up voting for Alvron, there had to have been a better way for you to ensure that Alvron wasn't lynched than to convince me to vote for him, even if you did tell Stick to keep her vote on me. What was the reason for that anyway? I can only conclude that neither of us should be allowed to make snap decisions at the end of the cycle. Alvron can't have been a worse target, even if he ends up being innocent after all. 

Do we have any actual proof that Lum is the navigator? All I remember is Lum claiming to have used her role C1 and gone for an Aviar C2, and Aman decided that she must be the navigator and clearly couldn't be the engineer. We don't have a lot of other suspects; I think the list is Xino(claims roleless), Ventyl, Mark, and Shane. Technically Alvron, but I really think he would have claimed. I'd like to hear @Lumgol confirm navigator, and which Aviar she went for C2.

There's been issues in the past about lynching people when they aren't around to participate, so I was asking Stick to keep their vote on you so we could arrange a tie. This was before the realization about Aviar requests taking precedence over Sabotage, so at the time I hadn't really considered another option for the lynch besides Alv and you. But yeah, I ultimately switched back to Stick as a joke, since I'd PM'd the GMs telling them I was keeping my vote on Alvron. I didn't even consider the possibility of you changing too and as soon as I saw it, I tried to post again, only for it to be too late. Felt really dumb afterwards. Still feel really dumb now, especially with all of those Mess Hall Messages.

Confirmation from Lum would be nice. Hopefully she responds soon.

[StrikerEZ]

So, unless I'm mistaken, our potential elim engineer is one of Xino, Ventyl, Shane, Alvron, or Lumgol. I'm gonna go through the thread right now and see how I feel about each of them. 

• Xino: He's posted maybe five times throughout the game, and most of them have said basically nothing. He does claim to be vanilla, which doesn't really exclude him from being able to put in the sabotage. 
• Ventyl: There's almost no way he's the engineer or an elim. I don't think he would've asked for a pinch hitter if he was an elim, because then he'd actually be interested in the game and would be willing to find ways to play when we had downtime from funeral preparations. Probably not the best way to eliminate an option, but I know how my brother acts, so....
• Shane: Could possibly be an elim, since he often said he didn't have any reads on anyone, which is a pretty common elim tactic. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt though because he's said he's had family stuff come up. 
• Alvron: I'm almost certain that Devotary used Aman voting on Stick as an excuse to pretend to save Alv from getting lynched. At this point, I don't see any possible scenarios where she's not elim, but she can't be the engineer. And I think she's leading us right where she wants us to go. 
• Lumgol: Their second post was her telling us last cycle that she requested an Aviar and got an elephant bird since the Aviary was sabotaged. There's no way to back up her claim, unless she was the one who posted the anonymous message for that day (which wasn't the case). I don't know why Aman seems to think she's so hard cleared. She easily could've come up with the fake bird claim to hide the fact that she actually sabotaged the Aviary (or the Lab).

My gut's really telling me that Alv is not the right choice, and the only other option that I feel is semi-valuable is Lumgol.

[DrakeMarshall]

8 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

@MrakeDarshall, did you anticipate the Mess being sabotaged? Your message was the most generic, so I'm curious what your mindset was going into writing it.

Yes. Even if it didn't get sabotaged I could just claim to have posted that message to narrow the searching field. Given how many other people posted messages for the first time this cycle I thought we were all on the same page here.

That the eliminators didn't even bother to leave the message board intact and trade alibis means they are pretty confident. And honestly, looking at the state of the game, why shouldn't they be?

 

5 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

I'll admit, while it's impossible for Devotary to be the elim!Engineer, I am a tad bit worried she is on a team with Alvron and used the situation as an opportunity to delay his death for another sabotage.

Ya know, the same reasoning applies at least as much to you as it does to Devotary.

 

4 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

My gut's really telling me that Alv is not the right choice, and the only other option that I feel is semi-valuable is Lumgol.

Unless somebody else steps forwards and claim the position of navigator, Lumgol cannot be the eliminator engineer.