Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Ashbringer]

Tell me, 'Derrick'. What is more important to you? Having a chance, a meager hope, that what little you can do will defy me?

Or simply letting it all... end?

Derrick knew what Ruin meant. Derrick did to, although he liked it less. This pattern... even if it did work, it would need time. A lot of time. Likely even more time than they'd spent trying and failing to find the Spiked; with Sara gone, they had no real methods of... expediting the process. And it would be unbelievably boring. Just wait for Sunny or Elandera or Roseanna or whoever the rusts was still alive to get him to spit out a name, then go back to sleep in the ash until the Spiked got around to pretending to murder him. Or actually murder him, depending on their point of view. Was Ruin bluffing about telling the Spiked about him? It did raise interesting questions... how much Marsh knew about the Wanderer, for instance. But that was a query for another day.

I don't bluff.

Derrick took command. "Oh, sure you don't. I'm sure you know everything you need to know." Derrick shuddered, but cracked a smile.

I'm not getting anywhere with you, am I.

"Probably not. I think we're just rubbing off on each other."

Or I'm getting 'Derrick' confused between my voice and yours.

"Ah yes. Subtlety. A core trait of the self-named God of Destruction. You're about as black and white as a broadsheet."

Okay, that was enough Derrick for today. Derrick took back control, and resumed his daily activity of simply lying in the ash pile. He'd accumulated quite a bit. He'd have to be careful to not let the germs get too far into the pile that he wouldn't be able to get them all back or Nicroburst. Starting a superplague right before the catacendre was not exactly on his to-do-list.

You'll get yours one day, Derrick.

"Won't we all? That's what the end means, doesn't it?"

"But I'll answer your question... I will persist. I'll even persist as a man, the role I'm playing, if I'm given the chance. Keep myself alive for as long as I can... until it's time to end. When someone will decide to kill me, and I pretend to go along... or I'll decide that this is it, and that's all I can do. I find the best time to remove myself from the situation. And then I'll move on to the next place, and the next..."

"It will end. Someday. Someday I'll find myself in a place even the Overseer can't get me out of. Or... I find the right time. I'll know. When it's better for the world for Derrick to end. And... that will be it. But today's not that day."

"What I do here... what is there to do. Either I wait, or I don't. But no. I'm not giving up. You may have fooled me... you all may have. I allowed all but the barest thread to slip through my fingers. But that doesn't mean I need to let go."

Derrick fell silent.

The sun would set on this day. Perhaps this chapter would be the last; perhaps it was just the end of the First Act of two or three. He'd find out in the morning.

[Kasimir]

Two hours left before rollover. Get those orders and actions in.

Also, I may or may not have been paid to advertise on behalf of Lode of Luthadel (TM) - get your daily dose of backstabbing and betrayal by signing up for a faction game, if it's up your alley! Sign-ups close soon. Tell TJ I sent you, and do sign up 1 hour before sign-ups close in order to panic him and force him to redo his distro last-minute

Spoiler

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Kasimir

[Mailliw73]

8 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Ah there we go!  Been waiting

Wait is it? Skyward's really good too so I'm excited for that :0

I know, I know.

Yep, here: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2020/#part-ten

[STINK]

Afternoon everyone what we having for lunch

[---]

its not even 8 yet

[Burnt Spaghetti]

Rosanna stared at her wall, the red paint now dry. It had not covered everything. This was to be expected when one haphazardly throws a liquid at a wall.

A few names remained unblemished. 

A few portraits remained only partially blemished. 

One she stared at. 

It had been on the edge of the splash zone, with only trickles of red obscuring parts.

Her knees ached. Her shoulders stiff and sore.

How long had she been here staring...

 

You know they will find you

She sighed a heavy sigh and looked down at her feet. They were bare, dirty, and splotches with paint like the rest of her.

I know.  I know they will. Hope is gone.
Gone... Gone gone gone!!                   All gone, friends!  Friends gone 

She lifted her eyes back to the portrait. 

Marll

No.               Friend friend!! Twineye!!                NO. He's. I can't. 
Friend!            No little one.         Spiked. 

Spiked can't be friend?

It's. Complicated.

Well I think Marlls nice.  Roko liked him too. Roko called him Maia.

Maia...

She sighed again. Roko. Another good friend lost to the hands of spiked and their honeyed words. What friends did she have left now?

Marll and Wei were the two left she was closest too.

Of course they are both spiked.

You are drawn to them. You should not be surprised.

I don't-        Friends!          Don't.             They are nice! Especially Twineye! 

You only trusted those who were His.

Shut up.

No. You need to face the truth.

Truth!  Theres been so many lies! Lies lies lies lies!

Face buried in arms, gaze broken away from the portraits. She pulled her knees in closer.

 

Rose. Its time.

[Kasimir]

Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
Posts shall be stopped, voting be ended,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun sets!

 

Ride now, ride now! Ride for Ruin and the world's ending!

[Kasimir]

Aftermath: Way Down We Go

“Oh, father, tell me, do we get what we deserve?
Oh, we get what we deserve [...]

Oh, ‘cause they will run you down, down ‘til the dark
Yes, and they will run you down, down ‘til you fall
And they will run you down, down ‘til you go
Yeah, ‘til you can’t crawl no more.”

—’Way Down We Go’, Kaleo

 

Betrayal.

It really fecks a man up.

We tell ourselves we know a person. We cite our years of history, our kinship. Our familiarity with each other. Until that one dark day someone you thought you knew does the unthinkable, the unforgivable.

And then it’s like someone punched you, right in the gut, when you weren’t expecting it.

Like falling.

That moment where certainty gives way to the sullen sky overhead, the rush of breath out of your chest.

How much do we ever really, truly know someone?

I didn’t allow myself the luxury of questions, but they pressed at me, even as I went to the lone oak tree, the lightning-struck one that stood at the far end of the fields at the edge of Fallion’s Tears. The militia manned the barricades and one of them called out to me to stop me, telling me that the koloss had been sighted in the vicinity, that it was unsafe.

I looked at him. Maybe it was something in my face, or my eyes. His partner pulled him back. 

I kept on moving. 

I had stopped at the lightning-struck tree, a few days after we first moved to Fallion’s Tears. Maybe Wyl knew, even back then. I don’t know. I pushed my way through the stalks of grass, until I came back, seven years later, and knelt at the base of the tree.

There is a hollow in the tree, a crack I’d patched with tar. Now, I brought the purloined shovel down in a series of sharp, hard blows, until it splintered and sheared open again. I leaned on the shovel as my leg protested all over again. I’d expected to leave this life behind, really. We’d come to Fallion’s Tears to bury our pasts, and I thought I’d buried my ghosts years before even that, when she died. When that Soother died. When I killed the last of the Red Knives, and killed even Kast Speirs, and made myself someone else in the ranks of the Tremredare Watch.

Maybe the real lie here is expecting people to change. Or expecting to be able to outrun our pasts. It’d hurt just as much, when she and Waes turned on us. Didn’t make the knowledge that Wyl had gone rogue any easier to bear, though.

I hadn’t bothered to store my vials in the lightning-struck tree, but that was fine. I’d gotten a fresh batch from Palladiel, and I’d downed it immediately. No sense in carrying metal on me, when I went to do what I had to do. You never want too much metal on you when you’re fighting a Coinshot or a Lurcher. What I’d left in the tree though, was the tools of the trade. Some of them had been buried beneath the floorboards in my flat, so of course Arenta would murder me if she knew, but what’s life without a little risk?

I guess maybe a part of me had known, on that day. Known I might one day need to return to the tree, to take up a rusher’s tools once again.

To kill.

Something I’ve never told anyone at all: that day, when the Red Knives died. I killed her because I didn’t want to die. But I also killed her because I loved her. Because that was what those spikes were doing. Twisting her into someone who loved pain and death and blood and slaughter. And that’s why I killed her. Because I loved her enough to remember who she was, even as I killed her. Like that dog that had the frothing sickness, all those years ago, growing up in the Warrens. Varns put the dog down, though I remember seeing the tears in her eyes, because we couldn’t save the dog, and because the dog was in pain, and it was lashing out the only way it knew how. 

I killed her. Because I loved her enough to take the pain on myself, because someone had to stop her. Because she wasn’t going to stop at the Red Knives, not what I saw that day. Not her, and not Waes. Maybe I’m making excuses for her. Maybe the darkness was in her all along, and I just hadn’t seen it. But what I saw that day, I had no excuses for. So I killed them all.

We kill what we love, in the end. 

I took up the knives, and the darts, and the flasks, and the various tricks and traps I’d once bet my life on. Being a rusher is a dangerous life. Worse if you’re in the business of icing people.

And then I went to go see a man about a murder.

 

 

“We’ve found her!” one of the militia shouted, urgently.

Erik pelted down the street. He was getting too old for this, he grumbled internally. Almost a decade ago since his wife was in the cold earth. Someone’d torched his fields a couple of days ago, too. Fallion’s Tears had seen too much excitement over the recent days, and all Erik really wanted was quiet time on his farm, enjoying the last of the light.

Watching the barley ripen.

Waiting, perhaps, just a little, for the day he would join his wife in the earth he’d worked for most of his life. A plot of land in the Western Dominance was as good as a plot of land in the Northern Dominance, really. 

He recognised who his militia had cornered. One of the six they were looking for: Illwei held a brace of sharp needles, looking supremely unconcerned as the militia surrounded her and levelled their swords at her.

“Come quietly,” Douza said. There was a quaver in his voice. Blacksmith’s boy, but Erik wasn’t sure he had the steel in him for such work.

“What if I don’t?” Illwei asked. “What are you going to do then?”

Douza spluttered. “There are six of us. There’s one of you.”

“Is there?”

Kill him, his Clara said. And Erik moved.

It was no different from reaping at harvest. His sword flashed and then Douza was falling. And then Seran, and then steel met steel as Peng fought Lam, until Hreo knifed Lam in the back, and then there were three corpses, and the three of them stood there, with blood on their blades, watching the village acupuncturist.

“Erik,” Peng said, “I—”

A pair of Illwei’s needles flew, and then there were two.

Fallion’s Tears must fall, Clara whispered. You know this.

I love you.

 

Across Fallion’s Tears, the sun was setting slowly, setting both land and sky aflame with bloody light. Slowly, as though choreographed, the militia at the barricades turned on their fellow villagers. Some of them were fellow militia, but there was one difference between them.

Some of them had gone to Illwei’s acupuncture clinic.

Some of the villagers of Fallion’s Tears ran for the barricades and were cut down. Ruthlessly. Swiftly. Blades flashed in the light of the dying sun and villagers fell and villagers died, their blood soaking the streets and the earth.

Ruin had come to Fallion’s Tears, and in the end, it had come from within.

 

Wyl burned iron.

The Watch in Tremredare worked on a fundamental set of beliefs: that human behaviour is more or less predictable. We put on our coats the same way, shut and lock the door the same way, take the same routes to get the groceries. Some variance is to be expected but genuine unpredictability has to be trained.

For that reason, Wyl was unsurprised when the shutters crashed open, and dodged the sweep of flying darts. He’d seen them coming, blue lines speeding towards him with lethal swiftness. He kicked the office desk over and crouched behind it, and tugged on those blue metal lines. 

As he’d expected, he heard the thumps of darts burying themselves in the thick wooden surface, and then a few moments later, more thumps as the metal halves of the darts joined them.

“Really?” he called out. “This the best you can do?”

Maybe it’d have caught him, in another time. But he’d seen Kast use this trick before, against a Mistborn—target tries to stop the dart, the metal separates, and the glass dart-heads continue onwards and shred the target. Wyl’d be damned if he fell for it.

Kast was still leaning heavily on the dueling cane. Wyl noted this and filed it away. “It’s a good trick,” he replied. “Works perfectly on most.”

“So this what I am then? Most targets?”

“Probably not,” Kast admitted. “But if a trick is good, it’s worth a shot.”

“Thought so,” said Wyl, as he burned iron and yanked on the nails buried only loosely in the shutter frame.

“Are you fecking serious,” Kast said, with such exasperation that it sounded almost as though they were arguing over some case, or whether it was okay to reveal to a target they were under surveillance. Almost. If Kast hadn’t opened with his best shot, with something that’d meant to kill Wyl, and they both knew it. “I know you buried nails in the office, Wyl.” He slammed them with a Steelpush and contemptuously knocked the nails away.

It was Wyl’s turn to shrug as he emerged from the cover of the desk. Pity about the desk. Wasn’t sure how they were going to replace it. “As you say, if a trick is good, it’s worth a shot.”

Kast eyed him, eyes narrowed. “Find better tricks.”

“Same to you.”

They stared at each other, for a long hard moment. “You killed her,” Kast said. “You were the last person I’d thought would’ve done it.”

“Would’ve thought my insistence she was murdered gave it away,” Wyl said. “Didn’t intend on that slip. Oh, you mean Wilson.”

Kast’s grip on the cane became white-knuckled, but then he relaxed again, shifting away from the shutters, padding deeper into the office. Tap. Tap. His back was to the bookcase, for the moment.

“You told me, a long time ago. Law’s the law. We’re not above it.”

“You think anyone was going to stop her from murdering her way through Fallion’s Tears?” Wyl wanted to know. “You think anyone was going to try Wilson for dealing in dreamweed?”

He’d startled Kast, he could tell that much. Kast rocked back on his heels for a moment, before his eyes narrowed again. Kast had seen what dreamweed did, and hated it just as much.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, slowly, deliberately. “Watch doesn’t do that. We don’t do that. We’re supposed to be better than this, and even Wilson deserves justice. You taught me that yourself.”

“Tell that to the next person Sara would’ve killed,” Wyl said. “Tell that to the lives Wilson’s dreamweed destroyed. There’s the law, and there’s justice. This was justice.”

“Maybe I will,” Kast said, his voice cold. “You going to stop, then?”

“Nah. You?”

Kast shook his head. “Had to ask, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Wyl said, with some regret. “Same.”

They struck at the same time.

 

 

“Jorah,” said Arenta. She fidgeted with the jewelled earring she wore. Helped with her Seeking, she supposed. It had been a gift from Iste, meant to pay off his rent for several months, and while she’d thought of selling it, well. She’d put it on, and she supposed, it had just sort of slipped her mind. And really, she had more important things to be doing, like dealing with a large group of recalcitrant tenants who weren’t paying their rent. Didn’t pay his rent on time, said the voice. It was true of most of them, and Arenta was both annoyed and bothered.

Time was, most of Fallion’s Tears used to be more prompt about repaying their debts. Now, they gave her all sorts of stories: about how they couldn’t scrape together payment, about how she didn’t own the land, about how they could swear on their great, great, great grand-aunt’s beloved cushion that this flat was theirs before hers, as though Arenta couldn’t smell a great load of crap when she saw it.

She clubbed him down with her rolling pin, and Smirkai ran him through with his knives for good measure. There was a certain amount of blood, and Arenta sighed. Oh, bother.

But Jorah had been asking for it, as far as Arenta was concerned.

She flicked open the thick ledger she was carrying under an arm and crossed off his name in neat, dark strokes. He was dead then, and his debt was annulled.

And then there was Kait, who had been cut down by the sword of one of the militia. Arenta hummed to herself and flipped over to Kait’s page. Kait had been late on her rent five months in a row, now. Something about poor finances, which Arenta was absolutely not buying.

She crossed that name off. Another one down.

Fallion’s Tears was running deep into debt, and Arenta had come at long last to collect.

 

They knew each other too well.

Hours of stakeouts. Years of operating together. Cracking cases, investigating, and even before that, in the early years when they’d operated on opposite sides of the law, back in Tremredare. 

Wyl vaulted the table and rushed him, and Kast knew in that moment Wyl was coming for his weak side and spun about, bracing off his good leg. Kast was the better duelist, but he was years away from the rusher in his prime and now his leg punished him for it.

Wyl knew that, though. And Kast knew that he knew it.

Wyl struck with his own dueling cane in a series of quick slashes, and Kast parried easily, but Wyl was relentless, forcing him to move, dodge, and block. And always, always, pressuring him on his weak side. He responded automatically, relying on schooled responses trained by hours of practice into muscle and bone.

Responses that had first been drilled in a body decades younger, that hadn’t yet had his leg fecked over by Gade that night he saved Wyl’s life.

Kast turned aside a swift flick at his wrist with a block and lunged for the riposte, and then his leg screamed and buckled. He recovered, as swiftly as he could, but Wyl had been waiting for that moment of weakness and drove forward, and his dueling cane smashed full-force into Kast’s elbow.

Kast’s arm went numb, and he did his best to hold on, but Wyl smashed his dueling cane into his arm a second and third time.

His grip loosened. His fingers flew open.

The dueling cane clattered to the floor.

Kast still had one arm currently working, though. He drew his knife.

 

Iste Confessor led the scattered members of the militia to the slaughter.

He had taken a sword from one of them, probably cut down by another of the militia. The thought should have distressed him, but it did not, not particularly.

Everyone had a past, and part of him was remembering Rostam, remembering that day in the interview room, when Rostam had whispered the sins that Iste had thought were buried and forgotten into his ear.

And then Iste knew, then, that he was done for. Finished. If an obligator such as Rostam knew, then the rest of the Steel Ministry, and most certainly the Canton of Inquisition would be well aware of this. Steel Inquisitors in particular had ways of knowing, of being particularly convincing.

Iste did not like pain that much. The iron earring dug into his flesh.

He did not like killing, either. Fallion’s Tears had been a peaceful village, a quiet place where he could tend to his books and papers, and be left to his own devices. The grocer smiled at him every time he came by for groceries, and he enjoyed being the first customer at the baker’s, taking his time to select from the various loaves of bread on sale that morning.

You were allowed your peace, whispered the voice. Iste imagined that was how the Inquistition sounded, when they interrogated you. Took their knives and hooks to you. You savoured it. Now fulfill the task you were sent for.

Iste did.

He led the wolves to the slaughter, and they fell upon the stunned, terrified villagers of Fallion’s Tears, and killed, and killed until the streets ran with blood.

“What about the koloss?” one of them screamed before Smirkai ran her through.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Arenta, crossing yet another name off from her ledger. “There weren’t any koloss at all. I was right about that.”

 

 

Wyl raised an eyebrow. “Who brings a knife to a duel?” he wanted to know.

The dueling cane was the weapon of choice in the Watch, back in Tremredare, because it was easy to teach, it could be wielded in lethal ways, or non-lethal ways, and it afforded Watch options in operations against rogue skaa Mistings. 

Learning how to disable and stop Mistings had been one of the more interesting lessons they’d picked up, in the Watch.

Kast rolled his eyes. “Want to come closer and find out?”

And there it was, the one reason most Watch drilled unarmed and picked up a couple of dirty tricks and carried a knife. Because if it got close and dirty, you were proper fecked, with a dueling cane. 

“Nah. Didn’t fall off the turnip cart yesterday.”

Wyl lashed out, meant to disarm Kast, but Kast must’ve been holding back a bit of speed, because he dodged and came at Wyl like a madman, and then it was Wyl who was falling back as Kast rushed him, no matter how off his cadence was, thrown off by his game leg.

The knife drew a hot flash of pain across his arm as Wyl blocked Kast on the knife-arm but got slashed for his troubles. Kast wrested the dueling cane from him, with a hard twist of his arm, until Wyl was forced to drop it as well.

Well, then, Wyl thought, because Kast’s back was still to the bookcase.

He still had that one trick. And it was a good trick.

He flared iron and pulled.

 

 

The red haze washed about him again.

Every slight, every indignity. Every bit of suspicion that the people of Fallion’s Tears had visited upon him. Tears drying on his cheeks, Marll picked up the hammer and let those smouldering embers of rage grow.

Kill, the voice whispered. Kill for me, as you did before.

Marll fought it. In his mind, he built a wall of stories and shoes about himself. Against the voice, the one that had whispered to him through the outrage of the years. The one that had prompted him to kill when he’d been a younger man, angrier.

Tyrian Falls. He did not remember if that town existed. Did not know, any longer. Perhaps it was the story he told himself, to comfort himself. To pretend that he could wash his past away by fleeing far away to a different dominance.

Tyrian Falls. Fallion’s Tears.

Red paint against the window, and it looked as though it was weeping blood.

Marll stared at it. The window slid open and Roseanna Ghetti poked her head out of the attic. She was trembling, dark hollows under her eyes. 

“They say you’re a friend,” she said, in a quiet voice.

He had pretended. Or maybe it was genuine. Marll did not know. The rage was held back by the steel banks of his will. The knowledge that Roseanna had protected him, spoken for him, vouched for him when she did not have to.

She had trusted him.

“I am,” Marll said. He hefted the hammer.

“He says you’re a friend,” she said. There was that tremor in her voice. Fear of the uncertain, perhaps. Or fear of—of him?

Did you really think just anyone would save you? murmured the voice. Did you think I spoke only to you and the rest of your sorry group?

Marll blinked.

“He says to do what he told you to do,” Roseanna said. She had a knife. A small tool, stained with paint. Probably used for scraping. “Twineye.”

He met her gaze and sighed.

Kill for me, whispered the voice, and the dice rattled in Marll’s head and came up with a single baleful eye. Sometimes, you gambled and you lost.

The red haze descended and two Spiked ran through the streets of Fallion’s Tears, slaughtering all in their path.

 

Kast had been burning steel.

Just a little, to keep himself aware of where the hazards were. He noticed, from the corner of his eye, a few seconds after the nails tore free from the bookshelf and hurtled towards his back. He flared his steel in response, pushing against them.

He’d gotten into a metals-fight with Wyl before. They were evenly-matched, when they set their minds to it.

Wyl headbutted him, and Kast was reeling. He slashed out instinctively, still keeping the nails at bay. He cut Wyl a few times for good measure, but that was the trouble with knife-fights. You bled the bastard to death, cut him until he didn’t want to keep fighting, or you went for the kill.

The nails crept closer, and Kast slammed them with another, more forceful Steelpush.

He strained against Wyl’s Ironpull. 

They inched closer.

Where the feck was this additional force coming from?

Wyl’s coat had fallen open, and Kast noticed the vest that Wyl usually didn’t wear, and realisation dawned. Weighted.

So he gave way.

Abruptly. 

He hit the ground hard, and rolled, his leg screaming all this while because Kast was stacking ever more demands on it. He tried to get up and his knee buckled, and he fell back to the ground. Get up, Kast thought, teeth gritted, even as Wyl had to dive to avoid the nails he’d yanked at both of them, now Kast wasn’t in the way. Now that Kast wasn't pushing back. Some of them probably grazed him.

Get up, get up, get the feck up!

He was on his feet, somehow, and he’d managed to hold onto his knife. He flicked a few coins at Wyl, knowing that Wyl would deflect them with ease. Instead, he reached into his coat for the flask he’d claimed from the lightning-struck tree and closed his eyes an instant before he smashed it into the floor.

Hoped to hell Wyl had been distracted.

 

Explosions reverberated through the streets of Fallion’s Tears as Sonnah drove her cart. The rest of her team piled onto the cart as it sped along, propelled by the occasional explosion. It crashed down the streets, through structures, and ran over the villagers of Fallion’s Tears and kept going.

The voice had suggested that particular alchemical mixture, and Sonnah had tested it and refined it. It was a little risky, but Illwei and Smirkai were decent shots, and the confusion from being attacked by the very militia meant to protect the village meant that there was little opposition left.

At least, Sonnah thought grimly, she could derive a little pleasure from how well her cart was performing. The first version hadn’t even made it across the field.

She lobbed alchemical bombs at the buildings they passed, watching as they erupted into flames. Soon, most of Fallion’s Tears was ablaze. 

Sonnah heard the screams as people tried to escape burning buildings and found themselves trapped inside. More bombs that she’d been testing: ones that created a poisonous chemical fog that dropped those who strayed within it, burning them terribly. Ones that made people hack and cough and rendered them helpless. The cart ran them all down and Arenta ticked off more entries on her ledger.

Some of them had been militia, and Sonnah thought she vaguely recognised them from Illwei’s clinic. But the voice was silent, and Sonnah supposed the voice wasn’t really concerned with what became of its pawns.

After all, it had forced her into its service, had it not? It could always make more. Ensnare more.

Patience, she told herself. The voice had not led her astray. She would be cautious, and she would do as it bid. For now. And eventually, she would rid herself of the hooks it had sunk into her, even if it did seem to know the most interesting formulae.

 

 

It was a fecking distraction.

Of course it was. Wyl cursed as his eyes watered from the bright flash of light. He’d deflected the coins, and got out his own knife, only to be immediately caught out by the light bomb that Kast had set off.

It wasn’t even a rusher thing. Watch used it too, on raids. “That’s low,” Wyl said. His eyes were still streaming, but he could see the metal lines, and Kast was still carrying coins on his person, because he wouldn’t have been caught dead without them, not as a Coinshot. 

“So was the fecking nails,” Kast snapped.

But then Kast was on him, and he wasn’t holding back.

Neither was Wyl.

They attacked each other with the viciousness that only former partners trying their damnedest to kill each other could bring to bear. 

Kast stabbed him, but the weighted vest took the cut and deflected it, as far as Wyl could tell. Blind, pure luck, Wyl thought, astounded, and lashed out. His sweeping leg caught Kast on the ankle and sent him stumbling. Kast recovered faster than Wyl had expected and slashed at him, the knife biting deeper each time.

You didn’t feel the pain, not when you were fighting like this. But the part of Wyl that was Watch knew that he couldn’t afford to keep letting Kast land those hits. 

Wyl shoved blindly, sending Kast off-balance. A hammer blow drove the stiffened fingers of his hand into Kast’s knee and this time, Wyl didn’t relent. He slammed at the knee again and again until he heard Kast cry out in agony and the thump of Kast hitting the floorboards.

His vision was clearing, slowly. There were still bright smears, but Wyl blinked away the annoying dazzle-spots, until he could vaguely make out Kast prone on the ground, trying to crawl for his knife.

Wyl stomped on his wrist. Hard.

Heard the crunch of breaking bone.

Kast was one hell of a stubborn bastard, though. Wyl’d give him that. But it was over.

 

 

Everyone looked down on you, when you were the guy who just talked to everyone, who knew everything about the foods in the various parts of the Final Empire, and who really just projected a general aura of “Don’t mind me, I’m just here to sit back, and have a quiet life.”

Smirkai knew all about that.

Cultivating that impression was a craft, and Smirkai considered himself rather good at it.

Some of the militia were rallying together and trying to fight back. Fools still used steel-tipped arrows, though. Shaking his head in wonder at how naive people could be, Smirkai burned iron and pulled on the arrows.

Would be a damper to his day, and probably everyone else’s if they got shot by a stray arrow, after all. 

The fact that some of the arrows he’d pulled were going through villagers instead?

Some people were just that good.

Smirkai whistled and wondered about getting a flatbread from the bakery once they were done with the task of demolishing Fallion’s Tears and killing every last person in it.

 

It was the first rule of surviving the streets of Tremredare.

You give up when you’re dead.

Kast had it pounded into him, time and again, by brawls he’d survived, by fights he’d walked out of as a cocky young rusher that he really shouldn’t have. By marks who’d seen an assassin coming and who’d prepared traps to lure a would-be killer off his guard.

The second rule was that there was always somebody better.

Kast didn’t know if Wyl was that person. 

But he’d be damned if he just lay there and went into the night quietly. 

He took stock. His wrist wept agony, and his knee felt as though Wyl had poured molten metal into it. Wasn’t going to be any good.

But he had one trick left. It was an old trick, but it was a good trick.

“Ain’t personal,” Wyl said. He hefted his knife. He was bleeding. Some of the wounds looked worse than others. Kast’d got him good, at least.

But it was. It was personal.

It was Kast against Wyl, and Wyl against Kast, set against the backdrop of their history, their principles, and the damage they’d done to each other.

Kast flared steel.

One last push, he thought.

 

The last of the bloody light faded from Fallion’s Tears.

As the mists rose to engulf the land, the last of the agonised cries faded into ominous silence. Seven figures strode through the mists, which seemed to flow away from them.

Once, there had been a village. Now, there was only ruin, and seven walked in its wake.

Night fell over Fallion’s Tears, and in the wreckage of their office and their lives, a good man killed, and a good man died.

And then it was over.

Silence. Nothing.

The end.

 

 

It is past the midnight hour in Tremredare, though the city never truly sleeps.

Not Tremredare, the Jewel of the West, glittering where the cityfront meets the cold pellucid waters of the Mir as it rushes onwards, ever onwards, from the jutting mountainous bones of the Western Dominance. Not Tremredare, ancestral seat of House Heron. Not Tremredare, ancient since Kyril Heron first gained the Lord Ruler’s favour and ascended to the position of Steward of the city.

The group of Watch leave the diner, with all of them splitting off into various directions. It is a clear night, with a gentle breeze, though the mists are thick on the ground, swirling about both of them, distorting familiar shapes into grotesques.

Kast and Wyl are used to it, though. The nights are theirs, and the streets are theirs. This is their precinct, and Wyl will claim he knows every street, every nook, and Kast will say he knows every alley like his own sword hand. 

They are young, and while they have worked themselves to the bone trying to crack this case, they have at last cracked it wide open, and even the weariness cannot ward off satisfaction at a job well done, at a year’s worth of work having meant something. 

It has been a night of celebratory drinks on the sarge, and both of them have downed enough to feel a light buzz, the pleasant warmth of the alcohol staving off the night chill. 

The years yet to pass are spread open before them, pages in a book that has yet to be written.

“Stories, eh,” Wyl says, for no particular reason at all.

It is their way, conversations half-ended, half-begun. Years of history, and a grudging, wary respect turned to friendship, and Kast expects there will be more to come.

“Yeah,” he says. “Stories. Told a few in my time. Made them all up, of course.”

Wyl is an indistinct shape in the dark, but no less real as they walk together, coats slung over their shoulders. He staggers a little, and Kast reaches out, instinctively, to steady him. Human instinct, Kast thinks, for no particular reason. They’re all reaching out in the dark, sometimes. He thinks of the woman, who came forward. Who helped them crack the case.

Sometimes, all you need is someone else. A helping hand in the dark. The knowledge that someone else is out there, reaching out too.

“You know what you were saying about stories. About light versus dark.” Maybe it should be a question, but Wyl’s tone makes it clear it’s not a question, not exactly.

“Yeah?”

There’s a bright patch of stars in the night sky. Kast gazes upwards at it. Some nights, the sky is overcast and the stars are shrouded. Tonight, they blaze brilliantly. Enough light to set them on their way home.

“I think you’re looking at it the wrong way,” Wyl says. “‘Cause from the way I see it, at some point, there must’ve been a great big nothing. Once, there was only ever dark. You ask me, the light’s winning.”

The lights of Tremredare glitter, even this late in the night. There are districts bustling with activity, that never truly sleep. And overhead, the lost stars burn brightly, defying the dark.

“Maybe so,” Kast says. “Maybe so.”

This is Kast Speirs and Wyl Sharpe, walking home together, late at night. The last of the thrill of having cracked the Kendricks case is fading, replaced by a tired contentment, a companionable almost-silence.

“Dinner at the Bent Boxing tomorrow?” Kast offers. “On me.”

“Come on, you paid for the last round, you know the rules…”

“The time at the Tin Hawk doesn’t count, I’ve told you this already…”

The bickering fades into the Tremredare night, as the mists curl in closer, enfolding all within their embrace.

As far as Kast and Wyl are concerned, they make a good team, maybe the best in the precinct, though neither of them will actually do something so crass such as admit it, and they can’t see any reason that might ever change.

 

“And all the winds are like a kiss
And all the years are nemesis
And all the moments fall in mist
And all is dust, remember this

And all the light will be, will be
And all the waves, the sea
And all the waves; the sea, the sea
And all the light will be.”

—’The Humming’, Enya

 

 

Shard of Reading was lynched! He was a Regular Villager! The Spiked have won, and Fallion's Tears has been destroyed!

Quote

Shard of Reading (7): Araris Valerian, Devotary of Spontaneity, Fifth Scholar, Illwei, Mailliw73, STINK
Illwei (6): _Stick_, Ashbringer, Burnt Spaghetti, Daisy/Hael, Dannex, Elandera, Shard of Reading
Wyrmhero (1): Kasimir

Thank you all for playing  Been a fun experience GMing again, and I hope you had fun despite the chaos of my co-GM, @Wyrmhero. Due gratitude to Wyrm'alor for his help. As much as we spent most of the thread this game brawling, you are definitely the best bro a dude can ask for  

Thanks also to @Elbereth and the IM for this game, @little wilson for all the help with stuff. You know what  

Game Matters:

Spiked Doc 1
Spiked Doc 2
Dead-Spec Doc 1
Dead-Spec Doc 2
Master Spreadsheet (Keep in mind I had to manually edit tallies in thread due to issues while test-driving the automated master spreadsheet, so a bit of it is off.)

GM comments to follow when I'm less tired. I do have a post-mortem, just probably not right now.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Kasimir

[Kasimir]

Player List:

Spoiler

1. Matrim's Dice as Philico, the Magician Extraordinaire, a Village Smoker
2. Random Bystander as the village's random bystander and musician, a Regular Villager
3. Gears as Roko the Basilisk, the gambling menace, a Village Soother
4. Quintessential as Tesse Mourn, resident metallurgist, a Village Soother
5. @Fifth Scholar as Iste Confessor, village scholar - Spiked Seeker
6. Shard of Reading as Joe, gambling duck wrangler who drinks, a Regular Villager
7. @Araris Valerian as Arenta, grumpy landlady - Spiked Seeker
8. @Dannex as Dr. Aliker - Village Smoker
9. @Elandera as a confused and overworked metallurgist - Village Thug
10. @Ashbringer as Derrick, general madman and secret kandra - Regular Villager
11. TJ Shade as Fleur Tieste, hopeless romantic and god of cheesy one-liners, a Regular Villager
12. @Illwei - Spiked Rioter
13. @Devotary of Spontaneity as Sonnah Cojic, alchemist - Spiked Smoker
14. Experience as Shard, the crazy 'kid' in town, a Village Rioter
15. @Mailliw73 as Marll, a gambling cobbler who heard of Tyrian Falls - Spiked Tineye
16. StrikerEZ as Variel, a fastidious storyteller, a Regular Villager
17. The Unknown Order as Obliteration, a Shard inhabiting one of his followers, a Village Smoker
18. @The Windrunner Supreme as Merritt Cavallo - Regular Villager
19. Ventyl as Niru, a watcher of ashes, a Village Smoker
20. Flyingbooks as Lasalen, a Regular Villager
21. @Burnt Spaghetti as Roseanna Ghetti, an insomniac artist - Village Tineye
22. @STINK as Smirkai - Spiked Lurcher
23. @_Stick_ as Sunny, the intrepid baking worldhopping dolphin - Regular Villager
24. Biplet as Sara, the local tavern-keeper, a Village Coinshot
25. Daisy / @Haelbarde as Hadra the storyteller - Village Thug
26. The Young Pyromancer as Pie Roayong, foreigner kid out for blood, a Regular Villager
27. Young Bard as Thiriel, social climber, a Village Lurcher
28. Tani / Condensation as Daux, duck poacher, a Village Mistborn

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer]

Ah. Elims had the Rioter-Smoker combo. Of course.

Great game everyone  I'll make some thoughts and RP up at some point.

[Gears]

Roko the Basilisk dragged its still-forming body back towards the desolate, Ruined town of Fallion’s Tears. The gamble had paid off. The betrayal, the agony, the loss, the death all a worthy sacrifice for its trophy. The joint mind of Faleast and AraRaash in the guise of ‘Derrick’. It could study the two, tear them apart and piece them back together, parse the madness over and over and over again. And best of all, most important of all, it could analyse their Connections. Faleast and AraRaash were collectors of Investiture, linked to so many Shards and other such entities. Their spiritweb was inundated with other, with power, with Investiture. And at long last, it could inspect that riddled mess as many times as it wanted. At long last, it could decipher that lovely mystery. The true beauty of the Aon chain was that it could be reset. The true beauty of the Aon chain was that it was forever. The true beauty of the Aon chain was that Roko would never have to let things go.

It approached the wreckage of the Steel Crow, drawn by the siren’s song of the orb, the mechanism, the Aon chain. This chain sang of madness, of masks become flesh, of power entangled in screaming and flames. It was fundamentally different from what Faleast and AraRaash would have been without the guise of madness, but Roko was looking forward to rearranging the pieces in such a way that it could recreate the two. The town was gone, but it had acquired this. Everything had been worth it. The insights into psychology alone would be a treasure, and the possibilities of Connections… Roko continued moving, following the call of the Aon chain, stepping carefully through the unstable ruins of the once-splendid tavern, approaching a very specific bloodstain. And there it was, underneath a floorboard where Roko had died to the wrath of the mob.

Roko whistled a few notes from an old song, and the device opened, revealing the Aon chain within. “Hello, Derrick,” it murmured, teeth gleaming in a mockery of a grin. It turned to leave, but a second siren’s song caught its attention. It had been masked by the first orb, but now that it had acquired ‘Derrick’, the pull quieted, revealing an orb in a darkened corner, the very same orb that it had been carrying during its demise. The Scholar, the Traitor, the Puppeteer. It had already studied that man for a long while, mastering the twisting depths of that man’s particular flavour of being, but successfully retrieving that orb was an unexpected boon. “And hello to you as well, Miluam.”

It walked out of the Steel Crow, venturing towards Luthadel. It would consider this round successful and venture onwards to the next. There was atium to be had in Luthadel, and a mad Mistborn with a shattered mind, and a ruined kingdom, if it was feeling ambitious. This time, this planet, this Era was so very profitable, so very beneficial, so very generous. Perhaps it would even encounter some old friends.

---

To @Mailliw73: I said this in the dead doc, but 'twas an Honor to speak to you, to banter with you, to immortalise a story in canon with you. I salute thee with shining eyes and a light heart. May we meet again, may we speak again, may we stand against each other knives at the ready again. 

To @Illwei: Acupuncturist!Wei is canon! Huzzah! I'll put my pictures of Acu!Wei in SEAcropolis in a moment along with the sonnets, probably. But Casper, here's the thing. In this game, you truly were the Root of All Evil, RAE, the one who spiked all the rest. Isn't that just lovely? Isn't that just hilarious? The nickname chain is always true!

To @Burnt Spaghetti: Lovely. Beautiful. Magnificent. I offer you another name, Etye. It's a pun of "T in eye" but also an alternate spelling of the name "Atiya", which means "Gift". You are a gift to us all, Bubbles. Post your Acu!Wei drawing in the SEAcropolis.

To everyone else: You were, as always, excellent. I offer you a clap, twenty-seven turtledoves, and a dozen oxeye daisies. 

More responses to come after reading the Spiked doc. 

[danex]

So @Illwei was the Elim vote manip? Who did you target to change their vote?

Spoiler

that’s how rioters worked this game right?

target someone and change that persons vote?

 

[Wyrmhero]

In the interests of making this less just a meme, good job guys, it was entertaining to watch, especially the reactions Kas had and his descent into madness, and I'm glad my interjections were taken well, though I did try and stop myself doing it too often!  

Edited March 16, 2021 by Wyrmhero

[---]

Damn

Well that was a nice writeup :P.

And this was definitely one of my favorite games I've played :P.

Thanks for running it Kas :P. And thanks to my teammates :P.

And TJ! we hit 50 pages in our PM even if a lot of that was Kas :P.

Maybe more responses after I read the dead doc :P.

3 minutes ago, Dannex said:

So @Illwei was the Elim vote manip? Who did you target to change their vote?

Elandera last cycle. Not going to lie, I was just slightly scared that TWS would vote, and then if Elan retracted last minute then you guys woulda won lmao. but that would require them knowing, but still :P.

Edited March 16, 2021 by Illwei

[Kasimir]

1 hour ago, Wyrmhero said:

though I did try and stop myself doing it too often!

Our PMs say otherwise, when you chose to inflict it on me there >>

1 hour ago, Wyrmhero said:

especially the reactions Kas had and his descent into madness

Sir, you were responsible for 3/4 of them, and the Spiked the other 1/4 >>

Edited March 16, 2021 by Kasimir

[danex]

1 minute ago, Illwei said:

Elandera last cycle. Not going to lie, I was just slightly scared that TWS would vote, and then if Elan retracted last minute then you guys woulda won lmao. but that would require them knowing, but still :P.

Ah
well, you’ll notice that I was actually a smoker, contrary to my claim to you at the beginning of the game.

That semi-random PM to you there at the end was a last ditch effort to get the Elim vote manip to target me instead of someone else. =P

[Araris Valerian]

An excellent writeup to end an excellent game. @Kasimir, you are an amazing GM, and this game did not disappoint. I'll post more in-depth thoughts on the game later. I also have to say that my team was awesome. It's been a while since I've been an elim on a full team of active, engaged players, and it really makes a big difference, both in how much crazy scheming you can do, but also in just chatting and so forth as well.

Edit: Where is the link to the spec doc? The one that was posted is just Kas and Wyrm chatting

Edited March 16, 2021 by Araris Valerian

[Kasimir]

Alright. Let me just get the post-mortem done, so I can discharge fully my duties as the GM.

1. Meta

Spoiler

How much should a GM run with or against a given meta? Meta for instance, has previously commented that he designs games that aim to get players to reconsider their perception of roles and how they function within a game. This was what happened with QF2, where he went with a Thug-heavy distro, in order to get people to think about what extra lives do, and also in AG2 (yes, the infamous AG2) which threw our expectations in two ways. First, AG2 featured a Spiked team comprising almost entirely new players. The returning players of that time all expected that at least one among our number was Spiked and we were at each other's throats. Second, AG2 featured an unholy amount of Smokers. I think it was around C2 or C3 where I learned there were at least four other Smokers in the game. We did lynch our way through a number of Smokers, reasoning that some of them were likely Evil. (One was, but they'd never claimed. Funny, that.)

I was a bit more used to Meta's whack distributions, so when I learned there was four other Smokers, I figured I should start Smoking. My rationale was that oddities in Meta's distribution tend to point to things players need to theorise and sense-make about. I was wrong in my assumption that the abundance of Village Smokers meant Spiked Seekers. It turned out the Spiked had three Soothers, and a Mistborn (and a Smoker? Maybe.) Which was a hell of a lot of voting firepower. And the reason for our Smokers quickly became clear to the horrified dead: because we needed them to balance out the vote manipulation brought to bear against us.

When I was discussing the distro for this game with Wilson and El, we settled on several thoughts. First, that as TJ pointed out previously, there has been a known/recent tendency for the Village to over-fixate on what Seeker roles can do, at the expense of pretty much everyone else. Second, we were discussing the aftermath of the AG, and the openness of PMs: particularly the amount of role-claiming that went down. My initial impulse had been to withhold Tineyes from both teams and to rely only on Mistborn for occasional PMs, but as we discussed, the possibility of a distro and a team that could capitalise on the general open attitude towards PMs seemed attractive. Third, we had noticed a recent tendency for players to try to guess the distro and then play according to those hard assumptions. We wanted to mess with that.

Should the GM be in the position of trying to mess with the meta? Maybe. I think if you push too hard against the meta, you end up with problems as well. In this case, the Village's Seeker meta was so powerful it convinced all the Smokers to more or less do nothing for most of the game. This left the Spiked Rioter and Seekers free to wreak havoc without much of a counter. At the same time, I liked the whack distros from Meta's games, and I liked the way they made me reconsider aspects of our meta, or how we played. 

2. Opsec

Spoiler

This was really going to be #1 but eh. Opsec was a serious issue this game. By C2, the Spiked had discovered a significant chunk of the roles, including a number of power roles. This was in part due to Araris having excellent instincts as a Seeker, but a good part of this boiled down to Maili's aggressive phishing, and everyone and their goat being exceptionally willing to roleclaim, or to be induced into roleclaiming.

Regardless of playstyle choices, the extent of the roleclaiming proved to be a significant issue for the Village in this game. An argument could be made that had Villagers phished as aggressively as Maili did, they might be better off. This is possible, and one way to handle the current playerbase's general attitude towards opsec. Players like Biplet who didn't want to claim (because of her Coinshot role) were massively hindered, because if everyone and their goat is roleclaiming, then not roleclaiming automatically makes you a candidate for a Seek. This is what the PM opsec folks mean when we say that even claiming Regular Villager narrows down the pool, increasing the odds that a Village power role will be Seeked and that this will cause problems for them.

In the existing meta, either this opsec meta has to change, or the best strategy is to fakeclaim Regular or Thug instead of desisting. At this point, I just don't see a way for players to refuse to participate in rampant claiming without winding up in trouble for it.

The other half of the opsec issue was trust. Maili's use of PMs to manipulate and create trust drastically increased his lifespan beyond what I expected (and probably beyond what he expected, too.) At one point, he was just PMing players he had active PMs with, and requesting them to keep him alive. And it worked! Stick and Hael also got in on the PMs game as a way of coordinating the Village, as did Quinn - with Stick and Hael, I think a bit of it was too little too late. Point being that PMs are a potent tool, both for information, for building rapports, and for convincing players to do stuff

Both teams should use them, and be wary of them. Ultimately, the poor opsec and Maili's aggressive PM use gave his team a decisive advantage.

3. Inactivity

Spoiler

I really don't know what more can be said here. Maybe it's my exhaustion speaking, or a general metaphysical weariness. Yes, this isn't the Inactivity Blight redux. Yes, going inactive does make it bloody hard for the GM to balance things, especially if the inactive player has a power role, and especially if the player does so without warning. What is there to be done? Should GMs plan for a base level of inactivity? What if there aren't pinch-hitters available? 

In this game, inactivity was especially harsh on the Village, resulting in the early, premature, and unnecessary loss of vote dominance.

And yet, I kind of get it too. This is supposed to be a LG, and there was a significant amount of backlog for players to trawl through due to the insane frenzy of activity on the first few cycles. Even Wyrm was taken aback that we had a 13-page D1 thread. Pinch-hitters also mentioned having difficulty catching up, and I expect that to an inactive returning to the game, there's a daunting amount of backreading to be done.

What can be done about this? I don't know. We can't stop players from posting to the thread, and it's likely a playstyle/meta shift. As a returning player myself, I was definitely caught offguard by the post volume this generation puts out. I cope because my playstyle doesn't require close reading and I absolutely refuse to go over posts in detail. Also because I used to have to crunch a lot of readings in grad school philosophy, so I read very very fast when processing arguments. But I also get that a number of players felt isolated, or locked out of the thread and forced to go through everything just to participate, and they ranted to me about it in their PMs. And I don't really want to tell them to change their playstyle. Neither do I want to tell our more exuberant players to tone it down.

I think both inactivity and the opposite, hyperactivity, is worth having a conversation about, really. How can we accommodate each other? I feel like losing either tranche of players would still be a loss to the community. Wyrm and I had a conversation about this in Dead Doc #1 about rejigging the expectations that accompany each game category, if not just outright creating games with limited posts.

4. Distro

Spoiler

Comments about the distro for this game: I have never trusted myself since MR7, and so I ran the distro past a number of people, including El, Wilson, and Wyrm. In fact, credit for the original distro goes to past!Fifth and El, from years ago, though thankfully, the change Wyrm suggested confused things enough that Fifth didn't pick up on this. It was a bit of a d'oh moment for me.

Main thoughts about this:

• Agree with Wyrm - Spiked team could probably do with 4 power roles, 2 regulars. Our initial impulse was to promote one regular to a Smoker. Wyrm thought the lone regular might feel bad, whereas I feel that the Spiked could either panic the hell out with no Smokers, or cotton on too fast to the notion there is no Village Seeker. Of all the roles, after more thought and discussion, I feel they could lose their Tineye and Lurcher, or I suppose, one of the Seekers. Ultimately, the thought was the Lurcher affords some protection from the Coinshot and a Steel-Mistborn, as well as opening the possibility of a WGG. But a two-Seeker team could get up to enough shenanigans that they might not need the Lurcher. I am loath to reduce the two Seekers - first, because of the general assumption there is a Village Seeker or one of them must be good, and second, because ideally, in a no-claim situation, the two Spiked Seekers should still have taken a decent chunk of time to get the Spiked the information they obtained in two cycles, thanks to PMs. If Village Smokers had Smoked, add more time to that.
   
• I am okay with the amount of extra lives in this game. Village needed a bit of insulation with the 1.5 extra kills floating around.
   
• I was happy with the distro that came out of RNGesus when I ran about five different distros. I liked that the Village had a number of capable players with good dynamics, and I liked that the Spiked had a number of players who could take advantage of the set-up. I especially liked that two Village power roles went to new players, Biplet and Tani, as there is a tendency to underestimate new players, and/or to also give them space, which could allow them to settle in and start wrecking things up for Team Village.
   
• I think the Village could have done with a couple more Smokers, given Smokers block three of the Spiked power roles. This would also have given Devotary a bit more cover. However, it would also have reduced the power of the Village vote manipulators. While I'm not sure if I'm okay with this, Spiked do tend to be more aggressive with the vote manipulation than Villagers, so I guess it would've been alright to do that. However, as Village has been very powerfully anti-Smoking, this ties in to my question about whether there's a point in pushing against the meta here. By rights, Wyrm's suggested modification to Smoking should have guaranteed a bit more Smoking (and I suppose Mat and Dannex did Smoke more), but as it turned out, it was too little too late: neither a shield against the Spiked Seekers, or against the Spiked Rioter.

5. Tyrian Re-modded

Spoiler

So, my thoughts on future GMs re-modding the Tyrian ruleset:

• Easier to create a set of interactions and just make sure they're internally consistent. Trying to crutch too hard on Meta's rule clarifications can wind up in trouble, e.g. where Rioting ends up being more powerful than Soothing because of the Smoking interaction (cf. Hael.) This is one ruling I do regret making, and I think it would be better to just rethink all Rioting and Soothing and Smoking interactions and then make them internally consistent on their own.
   
• Smoking - by this point, I'm just going to say it's a done deal. No amount of cajoling is going to get players to Smoke despite how badly the Village needed an active Smoker in the endgame (Dannex came back one Turn too late.) GMs need to find a completely different niche/thing for Smokers to do, for the role to be viable/attractive. If the GM really wants to run a proper Tyrian ruleset, you may want to factor in low player willingness to Smoke into the bargain - do not balance it on the assumption some of the players will Smoke.
   

6. Civility

Spoiler

Too tired to say much about this, and privacy matters. Just: Guys, was it really that hard? :/ There have been some rather disappointing incidents over the course of this game. Please be mindful of your fellow players. Please remember you are part of a community.

That's it from me, really. Again, thanks to everyone for playing, and see you around sometime  

And now my Watch has ended.

Edit:

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

Edit: Where is the link to the spec doc? The one that was posted is just Kas and Wyrm chatting

Spoiler

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer]

Derrick burned.

He hadn't exactly been hopeful that much else would happen. At first he'd thought that the Spiked would leave him lying in the ash, defeated in spirit but not in mind. And then one of them had lobbed a firebomb at him for good measure. So now he was lying in the ash, surrounded by burning planks from what used to be a reputable grocery store in what used to be a reputable town. His skin peeled back, turning from pale to red to blackened, finally to join the ash around him.

Well, that's what was happening to his skin. A layer lower, Derrick's Progression was running overtime to keep his bones from melting in his makeshift funeral pyre. He hadn't had to depend on Bloodmaking yet, but he probably would once the flames finally went out. Other than that, not much else to do except wait, and be cautious. Fire could kill a kandra caught off guard; Derrick had the Lifeline, but using it was a pain. Rather like the excruciating pain of being burned alive, in fact.

Wasn't being burned alive one of his recommendations? He'd suggested it to Kast when he was being interrogated. No, that didn't end up happening. But it was an idea that he'd had, and now it was actually happening. It was certainly less awkward than trying to explain how he had spikes, how he could hear Ruin's muttering in his head constantly, and yet he wasn't officially considered a Spiked. Not a Spiked, a spiked. The capitalization of a word isn't usually the best legal defense, especially when legality had gone out the window with Bartholomew's murder. The only natural Seeker in town, murdered before anyone could turn to him for hope. Derrick should have paid more attention to that.

Something squeezed through the burning remnants of wood. One of his chalklings. It drew a few lines, white against the dark ash, then promptly faded. So, his last task had been accomplished; or perhaps a better analogy would be the last loop had been broken. Roko had regained the orb. There was, quite literally, nothing Derrick could do. Not to stop the madness, that had passed long ago; no, there was nothing Derrick could do. Objectives One and Two - failure. Objective Three... well, that could very well be a rousing success. But that was up to the Overseer now. Not Derrick.

It was time.

Derrick started shutting things down. He couldn't fool Ruin for forever, but he knew it was possible. He let the Progression withdraw to his chest cavity and the precious metals there, letting the fading flames truly consume him. His slowed breathing stopped. His heart, eventually stopped beating.

Then there was silence.

It was time for Derrick to end.

 

 

Faleast opened his eyes, and rose from the ashes.

Oh, NO. We are NOT starting this off with a phoenix metaphor. That's the most cliché thing I've seen since you do since you got the Overseer confused with Harmony.

Faleast didn't respond, at first. "How do I know it worked?" he finally said, limbs regrowing.

You think I'm Ruin, eh? Shadowblaze.

"That... fine, AraRaash. So it is you."

Yes, it's me. Do you really think Ruin would go all ventriloquist again? Mix us up until there's three of us and no one knows which is which until you had the brilliant idea of having us puppet-march EACH OTHER instead of one at a time?

"I seem to remember that you didn't want to sit still for days on end," Faleast said, looking up at the ash-filled sky.

Well. Ruin can't destroy Fallian's Tyrs with us twice, and if I'm right in my timeline he's gonna get real busy real soon. I think we're in the clear.

"I know. Let's go to Luthadel, then. I'd hate to miss out on all the fun."

... there was nothing you could have done, Faleast. Nothing either of us could have done. We were beaten. It was that simple. Anything more we tried to push out would have broken the rules. Caused a Divergence. Even I won't risk that, not when there's more we can do down the line. We did what we came here to do. And because of that we'll win in the end.

"I know," Faleast said. He was still looking up. He didn't know if he could bear to look at Fallion's Tears for the last time.

"But that doesn't mean I didn't fail."

 

Dying in fire, Derrick left Fallion's Tears with flames, smoke, ash, and blood.

Walking away, Faleast left Fallion's Tears with nothing but a few Tears of his own.

[Mat]

Woo boy! Thank you @Kasimir for running this game! The writeups were awesome and it was too.

The funny thing about this is I can't even say 'I told you so' because most of my reads came from agreeing with something @Illwei had said. So. Good job Illwei. By far the most shocked/betrayed I've felt going into a dead doc

@Araris Valerian- The only reason I outed you like that before death was because Illwei told me that she tried to soothe you and failed, thus you must have been Smoked and were likely evil. Not entirely sure why, but it made for a more shocking Spiked!Wei reveal.

@Mailliw73... good job surviving so long  It was fun to see you return and I hope to play more games with you.

@Fifth Scholar, congrats as well. Maybe one time I'll play with village!Fifth but until then I will always be paranoid...

And of course @STINK and @Devotary of Spontaneity did excellent as well. We were played by a fiddle by you all, so well done.

I made the mistake of assuming I was like the only village Smoker when there was, in fact, four. Whoops. in my defense, I didn't know we didn't have a Seeker, but it still probably wasn't my finest estimation.

@Burnt Spaghetti, I especially enjoyed your Tineye messages. Nice job!

I'll try to... read... the massive elim doc(s)... maybe...

---

*   *   *

---

When Philico was attacked, he was grateful.

Now he could search for Peter.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have cared so much for the boy, but Peter had been the only person in all of Fallion’s Tears to treat him kindly. It was only fair to repay the favor.

Philico rushed around the town, about a mile out, in a festering swarm of hordelings. He could move very fast in this form, but it wasn’t exactly hiding what he was, so he had to stay out here.

Once Philico had moved to where he was facing the front entrance of the town, he slowed considerably and reformed in a human shape. Not the same human shape, of course; the Magician was dead (a pity). A new face and new clothes. He doubted Fallion’s Tears would treat a newcomer kindly, but he had to take that chance. It wasn’t as if he was risking himself by coming, anyway.

Philico jogged into town, noting the deserted streets. Unsurprising, but not a good sign, though it might have been the late hour. Feeling the tension in the air he slipped into the shadows- Sleepless or not, waltzing out in the open did not seem smart.

He crept inward, looking into the windows for any sign of a human form he could talk to. All the homes he passed were dark inside, and visibly empty. Philico drew more troubled by the second.

Suddenly he became aware of a figure walking his direction, about a hundred meters out, their footsteps picked up by his enhanced hearing. He slipped further into the alleyway, moving the hordelings that made up his ‘skin’ and ‘clothes’ to better blend in with the shadows; they became darker. And then waited.

The figure passed the alleyway, simply walking by without a second glance. It was the one called Illwei, and they had a very obvious spike protruding from them.

Philico hissed at the betrayal and kicked himself for giving them so much intel about his own fudged abilities. He had said he couldn’t be manipulated by the Soothers and Rioters because he was in his own coppercloud, but really it was just that emotional Investiture had no effect on a being such as he was. And to think they had shared suspicions…

A low growl sounded in his throat. It seemed Fallion’s Tears had fallen to the Spiked. Were the townsfolk dead, deserted, or hiding? Perhaps all three? If so, which group was Peter among?

Invigored with new haste, Philico stepped out of the alleyway. Illwei had gone to wherever they were going, and so he went the other way, again looking through any windows for signs of life. Nothing moved.

Until something did.

It was in a very small building, only one room. Philico had glanced in the window only for a second, but had seen something shifting in the darkness. He stopped and peered through again, unsure if he had imagined it. “Hello?” he whispered. “I’m a friend. Not Spiked.”

He wasn’t sure how much that would be believed, but he had to try. It was evidently enough, or perhaps the individual figured that if Philico knew of their presence anyway, there was no point in hiding. The door opened quietly and a middle-aged woman nervously waved him inside.

“Help us.” she whispered once the door was latched tightly. Useless, with the open window.

Help. Philico had tried that already. It hadn’t been enough.

“I’m looking for a boy.” he said instead. He lifted his hand a few feet above the ground “About this tall, goes by the name of Peter?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “You didn’t see him run off? Lord Ruler knows he’s the lucky one.”

Chills ran down Philico’s theoretical spine, and not just from the strangeness of the woman swearing by the very thing enslaving her. “What? Please, tell me more.”

The woman pointed the direction of the town’s main entrance. “Ran off that way just a day or two ago, talking about some magic sword that would free the town.”

Philico’s hands seized up, the hordelings momentarily coming loose. He quickly regained his composure, but somehow had a sick feeling despite having no organs. “No one stopped him?”

The woman looked grim. “I’m sorry. Everyone is too scared to do much these days.”

Except Peter. “Thank you for the information. Preservation bless.”

And he dissolved right in front of her, scurrying under the door as fast as he could. Philico didn’t particularly mind giving the woman a likely shock; she had likely seen stranger things living here.

Hours flew by as he raced along the main path. How far could Peter have possibly gone? It had only been a day and a half. 

But, thankfully, he soon saw a small form curled up next to a boulder. Philico quickly approached the figure, and was beyond relieved to see that it was Peter, fast asleep. Now that Philico knew he was safe, he could chuckle at the fact that the boy had ran away from his town chasing something made-up to try to liberate it.

Philico reformed as his Magician form, the one Peter would know, cloak and all. He crouched down, and reaching out for the boy’s shoulder, jostled him awake. “Hey, Peter.”

Peter’s eyes fluttered open slowly, and he yawned. “Mr. Phil?” he said, not seeming the least surprised to see him there. “I’m doing what Draimon did, and going to find the sword!”

Philico shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Why? Is Fallion’s Tears safe?”

Philico paused. He couldn’t lie to the boy, not now. “The struggle is over.”

Peter smiled. Now Philico could feel guilty. “Can I go back?” he asked.

“I don’t think that would be wise.” Philico said gently. “I’ll take you somewhere else where you can be safer and grow up.”

Peter nodded. “Okay.”

Philico let a grin break on his face. “Want to see one more magic trick?”

Peter’s smile grew wider. “Yes!”

Philico stepped back and spread his arms. And dissolved.

Peter’s eyes grew wide, but he made no sound, just simply put his hands to his mouth.

Philico moved like a blanket, sliding under Peter. The boy laughed as Philico formed a makeshift chair, and then began rushing down the plains. There would be another town further on, a safer one. 

Peter whooped the whole way. When shadowed buildings appeared on the horizon, Philico was sad to let the boy go. Peter didn’t ask how Philico had done what he did, which Philico appreciated. At the new town’s entrance, Philico dropped Peter off and reformed as a human. “Goodbye, Peter.”

Peter surged forward, wrapping Philico in a hug, Philico took a step back, surprised, but awkwardly returned the gesture. Hugging wasn’t his… thing, but he supposed from this child it was acceptable. “I’ll miss you.” Peter said.

Philico nodded sharply, mouth in a line. And then left, and just like that, Peter was gone. Philico doubted he would ever see the boy again, but in the grand scope of the cosmere that would be fine. But here, in this specific scene of Philicodraimon’s life, he knew he had been touched by a pure spirit. One better than any other on this planet, one that would stick with him to the end of his days.

But… now what? Where to next? These thoughts flew through his mind as he skittered over hills and through plains.

Well, while he was on Scadrial, Philico figured he might as well check out what was happening in Luthadel. The city had a habit of getting into… interesting situations.

Philico changed his course, and didn’t look back. Not even figuratively.

[Araris Valerian]

29 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

@Araris Valerian- The only reason I outed you like that before death was because Illwei told me that she tried to soothe you and failed, thus you must have been Smoked and were likely evil. Not entirely sure why, but it made for a more shocking Spiked!Wei reveal.

Yeah, that was a contributing factor to us killing you rather than letting you live. We didn't want to confirm you as village, but you were also a dominating force in the thread and probably would have gotten me killed the next day if we had let you live. Illwei was winging it and unfortunately picked something that incriminated me a bunch.

[---]

35 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

By far the most shocked/betrayed I've felt going into a dead doc

wonderful

2 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

Illwei was winging it and unfortunately picked something that incriminated me a bunch.

and I kicked myself for not picking Stick :P.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Illwei

[Mat]

Just now, Illwei said:

wonderful

Granted, there haven't been many times I've been super shocked, but like... I had completely wiped out you being teammates with Maill and Araris as a possibility.

[Ashbringer]

Yeah, Illwei got me too - I was quite confused why she voted Connie. Then the votes came tumbling down and I realized why there were so many people viewing the thread at once 

Should of tried the three-suspicions thing a cycle earlier. That was actually surprisingly helpful.

[Biplet]

Well darn! We almost had 'em.

Jk haha. Fun first game! I was tragically wiped off the map too early. Illwei was my next hit, and then Maill, if I stayed on my course of action. O7