Mid-Range Game 57: Helvegen

[Kasimir]

Two minutes left.

As I've successfully fought off the sedatives with a lot of tea, the smell of curry, and some fires from leftover curry, rollover will proceed as normal. Not to worry, there is no need for an extended rollover or for Wyrm to take over in my absence.

Remain calm, all is well.

[Orlok Tsubodai]

Just now, Archer said:

Nobody else feels like voting, huh. Okay, plot twist: Striker TJ

 

If the vote count is 3:3 Archer-Striker, I’ll vote Striker.

[|TJ|]

Yikes, this is a pitiful EoD, which... makes me want to rethink Archer, sigh. Kinda wanna move to Striker rn but if I move, Striker's gonna wanna vote in self-pres and I'll die with 4 votes. 

Possible final words - I have no idea why, but I irrationally, strongly believe in deliberate bus and I believe the elims are in the pool of [Archer, Striker, Xino, Stick] with an outside chance of Mat and Orlok. Which.... is probably not helpfu, but be wary, and now it's late so I'll post this :P. 

[Kasimir]

Cycle Three: Falling Embers

A stunned silence had fallen upon Helgen.

Alain Stern was dead, and Alain Stern was a Darkfriend. But he had been one of them, even though he was getting on in years. He’d been an essential part of the community, the man Munin turned to when sourcing meat, the man who’d found little Shara when she was lost in the woods, the man who’d helped Mayor Wilsa with numerous little tasks that needed doing around in Helgen, who’d always paid his tab, who’d helped Daian weed his garden that summer.

And if Alain Stern was a Darkfriend, who else could be?

 

 

Buffy knelt and tended the fire, stared into the crackling flames. 

Winter, she thought, was the cruellest time of the year; the time when everyone dreamed of spring. Would there be spring, though? Would the thaw come? Alain Stern was a Darkfriend, a discovery that had jolted Helgen to its core. 

And there was the Fang on the door to the Tree; the sigh of it had jolted her to the core, sent a frisson of ice-cold fear running through her veins. The Fang leered at her, a scrawling of pure malice, dripping venom from the wood, and it was all she could do to back away, to tear her gaze away from that etching of evil.

At least Kaim had come and cleaned the Fang from Wyden’s door. She didn’t blame Wyden for freezing up in the slightest. Who wouldn’t, when the Dragon’s Fang was on their very door?

Some of Helgen trusted her, after she’d noticed Wei and Stern gone missing while most of them bickered over Stieg, the former Whitecloak. Some of them said that it was suspicious that Buffy had known where to look, as though simply noticing that most of Helgen was gathered around Stieg’s porch and that Wei and Stern were missing made her a servant of the Shadow.

Foolishness, that. There was only one thing Buffy wanted, and that was to hunt down the last of the Shadow in Helgen.

Bortington had insisted that he walked as solidly under the Light as the rest of them. Buffy wasn’t so sure, but most of Helgen seemed ill-inclined to listen, even as they turned on Jóhannsson (for hadn’t he been suspicious, with the way he had accused Stieg?) and Eaton Strikk, and even herself.

At least the death of Stern seemed to have diminished any appetite for further Dragon’s Fangs.

There was a loud sound of splintering wood, and Buffy turned as the door to her home crashed open, and smashed against the wall. A sword swept out in a vicious, unstoppable arc, gleaming with cold intent in the firelight.

Sparks rose, and embers fell as the fire kept on burning, destined to die with the dawn, when the last of the wood ran out.

Sparks rose, and embers fell, and another life burned itself into nothingness, returning to the Wheel, returning to the Pattern, and rebirth under the Light.

 

 

Alain Stern was a Darkfriend.

Wyden didn’t know what to think. 

He lay flat on his bed, staring up at the attic rafters. Counted the crisscrossing beams of wood, stared at the woodgrain. 

Alain Stern was a Darkfriend.

He’d liked Stern.

He saw Edler’s strike again, the form executed perfectly, the blade arcing out in that final, lethal stroke that had ended Stern’s life. It had been an execution, and one performed without hesitation. What was there left to be said?

And if it was Stern, if one such as Stern could be a Darkfriend—who else?

For the first time in a long while, Wyden couldn’t make himself get up. He ran through the lists of tasks in his head, but he didn’t want to do them. He didn’t want. He hadn’t wanted in years, except perhaps, in a diminished way, to be allowed to be whole again.

He had been the bright star of the garrison, the one Commander Bralor had loved as his own son. He closed his eyes and wept like a child, wept hot tears of shame, of guilt, of self-hatred.

He had lived. He had crawled away after the destruction of the garrison, after shadowspawn overran it. The Aes Sedai hadn’t even let him die; perversely, she’d used the One Power on him, taking pleasure as he convulsed with shock from the cold that swept through him.

Wyden hated the cold.

It was cold enough in the attic.

It always was.

It was no less than what he deserved.

They would have died for him. He had broken at the last moment. Broken enough to allow them to bring a Fade into the garrison. Thorns creeping along his skin, under his skin.

Wyden thought of the tasks that needed doing; the plate that needed mending. But what was the point? Why not throw it out with the trash? What place was there left in this world, beneath the Light, for broken things?

The garrison had fallen. The villages the shadowspawn had sacked, had ravaged, had burned—every single death weighed against his soul as a stone.

If Stern was a Darkfriend, was Wyden any better?

All the years of running away after his desertion, and the weight on his soul had gotten no lighter, no easier to bear. There were bleak winters when the light diminished from the world, when the shadows seemed as though they would swallow what remained of his tainted soul, manacle it with thorns, and when it felt so easy to slip quietly from the world, and yet a tiny part of him had clung on, despite all of that. 

Why?

Because there were tasks that needed doing, Wyden thought, numbly, even though he couldn’t bring himself to want to do them. He’d dragged himself out of bed with the same iron-hard discipline that he’d applied to learning the sword. Some days, it became easier. Some days, duty felt heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather.

The rooster crowed, somewhere in Helgen.

A new day. A new dawn. Light through the window.

Wyden closed his eyes.

He just wanted it all to go away.

 

 

“Innkeeper?”

It was Edler. Wyden knew the voice. 

He pushed away the knocking on the door. Go away, Wyden thought. He was too weary to feel much frustration or irritation. Go away and leave me be.

The door flew open on its hinge, slammed into the wall. Wyden wondered if he’d need to check if it had to be repaired, maybe bill Edler for it. The thought was effort. Effort he couldn’t quite seem to bring himself to make.

“What in the bloody blazes is wrong with you, man?” Edler demanded. There was a cloth bundle tucked under his arm.

“Nothing,” said Wyden. Everything.

Maybe the real Wyden had died in the Embrace of Pain. Maybe all that was left was a wreck of a man, the one who’d crawled out of the shadows to take Wyden’s place in the world.

Edler scoffed. “Lot of nothing, innkeeper. You served on the Blightborder, didn’t you? Few places for a man to pick up the sword in a place like Helgen. I’ve seen men break on the Blightborder. Sooner or later, you learn to recognise them. There’s a certain look in their eyes, in their walk. The way they jump at shadows. The way a sudden noise can send them back to a bad stint on the Blightborder. The way their eyes seem to see an entire squad of ghosts.”

“Enough here have,” Wyden said.

“Most of those who have don’t adjust for the balance of a sword on their hip,” Edler said, dryly. 

Wyden scowled, acknowledged the hit. It was difficult to suppress instinct turned into deep memory. The body remembered, even when the mind did not. 

Death was lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. He made himself sit up, made himself keep moving. Always the next task.

Always the next step.

Even if he didn’t want to go on at all. Even if the knowledge he had to was a distant burr in his brain.

“What do you want from me?” he asked, wearily. 

Hadn’t he given enough?

But he hadn’t. Nothing would ever balance the scales against the deaths of the garrison, the villages that he had damned. And that was the cruel truth, the one that lodged in his blackened soul like a splinter that would never come loose.

He was damned, as surely as Alain Stern had been.

“Breakfast, for one,” said Edler. “For another, what you knew of Stern.”

“Does it matter?” Wyden asked. The words slipped from him, before he could quite consider them, or take them back. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. It was a numbness that had crept up on him, like cool rain at sunset. It was not the flame and the void, the ko’di, but it would do.

Edler’s eyes narrowed. “Innkeeper, if you hold to the Light and your hope of salvation and rebirth, Stern was a Darkfriend. And he had other conspirators in Helgen. Will you or will you not aid us in finding them?”

“Is that why you came?” he asked. “Do you not think me one of them?”

Enough in Helgen had. Enough to scrawl the Dragon’s Fang on the Tree.

Edler hesitated. But then he shook his head. “No. I do not.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a stranger here,” Edler said. “Because the deaths of Helgen are whispered of in the surrounding villages. Because people gossip, and carry tales, even if it is passing strange that none in Helgen think them odd. Because sooner or later, in this line of work, you learn to recognise the work of the Shadow, and a hostile channeller.”

He took hold of Wyden’s arm, tugged.

Wyden struck out before he could think. The Falcon Stoops flowed into The Creeper Embraces the Oak, until his rational mind remembered that he was not—that he was in Helgen, that he lacked a sword, that it was years in the past, even though he could not seem to dislodge the thorns from his mind.

Not now, not ever.

“The scars are distinctive,” Edler said, quietly. “A channeller did this to you. One of the Shadow. The Embrace of Pain is a forbidden weave, proscribed in the White Tower. No Aes Sedai would use it lightly.” There was an uncomfortable kindness in his stern eyes, and it threatened to shatter the numbness. Wyden didn’t want it to. He didn’t want to have to feel again, or at least right now. “No Aes Sedai would use it at all.”

“Do I know if you lie?” Wyden whispered.

“I killed the Darkfriend,” Edler said. “I am no friend of the Shadow. Is this good enough for you?”

“No,” Wyden whispered. He didn’t know what to think, what to believe anymore. A part of him was caught, flesh torn continuously on the growing thorns of the Embrace of Pain. Part of him had never left, kept on screaming that the Aes Sedai and their ilk could not be trusted. Trusting someone gave them power over you, let them in close when you dropped your guard, let them hurt you. It was irrational, and yet…And yet…

Everything in him screamed that trusting was dangerous.

“On your feet, innkeeper.”

Wyden was too tired to argue. It seemed to take more energy than he had left in him.

Edler poked at him with the bundle. “Move.”

 

 

Eaton Strikk felt the pain in his head as a tight, throbbing band and scowled. Some days were good; other days, not so much. 

Sometimes he knew when a storm was coming. It was an electric feeling in the air, the sense of brooding clouds, the sharp metallic taste of lightning on his tongue. He’d warned Tema, sometimes. In the nick of time to get her goats to safety.

His moods got worse with the storms. 

Today felt like a stormy day, though he couldn’t possibly say why.

Stieg stood in his garden, and a newly-sharpened axe gleamed on his belt, flanked by Locke and Rambler. Buffy was nowhere to be seen, though from what Strikk had heard, she’d been expressing suspicion of him to the rest of Helgen.

Of course it would be Stieg. Once a Whitecloak, forever a Whitecloak.

Stieg said, “We know.”

The feeling of a storm, of heavy dark clouds on the foreboding horizon only grew. 

“Tema said you always knew when it was going to rain,” Stieg said. “Daian said you’d rescued his garden. Crops were dying until you stepped in.”

“It doesn’t add up,” said Locke. “And we know that someone killed Gamen in an unnatural way. Fell wind from the Blight notwithstanding.”

“I remember the fire,” spat Rambler. “Thought you were a hero. ‘Course, turns out you cheated, didn’t you?”

Strikk didn’t know how they’d worked it out. He thought he’d been careful with the garden. But Daian had been crushed when his crops had all died, even the ones he’d expected to last the winter.

Sometimes, you knew you could help. So you did.

It was always simple things. Small things. A matter of wanting it enough, even though trying left him weak and dizzy and now the headache never seemed to leave him and sometimes he heard voices, voices calling him Variel.

Strikk had always been good with plants. They’d always flourished under his care. It had been a small source of joy for him, saving what he could of Daian’s garden. All he’d wanted was to tend his garden, but instead, he’d been drawn up into the Darkfriend hunt.

And Stieg, Locke, and Rambler were standing in his garden, accusing him of serving the Shadow.

Right now, Strikk wanted them to go away, wanted them to leave him alone.

Fire bloomed; fire from nothing, flames reaching out hungrily for the three men in his garden.

“Watch out!” Stieg shouted; an axe tumbled through the air, whirling right at Strikk, tipping head over haft, head over haft, head over haft, head—

 

 

Two men faced off in the courtyard of the Tree, a short distance from the stables where Gamen had died. The wind blew, and Wyden shivered.

The practice sword, a cloth-bundled length of wooden lathes, felt all too familiar in his hand, even years later. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of it.

“Get your sword up,” said Edler, ruthlessly.

Why? Wyden wondered. What was the point?

The wind blew, tugging at the coats they’d left hanging on the porch railing, and Edler moved.

Patterns etched into the world like frost on a clear winter lake. 

It was not the flame and the void. It was not the ko’di, which Wyden knew intimately, though he had never been able to summon that oneness. Not ever since the Embrace. Not ever since he’d broken on the rack of thorns.

But the numbness, the stillness inside, was a poor shadow of the ko’di, and it was good enough.

Edler lashed out with The Lion Springs; aggressive, decisive, Wyden thought, and though the move was rusty and poorly-performed, his body remembered and flowed into a clumsy Rain in High Wind.

Edler batted it aside with an adder-quick The Viper Flicks Its Tongue, and then Wyden was stumbling backwards, riposting with Black Pebbles on Snow. Edler’s Lightning of Three Prongs struck glancing hits against his chest and torso. Killing strokes, if they’d been fighting with steel.

“Dead,” Edler said, mercilessly.

Wyden lowered his practice sword. Was aware of his breathing coming more heavily than it’d had when he was battle-honed. “What is the point?” he rasped.

“Get your sword up,” said Edler.

“No,” Wyden croaked. “I’m done.”

He was. He’d been done for so many years. Thorns cutting through his arms, tearing through the flesh of his wrists. He was done, a dead man walking, waiting for the time he would lie down and the Lord of the Grave would claim him for good.

“Get your sword up!”

The breeze blew, and for a moment, present and past collided. He was lying on the ground of the training yard, reaching out for the hilt of his practice sword as the taciturn instructor all the garrison knew only as Gaidin fixed him with a stern glare.

“Well? Are you getting up?”

The tip of the practice sword prodded the ground a short distance away from Wyden’s face.

“Do I?”

“Life knocks us down, lad,” Gaidin said, querulously. “But we choose whether to get back up. Are you going to?”

Wyden’s fingers curled about the hilt of his practice sword.

“Get your sword up, lad!”

Wyden barely met Water Flows Downhill with Wind and Rain, biting back a curse as he stumbled and slipped on the stones, his footing uncertain. Edler drove forward with a Kissing the Adder and a desperate The Rose Unfolds kept Edler’s blade from him. Muscle memory demanded the follow-through: Dandelion in the Wind scythed through where Edler’s throat would have been, had the soldier not leaned back, Wyden’s wooden blade grazing him.

“Better,” growled Edler.

Lion on the Hill met Tower of Morning; Wyden grunted and felt the numbness blanketing him. One foot in front of the other; one form after the next. Maybe it wasn’t a reason to keep breathing, a reason to carry on, but it was good enough; his body dimly remembered what needed to be done, what the appropriate response was.

Edler flowed into Plucking The Low-Hanging Apple; in response, running purely on some combination of intuition and memory, Wyden went into Folding the Air, just as Edler switched forms halfway through to Leopard’s Caress, and then followed up with a Leaf on the Breeze. Edler riposted with Lizard in the Thornbush but his response was rushed, the form poor, and Wyden saw the weakness and drove forward in turn.

Falling Embers thundered home, ripping past Edler’s blade and lashing out just beneath his rib cage.

Both of them froze. 

“So you do still have it in you,” Edler said, quietly. Pushed the length of the practice blade away from him. “How long has it been?”

“Why?” Wyden wanted to know.

“Because you fought on the Blightborder,” Edler said, simply. “Because you surrender when you’re dead. Because you needed it.”

Perhaps he had. He didn’t know. It had felt as though a part of him had been asleep for so long, had come alive while flowing through the forms. Part of him just felt numb. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was better to take the edge off the terror, off the guilt, off the shame.

Off the knowledge that he had crawled away while so many better men had died. When those they were sworn to protect had been brutalised by Shadowspawn.

Life knocks us down, lad, Gaidin had said, so many years ago. Battle-worn, and looming larger in Wyden’s memory than he’d probably been, Gaidin’d been a Warder years and years ago, and had come to the Blightborder to avenge his fallen Aes Sedai or die trying. Along the way, he’d taught the sword to a few garrisons. To Wyden. But we choose whether to get back up.

He’d been choosing, and trying, every day. Even when the trying was so damned hard.

Okay, Wyden thought, I guess I can do it. Just one more day.

He drew a long, shaky breath.

He chose.

 

 

StrikerEZ/Eaton Strikk was executed! He was a Villager!

Archer/Buffy was killed! He was a Villager!

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Striker (4): Mat, Orlok, Archer, Stick
Archer (3): Striker, Bort, TJ
TJ (2): xino, JNV

The cycle has begun, and will end on 1st April, 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8)! 

Please be reminded not to post in this thread until I've reserved the second post for the player list and rule clarifications, thank you!

[Kasimir]

Rule Clarifications:

Spoiler

Dunno, do you guys really need more at this point?

Player List:

Spoiler

1. @Thaidakar the Ghostblood - Daian
2. @The Unknown Novel - Lorum Ipsum, actually Lorumis Ipsimir
3. @xinoehp512
4. @Matrim's Dice - Rambler, disturbed fellow
5. @Orlok Tsubodai - Locke
6. @Amanuensis - Lin Mindrigurin, elderly veteran sometimes mistaken for Lan
7. Araris Valerian - Alain Stern, hardy woodsman Darkfriend Elder
8. Illwei - Wei Villager
9. Archer - Buffy, who has an intense fear of fangs Villager
10. @JNV - Kai
11. StrikerEZ - Eaton Strikk, a guy with a headache and worryingly murderous tendencies Villager
12. @_Stick_
13. @Bort - Bortington the Blind
14. @|TJ| - Jóhannsson, local composer

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Kasimir

[Stick.]

oops sorry striker

Archer is a very weird kill. He was up for the exe until the very end of the cycle - up until he and Orlok switched votes to TJ. This means an elim had to have been online during the last two minutes of the turn in order to have submitted this kill.

edit:

switched votes to Striker** ^

Edited March 29, 2022 by _Stick_

[Mat]

Interesting that the elims are fine with the trains being revealed as v/v.

I’m not entertaining e!Stick right now so I’m just going to assume D1 was a pure train and leave that there. Relaxing my v!Orlok read, need to relook at… a lot of things- Stick’s point included. Who was online at the end of the cycle? Me, Stick, Orlok for sure.

Kinda want to kill in [xino, Bort] today but maybe it’s just Orlok. Or TJ :P.

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Stick.]

2 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Who was online at the end of the cycle? Me, Stick, Orlok for sure.

TJ and Bort as well

[Bort]

I had just got home so jumped on to see how it went.

Off into a game now though, so I'll be back later

 

[Stick.]

Okay new reads I guess

Village: Thaid, xino, Mat

IDK: TUN, Aman

Elim: Bort, TJ, Orlok, JNV

Can anybody give me a reason why they're reading JNV as village?

[Mat]

7 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

TJ and Bort as well

A ratio of 7-3 gives us three shots (basically two, the last one would be at parity) and a base PoE of [TJ, Bort, Orlok] isn’t too bad for the purposes of just getting one, especially with Veterans. I’m not set on that, obviously, but I think it’s a decent starting point.

2 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Okay new reads I guess

Village: Thaid, xino, Mat

IDK: TUN, Aman

Elim: Bort, TJ, Orlok, JNV

Can anybody give me a reason why they're reading JNV as village?

This is a good list, I need to ISO xino though

Umm Archer might have been able to xD Maybe a reason to v read JNV is that Archer village read him, and the elims wouldn’t want to get rid of that.

Archer is just such a strange kill either way though-

JNV’s approach to solving and tone both read village to me but those are not exactly concrete reasons so idk.

[Stick.]

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Umm Archer might have been able to xD Maybe a reason to v read JNV is that Archer village read him, and the elims wouldn’t want to get rid of that.

Did Archer ever publicly say he trusted JNV though?

5 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

JNV’s approach to solving and tone both read village to me but those are not exactly concrete reasons so idk.

I don't think JNV has ever been an elim yes? I don't really know what I should be looking for in their playstyle

[Mat]

2 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Did Archer ever publicly say he trusted JNV though?

I mean JNV was in the group PM :P. e!JNV could have mentioned it in the doc though I guess they might not have had time.

They haven’t been elim, no.

[Stick.]

I can't make much sense of the Archer kill, but Archer had created a group PM last cycle with myself, Mat, and JNV in it, to coordinate votes. About half an hour before rollover, Archer revealed that he'd be switching his vote to Striker, and that Orlok will follow. This explains their close votes at EoD, seconds away from each other. Apart from people in the group PM, Orlok is presumably the only one who knew Archer would be changing his vote, and so he knew Archer won't be getting exe'd. I don't think JNV was online to check the PMs before turn ended.

[Orlok Tsubodai]

Going to open voting on Bort.

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I'm sat on a bus right now typing on my phone so rp will have to wait for now. I'll decide who I want to lynch later too. 

On the subject of the Dragon's Fang, out of the options presented, I'd rather see it used sooner rather than later, just so we don't lose it by accidentally lynching a darkfriend on day 1, like Striker in the last game.

Could it even be worth not lynching someone this cycle to make sure it works? Would that even work? @Kasimir? 

Thinking further on this, I still cannot see how this comes from a village mindset. As I've set out before, it both heavily minimises information both from D1 and from the fang.

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What Bort appears to be suggesting is that an elim kill via the exe is worse than the elim kill we'd get from the fang kill. Since the elims get to choose which one of them dies to the fang kill and will have presumably planned accordingly to mislead us from the death, I disagree with this. In theory, the kill they don't anticipate, the one arrived at through analysis that has readable conversations leading up to it, is more valuable to us than the fang death. Our best case scenario is actually that we exe an elim who is different than the one the elims planned on sacrificing. I don't think he's trying to shift focus from the fact that getting a fang kills requires a mix, given his last line, but I do think it's weird that he doesn't like the implications of an elim exe C1. Bringing up the e!Striker exe implies the elims will distance from teammates they expect to survive than from the one they expect to die. I find that unlikely.

 

This is taking a very extreme view from what I said. Ok, so here's my thoughts...

C1, it's likely a villager will by lynched, unless someone really screws up and reveals themselves, just by weight of numbers. There are more of us than there are of them.

If we activate the Fang today, we guarantee ourselves at least one elim down, even if we do mislynch a villager during the exe. That is, after all, the point of the game, so why not use the mechanic we have to help with that before we lose the chance to?

I think for now, a poke vote on Aman. @Amanuensis?

This isn't actually what I think Bort was arguing for in his first post - Bort is arguing for no lynch at all. I see this as spin of Bort's original position.

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Out of the two, I've got more of a village feel from Stick, so I'll switch my vote from Aman to Thaid.

Switch to an easy mislynch target, without justification.

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Oh wow! Good job guys.

I head off to run a game thinking Thaid or Stick would get it, and get back to see everything has changed.

So, what was it caused the Araris bus?

I think this is an attempt to provoke a mislynch on one of the Araris voters. I don't buy his explanation here:

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So, if "bus" is an elim term, what do we call it when someone picks up a pile of votes at the end of a cycle? It used to be wagon, as in "jumping on the bandwagon," but it seems that bus is used a lot more these days. I assumed it was for "busload of votes" or something daft like that.

So, if bus is the elim term for this, what's the village term?

I'm pretty sure that bus was a term for throwing teammates under the bus back when Bort and I played SE many years ago - as such, I think this is manufactured confusion.

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So, the first post thing, about the Dragon's Fang. I didn't "propose a strategy" so much as throw an idea out for discussion. At the time, I was sat on the bus (the public transport kind, not the elim kind  ), about 5 minutes before I was due to get off, and I wasn't going to be back for several hours at the earliest, so wasn't really thinking too much about strategy, just putting an idea out there.

I just don't see how a first assessment of the idea comes from a village mindset.

[Mat]

Mmm, subject to change with a reread, but I think I'll go on Orlok after his Bort case. It doesn't work for me, reads like it's manufactured. 

2 hours ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

Thinking further on this, I still cannot see how this comes from a village mindset. As I've set out before, it both heavily minimises information both from D1 and from the fang.

I don't buy Orlok fixating so hard on this one thing from early C1. It was posted during the idea phase of the cycle, before many opinions were known, and wasn't actually ever pursued. I'm surprised this is still being used as a point of evidence.

2 hours ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

Switch to an easy mislynch target, without justification.

This takes out all of the context around Bort's vote. The trains were consolidating to Thaid and Stick, and Bort was alone on a side train, so it's plausible that he wanted his vote to mean something. Naturally, with a village read of Stick, he would vote Thaid. His vote put the trains at 4-3 with Thaid still behind, so it wasn't like he was pushing Thaid over the edge. The statement that Thaid's an easy mislynch target is preflipping, but honestly it's a fair preflip so I don't mind that so much- but this paints Bort's vote in a significantly worse light than it actually is.

As far as justification goes, let's be honest, there wasn't much anyway, especially D1, especially Thaid :P.

2 hours ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

I'm pretty sure that bus was a term for throwing teammates under the bus back when Bort and I played SE many years ago - as such, I think this is manufactured confusion.

I don't see what Bort has to gain for faking confusion about a game term. What you seem to be suggesting is that Bort faked the confusion to start discussion about the bus to force a misexe on one of the Araris voters, but I really don't buy that- not only would that be extremely convoluted, but there were people talking about the bus anyway and Bort definitely didn't need to start that discussion. Which he didn't, Stick and I did :P.

2 hours ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

I just don't see how a first assessment of the idea comes from a village mindset.

Let me ask you this, because it's a question I come across frequently- what does an elim have to gain by posting elim-mindset ideas into the thread? Don't those go to the elim doc? While elim, you're more conscious of what you post and would be careful not to say something that comes across as evil. TJ had the same problem with Archer, and I told the same thing to him- if someone posts an outlandish idea that might end up helping the elims more than the villagers, like Archer did and like Bort did, that person is more likely village.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Matrim's Dice
Typed 'dead doc' instead of 'elim doc' in the last paragraph :P

[Amanuensis]

Okay so... anyone want to give me a TLDR on D2?

Real talk, I'm sorry for being inactive everyone I feel incredibly bad about it, but there's a lot of IRL problems that have insisted on getting in the way. I promise to give this game my all until I die, but I'm afraid my all might not be as much as it usually is. Still, hoping to give more than I have given already.

I just caught up today's posts though and my instincts are pinging off the charts right now. I have so many thoughts and questions but I'm not able to get into them right now (and might not be 100% willing to divulge it all right now).

So Orlok. On top of what has been said already, I find it odd that he wrote that Bort post and didn't respond to Stick's vote. I guess he could have been ninja'd but I'd expect Orlok to edit in a response or something. Might just be confbias tbh but it certainly doesn't help me feel better about that post in general

Plus I'm genuinely surprised to finally internalize this is a PM game. Not a single player has PM'd me - not even in an attempt to encourage me to be more active - and that's just cruel >:(

This may or may not be a contributing factor in my voting Orlok now >> I'd have expected Town him to be one of the first to reach out to me, so I'm wondering if he deemed my inactivity much too convenient / was concerned a prolonged 1 on 1 conversation would lead to me figuring out his alignment

ED1T:

That all said, I think we do need to discuss another potential elim candidate in the mean time; I will do my best to work out one myself but understand it may take a bit of time for me to fully understand what the heck is going on

Edited March 29, 2022 by Amanuensis

[Mat]

10 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

Orlok

Kas be like:

Spoiler

 

[Amanuensis]

Hah I actually edited the bold in

But I love the Bernie meme so glad you didn't notice

[Mat]

1 minute ago, Amanuensis said:

Hah I actually edited the bold in

But I love the Bernie meme so glad you didn't notice

This was me clicking the notif of your post the second I got it but not thinking of a meme until later  And not reloading the page, evidently.

23 minutes ago, Amanuensis said:

That all said, I think we do need to discuss another potential elim candidate in the mean time; I will do my best to work out one myself but understand it may take a bit of time for me to fully understand what the heck is going on

I like this idea, I'm currently leaning TJ for that but I really should look closer at xino.

[Amanuensis]

Tbh I really don't know if TJ is elim after that NK and I was kinda leaning Town for him anyway. I actually thought Archer was the elim of the pair until now and I would have voted for him over Striker had I been able to get online yesterday 

Like, I'm waiting to see how TJ enters because healthy paranoia or whatever, but from what I've seen Archer and TJ have been going at it most of the game and it's so incredibly weird for TJ to kill Archer now when Archer was so close to getting voted out anyway. I'm having a lot of trouble grasping the elims path to victory, but if I had to guess, this was intended to frame TJ rather than exonerate him. Like, if TJ is elim, what's his game plan going into today after killing his tunnel? He would basically be forcing himself to start from the ground up and I don't get it? Unless he wanted to go back on Stick I guess, but what's the likelihood of anyone really joining him there? It's just so weird

Tbh I also felt Xino has been radiating Towny energy this game. I also feel like JNV is Town for similar feelz reasons, though I am slightly afraid he pocketed me yesterday

Idk mostly I'm just super lost but I'm HOPING PEOPLE WILL FIX THAT BY PMING ME

Anyway yeah that my stream of conscious rn hope everyone is well

 

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

for no reason in particular, mostly for what people have said (AND NO I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING IN SPECIFIC MAT), Bort.

[Mat]

21 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

for no reason in particular, mostly for what people have said (AND NO I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING IN SPECIFIC MAT), Bort.

You say that like it’s unreasonable for me to ask xD

[JNV]

EDIT hi this thing glitched out Im not done with this Ill be back one sec

Ok it should be fixed now that was weird my arrow keys stopped working and my enter key stopped working and suddenly it just posted hmm

 

Kai sat at a specific table in the back of the tavern, nursing one drink and staring at the second one. They hadn't known Buffy too well. They hadn't even known her name. They almost felt guilty about that. Almost. It wasn't like they hadn't wanted to ask, but for some strange reason, they only met in dark corners of taverns and alleyways with old memories creeping up on them.

The first time they met was in the dead of night. She was slumped against the wall of a house, staring at nothing. They had offered her a dried flower. It was the only thing they had in their pockets. She had laughed, and they offered her a drink at the nearby tavern. 

"Anything but wine," and they obliged. 

The next time they met was much the same, only with the roles reversed. They were the one with empty eyes, and she was the one with the flower. When they went to the tavern, they sat at the same table. 

They met a few more times, and she gave them a wooden stick. "For protection," she said as though a stick would do much at all. But they took it. Now it was all they had left of her besides rotting flowers. 

 

Ok Archer theres your sad lonely guy being sadder and lonelier because the sad lonely friend died

 

7 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Archer is a very weird kill. He was up for the exe until the very end of the cycle - up until he and Orlok switched votes to TJ. This means an elim had to have been online during the last two minutes of the turn in order to have submitted this kill.

I mean there could be a leak in the trust PM but unlikely also if he was soliciting votes from other people he might have been like "oh please switch with me to Striker" to an elim once and then they would have known Striker was up for the vote instead also yeah its a very weird kill why would someone switch to Archer last two minutes without consulting team preumably they had a planned kill already or maybe Archer was the planned kill back when the argument was TJ Striker and they forgot to swap off or had the strangel debacle where they all think someone else submitted the order 

7 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Elim: Bort, TJ, Orlok, JNV

Is this becasue I wouldnt give you the senior citizen discount on your movie tickets? Well Im keeping your money no refunds and you were being cagey honestly also your willingness to  reveal to Orlok but not me makes me sad sad you dont deserve the senior citizen discount 

7 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Village: Thaid, xino, Mat

Why xinoehp? 

7 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

Did Archer ever publicly say he trusted JNV though?

Yep

7 hours ago, _Stick_ said:

I can't make much sense of the Archer kill, but Archer had created a group PM last cycle with myself, Mat, and JNV in it, to coordinate votes. About half an hour before rollover, Archer revealed that he'd be switching his vote to Striker, and that Orlok will follow. This explains their close votes at EoD, seconds away from each other. Apart from people in the group PM, Orlok is presumably the only one who knew Archer would be changing his vote, and so he knew Archer won't be getting exe'd. I don't think JNV was online to check the PMs before turn ended.

@Orlok Tsubodai did Archer say or imply you were the only person he was trying to convince to vote Striker or was there an impression that he might be looking elsewhere cause if the latter the leak might be from them

4 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Okay so... anyone want to give me a TLDR on D2?

So basically schism between "yes bus" and "no bus" thoughts "yes bus" thoughts voted for either Archer or Striker (leaving Matrim notably not suspected hmmmmmm) "no bus" thoughts (me) voted TJ I still want to think TJs scummy honestly but Ill refrain theres some part of me suspecting TJ Matrim team even though I really trust Matrim (probably cause obvious attempt at making Arars vote seem not bus is obvious plus everyone feels so evil why does everyone feel evil)

Also Orlok is doing very similar things to what I suspected TJ for and this is bugging me for some reason

 

Ok so on the bus opinion this kill seems like a declaration of sorts saying 'this was not a bus' and I dont know if thats intentional but it sure sends a message so Im just going to give a peek at the opinions

So the progression of the bus opnion kinda goes like this

• Archer mentions 'designated sacrifice'
• Matrim says dangerous speculation but thinks Striker as first voter would be the evil one in bus world
  • Ok just a small thing Matrim says pure train 
• TJ thinsk bus likely with evil stick thoughts
  • See I really want TJ dead they just feel evil 
• Archer thinks bus last minute decision
• Matrim could buy last minute bus

So the progression goes from "pure train" to "yeah bus" and that bugs me an awful lot and I still want to kill TJ and I feel like thats an illogical stance here so evil people I have a proposition no one actually wants TJ dead except for my subconcious so TJ will not be voted off in a resaonable amount of time you could totally kill him and wouldnt be wasting a kill except honstly going with the logically confirmed good people would be better but please kill this guy (sorry TJ) or Stick actually they also feel so evil even though I am almost certain they are good (sorry Stick)

Got to go now see you later have fun hopefully post fixed that was annoying

Edited March 30, 2022 by JNV

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

38 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

You say that like it’s unreasonable for me to ask xD

heh, heh, heh.