Mid-Range Game 57: Helvegen

[JNV]

3 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Tier 1: I personally don't think Araris was bussed on D1 so I don't care much for doubting those reads until a lylo situation.

If you dont think Araris was bussed then why sus Orlok (I also sus orlok just for relative existnece patterns so this is just a thought) cause Orlok killed Araris by saving Stick so if Orlok is evil it was a bus so are you saying more specifically you think all the Araris voters are clean or do you think the Araris vote was purely village in all aspects (in which case Orlok would not be a viable candidatie for suspicion unless you are willing to have contradictions to yourself which ok but should really think about that)

4 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

Same request for everybody, if y'all don't mind

Logically good but I dont like it Stick Matrim TJ Thaidakar

Feels pretty good honestly Amaneunsis

Meh The Unknown Novel xinoehp

Honestly all the bad vibes and no good logic Bort Orlok

unordered on each tier  and yes amanuensis is the only pretty good person here the rest of you  must be supervillains as a part time job its the only explanation for the aura of menace Amaneusnsis is obviously a full time supervillain whos gotten better at hiding the evil plus they have a good union program for their henchmen A+ supervillain I support

Now the issue with only four people in the pool of evil with what is probably three evil remaining is that I think one of the 'logically good but I dont like it' group is probably evil cause Bort ⊕ Orlok evil (only one) unless they are going for maximum distance for smooth sailing or I guess technically speaking it should be Bort | Orlok (not and, xor but includes neither) and I think Im wrong about soemthing cause Im always wrong about something 

I just want TJ dead its a silly idea at this point but man I want them dead so much its not even that I think theyre evil its just they feel so evil and logically theyre not evil but of all the logic group I feel like theyre the tenuous link but also no they are most definitely good you know what Im just going to stop mentioning TJ starting now

Speculation probably wrong evil stick evil Thaidakar and Thaidakar just is  flaky in the evil doc so the rules ignorance is genuine despite evil honestly this is the only possible evil combo for Stick (plus whoever else for the extra evil)

You know what Im going to speculate on evil this is a terrible idea I have to sleep soon oh well lets be evil

So the main pool is The Unknown Novel xinoehp Bort Orlok and I definitely feel at least one of these is evil and honestly xinoehp could go in the 'feels alright but also I have amnesia and have no idea who you are' category all on their own but pool of evil

Ok now the issue is The Unknown Novel could be a partner to any duo cause they ve been kinda gone for a while Im just going to ignore them for the purposes of duo speculation  with the condition that any trio speculation off the duo has The Unkown Novel as an option

Kinda the same issue with Thaidakar in the hypothetical elim world cause I have no memory of them and from what I do remember its really scattered so just add on Thaidakar with the conditional its unlikely unless Thaidakars as detached in the doc as in thread

Ok so speculating all 30 remaining duo options is cancelled my eyes seem to have lost the ability to focus i can no longer see straight Im going to post this and get some eye drops wow this hurts bye

[Mat he/him]

Am I the only one worried by literally everyone's bottom tier being identical?

[|TJ| he/him]

11 hours ago, Amanuensis said:

@|TJ| Same question regarding Mat; if green, who next?

Okay, okay - logically it's... very very less chance of another e train (Araris) arising when there's already an e train (assuming e!Stick) unless it's a bus. I - don't know now smh. I think I'd go for Bort/Xino. Speaking of xino, why is everyone having them in high tiers? 

18 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Am I the only one worried by literally everyone's bottom tier being identical?

Thank you! Do you understand now why I'm looking at everyone as suspects? xD

[Mat he/him]

24 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Okay, okay - logically it's... very very less chance of another e train (Araris) arising when there's already an e train (assuming e!Stick) unless it's a bus. I - don't know now smh. I think I'd go for Bort/Xino. Speaking of xino, why is everyone having them in high tiers? 

Thank you! Do you understand now why I'm looking at everyone as suspects? xD

I'm honestly looking at Aman/xino right now and would switch there if I thought it anyone else did.

Bort does work, don't get me wrong. I just want everyone to go to Aman and xino next if Bort flips village, and there's no guarantee of that happening :P.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Matrim's Dice

[Stick. she/her]

7 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Am I the only one worried by literally everyone's bottom tier being identical?

Erm…yeah. But I think that if there’s one elim between Orlok and Bort, then it’s probably expected for the elims to place both of them in the bottom tier because 1. They can easily sheep their vote on whichever one is villager and 2. If your reads lists are identical to the majority of the thread’s, the lesser chance of somebody asking you to explain the reasoning behind these reads - you blend in well. 
But it is odd. 
Orlok  Bort 

edit:

I'm 90% sure now, the remaining elims have to be Bort/TUN, and if there's a fourth, it's TJ.

Edited March 31, 2022 by _Stick_

[Mat he/him]

Anyone being 90% sure about anything with this gamestate also worries me xD

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Anyone being 90% sure about anything with this gamestate also worries me xD

I'm 90% sure this game won't be another MR7.

Care to take me up on that?  

[Orlok Tsubodai]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

I'm 90% sure this game won't be another MR7.

Care to take me up on that?  

Our obvious first step is to work out who the Discovery faction are. They're clearly the greatest threat, irrespective of whether we're Moderation, Heritage or Glory, with near perfect information on the game-state - why wouldn't we want them lynched?

[Kasimir he/him]

Just now, Orlok Tsubodai said:

Our obvious first step is to work out who the Discovery faction are. They're clearly the greatest threat, irrespective of whether we're Moderation, Heritage or Glory, with near perfect information on the game-state - why wouldn't we want them lynched?

..........................

ffs Discovery aren't Evil

They don't have a NK

This is a faction game asgbhdyusdyvgefdj h

WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS

Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok

Making me regret awarding you the MVP for that game now, I see >:( 

[Orlok Tsubodai]

5 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

..........................

ffs Discovery aren't Evil

They don't have a NK

This is a faction game asgbhdyusdyvgefdj h

WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS

Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok

Making me regret awarding you the MVP for that game now, I see >:( 

I see the pain is still fresh...

My own views on it might not be known anymore, but given I plan to rerun it, for the record, I agree with Kas on the above 100%. They are the path of least resistance for each faction to propose lynching without causing inter-factional friction, which needs balancing, but which was the joke I was trying to make! (Spitballing, but possibly by giving them a kill each time they lose a player, to change the risk calculus of going after them vs a faction that can strike back?)

[Kasimir he/him]

6 minutes ago, Orlok Tsubodai said:

I see the pain is still fresh...

My own views on it might not be known anymore, but given I plan to rerun it, for the record, I agree with Kas on the above 100%. They are the path of least resistance for each faction to propose lynching without causing inter-factional friction, which needs balancing, but which was the joke I was trying to make! (Spitballing, but possibly by giving them a kill each time they lose a player, to change the risk calculus of going after them vs a faction that can strike back?)

Quote

If there is any sort of 'medal of honour' I can confer, it would have to go to Orlok, simply because I felt he was the only player in this game who showed a very clear and sharp grasp of the strategic objectives and what was going on. (I apologise to those who died early; for obvious reasons, you have been by and large excluded from this list.) There were so many times I just wanted to buy him a beer or to tell people to pay more attention to him. Unfortunately, he spent a lot of time getting ignored.

-Kas, 2015

I do have thoughts on that and I'm aware you're intending to rerun MR7 at some point; I'm always down for it if you need/want a co-GM; either way, I return y'all to your daily scheduled grinch as you have, by my estimation, slightly under four hours left to reach a decision.

[Stick. she/her]

VC:

Bort(4): Orlok, Thaid, Mat, Stick
Orlok(2): Aman, Bort
Mat(1): TJ
TJ(1): Xino

@JNV you put both Bort and Orlok in your lowest tier of reads - wanna vote? We've got everyone's vote but yours and TUN's

[Mat he/him]

No

Bort

I don't like it

Aman

That's better

[Stick. she/her]

If Bort flips V I'm down to exe Aman next >:) 

 

edit:

I should probably explain why. Mat brought it up to me in PMs and I think it's a decent point that could potentially explain the enigma that is the Archer kill. We know that Archer was up for the exe right until the literal last two minutes of the exe. If we are to believe that Bort has lightening fast reflexes and was able to change the NK to Archer in the span of a minute, then we're golden. Except, that's a little crazy cuz I mean...hate to admit it but I was ready with a red, bolded, Orlok vote to post at 8:59 pm if the Striker exe didn't take off. And yes, I clicked 'Submit' but it just kept loading and then the Archer and Orlok votes loaded for me and I refreshed the page and found that the thread was locked and my post hadn't gone through (thankfully lol that would've been awkward) and TJ's post appeared. Point is, if I couldn't post one word in that one minute, it's possible Bort didn't submit the kill last minute. In which case, the kill could be explained if we consider the possibility of someone submitting the kill early on in the cycle and not being online for the rest of the turn. This can only really be Aman or TUN.

That said, I think there's enough points against Bort to justify this exe so I suppose my vote stays there today, but if Bort flips V my vote goes on Aman

Edited March 31, 2022 by _Stick_

[|TJ| he/him]

Mrghhhh, sigh. Why Aman? What's the case for him?

[Mat he/him]

4 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

Mrghhhh, sigh. Why Aman? What's the case for him?

Here's my case on him  (Some points helped by Stick)

• A healthy sum of gut, but reasoned gut due to the rest of the bullet points here.
• Aman's solving approach this game feels much more like Hyena to me than his last few games.
• I really don't like the way/amount he's pushing Bort and Orlok, or the way all of his opinions just kind of... manifested
• His progression on you, in our PM, is weird. First he seems fairly confident in v!you, but I make a little comment about how you deepwolfed during the LG (this comment concluded with a village read on you, which I do have) and that alone sent Aman into a paranoia spiral which I found unusual.
• The Archer kill could be explained if it was a quick submission at the beginning of the cycle, and not the end, and the elims simply weren't around as Archer picked up votes- this suggests a very limited pool of elims but Aman is definitely in that pool :P.
• Is the only player to first assume a 3 elim team, which could be a differing opinion or could be a slip :P. TUA/Aman as the remaining elims works with the previous point /shrug

I can list things and write them out all I want but at the end of the day it's a gut read, so decide what you want about that. I'm voting where I feel the best voting, but Bort isn't an exe I necessarily disagree with so much as see no reason to agree with it, if that makes sense.

[|TJ| he/him]

18 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I can list things and write them out all I want but at the end of the day it's a gut read, so decide what you want about that. I'm voting where I feel the best voting, but Bort isn't an exe I necessarily disagree with so much as see no reason to agree with it, if that makes sense.

sigh Matrim, I donno what to do anymore, unless y'all are willing to go Xino? Kinda wanna go Xino over Bort, but Bort over Orlok. 

Activity-wise TUA/Aman could be a thing, but we also have to consider the passivity of the players. For example, if Thaidakar (or JNV?) were evil, would they take the initiative of changing the elim kill if all other teammates were not present? 

Edited March 31, 2022 by |TJ|

[Stick. she/her]

What if everyone switched to TUN :eyes:

this is a joke

or is it?

[Mat he/him]

9 minutes ago, |TJ| said:

sigh Matrim, I donno what to do anymore, unless y'all are willing to go Xino? Kinda wanna go Xino over Bort, but Bort over Orlok. 

Activity-wise TUA/Aman could be a thing, but we also have to consider the passivity of the players. For example, if Thaidakar (or JNV?) were evil, would they take the initiative of changing the elim kill if all other teammates were not present? 

The activity point is the weakest, imo. For me xino is the next step if Aman flips elim because they’re kind of mirrored and backing each other up but I don’t want to go there first

[Stick. she/her]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

because they’re kind of mirrored and backing each other up

wait, where?

[Mat he/him]

1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

wait, where?

On mobile, will get back to you C4 if I’m still alive  In my head they’re linked as having similar reads and ideas but I guess that might not be as true as I think it is. You can see me citing this in one of my longer posts this cycle, briefly, I think. Idk lol

[Mat he/him]

inb4 Bort flips village and I’m the NK

[Stick. she/her]

inb4 thug bort

[Kasimir he/him]

And time.

You have chosen.

But have you chosen wisely? :eyes:

[Kasimir he/him]

Cycle Four: A Price For Light

The looming storm that Strikk had sensed broke loose on Helgen; cold rain sleeted down from leaden skies, alongside the rumble of thunder and the jarring flash of lightning, like the bright points of Aiel spears. 

At least it wasn’t snow, Wyden thought. Cold comfort, that.

Most of Helgen huddled miserably in their homes, or in the Tree. Rambler and Stieg sat talking at a table; Lin Mindrigurin had showed up and was drinking with Dagr and Kai. That surprised Wyden a little: Dagr seldom came to the Tree, and seldom drank, and he wondered what had changed the apothecary’s mind.

Locke sat at another table, working on one of his ledgers. Another stranger, Wyden knew. Clerked for some lord or other in Canluum, and then retired to Helgen, years before Wyden had come. Years enough that Locke wasn’t considered a stranger, not the way Wyden was. Not the way the soldier and the scholar; Edler and Gaeta were.

Kaim sat across from him, asking questions in a low voice. Thin smoke drifted upwards from a pipe left on the table. Wyden couldn’t make out their murmuring, and he frowned. Kaim had been sighted around Helgen, always asking questions. He supposed you could do worse than to set a former thief-taker on the trail of the Darkfriends, but…

But something about Kaim set his teeth on edge. Always had.

Wyden didn’t know. Maybe part of him would be this way; would forever be looking over his shoulder, ever since the Aes Sedai. (“One of the Shadow,” Edler had said, and Wyden had wanted to ask him how you knew, how you told, because she had the Great Serpent ring, and because he was terrified and didn’t know about Edler’s Aes Sedai, didn’t know if she, too, was of the Shadow, whatever Edler said about having executed Alain Stern.)

What did you believe when you couldn’t trust yourself any longer?

The door opened, and fog drifted in as Bortington the Blind stepped through the door, a group of mercenaries following him. Wyden wondered where in Helgen Bortington was putting his mercenaries up; they were an intimidating group, with horned helmets, shields, and swords and axes. Raiders, Wyden assessed, which made them little different from common bandits, but Helgen was not a village that needed defending from the depredations of bandits often enough.

Helgen was safe. Nothing happened in Helgen.

Nothing except the deaths, which had become so ordinary as to have become extraordinary, the fantastic, the grotesque at the corner of your eye that blurred into nothing when you tried to look at it directly, and Wyden didn’t understand why.

“Locke!” Bortington shouted.

There was a crash as one of the mercenaries smashed into the doorframe without bothering to check for clearance. Blasted horned helmets. Wyden added repairs—probably sanding down the nicks—to the lists of tasks that needed doing.

Always the next task. Always enough to drown a man in. And maybe if you did that, you didn’t have to look at yourself in the mirror. Didn’t have to ask yourself why you still drew breath, why you still kept living on.

“Bortington,” Locke acknowledged. “Brave of you to show your face here.”

Bortington laughed. “Bold of you, clerk. I hear you’ve been making accusations.” He stroked his extremely luxurious beard. “Prying, calling me a Darkfriend.”

“I do name you a Darkfriend.”

“Funny,” Bortington said. “That was what Buffy said, too. She was painting me a Darkfriend with her wild accusations. And here you are, doing the same thing.”

“Buffy walked in the Light.” This was Stieg, standing up at his table. A thumb on the keep-thong of his axe. All trace of the elder was gone; he was weathered, and old, but Wyden remembered that he had been a Whitecloak, had been a campaigner, had killed, and most importantly, had survived. The last man you wanted to fight was the one who went to battle, and fought, and walked away to tell the tale. “Creator shelter her now. Can we say the same of you, I wonder?”

“I doubt it,” Locke interjected. “He was suggesting ignoring the Darkfriends among us, until we had decided if we were going to scrawl the Dragon’s Fang on someone’s door.” Someone, Wyden thought sourly, that wasn’t him. “He had a poor defence against Buffy’s accusations, and I simply don’t see how his words aren’t those of someone who was trying to slander one of those who had found and stopped Alain Stern.” He nodded towards Stieg and Rambler.

“Know what,” Rambler spat. “Think you’re suspicious, Locke. Man has a point. Doesn’t mean Bortington is of the Shadow.”

“Rambler,” Stieg said, urgently. “This isn’t the time—”

“When then?” Rambler demanded. “When Bortington is cold in the ground? Man ain’t of the Shadow. I don’t feel it. Locke’s words are slippery. Don’t trust him.” He glared daggers at Locke, who met his gaze unflinchingly. “Locke’s suspicious. Don’t like this one bit.”

“To be fair,” said a new voice, “I don’t think Rambler’s wrong.” Lin Mindrigurin had extracted himself from the conversation with Dagr and Kai, and sauntered over to join the others. Cat Crosses The Courtyard, thought Wyden. A choice that exuded raw confidence, particularly given the mercenaries that Bortington had brought along. “Locke does have a history, for those of us who remember it. Perhaps he has not had truck with the Shadow, but he veers dangerously close to it.”

“We all have a history, Lin Mindrigurin,” someone said, softly. Kaim stood up, and picked up his pipe. His gaze flicked calmly from Lin to Locke, and then back to Lin again. In his free hand, he held that scratched ash quarterstaff. “Perhaps you don’t remember, but I do. The Wheel spins us out time and again. The same old dance, with different partners. Different faces. I remember when you were a king, Wyden, and when you betrayed one you named brother.”

Wyden blinked.

“I remember, Bortington, when you named yourself a son of mine. When you were discovered by accident—first a vial of poison, and then an unlucky background check.”

Bortington snorted, and shook his head. “Stories,” he said.

“I remember, Lin Mindrigurin, whom others mistake for al’Lan Mandragoran, uncrowned king of lost Malkier. I remember the man who stood in the centre of a storm of death, all others falling before him. I remember the man who uncovered a mass of lies told by a polar bear.”

Lin Mindrigurin said nothing, merely smiled, and inclined his head ever so slightly.

“I remember, Locke Tekiel. We knew each other once. Sometimes under different names. You entrusted me with a secret, and indeed, had unmasked the treachery of Wilson. I knew you in other guises: when you twice-survived and damned a city ancient and wise, and again when you carried within you the power of a god, and when we worked together to seek salvation for a damned village, and then again to betray and murder them. I suppose that is what Lin refers to, but we are all of our days, all of our histories, and not just a single page from that book of days.”

Locke said, “This is madness. I know of no Tekiel.”

“The Wheel turns, and we are spun out again and again into the Pattern,” Kaim said. “In the end, we are all just stories. What will you make of yourself?”

He strode to the door, where Bortington stood, with his mercenaries clustered behind him. “This is an inn. Not a battleground. Will you go, or be made to?”

Madness, Wyden thought. Madness. One man alone.

But somehow, miraculously, or perhaps it was the confidence that Kaim exuded, perhaps it was the fact that Stieg’s thumb was still on the keep-thong of his axe, and Lin Mindrigurin had a swordsman’s stance, and Rambler himself was armed, and Kai was not defenceless; perhaps it was the fog stealing in through the open door, swirling about their legs, seeming to cloak Kaim in dense grey—something changed in the world.

“This isn’t over,” Bortington stated.

His mercenaries were filing out through the door.

“I believe,” Kaim said, “You’ll find that by tonight, it is.”

 

 

We all have a history, Kaim had said, confidently. As though a man might know the lives he’d lived; lives long gone, from different turnings of the Wheel, different weavings of the Pattern. 

No, Wyden thought. It wasn’t just confidence: Kaim had just said it. The way you said the sky was blue, or water wet. As though he was stating a fact about the world, something indisputable and unquestionable.

Industriously, he scrubbed at the mead stains on his tables.

Maybe it seemed like futility: one of his regulars would just have a spill on the next day, and so on, but sometimes you still had to do things anyway, because it was right, or because it was necessary, because it kept the Wheel turning, on and on, incrementally, and because being temporally undone didn’t make it any less worth doing.

And there was something satisfying about keeping the Tree neat and clean, as though by doing so, he was restoring something in the world, one broken thing keeping another functional, even as the ravages of wear and time wore the inn down here and there.

The guilt never really went away. Wyden knew that. Guilt at surviving, guilt at living on. Guilt at having broken. He scrubbed roughly at the stains because it kept him from scratching at his scars, kept him from focusing on the itching sharp phantom pains of thorns.

Memories could hurt you. Memories could break you. Memories were trellises of thorns, digging their hooks deep into your soul.

Or whatever passed for it.

Had he lost his? Wyden didn’t know. Maybe it was why he felt so numb, so empty. Maybe you lost your soul when you surrendered to the Shadow, when you hit the point that you would do anything, anything, that raw animal part of you willing to play dead or chew off your own leg to escape the Shadow’s trap.

It takes a strong man, Kaim had said. To hold out under that sort of torture. Don’t you agree?

Wyden didn’t agree. He never had.

Head bowed, he bent over the table and scrubbed at the stains. Sometimes you just did the work, even if your heart wasn’t in it. Even if you weren’t sure you had one anymore.

“Light watch over you, Wyden,” Stieg called out, as he walked out of the Tree. That made him the last one, which meant that Wyden could at least lock up. He’d thought of chasing Stieg out earlier, but hadn’t the heart to, not after the work the old campaigner was doing in hunting down the Darkfriends.

Wyden blinked and mumbled something back—what, he wasn’t quite sure.

The door swung closed, strangely loud in the quiet of the night.

 

 

Edler kept his sword loose in the scabbard, ready to draw. He scowled, though all he could sense from Gaeta through the bond was rapt concentration. “No sign,” he muttered aloud, and knew at the same time that his unease and tension were leaking over to Gaeta.

“There’s plenty of signs,” Gaeta murmured, amused. Being Aes Sedai, Edler had long since discovered, seemed to give a woman a disturbing lack of regard for safety. Or perhaps the Greens were more sensible. Edler wasn’t sure; he only knew that Gaeta was especially disinterested, for a White.

“Consider,” continued Gaeta. “Someone wove the Embrace of Pain and used it to kill Gamen. And there was the dry drowning of the village cobbler that the innkeeper was speaking about. I don’t think the woodsman was a male channeller—we can’t rule out that possibility, of course, that another male channeller exists in Helgen, especially after the wilder that the former Whitecloak supposedly murdered in a fit of vigilante justice, so who did it? Surely not the wilder. And the Embrace is a proscribed weave, and I saw the residue. We have at least one female channeller in this village.” She shook her head. “When we were looking for unexplained deaths, I did not expect to be drawn into a puzzle of this magnitude.”

“Unexplained deaths which could easily expand to include an Aes Sedai and her Warder,” Edler muttered.

“Edler, you worry too much.”

“And you worry too little.”

“Mm. I’ll agree. But then both of us do what we are best suited for.”

Which was another way of saying that worrying about her safety was his problem. Edler blew out a long breath in a loud sigh. Yes, but his problem would become significantly smaller and lighter if only Gaeta would take more care.

“And the mercenaries,” said Gaeta.

“What about them?”

“Where did they come from? Why haven’t they been remarked on? Why haven’t any of the residents of Helgen remarked on or found the deaths extraordinary?”

This was the problem with Whites, Edler reflected. The entire Shadowspawned mess that Helgen was in, boiled down to a neat puzzle that Gaeta was hellbent on cracking. Even if it made him proud, in his secret heart, to be fighting the Shadow. He supposed it was entirely fair to be torn two ways.

She paused on the open path. “Ah-ha.”

“What?”

“Residue,” Gaeta breathed. “Someone’s been using saidar to create Gateways.”

“The mercenaries?”

She glanced at what seemed to be empty air with narrowed eyes. “Most likely. But this brings us back to a local Dreadlord.”

Which at least wasn’t the innkeeper, Edler reflected. Broken eyes, for all he still walked like a swordsman. It hadn’t been much of a contest, that day, until the end. But there was something about him, the way he handled the sword…

A thin vertical line of light opened.

“‘Ware!” Edler cried out, and leaped forward, shoving Gaeta back behind him. He drew his sword in a single smooth movement, and the first mercenary to charge through the Gateway fell to Whirlwind on the Mountain, which deflected his axe stroke, and buried itself in his torso.

He recovered to guard with Cutting the Clouds, which kept the next mercenary at bay, and then flowed into Low Wind Rising which cut deep into the mercenary’s side.

“The Dreadlord is here!” Gaeta cried out, and for a powerful moment, Edler felt an irrational fear; his heart hammering in his mouth, as he thought she might do something absolutely Lightblinded foolish like go haring off after the Dreadlord.

Instead, she said, “Can you hold them off?”

Yes, Edler wanted to say. But more mercenaries poured out of the Gateway, and Edler had always been a realist. A man did not fight ten without taking injury. Not even in the stories.

“Your plan?”

“Trust me,” Gaeta said.

Always, he thought.

He danced the forms. 

His world narrowed to the dance, to slashes of blood and pain.

Eel Among the Lily Pads took a mercenary’s hand, and one of them drew a hot line of pain along his ribs. Twisting the Wind fended two of them off, but he felt the sharp, hot pain of an axe grazing his thigh.

“Bloody ashes,” Edler ground out. He tested the leg; he could still stand and fight, and that was enough. Gaeta needed him to hold, and so he had to. He hoped to the Light the blood loss wasn’t significant; Parting the Silk opened the mercenary’s throat, and Edler held.

Falling Embers met a mercenary’s sword, and reversing into Apple Blossoms In The Wind forced three of them back, rather then allowing them to group up on him.

Trust me, Gaeta had said.

Always, Edler thought, outnumbered, desperate, because he would have given his good sword arm, and his life before he failed her.

Rain In High Wind. Bundling Straw. Reaping Barley forced a mercenary back. 

He was giving ground, but he could not help it. Staying put meant they could surround him and drag him down with the weight of their numbers.

“Edler!” Gaeta called out, sharply. He felt it through the bond: the moment concentration gave way to impatience and anticipation, spiking in a wordless combination of emotions that he knew meant he had to move now.

Edler broke from the fight and ran.

The earth itself trembled.

He ran.

He did not look back. 

He ran to safety. He ran to Gaeta, who stood on the stone path.

Her hand grasped his, and she yanked, tugging him to safety.

Blood dripped from his unsheathed sword, from wounds Edler didn’t even remember receiving.

The hard ground roared as it tore open, swallowed the mercenaries, swallowed Bortington the Blind, buried them deep in the cold, uncaring earth.

 

 

Stieg was walking home, in the night.

He kept a hand to the keep-thong of his axe, and glanced about him warily. Unthinkable, once, for a man to go armed in Helgen. But there were the Darkfriends about, and he hadn’t liked the look of Bortington’s mercenaries.

He wasn’t sure who he trusted, these days. Rambler, maybe. And Daian—a Lightblinded fool, but an honest one. Maybe not Rambler. Hadn’t Rambler defended Bortington?

A hand clamped over his mouth in the same instant a knife plunged itself into the base of his spine.

Stieg died without seeing his killer.

Difficult to see your own hand in front of you, in the fog that ambled through the streets of Helgen, blurring corners, washing the world in soft impenetrable grey.

Sometimes, this happens. Sometimes, an old campaigner dies ingloriously in the streets. Sometimes it is a footpad. Sometimes, there is a pattern, or the work of the Shadow.

Sometimes there are duels. And sometimes, even the survivors of multiple battles, innumerable fights, can be easily ambushed and killed when they let their guard down.

In the end, we all fall. 

 

 

The sunrise was spectacular; garnet and fire, bloodshine through pale grey clouds. Glancing out through the window, Wyden blinked and slowly let himself drink in the wonder of that sight.

Morning came. 

Morning always comes. There are always losses in the night; a price to be paid for light.

 

 

Bort/Bortington the Blind was executed! He was a Darkfriend!

_Stick_/Stieg was killed! She was a Village Elder!

Quote

Bort (3): Thaid, Stick, Orlok
Orlok (2): Aman, Bort
Aman (1): Mat
TJ (1): xino
xino (1): TJ

The cycle has begun, and will end on 3rd 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!

Edited April 1, 2022 by Kasimir
write-up now exists