Long Game 96: KKC in the Modern Age

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 303 words]

lxxxvi. blot

The ink pooled at the edge of the nib and then a fat blob of iron gall ink hit the paper and began spreading across the page, feathering at the edges. Kevan cursed, but he wasn’t fast enough with the blotting paper to save his notes. Already, the spreading smudge of ink was staining his fingers and was obscuring part of the words he’d written on the page.

Futilely, he wafted the notes in the air, wishing he could make them dry faster and then salvage what could be salvaged. Good paper was hard to get in Imre on a student’s budget, and Kevan liked to save where he could. Was aware that he didn’t have the deep pockets some of the students at the University seemed to have.

He’d been writing notes on Dayvid Hahn’s Treatise Concerning Human Understanding, and working through Hahn’s language was a puzzle in and of itself. It wasn’t that Hahn wasn’t writing clearly, but he used some form of dialect of Eld Vintic that wasn’t so much Eld as an intermediary between some form of Eld Vintic and the more contemporary forms of it spoken in certain quarters of Vintas that still, like his grandmother, like pockets of Yll, tried to hold on to a piece of their past, before empire.

Kevan supposed there was something peaceful, sitting in his room, reading into the night, scrawling notes onto paper as he read. Hahn had, he thought, an interesting view on motivation, on natural laws. Reason, Hahn claimed, was only ever the servant of the passions and could pretend to no higher office than to serve them. Heady, thought-provoking, even controversial stuff, if you really thought about it.

At least he hadn’t gotten stains on his copy of the Treatise. He’d never have forgiven himself, if he had.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Kasimir

[Wonko the Sane he/him]

1 hour ago, |TJ| said:

Come to Imre, I'll give you the Bloodless :P. 

Or just give it to a consensus villager like TKN or Mat. Why are you delaying a cycle and trying to lure an active villager out to Imre?

Can somebody who takes better notes than me either post or PM me a full set of the scans so far? If you don’t, it’s fine, I’ll just dig through and find them in the morning; I just want to confirm the full deductive logic here.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 251 words]

31 minutes ago, Wonko the Sane said:

Can somebody who takes better notes than me either post or PM me a full set of the scans so far? If you don’t, it’s fine, I’ll just dig through and find them in the morning; I just want to confirm the full deductive logic here.

As the resident Rhetoric and Logic El'the, I feel I have been summoned  My time has come! For once!

Sure:

Done During T2M2:

• Archer (4): Drake, Wonko, TJ, Kas -> SD detected [T1M3] 
• Archer (3): Drake, Drake, TKN -> No SD detected [T1M2]

Done During T2M3:

• None; Archer recalled.

Done During T3M1:

• Sart (1): Archer -> No SD detected [T2M3]
• Steel (1): Kas -> SD detected [T1M2]
• TKN (2): Ash, STINK -> SD detected [T2M2]

Done During T3M2:

• STINK's rainbow write-up message -> No SD detected [T3M1]
• Archer's Soothed vote on Ash -> SD detected [T3M2]
• Kas (0): Sart, TKN -> No SD detected [T1M3]

Translating this into collective sets:

Quote

(S1) One SD within: <Wonko, TJ, Kas> (we can exclude Archer and Drake from the Archer (3) scan.)

(S2) One SD within <Kas, Steel>

(S3) One SD within <Ash, STINK> (we can exclude TKN from the Archer (3) scan.)

We were working with this last cycle. But the new set of scans entail:

Kas (0) means that (S2) entails:

E!Steel.

STINK's rainbow scan and Archer's Soothed vote on Ash, combined with Archer (3), Kas (0), Sart (2) and (S3) jointly entail:

E!Ash.

[Note: For those who can't see it, the Soothed vote gives the result of whether there's an SD in <Kas, Archer, Ash.> Same deal for the Soothe on me on T1M2 which Archer also scanned.]

I'll also note that Kas (0) entails:

(S1) can now be refined to one SD within <Wonko, TJ.> 

Commenting outside to note that this is why I feel the only escape routes are E!Wonko (absurd IMO even if logically possible), or E!Archer. If Ash and TJ want to protest their innocence, then they are more or less committed to E!Archer. This is also why I strongly believe TJ's play is anti-Village - because quite honestly, he could just sell his gram on the black market. Put a high price so he doesn't have to worry about an Elim getting it, or legit tell the Village he has a gram to pass. Instead, he keeps quiet when V!him should not be content to lobby me - V!him should be actively trying to engineer his flip because the very moment he flips red, all of us would go ham on Archer. The fact he isn't doing that doesn't speak well for him.

Further note here that my citations with links aren't the cycle in which these things occurred, but are a direct reference to the write-up which Archer was referencing.

Edited to add:

We can also state that formally-speaking, all Archer's scans demonstrate in the event of a hit is that at least one SD exists in the given set. But since the other scans preclude the possibility of multiple SDs except in an E!Wonko and E!TJ world, I'm happy to be less precise with my language. I don't feel very much hinges on this here.

lxxxviii. pen cleaning

Kevan immersed one pen in water and then the next. You had to clean it out with wood alcohol eventually—not fit for drinking, everyone knew this—but that was the next step, not the first. He watched as tendrils of blue-black iron gall ink unfurled in the water; thin at first, and then thickening. The water ran with small fuzzy wisps of blue, like jellyfish tentacles, until the entire water darkened and became a solid blue-black throughout.

Easier to clean reed pens, in a way. They weren’t meant to have much of an internal reservoir. Master Rhys had entertained the notion of a pen with an internal reservoir for longer than Kevan’d been a student, saying it would be so much more convenient than constantly dipping the pen into a bottle of ink or having to resharpen a quill or reed pen. But as far as Kevan knew, the Fishery hadn’t really made progress on that front yet.

He’d toyed with the idea of some small sac in the pen, allowing it to contain ink. In theory, you could have the ink drawn downwards through capillary action. But you had to have some means of ensuring the flow was consistent, for one. And in the end, Kevan hadn’t been much of an artificer. He’d seen prototypes, though. A Re’lar was working on such a pen, a small quiet project. He wondered what had become of that Re’lar. Wondered if Soren knew anything about him.

All this while, ink ran into the water.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Pretty sure he got the Turn wrong. I am aware this checks out because the plan last Turn was for Archer to scan the vote manip on you from T3M1 - that's the whole point of Archer voting you last minute while everyone else voted Szeth, telling everyone it was for mech reasons, and then my Soothing Archer, hence that vote vanishing. I clarified with the GMs both that a Soothe could be scanned and the expected results of doing so.

In other words, for this to be incorrect, Archer would have to be Evil. It's pretty much bifurcated into E!you or E!Archer at this juncture.

The fact that TJ is implicated in a clear lie further implies he's Evil, which supports V!Archer.

Ah. That makes… more sense, I guess.

E!Archer is the obvious conclusion from my perspective. I think E!TJ is true, which is weird, but honestly… well, hmmm.

With E!me V!Archer, Fae Lore would shut down a lot of what I could do. V!me E!Archer, though, Fae Lore won’t do anything to me, and while Alchemy isn’t the best at killing one specific player, it could do a pretty good job of things between Plum Bobs and Bone Tar. Trick is if E!Archer’s been using all his scan time using Banned Books instead. That could be a nightmare. But E!Archer may have basically won already anyway.

I’ll have to look at it more tomorrow, I need to get some sleep.

(Also I never responded about the other PM thing and… that makes more sense. And ouch. Man I do not understand this ruleset.)

[Araris Valerian he/him]

@Kasimir, I started with 8 in Arithmetics (and hence was surprised I didn’t elevate T1M1)

[|TJ| he/him]

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

@Kasimir, I started with 8 in Arithmetics (and hence was surprised I didn’t elevate T1M1)

yeah I had 2 and I got elevated xD 

5 hours ago, Wonko the Sane said:

Or just give it to a consensus villager like TKN or Mat. Why are you delaying a cycle and trying to lure an active villager out to Imre?

The luring part was a joke smh, and they maybe consensus village to you, but as someone who knows scans are wrong, I'm not trusting them at all. 

5 hours ago, Kasimir said:

This is also why I strongly believe TJ's play is anti-Village - because quite honestly, he could just sell his gram on the black market. Put a high price so he doesn't have to worry about an Elim getting it,

Bro, I didn't even know we could sell items at the market ;-;

I'm very lethargic with rules when I'm village, as you've experienced with multiple slip-ups in the past. And I'm as vigilante about rules as an elim as I am lethargic with them when I'm village. 

[Archer he/him]

Re: scan

It was this one, in the T3M2 writeup 

Quote

Ashbringer (0) - Archer

 

I will say that there's always the out of 'naming breaks the rules' and a name could have disguised themselves from the scan, but if someone disguised themselves for a single round, I feel like odds are good I would have caught some inconsistencies in the overlap I've been doing 

1 hour ago, Araris Valerian said:

@Kasimir, I started with 8 in Arithmetics (and hence was surprised I didn’t elevate T1M1)

Must have been some essay! I hope the aftermath provides the pre game submissions 

Stink, did your vote count towards gaining EP? The downside of us not voting is there's a talent penalty for it, and I wonder if trying to vote a master does anything

Ash Ash

[Araris Valerian he/him]

16 minutes ago, Archer said:

Must have been some essay!

It was the extended abstract for my oral preliminary exam in grad school, so yeah .

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 618 words, DISCUSSION, 920 words]

5 hours ago, |TJ| said:

The luring part was a joke smh, and they maybe consensus village to you, but as someone who knows scans are wrong, I'm not trusting them at all. 

See, this right here just reeks of an Elim trying to sow FUD.

Why the hell shouldn't the scan be correct? TKN did not know that Archer could scan the Horns event. In fact, TKN was insisting that Archer scan an anonymous message he would post via Wind. In an E!Archer world, this would still have to be correct because there's no reason for E!Archer to bus E!TKN for Village cred in a flipless game when he could just hold the lynch off TKN and get an extra teammate who could become Master Namer.

5 hours ago, |TJ| said:

I'm very lethargic with rules when I'm village, as you've experienced with multiple slip-ups in the past. And I'm as vigilante about rules as an elim as I am lethargic with them when I'm village. 

I'm sorry, but I am no longer really convinced. You keep playing for secrecy instead of openly and trying to help your team. At this point, I think the main reasonable explanation is that you are not a Villager. It would have taken absolutely zero effort to PM anyone, including me, your supposed Village read, to notify you had a gram to offload prior to dying. You had at least half a cycle in which to do so. You did not. After that, having been lynched and being someone no Elim would ever seek to kill again because in an E!Archer world, you flipping V would damn him, you continue to play to secrecy instead of demonstrating a willingness to cooperate with the Village. You aren't remotely interested in working to flip yourself, and I'd argue the main reason why is that you ain't gonna flip Village.

At every step of the way, you show priorities that aren't Village. I continue to believe V!you demonstrates better, more pro-Village play that this, including in LG94 and LG95.

4 hours ago, Archer said:

I will say that there's always the out of 'naming breaks the rules' and a name could have disguised themselves from the scan, but if someone disguised themselves for a single round, I feel like odds are good I would have caught some inconsistencies in the overlap I've been doing 

The real question is, can Wind do that? Because I asked Wilson and got an 'ehhhhhh' answer from her. The rule of thumb I was given is that if there's a flavour way this would work and it's within the scope of a single Name, it's fine. But it's not clear to me Wind interacts with Events that way. (The clarification I got was that Wind interacts with People and Items.) Does feel like a 50-50 thing.

And even then: who's the Namer? The one elevation a Turn rule locks out a lot of players: we know the Naming elevations went JNV - Wonko - Wonko - TKN which means anyone within that cycle demonstrably did not get Naming. TKN was locked to one Name at a time, meaning that he couldn't both post an anonymous message and obscure the result at the same time ( @Wonko the Sane? ) - I didn't tell anyone but you about the Horns scan, so TKN would not have known that you weren't going to target his message. So where does the extra Namer come from?

It's arguable that subsequent elevations were from players who later became Namers, but again:

• You don't need Naming, you can just lie about the results straightforwardly. (I am too tired to model your elevation but arguably if you went Naming, it should not be this fast, I think.)
• I demonstrably have R&L 3 and R&L 1. I cannot have Naming 2 as my elevation to Re'lar was during a Turn where Wonko elevated in Naming, precluding me from having it.
• Ash's elevation speed also demonstrates that he did enjoy the +5 from committing entirely to Alchemy.
• Sart's first elevation and second elevation came when Naming was demonstrably occupied, i.e. when JNV elevated, and then when TKN elevated. His willingness to be unelevatable and to be roleblocked for an entire Term in my view makes him pretty solidly Village one way or another.
• STINK demonstrably has Linguistics 2 and Linguistics 3. If we really desire STINK to hard-prove Linguistics 3, this can be done. Also the timing of his elevation. Given the timing of STINK's first elevation, it demonstrably cannot be Naming either as JNV claimed Naming.
• Drake did not elevate in Arithmetics D1 despite 8 EP in it. Neither did Araris. This is indicative that TJ's first elevation indeed was in Arithmetics. TJ's second and third elevation was when Wonko and TKN elevated in Naming, therefore also cannot be in Naming. I'll note TJ himself claims to have a double Artificery elevation, and so for TJ himself to be a Namer doesn't really make sense here.

In short, all the spaces for Namers largely are during cycles we already have one way or another to account for the elevations. The last place is Szeth, but as Szeth flipped Village, I am not remotely interested in discussing Szeth. The fact TKN knew nothing about the Horns scan and would've needed to both send an anonymous message (as he was obsessed with doing) and hide the results is a decent prima facie suggestion, I think, that his scan is probably reliable. If we can trust V!TKN, then the rest of it makes sense. The fact the Elims hit the two known Village Namers is pretty helpful here because it insures that we can trust their claims straighforwardly.

There's very little mech space for this outlet, is what I'm saying.

8 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

With E!me V!Archer, Fae Lore would shut down a lot of what I could do. V!me E!Archer, though, Fae Lore won’t do anything to me, and while Alchemy isn’t the best at killing one specific player, it could do a pretty good job of things between Plum Bobs and Bone Tar. Trick is if E!Archer’s been using all his scan time using Banned Books instead. That could be a nightmare. But E!Archer may have basically won already anyway.

That's the real trick - Fae Lore won't do anything to you, so why would E!Archer suggest using a skill on you he knows won't do anything?

The other question is why E!Archer uses his scan time on Banned Books instead of, you know, sending in a sabotage.

Edited to add:

Shared without further comment.

Quote

Learning a new ability takes 2 action periods. This can be spread out over the entire term (2 turns) or half a term (1 turn). If you use 2 action periods on the same turn, you will lose all other actions, including PMs and complaints, since you’re spending all your time studying in the Stacks. You have a (+10%) chance of getting caught the first time you research. There is a (+10%) every time you research thereafter. If you use it for 2 action periods on the same turn, there is a (+20%) chance of getting caught. If you are caught, you will be brought up on Conduct Unbecoming and receive lashes as your punishment (which cannot be countered with nahlrout).

4 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

It was the extended abstract for my oral preliminary exam in grad school, so yeah .

Same  But not prelims, just a bunch of papers from graduate logic modules I did. If that's implying I started with 8 EP in R&L, yeah I did.

lxxxix. willow

“I find you here a lot,” a familiar voice remarked.

Kevan thought that even if he had been sleepwalking, drunk, dreaming, waking, he would’ve recognised the speaker immediately. He was intimately familiar with that voice, that spark of curiosity, that hint of a Modegan accent, diluted now after more than two years. The way Soren always spoke as though he was interested in you, in what was going on in your head. An Artificery student to the core, he thought. He supposed he’d learned to suppress his own Yllish lilt over time, though it inevitably got stronger around other Yllish, like Eithne.

He drew his knees up to his chest, said nothing for a while. Listened to the sound of the mighty Omethi river, flowing on past the Stonebridge, past the University, past Imre, all the way to the sea.

“I like it here,” he said, at last. “It’s…soothing.”

“It’s an old willow,” Soren leaned back against the bole of the tree and looked down at him. “Venerable, even.”

They both were drawn to different things, Kevan supposed. He was drawn to the roar of the Omethi, the eddies and whorls of the current. Soren was drawn to the willow, to its age and grace, to the way it bent before the wind. He could go on and on about the tree, and the history and the properties of the willow, and just as he would probably not get sick of lecturing on the willow, Kevan figured you had to be a harder man than him in order to not enjoy listening to Soren go on with enthusiasm about something he cared so very much for.

And somehow, they met in the middle of all that difference. They were still friends. He felt a strange tightness in his chest, an ache, at the thought. Dismissed it. 

You could be so lucky in your friends, he thought. You could only be so lucky.

“Jot for your thoughts,” Soren said, settling down on the grass next to him. There was a comfortable warmth to his presence. Sometimes, Soren was a bit too close, too willing to touch you, too willing to draw you in. It was a Modegan thing, he’d explained without a trace of self-consciousness, and something he’d learned to tone down in the Commonwealth. Sometimes, he forgot, though. 

Privately, Kevan thought it wasn’t really that. It was that Soren thrived on the contact and the touch. 

“Not too much on my mind,” he said, with a faint smile. “It’s near Admissions, Soren. It’s everyone’s favourite time of the term.”

Soren groaned. “Admissions can go to the Chandrian,” he complained. “There’s even rumours that Issal is a skindancer now. Tehlu only knows what that’s going to do to everyone’s Admission interviews.”

Kevan stared out at the river. Skindancers, he thought. And in the midst of all of that, life still went on. He had a research project that was faltering. Swapping specialisations did that to you, after all, even though he liked the new one better. He still had nightmares, sometimes, about that child. About the life he’d failed to save. Admissions loomed.

And there was Soren.

He swallowed, tightly. Whatever the kraem was wrong with him, really. 

Funny how you could be having a complete state of panic about your friends and your research project and Admissions, even as the University was supposedly under attack by skindancers. Kevan supposed that was the point, though. You didn’t always notice the big events; only where they touched your life. Sometimes, living took enough of your effort, your energy. Hanging in there. Swimming against the tide, even when it threatened to wash you out to sea.

Maybe that was good enough.

Edited to add 2: Wilson has categorically ruled that to mess with a Fae Omens scan, you would need a Name like Holly or Iron or something. Wind would not cut it. TKN elevated in the same Turn we expelled him, which was also the same Turn Archer scanned him. He would only have the Name of the Wind. It's categorically impossible for TKN to have hidden from that scan, meaning in either world, it's V!TKN.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer he/him]

8 hours ago, Kasimir said:

That's the real trick - Fae Lore won't do anything to you, so why would E!Archer suggest using a skill on you he knows won't do anything?

The other question is why E!Archer uses his scan time on Banned Books instead of, you know, sending in a sabotage.

Because he has to?

Archer's committed to E!me now. Archer also now has the ability to roleblock any Skindancer with Fae Lore. I don't see any world where V!Archer, knowing E!me, would make the decision to not spam me with Fae Lore. I don't think you do either. Archer would know that.

 

For the sabotage... you're right. It doesn't make sense. But I think I have a theory.

Archer probably doesn't have a living, non-expelled teammate, if only because essentially anyone as a living teammate could have won already without going through all this. That means TJ and probably one more other Elim somewhere between Steel, Araris, Mat, TKN. My guess would be one of the first two, almost definitely not TKN.

I don't know when or where Archer (and I assume you) hatched the Vote Scan Plan. But it was early. From that moment on, Archer has to keep up appearances, at least with voting - but he doesn't need to put in the actions. With multiple Archive Action periods, not much else to do besides learn other players' Elevations (which got found or claimed pretty quickly) and after that, trying to learn the Name of the Wind via Banned Books wouldn't be too outlandish, or some other useful field like Physicking if that doesn't work (not sure if the ban on Naming is specifically if you're already studied in it, and thus should learn Names by Naming, or just a blanket ban). Or, just keep the actions alone and not risk getting caught until Mastery. 

As to why no sabotage... I think the one on T2M2 had to be a fluke, where the Elims just didn't put in a kill on accident or as some weird experiment. But, it was a productive fluke. TKN was found to be roleblocked, and the village lined up to expel him in quick fashion.

That's where the plan could start. Archer would need to give you something to gain some trust, which would be a solo "red scan" on TJ. Perhaps TJ plays his part a little off to cover for being a bus. Then, you and Sart start firing off roleblocks while Archer keeps up the scan web, and wouldn't you know it, no kill went through. But once that starts, Archer can't really stop it, especially if you've been keeping up Op Sec. It would be quite awkward if Archer were to come up with an E!Stink E!Ash team the same time he sabotaged Wonko, only for both Stink and Ash to have been roleblocked while the sabotage went through.

 

So, I guess a question - who did you tell you were roleblocking me? No one? Just Sart? Sart and Archer? Or was it Archer's idea from the start?

 

Also, this is just a separate thing - Bone-Tar. Yeah, they're scary. They're not an unrestricted mass kill the second you let your guard down. I need to craft them ahead of time, making them is a risk to me because of the insanity penalty, they only have a 50% chance of killing any one player as opposed to an Assassin, and I can only use them to kill people en masse if you all group together in the same lodging. There's 4 non-expelled players outside of Archer and I and there's 6 different beneficial lodgings, if you're that worried about me using Bone-Tar just... spread out a bit.

[Archer he/him]

If you assume e!me with expelled teammates, we can't get the destruction of fields wincon. So we have to go for the expel everyone else wincon. 

E!me needs to kill someone eventually if the village refuses to vote anyone off. I can only cast a last minute vote to break a no votes impasse once before I draw unwanted attention. 

So I'm stuck doing NKs eventually. With me continually RBing you, I don't think it's possible for NKs to occur (without you getting an assist from say TJ buying an uncool item that blocks me blocking you, but that'll be obvious because it'll disappear from the auction list). So I'm comfortable saying if an NK occurs without an obvious mechanism for me having been blocked, y'all are welcome to exe me. If Ash is able to take actions with me blocking him, same offer. V!me is happy to sit at an impasse until it is resolved by assassination of Ash, once funds are secured. 

Edit: if anyone wants elevation in Archives, I'll approve it, and you can check my scans yourself

Edited August 13, 2023 by Archer

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 1118 words]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Because he has to?

Yes, but then why say he scanned you as Evil? Why not say he scanned STINK? The moment he says he scans either of you Evil, he's committed to antagonising you, because V!you would know he's got to be Evil. STINK is a much easier candidate to ML than you given the bone tar problem.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Archer probably doesn't have a living, non-expelled teammate, if only because essentially anyone as a living teammate could have won already without going through all this. That means TJ and probably one more other Elim somewhere between Steel, Araris, Mat, TKN. My guess would be one of the first two, almost definitely not TKN.

Keep in mind Archer willingly offered TJ, Steel, and TKN up for lynching. You are therefore directly postulating Archer pulled off a fake Seeker play and chose to offer up one or more of his teammates, despite the teammate having a gram and being functionally unflippable. What is the rationale for this move? Winning with E!TJ-with-gram was entirely possible: literally just claim the scanned train was clean. Choosing to offer/sacrifice E!TJ was an unforced error.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

but he doesn't need to put in the actions. With multiple Archive Action periods, not much else to do besides learn other players' Elevations (which got found or claimed pretty quickly) and after that, trying to learn the Name of the Wind via Banned Books wouldn't be too outlandish, or some other useful field like Physicking if that doesn't work (not sure if the ban on Naming is specifically if you're already studied in it, and thus should learn Names by Naming, or just a blanket ban). Or, just keep the actions alone and not risk getting caught until Mastery. 

So why not put in free sabotages, since his actions are accounted for, and he'd never be roleblocked? You're essentially postulating he has to keep up appearances in a game where there's no way of scanning his actions anyway. Let's be real - no one is going to roleblock a Seeker claimant without pretty damn good reason to think the Seeker claimant is Evil. You yourself agree that you think he has to go for outnumbering - deliberate kill withdrawal doesn't get there.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

That's where the plan could start. Archer would need to give you something to gain some trust, which would be a solo "red scan" on TJ. Perhaps TJ plays his part a little off to cover for being a bus. Then, you and Sart start firing off roleblocks while Archer keeps up the scan web, and wouldn't you know it, no kill went through. But once that starts, Archer can't really stop it, especially if you've been keeping up Op Sec. It would be quite awkward if Archer were to come up with an E!Stink E!Ash team the same time he sabotaged Wonko, only for both Stink and Ash to have been roleblocked while the sabotage went through.

So...has the solo red scan on TJ earned him trust, given TJ has: A. not flipped red, and E!Archer would know and actively seek to prevent a red flip, and B. a sabotage-less game has meant Archer has had to commit to offering full scans of individual players rather than ambiguity?

Your fundamental contention is that it's a trust play. Indeed, he nearly got exed for it last Turn.

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

So, I guess a question - who did you tell you were roleblocking me? No one? Just Sart? Sart and Archer? Or was it Archer's idea from the start?

Sart chose to roleblock you himself that cycle without saying it, last cycle I said I'd be roleblocking you with nahlrout, so it's pretty clear you could've just put in a kill anyway. Nahlrout only blocks one random action.

By the way, it's awfully convenient that a kill happened in Imre on the one cycle you wanted to prove you could not send in a kill. Again, the fact I communicated I'd be using nahlrout meant a de facto kill could've been put in on an actual win con-contributory player without issues.

53 minutes ago, Archer said:

With me continually RBing you, I don't think it's possible for NKs to occur (without you getting an assist from say TJ buying an uncool item that blocks me blocking you, but that'll be obvious because it'll disappear from the auction list).

I can say from experience you can buy a Lot of Nahlrout, apparently without anyone noticing. If you're worried about being roleblocked you should send in multiple Fae Lore roleblocks if that's legal.

56 minutes ago, Archer said:

Edit: if anyone wants elevation in Archives, I'll approve it, and you can check my scans yourself

There are no Re'lar left y'all! Everyone is El'the! That doesn't work anymore!

57 minutes ago, Archer said:

If Ash is able to take actions with me blocking him, same offer. V!me is happy to sit at an impasse until it is resolved by assassination of Ash, once funds are secured. 

Here's the deal. In such a world, I'd like to confirm you actually got roleblocked if you claim Aturan recall. I can target you with R&L as insurance, since my vote manip would fail if you get recalled. I can also keep shutting Ash down with R&L Soothing. For that, could you please just place a single vote on yourself? You're immune to DP as a Master anyway and I'll redirect you to Ash. If my redirect fails, then that makes your recall likely.

Ngl I have a third option but it's not particularly viable right now.

xc. break

“Ah, Kevan,” said Master Bob, looking up from his desk and smiling. It was the same kindly smile, the one that always made his eyes crinkle with warmth. That was one side of Master Bob; the calm physicker, and the Master who the students privately thought was somehow so extremely high-strung anywhere outside the classroom or the Medica.

All the same, Kevan felt something in his gut clench. His work wasn’t satisfactory, and his progress was glacial. He knew it. Surely Master Bob did, too. Returning to the Medica felt strange. He couldn’t shake the memories that clung to his mind in flashes, even now. The blood on his hands. The moment he realised death had won this round, there was nothing left that could be done. “With this, I will contend,” the physickers of old had said, according to Hesad’s Histories. Master Alys had talked about this in her history of medicine class. But in the end, when death swept in, you could try your best, perhaps win a few lives away, painstakingly.

Sometimes, you lost, and he didn’t know how he could deal with it, how he could make himself accept he’d done his best and his best wasn’t enough.

“Good morning, sir,” Kevan greeted, respectfully. Sometimes, it just felt wrong to be addressing Master Bob by his first name.

“Have some tea,” Master Bob said, pouring for both of them. Kevan accepted his mug of steaming hot tea, comfortingly thick, and sipped from it.

Felt dread uncoil within his stomach as he noticed the latest draft chapter of his research project on Master Bob’s table. Had expected to see it scrawled all over in corrective red, but the fact there was nothing at all felt especially ominous. The conviction that Master Bob would realise he wasn’t good enough set in, steeped in dread. The tea tasted especially bitter on his tongue, enough to choke on.

“How are things?” Master Bob asked, casually.

“Fine,” Kevan said, warily. “I’m still working on translating the Siaru commentary. I’ve had to refer some questions to Master Isaak, and I’ve identified a few more compounds that might be worth exploring.”

They felt like dead ends, though. It felt difficult to continue. And God, merciful Tehlu, it felt as though it was pointless, as though he was playing at being a real physicker, when the last time he’d tried, and it was still too soon, soon enough that he couldn’t seem to ward off the memories that came, crawling beneath the confines of his skull, intruding on his thoughts.

“Mm,” said Master Bob. “I can see that. No, how are things? How are your other studies proceeding?”

“Linguistics is a little slow,” Kevan said, puzzled. Wondering what Master Bob was thinking about. “Siaru is—tricky, though I like the grammar.” The trick, he’d figured, was that you had to think in Siaru, not in Aturan-translated-to-Siaru. “Master Isaak’s fairly patient with us, as the class is mostly quite slow to pick up some of the more sophisticated grammatical structures.” He didn’t complain about how everyone seemed to make the same basic mistakes, again and again. “I like Master Alys’s classes too, although she says she’ll never make a historian out of me. And Master Anders’s classes are always fascinating. We’re currently going over a number of topics in the social epistemology of testimony, specific to testimonial justification.”

He looked searchingly at the Master Physicker, wondering what thoughts were crossing Master Bob’s mind.

“How many classes is that?”

Kevan blinked, counted them off. Couldn’t seem to pull the number off at the top of his head.

“Six,” he said, tentatively.

“And how much do you sleep?”

Kevan hesitated.

“I’m a physicker, El’the,” Master Bob said, wryly. “I may be considering an eventual sabbatical somewhere with less excitement for a year or so but I’m not yet in my dotage.”

“Probably about five hours,” Kevan said. “Sometimes less.”

Master Bob set down his mug. “Kevan,” he said. “I’d like you to consider taking a break from the Medica for this term.”

Blankly, Kevan stared at him.

“You haven’t been sleeping, El’the,” Master Bob said, sharply. “I can tell from this,” he tapped at the draft chapter on his desk, unmarked. “This is far from your usual quality of work. And Idris tells me that you are—struggling with your usual responsiveness at the Medica. You missed two calls, and have made at least three mistakes you normally would not in the past weeks.”

Kevan did not know whether to feel dread or relief. Dread at disappointing Master Bob, or relief—that somehow, he at least was being given a reprieve from the fog of muddling through, forcing himself to deal with the anxiety and the fear and the memories that crept back, unbidden, telling him he was just going to fail someone else in the Medica the same way he’d failed that day.

“Yes, sir,” he said, quietly. “I…what about my research?”

“Consider everything suspended,” Master Bob said, with a dismissive wave that seemed to take in the entirety of his domain, the Medica. “I don’t want to hear from you for at least two weeks, Kevan. Go do something, anything that is not physicking. Remember the first principle of the physicker.”

“Make sure your surroundings are safe?”

“Tehlu and his angels have mercy on me,” Master Bob raised his hands to the heavens and beseeched them. “Yes, you’re not a first year any longer, so now it’s a more general principle about caring for yourself before you care for others. A tired physicker or a stressed physicker is one who makes unnecessary mistakes.”

Kevan nodded. He did know that. But with how tight the El’the rounds were, he never—it never felt right trying to ask to sit out, to have to explain to Master Bob what was wrong, how his mind felt clouded with sorrow on the best of days. Memories and whispers on the worst.

Never felt right talking to Talin and Idris and the others. They’d lost patients too. Who was he to struggle with it?

And yet…

Master Bob had given him a reprieve and he felt…just poleaxed. Difficult to process that he had, in front of him, two weeks of freedom. Terrifying, in a way, if you didn’t know what to do with the time, if you were forced to confront what you didn’t want to.

(He felt painfully grateful, he supposed, that Master Bob wasn’t dismissing him, that he’d been given time to work things through, and find some sort of solution.)

Kevan left Master Bob’s office, feeling that strange tension between freedom and the yawning horror of the now-emptied time before him, and for the first time in weeks, breathed.

[Kasimir he/him]

Apologies for the double post, previous one is too long. I think there's an elegant solution to this problem. Someone @ me if I'm wrong. 

I can’t see any world in which V!Archer and V!Ash. We know the Naming out doesn't work here due to Naming mostly requiring Wind.

A. @Archer roleblocks Ash with Fae Lore. Advise you send in multiple Fae Lore RB orders on Ash if legal.

Archer puts a single vote on Ash which I will vote manip away with R&L, guaranteeing that Archer was not recalled. If E!Ash and V!Archer, then th roleblock should succeed. If Archer is recalled, I will know.

For extra insurance, @STINK can also scan Archer's PMs. This ensures that if one of us is sabotaged to silence us, the other will speak up.

B. @Ashbringer places two votes on Archer and does the same thing he dd last Turn. He Artificer rushes an item. If he is roleblocked, the votes will not disappear. Ash's name won't even appear on the write up votes. If he is not roleblocked, then the votes will remain but Archer is immune to DP anyway. 

Sart is still lashed and I won't interfere with a roleblock. This guarantees we can resolve the truth of the matter I think. 

Is everyone game for this? @Wonko the Sane am I missing something?

Edit: Opposite — if he is RBed, the votes won't disappear. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Kasimir

[Sart he/him]

Sarenrae was in deep trouble. After splitting her time diligently in two fields, she was going to be denied Mastery in both of them. It wasn't fair. This entire academy had turned into a ghost town. She was pretty sure that she was going to be the only Student left. But could she get a discount of any kind? Of course not. She was going to be old and grey before she got her Masters post at this rate. The Master Alchemist was apparently a Skindancer, but no one seemed able to do anything about it. At this rate, it was time to do some soul searching, before she went mad with boredom. Ironically, she had gotten her wish for peace and quiet.

[Archer he/him]

Ash Ash Archer

I'm doing a lot of self voting this game smh

We know from Stink's vote that this will disappear, which looks the same to everyone but Kas as it'll look if Kas vote manips me. But I'd rather not vote a villager and have Kas' vote manip fail, causing harm from what is just supposed to be a confirmation measure 

[Kasimir he/him]

1 minute ago, Archer said:

Ash Ash Archer

I'm doing a lot of self voting this game smh

We know from Stink's vote that this will disappear, which looks the same to everyone but Kas as it'll look if Kas vote manips me. But I'd rather not vote a villager and have Kas' vote manip fail, causing harm from what is just supposed to be a confirmation measure 

I intend to vote manip you onto Ash. This should be clearer than a Soothe. Thus,  Ash should vote you.

[Ashbringer he/him]

… when and where did you communicate that you had Nahlrout used on me? Because I don’t/didn’t see it and that doesn’t line up with my results unless I badly misunderstand multicrafting.

Anyway. I’m not going to respond to everything right now, because work break is for eating and cooling off and not for brain-wracking and it’s almost over anyway. I get that it doesn’t sound likely, it barely does to me, but it’s the only explanation I have.

This plan should work, I think. Archer Archer.

[Kasimir he/him]

39 minutes ago, Archer said:

Ash Ash Archer

I'm doing a lot of self voting this game smh

We know from Stink's vote that this will disappear, which looks the same to everyone but Kas as it'll look if Kas vote manips me. But I'd rather not vote a villager and have Kas' vote manip fail, causing harm from what is just supposed to be a confirmation measure 

Sorry to be clear, I forgot to mention but I made a snap decision to Soothe STINK. Was worried his votes on Ash would mean the lynch wasn't going to work. 

32 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

… when and where did you communicate that you had Nahlrout used on me? Because I don’t/didn’t see it and that doesn’t line up with my results unless I badly misunderstand multicrafting.

Anyway. I’m not going to respond to everything right now, because work break is for eating and cooling off and not for brain-wracking and it’s almost over anyway. I get that it doesn’t sound likely, it barely does to me, but it’s the only explanation I have.

This plan should work, I think. Archer Archer.

To a group of Sart, Archer, Wonko.

Edited:

@Sart Since we are being open, who did you roleblock T3M1? Wilson is rechecking Ash's results AFAIK.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Kasimir

[Sart he/him]

 

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Sorry to be clear, I forgot to mention but I made a snap decision to Soothe STINK. Was worried his votes on Ash would mean the lynch wasn't going to work. 

To a group of Sart, Archer, Wonko.

Edited:

@Sart Since we are being open, who did you roleblock T3M1? Wilson is rechecking Ash's results AFAIK.

Ashbringer.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 335 words]

8 hours ago, Sart said:

Ashbringer.

Mystery solved, thank you

xci. rain

It was raining.

The rain beat down lightly outside Kevan’s window—he’d closed it and pulled the shutters, but he could hear it drumming down on the outside. Not a thunderstorm, at least, but then, he had nowhere in particular to be. Maybe the thought should have terrified him, not having to run between classes and the Medica, but it was feeling strangely good, being able to sit down for a while in his bed and to do absolutely nothing except read.

Master Anders had assigned the class a text on testimonial justification, which Kevan had gone through at least once, but what he really wanted at this juncture was a book he’d borrowed from the Archives by a Yllish arcanist, on the epistemology of alchemy.

He wasn’t an alchemist himself—that was Percyl—but he liked it, thinking about the sharp bifurcation that ran through the University’s disciplines. Naming and Alchemy. Sympathy and Artificing. Separate fields, separate rules. And beneath all of that in the minds of most students, the regular subjects, the ones you could study without ever having been admitted to the Arcanum. Languages. Arithmetic. Rhetoric and Logic. Chemistry, even. All the different ways you could learn about the world, about different facets of it, without coming to discover what lay underneath the surface of things.

E’lir. Seer.

To see truly, beyond appearances. Beyond the shadows on the wall of the cave.

But did arcanists themselves see truly? Kevan wondered. Or did arcanist studies really take one further and further away from the beating heart of reality-as-given-by-experience, as conditioned by experience?

The rain poured down outside, cleansing the world, cleansing the city of Imre. If only, Kevan thought, it could wash clean the doubts in his head; the thoughts, the fears, the inadequacy. But it was enough to listen to the falling rain, to sit in his small room, and to read, which was the most time he’d had to himself in months.

He had to thank Master Bob for it, at the very least.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Kasimir

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

17 hours ago, Archer said:

Must have been some essay! I hope the aftermath provides the pre game submissions 

Didn't even realize you got more points for a better essay.

17 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

It was the extended abstract for my oral preliminary exam in grad school, so yeah .

Putting my under fifteen minute three paragraph essay to shame.

[Kasimir he/him]

[TAG: RP, 335 words]

xcii. candy

The streets of Imre were crowded as people queued and jostled their way towards the fair. Kevan kept a close hand on his purse and made sure he didn’t have particularly much on him. He figured the crowd would be thick with cutpurses and thought he saw someone cutting the strings of a lady’s purse, but the thief faded back into the crowd before Kevan could do anything.

He shook his head. Odd to be in Imre, away from the whispers of skindancers. There was a moderately-sized fair in the city, with merchants and traders displaying newly-arrived goods, and Valerra’d said that getting out for a bit would do everyone good. 

At least it felt strange, watching more human dangers at work. Cutpurses. Mercenaries strutting about, wearing their wealth flamboyantly in gold, and with the steel to back it up. 

Anything that wasn’t skindancers or Admissions.

Valerra grabbed his arm. “Oh look,” she said, eagerly. “They’re making candy!”

Kevan followed the direction she was indicating. A vendor had set up a stall with a small brazier and was busy heating sugar in a pan, until it was beginning to melt to a light brown. Some of the children and students in the area had already bought from him; as far as Kevan could tell, they were crunching on flat brown discs of caramel candy on a stick.

He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Valerra rolled her eyes. “Live a little, Kevan, one piece of candy isn’t going to make Master Bob disown you.”

“Listen,” said Jarvik. “If it does, you can just buy him one too.”

“Are you suggesting bribing Master Bob with candy?”

“Whyever not?” Jarvik wanted to know. “Look, it’s candy. Everyone likes candy.”

“Maybe Master Bob doesn’t.”

“Him? Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen him outside of that Medica, talking to the other Masters? He’s like a child. So excitable. He’ll love it, just get him a bag of candy, and bam, you’ll be in his good books all over again.”

 

---

Archer Archer

@Sart @STINK @Wonko the Sane : I recommend all of you double vote Archer. First, the tuition subsidy is nice to have, and second, it'll be pretty important for us to put padding on the vote. There is a very strong chance that Archer or Ash will be revealed at the end of this Turn to be Evil, so I believe it is entirely possible either of them would take the chance to try to hammer. I don't believe votes on Masters just naturally disappear - I Soothed STINK last Turn (sorry.) It was a snap decision as I was worried his Ash votes could water down the votes and lead to a no exe since Ash cannot be exed.

Neither Ash nor Archer can be exed so this shouldn't matter to Archer; I merely strongly suggest Archer because I am currently R&Ling Archer onto Ash. This way, if no one votes Ash, seeing a single vote appear on Ash will be fairly revelatory, even if I'm dead by then.

@Archer : As having a safety margin is important, feel free to double vote yourself. As long as you are voting yourself and not Ash, my vote manip will remove a random one of your votes and move it to Ash. I don't recommend you touch TJ as his Arithmetic 1 means that you'll be donating money to the SDs just to roleblock him. I forgot that any world in which you are roleblocked by someone with nahlrout is impossible given you have scanned everyone else as Village. According to Wilson, her current ruling subject to El's confirmation is that if Ash nahlrouts/tenaculums you and you RB Ash, then both of you have your other actions cancelled, so there's no need to be worried about losing the Fae Lore action. In that case, you are probably better off using Banned Books. Please do not use Banned Books twice, i.e. in two action slots, as using it twice in the same Turn will result in your votes not counting, and you will lose other actions. This means that Fae Lore will automatically fail. If you want to be safe, suggest 1 Banned Books and just Fae Lore Ash for the rest. Pick the field you want lol.

To be clear, I repeat that a V!Ash, V!Archer world is extremely unlikely. Archer has categorically scanned me as Village via Kas (0), Sart, TKN, and scanned Ash as Evil via Ash (0): Archer (with an assist from Kas.) In addition, Wilson ruled that she would require a Name like Holly or Iron to falsify a set of Fae Omens scan results. So I can't see a way for Archer and Ash to both be Village.

If I am dead, I am going to lay out what you should expect to see.

E!Ash, V!Archer:

Quote

Ash (1): 
Archer (X): Archer, Ash, Ash, [everyone else.]

Ash gets roleblocked as Fae Lore only hits skindancers. This entails no matter what that Ash will not submit double Alchemy, even if he sends an order to roleblock me or Archer. Hence, his votes will stay put. His name will still appear in the voter list.

E!Archer, V!Ash:

Quote

Ash (1): 
Archer (X): Archer, [everyone else, except Ash.]

Ash doesn't get roleblocked. His votes vanish. This means his name does not appear in the voter list. The only way this happens is if Ash isn't an SD, meaning Archer is Evil instead.

Kraem Happens:

Quote

Archer (X): Archer, Archer, Ash, Ash, [everyone else.]

10% chance of this happening, but everyone, pray to RNGesus it doesn't. Archer gets recalled. In this world, it doesn't really matter if Ash's names vanish or not. If they do, then Ash did in fact do double Alchemy. If they didn't, then he didn't do that, which should increase E!Ash credences, since V!Ash would know E!Archer is effectively screwed if V!Ash does follow the plan he agreed to.

I'd also recommend double-confirming with STINK, if STINK intercepted Archer's PMs. Again, this is especially if I'm dead.

Cheers, all.

And don't forget to file EP and your lodging orders!

Edited August 14, 2023 by Kasimir

[Archer he/him]

Wouldn't my Fae action roleblock the Arithmatic 1 pickpocket? 

Archer

[Wonko the Sane he/him]

Elena was, in a word, frustrated. She'd come to the University because Reshi Emru had recommended she study under some human Namers. The art was different for humans, he'd explained, so there was a limit to what he could teach her, even with her mother's blood.

She'd expected if there were anywhere in the Four Corners who would accept her unusual nature, it would be here, at the very seat of wisdom and learning. She should have known better. The moon-accursed skindancers had whipped the school into a paranoid fervor, and even the Masters were now eyeing anything remotely Faen with distrust (never mind that the Sithe were the oldest enemies of the Dancers, far older than any human fear).

When she'd returned to her rooms after the second planning meeting with Kevan's group, she'd found the door broken open. The walls were wreathed in holly, which was adorable; undoubtedly it was meant to trap her or some such silliness. Less adorable were the iron shavings scattered almost invisibly across her bed.

Elena rubbed her burned arm gingerly as she sat atop the livery stable, feet dangling to the courtyard below. The burns weren't serious; for once, she had reason to be thankful for her human father. Still, it frightened her to realize just how vulnerable she'd been. She hadn't returned to her rooms since, preferring the anonymity of living on the streets.

Why was she still here? The Dancers, she supposed, but that was hardly her responsibility anymore; she'd done what she could, and the others were better equipped to deal with the threat. The study of Naming? She admitted there was still a foolish hope that Master Namer would take her back, after this business with the Uret was concluded; but she hardly needed him now. She opened her eyes to the Wind, proving that to herself.

It was particularly energetic here, in this courtyard. Quoyan Hael, they called it; the House of the Wind. She watched for a while as it whorled and rushed in the moonlight, playful and dangerous. She saw it all, down to the softest breeze. She could be that free, she knew. With the Name of the Wind, she could return to Emru, resume her studies under a teacher who actually appreciated her. So why? Almost without thinking, she pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and scrawled out a question.

Quoyan Hael. The Questioning Hall. According to superstition, the Wind could answer questions, here. She let the fluttering note slip free of her fingers.

Naming, the Dancers; those reasons were valid, but rang false to her ear. But what more was there for her, here? She found her thoughts lingering on tonight's meeting as she watched her note flit to and fro. The others had gone for drinks after; they found joy and relaxation, even in a crisis. Was that foolishness, or wisdom? They'd invited her, again; she'd declined, again.

'Friend' was not a word oft associated with Elena Resterford. There were people she respected, of course; even loved. She cherished her time learning from Reshi Emru, or listening to the tales spun by old Wylth. But friendship? Fun, camaraderie, drinks on the town? She'd never had the time nor the inclination.

So why was she still here?

Her thoughts drifted to Kevan. Kevan, who was the most boring human she'd ever met. Kevan, whose determination and intellect continued to dazzle her each day. She liked Kevan; enjoyed the time they spent working plans against the Uret; enjoyed even the time they spent doing nothing at all. Was Kevan her friend? Something less? Something more?

She sat there, watching the Wind, for a span of minutes. Then, she spoke its name, and the Wind stilled abruptly. The slip of paper with Kevan's name on it fluttered softly down to land in center of the courtyard. Finally, Elena stood and left. She would find her own answers.

---------

I'm not certain votes on Archer are going to change anything, since they only prevent a hammer if the NPC Masters are also capable of voting for Archer. That said, I'm not super averse to it. Archer, Archer.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Wonko the Sane

[The Unknown Medallion he/him]

4 hours ago, Archer said:

Wouldn't my Fae action roleblock the Arithmatic 1 pickpocket? 

Archer

Passive actions cannot be roleblocked.