MR77: Cycle Two: See an Enemy

[Archer he/him]

MR77 Cycle Two: See an Enemy

The anchor of Ishar’s Blessing was shaped like a luckspren. It rested on the seabed next to a piece of driftwood with indomitable will. 

An ocean cremling scurried past, drawn by drops of blood floating in the water ahead. A body lay face-down in a field of sea anemones. The cremling licked its head wound, before larger fish arrived to scare it off. 

The balance between life and death in the ocean was always fickle. 

Pladel arrived just in time to avert a disaster. Her quartermaster, Kol, was red in the face driving a hard bargain with a trio of Reshi. 
“What do you mean, rust? On my mother’s life, this is best quality! And on my father’s life, this is best deal on Roshar.”
“That’s enough, Kol.” Pladel pulled him close to whisper. “You’re the loss leader, agree to their terms.”
The quartermaster begrudgingly traded his fabrial for some painted shells. Two of the Reshi left, leaving a man with incredible abs and a massive sack over his shoulder. 

“You must be the Captain. I am Talik, trademaster to the king.”
Red ribbons of anticipationspren flickered into view around Pladel. She glared at the other Captains who approached to intrude. “A pleasure, Talik. I am Captain Pladel. This is Marlen, Zeek, and… I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name, translator.”
“Macks, happy to help.” He studied Talik. “Your Alethi’s better than mine! Or are we speaking Veden, I get them confused.”

Pladel watched Talik’s abdominal muscles clench. “Why have you brought death to Relu-na?”
“A minor issue,” Marlen said. “The killer was dealt with. Zeek’s crew caught them last night.”
“Sadly, one of my countrymen. An accomplished trademaster and babsk, I don’t know what possessed them.”
“What matters is the bloodshed is over!”

“Is that so, Captains.” Talik dropped his sack, from which the waterlogged body of Fickle fell out. “Then why was this in our fishing nets?”
“It’s… possible we detained the wrong person. We will fix this, honoured host.”
“See that you do.”

Zeek paled. “I fear a grave error was made. I ordered the crew to, ahem, take care of the prisoner.”
He turned to Macks. “When did you relay my orders? Is there time to stop the execution?”
“Execution? That’s what you meant? I thought asking to pamper the prisoner was some kind of interrogation technique.”

Marlen clasped Talik’s shoulder. “As you can see, we’re a peaceful people. We even treat our traitors with dignity.”
“Yeah, when I left, they were preparing a special seafood stew for him!”
“Ten Fools! He’s deathly allergic to shellfish!” 

They looked to Talik. 
“My people have little need for your trinkets,” he eventually said. “I know why you came. Let’s sate your ambition and send you on your way.”
As he spoke, Pladel rooted through Fickle’s pockets. “Anyone missing a necklace? Storming thief’s got some papers here too. Didn’t know he could read.”
Talik pointed at a path through the jungle. “You have until sundown. First to find the king may negotiate with him. Then you will leave us alone. Please.”

Plot hook: Follow your captains through the jungle to find the king. 

@Mystic was NKed and thrown overboard! They were a Thief. 

@Wahrheitswächter was exed and died of a shellfish allergy! They were a Merchant Officer. 

There was no Rebuke. Enmity is now 2. 

Player-player PMs are now closed. 

Rollover is at 8pm Sunday July 5.

Votes

Wahr (3): TJ, Illwei, Qian
Qian (2): Hoid, Myst
Hoid (2): Mint, Wahr
TJ (1): Hopper
TUC (1): Grub

Cargo Hold

Quote

Agreement with Axies the Collector
Manifest
Manifest
Manifest
Lavis Beer
Lavis Beer
Bribe
Bribe
PW Boast
Key

Players

Spoiler

1. @Hoid Slayer as Y, an inexperienced sailor with a positive attitude and a secret. 

2. @Stardust

3. @The Unknown Character

4. @Wahrheitswächter as Ralm the Thaylen Merchant, and Babsk of Essyn, bearing a mistspren, trinkets, and secrets. Merchant Officer

5. @coco.pudding as Essyn, a Thaylen apprentice looking to prove herself worthy of her family name (which is secret).

6. @Mystic as Fickle Thief

7. @Through the Living Hopper as 1. 

8. @Ascended Grubberfly as Darak the Reshi returning home who secretly helped draft pre-written boasts. 

9. @Mint11 as Shejun

10. @Qianweilian

11. @CoderDrag0n8 as X, the retired sailor brought along for his experience and his secret weapon. 

12. @Illwei

13. @|TJ|

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Archer

[Mint11 she/her]

2 minutes ago, Archer said:

Player-player PMs are now closed. 

 ghostbloods why would you do this to me

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

So there was a thief!!! Glad we got that answered.

[Illwei]

@Mint11 eyes only

Spoiler

regarding our last PM, I was also thinking that yesterday. I think that it could be explained away by multiple options, but honestly have them leaning v? Potentially? because of it. I think an Elim in that scenario would be more likely to play into the stereotype they displayed initially, rather than put more effort in. They were relieving V reads initially before the switch, and the only way I would assume them E is if those reads only came from other Elims. 

 

[Hoid Slayer He/Him]

Whoopsie doopsy

Qian cause yes although the votes from this rollover definitely merit a deeper analysis

Also apologies folk for not being online for rollover, I really did plan to be but I got caught up watching the Argentina - Cabo Verde game and when I checked the time afterwards it was too late

@CoderDrag0n8 since we don’t have PMs anymore can you just answer for me pretty please: Yes or no?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about it’s probably no

Archer I’ll get around to your RP prompt eventually I promise

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

I’m gonna say this then go to bed.

Item analysis!

Here is (according to my analysis) is that was taken:

Book of Backbreacker Poison and Painrail.

Bribe.

2-3 keys.

What was added:

Agreement with Axies.

1 Manifest.

1 PW Boast.

A key may have been added, but I like the idea that Wahr took it but was exed and his items were returned.

 

Dangers: We should assume that the Ghostbloods have access to all of these items so now votes can get changed, actions can be cancelled without our knowledge, and items stolen. There may be a 1 turn delay on the poison if crewmates need time to pass the key to their officer.

@Archer are you able to confirm/deny my key guess?

Welp, see everyone tomorrow!

[Qianweilian He/him]

Dang.

See y'all in the morning.

[Mint11 she/her]

@Illwei hmm... I'm going to have to mull it over. you make a good point, but I'm not sure how else to explain the behavior except "got tired of the initial stereotype". but it was only C1 so we'll see where the day takes us

man I would have sent out more PMs if I knew we were going to lose them so quick. big fan of these cryptic messages in thread

myst probably at least attempted to take one of the books. if I was the thief, I'd go for the book of painreal. if he was successful (admittedly a big if), then no living player will have it

[Hoid Slayer He/Him]

Good nighty night folkie dokies!

[The Unknown Character he/him]

@Illwei since we're doing this

For Illwei's eyes only:

Spoiler

He asked. I assume because of your gung-ho-ness, but idk

 

4 hours ago, Illwei said:

Which only works so far as no one else has submitted a favor action at T-2h

I'm just not a Mech fan. 

I have some wierd feelings all over the place, but just for safekeeping I'm gonna Wahr

Also TUO I don't really want anything out of you- I was clarifying my reasons not to get you to respond to them, but to respond to other people who are misrepresenting my points. 

Also acknowledging this and considering it mostly resolved

I didn't finish reading up in time to change my action, so my item got used 

[Illwei]

6 minutes ago, The Unknown Character said:

@Illwei since we're doing this

For Illwei's eyes only:

  Hide contents

He asked. I assume because of your gung-ho-ness, but idk

 

TUOs eyes only 

Spoiler

There was an implication that it was a natural progression to the topic. I really was hoping for more clarity and specifics surrounding it, especially now that the stories differ. Was there no references to the aforementioned topic prior to the ask?

EDIT: Do players items go back into the hold when they die? Or do they disappear?

Edited Saturday at 02:51 AM by Illwei
Formatt

[Archer he/him]

50 minutes ago, Ascended Grubberfly said:

@Archer are you able to confirm/deny my key guess?

For Grub's eyes only:

Spoiler

Sure, I'll share my whole spreadsheet to make it easier for ya

 

21 minutes ago, Illwei said:

EDIT: Do players items go back into the hold when they die? Or do they disappear?

Your GM typically only answers direct questions, but I'll give you this one for free. Items held by dead people return to the Cargo Hold. Books dissolve when they enter the hands of Officers, but remain in play if in the Inventory of a Crew or Thief. 

An error was made in the Cargo Hold announcement. I have since corrected the OP to change one available Pre-Written Boast into one available Bribe. I got the two items mixed up when writing the list.

[coco.pudding she/they]

Well that’s a very interesting choice of kill. I feel like often the first kill or even the first few kills are usually more inactive players/low info kills. But Myst was quite active so that’s clearly not the choice they made.

To me this indicates an elim team that’s probably decently active and wants thread control through killing off the more active players. And also probably fairly confident in their strategy considering they’re coming out swinging right at the start. Not quite sure who that indicates as elim, I’ll have to go back and reread cycle one a little bit perhaps.

Also interesting that they got the Thief…I wonder if Myst told one of them his role and they decided to get rid of pms? Probably not but a possibility ig. Unfortunate though, I was planning on opening a bunch of pms this cycle. I had fun with that last game (until everyone stopped telling me stuff when they decided I was elim lol)

Also @Mystic it appears we’re doomed to never have a game where we can trust each other. I was feeling good about your village-ness this game and then you had to go and get killed

[Qianweilian He/him]

I'm off to work everyone, and I probably won't be able to post for at least six hours.

[Mint11 she/her]

7 hours ago, coco.pudding said:

Well that’s a very interesting choice of kill. I feel like often the first kill or even the first few kills are usually more inactive players/low info kills. But Myst was quite active so that’s clearly not the choice they made.

To me this indicates an elim team that’s probably decently active and wants thread control through killing off the more active players. And also probably fairly confident in their strategy considering they’re coming out swinging right at the start. Not quite sure who that indicates as elim, I’ll have to go back and reread cycle one a little bit perhaps.

what do you mean by coming out swinging? an elim kill is expected no matter what, no?

since myst had been posting, I think the main thing we can take away from this is that the elims didn't think myst was at risk for a mislynch

 

TJ was the first one to vote wahr, which doesn't mean anything in and of itself. but I can see a world where one of his teammates is in danger (at the time TUC had 3 votes, Qian had 2), he votes for someone new as a seemingly neutral choice to the ongoing discussion, and then plans to switch over to one of the main trains later on (though in this case that wouldn't have been necessary since we ended up killing wahr). I feel like its been a while since I played with v!TJ though so that might be skewing my read

wahr's also an interesting choice for an ex. the C1 ex is already hard because we have so little to go off of. that's why active players always get exed C1, because we have posts from them we can analyze. so lynching someone based on a single post on the first page of the thread is kind of wild 

@|TJ| were you reading everyone else as village at the time? curious as to why you felt wahr was the best choice

@Illwei could you talk more about why you switched your vote from TUC to wahr?

Qian's votes seem to have mostly been for self preservation last cycle, but the focus on self preservation feels off

Quote

Anyways, I am not interested in getting exed cycle one again after the same thing happened last time I was village, so I'm going to hold on Myst and change to TUC

there were about 12 hours left in the cycle when this was posted. plenty of time for things to change. the last vote on wahr makes more sense from a self preservation standpoint since there was about an hour to go in the cycle. but there was plenty of opportunity to get a lynch going on someone qian was actually suspicious of. except for the very early vote on myst, it feels like no attempt was made @Qianweilian did you have an elim read on either TUC or wahr? it sounds like you didn't feel too strongly about lynching TUC. why not go after someone else in that case?

13 hours ago, Hoid Slayer said:

Qian cause yes although the votes from this rollover definitely merit a deeper analysis

I'm interested in hearing more about why you're voting for Qian here

 

oh I almost forgot. I don't know what to make of this, but it's kind of funny how Hoid posted this

Quote

Mint I can't think anything of so far I legit can't remember a thing they've said so far off the top of my head

after I voted on him lol. I think an elim would be more paranoid about getting lynched, so this is either a village move. or a bluff by an elim who is very confident that he's going to survive the round lol

[CoderDrag0n8 He/They]

Sorry guys, but I will be MIA today.

Life stuff.

[Illwei]

@Mint11 at work right now so I can probably respond more in depth later

I wasnt happy with how TUO was sitting at the top for a while with no interaction. So I flipped to tie it. As I said before I do think I dont trust my read on TUO, and I may have made a grave mistake last cycle (not talking about the vote). 

But yeah. Theres some tinfoiling already about what I talked to you about before. Main thing is I didnt like the lack of movement.

Qian's movement specifically is noted to me. 

EDIT:

I do agree regardless that Hoid is a villager here. 

I have a tinfoil world where I'm wrong on that, but mostly I read his posts as genuine and free flowing. Again, ill comment or revisit more later when I am off work. 

ED2T:

I do think though that this "goodnight, goodbye, be back" thing from qian is strange. Wondering if this is a normal thing that he has done before? The way it came about pushes me to think that he felt he couldnt stop it because he was suspected in C1 for it, so he must continue. It is also a strat of sorts, as I've said before, to be present in thread to a degree, or to keep people thinking you will be present, without making much content. 

Take anything I say right now with a grain of salt though, as I am on my phone and am not factchecking myself. Just off memory. 

[The Unknown Character he/him]

13 hours ago, Illwei said:

TUOs eyes only 

  Reveal hidden contents

There was an implication that it was a natural progression to the topic. I really was hoping for more clarity and specifics surrounding it, especially now that the stories differ. Was there no references to the aforementioned topic prior to the ask?

EDIT: Do players items go back into the hold when they die? Or do they disappear?

Illwei's eyes only

Spoiler

I guess you could describe it that way. Your entrance came up naturally and he asked from there.

 

[coco.pudding she/they]

2 hours ago, Mint11 said:

what do you mean by coming out swinging? an elim kill is expected no matter what, no?

Yes, but like I said above, I feel like the first kill is usually low info - going for someone a little more inactive. So coming out swinging in the sense that they chose a very active player to kill instead.

1 hour ago, Illwei said:

Wondering if this is a normal thing that he has done before?

No, not really. I can’t remember ever seeing him do something like that tbh (at least not this much in one game)

[Hoid Slayer He/Him]

Hey guys I’m just leaving a Fourth of July parade and should be busy most of the day

But I will eventually be able to be here to discuss a bit

[Illwei]

TUO I am TRYING and I mean this when I say it TRYING to find grounds to sustain a townread on you from. :P.

Real derpslips like this dont happen often. So believing it outright would be dumb. And I know quoting PMs isnt something we do. But I also want to say that I need more info on what happened that brought me up. Because in my mind the only thing that reasonably I could see players doing is talking in an Elim doc about what players are threats and how much.

Please help me out here. He was not very conversational with me in PMs. But it sure sounds like there was at least a page in yours to bring the topic to "players entrances"

I don't mean to come off rude, so if I am I apologize. But I am having a hard time moving past what feels like it should be a derpslip. 

I suppose I can ask @Hoid Slayer what your pms with coder were like, if he talked a lot. 

[Qianweilian He/him]

18 hours ago, Hoid Slayer said:

Also apologies folk for not being online for rollover, I really did plan to be but I got caught up watching the Argentina - Cabo Verde game and when I checked the time afterwards it was too late

It's fine man.

17 hours ago, Mint11 said:

man I would have sent out more PMs if I knew we were going to lose them so quick. big fan of these cryptic messages in thread

Me too.

5 hours ago, Mint11 said:

Qian's votes seem to have mostly been for self preservation last cycle, but the focus on self preservation feels off

I mostly just want to play the game. While dead docs are fun, I'd rather wait.

5 hours ago, Mint11 said:

there were about 12 hours left in the cycle when this was posted. plenty of time for things to change. the last vote on wahr makes more sense from a self preservation standpoint since there was about an hour to go in the cycle. but there was plenty of opportunity to get a lynch going on someone qian was actually suspicious of. except for the very early vote on myst, it feels like no attempt was made @Qianweilian did you have an elim read on either TUC or wahr? it sounds like you didn't feel too strongly about lynching TUC. why not go after someone else in that case?

It was more than self preservation for that one. I was aiming to pressure TUC as well. Admittedly it was a bit early. I leaned elim on Wahr, and I just wanted more from TUC.

4 hours ago, Illwei said:

I do think though that this "goodnight, goodbye, be back" thing from qian is strange. Wondering if this is a normal thing that he has done before? The way it came about pushes me to think that he felt he couldnt stop it because he was suspected in C1 for it, so he must continue.

I'm just trying to be polite. Rollover is close to my bedtime most days.

4 hours ago, Illwei said:

It is also a strat of sorts, as I've said before, to be present in thread to a degree, or to keep people thinking you will be present, without making much content. 

I'm just busy. It should get better after the fourth, our non American friends will have to carry for a bit. If it helps, I bet the elims are facing the same issue.

If poison/painrials have been taken should we publicize who's providing favor?

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

8 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

If poison/painrials have been taken should we publicize who's providing favor?

I think we should. We may just have to have multiple people do it though. It depends on how many Officers they have and if they can target that many people either way.

It may be worse to waste items, but I’m willing to listen to other people’s suggestions.

[coco.pudding she/they]

3 hours ago, Illwei said:

TUO I am TRYING and I mean this when I say it TRYING to find grounds to sustain a townread on you from. :P.

Real derpslips like this dont happen often. So believing it outright would be dumb. And I know quoting PMs isnt something we do. But I also want to say that I need more info on what happened that brought me up. Because in my mind the only thing that reasonably I could see players doing is talking in an Elim doc about what players are threats and how much.

Please help me out here. He was not very conversational with me in PMs. But it sure sounds like there was at least a page in yours to bring the topic to "players entrances"

I don't mean to come off rude, so if I am I apologize. But I am having a hard time moving past what feels like it should be a derpslip. 

I suppose I can ask @Hoid Slayer what your pms with coder were like, if he talked a lot. 

You willing to explain what’s going on here for the rest of us?

edit: I get that this would be a pm conversation…but it’s not anymore 

Edited Saturday at 08:54 PM by coco.pudding

[Illwei]

Going to move away from my conversation with TUO, though I still hope for a response. 

Covering a...bit of a lot, but not too long of a read I think? 

soz for wall, tried to organize.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@coco.pudding

RESPONSE TO COCO+

While I would love to explain, I don't think I will at this moment. I think we should talk about other things today and I don't want that to get too in the weeds with everyone, since it's basically a tinfoil off of a potential derp in a PM that would implicate two players. 

That's all I'm going to say on it now, and in case we don't live in that world we shouldn't dwell on it too much. 

Gonna move on to some other comments I've been thinking about. 

While I'm on the topic of "responding to you," I'd love if you would elaborate on who you might think the Elim team is based on your NK analysis. You said you don't know quite who you would put in that box of "Active, controlling thread, and confident," but do you have any GTH ideas? 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VARIOUS

NIGHT KILL? 

Personally, My first thought was that they were killed because they were suspected to be the thief, and the Elims didn't want PMs, or their stuff to be stolen accidentally. 

Throughout C1 they were the most vocal about strategies revolving the Thief, and if there was a thief in the game. Those are two things that I associate with either an Elim trying to find the thief (as an attempt to avoid having to fake solve, which is a classic Elim move), or the Thief themselves trying to not seem like the thief by bringing them up. 

If they weren't killed for this then it was likely just for being widely village read and vocal. As I said, any Elim team is incentivized to silence the loudest voices first. But in this game it helps even more, since less active people are less likely to be using their abilities. 

ACTION USAGE?

Speaking of using your actions, I noticed that almost nothing was taken from the cargo hold. I will admit, I forgot to submit my actions...but what...uh...were your guys' excuse? I assume people have more than I do if they don't need to grab anything. I personally thought that the Elims would be trying to grab the Favourable Items to keep them out of the Village's Hands, but I apparently was wrong. 

Only 2 out of 3 keys were taken, which means only 2 went for them. 

Only one boast was gone, so only one person went for that. 

Both books were gone, and multiple people could have went to grab them, but I feel like that didn't happen. 

So 5 out of 11 alive people got items, and 3 supposedly used Favor, but everyone has a second action slot? I can't even begin to imagine the amount of items potentially used last cycle if those people didn't try and grab something as well. Maybe I'm missing some downside!

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CURRENT READS

Still kinda all over the place a little, but gonna talk about a few more deeply. I think. I have about 15 minutes before I leave for work. 

COCO

Coco for me is an Elim. The read may be a little wonky, so bear with me.

Stereotypes
TUC said "They often seem Elim when most villagery," and people often feel this way about some players, but really what you are reading as villager-y is usually just laying low. Real villagers are often not scared to speak up or cause noise. They're not scared because they don't have anything to prove to anyone. Personally I think Hoid is village for this reason. I'm also leaning V on grub for the same thing. They were townread for acting new, and then suddenly they come out acting louder and more confident. saying "embarassing to be seen as new because i actually do have experience." these are things I see as Villager coded. 

Generality
For me, Coco hasn't done much. I will acknowledge it is C2, and half into it. This is about 72 hours in, and they have already stated they didn't have much time. I'm willing to give grace, but at what point do you stop saying "I can't push them because they said they were busy?" and I also acknowledge that it is the 4th and people are likely busy. I still got a game to play. The main thing that always bugs me is when people say "I'm busy but I will be back." In this case, Coco did that 3 times during C1, and each time followed up with another. they did pop in a little from here and there, and at the end. But anyways here we are

Specific posts

I think the first awkward post I saw from coco was their response to myst- Myst said "i better be able to trust you," and Coco replied "I was about to say the same to you."

This may seem pointless to bring up, but it is later established that Coco had no reason to call Myst untrustworthy. Can't say that's not awkward. What would a villager have been more likely to say? Would an Elim have been more likely to simply say "yes!"? I can't say they would, but to me it looks like Coco is trying to find an answer that won't look awkward, and instead lands on something that doesn't make sense for their history and context. But it's not saying yes or no, because either of those could come off as suspicious perhaps. 

Now I will admit, this next bit mildly relies on assuming TUO is an Elim, but works even if he is not. 

Quote

Struggling to catch up a bit but I’m not loving that TUC is winning the vote right now even though I’m seeing a lot of people saying they have village lean on him. Can somebody explain what’s going on there?

This is a post type I associate with Elims in general. it's a non-commital pop in generally, but if TUC is an Elim it's a non-committal check in to see if they can get anyone off of them. "A lot of people saying they have village lean" doesn't assign any weight of the read to themselves, which if they are an Elim absolves them of "townreading their partner" on flip. 
If TUC is a Villager then it does about the same- it implies they care about the outcome, without having placed a vote or actually took a stance. If TUO flips village there then they can say "I knew this was bad" and hope to get credit for it.
 

16 hours ago, coco.pudding said:

Well that’s a very interesting choice of kill. I feel like often the first kill or even the first few kills are usually more inactive players/low info kills. But Myst was quite active so that’s clearly not the choice they made.

To me this indicates an elim team that’s probably decently active and wants thread control through killing off the more active players. And also probably fairly confident in their strategy considering they’re coming out swinging right at the start. Not quite sure who that indicates as elim, I’ll have to go back and reread cycle one a little bit perhaps.

Also interesting that they got the Thief…I wonder if Myst told one of them his role and they decided to get rid of pms? Probably not but a possibility ig. Unfortunate though, I was planning on opening a bunch of pms this cycle. I had fun with that last game (until everyone stopped telling me stuff when they decided I was elim lol)

Also @Mystic it appears we’re doomed to never have a game where we can trust each other. I was feeling good about your village-ness this game and then you had to go and get killed

I'm running late for work now ASHDUsfd

This post is an apology for the kill basically. I mean, sure they're talking about myst being the thief and I'm not misinterpreting that, but yeah. It's an apology for the kill. 

Also before anyone says, yes they posted this today, and it's content. I also will say that it's all about the NK, which is another type of "I am going to talk about it because I didn't do it" tell. Of course it's not always right, no tells ever are. 

I do have to leave for work now, so I'll drop this and be back

I will say: positive for coco- they were on at EoD talking about Favor. That's a positive. An Elim wouldn't neccesarily need to be on fighting the lag to try and talk about coordinating favour last minute.