Mid-Range Game 8: Highborn Intrigue

[Sart he/him]

Hmm.... I've noticed that Haelbarde has been unusually quiet this past cycle. I'm pretty sure I saw him before the cycle ended, but it doesn't look like he's posted in the game for 3 days. Any reason?

[Adamir he/him]

Even more RP - switching POVs once again, this time to Thay. I'll get back to actually writing the character I am playing as one day.

 

The knife was hidden in a slot beneath his inner wrist, ready to flick out into the grasp of his left hand. In his right, Thay held a long, thin dirk, held to add a visible layer of defense. Of course, he had layers and layers of hidden wards weaved from Stormlight enveloping him, but the bad thing about hidden wards was that they weren't really intimidating. He could go as a Voidbringer, the Voidsphere enveloping him in pitch black and scarlet crimson, but that would draw too much attention. No, time was a necessity, and he couldn't afford to be slowed by thugs looking for spheres in his pockets.

 

Sadeas’s warcamp was practically a densely populated city, and any city worth its people would have a decent criminal underworld to accompany it. This a unified underworld; from what his sources had told him, it had been almost completely obliterated years earlier. But the lack of certain services always leaves a gap in a society, like a hole in a pond. Water would always rush to fill the gap. In this case, the underworld consisted of three dozen different smaller groups, by his count, unified only under the title of criminal.

 

Of course, they kept far away from guard posts or the barracks portions. But on the outer reaches of the warcamp, individual streets would be fought over in dark alleys like a miniature war. The six or so larger gangs, who could afford to excersize their control over more than just a few streets, would scrawl their markings on alleyway entrances and exits.

 

It was a pact between civilian and thief; if you come through this alley, expect to be robbed, then allowed through. With the majority, the criminals here were oddly civilized. With members of another gang, they would have crossbowmen put a dozen bolts in the invader before he crossed halfway. At least, that was what Thay had been taught about the warcamp criminal underworld.

 

The markings behind Thay had been old and worn, faded against the brickwork, but he could still make them out, regardless of the lack of light from above. Even without the moons, his eyes denied the darkness. A bleached white skull, with a knife in its eye. Thay couldn't remember which gang that stood for, nor did he care; if he didn't recognize it, it wasn't worth remembering. The markings were pale enough for him to safely assume the occupants long since gone.

 

Just in case, he held his dirk exposed to the moonlight above. It was far too unwieldy to be used in an actual fight, meant more to present intimidation. He regularly applied a thin layer of pine sap onto the inside of the sheathe, though it occasionally made the blade stick. That was an acceptable compromise; the sap held to the blade like glue for weeks, and reflected light sources better than the weapon's dull iron would. The result was a clear announcement of his presence, and danger, to any gangs who noticed his presence. There was a time when Thay had experimented with more expensive and reflective metals, such as silver and gold. That had done no good. In the end, cold iron treated with pine sap was the best solution; it looked dangerous, but not expensive enough to take the risk for.

 

Thay gave a mental command, and the Voidsphere pooled around his eyes. No one in the alley. No one within thirty yards of him.This place was safe enough, and the guardsmen would not take kindly to someone carrying a knife outside of the alleyways where the criminals roamed. Those detestable places were someone else's problem, of course, as far as the Watch were concerned. If Thay ever found the Watch Captain, he would have let his Voidsphere have him.

 

And so he slid the knife back into its sheathe, focusing a small fraction of his Stormlight to help it slip through despite the sap. His hands briefly ran over the sheathes of three other concealed weapons, mostly from force of habit. If disarmed, he had four other weapons to choose from. If searched, he would still retain one. Sareth’s words lingered in his mind. Even if he wasn't a true Voidbinder any longer, a Voidbinder’s mannerisms remained.

 

(Turn left, climb)

 

Thay slipped to the left, making his way around an empty market stall. Next, he sized up the nearby buildings. Smooth Soulcast stone in front of him. A street curve on the one next to it. Lights on in the building on its other side. None of them would do; instead, he looked to the market stall itself. The wood was weak, but it would hold long enough for him to climb and leap onto a nearby roof.

 

One hand to the tarpaulin to pull himself up, both feet on top of the same support post. He balanced with perfect ease, leaning just enough to compensate for the light wind in the air. His training would allow him to maintain that position for hours, if need be. Sareth had made sure of that. But he didn't have hours to dawdle. Instead, Thay leaped for a nearby roof edge, focusing his Stormlight while in the air. Two phantom arms extended from his hands, nearly doubling his reach and pulling him onto the roof.

 

The buildings of Sadeas’s warcamp might as well have been built to be scaled. A slight upwards tilt to the Thay of each roof made a mild obstruction, but the angle also helped with his grip. Thay scampered over the rim, glancing around. His contact wasn't here.

 

What now? Thay asked his Libatis.

 

(Wait)

 

Sometimes, it became unnerving to have his Libatis listening in to his thoughts. It had become a far more efficient method of communicating, however, than whispering; less effort, and less noise. After five minutes he began to get impatient. At ten, Thay was irritated. What was delaying his contact?

                                                                                          

There was no sound, but Thay felt the stone vibrate with the silenced footsteps. There was no sight, but Thay sensed a presence making its way towards him. And there was no wind, but Thay’s skin flared pitch black and scarlet crimson as the Voidsphere enveloped him. Another half second later, he had a sword in his right hand, the knife in his left.

 

‘Kagé,’ he whispered.

Edited August 24, 2015 by Adamir

[Guest]

Winter, the Courier in question admitted to being a Courier, and has asked multiple questions and made multiple comments about the PM that is being spied upon.

I suspected Haelbarde, to a minor degree, and have since D1. It's just a gut feel, though, and this one is not one I particularly trust.

[Clanky he/him]

I know for a fact that at least one Courier was spying on me in one of my conversations yesterday. I know who the Courier is, but because I'm nice, I won't reveal the identity. (You're welcome)

The amusing thing is that in this conversation, I did everything that Adamir just suggested might be suspicious, plus used a coding system that was created for the express purpose of fooling Couriers.

I don't suspect this Courier, as they have done/said certain things that make me townread them, but I strongly suspect that we have another one on the Eliminator side. At any rate, this Courier now knows information about other players' roles that I would rather they not have, village or Eliminator.

If you absolutely need to say anything about a role in a PM, do it like this to avoid spying:

1. You want to claim your role to Player X

2. You write out all the roles in your PM with Player X and assign each one a completely random string of letters, numbers, and punctuation. I personally just close my eyes and hit keys. Example: #+39@+#8feo.

3. Send the string of letters and numbers that correspond with the appropriate role to Player Y, who should be a player you trust as much as is possible. You can also do a chain sending if you want.

Ask Player Y to send the code to Player X.

4. Player X receives code and matches it, then confirms with you.

5. The spy is foiled.

You can combine this with some Eliminator-hunting by making the codes more tricky and adding another confirmation code, sent through a different person. If someone blatantly sends the wrong code or refuses to send a code altogether, you've found someone suspicious.

 

This is a good plan but there is still some risk involved. While intercepting the one PM won't allow for full knowledge about your role it does involve revealing to another player (the intermediate who passes along the code) that you have a role. Even if the role you have is unknown the knowledge that you have a role will put you on top of the list for corruption and night kills anyways. I suppose that this can be semi-stopped by having vanilla as one of the possible roles in the list.

[Guest]

Having vanilla on the list is necessary, of course. And your role isn't the only thing it can be used for.

You can use it for basic responses to questions, and others' roles.

I used it earlier to tell someone a person's role (not mine), and then used a different code later to mess with the Courier about the same subject. So basically, the Courier thought that I slipped, but in reality, I just used two different codes.

But anyway, if someone asks you to send a code, it's a mistake to read too much into it, because you don't really know. It really is a beautiful system, and I'm sure I wasn't the first to think of it.

[Herowannabe he/him]

Even more RP - switching POVs once again, this time to Thay. I'll get back to actually writing the character I am playing as one day.

 

The knife was hidden...

 

Dang, Adamir. When are you going to be GMing a game? I'll definitely sign up if you do, just to read your write-ups.

 

As for the code idea- that's a really good idea Kipper. And it doesn't have to be just for role reveals or suspicions or etc. It can be for any sort of message. For example:

 

I think I've been corrupted = asdf089as0df

I want to eat a hotdog for lunch = 9j0rgr90

Your mom is a conspirator = :P:P

 

So the middleman really has no clue what sort of message he is passing on, all he sees is "9j0rgr90" or whatever. The only possible downside is if the eliminators have 2 couriers, or a courier and a con artist with a courier ability for the day, and just happens to be spying on the conversation you wish to protect AND the middleman. But the odds of that ever happening are astronomically low. 

 

Anyway, I believe someone suggested that we discuss who the brightlords/ladies should vote for tonight? Any suggestions? I'll have a few of my own in a minute here, once I do a bit of researching... EDIT: Make that in a long while- work calls. 

 

EDIT: Ninja'd by Kipper himself...

Edited August 24, 2015 by Herowannabe

[STINK he/him]

From the sounds of it, Hero and Kipper might as well be one person on two computers with all this code talk.

[Herowannabe he/him]

From the sounds of it, Hero and Kipper might as well be one person on two computers with all this code talk.

 

[Clanky he/him]

Okay that definitely solves that problem. So now is everyone going to be asking everything via code? This could get interesting. 

 

Also I did suggest a discussion centered around directing the night vote.  I have some thoughts on the matter but nothing major. I was thinking Hael seems a bit suspicious with his lack of contribution. When looking through his posts I found this post:

 

 

 

Will be sleeping for the next while, but should be back on for the 3-4 hours prior to turn over.

Just thought I'd chime in and comment on a few things before I drop off. Re: Raven being night voted. I've been ball parking ~8 Brightlord/ladies. So until we've killed more like 4 of them, I'm assuming that there'll be enough of them that 2 votes would be necessary for it to go through (noting that that is just because I suspect players will vote fairly randomly, rather than it being a requirement of the ability). As far as the reason for the votes on Raven goes, a vote from Ripple would make sense. It could be the Conspirators trying for a WGG, but as Raven hadn't triggered any alarm bells for me, I'm happy to assume that that isn't the case.

The one thing that messes with the analysis of the lynch is the new players. Not being used to us and the metagaming we have going on, if a couple of them were eliminators, teamed up with a (few) semi active more experienced player (or if they just decided to do their own thing, particularly with no doc during the day) I could see them piling on the lynch. I must say that at least for the moment, I'd be falling on the side of trusting Raven, and being suspicious of Stink. However, I'm tired, and want to spend some more time thinking about all this. So I'll come back to cast a vote at some point, hopefully not too close to turnover... 

 

Now this seems to me like it could be Hael trying to push suspicion off of Raven if they are both eliminators.

 

Now that only means that if one of them ends up as an eliminator then my suspicion for the other really spikes. For now though I do want to hear more from Hael either way.

[Macen he/him]

OK guys, seriously. The amount of text you all are generating for this game is making my brain hurt. I am finally getting caught up on this cycle, but I haven't even had a chance to touch last cycles posts.

I will hopefully be of more use during the week, but weekend I'm going to be out of commission again (going down a river and camping).

[Guest]

OK guys, seriously. The amount of text you all are generating for this game is making my brain hurt.

Isn't it awesome?!

[STINK he/him]

Who would dislike all this activity?

[Shallan she/her]

I'm basically just posting to stay ahead of the contribution crusaders. I am paying attention, but I also think I need to reread the threads. Have we checked on the alternate lynctbtargets for day 1 for eliminatoriness yet? That last minute swing still seems a little contrived to me, even though most of the people in it had a valid reason for doing so. Another thing Inthink we shout watch for is people trying to cement a bandwagon early. I'd like to here more from Venture Mistborn about that. Even if the Eliminators manage to change it, it still gives us information about who the want dead. Of course, if the top two candidates for the lunch were both villagers then that just turns into us destroying ourselves.

[Macen he/him]

Who would dislike all this activity?

Oh, I like it - I just don't have the free time (right now) to get caught up!

[Haelbarde he/him]

Why you've not seen a lot of me as compared to the first two cycles is the game started around Friday for me, and so I had time over Friday, Saturday. Last few days have been busy, and I've prioritized sorting out stuff for Wyrn's HttFE game. I might have some time before cycle ends, but for the rest of the week I should be more active. I guess the other thing is I didn't feel there much worth saying, and seeing as I didn't want to vote on Mailliw, there was little chance my vote would do anything.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

I must say I'm having trouble getting very much information from the lynch right now. As Wilson said, I'm not very suspicious of any of them(the voters) so far. I agree with Shallan about watching out for bandwagoning early on in the cycle as that seems like it would slow down discussion. So I think that Feligon and Venture are the most suspicous to me as they were the 3rd and 4th votes. Although Winter said she thought she had voted for Mailliw too, so she could fall in that same category for me too. But, again, none of their actions seem overly suspicious to me.

 

Edit: clarification....(the voters)

Edited August 24, 2015 by TheMightyLopen

[Haelbarde he/him]

She is also capable of eating hands that no one else can see. That should be scary...

[Shallan she/her]

If there's one thing I've learned while playing SE, it's that conversations without a purpose are often hilarious and disturbing.

[Renegade he/him]

One hour and fifteen minutes to go!

[Renegade he/him]

The Night has come to a close.  Sit tight; the write-up will be coming shortly!

[Renegade he/him]

Day 3: Final Message

Leyton wiped his brow after delivering the last message for the day.  It had been a long day of running messages, so long that it was an hour past sundown when he finally finished his shift.

“Storming highlords don’t pay me enough for this,” Leyton grumbled.  Doing this kind of mundane work, running across the Shattered Plains all day to deliver messages that were usually of little use, was not exactly what Leyton had in mind when he arrived at the Shattered Plains.  Still, it paid better than many jobs, and he had the perk of being able to spy on some of the messages, and covertly discover people’s opinions on the conspirators.

Leyton took off from the site of his last delivery of the day, heading across Dalinar’s warcamps to his abode, which was really just a small shack that he had rented from an innkeeper nextdoor.  Hearing of the attack on Kipper yesterday, Leyton made sure to check his surrounding as he made his way back.  Never can be too safe.

Leyton took a sapphire mark out of his pocket to illuminate his surroundings in the night.  Unfortunately, as a highstorm was due to come in a day or two, the sphere had almost gone dun, casting a dim blue glow around Leyton.  That’s useless, he thought, casting the sphere back into his pocket.

As Leyton approached his shack-home, he saw a paper set down upon the ground, half-covered in crem.  What is that?  A letter?  Leyton looked furtively about, then ran over to the message.

Leyton was pretty certain that male couriers weren’t supposed to know how to read, to prevent people from having their personal messages read, but obviously that didn’t really apply to him.  Leyton picked up the sheet of paper, brushing off the crem.

The message, Leyton instantly realized, didn’t seem nearly complete.  In fact, it only had one word:

Trap.

Leyton’s eyes widened, and instantly fixated on a cloaked figure, holding a bow.  As they pulled back the string, Leyton ducked.  The figure, however, seemed to know what he was doing beforehand, as they aimed the arrow in the center of Leyton’s stomach.

The sheet of paper fluttered to the ground, and the murderer picked it up and crumpled it in a fist.

-----

Brightness Katara sat in front of a doorway, reading a book to bide the time.  She was supposed to be guarding someone tonight, who felt rather paranoid about the recent murders.  She hadn’t been exactly ecstatic to do so, even if she was an experienced guard.  It meant she wouldn’t really get much of a chance to sleep, after all.

Guarding had been the natural decision for Katara, after the death of her mother on these very Plains.  Perhaps she’d eventually be asked to guard for Aladar, so she could slit the man’s throat…

Katara pushed those thoughts aside, as pleasing as they may have seemed.  The key to guarding was to know where your enemy was, before they knew where you were.  The building she was guarding had a pair of columns in front of the door, soulcast in stone.  Katara had taken refuge behind one of the columns, next to the tall, arching doorway.  With the design of the two-story building, nobody would even be able to see her until they were right next to her.  Of course, that hindered her own visibility, which is why she had an alerter fabrial set up next to her, which would flash if anyone approached.

On top of that, she had a number of guards stationed inside the windows of the house, each in possession of a conjoined fabrial, attached to a number of devices set above the doorway of the house.  If any of the guards detected someone, they would move the fabrial, causing the conjoined fabrial in the device to click into place, turning on a lighting fabrial.  While Katara was no artifabrian, she knew several people who were, and were pleased to create such devices at her request.

Katara smiled, flipping a page in her book.  Very interesting.  It detailed the events of…

The alerter fabrial flashed.

Katara frowned, putting the book away.  Perhaps she would end up seeing some action tonight.

Katara waved a fabrial to her right, which worked similarly to the devices mounted into the doorway.  This would flood the grounds around the house, which would hopefully scare off any intruders.  It also would make anyone who came near more visible, and alerted the other guards inside of a potential threat.

Katara waited, watching the alerted fabrial.  Was it going to dim?  As Katara watched, the alerted seemed to glow brighter.  Someone was coming.

One of the lights above the doorway gleamed white light, signaling that the guard on the north-west section of the house had spotted the intruder.  Interesting, Katara thought, remaining in her position.  She was on the southern wall of the house; best to stay here and see what path the intruder took.

It was another painfully slow five minutes before the light above the doorframe winked out.  However, strangely, the alerter fabrial was still glowing strongly.  Was there perhaps another intruder?  That didn’t seem very likely.

Suddenly, another one of the glowing fabrials above the door glowed; this one green.  That meant that there was someone in the southwest quadrant.  That would be somewhere around here… Katara checked the alerter, and discovered that it was glowing extremely brightly.

Katara sprung up, taking the sword she kept next to her, and turned to the locked door in front of her.  Someone…

A Shardblade sprang out of the door, nearly ramming into Katara.  Shardbearer? Katara thought to herself.  Did Kipper mention that about his attacker?

The Shardbearer cut down the wooden door, shrapnel falling all around the darkened figure.

Katara readied her own sword, but looked at the Shardblade in terror.  A Shardblade.  A storming Shardblade.  How was she going to fight against that?

The Shardbearer sliced through Katara’s sword like butter, and then gracefully cut downwards through her left hand.  Katara yelped, jumping backwards, as her hand turned gray, lifeless and limp.  The Shardbearer seized the opportunity, charging at Katara and ramming the Shardblade at her spine.

“Aladar!” Katara screamed as the Blade struck home, burning her eyes out.

The conspirator took the broken piece of sword out of Katara’s limp hand, chuckling.  “Sadeas will get a kick out of that.”

---

Leyton was assassinated!  He was a Noble Courier!
Brightness Katara was killed by the Conspirators!  She was a Noble Guards(wo)man!
Nobody received an extra vote today.

Day 3 begins now and will end in 23 and a half hours.  PMs are now open again, and the player list will be updated in a minute or so.  Good luck!

Edited October 28, 2016 by Alvron

[Amanuensis he/him]

I am still attempting to analyze what exactly this all means, but the first thing that comes to mind is that if Leyton was a Courier, was he the same one spying on Kipper's PMs? If not, it's possible he/she might be an Eliminator. Though I have no idea how it is decide how many of a single role is distributed among the players.

 

On that note, with both a Courier and a Guardsman dying, which ability do the Con Artists gain?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, they get it from the previous Lynch. Carry on.

Edited August 25, 2015 by Alvom Halbin

[Clanky he/him]

The con-artist only gains the role of players who are lynched. So no roles are gained from these kills.

 

 

EDIT: Ninja'd by Alvoms edit

Edited August 25, 2015 by Clanky

[RavenRadient7 she/her]

So STINK wasn't an eliminator, just someone who disliked first day lynches. And Wilson was killed, which I've been half-expecting to happen sometime early on in this game. At this point, I'd look at those who were targeting Wilson and STINK, and see what we can find from there. Also, looking at those who Wilson and STINK were targeting might find us some leads, though it's probably not going to be as conclusive as looking at those who were targeting them, considering neither of them would have known that their targets were eliminators or not.

 

I'll probably find more leads once I have a chance to reread through the threads, but off the top of my head I do know that Alvom was targeting STINK pretty heavily during the last day cycle. Anything to say about that?

 

Edit: I'm going to be getting off soon, so I probably won't have time to go through the threads until later on this cycle and find any leads.

Edited August 25, 2015 by RavenRadient7

[Amanuensis he/him]

I was suspicious of STINK, but never "targeted" him. I didn't vote for him or suggest people vote for him, just pointed out flaws in his character / logic as they surfaced / became relevant to game. Unfortunately there isn't really anything I can say to alleviate suspicion. Not only did I vote for phattemer on day one, I also passively supported Mailliw73's lynch, as well as expressed doubts about little wilson prior to her being killed by the Conspirators. If I was in anyone elses shoes I would be extremely suspicious of myself.