Mid-Range Game 14: The Canim Fury

[Elbereth she/her]

The Turn is Over!

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Night had descended quickly, the sun nothing but a shimmering, red blister on the horizon, causing the twilit sky to slowly bleed for a deep orange, to a bruised purple, and finally masking everything under the cover of darkness.

Gammax hated night times the most. Never knowing who was out there, secretly plotting behind your back, sneaking up on you with knives drawn, waiting for the time you weren't looking.

Gammax was ready for that tonight. He had exerted himself throughout the day, spending his time away from everybody else and all their insane bickering. Debating who to kill next? As if murder was that civilized. He realized he didn't have a choice but to help participate.... the captain had already made that abundantly clear with the threat of "desertion and dereliction of duty" hanging over everybody's head. Still, it didn't mean he had to like it.

So Gammax spend the whole day gathering up firewood. Piles and piles of kindling and smaller twigs to keep the base and coals going. Giant logs to toss onto the fire to keep it burning the whole night. He would keep his campsite well lit. He wasn't going to let anybody sneak up on him.

 

Except maybe that one person..... the only other person who had really come forward and confronted Gammax. They extended the hand of friendship. And Gammax didn't want to lose his only friend...... but could he really trust them?

He shook his head once again, dispelling the thoughts of paranoia that seemed to grip his psyche lately. No. He told himself. You have to trust somebody.....

 

He just had to wait and see how the night went, first.

[Elbereth she/her]

Cycle 3: A Perfidious Pair

After 3 days of a forced march, the provisions that had survived their first encounter with the Canim were getting thin. They also hadn’t heard any howls from their hunters either. Dominus called a halt. “Alright soldiers, we’re going to stop here and forage for a bit to boost our food supply. Spread out and gather what you can. We move out in 45 minutes. If you’re not here, catch up when you can.”

…

Gathering food was beneath Aldric. Instead, he observed Araris, hoping for an opportunity to challenge him to duel, and finally prove that he was the better swordsman. Unfortunately, there were too many others in earshot. He yawned, starting to feel a bit tired. Why’s the air look a bit hazy… Then he felt a quick sharp pain in his neck. He tried to cry out, but he couldn’t do anything as his body collapsed. As the life ebbed out of his body, the last thing he heard were two bickering voices.

“I told you that it’d be easy without metal!”

“No, it was definitely the watercrafting.”

“Hah. If not the lack of metal, it was definitely my windcrafting. Never heard us coming.”

“Heard me coming you mean. You hardly have the strength to pick up a stick.”

In some ways he was glad to not have to listen to it any further.

---

Dominius was walking at the head of the column when he heard giggling. He rolled his eyes. Lexa and Heaven, of course. He looked pleadingly over at Luxet, walking beside him.

She sighed in irritation, but nodded. She was his Tesserarius. Handling annoyances like this was her job, so he could focus on the actual work at hand.

“Girls,” she began. He tuned out their voices after that, concentrating on watching the forest around them. He had to walk beside Luxet, since the windcrafting was technically tied to him, but that didn’t mean he had to actually listen to their mindless blatherings.

After a while, Luxet groaned at rubbed at her forehead. “Could you survive without talking for just a couple minutes?”

“No!” exclaimed one of them. “No way!” said the other. He wasn’t sure which was which, really.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just kill both of you and leave you for the Canim,” Luxet said in exasperation.

“Because you’re nice!” Dominus could practically hear the innocent smile plastered on that face.

“Because we’re traitors!”

Dominus stopped cold. “What?”

“Uh...” “Because you’re nice! That’s what I meant to say.” Her voice quivered slightly.

“You. Traitors.” Dominus glanced at Luxet, but she was already moving. He just had to stall for time.

“Um... no?” “Well, we kinda are, Lexa.” “Shut up, Heaven.”

“You sent the dream,” Dominus said. “You killed Aldric!”

“Well, not the dream. That wasn’t us. It was-” “Heaven! Great furies, I love you, but-” “Sorry!”

“Bloody crows, there are more of you?”

“Language!” they said in unison, then broke into laughter.

“Oh hi, Luxet!” said one of them. Heaven, he thought. “Come to arrest us? Put us into custody?”

“No.” Dominus said. He heard a thump and a weak cry: “But-”

“This is a war zone,” he said grimly. “We’re running from the bloody Canim. Do you think we can afford prisoners? Let alone traitors?” A second thump. “Sorry, girls. Tesserarius, make sure they’re dead.”

“Sir,” she replied. The windcrafting abruptly disappeared.

When Luxet came back, her uniform was spattered with blood.

---

Dominus decided to address them at dinner time.

“By now, you will have noticed that another 3 of our company are missing. Aldric never returned from foraging, and that he hasn’t caught up since means he is more than likely dead. Lexa and Heaven are no longer among our number, but for good reason. They were traitors to our cause but inadvertently confessed to being so. They are dead, and their bodies scattered. Before they died, they let on that they’ve been behind some of the deaths, and the dream we all shared, and that there’s yet more of them among us.

“So I need you to be both vigilant and careful. But don’t let this shake us apart. If we stand together, we can remove the traitors from us without any more innocent blood being shed. If we fight together, we can cleanse our ranks of the impurities, and come out as a shining example of soldiers who have spat in the eye of death and triumphed! Dismissed.”

The speech didn’t quite have the desired effect. A number of soldiers immediately began to bicker, pointing fingers, and then weapons at each other. As their voices began to get louder and louder, Dominius started back to settle things down. He was only able to take a few steps, though, before Gammax stepped up and ran Mulciber through with his sword. “She’s definitely a traitor. Everyone remembers the flames that rose high in the nightmare, right? Mulciber is always setting fires. Search her, and I’m sure you’ll find evidence to show she was planning to burn us all to ash.”

“Bloody crows!” Dominius yelped. He glared at everyone. “When I said ‘without any more blood being shed’, what do you think I meant? Kill everyone you’re even vaguely suspicious of? Mulciber was like a sister to me, and you’ve killed her just because she might be a traitor.” He sighed.

Dominus quickly firecrafted Mulciber’s body to ash, using air and water to keep the ash contained, and to hide sight of fire from view, before sending the ashes a fair distance away, along a different path, so as maybe to distract their pursuers, when they reached this point. He dearly hoped they would lose them, but with the trail of bodies, and the constant distractions, he was no longer sure they could...

---

Burnt was lynched! She was a Loyal Legionare with Tier 2 Earth and Tier 1 Metal!
Winter was killed by a metalcrafter! She was a Traitor with Tier 1 Air and Tier 1 Water!
Phattemer was killed by the traitors! He was a Loyal Legionare with Tier 2 Earth and Tier 1 Water!

Vote Count
Winter (1): HS
Phatt (1): Con
Joe (1): Lopen
Burnt (2): Aman, Gamma

 

1. Araris Valerian (Araris Valerian) of the Knights Terra (Earth)
2. Postea Nominatur (Joe) of the Knights Ignus (Fire)
3. Aldric ex Gladio (Phatt) of the Knights Terra (Earth)Loyal Legionare with Tier 2 Earth and Tier 1 Water
4. Amuro Ray (DC) of the Knights Aeris (Air)
5. Mailis Maxium (Maill) of the Knights Aqua (Water)
6. Praetoria (Hellscythe) of the Knights Ignus (Fire)[/s]
7. Straw (ThatTinyStrawMan) of the Knights Aqua (Water) Loyal Legionare with Tier 1 Water and Tier 3 Earth
8. Lexa & Heaven (Winter Cloud) of the Knights Aeris (Air)Traitor with Tier 1 Air and Tier 1 Water
9. Thelus Ascheion (Master Elodin) of the Knights Ferrous (Metal) Loyal Legionare with Tier 1 Metal and Tier 1 Earth
10. Lorn au Volarus (Bugsy) of the Knights Ferrous (Metal)
11. Parth (Conquestor) of the Knights Ferrous (Metal)
12. Vorax Linnitax (cloudjumper) of the Knights Aeris (Air)
13. Stella Fur (SilverDragon) of the Knights Flora (Wood)
14. Mulciber (Burnt Spaghetti) of the Knights Terra (Earth)Loyal Legionare with Tier 2 Earth and Tier 1 Metal
15. Sienis Trajan (Seonid) of the Knights Aeris (Air)
16. Gammax (Gamma Fiend) of the Knights Ignus (Fire)
17. Glaive (Amanuensis) of the Knights Flora (Wood)
18. Priam (Lopen) of the Knights Flora (Wood)

Cycle 3 has begun! You have 48 hours to send in actions and decide who to lynch.

PMs are being sent out now. All PMs from Cycle 1 are now closed.

Edited November 12, 2016 by Alvron

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Isn't it a coinflip if it's a tie?

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Two vote minimum I'm assuming.

[Elbereth she/her]

Great Furies. I was so sure I'd done it without a mistake, but no. Of course not.

Burnt was lynched. It's been added into the writeup and the relevant PMs edited.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Ah, that makes sense. 

 

So again with no Firecrafting. Since most the Fire mains were voted on, but didn't influence the votes, I'd hazard that they all have better abilities. I also want to guess that no one has Tier III Fire and that at max, only one or two have Fire II. The lack of fire kills both cycles seems to indicate that there isn't much of it, if any. If there is any, it belongs to a player more cautious with their kills.

 

Second, good kill on Winter, whichever Metalcrafter did that. I began to have reservations that Winter was evil during the last cycle, but I wasn't sure. 

 

Also, I'm fairly sure I know why Phatt died. He PMd me shortly after Winter did, telling me to follow his lead. I was confused, but as he explained it, he told me that he had informed Winter that we were chala, bonded to each other and that if either of us died, both of us would. He confided in me that it was a real role and he was someone's chala, just not mine. Because of that, Winter kept asking me if I believed it was a real role. I informed her that I thought it was plausible. Because of that, I think Winter and the other Traitors killed Phatt to try to kill both him and his chala. With Tier II Earth, I would've thought Phatt would protect himself after such a play, but apparently not.

 

EDIT: Ignore all I said about firecrafting. What was the original vote tally, does anyone have it noted down?

Edited May 27, 2016 by Mailliw73

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

That's not quite how Chala works. For those of you who haven't read the books, there's a race of humans called the Marat, who can't furycraft. They bond with Animals, who they call their Chala, and their bond gives them the animal's traits, as well as strengthens their Chala. So, if there is a Marat/Chala player, then they would likely have something like a passive extra life, since they're stronger than Alerans. (that's us,) If anyone would like to know more about any other race on Canea, just give me a holler, and I'll give a rundown of all the races.

 

Winter was the middleman between Mailliw and I. So yeah, I'm willing to bet that Mailliw is Loyal. 

Edited May 27, 2016 by The Only Joe

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

I don't think you can self target with E2 though, so phatt was a sitting duck. And my reads seem to be on point so far.

 

I'm gonna say that SilverDragon is soft-cleared(at least to me he is), for telling the thread his protection on Winter didn't work. If he was evil, I am pretty sure he'd have no reason to reveal that, since he wouldn't want to connect to one of his teammates so blatantly.

 

I'm very confused at to why someone moved Gamma's vote from phatt to Burnt(I believe that was the only vote shenanigan Mailliw). The way I see it, it could have been an eliminator wanting to force a lynch and realizing they were already killing phatt, decided to move a vote onto someone with a vote. I believe both Gamma and Joe were online after the votes switched off of Joe and onto phatt, so I'm thinking that one of them is probably evil. Could either of you prove that you didn't use your Tier I Fire?

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Oh hey, if you have firecrafting, and a spare action, you should firecraft people to vote for the person they're already voting for, to make a 50% chance of an eliminator's firecrafting not work on them.

 

EDIT: Lopen, unless someone spied on me, I cannot.

Edited May 27, 2016 by The Only Joe

[Mailliw73 he/him]

That's not quite how Chala works. For those of you who haven't read the books, there's a race of humans called the Marat, who can't furycraft. They bond with Animals, who they call their Chala, and their bond gives them the animal's traits, as well as strengthens their Chala. So, if there is a Marat/Chala player, then they would likely have something like a passive extra life, since they're stronger than Alerans. (that's us,) If anyone would like to know more about any other race on Canea, just give me a holler, and I'll give a rundown of all the races.

 

Winter was the middleman between Mailliw and I. So yeah, I'm willing to bet that Mailliw is Loyal. 

That's just what Phatt claimed. I have no idea if the role is even in the game.

 

Lopen. Joe, can you PM me now? I need to ask you something pretty important.

[Gamma Fiend he/him]

Looking back over the vote tallies, it looks like my vote was changed onto Burnt, cause I kept my vote on Phatt last cycle.

Gammax couldn't believe it. First, he couldn't even trust his memories, of things long forgotten or already past. But now. He knew he had declared Aldric as a Traitor. He distinctly remembered giving his reasoning as to why he thought the person was guilty. He followed all the forms and proper procedures. But now. He could also remember calling out and confronting Mulciber. Being the one to get them killed, instead.

Great furies, what was happening to him? How could he trust anything, anymore? Forget trying to find friends. He just wanted to go hide. Hide away from everyone and everything. Including himself.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

That's just what Phatt claimed. I have no idea if the role is even in the game.

 

Lopen. Joe, can you PM me now? I need to ask you something pretty important.

. . . Maybe. I need to check some things with Hael and Elbereth first. (Trying to figure out the secret rules with knowledge from the books.)

Edited May 27, 2016 by The Only Joe

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

That's just what Phatt claimed. I have no idea if the role is even in the game.

 

Lopen. Joe, can you PM me now? I need to ask you something pretty important.

 

Why are you voting on me Maill?

[Amanuensis he/him]

Well, this is probably a dangerous line of thought to go down, but in the original write-up it said that Gamma had voted for himself. The error was that his vote was changed to Burnt. I had originally had my vote on Gamma and had later retracted it in favor of her. I think a Traitor Firecrafter was watching the thread at the time and had originally chosen to get Gamma killed. However, at some point towards the end of turn over they put in an order to change it to Burnt. I think that the original order was accounted for in the GM Doc, so when working on the Write-Up Elby had just referenced that, but upon it being brought up by Mailliw she realized the Traitor Firecrafter changed their target to a villager they didn't plan on attacking / not Winter who also had a vote and as we know now was evil. That seems to imply that Joe himself is evil as well, or at least that they believed he was suspicious enough to be lynched soon so they figured it'd be better to go for someone else.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Why are you voting on me Maill?

Hang on, I'm verifying something, but I might be wrong.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Sorry, Lopen. Had my facts mixed up.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Sorry, Lopen. Had my facts mixed up.

 

No problem gancho. I just don't like sudden unexplained votes on me. Mailliw

 

Oh yeah, I roleblocked Araris with W2, so he's not the one who killed Winter. Figured I'd just reveal that right away, since it might become important to know at some point.

 

And I think I should bring this back up, given Winter's revealed to have been an evil. SilverDragon targeted Winter with a protection that failed. Winter did not have a W1 ability, so who protected her? There are 4 Wood players revealed at this point: me, Aman, Hellscythe and SD. There might be more though.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Just remembered something, if you contaceted me via PM the firat cycle, winter knew you had a pm ability as well, so the traitors are aware of your fury, but not your tier.

[cloudjumper he/him]

Vorax groaned softly. Another three people were killed during the night. Ten years on the Shieldwall, and Vorax thought that he would have at least gotten used to it by now. He thought he had. But not even the Icemen could be more terrifying than this horrible fate. Vorax got up from his bed and walked around the camp, slowly stretching his muscles. He could feel the tension in the air, and could tell that people were already pointing fingers, so he had better be ready for the day that was to come.

 

Please excuse the quality. I had to rush it, because my schedule is really tight right now.

 

Edit: Fixed name

Edited May 27, 2016 by cloudjumper

[Amanuensis he/him]

Just remembered something, if you contaceted me via PM the firat cycle, winter knew you had a pm ability as well, so the traitors are aware of your fury, but not your tier.

 

Well the eliminators probably know that I have Water as my secondary then, so I might as well tell the entire thread. I will be PMing a player every cycle to make sure that one of my actions is accountable for and then also hiding myself so that I'm immune to any actions used against me. That way it's consistently proven that there's no way I can kill anyone. That being said, I am now more suspicious of Lopen then I was before. He told me that he had a PM with DC from Day 1 still open last cycle but it turns out if you hide yourself (as he claimed he did) any PMs you're in are canceled that next turn. I know this because the GMs just closed our PM and when I inquired why I learned that it's because he hid himself. So Lopen who did you actually Hide C1? Winter, perhaps? Or did you use another ability, like Wood3?

 

If anyone wants a PM with me specifically feel free to mention it in thread. Otherwise I'll just go for a random player of my choosing.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Amanuensis

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

Darn, you caught me! Nah, just kidding. I don't know why the PM didn't close, because I did use W1 on myself on C1 and C2. I'm guessing it's just because the GM's were figuring out how PM's were gonna be affected by the different rules and so when they made the decision about how PM's would fit in the grand scheme of things the PM was still open so they decided to just leave it open? That's my guess. Here's my Actions so far:

 

Cycle 1 Actions: Use W1 on myself. Use W2 on Joe(but the GM's missed this, so Joe's abilities worked. they granted me an extra Action for last Cycle to make up for it. (thanks guys! )).

Cycle 2 Actions: Use W1 on myself. Use W1 on Gamma(my extra Action). Use W2 on Araris.

 

Now, what I'm trying to understand is how Gamma's vote was moved if I made him untargetable. I asked Elb about it, but she said that everything was correct, so I don't really know how they moved Gamma's vote.

 

Misunderstandings that get me votes aside, I've been thinking. The player who caught Araris using Metal Tier III would be a top priority target for the eliminators, right? Because a Tier III Air user is a pretty dangerous player to be left alone. That players identity is known to multiple players(Hellscythe for sure, and 2 other players because a player spied on the player who caught Araris using that Metal and told someone else about it). So at least 3 players know who it is and I suspect Mailliw might know who it is as well. I think I do too. So, with that many players knowing their identity, it's almost definite that a Traitor would know it, right? But that player wasn't killed, phatt was. I suspect they weren't killed because it would implicate Traitors because of 2 possible reasons - they knew of his power/Araris is evil. I'm thinking it may be both of those reasons actually.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

I'll take it, Aman.

[Elbereth she/her]

W1 did not affect PMs during the turnover to C2 if it should have in any instances. (Because we totally forgot about it.) Sorry.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Elbereth

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Haha, I was a bit sad, since I forgot to send in actions this time around, but I guess if I got roleblocked then it isn't all too big of a deal.