Long Game 66: A Struggle for Power

[Emi she/her]

Ok, now I will be more active, when I'm more orientated who can be and who rather won't be an Elim

[Elandera she/her]

After a brief skim of Ventyl's posts (I weeded out pure RP and irrelevant posts made mostly during D1 when most posts was a thing), I have a few more things to say. Emi and Walin may be worth a coinshot kill/lynch.

Ninja'd by Emi: Sorry Emi, I realize you just said you'd be more active.

It's odd that even last turn when Walin has been in and out of activity, Ventyl insisted he'd be used as a target for Leeching. If Walin's posting rate is roughly (wild guess here) once per cycle, why would he assume there would be an action to stop?

Also, less certain, but still possible, is Emi's involvement in Ventyl's first plan to prove his role. @Emi, were you aware ahead of time he planned to roleblock you? Maybe just a roleblock on Emi (if we have any remaining), instead of a kill. As I think about it, I'm less certain here. It would have been easier for her to lie and agree she'd been roleblocked if she'd been a teammate.

[Emi she/her]

Well, I didn't know. Really, I'm not lying

And whoops, sorry for ninjaing

Edited June 15, 2020 by Emi

[Elandera she/her]

27 minutes ago, Emi said:

Well, I didn't know. Really, I'm not lying

And whoops, sorry for ninjaing

Yeah, as I got to the end of my thought process, I realized you'd have no motivation to lie and say you didn't take an action. I should have made that more clear. I don't think you're suspicious for that anymore. 

[|TJ| he/him]

We really needed that. According to Elandera it should be 9-1-3, so that should give us a little breathing space. ( I still think they would have one extra elim to compensate for kandra kills, but I really cannot determine the balance of the game after playing only two games) .

3 hours ago, Mist said:

TJ, it was just something I noticed. Sorry. I forgot that you were accusing me. I didn't consciously mean for it to be retaliatory. 

My defense for activity: two games at once was hard to balance at first. I'll be more active here now.

I have a hard time noticing personal gut reads. I prefer to analyze players. I'm practicing. Also, this is only my third game. 

Ahhh, now I feel bad for being a tad aggressive. Sorry about that. I would still like you to ask the questions I've asked during the last cycle (pertaining to your voting choices and your reasoning behind them), but you can answer them in the Day cycle if you wish (or you can not answer them at all and my suspicion on you will grow  ). I can understand juggling two games, but that would be a convenient excuse. So yeah, analysis on a few players would help us figure you out. Still don't know why you voted for me in the last moment as it was basically a waste of your vote. You could have voted for Ventyl to secure

Let me look into the D3 lynch where Experience was voted out and Ventyl was up for a lynch alongside them. 
Ventyl voted for Karnage as self-preservation, so maybe we can soft-clear Karnage. Karnage's voting seems opportunistic but they could easily be a Pinnacle. Karnage voted for Ventyl during that cycle as well.
Ventyl was tied at 3 votes along with Karnage when Experience did not have a single vote on them. Magestar was the one who started voting for them. Hmm. Ashbringer follows by changing their vote from Ventyl to Experience.Then follows Elandera, and finally Mist that breaks the tie. Magestar states he wanted to explore more options as he did not agree with Karnage or Ventyl lynch. Elandera is a bit more confusing. She was focused on Experience during D1 and D2. Then Experience called her out, and she admitted to tunneling, and voted for Karnage. Then agreed with Magestar and shifted the vote back to Experience. Mist did not understand the Experience lynch but ended up voting for them?
Out of all the players voting for Experience here, I'm most suspicious of Mist,and as I said, I'd like to hear her reasoning behind all her votes. I'd also like to point out that Ventyl first poke-voted Mist in D1, then backed off by saying they did not mean to start a lynch train on Mist. 

1 hour ago, Elandera said:

• Karnage - Elim lean; I still haven't gotten over my suspicion here, but I want to look more at the posts and interactions with Ventyl.

I've given my thoughts on Karnage above. I'd like to know what you think about it.

1 hour ago, Elandera said:

• TJ Shade - Neutral, elim lean; I want to look closer at their interactions with Ventyl as well. Last turn gave me the impression of trying to possibly save them when another lynch seemed possible. (I'll need to actually look at how that voting went before I do much more with this suspicion.)

I'd like to point out that I was the first one to notice Ventyl would be the third Leecher in the village if we were to believe him, and that was, in fact one of the reasons you voted for him in this cycle, I believe.
The main reason I felt something off about Ventyl lynch was it felt oddly similar to the previous cycle i.e. no one showing any opposition to the lynch. So I was a bit apprehensive. I was definitely suspicious of Ventyl, but just a bit more put off my Mist's active silence. I had told I'd change my vote back to Ventyl if Mist gave a proper explanation but that didn't happen so I didn't feel compelled to change my vote. There's no reason Ventyl and Mist cannot be elims together.

Edit:

1 hour ago, Elandera said:

• Ashbringer - Village; Their continued suspicion and pursuit of a Ventyl lynch pretty much seals the deal here. If someone has protection, this might be a good place to put your action. A confirmed villager is always nice to have alive.

@Ashbringer could very well be a kandra for all we know. Ash, could you provide some proof of actions you took after Araris died? 

Edit 2: 
Black Market Update:
2 Bulletproof Vests and 1 Charged Spike was bought during the last cycle.

Edited June 15, 2020 by TJ Shade

[Elandera she/her]

2 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

I've given my thoughts on Karnage above. I'd like to know what you think about it.

Thanks for doing that. I had all of Ventyl's posts open for review and Chrome crashed. I got a little discouraged and decided to binge a series on Hulu instead. 

I'm definitely willing to put a lot more trust in Karnage, though I want to look at the exact numbers at the time of voting. It's unlikely Ventyl would cast a preservation vote on a teammate also likely to die unless they both agreed to the distancing tactic. 

2 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

We really needed that. According to Elandera it should be 9-1-3, so that should give us a little breathing space. ( I still think they would have one extra elim to compensate for kandra kills, but I really cannot determine the balance of the game after playing only two games) .

Mage was probably more accurate here, meaning 4 remaining elims, especially since Ventyl turned out to be a Leecher. 

2 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

@Ashbringer could very well be a kandra for all we know. Ash, could you provide some proof of actions you took after Araris died? 

I keep forgetting about the Kandra. 

[|TJ| he/him]

2 hours ago, Elandera said:

I'm definitely willing to put a lot more trust in Karnage, though I want to look at the exact numbers at the time of voting. It's unlikely Ventyl would cast a preservation vote on a teammate also likely to die unless they both agreed to the distancing tactic. 

Both Karnage and Ventyl were on 3 votes. That's when Ventyl voted for Karnage in self-preservation to make Karnage's tally 4. Then Pyro retracted his vote on Karnage to make it 3-3. Lahilt voted for Ventyl, but Ashbringer changed from Ventyl to Experience so it remained 3-3. That's when votes began piling up on Experience. 

2 hours ago, Elandera said:

I keep forgetting about the Kandra. 

Yeah, you're definitely the kandra  That's why you keep forgetting to look for kandra suspects xD

Edited June 15, 2020 by TJ Shade

[Ashbringer he/him]

11 hours ago, Elandera said:

Also, less certain, but still possible, is Emi's involvement in Ventyl's first plan to prove his role. @Emi, were you aware ahead of time he planned to roleblock you? Maybe just a roleblock on Emi (if we have any remaining), instead of a kill. As I think about it, I'm less certain here. It would have been easier for her to lie and agree she'd been roleblocked if she'd been a teammate.

Remember that Emi told me directly that she didn't get Roleblocked that turn, or at least she didn't recieve a message saying so. So saying that she did get roleblocked and submitted an action would be contradictory to her earlier statement, whcich would be incriminating if Ventyl flipped Elim. So Elim!Emi couldn't really say that Elim!Ventyl did roleblock her, because I would call her out on the contradiction, and possibly take down two different elims.

Not necessarily saying that Emi is leaning Elim, but it's something to consider.

11 hours ago, TJ Shade said:

@Ashbringer could very well be a kandra for all we know. Ash, could you provide some proof of actions you took after Araris died? 

Edit 2: 
Black Market Update:
2 Bulletproof Vests and 1 Charged Spike was bought during the last cycle.

The thing is... I can't really, if you mean in-game ability actions. I didn't Pulse anyone C3 because my only Elim lead was Ventyl, and I didn't want to disrupt his attempt at exonerating himself because I wasn't sure if he'd try switching his helper-target last minute. Since redirects tie with roleblocks it could end up a lottery as to whether my Pulse or Ventyl's Leech landed first.

This is a bit of a risk, but I also bought the charged spike and used my action last turn to implant it. Not saying what power I got, but let's just say I'm... optimistically disappointed for what it gave me. 

I keep worrying about what the Kandra will do, not who it is. Now that a second Elim is down, the Kandra has to start being really careful about balancing the PRE and Loyalists. I guess we'll know tonight whether it's an inactive or not. But if we're all assuming that Araris died instead of self-destructing, then anyone's a suspect.

I won't be super active today - especially around reset, I'm going to be busy tonight. Not such a huge deal on night turns, but just an FYI.

[The Young Pyromancer he/him]

Hm. Slight suspicion on Ash, for buying a spike, as the only person I've talked to with one role so far has been an elim. 

Think that TJ might be right about the extra elim, as single roles might be a good way to balance that out.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Elkanah was PRE and only a Misting, too.

[Elandera she/her]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Remember that Emi told me directly that she didn't get Roleblocked that turn, or at least she didn't recieve a message saying so. So saying that she did get roleblocked and submitted an action would be contradictory to her earlier statement, whcich would be incriminating if Ventyl flipped Elim. So Elim!Emi couldn't really say that Elim!Ventyl did roleblock her, because I would call her out on the contradiction, and possibly take down two different elims.

Not necessarily saying that Emi is leaning Elim, but it's something to consider.

Let me see if I can clear up my stream-of-consciousness explanation here, and why I ended up from being suspicious to not of Emi.

Elim!Emi would have been in on the plan with Ventyl at the beginning. There would have been no need for Ventyl to actually submit an action against her, and she would be free to do an action or not. When questioned the turn after the block was supposed to happen, she would have lied and said she was blocked, essentially clearing Ventyl at that time. Elim!Emi would have just lied to go along with her teammate, and would have no motivation whatsoever to say she didn't submit an action or wasn't blocked. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

Maybe. But I asked Emi almost immediatly after D3 opened if “my PM friend” got her Roleblocked, and she replied that she wasn’t Roleblocked.

At that point, the only ones who knew my plan were Pyro and myself, and I don’t know if Ventyl would have mentioned to an Elim doc that “hey, I told this villager that I’m Roleblocking you, so if he asks then say I did Roleblock you”.

I don’t really know how suspicious Ventyl was of me asking him who he was roleblocking. He didn’t want me pulsing Araris, but IDK why. He seemed to be fishing for who I was suspicious of for “roleblock targets”, and I suggested one of the semi-inactives like Xino, Emi, or Lahilt.

I guess what I mean is, I don’t know if Ventyl would have taken the precaution to let Elim!Emi in on the target claim. I can’t tell if Ventyl even knew there was a plan until it showed up in-thread, by which time I had already recieved confirmation of Emi not recieving a Roleblock message.

Since TJ claims there was no targeting done by Emi, I think Village!Emi is more likely, but not a certainty. And it’s really the only lead that I have.

[Elandera she/her]

I'm getting confused. How would Ventyl not know someone was trying to verify his roleblock target without asking him his roleblock target?

If anyone asked him his target, he'd be able to notify a teammate ahead of time. Did you ask him before the turnover or after? Either way, he'd have to give you the truthful target (which would be a villager, because why would he roleblock a teammate) or lie and get a teammate on board to help him out.

Here are the possible scenarios for an Elim!Emi regarding Ventyl's roleblock claim:

• Ventyl did not let her know of his plan to claim a roleblock on her
  • This would mean he'd have to waste an action blocking a teammate and hope she took an action
  • Hope that Emi would recognize the claim was coming from a teammate and corroborate it regardless. This is a dangerous move because it could lead to the discovery of a lie if someone happened to scan either her or Ventyl
• Ventyl told the elim doc of the plan
  • Emi was aware, but still didn't follow the plan, basically setting Ventyl up for downfall. Emi didn't answer the thread until the end of the cycle, giving her plenty of time to catch up in a doc, yet still didn't cooperate. @Ashbringer, when did she answer you?
  • Emi wasn't aware, which means she's not very active in the doc and Ventyl didn't do very much to make sure she was aware of the plan (such as send her a PM when she didn't answer in the doc)

If Ventyl was lying about his action, he'd have everything to lose by not letting his teammate know of his plan to false-claim and use them as the suggested target.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Elandera
Spelling

[Kidpen he/him]

Oh hey good job everyone. 2/? done. I'm back now.

Quick thought, I don't think kandra hunting would be super productive. If we lynch the kandra someone else just becomes the kandra, yes? And the kandra is defeated anyways if we kill all the elims. Even if we did find the kandra and decided to keep them alive or something, they could just kill themself and we'd be back to where we started, right? Or have I misunderstood something?

[Elandera she/her]

1 minute ago, Kidpen said:

Oh hey good job everyone. 2/? done. I'm back now.

Quick thought, I don't think kandra hunting would be super productive. If we lynch the kandra someone else just becomes the kandra, yes? And the kandra is defeated anyways if we kill all the elims. Even if we did find the kandra and decided to keep them alive or something, they could just kill themself and we'd be back to where we started, right? Or have I misunderstood something?

They can only switch bodies once per game, which happened when Araris died. 

[Ashbringer he/him]

Ventyl told me his target a few hours before the N2-D3 reset. Emi answered a few hours after that reset, but before Pyro mentioned the plot in-thread.

Yeah, now Elim!Emi doesn’t make much sense to me either. My main thing is I don’t know if Ventyl would have suspected a plot, since we were both seeming to plan having our Pulser and Leecher powers work together. But claiming to block another Elim would have been weird.

The Kandra right now is essentially a Coinshot every other night with a win condition to be the last one standing.

[Mist she/her]

C1 I voted for ILuvHatz because they were the person up for the lynch who I preferred to lynch. He was pure inactive; others had some activity. 

C2 I voted for Kynedath because I prefer to lynch less active people to active people, if I have no gut elim reads on them. 

C3 I voted for Experience. Three people were up for the lynch: Karnage, Ventyl, and Experience. Karnage was less active. It seemed like Ventyl was because Emi wasn't roleblocked, which ended up being because she hadn't submitted an action. That was the main reason I saw. Experience's lynch had some reasoning, and I was in a meeting so I couldn't do an ISO on him. I'm realizing now, I should have looked harder or just not voted here.

C4 I voted for TJ Shade because I thought his reaction at the beginning was overreaction. I didn't change it later because I thought Magestar was the main other up for the lynch, didn't think he was sus, and knew my vote on TJ shouldn't affect the results.

TJ, I totally understand your reaction and didn't feel like it was aggressive. 

 

@Kynedath. You said probably tomorrow. It's been a week. 

@The_God_King

I'll analyze some people later today (real time). Any requests?

RP to follow. 

[Kidpen he/him]

1 hour ago, Elandera said:

They can only switch bodies once per game, which happened when Araris died. 

I have, in fact, misunderstood.

I maintain that hunting elims is overall the better strategy, but I'm not like actively opposed to hunting the kandra in that case.

[Lahilt he/him]

Great! We got another elim. In a group PM Ventyl said they have an  way to out Ashbringer as the Elim that he is. In my opinion this could slightly village clear Ashbringer. 

[Walin he/him]

Quick recap question: are we all in agreement that Emi and Ashbringer are soft-cleared, and are there any other topics we have a consensus on?

And it looks like we've still got favorable village numbers, though a mislynch and mis-village-kill could bring us frighteningly close to parity.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

The turn is over! No more PMing, posting, or submitting actions until rollover is over!

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Elandera's breath caught in her throat as she sneaked through the twisting corridors of the compound. Her heart was hammering, but her soothing couldn't help with that. She'd have to hope that she had enough brass to overwhelm her attacker so she could get away again. She'd already used most of her vials the past two times he'd caught up to her, though that almost certainly wouldn't work as well this time around. She turned one more corner, getting ready to scan ahead for where she'd make her next turn before she realized that this corridor led to a dead end.

Pulling out her last vial of brass from a hidden pocket in her skirt and a knife from her sleeve, she quickly turned around and prepared to face Kynedath. The man had been waiting for her in her room when she'd finally made it back to her room to prepare to sleep. She'd barely managed to escape their first encounter, and she'd be smart enough to down some of her brass after that because he'd caught up to her earlier and she'd been able to soothe him enough to catch him off guard. 

Finally, Kynedath walked around the corner, a murderous glare in his eyes. Elandera burned brass and began to soothe his desire to kill her, his need to keep moving forward, soothed everything but the constant fear of a man who had been trapped in a cage and had decided to kill his way out. For a moment, Elandera thought it would work as he froze in his steps. Then he reached out his hand and Elandera's knife was ripped from her hand. He ducked as the knife sailed past him, pulling out his own knife as he charged towards her and slit her throat.

~

Kynedath watched as the life faded from Elandera's eyes as he held her his mouth over her throat to prevent her from screaming out in her final moments. He'd woken someone up in his pursuit of her. He'd heard a door bang open as he had run past while chasing Elandera. The loyalists had underestimated Elandera, so only Kynedath had gone to remove her. Now, it might cost him his life.

The hallways were eerily silent as Kynedath made his way back through them, picking up the nails he'd pulled from the walls during the chase to mark which turns he made. He moved silently, carefully placing each step so as to not alert others to his movements. Peeking his head around corners to make sure no one was down a hallway he was about to go down.

Only a couple more turns, he thought to himself, then I'll be able to meet the others. For a moment, he considered whether he should just make a break for it. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. He decided against it, determining that caution would be the better course of action.

He made his way around another corner. No one was there that he could see. Good. He started walking to the other end of the hallway to pick up the nail he'd left when it suddenly shot at him and tore through his arm. Cursing, he quickly ripped pulled open a door to a room and ran inside. He shut the door behind him and hoped his assassin hadn't seen which room he'd gone in. He quickly began to bandage up his wounded arm when he felt a sharp pain in his side. Before he could let out another breath, something tore across his throat and he fell to the ground to bleed out the last of his life.

---

Elandera has been killed! They were a PRE Operative Soother/Trueself Twinborn!
Kynedath has been killed! They were a Loyalist Lurcher/Subsumer Twinborn!

PMs are open, but make sure to add Young Bard, Fifth Scholar, and myself to all PMs. Also, make sure to make new PMs with players rather than adding new players to PMs. 

There will be a lynch this turn. As a reminder, there is no vote minimum for the lynch, and a tie vote will result in one of the tied players being lynched randomly.

The turn will end at 9 pm CDT on June 17th. The next turn will begin one hour later.

Player List:

Spoiler

1. @Karnage - Lance Neverwatch 
2. Elandera PRE Operative Soother/Trueself Twinborn
3. Elkanah PRE Operative Leecher Misting
4. @The Young Pyromancer - Pyria Young
5. Shard of Reading - Reading PRE Operative Leecher/Pinnacle Twinborn
6. Experience - Shard PRE Operative Lurcher/Bloodmaker Twinborn
7. @Lahilt - Lahlit
8. Ventyl - Lafay Etteax Loyalist Leecher Misting
9. Coda PRE Operative Seeker Misting and Hemalurgist
10. Matrim's Dice - Lord Cauthon PRE Operative Nicroburst/Sparker Twinborn
11. @TJ Shade - TJ Shade
12. @Emi - Lorinne
13. xinoehp512 - Neru Loyalist Rioter/Gasper Twinborn
14. @Kidpen - Villin
15. @Mist - Lumen
16. DrakeMarshall - Lorena Blackburn PRE Operative Gasper Ferring and Thief
17. Araris Valerian - Araris Valerian Kandra
18. Devotary of Spontaniety - Adomert PRE Operative Slider/Sentry Twinborn
19. Kynedath Loyalist Lurcher/Subsumer Twinborn
20. @Walin - Lerin
21. @Ashbringer - Faleast
22. @The_God_King
23. @Magestar - Reginald Kettis

PMs should be all sent out by now. Just let us know if you haven't received one.

[Magestar he/him]

Called it.

[Walin he/him]

Noooooooo Elandera!! At least we got a Loyalist in return, but I must mourn Kynedath's loss as well. Elims are valuable members of the team, giving us reads and info that we can go back to analyze.

Also, I'm not going to vote until I read some stuff in the backlogs that I've only been skimming over. This calls for some serious analysis for which I am not up, so I'm gonna have to prepare tomorrow to do so.

----

Lerin was pretty sleep-deprived. Of course, that was probably because he was secretly part of a big meeting with Loyalists in attendance, but that reason applied to everyone. Now that he looked more closely, he saw they were a little sleep-deprived too.

[Emi she/her]

Elims will definitely win this one