Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Kasimir]

One rule clarification:

If you are making any kinds of PMs, please be reminded not to include the IM, @little wilson. The resulting inbox carnage is my burden alone to bear  The general rules have been updated to reflect the fact Wilson doesn't want to see exactly what messaging horrors y'all capable of.

This clarification should not be taken as a guarantee that you will have PMs. RNGesus is merciful.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Kasimir

[Young Bard]

"Murders?" Thiriel asked, trying to sound shocked. "In Fallion's Tears? How terrible!"

Finally. How many years had it been, stuck in the arse-end of nowhere, and with no way to make his name beyond helping chronic gamblers retrieve their ducks. Ducks, for the Lord Rulers sake. You wouldn't have heard of the Lord Heron or any of the other lords ever having to stoop to dealing with ducks now, would you? Noisy, smelly little buggers.

But this... this was an opportunity. An opportunity to get noticed by the people who really mattered. Who'd take him away from this stupid, backwash town.

---

Thiriel, determined social climber, is ready to do his part to rid Fallion's Tears of these foul vermin who'd commit such horrendous acts. And to make sure he gets his due recognition at the end of it.

(Apologies to Kas for the late signup.)

[Kasimir]

2 hours ago, Young Bard said:

(Apologies to Kas for the late signup.)

No worries, I have a distro, and two back-up distros, and they are all capable of accommodating last-minute sign-ups. And I will never say no to more players

...Unless you're Wyrm. In which case:

Spoiler

 

[Quivil]

Daux was glad he'd come here. There was so much game! It was all ducks, but that wasn't a problem for him. Each duck was different. He never used spices on them. Changed by it's experiences and flavored by it's fears. Sometimes he thought he could almost - almost - tell what their fears were. In times when they had all the same fears that feeling only grew.

There had been something interesting about the ducks' taste in the days leading up to the killing. Their fear was growing. They knew something was wrong. Deadly wrong.

And after the old man died it only got worse.

 

I would like to (re)sign up (sorry for the bother) as a resident duck... wrangler (translation: resident poacher.) My name is Daux (pronounced ducks)

Each cycle I post about the ducks' fear?

[Kasimir]

13 minutes ago, Tani said:

I would like to (re)sign up (sorry for the bother) as a resident duck... wrangler (translation: resident poacher.) My name is Daux (pronounced ducks)

No issues, welcome back

Reminder to anyone on the fence that you have just about an hour and six minutes before sign-ups close. Unless you're Wyrm. In which case, just no >> 

[Kasimir]

And time. Sign-ups have closed! PMs to be dispatched soonish and write-up to be posted at midnight, after I get a bunch of anti-pyretics >>

Here's some soothing music to tide you over while I sort things out.

[Kasimir]

Day One: Bury Your Doubts

“Fold down your hands
Give me a sign
Put down your lies.

Lay down next to me
Don’t listen when I scream
Bury your doubts and fall asleep.”

—’Goodbye’, Apparat

Stick around long enough with this line of work, and you see enough drek. Sort of things I’ve seen, sometimes, it’s hard to fall asleep at night. That’s when all of it comes back to you, when your head’s too busy to do the decent thing and just let you kip.

Can’t win ‘em all, and the ones you lose… Well, they’re the ones that stick with you. 

Someone whacked Leas Fel. That was one thing. And now someone’d gone and whacked Bartholomew, and done it to make a spectacle. Like I said to Kast, it’s pretty simple. Isn’t common in somewhere like Fallion’s Tears we have to deal with a murder. Mostly, it’s cheating, or theft, or an argument over missing ducks. Two murders, barely a week between them, and something starts to stink worse than Bartholomew’s hides. 

Bloody as it was, I’d seen far worse. 

First months on the job in Tremredare were rough. A stabbing where the vic was barely alive when we got there, still trying to hold loops of gut in. Died of course. The stench told us he was as good as dead. A tavern brawl turned ugly and you ain’t seen ugly until you see what’s in people’s heads. Poor bastard never woke up. I like to think that was for the better, sometimes. 

No, I wasn’t especially disturbed by the murders themselves, but what they meant. Hell of a way for Bartholomew to go, though. Best as I could tell, as I wasn’t a doctor, looked to me from the blood as though Kast was right. Bart had died right there. In fact, from the amount of the blood, he’d lost most of it when they rammed that spike right through his chest, meaning he’d been aware and fighting them when he died. 

As I said, hell of a way to go.

There aren’t many good ways to go, really. If I had my way, I’d pass quietly from this world in a comfortable bed, in my sleep. If you’d asked me a couple of months ago, I’d have put the odds of that as being pretty damned good. Somewhere like Fallion’s Tears is a far cry from the docks of Tremredare at night, where anyone’s as likely to whack you as the next. 

Now though? With the murders going on, I was starting to get worried all over again. 

Of course, maybe they weren’t connected. And maybe I was Lord Heron, Steward of Tremredare, in disguise. My gut told me that wasn’t likely at all. For one, the MO was the same. Chest wounds, and losing a drektonne of blood at the scene. For another, two murders barely a week apart in a sleepy little village like Fallion’s Tears? I just needed to tug at enough threads until I figured out how they were all connected.

Or things could get ugly, real fast.

 

 

Wyl took charge. 

It was what he always did, stepping up to the plate, because it was clear as day that if he didn’t, things would spiral further. He didn’t like the way people were whispering about koloss and murders—of course, it didn’t make them wrong, especially where the murders were concerned. But back in Tremredare, last thing you wanted was gawkers on your scene. Even crowding around it. The ragtag group of volunteers that passed for a watch in Fallion’s Tears though, wouldn’t have known any of that. Keeping the gawkers from tramping all over his crime scene was pretty much the most he’d expected out of them.

Their crime scene, he supposed. Kast was staring at the spike, and he looked like he’d rather be working ten rioting cases back in the city than at this particular scene right now. Wyl didn’t blame him, but all the same he filed a mental note to talk to Kast afterwards.

He hadn’t cause to be unsure of Kast in years, but… he supposed you never really did know. Not now that someone was going around killing people in Fallion’s Tears with spikes. Plenty of people whacked in Tremredare, and until their dying breaths, they’d have sworn they trusted their business partner or their family members, or whoever their Nigel was. Honestly, sometimes, Wyl was sick of how predictable it was, the same bloody script playing out again and again. So no: a definite yes on talking to Kast, and just feeling him out.

Part of the reason he’d had Kast called down to the crime scene, really. He valued Kast’s eye on the problem, figured Kast knew a bunch more about spikes than he did, and more than anything else, Wyl wanted a clear, sharp glance at Kast’s reaction. 

What he saw wasn’t especially helpful. Kast looked as though someone’d gone up to him and punched him repeatedly in the gut, which was a hard reaction to fake. So that was a point in his favour. He hadn’t expected the spike. Wyl hadn’t either, to tell the truth. Leas Fel’s death had looked like a stabbing. Straightforward, if you discounted the fact that killings weren’t thick on the ground, somewhere like Fallion’s Tears. Sure, they’d had their share of gambler’s disputes, and there wasn’t anything quite like boxings for showing up the darkness that lurked in everyone, but even then, Leas Fel’s death had sent shockwaves through the village. 

But Kast hadn’t had much of a reaction until the spike. He’d been surly, closed-off, which Wyl figured could’ve just been the pain, but it was setting off red flags in his head anyway. So yeah, they needed to talk. He caught Kast’s eye, and Kast grimaced. Later, then.

The other problem at hand, and the really pressing one was keeping the villagers from panicking. These many gawkers at the scene set Wyl on edge. Sure, they were docile now, but who was to say they’d stay that way? Sometimes, scenes turned ugly, and crowds were always a devil to manage, especially if this one got itself all worked up chewing over the way Bart’d died, and especially all that mention of koloss. Everyone was already on edge from the Leas Fel stabbing, too. Last thing they needed was more public order drek, right on top of the murders.

He didn’t really have authority here, he figured his best hope of getting everyone to disperse was if Mayor Wilson showed up, but she’d left shortly after Wyl worked the scene. Something about a dispute between a storyteller and some other guy. Wyl hoped it was that important, and said so, because they needed her there to keep everyone calm. She’d asked him what he needed. So he’d told her the truth: he needed Kast at the scene, yesterday. Wyl wouldn’t have minded going to get Kast himself, but someone had to hold down the fort at the scene, and none of the Watch volunteers were going to be able to handle that, so hell, Wyl it was.

Of course, Kast wasn’t the guy you wanted if you wanted to actually give the gawkers some kind of direction, or get them to disperse, so that was bloody well going to be Wyl, all over again. As far as Wyl was concerned, this entire day was shaping up to be a real pain in the arse: just one bloody thing after another, really.

Tremredare had been that way. You had maybe ninety irons on the fire at once, if you were lucky, and Lord Ruler help you if you dropped any one of them. 

“All right,” he called out, loudly over the murmuring of the crowd. “Fun’s over—I know you love your free shows, but poor Bart’s dead, and it won’t do anyone a lick of good if half Fallion’s Tears is staring at his body. You wanna think about what his family’s going to feel about this?” Bart had a boy, far as Wyl could remember. Foreigner kid by the name of Pie Roayong. Took him in, near seven years ago. Lord Ruler, this was going to be hard on the kid.

That, at least, had shamed some of them into moving off. Rest of them, he had a word with one of the volunteers—man by the name of Erik, solid as they came. Wyl knew the type: back in Tremredare, they were the ones you asked to do the difficult work, like interviewing the family of the vic when the corpse was still warm, and asking the questions that had to be asked. Running crowd control. UC work, too. The good liars weren’t always the reliable ones. 

Erik had a farm on the outskirts of the village. Wife in the ground nearly a decade ago, as Wyl recalled. They’d moved from the Northern Dominance before Wyl had even come to Fallion’s Tears. But if you needed something done properly, Erik was your man. Right now, he needed someone to talk the rest of the gawkers into leaving.

“I can do that,” Erik said, nodding, when Wyl explained. “I’ll get some of the others, and we’ll clear the last of them out. You think the Mayor’s going to talk about it?”

“The murders?”

“The koloss,” Erik grimaced as he glanced at the bloodstained walls of the shed. “I’ll get someone to clean this mess up, once you’re done here.” 

“Probably has to,” Wyl said, though privately he doubted all the whispers of koloss. There were wild bands of koloss in the Remote Dominance. One of the Watch was prone to jawing while on duty, and he’d always talk your ear off about the tales of his uncle’s adventures, back in Tremredare, but Wyl’d never placed much stock in them. Koloss this side of Tremredare? Without the Lord Ruler’s say-so? Doubtful, though Wyl figured he’d talk to a few of his sources, see what they made of it. “Be good if you could do it, yeah.”

A most bloody business, murder was. 

He strode over to where Kast was staring at the blood on the shed walls. Probably trying to commit them to memory. “Your play,” Kast said, without meeting Wyl’s gaze. Work with someone long enough, and you developed a kind of short-hand, a way to read each other without needing so many words. They were both getting into the flow of things, ticking the boxes, doing what needed to be done this stage of the investigation. Right now though, he wasn’t getting much off Kast. Wyl figured they’d have to talk about that later.

“Split,” Wyl said. “Mayor or Bart?” The cheating case could wait, as far as Wyl was concerned. He’d put in some time later. Another murder put a whole different complexion on things. Way he saw it, they could keep on filling in that timeline of Leas Fel’s movements and connections, and compare that to Bart’s, or they could talk to Wilson. Wyl wasn’t sold on the Mayor, but someone had to take charge, what with the murders and mentions of koloss. And he remembered that the Mayor and Leas Fel—they’d been friends once, hadn’t they? Always another connection to nail down, if they could. 

“Bart,” Kast said, almost at once. He smiled half-heartedly, as though more from habit than because he felt it. “Leave you to make nice with the politician.”

“Sure, leave me to do the dirty work,” Wyl scoffed. He glanced over at the bloodied spike that Kast had retrieved, gleaming ominously in the morning light. Curious choice of weapon, Wyl thought. Normally, if you wanted to whack someone, you got a knife. Or if you were angry enough, you got whatever was ready to hand. Spike though? That was something different. Far as Wyl was concerned, that meant planning. He didn’t like that one bit at all.

“Hell of a way to go,” Kast said, quietly, echoing the direction of Wyl’s unspoken thoughts.

“Yeah,” Wyl said, and left to go see the Mayor about two dead men and a bunch of koloss.

 

 

The Mayor’s house wasn’t all that different from the others in Fallion’s Tears. Sure, it was in a nicer part of the village, but It wasn’t especially big or grand, the way the nobles and merchants in Tremredare sought continuously to outdo each other, building grand mansions while the skaa outside laboured and starved. Never was a shortage of those willing to build their palaces on an edifice of human misery. Still, hard to build big in a small place like Fallion’s Tears, Wyl figured. 

He knocked on the door and waited. 

A lot of investigative work went this way. You showed up and asked questions, and listened. And maybe if you were sharp, if you asked the right questions, if you noticed the way people’s bodies talked and betrayed them, you’d get some answers. And if you were very lucky, you got the answers you needed to crack the case wide open.

Wyl wasn’t feeling lucky, but it had to be done.

Just as he figured he needed to knock again, the door swung open.

“Sharpe,” Mayor Wilson said. “Figured you’d be by.”

“Didn’t imagine there’d be reason for doubt,” Wyl said. Stealthily, he wedged his foot in the crack of light between the doorframe and the open door. Didn’t think the Mayor would shut him out like that, but well, force of habit and all that. “Was always going to be me or Kast.”

“Kast?” Wilson scoffed. “Distrusts everyone. He’d probably prefer to jog three laps around the village than come talking to me.” 

“Yeah, well, trust’s a rare commodity in our line of work,” said Wyl, even if the mental image was an amusing one, and even if Kast did have a tendency towards extreme paranoia. “Came by to ask you some questions, really.”

He didn’t really have any authority here. It wasn’t like they respected the badge either, in Tremredare, but there was a Heron in the Watch, and Herons had a way of getting things done. Must be nice, being related to the ruling Steward of the city. Here, they had to find more creative ways of getting people to talk. Wyl wasn’t sure if he’d have taken the Leas Fel or Bart cases on his own—he wasn’t Watch anymore. Hadn’t been in years.

But two people getting whacked just like that. It left a bad taste in his mouth. Law had to mean something, or it was pointless, all of it. Even somewhere like Fallion’s Tears, in the arse-end of nowhere. He didn’t like the idea that the world was coming apart at the seams, just enough that you could whack two people in Fallion’s Tears and no one would give a rat’s arse about that. Someone had to give a damn, and it looked like damn-giving was Wyl’s job, if no one else’s.

And the Mayor was paying. In theory, anyway. So that was the way it was going to be.

“Of course,” Wilson sighed. “Well, then. I suppose you’d better come in.”

She let him in, showed him to her study. He kept his eyes open, of course. A good investigator was observant, and after all these years, Wyl’d liked to think he knew enough of the fundamentals of his craft. He’d been to the Mayor’s house a few times, but as always, nothing jumped out at him—a few nice drawings on the wall, couple of fancy cups and plates on display in a cabinet, knick-knacks on a few shelves, but everything else was kept away neatly. 

Her study was crammed with books and charts. Wyl craned his neck, trying to make sense of the crabbed handwriting and the links. “Genealogy is fascinating,” Wilson said. “Though I’d consider myself a dabbler, more than anything. Have a seat. Can I offer you anything to drink?”

He was tempted, but he shook his head. “Just some answers,” Wyl said. He let his gaze drift across papers and charts. He thought he saw a flash of what might have been some numbers, maybe something financial, but Wilson was already tucking that sheaf of papers away into a drawer.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said. “Well, how can I help you, then?”

“Lots of people out there running scared,” Wyl said. “Leas Fel, and now Bart. And all the talk about koloss. You going to talk to them?”

Wilson frowned. “I’ve sent Rowan out early to go have a look,” she admitted. Rowan was a hunter and tracker—Wyl figured if anyone could figure if there were koloss in the area, it’d be Rowan. “Don’t spread this about, understand, Sharpe?”

“Spread what?”

“Good,” Wilson breathed. “Rowan found tracks, some distance away. He says he isn’t sure if they’re human, but they’re larger than human tracks have a right to be.”

Wyl leaned forward in his seat. “Hell,” he said, at last. That didn’t leave very many palatable options behind. “But if they’re koloss, what are they doing, lurking and waiting?” Everything Wyl knew suggested that koloss were wild, difficult to control. Why would they be sitting anywhere near Fallion’s Tears as though they were Watch on a stake-out?

Hell, the idea there were koloss somewhere out there sat poorly with him. He felt as though he was walking through the docks district on night patrol again, the way any shadow or noise could be someone looking for trouble or ready to tangle with the Watch.

No one with any desire to keep on living tangled lightly with koloss, or at all.

“If I knew, Sharpe, I wouldn’t be sitting on this,” Wilson snapped, impatiently. Was she on edge because of the murders and the koloss? Wyl wondered. Or was there something else lying beneath that impatience?

“Yes, I’m going to talk to them. Call a village meeting later this evening, probably. More than anything, we need everyone to keep calm rather than panicking, and that means not worrying about koloss that might or might not be out there. And we need the militia to be ready. Just in case.”

Seemed to him to be contradictory, but Wyl wasn’t going to point that out. That was the Mayor’s job, not his, even if any thinking person would see the Mayor was insisting there wasn’t koloss out there, and also that the militia had to stand ready.

Politicians. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Wyl just wanted to get his job done.

“Right,” he said. “I guess you have things well under hand. What about Leas Fel? Heard you were both close.”

This time, he got a reaction there. Wilson looked surprised, but also for an instant, Wyl thought he saw something that set off alarm bells in his head. Furtive, he thought. Wilson looked furtive. She blinked. Once, twice. Liar’s sign, said the former Watch in him. “He came by a few times,” Wilson said, at last. “There’ve been Fels in the area at least for the last two centuries or so, and he wanted to see if I could trace a branch of cousins.”

“That it?”

“We had our jokes,” Wilson added. “I guess he enjoyed the company. Gave him something to take his mind off his time in the army.”

He’d worked that much out. Leas Fel had been a former veteran in the local garrison, and had retired to the village he’d left. Far as Wyl figured, he’d either seen too much or too little. You didn’t retire without any visible scars unless you were pretty good with a sword. But that just added another wonderful layer of complications to everything.

“You got any reason why someone might want to whack him?”

Wilson raised an eyebrow. “You’ll probably be in a better position to figure that out,” she told him. “I’m as much at a loss as you are. Losing Fel like this, and now Bart…” she pressed her lips together in a tight line. “I don’t want the killer on the loose in my village, Sharpe.”

He got the point.

“I’m doing what I can,” Wyl said. It was the only promise he could safely make. Sometimes, your best just wasn’t good enough. And yet something deep in him rebelled at the thought. It was the same part of Wyl that cried out when they were told to drop a case because some noble got their trousers in a twist, call it integrity, or just a fundamental belief that the law applied equally to everyone or it wasn’t good for anything at all. Lady shouldn’t get away with whacking someone, just because he was skaa and she had the bluest blood this side of the Channerel.

But that was how it always went, wasn’t it? Same old script, same old play, written in power and privilege, and always, always blood, since the Lord Ruler had vanquished the Deepness built the Final Empire on the ruins of the old world. Or so the Steel Ministry told them all. Wyl wasn’t sure. He wasn’t much of a believing man, had never been.

They hadn’t liked that, not in Tremredare, the ancestral seat of House Heron. They hadn’t liked that at all.

 “I’ll see myself out, then. Thank you for your time.”

“Watch yourself, Sharpe,” Wilson said. He tried to decide if it was a threat or warning. “The last thing I need is for you to end up dead, too.”

“Thing is,” said Wyl, “A lot of people’ve been telling me that. Still haven’t been whacked, though. I guess that must count for something.” Probably made him the luckiest bastard the Watch had seen, really. Though he guessed surviving this long, being this hard to kill was some kind of skill in itself.

He left.

 

 

The Day has begun and will end at 2300hrs SGT (GMT+8) on 28th February, 2021. PMs are open. Please remember to include the GM but not the IM in them. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by Kasimir

[Kasimir]

Player List:

Spoiler

1. @Matrim's Dice as Philico, the Magician Extraordinaire! - Come one, come all!
2. @Random Bystander as the village's random bystander and musician - Who wants to live forever?
3. @Gears as Roko the Basilisk, the gambling menace - Building a house of cards
4. @Quintessential as Tesse Mourn, resident metallurgist - Mixologist but metal
5. @Fifth Scholar as Iste Confessor, village scholar - I confess I'm interested in this one
6. @Shard of Reading as Joe, gambling duck wrangler who drinks - I'd be driven to drink too if I had to wrangle ducks 
7. @Araris Valerian as Arenta, grumpy landlady - or the unholy conglomeration of AG Araris and Ren, tremble with fear ye tenants!
8. @Dannex as Dr. Aliker - A doctor, just probably not the one you're looking for
9. @Elandera as a confused and overworked metallurgist - Whose order is it anyway?
10. @Ashbringer as Derrick, general madman and secret kandra - Twice the pride, double the fall!
11. @TJ Shade as Fleur Tieste, hopeless romantic and god of cheesy one-liners - Are you a Lurcher? 'Cause I think I'm pulled towards you.
12. @Illwei - definitely not an Elantrian
13. @Devotary of Spontaneity as Sonnah Cojic, alchemist - But probably not full metal
14. @Experience Animation as Shard, the crazy 'kid' in town - Here's lookin' at you, kid.
15. @Mailliw73 as Marll, a gambling cobbler who heard of Tyrian Falls - Beware beetles!
16. @StrikerEZ as Variel, a fastidious storyteller - Who will tell the story of your life?
17. @The Unknown Order as Obliteration, a Shard inhabiting one of his followers - Guess you could use somebody
18. @The Windrunner Supreme as Merritt Cavallo - Pending
19. @Ventyl as Niru, a watcher of ashes - Watch out, Ash, he's coming for you!
20. @Flyingbooks as Lasalen, an alchemist with ducks to give - RELEASE THE QUACKEN!
21. @Burnt Spaghetti as Roseanna Ghetti, an insomniac artist - But what is there to art in this village but an infinity of ducks?
22. @STINK as Smirkai - Smirkai, now that's a name I haven't heard in a very long time...
23. @_Stick_ as Sunny, the intrepid baking worldhopping dolphin - So long and thanks for all the fish!
24. @Biplet as Sara, the local tavern-keeper - Toss a coin to your keeper, o' valley of plenty!
25. @Daisy as Hadra the storyteller - We are the stories we live! The tales we tell ourselves!
26. @The Young Pyromancer as Pie Roayong, foreigner kid out for blood - His name is Pie Roayong. You killed his father. Prepare to die.
27. @Young Bard as Thiriel, social climber - Chaos is a ladder.
28. @Tani as Daux, duck poacher - The socially-accepted term is 'wrangler'.

Rule Clarifications:

Spoiler

• Can there be vanilla Spiked?

Absolutely. Nothing in the rules precludes this. Vanillas will either be told they are Regular Villagers or Regular Spiked.

• Can a Rioter cause a person to self-vote?

Yes. They can.

• Can a Rioter affect the vote of a person who hasn't voted?

No. Flavour-wise, you have to go after someone with an emotional connection to their vote, not the apathetic  

• Can a Rioter self-target?

It is possible, but their vote would be removed.

• How many actions are there in a Turn?

Depending on the actions you have available (e.g. metal, Spiked kill), you have one action per Turn. Voting is not an action.

• Can a Rioter change a vote to a no-vote?

Yes. They can.

• What happens if a Rioter and a Soother target the same person's vote?

The vote manipulations cancel out and the vote is unaffected. If the Rioter has placed a vote, their vote will be nullified.

• Will Rioting show up the same as Soothing?

The vote tally I will give you will reflect the original voters - only the vote totals on each player will change. So suppose that Kas and Ren vote on Wyrm, but shock at this sudden act of betrayal from Kas has led to vote manipulation taking place. This is what you'll see in the final tally:

Wyrm (1): Kas, Ren

Players will not be told whether this is Soothing or Rioting.

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Kasimir

[Gears]

Roko the Basilisk watched as the villagers finished cleaning up the bloodstains, wiping clear what had been soiled. There was a sense of ritual to it, an aura of mystique. What once was a ruin of flesh and blood and bone was now an empty canvas, ready to be adorned yet again. The casual air of the cleaners bespoke repetition, regularity, rhythm. A clever newcomer would have known, even if the townsfolk did not say, that there was death, had been death, would be death. It was almost soothing, in its own way. This was not an irregular thing. Death comes, death goes, and the village carries on. There will always be a village, even if it must be rebuilt on the remnants of the old. The stains are wiped away, and none will know the dark and torrid history of the time before, save for a smattering of instinct and a prickling of the spine as shadows claim the corridors and fear infests the mind.

Reverse the name, reverse the fate. Hide the bodies and their wakes. Wipe away the blood and gore, forget the fearful days of yore. Fall upon the rusty sword lest ye fall before the hoard. Tyrian Falls, Fallion’s Tears, four fallen towns do linger here. Rebuild atop the dead of old, don’t speak of monstrous beasts untold. Metal gleams within the vein, blood drips down devoid of pain. The Spiked all roam across the land, destroying life in merry bands. They call upon the Ruined Men to tear apart the peaceful den. The timbers crack and shatter stone, the monsters tear apart the bones. Salvation dwindles with the light, the shadows take a life each night. The vanguard strikes at stalwart foes, identities we do not know. Paranoia feasts on fear, we shan’t survive another year. Fear the end, fear the morn, upon this day death shall be born. Behold the effort of the mad, we stand before all that we had. The fires burn, the fires dance, the game is one of only chance. Dovie'andi se tovya sagain, let us fight this battle once again.

Roko moved towards the Steel Crow, where the village would soon be gathering, and took a seat in a poorly-lit corner, shuffling a new/old deck, fundamentally distinct from its others. Trionfi, tattered and torn from the hands of a person it was not and would never be. As it sipped at a drink it could not taste, it shuffled the cards with one hand, staring idly at the door. Then, it began laying out the cards. The Three Fates spread was a simpler one, but it did not have enough time to properly interpret the Celtic Cross. The first card was the Hierophant, upright. In the past, all was as it had been and all was as it would be unto eternity. There was peace, there was prosperity, there was Preservation. The next card was the Tower, upright. In the now, all was changed, all was torn asunder. There was wrath, there was wreckage, there was Ruin. The final card was the World, reversed. In the future, there was no closure, no salvation, no miracle. The town had been peaceful, and now it wasn’t, and it would never be again.

One way or another, the village was not going to survive. Perhaps the koloss would rip each building from its foundation. Perhaps the paranoia would tear them apart. Perhaps the reconstruction would break them. Perhaps the deaths would drive them mad. The future was grim and dark and cold, and nothing could change it. Perhaps it was never meant to be. The weight of history stood against them, four fallen villages known as Tyrian Falls lurked in the mists, and the faceless masses tore themselves apart. Or perhaps… A lack of salvation and victory are not mutually exclusive. One can be ruined and still reign supreme. One can stand before the tide without the aid of miracles. One could still destroy the monsters and not be finished, could still feel the gaze of grinning ghouls lurking behind, could still jump at every shadow and flinch at every gleam of sharpened metal. Perhaps it could be done. Perhaps Fallion’s Tears could be saved.

Roko laughed, a bitter taste upon its tongue that had no buds with which to know flavour. It was not one for unlikely bets, preferring to bet on strong hands and fold the weaker ones, but alas, this gamble, this hill that it had chosen to die upon for the sake of pride, this pathetic village that had died so many times seemed to be at a distinct disadvantage. A mantle of Doom lurked atop its shoulders, and it could not help but feel a hint of trepidation at the days to come. This would not be an easy battle, but Roko would fight nonetheless, even through the end of days. It had claimed this village for its own games, its own fun, its own experimentation. The koloss would not have Fallion’s Tears. It would not let them have Fallion’s Tears. Not while it roamed this broken land of ash. Not while it strived for eternity.

The tavern doors creaked open, admitting yet more villagers. Roko watched as they sat down and acquired drinks. A solemn air clung to them, carving itself into the slant of their spines and the glint of their eyes and the weight of their minds. They seemed weary, broken before they had begun, crumbling to pieces without any hope of salvation. It tossed a few coins to Sara, the tavernkeeper for the work about to fall upon her and stared at the flickering flames dancing in the fireplace as the conversation sputtered to life. The day stretched out before them, seemingly endless and yet so agonisingly short. Time, the root of all evil, the enemy of salvation, of conservation, of Preservation, the last bastion of chaos within an infinite ocean of eternity. There was much work ahead, and so little time.

---

The following is an analysis of the rules:

This is a very standard game, being a rerun of the First. Ties kill no one. OoA will be addressed post-roles.

Roles [though I’m sure most of you will know what these are, considering that they are the foundation of our terminology]:

Thug: +1 life. [Basically counts as +.5 elims, be wary]

Tineye: Existence causes PMs, sends anon messages. [In LG1, the Tineye died N1 [why did the olden games have nights before days?], which is unfortunate. Great way to infodump, great way for elims to lie and implicate other people falsely [though they have to be top sneaky [catch the reference?] so people still trust the anon messages]]

Smoker: Looks like regular Villager, can extend, can turn off, immune to vote manip [Very good for elims, a slight nuisance for villagers trying to be verified.]

Seeker: Alignment and role scan [Reminder: Smoker. Find a village Tineye and contact them to share your scans. If there is not a village Tineye or you do not find one in a reasonable amount of time, consider finding a village Lurcher or Coinshot.]

Coinshot: Murder! [Nothing much to say here. Just don’t be an idiot [like I am on a frequent basis]]

Lurcher: Protection. [There’s no restriction on protecting the same person over and over again, so you may just want to protect yourself until you find someone you consider worth protecting.]

Soother: Negates a vote. [Good for trying to orchestrate a tie and save people]

Rioter: Changes a vote at the cost of your own. [See Soother, good if you aren’t voting and trying to alter things. Use D1 to mess with their heads?]

Mistborn: Get a random Misting role each cycle. [Use each role to the best of your ability, good luck.]

Regular: *head pat* Would you like a lollipop?

Spiked:  The enemy, hostis humani generis

Order of Actions [at night]: Smoker [sensible, disguising happens before detection], Seeker [find out what they are before they die], Lurcher [protecting before dying [new Oaths?]], Death [comes as the end] [Disguise before Detection, Protection before Death, ???]

I’m sure you know what to do with the roles better than I, considering this game has occurred 4 times before, so take my advice with a pinch of bone salt and four dashes of cinnamon with a side of coriander and mushrooms. Fair fortune, my friends and foes.

[Sidenote: I spent a lot of time getting my pre-written RP to exactly 1000 words. Now, I’m padding the analysis section with more words so the post can be a total of 1600 words. Before this lovely aside, the analysis was 400 words exactly. As there’s not much to say, I’ll just engage in some random nonsense where I just type and let my fingers lie to me about what they want to say. It’s mildly fun and the game is never a dance of knives and flurry falls and revenants haunt the places where emotions cause imprints of the soul on the Weave and never remembered means never existed because we dictate reality if we want to plummet from the sky and know that the world is exactly as we wished it to be and crumble before the face of infinity and the light of the dawn and the awestruck diamonds of coal from the wraithling child who never swore to die and longs to be a part of us and flee the stones of yonder days and violate the vows we’ve made and hope to those who don’t care that we live, that we breathe, that we die.]

[Shard of Reading]

Joe watched, but he didn't care. Sure, finding the spiked would make it so he didn't die, but his precious ducks simply couldn't be ignored. They'd been missing for almost 12 hours. What if the person forgot to feed them? What if they forgot to give them some water to splash around in? What if they... ATE THEM. Joe almost fainted from shock and fear. He needed to go clear fog up his head. He needed a good drink and then maybe a wager on how quickly he could find his ducks. That would motivate him wouldn't it?

Okay, so, 28 players. 20% of that is 5.6, 25% is 7. I'd say that there are 6 or 7 elims. (Probably 6 if they have a thug)

[Kasimir]

13 minutes ago, Gears said:

[why did the olden games have nights before days?]

Because Meta liked to start the game with a Night. Felt it let people RP and gave people something to talk about for the first lynch, whether it be via action results, or the NK victimology. There are trade-offs, the most prominent being that a player dies before they can start playing, which can be pretty rough. As a result, I've chosen not to do that here.

[Mat]

I'm here! Didn't miss too much, it looks like  

I agree with Reading's guess for the size of the team, though with the amount of roles there are and how helpful they are for the elims (such as the Smoker) I'd lean more on six elims regardless of if they have a Thug or not.

I'll post some RP later, but I'll be around.

[Araris Valerian]

Arenta frowned from her chair as the sun peeked over the horizon. She sighed, and then slowly rose, bones creaking. Today was the day the town was going to start killing off all her tenants. Only one thing to be done then. Best jump right in and get her hands dirty. No sense leaving this sort of work to youngsters. If you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself. And of course, if people were going to be gathering, that might present some financial opportunities as well. She figured Joe (Shard of Reading) was as likely to be responsible for trouble as anyone else. A drunkard and gambler was about as bad as it got in a town of this size. And those ducks kept driving her property value down.

[Quintessential]

Tesse Mourn paced nervously back and forth in her study, trailing the shaking fingers of her right hand over the furniture as if to find stability within it. The solid oak desk, the heavy bookcase laden with old leather tomes, the painting behind which her main safe hid, the door, another bookcase, the desk again. Back and forth. It didn't help. 

There had been a Spike. Lord Ruler, a spike... She wasn't sure yet, but... Lord Ruler. This was a mess. 

She'd had to cancel her trip to Tremredare next week. She was running low on atium, and besides that she needed to deliver a vial of the metal she'd crafted to her patron, who would give it to a Mistborn to be tested. But Rust and Ruin, if she left now... her eyes darted nervously to the window on the other side of the room, as if she expected Speirs or Sharpe to come marching up the walk outside right that instant. No, she would stay here. To leave would draw suspicion, and that was something she couldn't afford. Not now. Not ever.

Hi everyone! I'm here  and I'm actually trying to RP consistently this game hah, like that's gonna happen. Gears' analysis and Reading's guess of team size seem reasonable to me--the AG had 27 players and 6 elims; so 6 seems pretty fair, and 7 wouldn't surprise me. 

Also, random question for @Kasimir or anyone else who feels like answering: Can there be Regular Villager Spiked? They're listed as separate entities in the role list, but then Spiked are also listed separately from the other roles so I would guess probably? but I figured I'd ask and clarify that.

[Kasimir]

2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Also, random question for @Kasimir or anyone else who feels like answering: Can there be Regular Villager Spiked? They're listed as separate entities in the role list, but then Spiked are also listed separately from the other roles so I would guess probably? but I figured I'd ask and clarify that.

Technically no, but it's a matter of wording. Regular Villagers will be told they are Regular Villagers, Regular Spiked will just be told they're Regular Spiked. In practice, yeah, there can be vanilla Spiked and vanilla Villagers which is really what you were asking.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Kasimir

[Quintessential]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

Technically no, but it's a matter of wording. Regular Villagers will be told they are Regular Villagers, Regular Spiked will just be told they're Regular Spiked. In practice, yeah, there can be vanilla Spiked and vanilla Villagers which is really what you were asking.

Okay thanks lol good to know.

In that case I might almost lean towards 7 Spiked, since the AG was a role madness game. More players (well one more anyway) and probably some vanilla spiked means the team might need to be bigger. Right?

[The Young Pyromancer]

Can confirm this is not role madness, at least if a certain someone is telling the truth.

[StrikerEZ]

Variel watched as the crowd began to disperse. In a way, he was a bit disappointed. He had the perfect opportunity to begin a story, where so many people could hear his story. Granted, that could be considered disrespectful to poor Bart...but Variel had learned that man's story once. Variel figured the man wouldn't mind his death being used as a way to tell his story, even if the names were changed a bit. So, Variel began a story about no one in particular and to no one in particular as he was walking away from the scene of the crime.

"Some time ago," Variel began, "a child was disowned by his parents. Through no fault of his own, for sure, but it was a particularly misty day when Haller found himself on the streets. Haller kept trying to find his parents again, but to no avail. Eventually, he learned his parents had died, so he gave up. One day, a kind man found Haller and took him in, began to show him what it means to be truly loved by someone. I think it's beautiful that we can find true family even in the worst of situations."

~

So, some quick thoughts: I recommend Lurchers protecting themselves until they learn of someone they think it's more valuable to protect. I would recommend Coinshots using their kills as often as possible. You might be wrong about someone, but even knowing that someone is village will give us information on other people. Seekers: if you find someone that's village, go ahead and PM them (assuming they're still open). That's someone you know for sure that you can trust.

As for the elims, I'm betting we have no less than 6, and probably have 7. 25% is just too nice of a number, and 8 perfect cycles in order for an elim team of 6 players to win is a long time to go without losing any elims. Even if 7 perfect cycles is a shorter amount of time to win, I feel an elim team deserves the win if they manage to not lose any elims for that long.

Anyway, I've been ninja'd like 4 times by now, but I don't risk seeing the posts for fear of losing this one.

Also, Gears. Something already feels off about his role analysis to me. Feels way too forced, honestly. May as well get some discussion going while I can. I probably won't be back on for another...5-6 hours or so. But felt like I should go ahead and say something to start off the game.

[STINK]

Do I make the PMs or let people come to in PMs this game lads

What does Smirkai do here

[The Young Pyromancer]

5 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Seekers: if you find someone that's village, go ahead and PM them (assuming they're still open). That's someone you know for sure that you can trust.

Um, nooo? Smokers exist. This only applies if the person you scan actually has a metal/is mistborn.

StrikerEZ don't lie to investigatives.

[Mat]

19 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

In that case I might almost lean towards 7 Spiked, since the AG was a role madness game. More players (well one more anyway) and probably some vanilla spiked means the team might need to be bigger. Right?

A 6 person team would be ~21%, which is about standard if a bit low. That would be balanced out pretty well by the Smoker they almost certainly have, the Thug they might, and any other roles (such as a vote manip or something)

Though @StrikerEZ's point about how long it'd take them to win is good, though it's also slightly contradictory since he just asked the Coinshots to kill as much as possible. (A request, I might add, I disagree with unless you're Alv, who is not in this game  Coinshots: be careful about it, and smart. It might be worth waiting for an alignment scan to come up Spiked, though since that might not actually happen it's up for debate.)

Other thing I disagree with about Striker's post: His vote on Gears, who posts analysis like that every game and has done so without fail for a very long time. I detected no difference and it looks to me like another vote on Gears for something entirely NAI which is a... trend.

I generally agree with his Lurcher point (though if there's someone generally trusted and more likely to be killed that's a situation I'd protect them instead of yourself) and I do agree with Seekers PMing village scans.

StrikerEZ, for the vote, the coinshot point, and in a really weird way, the Seeker point. The paranoid side of me wonders if it's set up for an elim to PM a villager claiming to be a Seeker who scanned them. But the one thing I don't want is a repeat of the last LG where I voted Striker immediately after his first post, so this is pretty tentative and I'm watching to see if there will be more or if it's more of a general difference in playstyles.

13 minutes ago, STINK said:

Do I make the PMs or let people come to in PMs this game lads

What does Smirkai do here

If you want to PM me I'll respond though I... probably won't PM you.

Edit: Ninja'd by Pyro :P. Which I point out because of his vote and also his point, which changes my opinion on Seeker claims.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Matrim's Dice

[Flyingbooks]

1 minute ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, Gears. Something already feels off about his role analysis to me. Feels way too forced, honestly.

I think he probably wrote his analysis before he even got his role pm.

[Stick.]

You've heard of Fallion’s Tears. Now get ready for: Sunny's tears ;-;

As much as Sunny had enjoyed her first time experiencing the ash falls, she was immeasurably disappointed when she found her most recently baked cake covered in ash. 

(image in spoiler)

Spoiler

She encouraged the townsfolk to taste it anyway, for she would've hated for it to go to waste.

(image in spoiler)

Spoiler

 

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

Anyway  Hi everyone! I'm excited to get started; there's so many players here I've never played with before!

15 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Can confirm this is not role madness, at least if a certain someone is telling the truth.

PM role claiming going on already? Interesting 

6 minutes ago, The Young Pyromancer said:

Um, nooo? Smokers exist. This only applies if the person you scan actually has a metal/is mistborn.

StrikerEZ don't lie to investigatives.

 

4 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

StrikerEZ, for the vote, the coinshot point, and in a really weird way, the Seeker point. The paranoid side of me wonders if it's set up for an elim to PM a villager claiming to be a Seeker who scanned them

You should definitely not trust every person that scans as Village because of the smokers, yes, but I dont think an elim would make a slip-up like this one so early in the game as I'd expect them to be way more cautious of their words than some villager

[Quintessential]

17 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, Gears. Something already feels off about his role analysis to me. Feels way too forced, honestly. May as well get some discussion going while I can. I probably won't be back on for another...5-6 hours or so. But felt like I should go ahead and say something to start off the game.

Striker, I can't imagine Gears had the time to write that analysis after he got his role PM. Actually, I'm pretty sure he always writes his analysis beforehand. And idk what about it is forced--it seemed normal to me. This just feels like an attempt to throw shade on someone to me

[Shard of Reading]

1 minute ago, _Stick_ said:

PM role claiming going on already? Interesting 

Or, they could be implying that they are vanilla. (That's how I interpreted that)