Kasimir

@Ashbringer - #Icallthisaggressivenegotiations

There was a proverb for this situation in the Rose Empire. Kesan Acheris thought of it, even as he watched the dying fires from the shore. A tale of a Rose Empire general who'd broken the pots used to cook food, and set his own ships ablaze, after his army had crossed the river. Such proverbs had tales attached to them, always. Teaching tales, perhaps. Or just a way to remember the proverb itself. With their back to the river, the army had fought, knowing there was no retreat. Well, Kesan thought, sarkastically. The negotiations certainly weren't short... But it wasn't within his control, not quite yet. Others were at work putting out the fires, and there was nothing Kesan could do about that. So he filed that away in his mind and turned to join the rest of the representatives from his empire. @Ashbringer - Are we allowed to report which Empire we are in, along with our fellow negotiating team?

Glad it worked for you, but shoo, your thread has been severed, old ghost.

Didn't manage to get in before the lock, but yes, cycle has most definitively ended, Devo has agreed not to yell at me for doing a bookend post, but I will judge you if you post after this one!

I'm hearing a story there :eyes:

You have slightly under twenty-four hours remaining in the cycle! The write-up also now exists, thanks to the wonders of YouTube and sheer bloody-minded determination never to fail to post a write-up

I feel you on this Pro-tip from one rusty GM to another: Don't make a bet with a IRL friend on a game occurrence happening/not happening involving the penalty of shaving your head... And thanks - I think this is one of the games I feel most confident about playing given you're the GM and El's the IM, that nothing too bad will happen even if I really just end up not being able to do much at all. And I can always just be killed if I'm getting in the way, so no loss there. And I really want to chill with my bros :/

This time, it's okay bro - you can let your Evil bros kill me first, I'm fine dying before you

No overcommitment? When my Overcommitment Bro has signed up for the game? J/k we can break the curses of Kas and Orlok overcommitment at the same time! I'm sorry to hear, bro I get what you mean, and will be thinking of you and hoping you can weather the emotional storm :/

I've been honestly contemplating withdrawing from this game. My headspace has been deteriorating and I am aware of this. I really just want to not have to deal with people and to sleep for the next couple of months. But I'm also aware that giving in to that urge is going to make me worse off. And Devo, Orlok, Aman, and Araris are playing... I think I'm going to stay in, but just treat this as a lesson in accepting my limitations. If I'm more quiet or withdrawn than usual, this is likely because of where I now am. I need to learn to accept it's okay to not go all out all the time, as Archer and Striker said. If you need to exe me, go ahead, as always

Interesting. Oh dear

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Cycle Four: A Price For Light The looming storm that Strikk had sensed broke loose on Helgen; cold rain sleeted down from leaden skies, alongside the rumble of thunder and the jarring flash of lightning, like the bright points of Aiel spears. At least it wasn’t snow, Wyden thought. Cold comfort, that. Most of Helgen huddled miserably in their homes, or in the Tree. Rambler and Stieg sat talking at a table; Lin Mindrigurin had showed up and was drinking with Dagr and Kai. That surprised Wyden a little: Dagr seldom came to the Tree, and seldom drank, and he wondered what had changed the apothecary’s mind. Locke sat at another table, working on one of his ledgers. Another stranger, Wyden knew. Clerked for some lord or other in Canluum, and then retired to Helgen, years before Wyden had come. Years enough that Locke wasn’t considered a stranger, not the way Wyden was. Not the way the soldier and the scholar; Edler and Gaeta were. Kaim sat across from him, asking questions in a low voice. Thin smoke drifted upwards from a pipe left on the table. Wyden couldn’t make out their murmuring, and he frowned. Kaim had been sighted around Helgen, always asking questions. He supposed you could do worse than to set a former thief-taker on the trail of the Darkfriends, but… But something about Kaim set his teeth on edge. Always had. Wyden didn’t know. Maybe part of him would be this way; would forever be looking over his shoulder, ever since the Aes Sedai. (“One of the Shadow,” Edler had said, and Wyden had wanted to ask him how you knew, how you told, because she had the Great Serpent ring, and because he was terrified and didn’t know about Edler’s Aes Sedai, didn’t know if she, too, was of the Shadow, whatever Edler said about having executed Alain Stern.) What did you believe when you couldn’t trust yourself any longer? The door opened, and fog drifted in as Bortington the Blind stepped through the door, a group of mercenaries following him. Wyden wondered where in Helgen Bortington was putting his mercenaries up; they were an intimidating group, with horned helmets, shields, and swords and axes. Raiders, Wyden assessed, which made them little different from common bandits, but Helgen was not a village that needed defending from the depredations of bandits often enough. Helgen was safe. Nothing happened in Helgen. Nothing except the deaths, which had become so ordinary as to have become extraordinary, the fantastic, the grotesque at the corner of your eye that blurred into nothing when you tried to look at it directly, and Wyden didn’t understand why. “Locke!” Bortington shouted. There was a crash as one of the mercenaries smashed into the doorframe without bothering to check for clearance. Blasted horned helmets. Wyden added repairs—probably sanding down the nicks—to the lists of tasks that needed doing. Always the next task. Always enough to drown a man in. And maybe if you did that, you didn’t have to look at yourself in the mirror. Didn’t have to ask yourself why you still drew breath, why you still kept living on. “Bortington,” Locke acknowledged. “Brave of you to show your face here.” Bortington laughed. “Bold of you, clerk. I hear you’ve been making accusations.” He stroked his extremely luxurious beard. “Prying, calling me a Darkfriend.” “I do name you a Darkfriend.” “Funny,” Bortington said. “That was what Buffy said, too. She was painting me a Darkfriend with her wild accusations. And here you are, doing the same thing.” “Buffy walked in the Light.” This was Stieg, standing up at his table. A thumb on the keep-thong of his axe. All trace of the elder was gone; he was weathered, and old, but Wyden remembered that he had been a Whitecloak, had been a campaigner, had killed, and most importantly, had survived. The last man you wanted to fight was the one who went to battle, and fought, and walked away to tell the tale. “Creator shelter her now. Can we say the same of you, I wonder?” “I doubt it,” Locke interjected. “He was suggesting ignoring the Darkfriends among us, until we had decided if we were going to scrawl the Dragon’s Fang on someone’s door.” Someone, Wyden thought sourly, that wasn’t him. “He had a poor defence against Buffy’s accusations, and I simply don’t see how his words aren’t those of someone who was trying to slander one of those who had found and stopped Alain Stern.” He nodded towards Stieg and Rambler. “Know what,” Rambler spat. “Think you’re suspicious, Locke. Man has a point. Doesn’t mean Bortington is of the Shadow.” “Rambler,” Stieg said, urgently. “This isn’t the time—” “When then?” Rambler demanded. “When Bortington is cold in the ground? Man ain’t of the Shadow. I don’t feel it. Locke’s words are slippery. Don’t trust him.” He glared daggers at Locke, who met his gaze unflinchingly. “Locke’s suspicious. Don’t like this one bit.” “To be fair,” said a new voice, “I don’t think Rambler’s wrong.” Lin Mindrigurin had extracted himself from the conversation with Dagr and Kai, and sauntered over to join the others. Cat Crosses The Courtyard, thought Wyden. A choice that exuded raw confidence, particularly given the mercenaries that Bortington had brought along. “Locke does have a history, for those of us who remember it. Perhaps he has not had truck with the Shadow, but he veers dangerously close to it.” “We all have a history, Lin Mindrigurin,” someone said, softly. Kaim stood up, and picked up his pipe. His gaze flicked calmly from Lin to Locke, and then back to Lin again. In his free hand, he held that scratched ash quarterstaff. “Perhaps you don’t remember, but I do. The Wheel spins us out time and again. The same old dance, with different partners. Different faces. I remember when you were a king, Wyden, and when you betrayed one you named brother.” Wyden blinked. “I remember, Bortington, when you named yourself a son of mine. When you were discovered by accident—first a vial of poison, and then an unlucky background check.” Bortington snorted, and shook his head. “Stories,” he said. “I remember, Lin Mindrigurin, whom others mistake for al’Lan Mandragoran, uncrowned king of lost Malkier. I remember the man who stood in the centre of a storm of death, all others falling before him. I remember the man who uncovered a mass of lies told by a polar bear.” Lin Mindrigurin said nothing, merely smiled, and inclined his head ever so slightly. “I remember, Locke Tekiel. We knew each other once. Sometimes under different names. You entrusted me with a secret, and indeed, had unmasked the treachery of Wilson. I knew you in other guises: when you twice-survived and damned a city ancient and wise, and again when you carried within you the power of a god, and when we worked together to seek salvation for a damned village, and then again to betray and murder them. I suppose that is what Lin refers to, but we are all of our days, all of our histories, and not just a single page from that book of days.” Locke said, “This is madness. I know of no Tekiel.” “The Wheel turns, and we are spun out again and again into the Pattern,” Kaim said. “In the end, we are all just stories. What will you make of yourself?” He strode to the door, where Bortington stood, with his mercenaries clustered behind him. “This is an inn. Not a battleground. Will you go, or be made to?” Madness, Wyden thought. Madness. One man alone. But somehow, miraculously, or perhaps it was the confidence that Kaim exuded, perhaps it was the fact that Stieg’s thumb was still on the keep-thong of his axe, and Lin Mindrigurin had a swordsman’s stance, and Rambler himself was armed, and Kai was not defenceless; perhaps it was the fog stealing in through the open door, swirling about their legs, seeming to cloak Kaim in dense grey—something changed in the world. “This isn’t over,” Bortington stated. His mercenaries were filing out through the door. “I believe,” Kaim said, “You’ll find that by tonight, it is.” We all have a history, Kaim had said, confidently. As though a man might know the lives he’d lived; lives long gone, from different turnings of the Wheel, different weavings of the Pattern. No, Wyden thought. It wasn’t just confidence: Kaim had just said it. The way you said the sky was blue, or water wet. As though he was stating a fact about the world, something indisputable and unquestionable. Industriously, he scrubbed at the mead stains on his tables. Maybe it seemed like futility: one of his regulars would just have a spill on the next day, and so on, but sometimes you still had to do things anyway, because it was right, or because it was necessary, because it kept the Wheel turning, on and on, incrementally, and because being temporally undone didn’t make it any less worth doing. And there was something satisfying about keeping the Tree neat and clean, as though by doing so, he was restoring something in the world, one broken thing keeping another functional, even as the ravages of wear and time wore the inn down here and there. The guilt never really went away. Wyden knew that. Guilt at surviving, guilt at living on. Guilt at having broken. He scrubbed roughly at the stains because it kept him from scratching at his scars, kept him from focusing on the itching sharp phantom pains of thorns. Memories could hurt you. Memories could break you. Memories were trellises of thorns, digging their hooks deep into your soul. Or whatever passed for it. Had he lost his? Wyden didn’t know. Maybe it was why he felt so numb, so empty. Maybe you lost your soul when you surrendered to the Shadow, when you hit the point that you would do anything, anything, that raw animal part of you willing to play dead or chew off your own leg to escape the Shadow’s trap. It takes a strong man, Kaim had said. To hold out under that sort of torture. Don’t you agree? Wyden didn’t agree. He never had. Head bowed, he bent over the table and scrubbed at the stains. Sometimes you just did the work, even if your heart wasn’t in it. Even if you weren’t sure you had one anymore. “Light watch over you, Wyden,” Stieg called out, as he walked out of the Tree. That made him the last one, which meant that Wyden could at least lock up. He’d thought of chasing Stieg out earlier, but hadn’t the heart to, not after the work the old campaigner was doing in hunting down the Darkfriends. Wyden blinked and mumbled something back—what, he wasn’t quite sure. The door swung closed, strangely loud in the quiet of the night. Edler kept his sword loose in the scabbard, ready to draw. He scowled, though all he could sense from Gaeta through the bond was rapt concentration. “No sign,” he muttered aloud, and knew at the same time that his unease and tension were leaking over to Gaeta. “There’s plenty of signs,” Gaeta murmured, amused. Being Aes Sedai, Edler had long since discovered, seemed to give a woman a disturbing lack of regard for safety. Or perhaps the Greens were more sensible. Edler wasn’t sure; he only knew that Gaeta was especially disinterested, for a White. “Consider,” continued Gaeta. “Someone wove the Embrace of Pain and used it to kill Gamen. And there was the dry drowning of the village cobbler that the innkeeper was speaking about. I don’t think the woodsman was a male channeller—we can’t rule out that possibility, of course, that another male channeller exists in Helgen, especially after the wilder that the former Whitecloak supposedly murdered in a fit of vigilante justice, so who did it? Surely not the wilder. And the Embrace is a proscribed weave, and I saw the residue. We have at least one female channeller in this village.” She shook her head. “When we were looking for unexplained deaths, I did not expect to be drawn into a puzzle of this magnitude.” “Unexplained deaths which could easily expand to include an Aes Sedai and her Warder,” Edler muttered. “Edler, you worry too much.” “And you worry too little.” “Mm. I’ll agree. But then both of us do what we are best suited for.” Which was another way of saying that worrying about her safety was his problem. Edler blew out a long breath in a loud sigh. Yes, but his problem would become significantly smaller and lighter if only Gaeta would take more care. “And the mercenaries,” said Gaeta. “What about them?” “Where did they come from? Why haven’t they been remarked on? Why haven’t any of the residents of Helgen remarked on or found the deaths extraordinary?” This was the problem with Whites, Edler reflected. The entire Shadowspawned mess that Helgen was in, boiled down to a neat puzzle that Gaeta was hellbent on cracking. Even if it made him proud, in his secret heart, to be fighting the Shadow. He supposed it was entirely fair to be torn two ways. She paused on the open path. “Ah-ha.” “What?” “Residue,” Gaeta breathed. “Someone’s been using saidar to create Gateways.” “The mercenaries?” She glanced at what seemed to be empty air with narrowed eyes. “Most likely. But this brings us back to a local Dreadlord.” Which at least wasn’t the innkeeper, Edler reflected. Broken eyes, for all he still walked like a swordsman. It hadn’t been much of a contest, that day, until the end. But there was something about him, the way he handled the sword… A thin vertical line of light opened. “‘Ware!” Edler cried out, and leaped forward, shoving Gaeta back behind him. He drew his sword in a single smooth movement, and the first mercenary to charge through the Gateway fell to Whirlwind on the Mountain, which deflected his axe stroke, and buried itself in his torso. He recovered to guard with Cutting the Clouds, which kept the next mercenary at bay, and then flowed into Low Wind Rising which cut deep into the mercenary’s side. “The Dreadlord is here!” Gaeta cried out, and for a powerful moment, Edler felt an irrational fear; his heart hammering in his mouth, as he thought she might do something absolutely Lightblinded foolish like go haring off after the Dreadlord. Instead, she said, “Can you hold them off?” Yes, Edler wanted to say. But more mercenaries poured out of the Gateway, and Edler had always been a realist. A man did not fight ten without taking injury. Not even in the stories. “Your plan?” “Trust me,” Gaeta said. Always, he thought. He danced the forms. His world narrowed to the dance, to slashes of blood and pain. Eel Among the Lily Pads took a mercenary’s hand, and one of them drew a hot line of pain along his ribs. Twisting the Wind fended two of them off, but he felt the sharp, hot pain of an axe grazing his thigh. “Bloody ashes,” Edler ground out. He tested the leg; he could still stand and fight, and that was enough. Gaeta needed him to hold, and so he had to. He hoped to the Light the blood loss wasn’t significant; Parting the Silk opened the mercenary’s throat, and Edler held. Falling Embers met a mercenary’s sword, and reversing into Apple Blossoms In The Wind forced three of them back, rather then allowing them to group up on him. Trust me, Gaeta had said. Always, Edler thought, outnumbered, desperate, because he would have given his good sword arm, and his life before he failed her. Rain In High Wind. Bundling Straw. Reaping Barley forced a mercenary back. He was giving ground, but he could not help it. Staying put meant they could surround him and drag him down with the weight of their numbers. “Edler!” Gaeta called out, sharply. He felt it through the bond: the moment concentration gave way to impatience and anticipation, spiking in a wordless combination of emotions that he knew meant he had to move now. Edler broke from the fight and ran. The earth itself trembled. He ran. He did not look back. He ran to safety. He ran to Gaeta, who stood on the stone path. Her hand grasped his, and she yanked, tugging him to safety. Blood dripped from his unsheathed sword, from wounds Edler didn’t even remember receiving. The hard ground roared as it tore open, swallowed the mercenaries, swallowed Bortington the Blind, buried them deep in the cold, uncaring earth. Stieg was walking home, in the night. He kept a hand to the keep-thong of his axe, and glanced about him warily. Unthinkable, once, for a man to go armed in Helgen. But there were the Darkfriends about, and he hadn’t liked the look of Bortington’s mercenaries. He wasn’t sure who he trusted, these days. Rambler, maybe. And Daian—a Lightblinded fool, but an honest one. Maybe not Rambler. Hadn’t Rambler defended Bortington? A hand clamped over his mouth in the same instant a knife plunged itself into the base of his spine. Stieg died without seeing his killer. Difficult to see your own hand in front of you, in the fog that ambled through the streets of Helgen, blurring corners, washing the world in soft impenetrable grey. Sometimes, this happens. Sometimes, an old campaigner dies ingloriously in the streets. Sometimes it is a footpad. Sometimes, there is a pattern, or the work of the Shadow. Sometimes there are duels. And sometimes, even the survivors of multiple battles, innumerable fights, can be easily ambushed and killed when they let their guard down. In the end, we all fall. The sunrise was spectacular; garnet and fire, bloodshine through pale grey clouds. Glancing out through the window, Wyden blinked and slowly let himself drink in the wonder of that sight. Morning came. Morning always comes. There are always losses in the night; a price to be paid for light. Bort/Bortington the Blind was executed! He was a Darkfriend! _Stick_/Stieg was killed! She was a Village Elder! The cycle has begun, and will end on 3rd April, 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8)! Please be reminded not to post in this thread until I've reserved the second post for the player list and rule clarifications, thank you!

And time. You have chosen. But have you chosen wisely? :eyes:

-Kas, 2015 I do have thoughts on that and I'm aware you're intending to rerun MR7 at some point; I'm always down for it if you need/want a co-GM; either way, I return y'all to your daily scheduled grinch as you have, by my estimation, slightly under four hours left to reach a decision.

.......................... ffs Discovery aren't Evil They don't have a NK This is a faction game asgbhdyusdyvgefdj h WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Orlok Making me regret awarding you the MVP for that game now, I see >:(

I'm 90% sure this game won't be another MR7. Care to take me up on that?

thank u 4 bolding ur votes ilu too <3

Handpicking is a dangerous precedent for a GM to set. It turned out that RNGesus really, really wanted Araris to be an old grouch.

We don't need rules where we goin', sule

I'm used to the fact that @Amanuensis and @Orlok Tsubodai clearly want me to suffer, thank you Shuffle Squat Bro :| I'm used to it. I'm Zen. I've literally created a separate post last cycle noting Orlok's vote in bold for my own sanity :| At first I was confused, I had clarified That I needed you to bold your votes for my sanity But then I spent so many nights having to count your votes And I grew strong, and I learned how to just adapt. And so you're back, unbolded votes I just walked in to find more here, and now even Aman's joining in I should have enforced that damn rule I should have made you bold them in If I'd have known you'd be doing this in all subsequent cycles Go on now, go, don't bold your votes Just try me now, 'cause I'm not taking it anymore Weren't you the ones who tried to hurt me with no bold? Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die? Oh no, not I, I will survive Which is more than I can say of some of you damn delinquents I've got all these votes to count, and I've an NK to process And I'll survive, I'll survive, hey, hey It took all the strength I had, not to fall apart Just tryin' hard to record all those damn unbolded votes And I spent oh so many nights just hating both you and myself I used to cry, but now I hold my head up high And you see me, somebody new I'm not that suffering Elim who had breakdowns everyday And so you felt like droppin' those unbolded votes and trolling me Well, now I'm fighting both of you in the thread instead of sighing Go on now, go, don't bold your votes Just try me now, 'cause I'm not taking it anymore Weren't you the ones who tried to hurt me with no bold? Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die? Oh no, not I, I will survive Which is more than I can say of some of you damn delinquents I've got all these votes to count, and I've an NK to process And I'll survive, I will survive, I will survive!

Rule Clarifications: Player List:

Cycle Three: Falling Embers A stunned silence had fallen upon Helgen. Alain Stern was dead, and Alain Stern was a Darkfriend. But he had been one of them, even though he was getting on in years. He’d been an essential part of the community, the man Munin turned to when sourcing meat, the man who’d found little Shara when she was lost in the woods, the man who’d helped Mayor Wilsa with numerous little tasks that needed doing around in Helgen, who’d always paid his tab, who’d helped Daian weed his garden that summer. And if Alain Stern was a Darkfriend, who else could be? Buffy knelt and tended the fire, stared into the crackling flames. Winter, she thought, was the cruellest time of the year; the time when everyone dreamed of spring. Would there be spring, though? Would the thaw come? Alain Stern was a Darkfriend, a discovery that had jolted Helgen to its core. And there was the Fang on the door to the Tree; the sigh of it had jolted her to the core, sent a frisson of ice-cold fear running through her veins. The Fang leered at her, a scrawling of pure malice, dripping venom from the wood, and it was all she could do to back away, to tear her gaze away from that etching of evil. At least Kaim had come and cleaned the Fang from Wyden’s door. She didn’t blame Wyden for freezing up in the slightest. Who wouldn’t, when the Dragon’s Fang was on their very door? Some of Helgen trusted her, after she’d noticed Wei and Stern gone missing while most of them bickered over Stieg, the former Whitecloak. Some of them said that it was suspicious that Buffy had known where to look, as though simply noticing that most of Helgen was gathered around Stieg’s porch and that Wei and Stern were missing made her a servant of the Shadow. Foolishness, that. There was only one thing Buffy wanted, and that was to hunt down the last of the Shadow in Helgen. Bortington had insisted that he walked as solidly under the Light as the rest of them. Buffy wasn’t so sure, but most of Helgen seemed ill-inclined to listen, even as they turned on Jóhannsson (for hadn’t he been suspicious, with the way he had accused Stieg?) and Eaton Strikk, and even herself. At least the death of Stern seemed to have diminished any appetite for further Dragon’s Fangs. There was a loud sound of splintering wood, and Buffy turned as the door to her home crashed open, and smashed against the wall. A sword swept out in a vicious, unstoppable arc, gleaming with cold intent in the firelight. Sparks rose, and embers fell as the fire kept on burning, destined to die with the dawn, when the last of the wood ran out. Sparks rose, and embers fell, and another life burned itself into nothingness, returning to the Wheel, returning to the Pattern, and rebirth under the Light. Alain Stern was a Darkfriend. Wyden didn’t know what to think. He lay flat on his bed, staring up at the attic rafters. Counted the crisscrossing beams of wood, stared at the woodgrain. Alain Stern was a Darkfriend. He’d liked Stern. He saw Edler’s strike again, the form executed perfectly, the blade arcing out in that final, lethal stroke that had ended Stern’s life. It had been an execution, and one performed without hesitation. What was there left to be said? And if it was Stern, if one such as Stern could be a Darkfriend—who else? For the first time in a long while, Wyden couldn’t make himself get up. He ran through the lists of tasks in his head, but he didn’t want to do them. He didn’t want. He hadn’t wanted in years, except perhaps, in a diminished way, to be allowed to be whole again. He had been the bright star of the garrison, the one Commander Bralor had loved as his own son. He closed his eyes and wept like a child, wept hot tears of shame, of guilt, of self-hatred. He had lived. He had crawled away after the destruction of the garrison, after shadowspawn overran it. The Aes Sedai hadn’t even let him die; perversely, she’d used the One Power on him, taking pleasure as he convulsed with shock from the cold that swept through him. Wyden hated the cold. It was cold enough in the attic. It always was. It was no less than what he deserved. They would have died for him. He had broken at the last moment. Broken enough to allow them to bring a Fade into the garrison. Thorns creeping along his skin, under his skin. Wyden thought of the tasks that needed doing; the plate that needed mending. But what was the point? Why not throw it out with the trash? What place was there left in this world, beneath the Light, for broken things? The garrison had fallen. The villages the shadowspawn had sacked, had ravaged, had burned—every single death weighed against his soul as a stone. If Stern was a Darkfriend, was Wyden any better? All the years of running away after his desertion, and the weight on his soul had gotten no lighter, no easier to bear. There were bleak winters when the light diminished from the world, when the shadows seemed as though they would swallow what remained of his tainted soul, manacle it with thorns, and when it felt so easy to slip quietly from the world, and yet a tiny part of him had clung on, despite all of that. Why? Because there were tasks that needed doing, Wyden thought, numbly, even though he couldn’t bring himself to want to do them. He’d dragged himself out of bed with the same iron-hard discipline that he’d applied to learning the sword. Some days, it became easier. Some days, duty felt heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather. The rooster crowed, somewhere in Helgen. A new day. A new dawn. Light through the window. Wyden closed his eyes. He just wanted it all to go away. “Innkeeper?” It was Edler. Wyden knew the voice. He pushed away the knocking on the door. Go away, Wyden thought. He was too weary to feel much frustration or irritation. Go away and leave me be. The door flew open on its hinge, slammed into the wall. Wyden wondered if he’d need to check if it had to be repaired, maybe bill Edler for it. The thought was effort. Effort he couldn’t quite seem to bring himself to make. “What in the bloody blazes is wrong with you, man?” Edler demanded. There was a cloth bundle tucked under his arm. “Nothing,” said Wyden. Everything. Maybe the real Wyden had died in the Embrace of Pain. Maybe all that was left was a wreck of a man, the one who’d crawled out of the shadows to take Wyden’s place in the world. Edler scoffed. “Lot of nothing, innkeeper. You served on the Blightborder, didn’t you? Few places for a man to pick up the sword in a place like Helgen. I’ve seen men break on the Blightborder. Sooner or later, you learn to recognise them. There’s a certain look in their eyes, in their walk. The way they jump at shadows. The way a sudden noise can send them back to a bad stint on the Blightborder. The way their eyes seem to see an entire squad of ghosts.” “Enough here have,” Wyden said. “Most of those who have don’t adjust for the balance of a sword on their hip,” Edler said, dryly. Wyden scowled, acknowledged the hit. It was difficult to suppress instinct turned into deep memory. The body remembered, even when the mind did not. Death was lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. He made himself sit up, made himself keep moving. Always the next task. Always the next step. Even if he didn’t want to go on at all. Even if the knowledge he had to was a distant burr in his brain. “What do you want from me?” he asked, wearily. Hadn’t he given enough? But he hadn’t. Nothing would ever balance the scales against the deaths of the garrison, the villages that he had damned. And that was the cruel truth, the one that lodged in his blackened soul like a splinter that would never come loose. He was damned, as surely as Alain Stern had been. “Breakfast, for one,” said Edler. “For another, what you knew of Stern.” “Does it matter?” Wyden asked. The words slipped from him, before he could quite consider them, or take them back. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. It was a numbness that had crept up on him, like cool rain at sunset. It was not the flame and the void, the ko’di, but it would do. Edler’s eyes narrowed. “Innkeeper, if you hold to the Light and your hope of salvation and rebirth, Stern was a Darkfriend. And he had other conspirators in Helgen. Will you or will you not aid us in finding them?” “Is that why you came?” he asked. “Do you not think me one of them?” Enough in Helgen had. Enough to scrawl the Dragon’s Fang on the Tree. Edler hesitated. But then he shook his head. “No. I do not.” “Why?” “Because you are a stranger here,” Edler said. “Because the deaths of Helgen are whispered of in the surrounding villages. Because people gossip, and carry tales, even if it is passing strange that none in Helgen think them odd. Because sooner or later, in this line of work, you learn to recognise the work of the Shadow, and a hostile channeller.” He took hold of Wyden’s arm, tugged. Wyden struck out before he could think. The Falcon Stoops flowed into The Creeper Embraces the Oak, until his rational mind remembered that he was not—that he was in Helgen, that he lacked a sword, that it was years in the past, even though he could not seem to dislodge the thorns from his mind. Not now, not ever. “The scars are distinctive,” Edler said, quietly. “A channeller did this to you. One of the Shadow. The Embrace of Pain is a forbidden weave, proscribed in the White Tower. No Aes Sedai would use it lightly.” There was an uncomfortable kindness in his stern eyes, and it threatened to shatter the numbness. Wyden didn’t want it to. He didn’t want to have to feel again, or at least right now. “No Aes Sedai would use it at all.” “Do I know if you lie?” Wyden whispered. “I killed the Darkfriend,” Edler said. “I am no friend of the Shadow. Is this good enough for you?” “No,” Wyden whispered. He didn’t know what to think, what to believe anymore. A part of him was caught, flesh torn continuously on the growing thorns of the Embrace of Pain. Part of him had never left, kept on screaming that the Aes Sedai and their ilk could not be trusted. Trusting someone gave them power over you, let them in close when you dropped your guard, let them hurt you. It was irrational, and yet…And yet… Everything in him screamed that trusting was dangerous. “On your feet, innkeeper.” Wyden was too tired to argue. It seemed to take more energy than he had left in him. Edler poked at him with the bundle. “Move.” Eaton Strikk felt the pain in his head as a tight, throbbing band and scowled. Some days were good; other days, not so much. Sometimes he knew when a storm was coming. It was an electric feeling in the air, the sense of brooding clouds, the sharp metallic taste of lightning on his tongue. He’d warned Tema, sometimes. In the nick of time to get her goats to safety. His moods got worse with the storms. Today felt like a stormy day, though he couldn’t possibly say why. Stieg stood in his garden, and a newly-sharpened axe gleamed on his belt, flanked by Locke and Rambler. Buffy was nowhere to be seen, though from what Strikk had heard, she’d been expressing suspicion of him to the rest of Helgen. Of course it would be Stieg. Once a Whitecloak, forever a Whitecloak. Stieg said, “We know.” The feeling of a storm, of heavy dark clouds on the foreboding horizon only grew. “Tema said you always knew when it was going to rain,” Stieg said. “Daian said you’d rescued his garden. Crops were dying until you stepped in.” “It doesn’t add up,” said Locke. “And we know that someone killed Gamen in an unnatural way. Fell wind from the Blight notwithstanding.” “I remember the fire,” spat Rambler. “Thought you were a hero. ‘Course, turns out you cheated, didn’t you?” Strikk didn’t know how they’d worked it out. He thought he’d been careful with the garden. But Daian had been crushed when his crops had all died, even the ones he’d expected to last the winter. Sometimes, you knew you could help. So you did. It was always simple things. Small things. A matter of wanting it enough, even though trying left him weak and dizzy and now the headache never seemed to leave him and sometimes he heard voices, voices calling him Variel. Strikk had always been good with plants. They’d always flourished under his care. It had been a small source of joy for him, saving what he could of Daian’s garden. All he’d wanted was to tend his garden, but instead, he’d been drawn up into the Darkfriend hunt. And Stieg, Locke, and Rambler were standing in his garden, accusing him of serving the Shadow. Right now, Strikk wanted them to go away, wanted them to leave him alone. Fire bloomed; fire from nothing, flames reaching out hungrily for the three men in his garden. “Watch out!” Stieg shouted; an axe tumbled through the air, whirling right at Strikk, tipping head over haft, head over haft, head over haft, head— Two men faced off in the courtyard of the Tree, a short distance from the stables where Gamen had died. The wind blew, and Wyden shivered. The practice sword, a cloth-bundled length of wooden lathes, felt all too familiar in his hand, even years later. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of it. “Get your sword up,” said Edler, ruthlessly. Why? Wyden wondered. What was the point? The wind blew, tugging at the coats they’d left hanging on the porch railing, and Edler moved. Patterns etched into the world like frost on a clear winter lake. It was not the flame and the void. It was not the ko’di, which Wyden knew intimately, though he had never been able to summon that oneness. Not ever since the Embrace. Not ever since he’d broken on the rack of thorns. But the numbness, the stillness inside, was a poor shadow of the ko’di, and it was good enough. Edler lashed out with The Lion Springs; aggressive, decisive, Wyden thought, and though the move was rusty and poorly-performed, his body remembered and flowed into a clumsy Rain in High Wind. Edler batted it aside with an adder-quick The Viper Flicks Its Tongue, and then Wyden was stumbling backwards, riposting with Black Pebbles on Snow. Edler’s Lightning of Three Prongs struck glancing hits against his chest and torso. Killing strokes, if they’d been fighting with steel. “Dead,” Edler said, mercilessly. Wyden lowered his practice sword. Was aware of his breathing coming more heavily than it’d had when he was battle-honed. “What is the point?” he rasped. “Get your sword up,” said Edler. “No,” Wyden croaked. “I’m done.” He was. He’d been done for so many years. Thorns cutting through his arms, tearing through the flesh of his wrists. He was done, a dead man walking, waiting for the time he would lie down and the Lord of the Grave would claim him for good. “Get your sword up!” The breeze blew, and for a moment, present and past collided. He was lying on the ground of the training yard, reaching out for the hilt of his practice sword as the taciturn instructor all the garrison knew only as Gaidin fixed him with a stern glare. “Well? Are you getting up?” The tip of the practice sword prodded the ground a short distance away from Wyden’s face. “Do I?” “Life knocks us down, lad,” Gaidin said, querulously. “But we choose whether to get back up. Are you going to?” Wyden’s fingers curled about the hilt of his practice sword. “Get your sword up, lad!” Wyden barely met Water Flows Downhill with Wind and Rain, biting back a curse as he stumbled and slipped on the stones, his footing uncertain. Edler drove forward with a Kissing the Adder and a desperate The Rose Unfolds kept Edler’s blade from him. Muscle memory demanded the follow-through: Dandelion in the Wind scythed through where Edler’s throat would have been, had the soldier not leaned back, Wyden’s wooden blade grazing him. “Better,” growled Edler. Lion on the Hill met Tower of Morning; Wyden grunted and felt the numbness blanketing him. One foot in front of the other; one form after the next. Maybe it wasn’t a reason to keep breathing, a reason to carry on, but it was good enough; his body dimly remembered what needed to be done, what the appropriate response was. Edler flowed into Plucking The Low-Hanging Apple; in response, running purely on some combination of intuition and memory, Wyden went into Folding the Air, just as Edler switched forms halfway through to Leopard’s Caress, and then followed up with a Leaf on the Breeze. Edler riposted with Lizard in the Thornbush but his response was rushed, the form poor, and Wyden saw the weakness and drove forward in turn. Falling Embers thundered home, ripping past Edler’s blade and lashing out just beneath his rib cage. Both of them froze. “So you do still have it in you,” Edler said, quietly. Pushed the length of the practice blade away from him. “How long has it been?” “Why?” Wyden wanted to know. “Because you fought on the Blightborder,” Edler said, simply. “Because you surrender when you’re dead. Because you needed it.” Perhaps he had. He didn’t know. It had felt as though a part of him had been asleep for so long, had come alive while flowing through the forms. Part of him just felt numb. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it was better to take the edge off the terror, off the guilt, off the shame. Off the knowledge that he had crawled away while so many better men had died. When those they were sworn to protect had been brutalised by Shadowspawn. Life knocks us down, lad, Gaidin had said, so many years ago. Battle-worn, and looming larger in Wyden’s memory than he’d probably been, Gaidin’d been a Warder years and years ago, and had come to the Blightborder to avenge his fallen Aes Sedai or die trying. Along the way, he’d taught the sword to a few garrisons. To Wyden. But we choose whether to get back up. He’d been choosing, and trying, every day. Even when the trying was so damned hard. Okay, Wyden thought, I guess I can do it. Just one more day. He drew a long, shaky breath. He chose. StrikerEZ/Eaton Strikk was executed! He was a Villager! Archer/Buffy was killed! He was a Villager! The cycle has begun, and will end on 1st April, 0100hrs SGT (GMT+8)! Please be reminded not to post in this thread until I've reserved the second post for the player list and rule clarifications, thank you!

Two minutes left. As I've successfully fought off the sedatives with a lot of tea, the smell of curry, and some fires from leftover curry, rollover will proceed as normal. Not to worry, there is no need for an extended rollover or for Wyrm to take over in my absence. Remain calm, all is well.