Kasimir

Top three favourite non-Sanderson and non-Taln characters? (Taln ftw, but still.)

"Goat lasts forever. Everything is momentary. They all flow away. And that's not always a bad thing."

AG11/AN15: Night Four - End of the Line Clem awoke at dawn, to his best hopes and his worst fears materialising at the same time. Rind had been attacked at night, while watching the palisade, and trying to prevent the Spiked from sabotaging Tyrian Falls’s defences. But the Mistborn had prevailed, where Gam had not, and the saboteur had been driven off the palisade, before they could attempt any fell deed such as torching it. He walked down the long gravel path to the palisade at the boundaries of Tyrian Falls. There was a patch of freshly-turned earth to the side, near the thicket of trees. Corse had done his work, no doubt. Clem wondered which new name, which new victim of the Spiked was buried in that grave by the trees. He inhaled the fresh scent of the cool morning, where everything seemed clear and crisp, as though Pilu had made the world anew when everyone slumbered. The dawn light shone through the thinning mists. On the rise, the gravel path turned, and he gazed back at Tyrian Falls, still slumbering, stone-and-thatch buildings sprawled out and low to the ground, hard edges softened by the caress of the mists. No sign of the shadow that Tyrian Falls laboured under; the terror of the Spiked, and the marauding koloss. On days like this, with the light and the trees, with the mist kissing the stone of the town, and the bright polished amber of the rolling fields beyond just barely visible, it was possible, Clem thought, to believe in the promise of the light. That there was something, Pilu grant, a sort of high beauty that lay forever and beyond the blood and fire and terror of the Spiked. That the Spiked, however dark they loomed, were ultimately as smoke in the wind: a small and passing thing. He took in the view, bathed in light, for another long moment, and then he hurried on, up the path towards the palisade. Rind stood there, half-slumped, blood trickling down his right arm. He must’ve had his Tin on, because he turned to gaze over at Clem even before Clem reached his position on the palisade, and the tension immediately rushed out of his wiry frame. “Let me see that,” Clem said. He hefted the kit he’d brought. Nothing special, just bandages and a few of Malmoc’s old salves, the ones Clem thought probably weren’t likely to do anything too terrible. Hayden’d sworn by some of these in his sober moments, and Clem figured Rind wasn’t into getting poked and probably stabbed a couple more times by Sandhya. The cut wasn’t particularly bad. The blade had split the skin, but as far as Clem could tell, Rind hadn’t taken worse harm. He cleaned off the mask of drying blood as best as he could, and then applied the salve meant to counter wound-rot, and wound the cloth bandage about it. “Thanks,” Rind offered. Clem nodded. “Tell me about your fight,” he requested. As Rind relayed the bare details, Clem frowned. The assailant had endured a Pewter-enhanced punch? He didn’t know how that worked, but supposed that the Spiked had access to powers even more dangerous than he’d expected. “...And then he leaped over the wall and Steelpushed himself away,” Rind finished, glumly. “I…I figured you’d said to stay here and guard the palisade…” “You did exactly the right thing,” Clem said, firmly, and watched as Rind’s eyes lit up again, crinkling at the corners. Such a strange thing, Clem thought, how easily words shaped the world. How Rind stood a little taller, slouched a little less. Gestured with a little more confidence. How words could break a man, wielded like stones. “He could’ve been luring you away to take down the palisade,” Clem pointed out, with brutal pragmatism. “He could have been trying to ambush you with another saboteur, one skilled at taking down Mistborn. You stayed at your post and made the right decisions. Well done. I knew I was right to ask you to stand shift at the wall.” “...What about the Spiked?” Rind asked, hesitantly. “I didn’t get a good look at who was under the hood…” Clem shrugged. “You punched him in the gut when flaring Pewter,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Even if he ran away, I’d expect him to be hobbling if not injured. Whatever let him stave off that punch, it’s still going to hurt like a bastard later on.” Rind brightened up, clearly catching on. “So I look for someone in the village who’s suffering from an unexplained gut injury.” “Go on, then,” Clem said, acknowledging the inference with a nod. “I’ve got your watch.” A new spring in his step, Rind hurried down the wall, and down the winding path that Clem had just followed, in the opposite direction, seeking out the would-be killer he had faced under cover of night. Nibbles had had it with Byrar. As far as Nibbles was concerned, he’d dealt with rats that were much easier to keep out of his stores than the hapless craftsman! Indeed, no matter how much Nibbles railed about Byrar seeming like a custard that had gone a little off, the villagers of Tyrian Falls seemed determined to ignore everything wrong about Byrar. Nibbles wasn’t the talkative sort. He wasn’t the sort to sit down and go on at length about his feelings, the way some of the air-mouthed watchers like Falcon and Mouse did. Nor was he particularly prone to invoking the Lord Ruler’s wrath on gods like Sauve Chad. No, Nibbles was a chef, and that meant that Nibbles worked with his senses, and his gut told him that there was something off about Byrar, even if he couldn’t explain why in a way that the villagers of Tyrian Falls would apparently accept. As Byrar stepped in through the doorway of the Hound and Hustle, Nibbles’s frustration reached the peak of a whipped egg white. He set down his whisk and mixing bowl and moved out of the kitchen to glare at Byrar. “Nibbles has given up hope that anyone will ever do anything about Byrar,” he announced loudly, in the midst of the tavern. “Nibbles knows his ingredients! Byrar is bad, rotten like an egg, bad like spoiled custard!” He had, at least, the slight satisfaction of watching Byrar look away from him and shuffle towards an untaken chair at the corner of the common room. A short while later, Rind stepped in through the door, to excited whispers. Rind’s announcement that he was Mistborn had attracted the intense attention of the local gossips, and Acks soon followed him into the tavern. Probably already hearing the chime of wedding bells, Nibbles thought. Acks was always shamelessly trying to match the different villagers of Tyrian Falls together, sometimes helping love along by Soothing a little anxiety, a little panic. And a Mistborn was a most exciting catch indeed, if Nibbles was in the market for fresh seafood stew! Rind sat directly across from Byrar, who looked at at him with tired disinterest. “Can I help you, Rind?” Byrar asked, tonelessly. Rind said, loudly enough for the entire tavern to hear, “You had your Coppercloud on, last night.” Byrar looked puzzled. “My what?” he asked, confused. “You all asked me to switch off my Coppercloud last night, so I did that and went to bed.” Rind and Acks exchanged significant glances. “That’s what I thought,” said the third, joining them. “He doesn’t seem to be involved with the saboteurs, then. Praise the Ja!” “It’s a point in his favour,” Rind acknowledged. “Nibbles acknowledges Nibbles is probably crazy by now, but Nibbles still thinks Byrar is rotten, rotten to the core!” Nibbles announced, and gave up because it had been at least two days and by this point, even Nibbles was aware he was yelling at the clouds. Byrar was a fighter. He’d had to be, all his life, pursued by the shadow of unfortunate incidents, and ill luck. The late shipments, the vanishing tools, and then, the final nail in the coffin: the blaze that had destroyed his father’s woodshop. And somehow, from the ashes of his life and dreams, Byrar had picked himself up, all over again, and scraped together whatever clips he could find, and started again. The truth was, Byrar didn’t believe in luck. He believed in choices: an entire long run of choices, momentary decisions, all made without hesitation or reservation, all of which stacked together with a sort of earnestness to create fortunate timing. If you were superstitious, you called that luck or fate. It was easy to say: if only. It was easy to live beneath the shadow of regret, to say you should have done this, or you should have done that. He should have locked the tools up. He should have insured the shipments. He should have murdered his father without burning down the woodshop in the process. All of it, Byrar thought, a series of small moments, of tiny choices, that had led him from the whispers in his head, the voice that hissed, kill them now, they’re toying with you, kill them, that he’d chosen to listen to, the day he’d picked up his tools and attacked his father, and then set fire to the woodshop afterwards, unlucky Byrar, poor determined Byrar, somehow soldiering on despite the blaze that had eaten his entire life, and laughed at how gullible they all were. The voice was hungry, though. The voice demanded more. It demanded a great conflagration, the largest fire Byrar would ever set in his life, scouring Tyrian Falls down to ashes. “Well, it ain’t me,” piped up the young orphaned girl. “So I guess it gotta be him.” “It isn’t me,” Byrar said, as cool as quench-water. “I guess it has to be her then. That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want us to accuse each other, and you want us to turn on each other and die.” He looked at the three of them, sitting across the table, the Jaist priest, the Mistborn, and the matchmaker, sounding like the inappropriate first line of a joke (a Jaist priest, a Mistborn, and a matchmaker walk into a tavern) but decided they wouldn’t appreciate the humour. He shook his head and made to rise. A sudden stab of pain in his gut left him weakened, and he gripped at the table to steady himself. The Mistborn went still. Too still. He’d seen it. Byrar cursed himself for a fool. But in the end, he’d known the ending, hadn’t he? They’d called for his death, each day with greater vehemence, with greater volume. He’d known how it would turn out, but sometimes you had to fight to the end, anyway. The Mistborn reached out across the table with Pewter-enhanced speed and grabbed him, dragging him half-across the table. “You…it’s you!” Rind exclaimed, with dawning surprise. Byrar Pushed. The cutlery on the table sped towards Acks, who let out a startled exclamation, but managed to belatedly deflect them with a wooden plate. Rind lunged forward, and then there was a pair of glass knives in his hands, and Byrar felt the rush of pain as he was stabbed, again and again. “Kill him already!” Nibbles screamed, and charged. Preoccupied with Rind, Byrar noticed the blue line flare to life behind him too slowly. The cold blade of a carving knife stabbed into the base of his spine. There was no fighting this. The world went dark, for the last time. @Mint Heron was a Spiked Smoker! The Night has begun! It will end in 24 hours on the 22nd January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Player List:

Based opinions. Welcome to the Shard!

This doesn't really affect anything that's happening in the thread but I thought you all might like to know that the end time of the Day, hypothetically-speaking, might have been corrected to the appropriate date, and will still be happening in a bunch of hours so if you were somehow using this as a referent, yeah it's fixed now. If you were actually just adding 48: It is unclear how such an copy-paste error might have occurred but hey, it's at least not a missing vote or something right?

Works, thank you!

Repeating the request to bold please. I'll still count it, but noting again that we have had accessibility complaints from some players for some shades of red, and also it helps the GMs make sure votes are logged correctly when doing rollover, so jebal, bold please Same hat, bold please

Yeah I watch kdramas more than I watch Korean films though of course I caught Parasite. I think I like that the older ones tend to be better at being self-contained: if it's eighteen episodes then it's eighteen. No season drama. I am a bit sad that Netflix and Signal kind of started to break that model to the best of my memory with things like Arthdal Chronicles and the eventual Signal 2. I'm not a romcom fan so I do bounce off quite a few but dramas like Misaeng and Memory are great. I do like the creativity although after a while they also get tropey in a funny way. Truck/palanquin of doom, water slap... Heh.

I feel like this is outing myself in some way as this is super niche Anyone Shard-side watches kdramas? What're your favourites? I just caught a few episodes of Reply 1988 on a rewatch the other day - it's so old but good. I also really like The Light In Your Eyes and it wrecked me the first time I watched it unspoiled. Not really into Squid Game, but I am liking what I see of My Liberation Notes and while I bounced off the romance aspect of Midnight Studio last year, I really loved the conceit of a photography studio helping ghosts to take one last photograph and move on.

Half a century later, you've been added, just closing the loop as I've DMed you but forgot to acknowledge here.

"One thing about human beings is, they live their entire lives in fear that they'll become goats."

AG11/AN15: Day Four - Borrowed Time A grim silence fell over Tyrian Falls, in the wake of Kael Voss’s death. They had lost their mayor, their Watch Captain, and Malmoc, the aging herbalist, in the span of three days. Hayden Vendel had accidentally killed Alain Short in a fight, and subsequently paid for it with his own life. Byrar had overzealously clubbed Kael to death while believing he was calling for the other Spiked to save him. What they did not have was the identity of any of the Spiked saboteurs in their midst, nor any success at stopping the Spiked. With Tema dead, the village had turned to Aralis as the de facto mayor. Some of this was the fact that Aralis was simply as old as dirt, and the village respected him, grudgingly or otherwise, and figured that he probably had some idea of what to do. Some of it was the calculation that given Aralis’s formidable prowess with his thwacking staff, he was probably not going to go and get himself murdered by the Spiked next. Most of it, however, was probably just the fact that the village was lost, for all that civic-minded Tyrianers like the Jaist priest or watchers like Falcon were preaching the need for vigilance and careful examination of the suspect pool, and given a figure who could issue clear directions, were wont to fall in line. Aralis was still not convinced that the saboteurs were the ‘Spiked’ that some of the Tyrianers were terrified of, nor was he convinced that the koloss lurked somewhere beyond the periphery of the night mists, drawing ever closer to Tyrian Falls. Saboteurs, yes. Murderers, yes. Spiked? Aralis knew of the Lord Ruler’s Inquisitors. Every skaa did—and then you hoped that that was the last time in your life you ever saw them, and at a distance. The idea that some in Tyrian Falls had learned those fell arts and were using them? All of that beggared belief. While he’d felt that the palisade was really a distraction, in the end, he’d relented and let Clem assign shifts to watch the palisade on the argument that morale in Tyrian Falls was low and the villagers needed all the help they could get; some way of believing they could hold out against the so-called koloss. Aralis drew up abruptly short. Had he heard…? Footsteps, falling quiet on the stones. Slowing behind him, as though an echo. A line of bugs skittered away from Aralis’s sandals. “I wasn’t born yesterday,” Aralis muttered. Rind drew a slow, shaky breath, and then another, hoping to steady himself. The mists swirled around him, as though seeking to offer comfort. It was strange, being an Allomancer, Rind thought. Most Allomancers didn’t fear the mists. But how could he not? His parents, as best as he knew, had been killed by mistwraiths. He’d Snapped some time after, but it was difficult to venture out in the mists, knowing what he did. He tried to keep a rough grip on his fear. When Rind had announced publicly in the village square that he was Mistborn, Clem had shortly afterwards taken him aside. “I need you to try to take shifts on the palisade at night,” Clem had said, grimly. Rind felt the sharp frisson of fear, bone-deep, at the thought of having to venture out into the mists at night. “Do…do I have to?” he asked, and immediately disliked how plaintive he sounded. He had volunteered the information after all, hadn’t he? He’d felt that knowing he was Mistborn was helpful for the rest of the villagers of Tyrian Falls. Why was he shirking his duty now? And yet…the mists. They terrified him, unreasonably so; on a level so deep it ran below consciousness. He was shaking like a leaf of grass at the thought of having to endure the night out in the mists. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” Clem said, simply. He added, a few moments later, “You’re Mistborn. You can see them coming, and Pewter gives you an edge. That’s not something the others have, and I’d need to put pairs of Watch volunteers on the palisades to avoid what happened to Gam.” Rind swallowed. “I’ll do it,” he said, weakly. Told himself he would bear with it somehow, because Tyrian Falls needed him, and that was why he’d stepped up in the first place, wasn’t it? Because he was afraid, and—and maybe that didn’t matter. Sometimes you just had to grit your teeth through it, because there was something more important at stake, and how you felt about it didn’t matter. At least he had topped up his metals before coming out to the palisade. Rind shifted his feet and continued to burn Tin. In a way, it was a nerve-wracking experience: with all his senses magnified, almost anything made him startle. Odd rustling, the sound of a pebble clattering to the ground, a bird calling out—was that a mistwraith, or a Spiked murderer creeping up behind him? Wait. …A pebble clattering? Rind spun about and flared pewter, his forearm coming up reflexively to shield himself. At the same time, the broad knife came down—hard. The thick-bladed knife snapped. It was, after all, only steel. Rind felt a sudden warmth, and the trickle of blood down his arm. If there was pain, he was too wound up on the rush of adrenaline and the heat of the pewter he was flaring to feel it. Moving with Pewter-enhanced strength and speed, he punched his assailant in the gut. The hooded figure staggered, but to Rind’s surprise, did not collapse. Instead, his attacker snarled, “Next time,” and leaped. Rind’s Tin-enhanced ears heard a clatter again—not a pebble then? Perhaps a coin?—before the assassin leaped, cloak fluttering like some sort of ungainly bird, and soared out into the night, the mists spreading away in his wake. Blood dripped down Rind’s arm. He didn’t know whether to give chase or not, but the idea of pursuing an assassin into the mists was too much for him, and Clem’d told him to guard the palisade, hadn’t he? When he could no longer sense the Allomantic pulses fading into the distance, Rind finally stopped burning Bronze, and let himself sag with relief. He realised absently he was almost out of Pewter, and let off as well. He’d spare vials, but there was no reason to finish his Pewter without need. Tin he left on. He would need it. The watch was not yet over. It had been a close call. But somehow, he’d survived. Aralis moved cautiously. He drifted a few paces down the street, to the left. The night mists made it difficult to watch, to try to see who might be following him. He kept an easy hand on his staff, knowing he might need it if he was attacked. A retired Hazekiller who’d passed through Tyrian Falls several years ago, by the name of Sidor, had taught him some tricks with the staff. And being made of wood, a staff was as good a weapon as a dueling cane against an Allomancer, which in Aralis’s mind, just made the staff better against any kind of attacker. Try as he might, however, he could no longer hear footsteps. Had they given up? Were they creeping up on him even now? Disgusted, Aralis swept his staff lightly around him, still straining with all of his aging senses. But he heard nothing; after that first time, the footsteps had melted away into the night. His path had taken him past the Hound and Hustle, and he thought he caught sight of something daubed on the walls. What was that? Aralis drew closer to the wall, still watchful, still listening. He peered at it. As best as he could tell, some young whippersnapper had daubed an image of stick man about to be hanged on the tavern wall. Aralis shook his head disapprovingly at the general shenanigans of the youth of the day. He waited a few more moments, and then pressed on, heading back towards his home. Perhaps he’d been taken in by the hysteria in Tyrian Falls himself. Whoever had been the source of the footsteps, it seemed clear they were long gone. @Melon Dingo was attacked and survived! The Day has begun! It will end in 48 hours on the 21st January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Scrawled on the walls of the Hound and Hustle: Player List:

It means you shouldn't curse the GM There are no day kills in Tyrian rules c'mon bruh this is the forum's basic bread and butter traditional ruleset this ain't MU, as much as y'all be throwing the MU jargon

AG11/AN15: Night Three - Pay In Blood That evening, after the flames had been put out, Clem brought the bodies over to Corse on a cart. They’d found both Tema and Malmoc, stabbed, and then burned in the following fire. Both bodies were wrapped in a sheet with as much of Malmoc’s herbs stuffed into it as possible. Not all of the herbs had survived the fire, but Malmoc had a thriving herb garden growing out the back that the flames had left mostly untouched, and the sweet scent of rosemary, mint and sage eased the terrible stench of scorched human flesh. Malmoc would probably have insisted on some combination or other, Clem knew. The eccentric old herbalist had always been particular about his concoctions. Clem wondered what would become of Mihtig—someone had to look out for Mihtig and adopt her. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He hadn’t particularly—liked Malmoc. Dealing with Malmoc had always been like dealing with the village’s strange uncle, even if he was probably the better bet next to Sandhya and Hayden when he was deep in his cups. At the same time, he felt a strange sense of—loss, he supposed. A tightness in his chest, in his throat, where breath came and caught, and said here and no further. Perhaps you were allowed this, allowed to discover something had mattered to you only when it was leaving; only when it was lost. Corse dug the graves with little ceremony. He had been working on the berm and the ditch, and it had been, after all, a terribly long day. They lowered the swaddled bodies, one after another. And then Corse filled in the graves with the cold dirt, one by one. It had felt that way, Clem thought, the long night after the Market Square Massacre. One of his last memories of Tyrian Falls had been the dirt on the graves; his father’s, the victims. Another ending, another departure. Only now, Pilu had whispered to him, had brought him back to Tyrian Falls, and here he was, overseeing another ending. The lone crow cawed. Dusk fell, like a soft curtain. Like mourning. It was time to go. It was a grim band of Tyrianers that gathered in the village square after word of Mayor Tema’s death had spread like wildfire. “The Spiked are getting bolder,” the Jaist priest declared. He had seemed to have discovered some steel in him, some fire, since the events of the previous days. “We must act decisively. Either Sew or Byrar must be our saboteurs. Praise the Ja!” No one asked him why he thought the Ja should be praised for the presence of Spiked. It was Rind, however, who first spoke up. “A- Actually I'm not so sure about that anymore,” he said meekly, walking over quietly to the Jaist. “Byrar claimed he could burn copper, and Sew sought me out earlier to do the same, though said she didn't stop my soothing him.” And there it was, out in the daylight; a secret tacitly acknowledged, but now laid bare: that many in Tyrian Falls could burn some metal or other, and that the town had in the first place, a stash of Allomancer’s metals. “Why…” the Jaist muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He seemed to have entirely forgotten to praise the Ja in his annoyance. “Why does everyone in this village feel the need to publicly announce that they are Allomancers?” Nibbles broke the awkward silence that followed. “Nibbles thinks that we should stop dancing around the point and get rid of Byrar already!” the chef declared. “Nibbles will bake celebratory cupcakes for everyone afterwards!” Rind frowned. “I’d like to hear from Sauve too,” he said, tentatively. “Don’t you think it’s convenient he only defended Hayden right before everything happened? It’s like he didn’t really care, he just wanted to look good.” Sauve Chad drew himself up indignantly. “A man by the name of Araris Valerian vastly misportrayed the character of Sauve Chad, and the Lord Ruler with curse him for that,” he declared. Lightning struck Sauve Chad. Sauve Chad died. It turned out curses aren’t really precision weapons. The end. “Mate, you can’t just do that.” “Why not, you shouldn’t curse the GM.” “...Abuse of power, much?” “And? Tell that to Gamma, when he locked the Darkfriends out of their doc for a couple minutes when they sassed him ಠ_ಠ” “..............” “...Oh, very well.” Time reversed, unspooled like a tailor’s measuring tape. Rind frowned. “I’d like to hear from Sauve too,” he said, tentatively. “Don’t you think it’s convenient he only defended Hayden right before everything happened? It’s like he didn’t really care, he just wanted to look good.” Sauve Chad drew himself up indignantly. “Sauve Chad does not look kindly upon those who see wrongdoing but make no attempt at fixing it,” he declared. “Actually,” the Jaist mused, “I’m suspicious of Kael Voss. He seemed to want to frame both Sew and myself—ironic, I suppose, since I think Sew is suspicious as well, but, praise the Ja!” “I can understand how Sew thought,” Byrar admitted, with surprising grace. “After all, I made the same mistake. And she was telling everyone Hayden could burn Iron—wouldn’t that be the last thing a Spiked would want to do? They’d worry that no one would go for him.” Sew drew a deep breath. “I’m not so sure about this,” she admitted. “I kinda think Byrar is okay, maybe? But if it’s down to him or me…” her voice trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish the statement. While some of the villagers had gathered—almost menacingly—around Sew and Byrar, eventually Rind noticed that Kael Voss hadn’t even shown up in the village square. “He just sent a message he had business to attend to,” he reported. “Said that he found Sew suspicious, but also that his business was more urgent. Are you all…thinking what I’m thinking?” “He doesn’t seem to care for finding the Spiked at all,” Acks mused. “That seems suspicious to me, that he’d be willing to put his own business over our lives here. What else is he putting over our lives?” That seemed to decide them: as a group, the villagers of Tyrian Falls left the village square. Some of them made their way to where Kael Voss lived, some of them made their way to the Hound and Hustle, and others to the market square, thinking to find him there. Aralis knocked the door wide open on its hinges, after giving it a good thwack with his staff. “Watch out!” Acks shouted out a warning as he caught the glint of metal. The eleventh metal, unfortunately, wasn’t helping him in this situation. Reacting on decades of instinct, Aralis rotated his wrists, lashing out with his staff. He swiped the frying pan out of the air, and the follow-up blow to the legs knocked Kael Voss over onto the floor. “Help! Spiked!” Kael Voss cried out, trying to get to his feet. “Murderers! Help!” “He’s calling to his fellow saboteurs,” Byrar said, grimly, clubbing Kael Voss over the head, hard. “We need to stop him!” Kael slumped to the ground, eyes wide and unfocused, his breathing erratic and thready. He struggled up. Byrar clubbed him again. And again. And again. And then Aralis thwacked Byrar with his staff. “Look at what you’ve done,” he said, disgusted. “Someone save him before we lose him completely.” Falcon minced his way forward through the press to try to perform a rescue; however, Kael’s breathing seized up, and then stopped entirely. They had thought the merchant one of the Spiked, and in the end, Kael Voss’s final payment had been in blood. Sauve Chad was struck by lightning but somehow survived! He was a bold one ಠ_ಠ @Fuchsia Ostrich was a Village Rioter! The Night has begun! It will end in 24 hours on the 19th January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Player List:

AG11/AN15: Day Three - Desolation Row The world was changing. If you had a sense for these things, as Malmoc did, dulled as it had invariably become, you could feel it in water and earth; could smell it in the air. There was a heavy presence in the ash, and on the edge of it, a sharp copper scent of bloodshed to come. Things were coming apart, one way or another. He dug into the glass jars he carried with him in the worn leather pouches. No, sage was no good here. Rosemary, to whet the dulled edge of memory. The death of the mist-cursed Lord Ruler had undone it all; the world was unravelling, thread by thread, and the old winds were lost, now, and Malmoc had the sense they would never be restored, that the world itself was lost to them, receding, fading into the ragged mists. What could you do, but accept this diminishing? To think otherwise, to cling on to the fragments of the old world, was a chasing at the wind. He found his mortar and pestle, and set them on the table. Tema, as far as Malmoc could tell, was recovering just fine, if still grumpy and a little over prone to the dramatics. Why, a little purgative never hurt anyone, not with the scent of presence and ash and wet rot that hung over Tyrian Falls, like a funeral pall. He took a pinch of rosemary from the jar, and then another one, and a third. Crushed it, grinding it slowly beneath the stone weight of the pestle. There was nothing left in the jar of mint—not even a few trace leaves, just dust. No matter how much Malmoc ran his fingers along the bottom, he could not find more than a little trace dust. That was right, he remembered: a terrible season, the mint withering in his garden. The first sign that things had not been well, he supposed. The first suggestion of the unravelling. The world changed, and Malmoc wept. The scents were too intermingled to tell apart, on this world where life and death, preservation and ruin warred, and from the ashes of both, life emerged through the cracks. The flowery wet-rotted scent of decay, the dry heat you scented among the peaks of the ashmounts, the cool, steady scent of the metals, the faintest metallic hint to the mists. The world changed, was changing, and all of it seemed to centre on this small village, nestled between Fadrex and Luthadel, the weight of all which had been, all which would ever be to be borne by a single small village, and Malmoc was not what he had once been, was unable to do anything about it. Sew had cried herself into the shaky, temporary calm that followed tears. There weren’t spikes. She had to accept that. There weren’t spikes, no matter how much she fumbled in his belongings. Nothing marked Hayden a saboteur after all, and she’d gotten an innocent man killed, and both of them were dead now, both the men who’d offered to give her their names, and it was her fault, and their blood was on her hands. She wanted her parents. The memories of her dad were distant. She thought she remembered a broad smile, the way he would gather her up in his arms and swing her about in a hug. She thought she remembered the way her dad’s warmth lit up the small spaces of the caravan. Her mum, she remembered a little better. The scent of herbs, what herbs, Sew didn’t really know; maybe a bit like resin. Her mum’s callused hands ruffling her hair, calling her dearheart. But her parents were like paintings. Each time the caravan made the trip, the memories seemed to grow ever more distant, daubed vaguely on the mind’s canvas. She couldn’t remember their faces by now, but they had to be out there, she knew it. She didn’t remember why they’d left, only that they had at one stop, and they told her they’d be back, promised her, and she promised she’d be good, and she hadn’t gone looking at first, but it had been so long and Sew had just killed a nice man, or as good as, and she tried to summon up the memories, but they were unravelling in her grasp. A hint of a half-remembered scent. A smile. A memory of love. She wanted them here, now. Wanted her dad to sweep her into his arms, to tell her everything was going to be all right. Wanted her mum to ruffle her hair, to promise her that she’d be okay. Because Sew had the distinct realisation that she’d killed someone, and how did you live with that, how did you go back from it, there were no spikes, he wasn’t a saboteur, and he probably wasn’t her dad but it wasn’t right, and the world wasn’t going to be right again. She wanted her parents. Malmoc set the mortar and pestle down, the scent of crushed herbs still lingering in the air, and went to check on Tema. Really, Tema was going to be fine, but still, Satrams had insisted that Malmoc take Tema back home with him, and so he was forced to put the groaning and complaining mayor up in a small antechamber, the one he always used for visiting patients. Tema’d gone quiet, though, and Malmoc thought he could hear Mihtig hissing. That wasn’t any good. There was only the thin smear of herbal oils on his fingers, nothing he could quite work with. The doorway was open. “Mihtig!” Malmoc screamed, his heart in his mouth as the hooded figure, blood still dripping from the knife, swung at Mihtig—and missed. Mihtig hissed and scratched at the hooded figure’s face, and Malmoc wasn’t going to just stand there while they attacked Mihtig, and he flung himself at the killer. They both went crashing to the floor. Malmoc tried to wrestle for the knife, but the killer was stronger and younger than he was, and twisted it away from his grasping fingers. In the tussle, the killer’s hood dropped, and Malmoc instantly recognised who he was struggling against. “You,” he whispered. The hesitation, the moment in which he’d startled, cost him. “Old fool,” the killer snarled, and then there was a terrible coldness. Malmoc looked down. The hilt of the knife protruded from his chest. He reached for it, thinking to do something, to save Mihtig, to stop the killer from attacking , but the last of his strength melted away, and his vision went hazy, clouding; went dark. There was the scent again: wet-rot, darkness, death. Ruin. It was Mihtig who found Clem. Clem was coming back from a shift at the palisades when he heard a frantic hiss, and saw Mihtig streak across the open ground and bat at his leg. “Mihtig?” he asked. “What’s wrong? Ow!” Mihtig batted at his leg again, with a hint of claw this time. “All right, all right, I’m coming,” Clem muttered. He followed the frantic cat, jogging across half the village, and immediately sped up when he caught the scent of something terrible. Smoke. He tore across the last of the distance, realising he had broken out into an open run. By the time he turned the corner, he knew what was happening, what he had not wanted to see. Malmoc’s home was on fire. @Amethyst Scorpion was killed! He was a Village Vanilla! The Day has begun! It will end in 48 hours on the 18th January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Nailed to the bulletin board outside the Hound and Hustle: Player List:

Currently on Are You An Echo? - it's aimed at children but I've found myself really enjoying Kaneko Misuzu's poetry, and there are places that remind me of Mary Oliver, almost. One of the times I wish I actually had the time to learn Japanese so I could appreciate the original works...

AG11/AN15: Night Two - Lock Your Door Aralis dearly missed the quiet evenings, watching the sunset from the comfort of his rocking chair on the porch. There were those days, long gone now, when perhaps there would be laughter, familiar faces. A little warmth, to set against the cold of the winters. All gone now. He’d outlived them all, of course. Liked to think you accrued a measure of wisdom as the weight of the years accumulated on your shoulders, and grey threaded your hair. Maybe that meant you were less like to run screaming over your own shadow, over nonsensical whispers of koloss in the wilderness, headed for Tyrian Falls and hellbent on murder. Hysteria gripped Tyrian Falls now, what with a wild-eyed Hayden bursting into the Hound and Hustle bearing a tale on a knife-throwing assassin and—worse news—Captain Teys’s death. Aralis hadn’t approved of how Teys seemed to take news of the koloss seriously, but Teys was competent, and Teys being murdered, if Hayden hadn’t done the deed himself (Aralis wasn’t sure how he felt about that particular possibility just yet) boded ill for Tyrian Falls. And there were questions that came to mind, of course. What did this mean? Why did the assassin come for Hayden Vendel, and then kill Captain Teys? Why kill a drunkard, a former soldier, and one who’d the pall of Alais Short’s death dangling over him? Because they’d wanted to kill a Misting? Why pivot then to killing Captain Teys instead? There was, as well, the poisoning of Mayor Tema. As best as Aralis could tell, gossip about that had spread all over Tyrian Falls—first, people claimed that Tema’d been killed; then, they were whispering that the half-senile fool Malmoc had gone and poisoned Tema in one of his mad fits. That, Aralis thought, was sadly plausible. Malmoc had the habit of forcing his salves and concoctions on you, will you, nill you. Aralis’d thwacked the herbalist more than once with his staff before Malmoc could try to flavour his evening tea with…some of his more exotic ingredients. “Aralis?” It was Clem, and he was woolgathering. “Tema’s still down for the count,” the blacksmith said. He ran a hesitant hand through his soot-stained hair. For all his numerous faults, at least someone in the village minded his elders, Aralis thought. “I finished the batch of caltrops that Teys asked for, and I think the others are looking for you.” Aralis narrowed his eyes. “They’re, what?” he asked, in spite of himself. Clem shrugged. “Teys dead. Tema down,” he counted off on his fingers, emotionlessly, as though counting numbers, or stating facts about the world. “My father was the Market Square Murderer.” That, Aralis remembered, as though it was yesterday. Nasty business, altogether. They’d never quite figured out what’d possessed Connal to scrawl PRAISE RUIN AND THE DEATH HE BRINGS in the market square, even as the last of his victims bled their lives out on the stones. “I think they’re just lost and looking for direction, and you’re as old as dirt.” …Scratch that last bit about Clem minding his elders. Aralis was very much minded to give him a good thwacking. Instead, he grunted acknowledgement. If it had to be him, then Aralis supposed he would get it done with. Aralis did not believe in koloss. The idea of a koloss warband, here and now, offended his sensibilities: offended the way all wisdom suggested the world should work. But he was certain that there were saboteurs, or at least a band of murderers who had taken refuge in Tyrian Falls. And Aralis would be damned if he let them have free rein in his hometown. In the Hound and Hustle, Tyrianers were discussing the bold attempt on Hayden’s life and what it meant. Falcon was still narrating his thoughts as though he was an actor in one of those two-bit stage plays the Luthadel nobility so loved to attend, though it seemed he had no real idea what to make of the attack. Byrar, on the other hand, had gone into full-out hysterics, seeing saboteurs in every shadow. “Nibbles is acting suspicious!” he groused, as the chef emerged once more from the kitchens, bearing a tray of freshly-baked pies. “And Hayden—don’t tell me you all believe this rubbish? Hayden clearly staged the attack on himself to pretend he’s innocent! He’d have to, after having all but murdered Alais yesterday!” He cast a wary look at the Jaist priest. “And just look at that priest. In all our years in Tyrian Falls, have you ever heard what his name was? No. We don’t even know something so basic about the priest. How can we say for sure that this man isn’t a murderer himself?” “Byrar,” Ade said, wearily. “You’re delusional.” “Nibbles thinks Byrar is secretive too!” Nibbles had popped back out of the kitchen to pipe up. “What’s also a secret is what fruit Nibbles put in the pies! Enjoy!” Sew, at least, had given up her search for her dad for the moment, and was darting about listening to the conversations on the Tyrian murders. She’d heard something that gave her pause, though. “Huh?” She stared at Falcon with a fair amount of confusion. He called himself an observer, but he was getting something very wrong. “Were you not payin' attention? We already knew he could burn metal, and we already knew what he is. The drunk's said it twice already. He's a Lurcher!” Which only deepened the confusion. What manner of madman openly claimed to be a Misting so lightly, without a trace of hesitation? Sure, Tyrian Falls was smack between Luthadel and Fadrex, but they saw their share of Ministry workers. Admitting to being a Misting when you were skaa was a death sentence, one upheld by the cruel hooks of the Steel Ministry. Even with rumours of the Lord Ruler’s death, the old fear, burned into the skaa over generations of discovery, torture, and a gruesome end did not fade easily. “And you know, I think that’s kinda weird,” Sew added. Meanwhile, the Jaist priest’s attention had shifted to the orphan who had spoken up. “And you knew he claimed the power of Iron, and did nothing—absolutely nothing at all—to break up the fight?” What the priest expected an orphan girl to do about a tavern fight, no one was quite sure. “Listen,” Byrar said, exasperated. “Look at her! She’s just a little girl! What’s wrong with you? Our killer had to overpower Gam, remember? Even with a bad leg, Hayden could take Gam, especially if he had his metals.” Malmoc was all but ready to scream. “You’re delusional,” he accused, half-mumbling, so the dramatic effect was lost. He stabbed a finger at Byrar, Sew, and apparently half of Tyrian Falls in the process, because the nonsense was beginning to offend him. “You’re all delusional. You all need a calming infusion for the mind, something for clarity. Hayden was in shock. He wasn’t faking that.” “Well, then you are lost!” Byrar shot back. The Hound and Hustle exploded once again into chaotic argument, with accusations being hurled to and fro. Clem followed Aralis into the common room of the Hound and Hustle. He felt…uncomfortable, in a way he had not in years. Most of Tyrian Falls had gathered into the tavern and were muttering and speculating about the deaths. Uncertainty hung in the air, a force so heavy it was almost palpable. Memories of the evening after the Market Square Massacre, the flame-and-garnet sunset against a bloody sky. One of the many reasons Clem had left Tyrian Falls, beyond a quiet yearning to see more of the world, to see what lay beyond the hills of his hometown. A recognition you had to grow into your own, and for that, you had to seek change, to awaken the sleeper. You could not be allowed to slip into a soothing complacency, the comfort of the same routine. His life, Clem thought, was chiseled in half: the cleavage point was the Market Square Massacre. Nothing had been the same, after that. Or so he’d told himself when he left, with nothing but his own forged tools, some baywraps for the journey, and a carved wooden figurine of Pilu in his pocket. He hadn’t expected to return; had thought he would die in Luthadel, maybe a Garrison assignment he didn’t come back from, but Pilu had whispered to him, and Clem knew this much: you didn’t disobey God, didn’t tell him you had better things to do in Luthadel, or great plans with your life. As soon as they entered, Clem noticed that Malmoc’s cat sauntered over to greet Aralis, clambering up on him and then perching on his head like a gigantic fluffy hat. He tried to hide his amusement, and ended up having to muffle his amused snickering behind his elbow. “Alright,” Aralis said, grumpily, an effect not particularly improved by having become Mihtig’s new, favourite perch. “What in tarnation just happened here?” Rind said, “Aralis, I tried to calm them all down, I tried, I even burned metal but I don’t think it did anything, everyone was too worked up…” There was, at least, much less property damage this time. More concerningly, however, their sole witness to the ostensible assassin and the death of Captain Teys was also dead, apparently in the argument and the scuffling that had ensued. No one had seen how it had happened. “...I guess he’s not my dad either,” Sew said, quietly. “We thought he was one of the saboteurs,” Byrar explained, awkwardly. Aralis lashed out with his staff. THWACK! “Praise the Ja,” the Jaist priest intoned, solemnly. THWACK! “Will you all,” Aralis said flatly, utterly done with the situation, “Calm down and stop murdering people before we can even get any sense or information out of them?” @Cream Tuatara was a Village Lurcher! The Night has begun! It will end in 24 hours on the 16th January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Player List:

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AG11/AN15: Day Two - Cold Irons Bound By the time Captain Teys had arrived, things had settled down, at least a little, with the Watch volunteers having separated the combatants. In addition, Malmoc, as the only herbalist present, was attending to the Mayor in a discreet corner of the Hound and Hustle. “Doesn’t look like he’s alive,” one of them called out, having checked on Alais’s condition. Teys drew in a deep breath, and let it out again, forcing himself to calm. Sometimes, he thought, resignedly, the universe just had it out for you. Sometimes, it decided you didn’t just need to deal with a koloss warband descending on a completely unprepared village, you also had to deal with saboteurs murdering people, the people of said village apparently taking matters into their own hands and trying to murder each other, rampant property damage, a mayor who might-or-might-not be actually lethally poisoned, a drunken madman on a rampage, and Malmoc. “Alright, the party’s over,” Teys said firmly, with the careworn air of a man who was at the very end of his rope. He had to raise his voice to make sure he was heard by everyone crowding the tavern, most of whom had descended into increasingly spectacular gossip, “I’m going to need everyone who isn’t involved to go somewhere else—” “—Nibbles is appalled! Nibbles doesn’t remember making cake, because the whole tavern has taken a battering!” “—you, you, you, and you,” Teys said, after a moment’s pause. “Stop gawking, go help Satrams and the chef sort things out.” Almost at random, he picked out some familiar faces among the lingering crowd: Byrar, Rind, Falcon, and Mouse. “Anyone who doesn’t have business here, move, or help them.” “Sorry everyone,” muttered Ade, walking slowly into the damaged interior of the tavern, and joining the crowd gathered there. She made to sit down with some others in one of the more intact booths of the tavern. “I'd had a lazy day last night. How was I supposed to know it would be the most eventful day in Tyrian Falls’s history?” “Ade!” Teys roared. “Gossip later! Help the others with the clean-up.” He didn’t pause to see if Ade had been rather put-out; he moved on to the next headache for his attention, which was apparently that the attacker, Hayden, was for the moment, docile and compliant. Teys figured that was better than dealing with a rowdy drunk, or more trouble. Either way, they needed to secure Hayden, and deal with him subsequently, after he’d sobered up. He beckoned to two of the stronger Watch volunteers present, figuring Hayden would be less likely to give them trouble. “Escort Hayden to the old shed, and make sure he’s secure.” Teys filed that problem out of his mind, and moved on to the next one. “Malmoc,” he said, through gritted teeth, “What’s Tema’s status?” “Oh, you know,” Malmoc said, cheerfully. A whole army of glass jars, lids unscrewed, were strewn on the floor all about him, and he was grinding up powder to make a thin paste. Mihtig wove through the glass jars, somehow managing to avoid upsetting any of them with the skill worthy of a cat burglar. “He’ll be fine, he’s just needed to purge all the upsetting elements inside his system.” Teys, by this point, was rather practiced at reading between Malmoc’s lines. “What did you do,” he demanded, wondering not for the first time why he’d decided to serve as Captain of the Tyrian Watch. Malmoc blinked owlishly. “A simple purgative,” he said. “Hyssop for purification. There’s a change in the ash, could you not smell it? There’s a presence there, in the ash. I gave him a little—well, perhaps a little too much hyssop to bolster him against that.” He applied the thin salve between the mayor’s eyes, and then gently across his closed eyelids. Teys decided that if Tema wasn’t actually dying, he had other things to deal with first before wrangling Malmoc, and turned to leave. “Be careful, Captain,” Malmoc murmured. Teys drew to a temporary halt. “Nothing has been as it should be. The old winds are faded, and so very much is wrong beyond my power to know, or to treat. And I fear that whatever lurks in the ash rains…there is something directed at you, too.” “I’ll be fine,” Teys said, brusquely. The last thing he needed was Malmoc trying to foist some infusion or salve on him again, right now, when so many things competed for his time and attention. “Make sure Tema is. You know how it is, word has gone around the village thrice now, and they’ll all swear to his death. We cannot have a panic now, Malmoc, not with the koloss on our doorstep and the saboteurs within.” He nodded to the Watch volunteer, who was positioned tactfully at a distance: not near enough to suggest that Malmoc was under suspicion, but not so far she could not intervene if Tema was in danger. And then he left. In the heat of his family’s old forge, Clem laboured on the large numbers of caltrops that Teys had asked for. Some of the Garrison veterans had expressed doubt about the devices, although one who’d served with the Ventures in the Northern Dominance was insistent that they’d held off an assault from rebellious koloss before. Some things never left you, he thought, as he deftly flattened out the glowing end of the iron rod with several quick strokes of his hammer. Even with the shutters letting in a cool breeze, the heat of the forge was oppressive, like the molten heart of the ashmount Tyrian Falls took its name from. He had hiked Tyrian, once. He had been younger then, still deciding what he wanted to do with his life. Still drawn by the idea you could make a life for yourself in the big city, in Luthadel, where it didn’t matter you were skaa, if you had the skill, and the daring, and the desire to see something more than the hills among which you grew up. He summited Tyrian, climbing as high as he dared, balancing on the crumbling edge of the crater, staring at the dangerous clouds of gases below, the rumble of distant fire. The heat of the ashmount’s heart on his face like a forge of a different kind, both acknowledgement and passage into adulthood. Time, Clem was thinking, made liars of them all. He had to reheat the iron rod several times, casting a wary eye over to the other rods still heating in the forge-fire. He took a chisel to the flattened end, splitting the metal with even strikes of the chisel. The first thing Clem’s father had started him on as an apprentice was nails. No matter how many days he spent in the small village smithy, hammering out iron rods over the anvil, dropping finished nail after finished nail into a small iron bucket, there never seemed to be enough nails. Another hammer stroke, tapped at the groove, split off the caltrops from the iron rod completely. The rest of the iron rod went back into the furnace, and Clem got back to work drawing out the points, bending the tips back into barbed hooks that would catch and gouge and refuse to let go. Eventually, the finished caltrops went into the water bucket, and then Clem moved on to the next one. And the next. Like nails, like time, and like hope, there never seemed to be enough caltrops. Hayden Vendel felt cold awareness seep back, slowly, as he sprawled on the familiar wooden bench in the shed. Tyrian Falls was too small to have anything like an actual Watch barracks or station, the way the fancier cities did. What they did have was an old grain shed, at the back of Teys’s home, which had been converted into a temporary holding place for someone the Watch’d apprehended, or, as was more common in Tyrian Falls, a place for a drunken troublemaker to sober up. He’d sobered up in the shed more than once. There was a lantern, set just far enough that he couldn’t tip it over, and cause a fire by accident. It illuminated a basin of water, with a wooden dipper. He thought he saw a trail of bugs, leading just past the basin. It wasn’t the water he was thirsty for, but all the same, Hayden staggered over to it and poured it down his parched throat. The second fill of the dipper went down his throat as well, and the third went over his head. The numbness of the drink, the euphoria of the fight—all of that faded away in the cold rush of the water. He blinked blearily, realised there was blood on his knuckles. Memory came back, fragmented. The tavern fight. Alais Short, the gambler who didn’t fit, who seemed an awful lot like one of those saboteurs. Garrison liked to use them, too. Better to have one of your own on the inside when attacking rebels; even better if they could soften up the rebels for you. Well, at least he’d put an end to it. The door to the shed opened, and Hayden looked up, figuring he was going to get yet another lecture from Teys. “Listen,” he began, but all of a sudden, his old soldier’s instincts were screaming a warning, and he threw himself to the side, arms windmilling as he almost lost his balance, failing to compensate, even now, years later, from the missing leg. The moment seemed to shatter into multiple pieces, as though it was too much to process all at once. The glint of lantern light off a knife. The sound of the knife burying itself with a solid thunk! into the wooden boards of the shed. Maybe the sab had more. Hayden wasn’t sure. He dove for the knife, knowing he’d need it, and the movement saved him from the second knife, even as he came up short, and crawled towards the knife embedded deep in the wooden boards of the shed. Hayden lunged for it, knowing his life rusting well depended on it, and his fingers closed about the cord-wrapped hilt and yanked. It was lodged fast. He yanked at it again, with a desperate, silent prayer to the Lord Ruler. “Hey, what—” Someone else’s voice. The knife came free. Hayden turned about, righted himself, the knife in his right hand, ready to defend himself, when he realised it was Teys’s voice, and there had been a terrible gurgle. And then an even more terrible silence. His attacker was nowhere to be seen. Teys slumped in the doorway of the shed. Motionless. Nothing seemed right. Hayden worked his way over cautiously, watching warily for any sign of ambush. As far as he could tell, Teys had been slashed across the throat, the knife laying it open to the bone. He let out a shaky breath. He’d seen death, too many times, on campaign. Had come close to it on occasion as well, numerous times. Had saved lives, and had been saved, and sometimes, the saving was what damned you, laid a leaden weight of pain on your soul that only the drink drowned out. Hayden closed Teys’s staring eyes, and added another coin to the ledger. @Cream Tuatara was attacked and survived! The Day has begun! It will end in 48 hours on the 15th January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Scrawled on the walls of the Hound and Hustle: Player List:

AG11/AN15: Night One - Dirt Road Blues Clem’d known a cold bastard back out in Luthadel, from a past life, who insisted that the dead spoke, if you knew how to listen to them. Made you at least a tad antsy, getting patched up by the same fellow who cut up dead bodies and told you about them, but Garrison paid well enough, and there wasn’t much choice to be had. He was thinking of Wurek again, as he stared down at Gam’s corpse, and tried to figure out what Gam might’ve had to tell them. There wasn’t much in the way of choice in Tyrian Falls, if you got injured. It was old Malmoc, who’d throw some herbs at you and mumble and commit you to the Lord Ruler’s hands, former Garrison like Hayden Vendel, who could maybe be talked into doing some field medicine if he hadn’t gotten the chance to bury his mind in the bottle, and Sandhya, who had a habit of performing unnecessary surgical procedures, to the point Clem’d rather limp across the Lutha to Montshade, half a day’s canal boat to the south, rather than deal with her. He thanked the Lord Ruler that it had been a cool night. He’d run into Malmoc on his way to the village bounds, and the herbalist had insisted on stopping him and anointing him with a greasy mixture right between the eyes, which made Clem fight to hold back a sneeze, but at least whiffing lavender, thyme, and Lord Ruler only knew what else was a sight better than dealing with Gam’s notorious aversion to baths, or the stench of a ripe corpse. “Left-handed,” Clem said, at last. Wished he sounded more confident. Maybe they should’ve gotten Sandhya down, after all, but if there was anyone as like to put your back up, it was Sandhya humming to herself as she poked at a corpse. “Shallower here, deeper here.” He made a throat-slitting gesture with his free hand to demonstrate. “Probably took Gam by surprise,” he added. Captain Teys was bending over the corpse, studying it. “No sign of a struggle,” he assented. Gam’s hands bore the calluses and dirt of a man who put in a day’s honest work, with no defensive scratches or bruising. As far as Clem could tell from his expression, he’d been taken by surprise when he died. “Surprised the mistwraiths didn’t get him,” Teys grunted. “Maill’s take is they left him out for the mistwraiths, hoping they’d devour the evidence. Probably why we never found Cambry.” Clem tried to put things together in his head. A late night. Gam hearing a sound in the watchtower, seeing someone he trusted enough to let his guard down around climbing up to him. Maybe they’d brought some food, some wine. A welcome sight. And then they’d overpowered Gam, and killed him, and set the watchtower on fire. Left-handed, and known to Gam. He said that again, aloud. Felt as though it was terribly inadequate. Tyrian Falls was a small village, the sort where everyone knew everyone, and what’s more, they knew your entire extended family and you knew theirs. Had been that way for generations. It wasn’t that the deed was unthinkable—and he knew that, of course, because Connal’s killing had left a deep scar in the memory of Tyrian Falls—it was that it didn’t single out anyone in particular, so you were left with nothing. “Left-handedness we can work with,” Teys said, thoughtfully. That, Clem was minded to agree with. A short distance away, at the boundaries of Tyrian Falls, a group of villagers were hard at work, still attempting to secure the town against the feared koloss onslaught. Corse, the local gravedigger, had paused work on a segment of ditch, with Maill having finally brought over Gam’s corpse for burial. “Graveyard’s that way,” Corse said, laconically, jabbing with the thumb of his free hand. “Captain says bury him close by,” Maill replied. Unease flickered across his face. “We’re losing daylight if we take him to the graveyard. The ditch and the stakes need to be in place before the koloss hit us.” The entire situation had Maill on edge. Gam had been an old friend, and the hasty burial beyond the village bounds seemed poor treatment. And yet, the cobbler didn’t fancy the idea of facing a group of koloss, and the insistence of both the Captain and Tyrian Falls’s veterans that earthworks and sharpened stakes might give the koloss enough pause sat poorly with him. Koloss were like the slopes of the ashmount Tyrian: brute facts of the world, heavy with consequence. You built a village on the slopes of an ashmount, and you understood that your village would burn. Maill couldn’t see how the ditch being painstakingly dug by a rotating team of villagers, led by Corse, nor the earthen berm beyond it, nor the pile of logs being sharpened into stakes by a grouchy Aralis, with Byrar helping, was supposed to do anything against the koloss. Even if these had a prayer’s hope of doing anything about the koloss, Maill thought, what about the saboteurs? He didn’t think they were going to idle around and allow Tyrian Falls to piece together any form of defense. So why didn’t you run? “Damned crow,” Maill cursed sourly, swatting at the bird that had perched on the nearby pile of sharpened logs and was eyeing Gam’s corpse intently with dark, beady eyes. A trail of bugs led over the top of the log pile, but the crow ignored them, seemingly more interested in the corpse than the insects. “Bird isn’t bothering you,” Corse said, as though he’d eyes at the back of his head. “Leave be.” “It’s a carrion bird,” Maill muttered, darkly. “I’m not standing for it if it goes for him.” Corse said nothing more; he dug into the earth with his shovel, leaning into the movement, and with one final dark glare at the crow, Maill moved to help him. The crow let out a series of harsh caws, much like mocking laughter, and then flapped its wings and took to the ashen skies overhead. Maill shielded his eyes as he followed the crow’s movement, turning back for those heartbeats to the half-dug ditch, and blanched. For a moment, in the ruddy light of the day, the ditch seemed to be brimming with blood. This day, Satrams’s tavern was brimming with villagers as the townsfolk of Tyrian Falls sought out the comforts of a hearthfire, warm food, and drink. Gam’s cold-blooded murder and the torching of the watchtower had set everyone on edge, particularly with the knowledge that a warband of koloss were headed towards Tyrian Falls. Within the four walls of the Hound and Hustle, with the warm, pleasant buzz of ale or other drink blanketing their thoughts, it was easy to opine confidently that the defenses the teams of villagers were working on, out there, beyond at the village boundaries, would hold against even the koloss themselves. “Not if there’re shhaboteurs,” Hayden Vendel growled, words half-slurred, clutching his bottle of cheap ale as a shipwrecked sailor to the driftwood that he saw as his salvation. It wasn’t one of Satrams’s—it was the sort of thing you felt could’ve been used to strip rust from metal, but what Satrams didn’t see wasn’t going to hurt him, and in any case, Hayden had taken one look at the burning watchtower and started drinking all over again as though it was a new sacrament. He’d been Garrison most of his life, lost his leg fighting rebels, and for the most part, figured he’d spend the rest of his life drowning in the wrong sort of water in this backwater town. But now, with the whispers of the koloss warband, and the burning watchtower, and the murder… He seized onto it with a strange kind of desperation. The drink took away the pain for a while, but it left you with a peculiar sort of numbness, something that felt very much like a sort-of-pain. The problem of the saboteurs though? It felt new. It felt like something he knew how to deal with, even if he was lying to himself about it. There was the kid, the one who’d asked him if he was her dad, but the way Hayden saw it, he wasn’t anyone’s dad, wasn’t in the place to be anyone’s dad, not right now, maybe not ever. Wasn’t gonna tell a kid that, though. Man built like a rusting bulwark was asking him about a bet, and the part of Hayden’s mind that was still keeping track of things wondered if he’d the boxings for the bet, and the rest of it, mellowed by drink, just said eh whatever. Didn’t trust the gambler, though. Man like him, Garrison’d pay well, what’s he doing in a dead-end town like Tyrian Falls getting in people’s faces talking about bets? “Youse the saboteur,” Hayden said, triumphantly. “Hundred boxings on it.” The sensible part of Hayden’s mind warned he didn’t have a hundred boxings. It was overruled by the hard rush of his homemade brew and the fact he’d latched on to something that made sense to him in his inebriated state: which was that the gambler—Alain, he’d called himself—didn’t make sense, and so was probably their saboteur. Figured that a sab would stick out, here. ‘Course, Alain was slippery enough. Hayden wasn’t really sure how they’d gotten to talking about metals, but pretty soon, he’d admitted he could burn metals—pretty obvious, really, if you wondered what he was doing with a last name that sounded a tad noble, even if it was no Venture—and then they’d gone off to shake down the man sitting at the bar because someone’d heard he said he could burn some sort of special eleventh metal and that sounded like the sorta thing a sab might think handy. They passed a small table where Mayor Tema was drinking—and Hayden thought he saw someone, who, having brushed quickly past them, dropped a large handful of powdered herbs into the mayor’s drink. Funny, he thought, and fought back a sneeze as a cat’s tail brushed past his face, distracting him, and then in the following moments, his mind was soon diverted to the problem of Acks and whatever Acks was doing. By the time they were done shaking Acks down, and concluding reluctantly that maybe Acks wasn’t the sab they were looking for right now, Mayor Tema had become distinctly unwell. He stood up, teetering on his feet, and promptly threw up on the table right in front of him. “Mayor!” Satrams cried out, aghast. “A poisoning! Saboteurs!” exclaimed the ostentatious fellow everyone had figured was some sort of wandering priest. Unnecessarily, the priest added, “Praise the Ja!” as though the fact that the mayor had just been poisoned was a matter worthy of praise. By that point, a sudden idea lodged itself firmly in Hayden’s mind. Alais’d said something about the eleventh metal being an alloy of gold or atium, and belatedly, the alarm bells were beginning to ring. The gambler said he’d known nothing about Invesh—Investich—about metals, and when Hayden asked him again, he backtracked and said of course he did, he’d been a blacksmith once. Which sounded awfully convenient to Hayden. “Yous a sab,” he whispered, staring at Alais. “You poisoned the Major, didn’t you?” “You’re coming onto me quite suddenly, my good friend,” Alais said, though he did not sound particularly alarmed. Hayden snarled, “‘M not your friend. ‘M not a sab,” and let loose with a sudden, sharp left hook that snapped Alais’s head to the side. Alais staggered backwards, crying out in shock, but recovered enough to snatch a wooden beer stein off a nearby table and smashed it into Hayden’s stomach. Moments later, the entire Hound and Hustle broke into chaos, with various Tyrianers shouting about a poisoning and then a murder attempt, and plates and crockery and bottles and all sorts of items flying about, or used as improvised weapons. Mostly, several villagers appeared to have taken either Alais’s or Hayden’s side, with Satrams futilely appealing to everyone to stop the rampant destruction of his establishment. By the time some of the Watch volunteers managed to break up the ensuing tavern brawl, Hayden was slumped over Alais’s unmoving corpse, breathing heavily, blood running down his knuckles, shards of broken glass and wooden plates strewn all over the floor. “I did it,” he slurred, triumphantly. “Alais was a rusting shhab.” @Magenta Albatross was a Village Vanilla! The Night has begun! It will end in 24 hours on the 13th January 2025, 11PM ET. PMs remain open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. Player List:

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AG11/AN15: Day One - All Along The Watchtower The roaring flames consumed the watchtower, sending up a blazing beacon across the surrounding countryside, visible even in the thin mists that draped the cool night. Dark grey smoke swirled into the mists, mingling with them. Captain Teys of the hastily-assembled Tyrian Watch had the strangest feeling that someone was trying to send a message. The volunteers of the Watch—some of them with experience soldiering in Fadrex City or elsewhere— had formed a fire line and were passing buckets of water to each link in the large human chain, hastily trying to douse the fires. Some of them, the more superstitious ones, were surreptitiously whispering prayers to the Lord Ruler, hoping to be shielded from the evils and the wraiths that lurked in the mists. It wasn’t going to work. The fires were too large, too hungry. Teys shielded his eyes with his cupped hand as he studied the burning watchtower. The oak structure of the watchtower had been charred beforehand, and sealed and treated with an oil to prevent fires, while the canvas had been soaked with water. It wasn’t the sort of structure meant to go up to just about any stray spark from a watchman’s lantern. But all of their precautions didn’t seem to have done anything against the fire. No, Teys thought, grimly. This didn’t seem like an accident at all. Someone had wanted the watchtower to burn, had wanted to blind Tyrian Falls to the threat that was surely advancing upon them, even now, in the mists that enveloped the land at night. But who? The troubles of Tyrian Falls had properly started with the merchant caravan, Aralis decided. Most normal merchants came by the canals, but sometimes, you got groups that decided they knew better how the world worked and came overland by the roads. Damnfool lot, even if they were smart enough to twig onto the idea that the yammering about lurking mistwraiths was a load of rubbish. Still, instead of mistwraiths, they’d taken to hysterics about a supposed pack of koloss, lurking in the mists several days away from Tyrian Falls. Koloss! Whatever next? Sure, the caravan had run themselves to the ground, and some of them were badly injured, but their story had more holes in it than Nibbles’s cheeses. Everyone knew that koloss didn’t just up and walk towards any random town they were fed up of, not without the Lord Ruler’s say-so. And sure, there were those rumours about the Lord Ruler’s demise, even if no one dared to breathe a word of them, but Aralis couldn’t see how someone’d finally succeeded. They’d been trying to off him for decades, if not centuries! And if the caravan had really run into koloss, judging from the condition of that mangled packhorse, and the injured guards, then how in the Lord Ruler’s name had they managed to survive? Koloss were killing machines. They were loosed when the Lord Ruler’d had enough and decided to smite some place for being naughty in his sight and they left no survivors in their wake. So how was a random merchant caravan from a made-up place Aralis had never heard of in his entire long life in Tyrian Falls somehow running into a pack of koloss, surviving, and then running off to Tyrian Falls to induce collective hysteria in the town? Rubbish, if you asked him. Absolute rubbish. Everyone was getting worked up about absolutely nothing. Mayor Tema had leaned on Captain Teys, who presumably so badly wanted to be useful for once in his life, so he’d sent out a volunteer scout to check out the koloss rumours, and the scout’d gone and gotten himself drunk or something, everyone knew you didn’t trust Cambry with anything serious, why, Aralis remembered having to whack Cambry with his thwacking staff for taking one look at a rat supposedly on Aralis’s porch and running off screaming fit to wake the dead! Hadn’t even finished the repairs Aralis’d commissioned him to. No, it had all begun with the caravan, and if Aralis’d had his way, he’d’ve given them all a good thwack with his staff and sent them off on their way. The cold, grey light of dawn had first broken through, dispelling the lingering mists when the volunteers of the Tyrian Watch had won the battle with the flames. Not because of particular valour or persistence, but simply because the flames had run out of fuel. The watchtower itself was lost. Searching through the detritus of the watchtower, through cooling ashes, and chunks of wood, and scraps of blackened canvas, Captain Teys found what he had half-expected to see, and yet, what he had not wanted to see. Blackened pottery shards, in the middle of all the debris. He squatted down and closed his eyes, trying to imagine the lay-out of the watchtower. Dead centre, and in the middle of ashes. The sides had produced some fragments of charred wood and canvas. The fire had burned the hottest here. He imagined what must have happened: an unknown saboteur, bringing a clay pot of oil into the heart of the watchtower, and then smashing it into the floor. Ignition came later, from a flung torch, or a stray spark, or a fallen lantern. There was no body. Two members of the Watch had gone as close to the blaze as they dared, earlier that night, trying to see if they could find any sign of Gam, who was supposed to be on watch. As far as they could tell, Gam wasn’t in the burning watchtower. Thank the Lord Ruler for small miracles, Teys thought, though it raised other, darker questions about where Gam fit into the series of events that had unfolded. Questions that were, fortunately or unfortunately, answered half a candlemark later when one of the searchers reported finding Gam in a ditch nearby, his throat slit. In light of everything, it was difficult not to conclude someone had it out for Tyrian Falls. “Saboteurs,” someone else whispered. Teys opened his mouth to tell Maill off for speculation, but in truth, it was a thought that had crossed his mind more than once, that night. It was the only reasonable response to the burning watchtower, and now Gam’s murder. “We need to talk to Mayor Tema,” Teys said, tersely. “No running around and getting everyone else worked up, understand?” The watchmen present muttered their assent, but nevertheless, by the time they returned to Tyrian Falls proper, it seemed that rumours and whispers of saboteurs had already made their way around the village. Gam was killed! He was a Village Vanilla! PMs are open! Please include both myself and @Araris Valerian in all PMs made. The Day has begun! It will end in 48 hours on the 12th January 2025, 11PM ET. By now, you should have received your GM PMs and your anon accounts. Please notify Araris or myself if you face any technical issues. Players are also reminded to reupdate themselves on the rules for anonymous games, here. 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I'm pretty sure the flawless victory achievement has been broken before but may have confused it with a different game I played with Drake. I seem to recall Mat and Devo were involved though. Actually I spent the last fifteen minutes before rollover considering a cheeky Sever pivot to Drake. I resisted because I was fine with two suspects being tied. I think if Sevot had happened, we would be in a pretty different gamestate.