Kasimir

[TAG: RP, 231 words] I feel like this is the sort of thing your degree is meant to answer tbh Also how was Elemental anything else you can say, I'm curious and wondering if I should watch. IDK tbh most of law class was like about whether algorithms can think and I'm firmly of the view that if the law requires us to apply that test to figure out who was in breach of contract then we've probably gone wrong somewhere tbhhh xcvi. cold Kevan hated life. Hated colds. Hated rain. Hated unexpected storms. It was not that difficult to work out. Of course he’d caught a cold, after all that adventuring in the rain. He sniffled and tried to suppress a sneeze, and hastily fished out a handkerchief. Kraem, he was going to boil everything in hot water once he was done. Working in the Medica had given him a healthy respect for how quickly diseases—especially colds!—could spread. Master Bob had an ironclad policy about showing up to work in the Medica with a cold, having discovered that a sick Re’lar could very swiftly spread a cold throughout the Medica, to most of the duty team and the patients the Re’lar came in contact with. So Kevan was stuck in his room, drinking tea hot enough to burn his throat, sipping at a remedy that was supposed to keep his streaming nose well within control, except it was also making him drowsy and Kevan resented that lost time. He hated colds. Would have to remember to keep his rain cape on him in future. Bloody weather had been so unpredictable of late. At least that was one thing you couldn’t blame on skindancers. Kevan sneezed into his handkerchief again and retreated beneath the blankets in utter misery. Last thing he wanted to hear was Soren or Jarvik telling him they’d told him so.

[TAG: RP, 369 words] Can you please coordinate with TKN? I think both of you can PM each other as you are both expelled? (Check with the GMs I guess.) Unfortunately, we don't have other Namers - as I explained in thread, Wonko lost Wind when he broke out, so it's TKN or bust. Am considering whether it's worth assassinating TJ to stop him from making grams to make Ash annoyingly tanky but don't have a strong view on this as TJ might be just as annoyingly tanky, indicating resources better allocated elsewhere. xcv. storm Kevan heard the rumble of thunder, threatening rain, and scowled. The skies were a dark, forbidding grey. He’d been about to cross the Stonebridge, back into Imre for the day, but scuttled beneath the nearest tree just as the downpour began. Torrential rain cascaded down. Kevan prayed to Tehlu the oilcloth satchel would keep the water off his books and notes. He didn’t remotely want to have to explain the waterlogged condition of any books to Master Alys, and figured he’d be lucky if he only got away with a temporary ban from the Archives. He ground his teeth together as he realised the tree was probably a bad idea when forks of lightning flashed in the sky. The last place he wanted to be was right under it when lightning struck, even if the University had lightning-eaters of its own. He just needed to be dry, and under shelter right now. Lightning flashed, far too close for comfort, and the thunder that followed was loud enough that Kevan almost jumped. He was going to have to make a run for it, wet or otherwise. Of all the times to forget his rain cape… “Damnit, Kevan you absolute idiot!” someone was shouting, over the loud roar of the thunder. The next thing he knew, he was shoved in too close for comfort and sheltering under a single rain cape. Reflexively, Kevan shifted his book bag, figuring it was better the books be protected from the storm than him. Holy Tehlu, Master Alys was never going to forgive him. Jarvik glared at him, water sluicing down around them, within the confines of the rain cape. It wasn’t really large enough to shelter them both, but it was at least an improvement. “We need to get to shelter. Now.” “You don’t say!” Kevan had to shout to be heard over the howling of the wind. “What the hell is with this storm anyway?” He couldn’t remember having dealt with weather this awful in all his time at the University. Which, to be fair, had been somewhat over two years. “Kraem if I know!” Jarvik yelled. “Get moving! We don’t want to be out in this for long, you stupid Yllish bastard!”

[TAG: RP, 329 words] You are unexeable anyway. Just saying that you can totally openwolf now :eyes: xciv. motivation “Well, let’s talk about motivation,” Re’lar Jakob was saying. “Hahn believes that emotion is fundamentally what motivates. Just because you have reasons to do something or that it’s rational for you to do something doesn’t mean that there’s something intrinsic to reason itself that can motivate you. In particular, desires are what motivate us. Anyone want to venture a guess what the most often abused line from Hahn’s Treatise is?” “Reason is and ought only be the servant of the passions,” Renlin quoted, “And can pretend to no higher office than to serve them.” “Close enough,” Jakob nodded. “If I had a jot for every time a student told me they were late in turning in an assignment because reason is and ought only be the servant of the passions, I’d never need to pay a single drab of tuition for the rest of my life.” Kevan laughed quietly to himself. Oh, he’d bet Jakob had heard his fill of that quote. He probably would too, if he’d tutored on the topic. “So, Hahn’s key insight here is the distinction between motivation and reason. This sets him apart from some thinkers like Kehant who seem to believe that there’s something inherent to certain types of reasons—particularly moral reasons!—that should motivate you, regardless of whether you do or don’t want to do something. Show of hands, how many of you wanted to come to class today?” Kevan noticed he was one of the few who hadn’t hesitated. “Right, you lot are crazy,” Jakob said, cheerfully. “It’s a cold, grey, miserable day and it was raining cats and dogs. Hugo, how about you?” “Honestly, I really wanted to stay in bed,” Hugo admitted. “It’s raining, come on!” “Exactly,” Jakob said. “It’s raining, come on! So why’d you come? What motivated you to get out of bed this morning and trudge here in the rain when it’s cold, wet, and miserable?” “I had this class,” Hugo shrugged. “So I’m your motivation?” “Well, yeah, I guess. I like this class enough, I guess. And it’d be a real pain if I had to take it all over again…”

You can't get shelter until end of Term 4, no?

Wilson clarified Ash's names would stay in the vote train. V!Archer, E!Ash, finally Drake broke free smh Am in law class sry more later EDIT: @Archer tbh just keep voting Ash. I’m satisfied and we don't need to keep proving. Allows me to RB as well just in case you get recalled.

[TAG: RP, 311 words] Tbh I think there isn't too much that can be done so might as well try. It's possible both of them will try to play for the 10% world Archer gets recalled but it's also overwhelmingly likely someone's mask will slip and then we'll get a hammer, so might as well try to do what we can to block it. Bro, fair, but cycle closes in slightly over an hour. Dwai though RL comes first. The short of it is don't forget to file EP and send lodgings orders, everything else can wait. xciii. branching out “Have you considered,” said Master Anders, “Doing a research project in Rhetoric and Logic?” Kevan hesitated. Thought about where his research project with the historical materia medica had slowed down. He didn’t know whether it was because he lacked some of the linguistic skills necessary (his Siaru wasn’t strong enough, and he’d always struggled with his own indifference-bordering-hatred of Yllish when his grandmother had crammed it down his throat) or because Master Alys was right, that at core, he just wasn’t much of a historian. “I’ve considered it,” he said at last. “But I’m already doing my research project under Master Bob.” Master Anders hummed and steepled his fingers before him. “This wouldn’t be your major research project,” he agreed, immediately. “You’re currently being sponsored by Bob, which means the decision on your progress through the discipline is entirely his purview.” There was a but there, though. Kevan could all but sense it. “But you’re allowed to take on your own research projects,” Master Anders finished. “We generally do not advise a student juggle too many of them at once, as El’the have quite enough to be busying themselves with, but…” he trailed off. “You’re also able to manage your own commitments, by this point. Quite unlike student or E’lir life, in fact.” He wanted to. And yet he was an El’the in the Medica, and he didn’t even know how Master Bob would feel about it. “Think about it,” Master Anders said, at last. “I’m not saying you have to, I’m saying I think you would enjoy working on a topic of your own and I’d be happy to supervise. And,” he added shrewdly, “I think you’d be surprised about how willing Bob would be to let you branch out, a little. Talk to him about it, and let me know if there’s something in particular that comes to mind.” [Note: This one passage is the entire thing Kevan's arc was building towards: explaining how I ended up in R&L 3 thanks to the GMs sending me that message in T2M1. That's right, still justifying it forever later...]

[TAG: RP, 335 words] xcii. candy The streets of Imre were crowded as people queued and jostled their way towards the fair. Kevan kept a close hand on his purse and made sure he didn’t have particularly much on him. He figured the crowd would be thick with cutpurses and thought he saw someone cutting the strings of a lady’s purse, but the thief faded back into the crowd before Kevan could do anything. He shook his head. Odd to be in Imre, away from the whispers of skindancers. There was a moderately-sized fair in the city, with merchants and traders displaying newly-arrived goods, and Valerra’d said that getting out for a bit would do everyone good. At least it felt strange, watching more human dangers at work. Cutpurses. Mercenaries strutting about, wearing their wealth flamboyantly in gold, and with the steel to back it up. Anything that wasn’t skindancers or Admissions. Valerra grabbed his arm. “Oh look,” she said, eagerly. “They’re making candy!” Kevan followed the direction she was indicating. A vendor had set up a stall with a small brazier and was busy heating sugar in a pan, until it was beginning to melt to a light brown. Some of the children and students in the area had already bought from him; as far as Kevan could tell, they were crunching on flat brown discs of caramel candy on a stick. He raised an eyebrow. “Really?” Valerra rolled her eyes. “Live a little, Kevan, one piece of candy isn’t going to make Master Bob disown you.” “Listen,” said Jarvik. “If it does, you can just buy him one too.” “Are you suggesting bribing Master Bob with candy?” “Whyever not?” Jarvik wanted to know. “Look, it’s candy. Everyone likes candy.” “Maybe Master Bob doesn’t.” “Him? Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen him outside of that Medica, talking to the other Masters? He’s like a child. So excitable. He’ll love it, just get him a bag of candy, and bam, you’ll be in his good books all over again.” Archer Archer @Sart @STINK @Wonko the Sane : I recommend all of you double vote Archer. First, the tuition subsidy is nice to have, and second, it'll be pretty important for us to put padding on the vote. There is a very strong chance that Archer or Ash will be revealed at the end of this Turn to be Evil, so I believe it is entirely possible either of them would take the chance to try to hammer. I don't believe votes on Masters just naturally disappear - I Soothed STINK last Turn (sorry.) It was a snap decision as I was worried his Ash votes could water down the votes and lead to a no exe since Ash cannot be exed. Neither Ash nor Archer can be exed so this shouldn't matter to Archer; I merely strongly suggest Archer because I am currently R&Ling Archer onto Ash. This way, if no one votes Ash, seeing a single vote appear on Ash will be fairly revelatory, even if I'm dead by then. @Archer : As having a safety margin is important, feel free to double vote yourself. As long as you are voting yourself and not Ash, my vote manip will remove a random one of your votes and move it to Ash. I don't recommend you touch TJ as his Arithmetic 1 means that you'll be donating money to the SDs just to roleblock him. I forgot that any world in which you are roleblocked by someone with nahlrout is impossible given you have scanned everyone else as Village. According to Wilson, her current ruling subject to El's confirmation is that if Ash nahlrouts/tenaculums you and you RB Ash, then both of you have your other actions cancelled, so there's no need to be worried about losing the Fae Lore action. In that case, you are probably better off using Banned Books. Please do not use Banned Books twice, i.e. in two action slots, as using it twice in the same Turn will result in your votes not counting, and you will lose other actions. This means that Fae Lore will automatically fail. If you want to be safe, suggest 1 Banned Books and just Fae Lore Ash for the rest. Pick the field you want lol. To be clear, I repeat that a V!Ash, V!Archer world is extremely unlikely. Archer has categorically scanned me as Village via Kas (0), Sart, TKN, and scanned Ash as Evil via Ash (0): Archer (with an assist from Kas.) In addition, Wilson ruled that she would require a Name like Holly or Iron to falsify a set of Fae Omens scan results. So I can't see a way for Archer and Ash to both be Village. If I am dead, I am going to lay out what you should expect to see. E!Ash, V!Archer: Ash gets roleblocked as Fae Lore only hits skindancers. This entails no matter what that Ash will not submit double Alchemy, even if he sends an order to roleblock me or Archer. Hence, his votes will stay put. His name will still appear in the voter list. E!Archer, V!Ash: Ash doesn't get roleblocked. His votes vanish. This means his name does not appear in the voter list. The only way this happens is if Ash isn't an SD, meaning Archer is Evil instead. Kraem Happens: 10% chance of this happening, but everyone, pray to RNGesus it doesn't. Archer gets recalled. In this world, it doesn't really matter if Ash's names vanish or not. If they do, then Ash did in fact do double Alchemy. If they didn't, then he didn't do that, which should increase E!Ash credences, since V!Ash would know E!Archer is effectively screwed if V!Ash does follow the plan he agreed to. I'd also recommend double-confirming with STINK, if STINK intercepted Archer's PMs. Again, this is especially if I'm dead. Cheers, all. And don't forget to file EP and your lodging orders!

[TAG: RP, 335 words] Mystery solved, thank you xci. rain It was raining. The rain beat down lightly outside Kevan’s window—he’d closed it and pulled the shutters, but he could hear it drumming down on the outside. Not a thunderstorm, at least, but then, he had nowhere in particular to be. Maybe the thought should have terrified him, not having to run between classes and the Medica, but it was feeling strangely good, being able to sit down for a while in his bed and to do absolutely nothing except read. Master Anders had assigned the class a text on testimonial justification, which Kevan had gone through at least once, but what he really wanted at this juncture was a book he’d borrowed from the Archives by a Yllish arcanist, on the epistemology of alchemy. He wasn’t an alchemist himself—that was Percyl—but he liked it, thinking about the sharp bifurcation that ran through the University’s disciplines. Naming and Alchemy. Sympathy and Artificing. Separate fields, separate rules. And beneath all of that in the minds of most students, the regular subjects, the ones you could study without ever having been admitted to the Arcanum. Languages. Arithmetic. Rhetoric and Logic. Chemistry, even. All the different ways you could learn about the world, about different facets of it, without coming to discover what lay underneath the surface of things. E’lir. Seer. To see truly, beyond appearances. Beyond the shadows on the wall of the cave. But did arcanists themselves see truly? Kevan wondered. Or did arcanist studies really take one further and further away from the beating heart of reality-as-given-by-experience, as conditioned by experience? The rain poured down outside, cleansing the world, cleansing the city of Imre. If only, Kevan thought, it could wash clean the doubts in his head; the thoughts, the fears, the inadequacy. But it was enough to listen to the falling rain, to sit in his small room, and to read, which was the most time he’d had to himself in months. He had to thank Master Bob for it, at the very least.

Sorry to be clear, I forgot to mention but I made a snap decision to Soothe STINK. Was worried his votes on Ash would mean the lynch wasn't going to work. To a group of Sart, Archer, Wonko. Edited: @Sart Since we are being open, who did you roleblock T3M1? Wilson is rechecking Ash's results AFAIK.

I intend to vote manip you onto Ash. This should be clearer than a Soothe. Thus, Ash should vote you.

Apologies for the double post, previous one is too long. I think there's an elegant solution to this problem. Someone @ me if I'm wrong. I can’t see any world in which V!Archer and V!Ash. We know the Naming out doesn't work here due to Naming mostly requiring Wind. A. @Archer roleblocks Ash with Fae Lore. Advise you send in multiple Fae Lore RB orders on Ash if legal. Archer puts a single vote on Ash which I will vote manip away with R&L, guaranteeing that Archer was not recalled. If E!Ash and V!Archer, then th roleblock should succeed. If Archer is recalled, I will know. For extra insurance, @STINK can also scan Archer's PMs. This ensures that if one of us is sabotaged to silence us, the other will speak up. B. @Ashbringer places two votes on Archer and does the same thing he dd last Turn. He Artificer rushes an item. If he is roleblocked, the votes will not disappear. Ash's name won't even appear on the write up votes. If he is not roleblocked, then the votes will remain but Archer is immune to DP anyway. Sart is still lashed and I won't interfere with a roleblock. This guarantees we can resolve the truth of the matter I think. Is everyone game for this? @Wonko the Sane am I missing something? Edit: Opposite — if he is RBed, the votes won't disappear.

[TAG: RP, 1118 words] Yes, but then why say he scanned you as Evil? Why not say he scanned STINK? The moment he says he scans either of you Evil, he's committed to antagonising you, because V!you would know he's got to be Evil. STINK is a much easier candidate to ML than you given the bone tar problem. Keep in mind Archer willingly offered TJ, Steel, and TKN up for lynching. You are therefore directly postulating Archer pulled off a fake Seeker play and chose to offer up one or more of his teammates, despite the teammate having a gram and being functionally unflippable. What is the rationale for this move? Winning with E!TJ-with-gram was entirely possible: literally just claim the scanned train was clean. Choosing to offer/sacrifice E!TJ was an unforced error. So why not put in free sabotages, since his actions are accounted for, and he'd never be roleblocked? You're essentially postulating he has to keep up appearances in a game where there's no way of scanning his actions anyway. Let's be real - no one is going to roleblock a Seeker claimant without pretty damn good reason to think the Seeker claimant is Evil. You yourself agree that you think he has to go for outnumbering - deliberate kill withdrawal doesn't get there. So...has the solo red scan on TJ earned him trust, given TJ has: A. not flipped red, and E!Archer would know and actively seek to prevent a red flip, and B. a sabotage-less game has meant Archer has had to commit to offering full scans of individual players rather than ambiguity? Your fundamental contention is that it's a trust play. Indeed, he nearly got exed for it last Turn. Sart chose to roleblock you himself that cycle without saying it, last cycle I said I'd be roleblocking you with nahlrout, so it's pretty clear you could've just put in a kill anyway. Nahlrout only blocks one random action. By the way, it's awfully convenient that a kill happened in Imre on the one cycle you wanted to prove you could not send in a kill. Again, the fact I communicated I'd be using nahlrout meant a de facto kill could've been put in on an actual win con-contributory player without issues. I can say from experience you can buy a Lot of Nahlrout, apparently without anyone noticing. If you're worried about being roleblocked you should send in multiple Fae Lore roleblocks if that's legal. There are no Re'lar left y'all! Everyone is El'the! That doesn't work anymore! Here's the deal. In such a world, I'd like to confirm you actually got roleblocked if you claim Aturan recall. I can target you with R&L as insurance, since my vote manip would fail if you get recalled. I can also keep shutting Ash down with R&L Soothing. For that, could you please just place a single vote on yourself? You're immune to DP as a Master anyway and I'll redirect you to Ash. If my redirect fails, then that makes your recall likely. Ngl I have a third option but it's not particularly viable right now. xc. break “Ah, Kevan,” said Master Bob, looking up from his desk and smiling. It was the same kindly smile, the one that always made his eyes crinkle with warmth. That was one side of Master Bob; the calm physicker, and the Master who the students privately thought was somehow so extremely high-strung anywhere outside the classroom or the Medica. All the same, Kevan felt something in his gut clench. His work wasn’t satisfactory, and his progress was glacial. He knew it. Surely Master Bob did, too. Returning to the Medica felt strange. He couldn’t shake the memories that clung to his mind in flashes, even now. The blood on his hands. The moment he realised death had won this round, there was nothing left that could be done. “With this, I will contend,” the physickers of old had said, according to Hesad’s Histories. Master Alys had talked about this in her history of medicine class. But in the end, when death swept in, you could try your best, perhaps win a few lives away, painstakingly. Sometimes, you lost, and he didn’t know how he could deal with it, how he could make himself accept he’d done his best and his best wasn’t enough. “Good morning, sir,” Kevan greeted, respectfully. Sometimes, it just felt wrong to be addressing Master Bob by his first name. “Have some tea,” Master Bob said, pouring for both of them. Kevan accepted his mug of steaming hot tea, comfortingly thick, and sipped from it. Felt dread uncoil within his stomach as he noticed the latest draft chapter of his research project on Master Bob’s table. Had expected to see it scrawled all over in corrective red, but the fact there was nothing at all felt especially ominous. The conviction that Master Bob would realise he wasn’t good enough set in, steeped in dread. The tea tasted especially bitter on his tongue, enough to choke on. “How are things?” Master Bob asked, casually. “Fine,” Kevan said, warily. “I’m still working on translating the Siaru commentary. I’ve had to refer some questions to Master Isaak, and I’ve identified a few more compounds that might be worth exploring.” They felt like dead ends, though. It felt difficult to continue. And God, merciful Tehlu, it felt as though it was pointless, as though he was playing at being a real physicker, when the last time he’d tried, and it was still too soon, soon enough that he couldn’t seem to ward off the memories that came, crawling beneath the confines of his skull, intruding on his thoughts. “Mm,” said Master Bob. “I can see that. No, how are things? How are your other studies proceeding?” “Linguistics is a little slow,” Kevan said, puzzled. Wondering what Master Bob was thinking about. “Siaru is—tricky, though I like the grammar.” The trick, he’d figured, was that you had to think in Siaru, not in Aturan-translated-to-Siaru. “Master Isaak’s fairly patient with us, as the class is mostly quite slow to pick up some of the more sophisticated grammatical structures.” He didn’t complain about how everyone seemed to make the same basic mistakes, again and again. “I like Master Alys’s classes too, although she says she’ll never make a historian out of me. And Master Anders’s classes are always fascinating. We’re currently going over a number of topics in the social epistemology of testimony, specific to testimonial justification.” He looked searchingly at the Master Physicker, wondering what thoughts were crossing Master Bob’s mind. “How many classes is that?” Kevan blinked, counted them off. Couldn’t seem to pull the number off at the top of his head. “Six,” he said, tentatively. “And how much do you sleep?” Kevan hesitated. “I’m a physicker, El’the,” Master Bob said, wryly. “I may be considering an eventual sabbatical somewhere with less excitement for a year or so but I’m not yet in my dotage.” “Probably about five hours,” Kevan said. “Sometimes less.” Master Bob set down his mug. “Kevan,” he said. “I’d like you to consider taking a break from the Medica for this term.” Blankly, Kevan stared at him. “You haven’t been sleeping, El’the,” Master Bob said, sharply. “I can tell from this,” he tapped at the draft chapter on his desk, unmarked. “This is far from your usual quality of work. And Idris tells me that you are—struggling with your usual responsiveness at the Medica. You missed two calls, and have made at least three mistakes you normally would not in the past weeks.” Kevan did not know whether to feel dread or relief. Dread at disappointing Master Bob, or relief—that somehow, he at least was being given a reprieve from the fog of muddling through, forcing himself to deal with the anxiety and the fear and the memories that crept back, unbidden, telling him he was just going to fail someone else in the Medica the same way he’d failed that day. “Yes, sir,” he said, quietly. “I…what about my research?” “Consider everything suspended,” Master Bob said, with a dismissive wave that seemed to take in the entirety of his domain, the Medica. “I don’t want to hear from you for at least two weeks, Kevan. Go do something, anything that is not physicking. Remember the first principle of the physicker.” “Make sure your surroundings are safe?” “Tehlu and his angels have mercy on me,” Master Bob raised his hands to the heavens and beseeched them. “Yes, you’re not a first year any longer, so now it’s a more general principle about caring for yourself before you care for others. A tired physicker or a stressed physicker is one who makes unnecessary mistakes.” Kevan nodded. He did know that. But with how tight the El’the rounds were, he never—it never felt right trying to ask to sit out, to have to explain to Master Bob what was wrong, how his mind felt clouded with sorrow on the best of days. Memories and whispers on the worst. Never felt right talking to Talin and Idris and the others. They’d lost patients too. Who was he to struggle with it? And yet… Master Bob had given him a reprieve and he felt…just poleaxed. Difficult to process that he had, in front of him, two weeks of freedom. Terrifying, in a way, if you didn’t know what to do with the time, if you were forced to confront what you didn’t want to. (He felt painfully grateful, he supposed, that Master Bob wasn’t dismissing him, that he’d been given time to work things through, and find some sort of solution.) Kevan left Master Bob’s office, feeling that strange tension between freedom and the yawning horror of the now-emptied time before him, and for the first time in weeks, breathed.

[TAG: RP, 618 words, DISCUSSION, 920 words] See, this right here just reeks of an Elim trying to sow FUD. Why the hell shouldn't the scan be correct? TKN did not know that Archer could scan the Horns event. In fact, TKN was insisting that Archer scan an anonymous message he would post via Wind. In an E!Archer world, this would still have to be correct because there's no reason for E!Archer to bus E!TKN for Village cred in a flipless game when he could just hold the lynch off TKN and get an extra teammate who could become Master Namer. I'm sorry, but I am no longer really convinced. You keep playing for secrecy instead of openly and trying to help your team. At this point, I think the main reasonable explanation is that you are not a Villager. It would have taken absolutely zero effort to PM anyone, including me, your supposed Village read, to notify you had a gram to offload prior to dying. You had at least half a cycle in which to do so. You did not. After that, having been lynched and being someone no Elim would ever seek to kill again because in an E!Archer world, you flipping V would damn him, you continue to play to secrecy instead of demonstrating a willingness to cooperate with the Village. You aren't remotely interested in working to flip yourself, and I'd argue the main reason why is that you ain't gonna flip Village. At every step of the way, you show priorities that aren't Village. I continue to believe V!you demonstrates better, more pro-Village play that this, including in LG94 and LG95. The real question is, can Wind do that? Because I asked Wilson and got an 'ehhhhhh' answer from her. The rule of thumb I was given is that if there's a flavour way this would work and it's within the scope of a single Name, it's fine. But it's not clear to me Wind interacts with Events that way. (The clarification I got was that Wind interacts with People and Items.) Does feel like a 50-50 thing. And even then: who's the Namer? The one elevation a Turn rule locks out a lot of players: we know the Naming elevations went JNV - Wonko - Wonko - TKN which means anyone within that cycle demonstrably did not get Naming. TKN was locked to one Name at a time, meaning that he couldn't both post an anonymous message and obscure the result at the same time ( @Wonko the Sane? ) - I didn't tell anyone but you about the Horns scan, so TKN would not have known that you weren't going to target his message. So where does the extra Namer come from? It's arguable that subsequent elevations were from players who later became Namers, but again: You don't need Naming, you can just lie about the results straightforwardly. (I am too tired to model your elevation but arguably if you went Naming, it should not be this fast, I think.) I demonstrably have R&L 3 and R&L 1. I cannot have Naming 2 as my elevation to Re'lar was during a Turn where Wonko elevated in Naming, precluding me from having it. Ash's elevation speed also demonstrates that he did enjoy the +5 from committing entirely to Alchemy. Sart's first elevation and second elevation came when Naming was demonstrably occupied, i.e. when JNV elevated, and then when TKN elevated. His willingness to be unelevatable and to be roleblocked for an entire Term in my view makes him pretty solidly Village one way or another. STINK demonstrably has Linguistics 2 and Linguistics 3. If we really desire STINK to hard-prove Linguistics 3, this can be done. Also the timing of his elevation. Given the timing of STINK's first elevation, it demonstrably cannot be Naming either as JNV claimed Naming. Drake did not elevate in Arithmetics D1 despite 8 EP in it. Neither did Araris. This is indicative that TJ's first elevation indeed was in Arithmetics. TJ's second and third elevation was when Wonko and TKN elevated in Naming, therefore also cannot be in Naming. I'll note TJ himself claims to have a double Artificery elevation, and so for TJ himself to be a Namer doesn't really make sense here. In short, all the spaces for Namers largely are during cycles we already have one way or another to account for the elevations. The last place is Szeth, but as Szeth flipped Village, I am not remotely interested in discussing Szeth. The fact TKN knew nothing about the Horns scan and would've needed to both send an anonymous message (as he was obsessed with doing) and hide the results is a decent prima facie suggestion, I think, that his scan is probably reliable. If we can trust V!TKN, then the rest of it makes sense. The fact the Elims hit the two known Village Namers is pretty helpful here because it insures that we can trust their claims straighforwardly. There's very little mech space for this outlet, is what I'm saying. That's the real trick - Fae Lore won't do anything to you, so why would E!Archer suggest using a skill on you he knows won't do anything? The other question is why E!Archer uses his scan time on Banned Books instead of, you know, sending in a sabotage. Edited to add: Shared without further comment. Same But not prelims, just a bunch of papers from graduate logic modules I did. If that's implying I started with 8 EP in R&L, yeah I did. lxxxix. willow “I find you here a lot,” a familiar voice remarked. Kevan thought that even if he had been sleepwalking, drunk, dreaming, waking, he would’ve recognised the speaker immediately. He was intimately familiar with that voice, that spark of curiosity, that hint of a Modegan accent, diluted now after more than two years. The way Soren always spoke as though he was interested in you, in what was going on in your head. An Artificery student to the core, he thought. He supposed he’d learned to suppress his own Yllish lilt over time, though it inevitably got stronger around other Yllish, like Eithne. He drew his knees up to his chest, said nothing for a while. Listened to the sound of the mighty Omethi river, flowing on past the Stonebridge, past the University, past Imre, all the way to the sea. “I like it here,” he said, at last. “It’s…soothing.” “It’s an old willow,” Soren leaned back against the bole of the tree and looked down at him. “Venerable, even.” They both were drawn to different things, Kevan supposed. He was drawn to the roar of the Omethi, the eddies and whorls of the current. Soren was drawn to the willow, to its age and grace, to the way it bent before the wind. He could go on and on about the tree, and the history and the properties of the willow, and just as he would probably not get sick of lecturing on the willow, Kevan figured you had to be a harder man than him in order to not enjoy listening to Soren go on with enthusiasm about something he cared so very much for. And somehow, they met in the middle of all that difference. They were still friends. He felt a strange tightness in his chest, an ache, at the thought. Dismissed it. You could be so lucky in your friends, he thought. You could only be so lucky. “Jot for your thoughts,” Soren said, settling down on the grass next to him. There was a comfortable warmth to his presence. Sometimes, Soren was a bit too close, too willing to touch you, too willing to draw you in. It was a Modegan thing, he’d explained without a trace of self-consciousness, and something he’d learned to tone down in the Commonwealth. Sometimes, he forgot, though. Privately, Kevan thought it wasn’t really that. It was that Soren thrived on the contact and the touch. “Not too much on my mind,” he said, with a faint smile. “It’s near Admissions, Soren. It’s everyone’s favourite time of the term.” Soren groaned. “Admissions can go to the Chandrian,” he complained. “There’s even rumours that Issal is a skindancer now. Tehlu only knows what that’s going to do to everyone’s Admission interviews.” Kevan stared out at the river. Skindancers, he thought. And in the midst of all of that, life still went on. He had a research project that was faltering. Swapping specialisations did that to you, after all, even though he liked the new one better. He still had nightmares, sometimes, about that child. About the life he’d failed to save. Admissions loomed. And there was Soren. He swallowed, tightly. Whatever the kraem was wrong with him, really. Funny how you could be having a complete state of panic about your friends and your research project and Admissions, even as the University was supposedly under attack by skindancers. Kevan supposed that was the point, though. You didn’t always notice the big events; only where they touched your life. Sometimes, living took enough of your effort, your energy. Hanging in there. Swimming against the tide, even when it threatened to wash you out to sea. Maybe that was good enough. Edited to add 2: Wilson has categorically ruled that to mess with a Fae Omens scan, you would need a Name like Holly or Iron or something. Wind would not cut it. TKN elevated in the same Turn we expelled him, which was also the same Turn Archer scanned him. He would only have the Name of the Wind. It's categorically impossible for TKN to have hidden from that scan, meaning in either world, it's V!TKN.

[TAG: RP, 251 words] As the resident Rhetoric and Logic El'the, I feel I have been summoned My time has come! For once! Sure: Done During T2M2: Archer (4): Drake, Wonko, TJ, Kas -> SD detected [T1M3] Archer (3): Drake, Drake, TKN -> No SD detected [T1M2] Done During T2M3: None; Archer recalled. Done During T3M1: Sart (1): Archer -> No SD detected [T2M3] Steel (1): Kas -> SD detected [T1M2] TKN (2): Ash, STINK -> SD detected [T2M2] Done During T3M2: STINK's rainbow write-up message -> No SD detected [T3M1] Archer's Soothed vote on Ash -> SD detected [T3M2] Kas (0): Sart, TKN -> No SD detected [T1M3] Translating this into collective sets: Commenting outside to note that this is why I feel the only escape routes are E!Wonko (absurd IMO even if logically possible), or E!Archer. If Ash and TJ want to protest their innocence, then they are more or less committed to E!Archer. This is also why I strongly believe TJ's play is anti-Village - because quite honestly, he could just sell his gram on the black market. Put a high price so he doesn't have to worry about an Elim getting it, or legit tell the Village he has a gram to pass. Instead, he keeps quiet when V!him should not be content to lobby me - V!him should be actively trying to engineer his flip because the very moment he flips red, all of us would go ham on Archer. The fact he isn't doing that doesn't speak well for him. Further note here that my citations with links aren't the cycle in which these things occurred, but are a direct reference to the write-up which Archer was referencing. Edited to add: We can also state that formally-speaking, all Archer's scans demonstrate in the event of a hit is that at least one SD exists in the given set. But since the other scans preclude the possibility of multiple SDs except in an E!Wonko and E!TJ world, I'm happy to be less precise with my language. I don't feel very much hinges on this here. lxxxviii. pen cleaning Kevan immersed one pen in water and then the next. You had to clean it out with wood alcohol eventually—not fit for drinking, everyone knew this—but that was the next step, not the first. He watched as tendrils of blue-black iron gall ink unfurled in the water; thin at first, and then thickening. The water ran with small fuzzy wisps of blue, like jellyfish tentacles, until the entire water darkened and became a solid blue-black throughout. Easier to clean reed pens, in a way. They weren’t meant to have much of an internal reservoir. Master Rhys had entertained the notion of a pen with an internal reservoir for longer than Kevan’d been a student, saying it would be so much more convenient than constantly dipping the pen into a bottle of ink or having to resharpen a quill or reed pen. But as far as Kevan knew, the Fishery hadn’t really made progress on that front yet. He’d toyed with the idea of some small sac in the pen, allowing it to contain ink. In theory, you could have the ink drawn downwards through capillary action. But you had to have some means of ensuring the flow was consistent, for one. And in the end, Kevan hadn’t been much of an artificer. He’d seen prototypes, though. A Re’lar was working on such a pen, a small quiet project. He wondered what had become of that Re’lar. Wondered if Soren knew anything about him. All this while, ink ran into the water.

[TAG: RP, 303 words] lxxxvi. blot The ink pooled at the edge of the nib and then a fat blob of iron gall ink hit the paper and began spreading across the page, feathering at the edges. Kevan cursed, but he wasn’t fast enough with the blotting paper to save his notes. Already, the spreading smudge of ink was staining his fingers and was obscuring part of the words he’d written on the page. Futilely, he wafted the notes in the air, wishing he could make them dry faster and then salvage what could be salvaged. Good paper was hard to get in Imre on a student’s budget, and Kevan liked to save where he could. Was aware that he didn’t have the deep pockets some of the students at the University seemed to have. He’d been writing notes on Dayvid Hahn’s Treatise Concerning Human Understanding, and working through Hahn’s language was a puzzle in and of itself. It wasn’t that Hahn wasn’t writing clearly, but he used some form of dialect of Eld Vintic that wasn’t so much Eld as an intermediary between some form of Eld Vintic and the more contemporary forms of it spoken in certain quarters of Vintas that still, like his grandmother, like pockets of Yll, tried to hold on to a piece of their past, before empire. Kevan supposed there was something peaceful, sitting in his room, reading into the night, scrawling notes onto paper as he read. Hahn had, he thought, an interesting view on motivation, on natural laws. Reason, Hahn claimed, was only ever the servant of the passions and could pretend to no higher office than to serve them. Heady, thought-provoking, even controversial stuff, if you really thought about it. At least he hadn’t gotten stains on his copy of the Treatise. He’d never have forgiven himself, if he had.

[TAG: RP, 273 words] Why would I waste my time in Imre when I have your teammate to sit on with R&L bro? C'mon V!you would do the same. Edited to add: To be clear, I am willing to listen to credible cases on Archer. As I've said, at this juncture, it is very clear that given Archer has now offered isolated scans of the surviving players, and he has made clear predictions on their alignments. Therefore, V!Archer entails E!you, just as V!you entails E!Archer. Same deal for Ash. Edited to add 2: lxxxv. wind The wind blew in the courtyard, scattering leaves across the pavingstones. Kevan watched them dance, thought about the change of seasons, the way the months passed. Thought about the way the students at the University had slowly dwindled; expelled, to madness (skindancer sabotage, some whispered, and maybe it was true, but studies at the Arcanum were always stressful, if you really thought about it), and— Master Bob’d spoken to him, said he was getting tired. Kevan thought about that. He did feel the tiredness in his bones, in his marrow, in the very core of him. Somehow, it was shocking—to see the lines about Master Bob’s eyes, to see the way the excitable Master Physicker seemed to sag in his comfortable worn-leather armchair. Rhetoric and Logic. Physicking. Sometimes, Kevan felt caught between the two fields, between the two different worlds. In the end, you always had to choose, and the lives he couldn’t save—“The physicker’s choice,” Master Bob was lecturing again, in his head, only it was Master Anders now, discussing Tehlin ethics and the Amyr, and the greater good, and the monstrosities you did for it. The leaves danced and whispered in the wind. Maybe if he was someone like Kvothe the Bloodless, he would’ve seen patterns, chasing the wind. But he was a child of Yll, a child of the rugged green coast by the Centhe Sea, and the water was in his blood, and the water and the Omethi were one. Kevan walked, aimlessly, in the courtyard as the wind rustled through the boughs and shook the leaves, and thought of change, thought of the premise of an ending.

[TAG: RP, 354 words] Pretty sure he got the Turn wrong. I am aware this checks out because the plan last Turn was for Archer to scan the vote manip on you from T3M1 - that's the whole point of Archer voting you last minute while everyone else voted Szeth, telling everyone it was for mech reasons, and then my Soothing Archer, hence that vote vanishing. I clarified with the GMs both that a Soothe could be scanned and the expected results of doing so. In other words, for this to be incorrect, Archer would have to be Evil. It's pretty much bifurcated into E!you or E!Archer at this juncture. The fact that TJ is implicated in a clear lie further implies he's Evil, which supports V!Archer. lxxxiv. advanced sympathy ii Master Emon paused in the midst of his calling attendance. “Ah, Re’lar Renlin, I see you’re still with us.” “Not for the want of trying, sir,” Renlin called out, to a chorus of laughter. Renlin’s utter dislike of sympathy was almost legendary. Not for the first time, Kevan wondered if Renlin would’ve been better off taking Alchemy, but given the upheaval in that particular department at the moment, all things considered, the current state of affairs probably wasn’t the worst. Master Emon sighed. “Still at war with the Chancellor’s Office, then.” “Kevan too, sir.” “You’ve joined us this time then, El’the Kevan?” Kevan shrugged. “I try, Emon,” he admitted. “You know how it is.” “Yes,” Master Emon said, briskly, with just a hint of ice. “I suppose I do, life in the Medica is busy, and especially for El’the. Bob did promise me you’d be making up for Advanced Sympathy II in another term, just not right now. I take it then you’re caught in administrative limbo just as Re’lar Renlin is?” “I think you mean administrative hell, sir,” Renlin said. “And the Chancellor’s Office is the portal.” Master Emon peered at both of them. He sighed. “What would Chancellor’s Office do if I had you both barred from my class for this term?” “Probably tell you you can’t do that, sir,” said Renlin, glumly. But Kevan was thinking. Master Emon had a point, he thought. In theory, Masters had a significant amount of leeway over how their department was managed, and how they taught their specialist disciplines. It was, very technically, Master Emon’s right to bar whoever he wanted barred from his class, even if it was a hell of a workaround… “Renlin,” he said slowly. “I think it might just work. Master Emon bars us, we tell Chancellor’s Office we can’t do anything about it, and then the ball’s in their court. What can they do but work with us to get us settled into another class, since it’s against policy, as they keep telling us?” The real tragedy was that it’d taken them half a term to stumble on this solution. Edited to add: @Araris Valerian - Care to share your starting EP with us? Just to confirm.

Interested in your explanation of events - I feel like E!Archer doesn't remotely need to go through this dog and pony show to win at this juncture. That's a lie, I'm afraid Edited to add: Sorry IM got too overzealous calling TJ out and doubleposted. My bad.

That's why I'm asking for anyone who made the Szeth kill to come forward. But fundamentally, Archer scanned STINK as Village and Ash as Evil, and these are isolated scans - to be clear, this now means that any world in which Szeth died from sabotage is a world in which TJ put in a sabotage order (possible) because Archer has now committed to a set of definitive scan results. VM on Ash would've yielded the net of my alignment, Archer's and Ash's. VM on me yields the net of TKN, Sart, and me, and we know TKN and Sart independently scanned Village. Either way, I think it's pretty much de facto an E!Ash world. Edited to add: Sorry, to be clear, it has to be TJ because Ash used full Alchemy, which blocks him from filing complaints. This is why his votes didn't even show up as Ash, Ash and were completely elided.

I was more asking if you were attacked, apologies. I felt you would be the logical target and my instinct when I read the write-up was that you would be a logical target in a final few. Edited to add: Wouldn't say it's a waste, honestly. I think knowing that TJ lied about the Bloodless and made zero attempt to get rid of a gram is pretty anti-Village, which is helpful when it comes to his alignment anyway. I stand by the assertion that if you are a Villager killed in flipless and know that your alignment matters, the correct Village thing to do is to get rid of the gram ASAP - your flip is necessary to prove the scanners are Evil. V!TJ knows better than this.

Could he have made one? I think OoA allows it. Unsure - have asked Wilson. Ash's missing votes from the write-up indicates he spent the time making an item, so if the kill in question is provably the SD sabotage, then he cannot be SD. He claimed it was going to be tenaculum but lbr, more likely bone-tar. 1. Is anyone willing to claim the Szeth hit? 2. Is anyone counterclaiming an Assassin hit that isn't Araris? Note to people in Imre: this is pretty important to get clear if you are Village. Please come clean, thank you. I'm going to assume for the moment this hasn't happened. A. Ash's Alchemy play IMO indicates that Ash likely anticipated the Szeth hit. I'm more inclined to believe the Szeth hit came from a SD asset in Imre. At this point, leaning TJ. B. TJ's surviving an Assassination from Araris IMO indicates that TJ lied about making a Bloodless - but let's be real, it was always pretty clear it was likely a lie since there's no fundamental reason not to go for broke. I think there's prima facie reason minimally to go all assets on Ash at this juncture, at any rate. Willing to hear arguments about Archer. Edited to add: Sorry - to spell out my thoughts: I think TJ's survival suggests minimally that there's something fishy/weird about TJ, which lends credence to Archer's scan. V!TJ IMO should never have hung on to that gram and should've sought to offload it ASAP - he'd know his flip was mission critical. Edited to add 2: Assassinate tf out of him tbh. Which hoo boy is gonna take a while. This is 100% a Herdazian standoff. And yeah dwai I can sit on him with R&L, you sit on him with Fae Lore.

I'm struggling to understand why anyone reasonable would flip Szeth when TJ is the obvious choice here. Brain going back to E!Araris tbh. But not my problem. Looks like it's either E!Archer or E!STINK. Ash did not take action. Hope no one tried to assassinate him. @Sart Was that you?

Ash is unexeable smh

To make sure everyone is on the same page: Here are all the scans. Sart scanned Village, individually. TKN scanned Village via a scan of Archer, TKN, Drake. At least one Elim in <Ash, STINK.> At least one Elim in <Kas, Steel, Archer> At least one Elim in <Kas, Wonko, TKN, Archer, TJ> Let's spell this out: Doesn't look great Archer and I appear twice in an E!scan but that's the way this works. The case for V!TKN regardless of Archer's alignment is pretty solid because Archer allowed the TKN exe - in an E!scammer Archer world, he has no reason to allow TKN's exe when I explicitly asked him if he wanted me to pull off and let TKN get scanned. V!credences for Mat and Araris have to improve if you believe the scans: this is because we now have three individual scans (again, unless you believe E!me which is not an option for me anyway) that point to the location of three separate Elims. A team of four isn't impossible, but given the scans, would probably imply at least one Elim in <Mat, Araris>. E!Wonko worlds don't have much sense. Explicitly: If I'm committed to or endorsing some moderate credences in V!Archer, I'm left with having to commit to E!TJ, E!Steel, and one Elim in <Ash/STINK.> If I don't commit to E!Archer, it's hard to understand how Archer's play is working at the moment, or what he's doing. I don't disagree with TKN that E!Archer could've just put in kills while claiming to scan. In a internal trust group landscape, it's really the easiest way to play final few - kill me and Sart while we protect him, and then keep announcing ambiguous Evil scans in <STINK, Ash> to kill them. Szeth was never going to resist anyway. I don't feel like it's a substantively difficult play for an Elim of his capabilities, which makes me more willing to be okay with V!Archer, I guess. I do feel it's clear it's a bit of an <Archer, STINK> choice right now. For V!STINK, you really can only choose Archer or Steel - largely to do with the fact that Ash is unexeable, even if you know for sure Ash is Evil. Sorry guys. Can't really bring myself to vote STINK at this juncture, and don't feel like voting Archer, but I'm not interested in vote manipping the results. It's not impossible to fight him, but in a world where he has an active E!partner, Tehlu help us all.

There isn't. You show me what it is apart from Naming, and both our Namers are down for the count. Edited to add: And my point is that if you know you are V, then it should be a given the scanner is Evil. Since you don't seem to believe I'm Evil or Wonko is Evil, then there should be no 'or' in your head - or rather, it has to be inclusive or. I don't understand why you actually think this has options. Edited to add 2: Adding a reminder to everyone who can vote: @Sart @Archer @Wonko the Sane @Ashbringer @STINK If you are voting, then we need to converge on an option, I think. In an E!Ash world, he has plausible deniability for slamming down EP on a secondary train and ensuring a double exe. In general, I'm just not sure we should be allowing a multi-exe to go through this cycle. I think it reduces our room for error drastically, especially given there is a flip next Turn, and if Araris did the sensible thing, well. Enough said there. I'm going to leave my vote on Steel for the moment and hope I wake up in time before rollover. This one I don't feel is the worst CW to have but we should not be giving a menu of options or a chance for a multi-exe, especially if you don't believe in V!Ash. Please converge if you can.