Arraenae

Ellira said something. Joon couldn't make it out. All that he was aware of was the body in the middle of the teahouse, sightless, staring, dead. A fly lazily looped around the face. A choked whimper. A sinking icy sensation in the gut. An accompanying warm one in the pants. Of in the distance, someone screamed. And screamed. And screamed. A feminine tenor, perhaps. Or a masculine one with a voice crack. The body looked different from other ones seen before. Not like the prettied, dressed up ones in a funeral. A fly lazily looped around a face, he had never seen that before, not with his own eyes, in his own head. An echo, from long ago. "Do you know what you are playing at, boy? You are not ready for this! If I ever see you in the Frozen Moon again I'll give you five lashes, you hear me? Leave!" Then a little 13 year old boy had shamefacedly left the teahouse, forgetting all about the meeting and the secret documents he had seen there, forgetting about politics, forgetting about trying to emulate his father. Until now. Joon proffered his hand to Ellira. "We -- let's get out of here," he said. He motioned to the door with his other hand. Striker. Have a stab back. Now, tell me, how do I know you're not an elim?

"No, it didn't," Joon admitted. "I wanted to return it earlier, but you're a hard one to catch, Ellira. I had to ask around a bit to find you." A lot of asking, actually. Plus some tailing. There weren't a lot of green-eyed people around here, but somehow Joon had been pointed to three false leads before finding the right green-eyed girl. "What I heard interested me. Going to the Frozen Moon? It's dangerous; my father told me that he'd give me five lashes if he ever caught me here." Joon sipped at his tea to buy himself some time. Now for the plunge. "You're an adventurous one, Ellira. I like that in a girl."

Joon fished out a hairpin from his pocket and presented it to Ellira. It was a beautiful thing, long and thin, with a Svordish rose at the end. He handed it over carefully -- the point was wickedly sharp, and had drawn blood when Joon first picked it up. "You dropped this a few days ago. I thought that you might want it back," he said. "Your hair is lovely, by the way." So was the rest of her. Joon quickly glanced downwards, then back at her face. Ellira wore a high-necked dress that hung around the base of her throat, and closed in an elegant swoop a few inches down. It was a few years out of style, but charming nonetheless. The server returned to place two cups of tea on the table. Joon nudged one towards Ellira. "Have you ever had honey black tea before? You should try it, it's good."

A cheery young man passed through the doors of the Frozen Moon. He wore a fashionable suit and new shoes that added to his already moderate height. That, combined with the easy smile he wore, was enough to make many girls whisper excitedly when he passed. Word on the street said that Joon was a handsome man, and he knew it. His eyes slid around the teahouse with a careless ease. Joon had never had to learn to search the shadows, to evaluate paths of escape and create plausible deniabilty, to find spies in the dark, so he didn't bother. He found what he was looking for soon enough anyways. Ellira, the girl with the glass-green eyes and pretty collarbones, sat in a corner table, talking to a server. Joon slid into the seat across from her. "Two cups of chilled black tea, added honey if you have any," he told the server. Then he switched his attention to the girl in front of him. "Hey. I've seen you a few times before. Ellira, isn't it? I'm Joon." @Elbereth

As the person who proposed the "vote before it's almost rollover" thing, I'm doing a terrible job, aren't I... I think Bugsy got the Coolest Ledger? It showed up in Gaea's black market after he was lynched, and no one died that cycle. I feel a little better about Fifth after rereading his response, so I won't vote for him.

I picked you as a lynch target last cycle because my policy is that if I don't have actual suspects, then I'll start going after those who've been flying under the radar/have been in the golden zone of posting enough not to be inactive, but not enough to show real stances.

If we do it, the voting needs to all be done before the last two hours of the cycle

Sorry for the lack of posts today, I forgot my phone at home so I was offline the entire time at work. Quick reads list: Village: Arraenae - Village, obviously Devotary of Spontaneity - Occasional posts. Voted on Alv and Kidpen. Neutral-village. DrakeMarshmallow - Active, cleared village through chain ledger use. Elandera - Active, probably village. Accurate so far. Furamirionind - Very active, cleared village through chain ledger use. StrikerEZ - Cleared village through chain ledger use, but not generating much discussion. I'd like to see him post more. Young Bard - Probably village, because of the counter-wagon that started on Kidpen, who is a guarenteed elim. Neutral: Bugsy - Needs to post more. Haelbarde - I wasn't sure he was still alive until I looked at the player list. Needs to post more. Hemalurgic Headshot - Needs to post more. Rathmaskal - Needs to post more. Shqueeves - Needs to post more. Elim: Araris Valerian - Has posted but I don't remember stances. That's a default neutral-elim read. Butt Ad Venture - Lots of puns, much less content. Neutral-elim. Fifth Scholar - Has some posts but not many. Voted on Bard. Elim. Snipexe - Posted some in the beginning but not much now. Default neutral-elim. And once again, Elandera. She's probably village and isn't part of the chain-ledger clear group. This second part is a benefit because while I believe they're village, they've all been acting in very bandwagony ways, and handing one of them the governor role feels like it might only increase the bandwagoning. With Elandera as governor, I feel that will elevate a different viewpoint in the thread.

What's the name of this warrant? Apology accepted. I know you weren't intending to feel controlling, you just wanted to get something done. Honestly, if PMs had been open at the time, I would've PMed it to you instead of putting it in the thread. That being said, at somepoint tomorrow I will put up a reads list of everyone in the game. Hopefully that'll spark more discussion. I'd do it tonight but it's late and I'm sleep deprived.

Unfortunately, the way that you like to play the game may not be the way others like to play the game. There comes a point where one might be told that opposition to doing x is un-villagery, and therefore they must do x or else. At that point, people start to feel like they have no agency, and are just glorified extra votes and actions. Some people will go along with it, others won't. People in SE have historically decided before that they would rather be lynched than have their actions dictated to them, and once that happens, the whole system breaks down. A better way to achieve village cooperation would be to explain why it would be beneficial if people acted in a certain way, and do not force it as a way to prove villageriness. Personally, I missed the first post where you explained why you wanted people to claim items, and am too tired to look for it. I'd appreciate it if you reiterated why you think it will be helpful.

If Kidpen really was an elim, then the votes on Bard come across as much more suspicious. Kidpen is obviously dead and I'm willing to extend Elandera the benefit of the doubt on this, because her tunnel seems like a village one, so I'm voting on Fifth. I wasn't attempting a hammer, I was just writing up an analysis post and lost track of the time trying to make it sound more coherent...

In that case, I'll vote for Kidpen.

Could you clarify this line?

I laid out a post describing why I believe lynching Alv was good for the village here.

Could someone summarize the reasons for lynching Snip and Bard? I don't have the time to look at them both tonight.

My long-promised analysis of Elandera: In general, Elandera is very aware of the possibility of elim vote manips. She puts up a lot of vote tallies and also mentions how vote manips can be used as a way to trace back to the elims. In her third post, Elandera defends Ark, who we now know is village. However, next cycle, she attacks him here: So far, Elandera has a pretty good record. She attacked/voted on Lum and Gaea, and mostly defended Ark and me. Eventually she also voted on Alv, too. Elandera clearly didn't like her options during C3, and tried to move her vote off of Alv, but then moved it back on. I think if she was an elim, she would've pushed harder to move the lynch on Alv, and definitely wouldn't have gone with it in the beginning. See here: Then here: This was early enough that without Elandera's support, the Alv lynch might not have took off. Overall, this looks very villagery. I'm not sure what to think of Elandera's attacks on Striker. It looks a lot like tunneling to me, but she has been pretty accurate so far. I'd take a look at him, but I have a feeling that my time is better spent looking at the supposed other links in the Bard-Striker-Drake-Fura circle. I'd be happy to support Elandera for governor.

Back from work now, so I can finally type something now. Alv. Even if Alv's story is true, that still proves that he's not working for village interests here. Look at how he's presenting himself here: According to his story, Alv found an elim and left them alive. He planned to exchange all of his whiskeys, search warrants, and ledgers with them in exchange for daggers. He did not plan to kill this elim, or tell anybody else about them. Even if Alv is village and this is true, this is sketchy as crem. At best, he's acting more like a neutral player at this point, and at worst, he's an elim, and it says something when someone's best defense is "I am not an elim but I made a deal with them." I think we should just lynch him and be done with this mess.

Annie's pen jerked sideways. Senator Ninoirm had acknowledged Annie's existence! This was the first time in the past six years that she could remember a Senator addressing her by her name! (Besides Onde, he didn't count.) But...something didn't feel quite right. Annie chewed on her lip. Should she say this? So soon after Senator Ninoirm had vouched for her, too? Yes. This was what she had attended university for. Annie stood up and cleared her throat. "E-excuse me, Senators," Annie said. Harmony, there were so many of them here. "Senator Ninoirm, I thank you for your support. However before we can vote for you, I have one question to ask. What makes you so certain that Senators Bard, Striker, Drake, and Fifth are not corrupt?"

I was going to get that in faster but it's hard typing up a post while keeping up with the thread >.>

On Alvron, Lord of Shadows: I agree with El about Alv seeming to play up his love for the Black Market too much. In general, he seems much chattier than usual, but he's acting in ways that don't really help the village? For example, there's this post: Generally bragging about acting in ways contrary to village interests isn't very good. Here's another example: Again, it seems like Alv is setting his own interests before that of the village. He has said that he has an extremely accurate rate of killing elims as a vigilante, but I still get the feeling that he's more interested in murdering people than in catching elims. In a case like this, even if he's village, if he's left alive, he'll be acting in ways contrary to village intersts and we'll be better off with him dead. One thing to note here is that Alv defended Lum indirectly by saying that lynching her wouldn't be completely conclusive of her alignment, and also threw some suspicion onto Striker here. I am assuming that Lum's alignment as displayed is correct, but with that, Alv's post here looks kind of bad. Also, if Alv is an elim, Striker probably isn't one. Based off of all of that, Alv.

Just to clarify, you were the one to scan Striker?

I'll do a quick read-through of Alv's posts and decide whether I'm switching my vote or not.

I believe this is in part because Ark killed Burnt, who has been on hiatus for a long time on C1, and Hael and Alv are still upset about that.

I know I'm village, and I don't want to die. Ark.

An analysis of Lum, for further leads: This post...doesn't line up? Lum votes on Joe with no reasoning given and has a long spiel about Gaea that's inconclusive/waffley of her value to the village? Lum counterclaims against Striker, and now that she's flipped elim, this definitely feels more like the act of an elim who tried to bluff things out. I don't think it's likely that Striker is an elim who tried to bus Lum to get out of a lynch. Lum only had one post before this, and was under little to no suspicion. Why would an elim try to save themselves from a lynch by bussing another one who was flying under the radar? There aren't any important roles to protect. Additionally, this would take a fair amount of effort to set up -- one of the elims would've had to scan Lum the cycle before. Why go to all of this effort? It seems a little absurd to think that the elims could know that one of their own would come under fire the next cycle and decide to counter that by bussing another one of their own. I'm curious why Lum picked Elandera and Alv. Lum has a long opinion of Alv, and a much shorter one for Elandera. Personally, I think it's possible that she tried to point out Elandera but also in a fairly noncommittal way, as a form of distancing. I'll take a look at Elandera in my next post.