DrakeMarshall

alas, my love for dueling has gotten the better of me

I'm visiting Ash what about you Glass shattered, and a conflagration suddenly erupted behind the bar. Relve let out a string of vehement curses. The skin on the left side of his body was flash-seared and he was pretty sure he smelled burning hair, but the pewter took the edge off the pain. I'm gonna get that healed when I get back home, he promised himself. Better than brand new. Gold-driven healing was pretty expensive, but Scadrial took good care of its agents, especially those with successes under their belt. He hit the emergency duraluminum medallion under his sleeve, and for a blessed moment, the pain was all but gone and he was brimming with overwhelming strength and energy. It demanded to be put to use, before all of the pewter burned up. With a roar of anger, he picked up the entire burning cabinet of liquors and hurled it at Jacks' position.

Relve ducked under the counter, away from the bursts of divisive Stormlight that were eating away at whatever they made contact with. A stray shot shattered a bottle behind him. He grimaced and hurled a bottle of violet over the counter with all his strength. At the same time, his other hand found the trigger of a gun. Nothing fancy, just a mass-produced aluminum-and-wood shotgun. It was loaded with scattershot, as this was deemed slightly less likely to cause a hull breach on a space station. This gun was loud, but he'd make the shots count. He crawled down the counter to a different spot, poked his head up, and fired.

Relve sighed. "One damnation coming right up, then." It was true, what he'd said back then in the hydropanics room. Scadrian life forms couldn't naturally absorb Stormlight, unlike the most basic life on Roshar. But they had their own tricks. He flared pewter, and lunged for the counter in one unnaturally swift bound, ducking his shoulder to roll across the table onto the other side. Getting to cover, and a weapon.

"Yes, they all get the same ultimatum," Relve said. "In exactly one case, it will be a lie," he admitted. "For reasons that I'm afraid I can't disclose even here and now, one more person needs to die." "But that's it. Everybody else will live." It's the best I can offer. "So what'll it be?"

"Ah, true enough," Relve admitted easily. "I do want something." He poured two cups of black tea, and set out a pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar. The quantity of each that went into a man's tea was a deeply personal decision. "But you know, I think you're mistaken about something. It won't lead to war if you won't be telling anyone that the Scadrians sabotaged the Fourth Bridge." Relve smiled between sips of tea. "All kinds of accidents can happen in space, you know? Plenty of mundane things that don't involve convoluted plots and Scadrian sabotage, but which still can royally screw up a space station. Space stations are delicate objects. If the circumstances seem a bit suspicious to some people, well." He chuckled. "Not any more suspicious than the Rosharans setting up a civilian outpost that just happened to be doing heavy surveillance in Scadrian space must have seemed to us, I suppose. Everyone'll just have to deal." Relve shrugged. "The cosmere keeps on turning, somehow." "I'd be more worried about where you fit into that narrative, honestly. Because an obvious solution to all of this would just be to kill you and throw you out the airlock." "But see, I think it works out better for both of us if we avoid trying to murder each other." Relve dropped a disk on the table with a clink. It was quite clearly Scadrian tech, mostly copper, but there were intricate inlays of many other metals too. "Regrettably, this only works if you do it willingly. Touch the disk and relinquish claim over all your memories from the past few days. You'll come to on an escape pod with a couple of important particulars missing. But, importantly, you'll still be alive." The device was fairly simple feruchemy, really. Not that he expected Jacks to understand the principles. The most sophisticated part was verifying that the correct memories were relinquished to fill the empty coppermind. "Or you can refuse. In that case, I'm afraid our truce will be over." "That means we'll fight to the death," Relve helpfully clarified.

"Tea, good choice," Relve approved. "Black or green? I've got tea leaves from a number of different worlds, here." Relve privately thought that Rosharan vinebud tea was an unfortunate invention, but he would keep that to himself. He set about preparing a large kettle of boiling water and a pot of tea with rote efficiency. "Why are we here, on the Fourth Bridge, in the Teneb Cluster of all places? Well, that's the question, isn't it? That's what my superiors wanted to know, too," Relve shook his head ruefully. "A big installation crammed with sensors parked right on the outskirts of your back yard? It's enough to make a fellow a bit antsy." "And yeah, there was definitely some spycraft happening, unless you believe the official record that Etanem was just a regular security officer," Relve snorted. The official record that contained no information about Etanem's past, the specific duties of his posting on the security force, or why such an ostensibly low-ranking officer would need such a high access level on the station. "Anyways, that'd probably be reason enough, but it's not all." "The thing you guys have been digging out of those asteroids and conducting 'metallurgy research' on? I reckon it's actually a god metal. One we've never even seen before. I'd never have even noticed it, except that after Etanem was out of the way, I took the liberty of breaking into the station's file system and doing some light reading. Your own scientists have apparently theorized that the unknown Invested substance came from the Shard of Ambition, torn off in an ancient interstellar battle that passed through this sector briefly. Granted, the metal's only there in trace amounts, often mixed with other things, but..." "I'm still quite certain that Scadrial will take an interest. There's still a lot of asteroid field that hasn't been explored by anyone, and remember, this is contested space." Steam started to rise from the kettle. Relve got out a pair of ceramic mugs and set them on the table. "But see, the smarter folks on both sides understand that it's important to maintain the polite fiction that Roshar and Scadrial aren't screwing each other at every opportunity. Because if we were openly doing that? Why, that sounds uncomfortably like war. And nobody really wants that, you know?" "Which circles back to why we're here, in this bar, talking instead of killing each other. I suppose."

Xino responding to TUO, colorized: Relve sighed. "I'm the Steward. I prepare all the food and drink around here. If I wanted to poison you, I could've already done it. Rusts, you wouldn't even necessarily know. Cofi forced my hand, but not every poison is so obvious and fast-acting." He shrugged. "It's a little too late to start worrying about all that now, yeah? Might as well sit down and share a drink with me. We've probably got things to talk about."

I have a setup ready but I'm #8 so probably not who you want to hear from first lol

"Yes hello it's me, long time no see," Relve answered. "I'm unarmed, as you can see, but in the interests of disclosure, I do keep a gun under the counter." Relve gestured in the general direction across the room. "I won't be able to reach for it quick enough that you won't have plenty of warning, but I will defend myself if you try and pull something." Relve smiled tightly. "So, what can I get for you? I've got ALL the colors of the wine rainbow, I've got a secret stash of Scadrian whiskey in the back, there's milk, there's juice, there's tea... No coffee, though. Coffee's gone off," Relve frowned. "But anything else is on the table. I can do a mixed drink, I don't often get to do one of those!" Relve suggested. "I figure if there's ever a time to enjoy the station's amenities, it's now."

Alright let's do it If we die I take full responsibility for being a dummy but I can't resist a good duel --- Relve took a step back and beheld his handiwork. He was wearing an orange suit that marked him an escaped prisoner, an obviously stolen ID card was pinned to his shirt, and he was clutching a dirty rag. The tables were clean, the gaudy collection of multihued Rosharan wines and spirits was on display, the blinking sign flashed OPEN again and again next to a rather poor rendition of a cocktail glass in neon lights. The station's only bar was at last open for business. "Hello," Relve's voice carried over the station's intercomm amidst crackles of static. "Things have been... tense, lately, haven't they? We've fought and bled. We've all lost friends in the past few days, and nobody's squeaky clean anymore. Everyone's got someone's blood on their hands." "Aren't you tired of fighting?" "We can't sustain it. I'm sure the captain or the command staff would tell you to fight on until the bitter end, but I think we both know that's not the human interest talking. Those are the needs of politicians, always posturing and worrying about the balance of power. Is it really worth dying for? Anyways, the heads of the station are never the ones bloody well getting thrown out of airlocks, are they? Whatever they tell you, you have a choice." "We can't ignore our differences, but we can at least check them at the door. Talk things out for a bit." "I'm calling a truce. Take a minute to breathe. Bar's open. Drinks are on the house."

I dunno I kinda wanna accept the duel Edit: But I won't if TUO doesn't want to, elim bros before dueling

sorry since Kas can't just outright say certain things, I can hopefully do it for him: xino is probably a Medical Officer who could potentially block the kill tonight, and in this case the village could still have majority vote tomorrow and win however, the elims have a 1-shot ability to make their kill unstoppable, which we forgot to use last night otherwise there would have been 2 deaths I don't imagine we'll forget tonight.

hello hello it is I so, with all due respect to everyone involved, wtf RBM hardclaimed a redscan on me I hesitate to say this, but at the end of the day that's basically a PoE of 2 right there to anyone who's reasonable. folks should be voting in that right now. ...but here we are with folks voting TUO, who I think is obviously town after... whatever D2 was. lynch me if you must, but I think it pretty clearly doesn't help anyone but the Fourth Bridge and the Elims to delay resolving me/RBM please, please reconsider that's all for now, stay tuned while I continue to catch up RBM

what in tarnation

I think you're thinking of TUO's reaction to RBM's question tbh 1. Any claim to be a Seeker with a guilty result near endgame is automatically suspect. If you're an elim and you think you can win with just 1 more mislynch, a faked scan result is a pretty good way to make sure that it happens. 2. RBM lied about who made the scan during the reveal. I get that villagers conceivably want to avoid outing their role to the elims, but not so much when you have a guilty result in a game with 7 living players. You've got to assess whether there's a greater village motive to do it or a greater elim motive. And the elim motive here is pretty strong - it grants deniability when the lynch goes bad. 3. It looks like RBM waited to see who would get voted before deciding to go ahead with the claim. I imagine the elims would want to hedge and see if they actually needed to intervene in the votes before committing to a fake claim, and RBM fits the profile here. 4. I've told a number of people what my role is already, fairly early on in the game in some cases. You were one of them. RBM hasn't done anything like that, at least as far as I know. Sure, I could be lying about my role, but it's more difficult to commit to something like that earlier on, and I'd argue that Steward isn't really an intuitive fakeclaim if you intend to use it for something later on. If one of us is lying about our roles, it aint me. what even are you reasons tbh?

yes, I can confirm that this is true, we are both part of the Lieutenant's doc why are all the members of the Lieutenant's doc still alive? well, there's 3 options here that I can figure: 1. A member of the Lieutenant doc is an elim. 2. The elims got in contact with the Lieutenant via PMs. 3. The elims just... Didn't hit one of us. I'd argue that this is in fact the most intuitive option - they've only made 1 kill so far, and most players aren't in the doc. I don't see how it's an overreaction though? It feels like too many people are underreacting we have a lot more to go on right now, and the votes haven't been that much more lively than they were yesterday. RBM has made a pretty clear-cut fake claim and is gunning for a mislynch at what might be LyLo. I think pushing and voting for RBM is an eminently suitable reaction to that >:P You can posit framer shenanigans, but those are just inherently a lot less likely than other explanations. We don't even know if there's a framer (...if we got more claims we could resolve this, but I'm suspecting it may be too late to do it today), and if there was they still only have a 1/7 chance of hitting RBM coincident with RBM getting redirected into scanning himself. Idk, I just don't think it makes sense to place your faith in those worlds more than the simpler worlds where RBM is just evil. That's true enough... but I don't believe it's actually the most important consideration here. If we lynch a villager in the Lieutenant doc, the Lieutenant converts to village, so it's a break-even situation... but then there's a night turn, and the elims get a free kill. We are still wasting tempo and losing a villager, and in a game of this size that still matters a lot. This likely shouldn't be treated as a good or acceptable outcome. On the other hand, if we lynch an elim, we actually gain on the elims and get closer to winning. We should obviously be aiming to do that If you're sincere in thinking I'm an elim, then sure, but. you started this post talking about how I seemed village and then did a bunch of mechanical analysis about the lieutenant doc for why you should kill me anyway. And the mechanical analysis simply doesn't outweigh any very substantial credences for who is good and who is evil. Why though tbh? What does this actually accomplish for the village, or what will anyone do with the information? What good does it do for me to out the Lieutenant as opposed to you? I don't get it. I don't think I'm going to out the Lieutenant unless there's a reason to. The Lieutenant prefers to remain hidden. I know what it's like to play as a third party, and going out of my way to screw one over doesn't sit right with me. Presumably, if the Lieutenant was leading in the votes, they could claim and we'd get all of the benefit. Claiming before that just paints a target on their back, which removes much of the advantage of having a confirmed villager or at least confirmed not-evil. I really just don't get it. Honestly, it's somewhat difficult for me to read all of the above as genuine reasoning in good faith. I don't think it's pro-village to reveal the Lieutenant doc members in the first place. If you're village, I still think our best-case scenario was always baiting the elims to kill one of us, not trying to lynch in the doc. One of those things has a much better mechanical outcome than the other. You're assuming that #1 is the only possibility here, which feels maybe informed, because I don't particularly think that #1 here is the most obvious explanation. You're voting alongside RBM who has a suspicious redscan claim at LyLo, but making an effort to distance yourself from RBM's reasoning. Circumstantially Not Great. Especially since your sudden 180 on reading me coincides pretty well with RBM leading in the votes. Tbh feels pretty gaslighty to tell me I'm over-reacting to the RBM claim. I don't want to oversample off of only a single post, but it's hard not to a little. I'm not usually one to sus people who sus me but it really feels like the elim team is cooperating to get me out, and they planned to target a member of the Lieutenant doc so that Coffee could make a mech argument for it. It seems like Coffee is a strong possibilty for RBM's teammate, although I think it could also maybe be Xino due to how the voting looked before RBM's claim. Regardless, RBM is almost certainly fake and is higher priority, so my vote stays put. That's all.

It's when the village only barely still has majority, and needs to vote correctly or lose. It seems at least a real possibility that it's the situation we're in. ...I flatly refuse to derpclear you over a question like this given your claim, it's falsity, and it's timing, but if it's a legit question then hopefully that helps.

Vote Tally RoyalBeeMage (2): Ashbringer, DrakeMarshall No Exe (1): Coffeecat DrakeMarshall (1): RoyalBeeMage Coffeecat (1): xinoehp512 ...Just a reminder, if it is LyLo, then splitting the vote or declining to vote is likely not a great idea. Vote however your conscience leads you but do so with all of the facts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (@The Unknown Order pinging you bc you haven't voted yet)

Kas can correct me on this if I'm wrong, but I'm like 90% sure that roles listed in black can belong to any alignment. If they were confirmed to have an alignment, they would be listed in the color of that alignment. The part I think you're missing here is that we might just be at LyLo. Supposing there's a Lieutenant, and the elims are aware of that, either through being in the doc or establishing PM contact or just blind guessing the distro. In that case, our split today is potentially 4/2/1 between villagers, elims, and lieutenant. (Unlikely to be a Fourth Bridge or other neutral in this world, I guess.) If the Lieutenant wins they exit the game, so this scenario is functionally a 4/2 split. An incorrect lynch puts us at 3/2 and an elim kill puts us at 2/2. It makes quite a bit of sense for the elims not to lay low in this situation, because all they need is one mislynch. A villager claiming a guilty scan today would have to have actually scanned an elim, which only happens some of the time. But an elim claims a guilty scan 100% of the time today, if they think it'll give them a relatively easy misyeet. I stand by the most likely explanation here being that RBM is lying. It's trying to shoehorn a specific bandwagon at what might well be LyLo, it's timing in the day looks like an attempt to disrupt existing bandwagons that the elims didn't like, and RBM initially tried to make it look like some other secret person was actually on the hook for the scan's truthfulness and not him. I don't think it's a very credible claim, and every post RBM makes where he isn't saying it's a reaction test is making it less likely that I'd believe him if he suddenly pulled a 180 and said it was one. If there's a framer, I'm sorry. (merge edit?) ...Actually wait no, I have an idea. I think there's a way we can go about resolving this with less risks: If there's a framer, then they don't have any good role that they can safely claim. @everyone - It might be time to do a mass claim tbh. In the framer world, this will probably help us a lot with catching them. I think that's well worth it. It would likely save us 2 misyeets and place a lot of pressure on the elims, which is probably the difference between losing and having a real fighting chance. And in the non-framer world, it's probably LyLo already, and you can't take your secrets with you beyond the grave >:P Might as well work with as much information as possible today instead of just sitting on our hands. Either way, seems like maybe it's in our best interests to just get it over with. I aint gonna force anyone though, obviously.

If Bee is telling the truth, then afaik the only mechanical way it's possible for Bee to produces a guilty result with his scan is if Bee himself evaluates as evil under an alignment scan, because the Steward ability points his action back at himself. Except that's fairly nonsensical e!RBM knows my alignment already, and has no real need of scanning anybody, so e!RBM probably just lies about having scanned a certain result, even if he has the role. Or if he did actually go through the motions of scanning me, he'd have known something was wrong after unexpectedly getting a guilty result, and probably wouldn't be doing this. ...I'll caveat that it's possible that there's a framer who framed village!RBM last night and therefore village!RBM redirected into scanning himself got an evil result. But since this requires both 1) a framer to exist and 2) the framer to have targeted RBM specifically, I don't think it's as likely as RBM not telling the truth.

as an aside, I would personally rather not do a no-exe, even if we didn't have the RBM thing playing out In theory, it gives us more information at lylo, but it also gives us fewer votes, and the elims more control over who is talking and making the decisions when it all goes down. and there's something to be said for pumping the brakes just being sort of bad for village morale It might be the best move in some theoretical perfect village, but in the one we live in, I don't think the tradeoffs are worth it honestly ok back to your regularly scheduled programming (...edit: oh, and there's also potentially a malicious third party who wins if we take too long to end the game? granted, they might not be in this game, but delaying might cost us here)

Alright so you're definitely lying. RBM. And there's no way RBM scanned me himself either, because I targeted him last night with my Steward ability. I'll remain open-minded to the possibility of a reaction test, but obviously I won't withdraw my vote from you until you withdraw your claim

I'd assume that if No Exe is the winner, then there is no exe watch Kas show up and clarify that I'm wrong and an idiot >:P How do you figure the vilage could vote out a Lieutenant claimant? Shouldn't we want to avoid doing that, if we believe them?

Both of those queries depend on how many elims there are, I'd say. In a single-elim world, the odds that the Lieutenant and/or Fourth Bridge exists is higher, and the odds that the Lieutenant doc is compromised is lower. In a two-elim world, neutrals are less likely to be in play, especially not multiple of them, and there are at least more chances for an elim to be in the Lieutenant doc. A three-elim world doesn't seem sensible. I'm really undecided about which of those two worlds we're in right now. Well, let's look at the problem from a different angle - supposing there were a Lieutenant, how does that inform your decision-making today? Supposing there's no Lieutenant, how does that inform your decision-making today?