xinoehp512

The first two parties had died out to a low hubbub.

The noble had been going for at least a minute now and showed no signs of stopping, so Maern interrupted him. “Yes, I’m sure,” he said, unable to keep all traces of boredom from his voice. “But if you would excuse me,” he said, edging backwards, “I really do need to go home, work on homework and stuff.” The investigator paused with a dazed frown, like someone coming out of a trance, and made no move to stop him. Good, thought Maern. He’s expended all his energy on his rant. Something in him twitched at the thought of just walking away from the man’s insults, and he was unable to resist throwing a parting shot over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t want to wind up like you, now, would I?” At that, the noble investigator’s face turned bright red in anger. “Don’t you walk away!” he snarled, reaching out an arm to grab Maern’s. Maern swatted it away with his own hand, moving quickly at a brisk walk away from the man. He really shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with that man, as satisfying as it might have been. He was a noble and an investigator after all. He had power and authority. He been lucky that the man hadn’t- “Hey!” bellowed the man. “Stop that man! He assaulted me!” Maern let out a groan as investigators being chasing after him. Of course he would do that. Of course. Now that I'm finished analyzing the people who posted only one vote on Bard, I'll analyze the people who posted after me but didn't vote on him. Kynedath posted this relatively soon after my post, then didn't post again for the rest of the cycle. He hasn't posted this cycle, either- not about last cycle, and not about the lynch that's formed on him since. The reference to an overload makes me wonder if he even saw my post. @Kynedath You know what really bothers me? Lopen's quick switch in opinions. In the first post he's suggesting that we kill Bard, but doesn't even place his second vote on him- only his first. He says that he's willing to place his second vote on Bard, too, if suspicion remains on him. But after six more votes fall on Bard, he suddenly takes objection to Coda's votes and moves both of his votes to them instead. He tops it all off by implying that Bard might not be evil after all. CadCom actually put his vote on Bard before I posted my thing, which would be a point in his favor... except that he immediately retracted it when he realized that Bard had gone up for the lynch. Even after he reads about expulsion and changes his mind about what fate he thinks Bard deserves, he's still unwilling to vote on him. Overall, he may be the most suspicious person I've analyzed so far. (Gah, I have to go now. Luckily, I'm over two hundred words. Vote next time, I promise!)

The noble narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?” he said, interrupting his tirade. “Never mind,” said Maern. “Nothing.” The noble sniffed and continued with what he was saying. “But of course, nobody believed me…” Maern listened with detached interest. Reading between the lines, it would seem that this noble had originally been a student at the University but his stuck-up attitude, extreme arrogance, and overall general laziness, combined with a few ‘incidents’, had fed up the Masters so much that they’d raised his tuition to far more than he’d originally been expecting to pay. His parents- which apparently were as fed up with his attitude as the Masters were- flatly refused to pay his tuition themselves. Even worse, to him, they’d told him that they would stop giving him money at all if he decided to give up on school. Torn between the horror of losing his lavish lifestyle and being forced to take up a common job, he’d managed to finagle his way into the captain position of the investigative squad. In his own words he sounded like a misunderstood and mistreated hero, but Maern knew better. Was this really the kind of people they put in charge of catching literal demons? Maybe he really did have a chance compared to them ---- And another thing: It seems to me that an elim would be relatively more likely to be elevated than a villager, since the elims can coordinate their EP to not compete with each other. That supports the possibility of Bard being an elim. Based on this, and #7 of the above, I'll put my complaints on Bard (El'the) and DeTess (Re'lar) for now. Araris gives one of his votes to Bard and the other to DeTess for reading his aggressiveness as village. For how concerned Araris is about people who only voted once in total, I find it odd that his own second vote would be on what seems like a pretty NAI thing to me. However, he does provide more reasoning to encourage a vote on Bard, which is not what I would expect an elim to do in this situation. @Araris Valerian? Linguistic analysis covers all the posts made in a turn, and any PMs. Do you have or intercept any PMs with Bard in turn 2.2? Could be a lie if Bard specifically told the GMs whether or not Nethwyl set the fires, which was presumably not the case. Other than the unlikely lies of not realising it was May, and claiming copper chloride turns flames blue when it's specifically copper(I) chloride that does so, other potential lies would be the reads list. Lying about reads and/or an opinion on spreading out votes is almost as suspicious as lying about being surprised with the sabotage target though. If Bard put any EP in R&L it would definitely not be a lie for Nethwyl to have taken an exam in the subject. If he didn't put any EP in, it would be GM discretion I think, since he never claimed to have put in EP. I don't think I would say precludes the possibility of there being more unsuspicious people, but I could see why it might have been marked as a lie. Expulsion barely hurts village!Bard, since he's already an El'the and it would take at least five turns to become a Master, assuming he's staying at the Windy Tower. Abilities will be less useful, but that's the case for role blocks as well.The elims are unlikely to sabotage village!Bard at this point in the hopes that he gets killed by a student. Expelling Skindancer!Bard contributes to the win condition, but leaves him free to do things. A role block followed by a kill could be helpful, though with five DP currently there's still a good chance for no charges/apology. One more vote on Bard makes it very likely to get into at least the 8-10 DP range. Devotary posted once a half hour after my post. In this post he seems to trust my claim that Bard was lying, but wanted to know if there was anything else that might have triggered it besides the one that condemned Bard as elim. This seems fairly NAI to me. He posted again about a half hour after that post, after many people had gotten the chance to put votes on Bard, concluding that he was indeed likely elim and should be expelled. This seems like a reasonable play for a cautious villager, even if it could also be interpreted as an elim waiting until the lynch was inevitable to throw support on it. Doubling up the vote would have made me lean more towards the village side. As it stands... I think that I could believe that village!Devotary thought a single vote was best, but I'm not yet sure I should. More to come later, along with votes.

Spiked with lemon, that is. They were rather delicious.

So the assistance baked him a cookie.

@Lord_Silberfarben, wrong game. --- “I don’t,” said Maern in irritation, moving to the side to try and go around the investigator. “Now, can you please stop bothering me? I have a lot of homework that I need to do. That’s a kind of schoolwork that needs to be done at home. It’s a thing we students do.” Maern saw by the furious look in the investigator’s eye that he’d struck a nerve. Sour that you’re not smart enough to attend university? he thought, slightly amused. It must be so grating if that was the case- the investigator was obviously a noble, and being shown up by commoners must be almost more than his inflated ego could bear. “You think you’re so smart,” growled the noble investigator. “I’m just as smart as you, you know. I could attend university if I want. I just don’t want to be pandering to the Masters every second of my life. They have no appreciation...” He started to rant about what was presumably his experience with the University, including targeted insults towards specific Masters. Maern raised an eyebrow. “Sour grapes?” he mumbled. The noble narrowed his eyes. “What did you say?” he said, interrupting his tirade. “Never mind,” said Maern. “Nothing.” –– As I promised, I will analyze the lynch on Bard. Elandera splits her vote between me and Bard. While I might not agree with her analysis of the evidence against me (for obvious reasons) I can't argue that her reasoning for her suspicions is pretty solid given her perspective. This could still have been an attempt by an elim to sway people away from voting on Bard, but I can't find any immediate red flags in her story. Haelbarde's single vote is self-admitted hedging- which I find suspicious, given that he seems to agree that it's unlikely that anything in Bard's RP would count as a lie and discounts the lie being anywhere else. He says that Bard doesn't deserve the amount of votes he's received based on reasoning outside the scan, but he doesn't discount the scan either. Unless he meant 'borderline' to mean that he thought the RP stuff could have triggered Linguistic Analysis, which seems quite suspect to me, as all of the cases of a lie that potentially came from Bard's RP wound up being quite flimsy when I actually went back to check on them. It seems like he jumped on this as a reason to hedge without actually investigating it. @Haelbarde? That's all for now, more to follow.

Other beings stepped up to offer Weapon assistance.

He asserted his Identity.

Weapon shook off the attack and made a counter!

Weapon slapped back.

Maern looked him straight in the eyes. No fear. “I didn’t know I needed to ask your permission.” The investigator smiled. It was not a pretty smile. “You’re a witness, aren’t you? You saw what she did.” “Uh…” said Maern, slightly off guard. “Yes? I don’t see how that matters, though.” “It means,” said the investigator, leaning in close and lowering his voice, “we have the right to take you in for questioning.” “Questioning about what?” said Maern in irritation leaning back. “I saw her fall. That was it. I’m not sure what you think I might know that you would ask me?” “Are you sure?” said the investigator. “Yes.” “Certain?” “...yes?” The investigator narrowed his eyes in a sneer. “You don’t sound sure. Maybe we should take you in for questioning anyways. Just to make certain you don’t know anything important.” “I don’t,” said Maern in irritation, moving to the side to try and go around the investigator. “Now, can you please stop bothering me? I have a lot of homework that I need to do. That’s a kind of schoolwork that needs to be done at home. It’s a thing we students do.” ----- A fair point. Even fairer. Here are the votes from last turn: Bard (14): Hael, Elandera, Elkanah, Elkanah, Straw, Straw, Xino, Xino, Coda, Coda, Araris, Devotary, Fura, Fura Coda (5): DeTess, DeTess, Rath, Lopen, Lopen Fura (4): Silber, CadCom, Stink, Stink Araris (2): Karnage, Karnage DeTess (2): Silber, Araris Elkanah (2): Bard, Bard Burnt (1): Kynedath Xino (1): Elandera (Also, just FYI, from the information I've recieved/evidence I've gathered I'm going to be assuming Bard is an elim in my analysis from here on out, even if it isn't 100% certain yet, because it makes things easier.) Clearly an overwhelming majority on Bard, but there are votes elsewhere. One particular class of individuals that I find interesting are the people who threw one vote on Bard and one vote somewhere else (or nowhere) There were four people who did this: Hael, Elandera, Araris, and Devotary. Given that each additional vote on Bard is that much more of a chance that he would be expelled, this seems like a perfect way for an elim to show support of a lynch while also attempting to minimize its impact. Another group to watch is the no-voters. There were 19 people who cast votes, which means 8 people didn't cast votes. I'm afraid I'm currently in a rush to get this post finished, so I can't list them all out, but I'll see if I can go through them in later posts. I suspect many of them will coincide with less-active individuals. Elims might choose this route in order to fly under the radar, a possibility that's been discussed earlier. And of course, there's all the other votes. I'm going to be quite busy this cycle, I can already tell.

A form so sharp it had even changed its cognitive aspect.

By a sharp pointy object.

It had gotten turned into a chair leg.

(This RP post is going to be a little out of order chronologically.) Taking a look at Nethwyl's bedraggled appearance and noticing a few other investigators making their way towards the scene, he decided that now was probably not a good time to ask her about her attacker. He mumbled something under his breath and left, deciding to try and find her at a later date. But quick as he was, he wasn’t quick enough. “Hey,” called one of the investigators in a fake-jovial tone that set Maern’s teeth on edge. “Is that our little pretend investigator, here at the scene of the crime? I wonder if he found anything useful, huh?” He let out a mocking laugh that showed just how likely he thought that was. Maern gritted his teeth and forced himself not to respond. “Hey,” said the investigator with a sneer.. “Don’t turn your back on me, Maner. Didn’t you hear my question?” “It’s Maern,” he mumbled, quickening his pace and trying to slip by. “And no, I didn’t find anything.” “Hey,” said the investigator with a more sinister tone, stepping in front of him and blocking his path. “I didn’t say you could leave.” Maern looked him straight in the eyes. No fear. “I didn’t know I needed to ask your permission.” ----- I've being doing it for a few cycles, might as well continue. Posts by player, per cycle: Player Post count Status Total 1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 @Haelbarde(Edema Ruh) Ruh 26 3 12 3 4 4 @Elandera (Noble) Noble 18 8 2 2 4 2 @Burnt Spaghett(Commoner) Commoner 31 7 7 5 8 4 @DeTess(Commoner) Commoner 29 7 3 8 4 7 @Elkanah (Edema Ruh) Ruh 33 12 5 5 2 9 @Straw(Commoner) Commoner 46 10 4 13 14 5 @xinoehp512 (Commoner) Commoner 28 8 5 5 5 5 @Lord_Silberfarben(Commoner) Commoner 25 8 2 3 6 6 @Coda (Noble) Noble 14 3 1 1 2 7 @Karnage (Noble) Noble 21 6 3 5 4 3 @Hemalurgic Headshot (Noble) Noble 2 2 Insane Insane Insane Insane @StrikerEZ (Edema Ruh) Ruh 13 5 3 2 3 Insane @Lumgol (Noble) Noble 5 2 0 3 Insane Insane @Experience (Commoner) Commoner 12 3 2 1 2 4 @Devotary of Spontaneity (Noble) Noble 20 7 4 3 3 3 @CadCom (Edema Ruh) Ruh 11 2 0 1 5 3 @Sart (Commoner) Commoner 3 1 2 Insane Insane Insane @Furamirionind (Edema Ruh) Ruh 29 4 2 4 8 11 @Zillah (Commoner) Commoner 11 4 3 1 2 1 @Araris Valerian (Noble) Noble 12 2 1 4 4 1 @Rathmaskal(Commoner) Commoner 5 1 0 1 1 2 @STINK (Commoner) Commoner 16 1 3 2 5 5 @Kynedath (Edema Ruh) Ruh 12 4 4 0 3 1 @Walin (Commoner) Commoner 6 1 1 1 2 1 @GreenRover (Noble) Noble 3 1 1 1 0 @Young Bard (Commoner) Commoner 13 0 1 3 3 6 @TheMightyLopen (Noble) Noble 18 6 3 3 3 3 Total 118 74 80 97 93 Average 4.37037037 2.846153846 3.2 4.041666667 4.227272727 Nobles 37 15 22 20 19 Average 4.111111111 1.875 2.75 2.857142857 3.166666667 Commoners 51 33 43 52 46 Average 4.25 2.75 3.909090909 4.727272727 4.181818182 Edema Ruh 30 26 15 25 28 Average 5 4.333333333 2.5 4.166666667 5.6 The total posts comes out to only 4 less than the previous cycle, so it would seem that activity is remaining relatively constant. This poses sort of a problem for me; my in-depth analysis skills were only enough to get through a few votes on one person in the span of a single cycle. If I want to avoid being stalled on a single cycle for the entire game, I'm going to need to do more sparse analysis. There's a lot to unpack last cycle that I didn't get to (pretty much anything that didn't have to do with Bard, in fact). I have received information that Bard, despite being apparently open to Linguistic Analysis, lied again in the past turn (3.1). Given this, I think that chances are high that Bard is a skindancer; it was a wise move to move to expel Bard, especially given that he was already an El'the. I also think that it would be nice if we could get a kill in on Bard, for confirmation, although I would be careful of the elim’s protection role. Since no one has come forward to claim to be the person who protected Bard, it’s probably safest to assume that they’re probably not on the village’s side, for now.

They can't copy the decoded code, since they don't know what it is. You could have more than one. Having at least three means even if one got compromised, you could back it up with the other two. Vote Count, since I haven't seen one yet: Xino(1) Cadcom Joe(1) Sart Sart(1) TGK Fura(1) Fura Arraenae(1) Radiant There's five hours left in the cycle (man, I always forget how fast QF's go!) I'd better get a vote in before it's too late. Two vote minimum- I should probably make sure at least someone gets lynched. I don't think this one would be a good idea. This is a poke vote, and Joe has arrived, so I don't think I feel like backing this up. That doesn't mean I want to vote for Sart either, though :P. You do you, Fura. I feel like Arraenae's assessment of when to use the knives was not skewed towards early game, personally. I've gone through all the votes and I still don't know who to vote on... Then again, Elkanah said he would break ties, right? I guess I can probably make it on here within rollover if I need, too, so I can put a vote on anyone. Drake Marshall @DrakeMarshall you haven't posted yet. Anything to say? nqctsqn,lqmiczx,xmwqnftis

Anyone can post your name in front of their post and claim to be you.

The idea would be that each person comes up with their own. They're the only one that knows what the two words are that combine to form their ciphered string, so revealing the two words will confirm that they were the one who created it. Eliminators can't use another person's identifier because they wouldn't know what the words were that combined into the finished code. It's a poke vote: presumably he intends to take it off Joe once he posts something. I think it's a little early in the cycle for poke votes, personally, but overall it's NAI. This makes me slightly suspicious of you, but you're fairly new so I'll cut you some slack for now.

Wait, did I have to explain it too?

Ah, okay. That rules out color changes to confirm identity, then. It doesn't rule out other methods, though... I propose that we each come up with a few simple cipher-texts as a means of verification. For example, you could take two words such as 'cat' and 'dog' and turn them into their number equivalents (a=1, b=2 and so on). In this instance, that gets you 3 1 20 and 4 15 7. Add the two together: so 3+4=7, 1+15=16, and 20+7=27. 27 is greater than 26, so subtract 26 in order to get 1, leaving you with 7,16, and 1. Turn that back into letters to get GPA. That one probably wouldn't prove overly difficult to crack via concerted effort, however, so best to do something longer. Then, if you get sent to the shade document and want to verify your identity, start with the two words in their decoded form and end with a predetermined stopping sequence (potentially including a code to verify your identity on your next comment.) For instance, someone using code GPA might have a sentence like this: CATDOG: This is Xinoehp, checking in. How's it going?<LSSTCAGR> I'm not insisting this be used by everyone, but I thought it might be a cool idea. It shouldn't be too difficult for most people either (sorry if I've explained it badly- I'll try again if anyone is confused.)

Maern watched the proceedings with curiosity and not entirely without a twist of uneasiness and uncertainty. It looked like they hadn't accused her of the crime that they'd presumably originally taken her in for questioning about, which seemed... if not strange, at least interesting. It was likely because of lack of anything but circumstantial evidence- which was the wise decision, to be sure (innocent until proven guilty, after all.) The other charges she'd been brought up on seemed to be almost forced, like the Masters were trying to find something that they could blame her for. And Maern had to admit, it did seem oddly coincidental that an accident would happen that would completely remove all evidence that she may or may not have done something. She was attacked, though, he thought to himself. She not a skindancer. ...Right? He pushed his uneasiness down as Nethwyl finshed her apology and stepped down from the platform. "Hey," he called after her. "Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?" ------ @Young Bard I'll repeat myself just in case. I don't think I'll change my vote this cycle, but I might as well continue with my analysis of last turn. I don't want to get too far behind, after all, and I have quite a bit of thread left to catch up on. From Araris: Lopen put votes on GreenRover and Devotary- both of which seemed more like poke votes than suspicion votes. This vote and it's reasoning aligns with Araris's previous motivations, which is a point in his favor. I myself was guilty of the same crime that Lopen was accused of, admittedly, even if my votes were more based in suspicion. Regardless, I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that concentrating our votes is key. This isn't like a normal game; in order for the lynch to really have an effect, we either need to have very few people voted on, a ton of votes on the candidates up for lynch, or both at the same time. Fura makes some excellent points about expulsion that I find myself agreeing with; The vote count looks better than it did last cycle; more votes on the top candidates, less total spread. There is definite incentive for skindancers to avoid voting on their teammate(s) if they can avoid it.

Hades's eyes flitted from place to place in the forest as he kept a close watch for anything that might mean them ill. Not just shades- although they might be the thing fortfolk feared most about these woods, they weren't necessarily the most dangerous adversary that they would face. Shades were predictable, after all- keep the three Simple Rules, carry silver on you just in case, and you should be able to survive in the forests with no problem. No, the real danger here was the people. Men (and women) who shunned the order of society in the forts in order to prey upon the weak in a place where they were pretty much free to do whatever they liked. Let them try to prey on us, he thought grimly. They'll see just how 'weak' we are then. --- Hello all to QF44! To start, a smidgen of analysis. I find this mechanic interesting, to say the least. More than likely, the villagers will always outnumber the eliminators in the category of the dead, so as long as trickery can be avoided then the roleblock should be usable for the village purposes. GMs, I have a few questions. Are shades are allowed to edit their own text? Also, is the vote that they are not told the results of is the vote on what the roleblock?

That is not at all what my character would do. He's looking for her in order to ask her about her escape from her attacker. And he's most definitely not trying to get her to other people for questioning. He doesn't even suspect her at all, in fact. So I'm going to have to assume that it's a NPC that she's misremembering the name of. You haven't put in your public apology yet, @Young Bard, so I assume you'll be able to get on before the cycle ends? Never mind, I just saw it... Oh, well- I think we can make it work. Anyways, if you need to godmod Maern, he's going to primarily try and ask her questions about the person who attacked her, to see if he can get an identity on them. He'll probably also ask her about the fire (although not in a direct/accusatory way; just out of puzzlement/curiosity.) ---- Maern came within eyeshot of the bridge at the exact moment that Nethwyl fell from its pinnacle into the icy deep waters below. He let out a gasp and started running over, sudden terrifying thoughts surging through his head- she's been attacked before, hasn't she? Might she be attacked again? and arrived just as the bystander pulled her out with a vine and started rifling through her stuff. "Hey!" he called out, slowing to a stop. "Are you alright?" Nethwyl looked up at him, but seemed too drained to respond. "And you," he said, turning to the other person with suspicion in his eyes, "what do you think you're doing?" The potential skindancer sniffed and held out the ruined notebook towards Maern. "She's suspected for setting library fire. We thought there might be evidence in her bag, but if there was..." He shook his head in disgust. "Well, it's gone now. Her little jaunt in the river destroyed anything incriminating that might have been written in here." He shot a look at her laced with an edge of malice, as if he suspected she'd done exactly that. Maern opened his mouth, then frowned, looking between both Nethwyl and- well, he supposed it must be an investigator. She didn't contradict the man's story- so he most likely hadn't pushed her in. So, not a skindancer, thought Maern, feeling a bit silly. Taking a look at Nethwyl's bedraggled appearance and noticing a few other investigators making their way towards the scene, he decided that now was probably not a good time to ask her about her attacker. He mumbled something under his breath and left, deciding to try and find her at a later date. @Young Bard ---- Not sure how to parse this? I'll presume you mean that the lie was in 2.2. I learned about it this cycle. I did not. Bard never actually said that Nethwyl set the fires, only implied that it might be the case. I can barely understand this, sorry. XP The main comments I have are that I missed the whole 'RP counts for Linguistic Analysis' thing and that I think that that only applies to RP that is obviously meant to say something game-related (to be definite about it, only RP that also counts for game-related discussion). Since an RP character could be reasonably expected to potentially have any number of differences when compared to the RP'ers mechanical situation, it wouldn't make sense to call it 'lying'.

Maern took in the exchange of snowy projectiles and sighed. Looks like he’d gotten caught in another snowball fight. They’d popped up with surprising regularity now that the temperature had dropped so severely. Seriously, he thought with annoyance, You’d think we had a bunch of ten-year olds on campus, not grown adults. At the same time, though, he couldn’t deny that seeing the happy faces eased a little bit of the tension that he felt over the skindancers. There was evil in the world, for sure- but here, in this moment, for these people, there was goodness and joy. This is what I’m fighting for, he thought to himself. The right for this to exist- for laughter, for fun, for peace. He smiled the tiniest fraction, unable to stay frustrated at them for accidentally knocking him over. And actually, they might be able to give him exactly the information that he was after. “Pardon me,” he called out, “but do any of you know where I might find Nethwyl?” A short exchange of words later, Maern walked away with a newly-acquired set of directions to the probable location of the student in question.” He let his smile spread across his face. Perhaps today wouldn’t be so bad after all. --- @Young Bard, are you interested in joint RP? If so, can Maern meet you before Nethwyl gets caught? As I was saying earlier, Bard has had a pattern of inactivity up until this cycle in the game. He has a total of seven posts in the four turns preceding this one. Of those four turns, two he posted no vote on, and two he posted a single vote. In fact, the only reason he posted at all in the first term seems to be his required public apology (although to be fair, he did include discussion along with it). Most of his contribution has been in RP, although the analysis that he has posted has seemed pretty solid. Overall, it seems to me that Bard fits the profile of an eliminator trying to lie low and stay under the radar better than he fits the profile of a player unable to keep up with the fast pace of the game. Not to say that he doesn't fit the profile, of course; in fact, I would be wavering back and forth on this if it wasn't for the fact that I have been informed that Bard lied last turn. Now, it's possible that I may have overlooked something in his posts in the last turn, but it seems that the only lie that he could have told was this one. It has been confirmed that this statement, if uttered by an eliminator aware of the reasoning behind the attacks, would indeed set off Linguistic Analysis. And I suspect that this is exactly what happened. After all, look at this statement included by Bard in his first post this cycle: The exact reasoning that the Skindancers are likely using to choose their targets. Of course, I can't be sure sure that Bard is an elim. But I can be pretty sure. Bard. Bard.

Sigh