Salmon Meerkat

Aurelien noticed - and not for the first time - Reneau watching from a distance. There were too many such people in Tyrian Falls at the moment. Keeping to the shadows, to whispers. Watching from a distance. He didn't blame them. After all, he himself had a deadline to meet. The smithy needed to be completed and rebuilt. But he didn't like it. They couldn't rely on Sidor's spies alone to find all the Spiked. The last time, the villagers of Tyrian Falls had an entire group. They'd had the Jaist priest, Su, later killed in the mists. They'd had Aethex. They'd had Ellie. They'd had Dyring. They'd had Freddie, they'd had Edeis. All the villagers of Tyrian Falls, coming together in contention, in love for the village that was their home, to defend it. Now, a year later, it was as though they were more distant than they'd been. Aurelien hadn't really played a part in finding the Spiked the last time. He'd been preoccupied with his family. Perhaps he was part of the problem. But you didn't choose the times you were given. You merely existed in them, merely had to do your best. Merely had to decide what to do with the time that was given you. Too many lurked in the shadows, mingling. As though you could find Spiked through whispers. You had to find them in the light. You had to follow the patterns. The shadows and the ambiguity gave them greater room in which to hide, to maneuver. They had to cut that off. Playing the enemy's game was a sure path to defeat. Aurelien had learned that in a harsh slog in the highlands, when Fifth Cohort was sent to burn guarded warehouses belonging to House Erikell. That contract had come from House Tekiel themselves. Perhaps it was time to shine a light. He would watch Reneau. [OOC: Mint Heron]

[OOC: Two pages. Six votes. A total of twenty players. Ten hours to rollover. This is past Rollovet. I know this is New Year. I know it was just past Christmas. I know this is past the holidays. But this is how Tyrian games are lost. I get the "I only find suspicions past D3!" deal. But if you don't even remotely try, every day is essentially D1+. Do you think if we hang back long enough, a Seeker will save us? How do we even know if the Seeker is Village? Look. I get it. I'm just as guilty. I have an exam on Wednesday and I'm probably just dead screwed right now. I accept that I haven't been thread contributing, that everyone has RL. But from a game perspective, we cannot expect to win a Tyrian game on this level of anemic discussion. If the Elim team goes for straight-up noise kills, when the thread is like this, we are dead in the water. Dead in the snow. Whatever. This is one of the ways AG2 was lost. And AG1 as well. We cannot huddle in PMs and just ignore the thread. I see people checking into the thread and just vanishing. People, you gotta vote. What Dragonfly asked for ain't onerous. One vil read, one null read, one Elim read. And if you have a null read and an Elim read, then you jolly well can vote on them. No votes means no pressure. No pressure means Spiked happiness because they coast by. Vote me if that makes you feel happy. But you gotta vote. Or else we're just a walking dead village, lying down to get our throats cut. I repeat: I am cool with voting within the <Flamingo, Falcon, Heron> pool with a <Rhino> side. My vote is currently on Rhino. I'm happy to hear why I should vote someone else.]

? Rhino

Aurelien had the strangest feeling he'd forgotten something. Some of the villagers of Tyrian Falls had been confused by the cerise bracelet he wore, threads knotted together, a touchstone and a reminder that he was awake and he was with Flavia. ("So tell me how this works," said Wyson. "I don't know. I close my eyes. I open them," Aurelien said. "Same as you." He wasn't sure how he felt about this, about having to sit in her office and talk to him. Just...talk. As though everything that was wrong with the world, with Tyrian Falls since that shattering day Scimon Tlag had summoned up the wrath of a god in the market square could be resolved by words. "Let's just start at the beginning." "No," Aurelien said. The beginning was that day in the market square. The screams as Scimon Tlag pulled. As metal flew through the air, cutting down anyone in their path. He was trapped, pinned under part of the rubble. He was helpless. Livie, screaming. Flavia, cut down in front of his eyes as Hastler tried to shield her. Helpless. He closed his eyes. Opened them, staring at the person Hastler insisted he saw. For all the good it'd do. "Let's start it right now.") ("And this started happening since market square?" Aurelien swallowed. "Right after the funeral." Two funerals. He'd lived them twice, once for Flavia, once for Livie and Hastler. A knife in his chest. Hard to breathe. "What's the purpose of the knotted band?" He found his voice again, forced steel into it. "It's to help me keep things straight," he said. Matter-of-factly. "Green is Livie's favourite colour, and I wear the pink one when I'm with Flavia." He hated the pity he saw in her eyes. Or maybe it was understanding. Sympathy. He wanted none of it. "We come up with all sorts of ways to get through the loss of a loved one," Myra said, her hands folded in her lap. At least she'd stopped taking notes. "But your mind has simply created an entire reality, where your daughter and business partner survived." He scoffed. "What's so funny? What's wrong?" "That's exactly what the other doctor said.") ("An entire reality where your wife survived," Wyson said, and Aurelien swore he was going to punch Hastler for making him put up with these sessions. "But it's not real. And when you should be resting, your mind is holding up this detailed alternate reality. Moments of panic, lots of confusion - that's just the tip of the iceberg. I can help. But not if you don't let me." "I'm awake with my wife," Aurelien cut in. "I go to sleep, and then I'm awake with my daughter. Yes. I still see my wife and my daughter. So if you're telling me the price of seeing them, feeling them, of having them in my life is my sanity...It's a price I will happily pay. Trust me. When it comes to letting one of them go...I have no desire to ever make progress." Not market square. Never again.) Donn Keihote. [OOC: Penguin]. He had slipped Aurelien's mind. Perhaps another sign that the cracks were beginning to appear. Aurelien clenched his fists. No. He was not giving up on his family, no matter the price he had to pay. Forgettable enough...perhaps that was a warning sign. [OOC: Penguin is a null for me. Don't consider appearing at EoD to be significant because the trains were diluted enough Penguin probably didn't feel pressure anyway.] There was a case to be made for Algolac [OOC: Flamingo] as well, Aurelien thought. Algolac had shown up to voice suspicion of Donn Keihote and then subsequently faded into the background. A good place to be for one of the Spiked as Tyrian Falls milled about with no direction. [OOC: My issue with Flamingo is mostly a profile one. It was functionally a poke vote on Penguin, and one that stayed with little thread engagement. It just feels like a good place for the Spiked to slip in. Barring further contribution from Flamingo, I'm fine with where I stand on them.] Aurelien, too, distrusted the man who'd called himself a sheriff, whatever that was. Luciel Hood, that was the name. [OOC: Falcon.] With Falcon more than anyone else, it felt as though he was giving the man too much credit just for effort alone. He didn't like the fact that Hood'd picked out the manic Dragonfly, of everyone else, as though after a series of observations, all Hood could muster was a throwaway vote that was in the middle of nowhere. And then Hood'd faded back into the background subsequently, as though content to coast off the goodwill he had gained off his first foray into Tyrian Falls. [OOC: So I wasn't going to come back prior to finishing my revision but I belatedly realised the string marker might screw up my voting, so well... Anyway. I agree with Dingo but can't find a way to phrase it properly in RP. I continue to be unable to read Falcon as anything above null. I don't feel as though Falcon is seriously engaging with the thread - stab votes are fine, but Falcon dueled with Dingo and then mostly made some observations that felt very disconnected to what was going on. Falcon wasn't really minded to encourage discussion, not in the same way I'm getting off Tuat and Croc, which informs my better reads of them. In totality, I would feel better about the Dragonfly vote if any interaction happened off of it but basically nothing did. I'm moving off Mint Heron but would probably be okay going back to them, depending on whether my read of them does or doesn't improve. Worth highlighting as well that Ostrich more or less fell off the radar after D1 and deserves some attention too.] One way or another, they had to stop the Spiked. There wouldn't be a second market square incident. Aurelien swore it.

Reverse was dead. Stabbed by one of his own glass daggers. The rebuilding went on, though more subdued. They'd have to find someone else to source windows from, though that could wait until they worked on the artisan's studio they were rebuilding. Ghetti had been understanding. And so the rebuilding efforts went on. Life went on, even when you were at war. Even when you were in the middle of a siege. Damn it all, he'd liked Reverse. Reverse'd even offered to lend a hand to some of the rebuilding efforts. People had pitched in at first, but then stopped subsequently. Aurelien knew why. As more homes and businesses were rebuilt, people were slowly drawn back into their lives. But not all of them. For some of them, their lives had ended, cut down abruptly in the storm of metal that Scimon Tlag had summoned in the beating heart of Tyrian Falls. Jurald said, "Hell of a way to go." "Yeah," said Aurelien, even though he'd seen too many cut down in sieges, in raids, in the attacks the nobility of the Northern Dominance called down on each other. He figured it was still something fresh for Jurald. Jurald was new enough to Tyrian Falls, that he hadn't remembered either what happened in the last set of attacks from the Spiked. He remembered taking Flavia into his arms in the morning, when the word went out, holding her, as though his world began and ended with her. He'd nearly lost her. He'd so nearly lost her, to that thunderous, damning day in the market square. What good was any of it, if he couldn't protect the woman he loved, his own daughter, or his business partner? "Clear!" Keirasti called out, and Aurelien looked up to watch as the counterweight plummeted down towards him, sharply. Reflexively, he threw himself out of the way. "Lord Ruler damn it," Aurelien swore. "What the hells has gotten into you?" he demanded. "You know you need to make sure the area is clear before using the lift!" Keirasti blinked. "But...I didn't." Aurelien narrowed his eyes, and stared at her, but slowly reached the realisation that she wasn't lying. He went over to the lift mechanism that they'd been using to handle the roof structure of the smithy. The securing rope dangled, swinging loosely. No fraying. Neat. It had been cut. "Sabotage," Aurelien said, aloud. Someone on the crew was trying to stop rebuilding efforts, even kill them. Kill him. He made a fist about the loose end of the rope. He wasn't easy to kill. If they were going to try, he'd see them dead first. Had to, for his family. Perhaps it was time for the Bastard of Kosigan to emerge again. [OOC: Ok so I'm behind in my exams revision but also feel bad not doing anything much so I took some time off to make one concerted effort and will go back to my work after this. Apologies. This was done at about 60% Kjell effort. Day One Thoughts: Day One Reads: Night One Thoughts: Night One Reads: Meerkat's Current Thoughts: I see Mint Heron reading the thread and with a non-reaction to the votes on them. Not sure how that makes me feel. Weasel still looks a bit Evil to me, but on the whole, less Evil given his N1. I'm inclined to improve my read of Mouse to Mild Village for the clash with Crocodile which just feels like the sort of "Villagers will do weird drek" space with their hyperfocus on RP. I'm mildly alarmed by Rhino's post, due to FNG reasons. I feel it is courteous to give Rhino a cycle to get his feet under him, but at the same time, I note an AN is the perfect time to pull FNG. Watch carefully. Why? Croc posted fourteen minutes after the post went up. That's enough time to see the results. Also...why would you think Croc means an Elim? Why not read it as Croc slipping that he was, himself, a vote manip role? I don't understand why your chain of inference goes there. (Sorry Croc, but fair game public domain.) I continue to note I do not think I am capable of being objective on Ele, but I also do not E!read him, and I'm just going to go with my own feelings/thoughts. Current Reads: Italics indicate the read is uncertain and can be downgraded. Today, I am functionally fine with voting between <Heron, Flamingo, Falcon.> Back to exams revision for me. I never knew I could be so demotivated when it came to studying before :/ ] Edit: Apologies — Weasel should be in null today but italicised as potentially downgradeable.

[OOC: Terrifyingly, one of the GMs has mastered time travel. Receipts here: All hail the powers of the time travelling GM!]

[OOC: Subscribe to the Correspondence Theory of Truth and never feel out of touch with reality again! This message is brought to you by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Silverlight!] Edit: FWIW my current read of the Mouse/Croc clash is V/V. Either that or my Evildar is just broken, which I'm willing to accept as well. They're literally brawling over a point that is trivially true - that RP can carry information. Croc's dismissiveness of that didn't sit well with me but my read is that's Croc being Croc. Croc's real point is that Mouse defending RP was thin gruel for thread contribution. Mouse is attacking Croc for being too dismissive of RP, which is close to a 'you have bad reasons for your vote' type of line. But they're brawling over what is essentially a trivially true point and that hyperfocus just feels more Village to me. Going back to revision for real now though. Sigh.

[OOC: Killer migraine last night with the aftershocks lingering. Threw off my revision schedule so I don't expect to be able to RP right now. This might mean I also require more time before I can do a deep dive into the thread and a proper re-read. Everything following is based off what I currently have, which is unsystematic. V!read Tuatara. Tuatara being willing to V!read Croc publicly in thread early on is a good look in a low tempo cycle, where Elims do not necessarily have an incentive to kickstart discussion. It shows a focus on solving the game IMO and reflects a Villager solving mindset. On further reflection, I take the point about Tuatara's 'indubitably not Spiked' to be a good look for him - if E!Tuatara is thinking enough to write two sentences after that phrase further clarifying it and as a disclaimer, he is thinking enough to realise it looks bad and to delete it from his post rather than to keep digging. His clash with Hyena felt rather V/V to me, with Tuatara actively trying to bring information from his PM to inform a read of Hyena. V!read Hyena. Hyena made it clear that she has been thinking about players consistently, what with her early RP-couched invitation to Tuatara to further clarify (after his bombshell statement), and her catch of 'indubitably not Spiked.' Making PMs as a substitute for solving is sus. That's not what Hyena is doing here. Again, the clash between her and Tuatara felt V/V to me, I think because it seemed like Hyena had been genuinely thinking about Tuatara. V!read Croc. I am not certain of this one and it might bite me, but Croc's go-getter attitude is a positive, in my eyes. There's a world in which he is Evil, but it's not one I'm keen to explore at this point in time. V!read Dragonfly. This is not a strong read, but I feel that Dragonfly's vote looks good - late, sus, didn't make sense, and little reason for E!Dragonfly to get involved in a V/V train. I qualify this read because that might exactly be why E!Dragonfly wants to get involved, but the gamble is: A. you look really bad if the player you voted for flips, and B. the usual order of priority is to lynch you first, then the CW, because the CW flipping Village doesn't really settle the question of your alignment. So this tips me a bit more towards V!Dragonfly. If there is a Coinshot, light V read. If there is a Mistborn with Steel, I'm more eh about it but still lean V. I am not sure that the Elims decide to help us flip two of the lead C1 wagons this early. That might be a bit too informationally generous. V lean on Elephant. I don't think being pro-Smoking is a position an Elim likes to consciously assume - compare to E!Wiz's reaction in LG90 on the N1 death of a Smoker. (Man, Tyrian games are rough on Smokers... This is the real Tyrian curse to break.) Not a strong read. I am somehow wary to V!read Falcon because it feels like an effort clear and I am not sure why. Commit to looking at Falcon as soon as my draft is done. I'm going back onto Mint Heron - I still don't really like the way they hedged that vote. It felt overly-defensive, as though Heron was pre-flipping Iguana.]

[OOC: Is there a particular reason why you are interested in making a non-game related post specifically game related? Why would I not bring it up in the thread? Indigo explicitly voted Dingo, as Dingo pointed out, for posting with right-aligned text. He was voted on for a playstyle choice that annoyed Weasel, and Weasel proceeded not to find anything suspicious for the rest of the cycle despite reading the thread, so the vote stayed. I am responding to a player who chose to act on his annoyance by voting on a player and keeping the vote there for how the player chose to play the game. What do I hope to achieve? I'm drawing a line in the sand. I think this is a matter of principle. Voting on a player for a playstyle choice (not a particularly annoying one at that, with the player expressing willingness to accommodate) is at the very least abrasive and unfriendly. If done in a sustained and aggressive manner, it becomes bullying. We do not bully players for their playstyle choices. I will speak out against it when I see it. You are welcome to disagree. The lesson I take away from AG7 is that going from zero to a full-out policy lynch is undesirable. The lesson I take away from AG7 is that the one point every single player in the game failed on is that no one told Ventyl that blackmail was unacceptable or made a clear statement about the matter. No one tried to intervene, until Orlok did. And by then, it was too late to keep the situation from exploding. You can argue the result was mod passivity. I invite you to speak to the GMs or the IM in your PM about their view about how proactive the mods can be in dictating community values. Sure, Albatross. We can make this game not one of the bad AGs to remember. That starts with you. Do you choose to dismiss players who note that this is bordering behaviour unwelcome in SE and indeed, to try to wrap their concerns in game-talk by attempting to ascribe a read on the basis of this? Or do you choose to say it is just a joke? If it is a joke, it is one that landed poorly in light of Weasel's past behaviour. Now that the issue has been resolved, do you choose to continue to make this an issue? Or do you choose to actually go find Spiked? Community before game for me, every single time, without fail. But of course, that is what Kasimir would say, and I am RPing as Kasimir, as you have so astutely pointed out.]

[OOC: This was part of my CR planned before the game. And not to put too fine a gloss on it, Indigo, but you're kinda being an arse about it. I refuse to believe, given your current level of engagement with the game, that a couple of posts that are right aligned are so utterly damaging to your enjoyment of the game that you can't cope with it. This isn't even a style that makes posts difficult to read or obscures it. I am not doing something like this, which is insanely frustrating to read. There is an actual point to the formatting where my CR is concerned. I am also happy to OOC annotate actual points that I have to make. Right now all I see is both Dingo and myself willing to make accommodations, and you deciding to be mad about this one thing. You may engage me or Dingo via the GMs or the IM if you continue to have issues.]

Aurelien watched as Taltin Keriell dangled from the hempen noose. He was no stranger to death. Not after having dealt it for years and years. But watching the crowd surge out of the tavern, dragging Taltin Keriell with it...the image was seared into his mind. Men and women and children on pikes. Keep Uethorn put to the torch. The strong sound of siege engines, the engines of war, battering down the walls of the Keep as the Iron Hawks waited on the outside to breach, to bring the House low. Noble blood and skaa blood stained his blade the same. He had turned away from war, from crafting the machines of war. But now, Flavia was dead (his mind shied away from the shattering moment of Scimon Tlag's last stand, the last, petulant laugh of a cheated god) and his first thought was to shield Livie, to keep her safe. He hoped desperately, fervantly that the Sendlars had not taken her to the market square this day. He rubbed at the worn string, tied about at his wrist, worrying at the knotted strands. "A dark business," said Hastler. They had stopped work on Dyring's Inn as the crowd surged past them, drunk on fear and fury. "Fear always is," Aurelien said, and he tried not to think about what they might do, if they knew about Livie. If they knew about Livie's blood. The fear was caged tightly in his chest, pattering against the roof of his mouth. The Bastard of Kosigan was dead, purged from the books of House Kosigan, buried under years of brick and sawdust, but moments like this brought him back to the fore again. Some of the townsfolk had begun to whisper suspicion of Dragonfly. He struggled to understand why Dragonfly was suspicious. Perhaps if one thought that Dragonfly had acted in a calculated ploy, but Dragonfly's panic did not seem false coin. And there was little reason for Dragonfly to panic and attempt to save Taltin Keriell. "Well," Hastler said. "Enough work for a night." The roof of Dyring's Inn had partly collapsed. They had to dig out the tiling and slowly brace new timbers and then place in the roofing again. A slow setting of the world to rights. "Tomorrow," said Aurelien, a promise and answer both. Edit: [OOC: It is tempting to read this as slightly Village. Iguana flipped Rioter. Therefore, it is trivially true that at least one player had vote manipulation.

[OOC: I did not play in AN12, but a quick scan of the game indicates that Falcon was not in fact caught early on - he seems to have jumped. Players got sidetracked. Gosh, that game was just weird mechanically. Only Araris thought that Falcon's opening mass PMs was suspicious, and that had more to do with the circumstances of the mass PMs (excessiveness, lack of any other interest in the thread.) Illwie also had a vote on Falcon, I believe. I would assume this is why you say 'weakly argue' but I find the choice of AN12 just a very odd comparator because whilst he did not publicly announce he was doing so, AG8 Spiked Cham did very well for himself opening mass PMs. He even managed to influence low activity players to lynch Archer D2 via them. Falcon is a case I don't believe has a good comparator because he was opening every possible permutation of group PM to the point the GM was cursing and swearing at him. That's startlingly different from opening one on one PMs with every player. However, it is time for me to properly focus on studying and to not get dragged into every small point.]

[OOC: I think it is far easier and more conducive for clarity if I continue to do this in OOC text. I also do not currently have the time on my hands to couch this in RP, as much as I have been enjoying this and Aurelien's planned character arc. I do not have a strong opinion on Cham, so Cham is functionally null to me, potentially a negative null, due to the stability of his vote. We do not have any PM interactions as I am not a very talkative person in PMs. I would not rule out at least one of the Spiked deciding to be assertive and assume thread control, but this has been an exceptionally low tempo D1, so I feel it is the sort of environment conducive to Spiked (and very arguably, Village) complacency. Philosophically, if I do not read a player, I am indifferent to their dying on D1. My view and my retraction on Hyena comes down to several things: -The altercation was me trying to find a RP way of talking about Tuatara's suspicions of Hyena. I think it is a good starting place for pressure: that is, mourning the lack of discussion but not particularly taking interest in doing something about it. At the same time, I have (you will, I am afraid, have to take my word for this) mislynched players before for this exact reason. This is why I believe it is a good starting place for pressure, but also stated in the post that I wanted to hear from Hyena. Emphases mine: I think you need to pressure the player to get a sense of whether it is Spiked performativity, a player with a lack of confidence in handling thread discussion, or a player who is unable to do so. The fact that this is an anonymous game without access to player history only makes the need for a response and a gauge more acute. -I do not see substantive value from placing a third vote on Hyena to pressure Hyena at this juncture. Hyena being tied in the lead will do just fine to elicit the response I want, I did get pinged by Heron's post, and I generally like midcycle ties - I think it is valuable to get a sense of players' priorities. There is a trade-off between broadening the voting pool and anchoring a train, but as this is D1, and there was at least twelve hours and thirty five minutes left in the cycle when I voted Heron instead -So in short, my response to your question is that I feel your question is a loaded one and I disagree with the framing. Trading off against D1 reasons feels like a crapshoot. I am more interested in whether it makes sense or generates value to have my vote where it is. And if it does not, then I will move it. ED1T: Omitted a word up there - if I do not Village read a player, and I have been fairly open about my Village reads thus far, then I am indifferent to their dying on D1. I also did not complete the sentence due to getting distracted by my homework. I should say that I felt the trade off was worthwhile given the time left in the cycle.]

[OOC: Unfortunately, I do not have the time to package this in RP. So OOC it is. Slight positive to Dingo for being this blase despite being close to being a lead train. However, only a little - it is not exactly the eleventh hour, and we do not know if there is Emotional Allomancy in the offing. Whilst I have been immensely enjoying Dingo's RP and thus do not wish to see him dead this early, I had not registered that Cham also had a vote on Hyena, which moderately alters my calculus. Consequently, I am minded to vote Mint Heron - I am a little thrown by the defensiveness and self-consciousness in the framing of his vote. I believe this should leave us with a series of ties, and I would be interested to see what the Americans desire to do with it. When, I suppose, I have the energy required to process it. Which will come after finishing revision. ]

[OOC: Gosh, that checks out!] It was a quiet morning, and the market square thronged with Tyrianers; lingering, laughing, gossiping without any particular sense of urgency. Aurelien sat on an upended crate and ate his baywrap. The remnants of the shattered clay bricks were strewn over the ground. Marv was mad as all fires, but that couldn't be helped. Part of Aurelien wondered if it was sabotage. His hands clenched tightly about his baywrap. Unthinkable to someone who had grown up in Tyrian Falls, perhaps. But there were the events of the past year. And he remembered a time of siege and smoke, when the Iron Hawks had been sent to raid properties belonging to House Erikeller. Tyrian Falls was a long way from where he'd grown up. But Aurelien had learned a long time ago that home was where your people were. Once, his people had been Fifth Cohort of the Iron Hawks. Perhaps he'd aspired to more. It was as the smokestack from the bakery's chimney now. He thought of going over, surprising Flavia. He had just risen to his feet when Marv grunted, "There's a sheriff in town." "A what?" "Dunno," said Marv. "Guardsman, maybe. Haven't heard that word before." "What about him?" Aurelien asked, settling back down on his crate. "Asking questions. Taking notes." A dirty bandage was now wrapped neatly about Jurald's thumb. It had been clean earlier, but the work had disagreed with the cloth. Aurelien chose his words carefully. He'd been an intelligencer, a long time ago, for a job. People always thought you were as thick as two bricks if you stood by your principal's side, and glared, showed some bicep, and said little. And if you were a mercenary. "One of Sidor's?" "Outsider," Keirasti interjected. "Bad time for one to come by." "True," said Aurelien, thoughtfully. "Asking questions isn't bad though." Privately, he thought that people weren't taking the threat of the Spiked as seriously as they could be. If this sheriff was asking questions about the Spiked, and in general, being thoughtful, then that gave him a somewhat better gloss, in Aurelien's eyes. Rumour had begun to spread all around the marketplace about some altercation between Willam and Aylia. Far as Aurelien could tell, he didn't really disagree with Willam there. If Willam were truthful, that seemed reasonable grounds for suspicion. Though he'd very much like to hear Aylia's side of things. There was always a fine line between malevolence, incompetence, and lack of confidence. He'd learned that with Fifth Cohort. But you always had to probe, anyhow. That was the way these things worked. Then there was old man Ciril. Half the market square had heard him shout about the need for Smokers. Perhaps strangely, while Aurelien had his reservations about Ciril, he sort of liked the boldness of that statement. Perhaps it was meant as a lure, to see who bit, who protested, and maybe figure out that those people were Seekers. He nearly scoffed at the idea. As if Tyrian Falls were some hotbed of Allomancy! But no, it took a particular sort of boldness to assume that sort of position, and Aurelien figured that if Ciril were Spiked, he was a bold one. OOC: I have an exam next week, and it is eating into my time more than I would like, so I think I am going to state upfront that I will be less free than I would like to be. I do not want to actually be doing any close reading or serious playing until I have at least finished the first round of revisions because I am prone to getting distracted. This means I will functionally be scarce until at least Sunday.

[OOC: Oh my goodness gracious, are you speaking Dutch now?] Willam looked like he was practising some public speaking in the half-rebuilt market square. As the team worked on the wrecked smithy, Aurelien couldn't help but overhear snatches of conversation. Seemed like the Terrisman was in want of a noble to serve. He shook his head. Nobles weren't exactly thick on the ground, here in Tyrian Falls. Might as well expect to find one buried in sawdust. Still, he wasn't fully minded to agree with Willam. Perhaps it spoke well of him that the one who referred to himself as the Obli-gator was asking questions, but anyone with time on their hands and no real job to mind could do that. It spoke to a certain kind of civic-mindedness, but it felt cheap, like the way his soldiers in Fifth Cohort sometimes pretended to drill instead of doing it. Sure, he'd give the Obli-gator some credit, but that was as far as it went. Willam he found more interesting. Willam had wanted purpose. Surely finding the Spiked among them would count as some form of purpose. The fact the steward had been actively seeking or thinking about townsfolk on an otherwise quiet morning, full of people jawing off and sawing the air about private correspondences that Aurelien didn't particularly care about - it spoke at least a little well of Willam. It was a start.

[OOC: Bi-lal kaifa!]

[OOC: Short braided string is #ff3366, which is not by a reasonable definition red.]

Townsfolk were gathering about the market square. Maybe more than Aurelien had seen in a while. The market square was taking a lot of work. It had been the eye of the storm, the epicentre of the destruction that had torn through Tyrian Falls, as though fueled by something more than the rage of a spiked melon merchant. Aurelien shook his head and continued to hammer the nail into the beam. He'd seen worse: manors and fortifications under siege, and the aftermath. He had even been paid to bring about reckonings in steel and fire before. But what was true in the Iron Hawks was just as true, working with one of the many rebuilding teams in Tyrian Falls. Hastler's absence still gaped. Aurelien tapped away at the nail with his hammer. The beam had to brace the half-collapsed smithy on the edge of the market square. Edric and his apprentice had long since moved out. You had to get down in the sawdust and the seasoned wood with everyone. That was the way it worked in the Hawks. You couldn't just give instructions, and detail the work. People trusted you more if you were willing to get yourself as dirty as the rest of them. "Rust," Jurald swore, as the saw bit into the edge of his thumb. But he'd pulled away in time. It was a nick, nothing more, quickly staunched. "Pay attention," Aurelien said, mildly. "Yeah, but have you heard?" Jurald glanced about them, as the rest of the repair team worked on the broken smithy. "Sidor's making an announcement. Word got out before her, though. One of hers," he said that with a touch of distaste, for Sidor's uncanny eyes and ears were rumoured to be this side of unnatural. "Looks like sabotage." "Sabotage!" Keirasti repeated. "Whatever next?" "Aye," Jurald lowered his voice. "They say the Spiked did it. Caught someone, even." "But they rooted out the last of them, last year," Keirasti protested. She set down her own saw, before she would follow Jurald's example. "Sidor killed Scimon Tlag in the market square." Her eyes flicked over to the torn pavingstones, where it was said you could still see the last spurt of Scimon Tlag's blood. Aurelien didn't abide by that foolishness for a second. He could all but hear Hastler's voice. "Or they thought they got them all." Nita said, "You don't think they found everyone?" "Brace the beam for me," Aurelien told her. He moved to the other side, selected a nail, and began to drive it in. "How would we know?" he asked, rhetorically. "If this place was worth killing for once, it's worth killing for again." Spiked in Tyrian Falls. He still saw Keep Uethorn on fire, some nights. Now, he just woke up. "Anyone saw Onidsen lately?"

Aurelien opened his eyes. He felt the moment of waking panic, like the precarious second before falling. Then the world righted itself. Flavia was still asleep, and he put his arm around her, taking in her warm presence. Listened to the peaceful rise and the fall of her breathing. Still alive, he thought. He had to hold on to that. He missed Livie already, with a fierce ache that never seemed to go away. Eventually, he had to rise. It was supposed to be an early morning and Hastler knew—Ah. He was seeing to the debris in the market square. A year from the day, and they were beginning to undo some of the damage the Spiked had done to Tyrian Falls. A single melon merchant with a spike had done so much damage. Yesterday, they were reinforcing the structural supports around some of the stalls. A year from the day, and still, Aurelien couldn't grasp what it felt to wake up to that empty room, or the empty chair in the office. Gently, he shook Flavia awake, and leaned away as she batted at him. "Go 'way," Flavia mumbled. "Morning," said Aurelien. He couldn't hide his smile. Flavia had never been a morning person. "It's too early." "Bakery's got to be open," Aurelian said, shaking her lightly again. "And I've got to see to the market square repairs." Flavia blinked awake, yawning. "How's it coming along?" Slow, without Hastler. "It's going," said Aurelian. He bent down and stole a swift kiss. "I need to get down to the site. Love you." He picked up the short braided string from the bedside table, and looped it about his wrist until it was secure.

Why not? Two elims are in bodies they didn't start with and there's still third out there.

All it takes is one misdirection, and the game is over. Amber Vulture, Oxblood Beagle.

I'm pretty sure Vulture not hopping because they're Falcon would mean that the D3 vote for Swan to save Weasel was primarily village driven. Coral Swan (4): Chartreuse Penguin, Salmon Meerkat, Indigo Weasel(purple=elim), Ivory Dragonfly, Amber Vulture Indigo Weasel (1): Coral Swan, Melon Dingo If that's true then Dragonfly is a prime candidate to be then-Weasel/now-Vulture's teammate, but also means that no other elims bothered to try and save Weasel and they easily could have died up until the very end of the turn. The vote manipulation here is strange but if an elim tried to riot without voting for Swan it doesn't show. Overall points to a team containing Taken Vulture including someone who was inactive D3 (Beagle, Hyena, Crocodile). Or Vulture could always be a non-Kandra elim. Or maybe we're just completely wrong.

I'll be able to post more later this cycle probably. I think there's at least two elims in [Vulture, Dragonfly, Beagle, Dingo]. Scorpion is clear. Crocodile isn't a concern until she comes back. Hyena voted Vulture which makes me feel better about them unless it happens that Vulture is village. I can see an elim team without Vulture but it would have been easier for them to go for Vulture yesterday instead of Penguin or Scorpion so I think Amber Vulture is a good choice for today.

Those votes make me feel even better about Scorpion and make Hyena more likely village. Between Vulture and Dragonfly I think the former is more likely to be evil, but they could both be. Dingo's vote for Weasel was good but now I'm reevaluating somewhat, though they're still not the most likely elim. Beagle's vote is weird. Scorpion doesn't make much sense as a vote but also an attempt to save Vulture should have been on Penguin. That makes some sense as e-e if the intention was for Vulture to switch to Scorpion last minute and then they bailed on that when I voted Penguin, but that's only if they had a clear preference for wanting Scorpion dead over a village claimed Smoker.