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He gave a wink, the kind that gave nothing away, and smiled. “A wild guess. I do wonder, however.” He drew his pistol, and lazily pointed it at Tuare’s face, drawing back the hammer. An unspoken threat, and a warning not to move. “Would you happen to have a way out of Shadesmar?” @Ark1002

Sixty three. An implicit confirmation. His gloat gave away an arrogance, and Alum found it likely that he would have taken an incorrect guess as high ground to lord over him. Blackbane, backbreaker powder. It eliminated gurwraith, birchbain, tompher, blackblood... too many to count. All eliminated. Sixety one. First option: backbreaker powder. It could be mixed into a solution, but that would decrease its effectiveness - only a small amount was injected. He doubted it could even be absorbed. It was strong, when ingested by mouth, but had a known antidote. He had some samples back at his headquarters. Unlikely. It wasn’t as effective, intravenously, and was probably nonsoluble. He removed it. Fifty nine. That left blackbane. Stronger than backbreaker, soluble, easy to come by and hard to cure. It wasn’t as subtle as backbreaker, with a bitter taste that was hard to disguise. But that wasn’t an issue when you weren’t playing fair. Fifty seven. The Ghostblood was speaking. He ignored the words. Was there a cure? He struggled to remember. Possibly. Medicine on Roshar was fairly advanced. He would have to reference his notes. Eight seconds. Ten heartbeats. Fifty five. The Ghostblood summoned a Blade, holding it to his neck. Tuare asked if he should be killed now. He smiled disarmingly. “What’s the point of poisoning someone if you’re just going to stab them later? Just let the blackbane do the work.” Alum leaned backwards, pretending to lie down to keep away from the blade. The pain had travelled to his arm now, reaching his shoulder. A hundred and fourty nine. @Ark1002 (EDIT: 300th post!)

Hundred and sixty four. No response yet. Alum watched as cognitive shadows began to flicker into view. Both Ghostbloods and Liebrarians appearing, briefly. An intermediate stage. He saw the Spiked dog who he had talked to earlier come into view. It didn’t appear to notice him, and uttered a final goodbye. In fact, none of the dying shadows appeared to notice them. @Ark1002

Alum withdrew his hand, and stared at the small pinprick on his hand. A needle. Needles meant injections, medicine, ventilation... Poison. One look at the glint in Tuare’s eyes, and he knew. It was poison. How could it be anything else? A burning sensation in his veins. Either fast-acting or a huge overdose. Either way, he only had minutes. On the outside. He started a clock in his mind, gave it three at the absolute most. A hundred and eighty. A hundred and seventy nine. Three minutes to live. Make them count. He stepped backwards to avoid further attacks, and said, “That’s not even playing fair,” to keep Tuare occupied. But he was barely paying attention - he could have started Horneater victory laps and it would barely register. Alum was thinking over poisons. Could he find a cure in time? Start with the needle. Injecting poison only came with modern medicine. Roshar, later Scadrial. Sel, probably. Maybe Nalthis, at some point. He didn’t know. He just had to hope it wasn’t something he hadn’t heard of. The name. He was likely going to prefer something from his homeland. No repeated consonants, so probably not Nalthis. Not Scadrian. Rosharan was a possibility. He’d wager Selish - all those vowels. A burning sensation in his arm, spreading up to his shoulder. A circuit round the bloodstream, up to the brain and that’s all he would write. Hundred and seventy. Alum felt a twinge of panic. Not enough information, not with the amount of time he had. He slumped next to a nearby rock outcropping, feigning defeat. “That’s strong.” He rubbed his hand. One hundred and one. “A Rosharan concoction, maybe?” The alleystorm swept towards them. It seemed strong on this side. Stronger than the stormwardens had predicted. Perhaps, if they were lucky, strong enough. Alum wouldn’t see the storm hit. He realised that, now. It was too far away. All this time and he wouldn’t see it through. A hundred and sixty five.

And a historian gets an extra four pages of threads to worry about.

“Excellent.” He took the Tuare’s hand, not noticing the shimmer, and transported. The sun of Shadesmar flickered into view overhead. At the exact same moment, the troops leapt into action. Elantrians began to draw Aons, designed to be as inefficient as possible. The hounds of the Bloodsealers pounced, diving for the Ghostblood troops. Those using ChayShan began their dance behind the Elantrians, attuning themselves with the Dor. Nicrosil mistings chose their targets and enhanced them. The Dor was powerful, yes, but it was also finite, its resources finite. The barrier drew from it. If another source tried to use enough Dor, then the barrier would weaken. Enough, perhaps, to punch a hole through.

Alum carefully ignored the alternate, easier solutions Mack pointed out in order to enhance the dramatic effect. Several Selish Forgers began to mutter. They had noticed the sudden consumption of Dor. “That’s what they always say. They tend to change their minds.” He kept his arm extended. “If we are to fight, then I’d rather shake your hand before we begin. Nothing personal, you understand. More of a professional interest.”

The group stopped walking. Human nature - a giant portal opened up in front of them, something that they couldn’t quite identify, and they stopped what they were doing. Curiosity will give overruled instructions. He noticed Fangblade walking beside him. “Do as the others do. Defend the divisions.” Alum gave a signal to the magic users, which they understood. The Liebrarians had anticipated resistance and prepared accordingly. He had doubted the ideas at the time. Now it seemed almost prescient. It had been too much to hope for to go unnoticed. He stepped forward, doing his best to appear unphased. “The Ghostbloods, eh? It’s an honour. Such a big part of history... you really changed the world. Shaped the geography, even. I don’t believe we’ve met.” He extended a hand towards the person who seemed to be in charge. “I’m Alum. If you think this is a bad idea, I’m sure we can talk it over and come to a peaceful resolution. Your name is?”

It was done. What had once been a simple scholarly interest had now become a single-minded obsession, heedless of the politics that funded it. With Pyrus by his side he worked over the magic, compiling decades of knowledge into a single scalpel of work, aimed at the brick wall of a problem that had tormented him for weeks. Months, maybe. He had lost track of time. The Liebrarian’s goal was simple: Get past the barrier wall. Behind the simplicity lay endless reams of layered hurdles. The DA had designed the barrier to be impossible to penetrate. It extended below the ground, a perfect sphere surrounding the Worldspike, blocking off all three Realms from matter and energy and investiture alike. Rashan's works had outlined the basics. The detainment unit had supplied the rest. You needed Administrator access to enter the barrier. The Administrator was stuck inside. An unforseen catch-22 made access inside virtually impossible. It had taken a few days to find a possible loophole, with assistance from the detainment unit. A month to experiment and find the parameters of that loophole, and exactly how far things needed to be stretched to break the barrier. Many more months to refine their plan and organise it. Alum had scoured the city for people with specific types of investiture, visited other worlds to read in the great libraries of Elantris and Kharbranth, and experimented with various weather phenomenons. It had all come together now. The meeting had been set carefully, in accordance with the predictions of the stormwards. The timing would have to be perfect. They made an odd group. A tired Azish man with a spren on his shoulder, standing next to a being made of light, formed out of Selish symbols. Various Liebrarians moved about, checking the preparations. Finally, groups of magic users, hand-picked, filled the rest of the street that led up towards the barrier. A division of Nicrobursters sourced locally. Those had been the hardest to find. Easier to recruit were Elantrians, Bloodsealers, Chay-Shan users and Forgers, each making up their own small crews. Exactly two dozen recruits in total. The wind began to pick up from behind, heralding the beginning of the operation. An Alleystorm was brewing; one of the strongest yet, the stormwardens had assured him. He wondered if it was enough. There was a joke, somewhere, in the fact that he had spent all this time labouring over the project and he still didn't know if it would work. He turned to face the others, and they quieted. The release of Voidus and the guardian would shape the face of this planet. "Ladies and gentlemen. The Alleystorm is building. It's time to approach the barrier. Anyone who wishes to assist us is free to do so. The plan begins now." The group moved forward, down the street. A hundred metres of wide alleyway lay between them and their goal. Alum wondered if anyone would try to stop them. Time to break the barrier.

Release of Voidus is going up later today as another option for the battle.

@Whoever is taking the census I’m shifting my representation from the Craftsmen to the Diagramists.

Newcago is the only one. There are other Guild cities, but they’re part of the RP and not separate (sort of - I believe there has been crossover, just not recently) like the Court.

Newcago Court is generally accepted as a canonical but seperate RP - it has its roots in the beginning of the Alleyverse and is considered to have begun it. It will have a different governmental system to the Alleycity as they’re already a monarchy - as we have no power over Newcago, the Queen has no power over us unless we enter her domain.

I would be willing to organise the census to collect data, if others were amiable to my neutrality. (This probably doesn’t mean I’ll be able to dictate who is a Great Guild, just that I’ll be able to provide data to that effect.) I’m not sure about weighting the votes by how many people have joined - it causes the large guilds to get larger and the small to get smaller. I think we’d be fine in using a simple majority vote, except in the case of a tie.

I would like to join His Majesty’s guild.

Could minor guilds not have the requirement to have people primarily affiliate with them? I’d think otherwise people would just flock to larger guilds.

I’d actually encourage the non-affiliated to join new guilds, mainly in order to add guilds beyond the big three. Just limiting it to three wouldn’t be unfortunate, but it does limit things somewhat. EDIT: Are the Ghostbloods and GUESS still being separated even though the acquisition is contentious? As the Ghostbloods belong to the DA, should they be allowed to be involved? (I think they should be, but it would mean a subclause in the rulebooks.)

I think while complex governmental ideas are fun, we should really try to decrease the level of complexity - simply having it so each great guild has a representative and all the representatives vote on laws can still provide a lot of interesting opportunities, without drowning out people with complex rule systems. We can have a more complex government be canon to the RP, but have it so that it’s not necessary to understand to get involved in the politics.

I am informed by trustworthy sources that the Metamorphosis plot has to be finished before the wedding commences. With the current plan to introduce the era-ending plotline following or during the wedding, that puts the projected end of the Era well into January or perhaps even early February, thus missing the time that I think most people are aiming for. I am therefore wondering what is to be done. Should we commence the era-ending event early, and allow it and Metamorphosis to run parallel? Or should we delay the end of the era? A lot of work is being put into Era 3 reforms, and I would like to see those on a fairly soon basis, but I don’t want the people involved in Metamorphosis to feel compelled to rush their RP or bring it to a premature close. The best solution I can think of is to allow the era-ending event to run parallel to Metamorphosis, with the wedding concluding the era. I’m wondering what everyone thinks of that idea. (The event I currently have planned - although I’m willing to defer to better ideas that have a general consensus - is a Voidus release conflict.) @Ookla the Meeker, in particular.

I’m not really going to cover anything that’s on the Coppermind. My focus is history and thread summarizations. To a lesser extent past characters.

The problem with having a police force controlled by one person that is also able to make laws is... problematic. I’d be happy to see them as enforcement (that would actually be really cool), but only if they weren’t allowed to make legal judgements. Someone else has to declare a person as breaking the law in order for the Precursors to take action against them. I’d also imagine that the lawbreakers would be fairly powerful, meaning that it would be difficult for them to be caught.

The previous Mediator betrayal was a long and complex tale involving at least three factions and a lot of double-crossing. (Seriously, era one was complicated.)

If the DA gets no say (and I’d prefer an explicit OK from DA members if we wanted to do that) then we’d probably go for something like ‘the DA doesn’t count as a Great Guild’ - you can affiliate with it, and its non-Great status doesn’t affect their RP abilities, but it can’t be your primary affiliation.

No issue. It’s not something that’s ever affected me or anyone I know, but it is the sort of thing that could cause problems.

Most active members aren’t involved in guilds currently. I’d love to see that start to change. With more people involved, we could start to see guilds take more prominence. (I definitely don’t want to make guild membership mandatory, but encouraging it would be excellent.) If there were 5+ active members in each great guild, then we could start to see more roles among them. There are many subjects that I don’t want to go remotely near, and this is one of them.