ATM II RPG

[Kath]

A lie! Igör was shocked. Alli knew he couldn’t, yet still she asked him to do it. Just this once, Alli needs you to, just a little exaggeration. The voices clamoured inside his head, trying to persuade him to give in to the temptation and break the oath he made all those years ago, to always be truthful. Why was it that his past caught up with him at the most inopportune moments? Shuddering at the thought Igör shoved the traitorous voices aside, and tried to concentrate on thinking of a way around this problem.

As he did his eyes ran over the diplomats from Gondor. Well, one eye ran over them, the other rolled itself and generally misbehaved, trying to make the foreigners uncomfortable. From the looks on their faces it seemed to be succeeding. The oldest one looked particularly disgusted, but then he hadn’t looked anything but for the past half an hour so this was nothing to be particularly proud of. Igör grinned at him to try and put him at ease, but the stitching around his mouth stretched as he did so, and he remembered too late that this tended to cause fear and nausea rather than the intended effect.

Sighing quietly he went back to his musings. Two truths and a lie, two truths and a lie. No, there was just no way he could do this by the rules and still remain true to himself. Therefore, the rules would just have to be bent a little. Alli called this an ice-breaker, and all that meant was getting the diplomats to actually talk to each other. Well if this little ruse worked then they should be talking alright.

Standing up he flipped his hair back over his shoulder, gaining him puzzled glances from the two male diplomats and spoke.

“I live in Mordor.”
“I never tell lies.”
“Not one part of my body was originally mine.”

He sat down again and waited. Of course they all knew the first statement was true, and it would be hard to believe that the third wasn’t, so . . .

“Well.” Came a confident voice. “Of course the lie is that you never tell lies.”

Igör carefully smiled, making sure the result looked friendly rather than carnivorous this time, and shook his head.

“No, sir. That is a truth.”

“But if you never tell lies then how can you be playing this game?”

“Yes!” Came another voice. “That woman said one statement must be a lie, but if that one is not then – ”

She never did get to finish, as one of the Mordorian ambassadors interrupted.

“That woman happens to be Alli Umfuil! You’ll speak of her with more respect if you know what’ good for you!”

“The, thing, is obviously lying. No one can live without ever telling a lie.”

“Well then how do you explain – ”

And so the argument continued. Mordorians were speaking to Gondorians. Ok so it was via argument, but whoever said they were going to get on? To be fair, in some places around the room opposite sides were arguing the same point, with Gondorians arguing against their fellow diplomats. Perhaps it wasn’t quite how Alli had intended it to go, but it was working!

Sitting back, Igör waited for Ms. Martinet to decide that she’d had enough. There was no point in him trying to stop this now, but a few sharp words from her and everyone would settle back down.

[Diamond18]

Skittles squeezed her eyes shut and stuck her fingers in her eyes. Oh, the noise! Oh, the Noise! Noise! Noise! Noise! That’s one thing she hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Not having the patience to wait for that crazy Martinet woman to do something, she took matters into her own hands, leaping up onto a table and removing her fingers from her ears only to place them in her mouth. She uttered a whistle so shrill and painful that the entire room fell into a stunned silence. Someone whimpered.

“That’s better,” said Skittles, and sat down on the table, crossing her legs underneath her.

“Thank you, Nancy,” said Martinet, wincing. “Maybe you want to go next?”

Skittles looked around expectantly. No one made a sound, and they were all staring at her, the freaks. “Well fine, if Nancy’s not going to say anything, I’ll go next,” she volunteered, finding the silence boring and the scrutiny annoying. “Knock, knock. Who’s there? Alli. Alli who? Alluminé Umnfuíl! Ha ha ha ha!” She slapped a knee and doubled over with laughter.

Only after a moment did she realize that no one else was laughing.

“Two truths and a lie, MacFarlewyn.” Martinet seemed to be speaking through gritted teeth, now. What a prune.

Skittles shrugged.

“The world is flat.
I’m a bat.
For lunch I ate a cat.”

“How perfectly dreadful,” said the old Gondorian, Heimlichmaneuver or whatever his name was.

“Ain’t it though?” Skittles replied proudly.

“You are obviously not a bat,” said a younger Gondorian man with long black hair. What was his name again...? Barrowgod. “So that must be the lie. The truths, therefore, are that the world is flat and you ate a cat for lunch.”

“Ha ha ha ha! No,” Skittles gloated. “I didn’t eat anything for lunch! Try again, Barrowgod.”

The man visibly twitched. “Bearugard. My name is Bearugard.”

“Meh. Same diff.” She looked at the other diplomats. “Well?”

“But you are not a bat,” insisted a young blonde boy with an angelically evil face. “So that’s two lies.”

“Also, I fail to see what the shape of the world has to do with yourself, and our instructions were to tell two truths and a lie about ourselves,” said Bearugard.

Skittles shrugged. “Bored now.” She hopped down from the table, then crawled underneath it. She then amused herself by pinching the ankles of those seated as they tried to continue on.