Tol-in-Gaurhoth XLIX - At the Source of Darkness

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by the phantom

I think perhaps Durelin's personality just appears Cobblerish.

And yours doesn't?


Lately, it seemsto me that Greenie, namely A Little Green seems very suspicious. She suddenly comes in, flood posts, trying to converting everyone to share her mindset. Then she votes for Gwathie, which causes a mini Gwathwaggon. Seems like a band of wolves/cobblers or both mixed together. Or should I go Kitanna?

I'll go:

++A Little Green

edit: x-ed since Nogrod #149. Must have calculated an hour off. Sorry all! Please don't kill me, Oh mighty Big Mac!

[Macalaure]

The adventurers wasted no time mourning the tragic deaths of their two leaders. Instead they took heart, and with determined will they faced the situation they were in and firmly decided to approach it with the only means they were experienced in... pointlessness. Strangely, the cobblers, shady individuals who switched their loyalties and did not know each other's identity, attracted more attention than the evil adversity they were really facing. Even though most decided that they were not worth bothering about, as usual, the twisted were simply more interesting than the downright evil. Only one among them seemed to be occupied with other thoughts...

Evil is in this place! Evil shall mar us all! Evil shall take us all! Woe is me! Evil has entered me and it shall kill me ere the night comes! Kitanna wailed.

The others were perplexed, but, shaking their heads, they continued, pursuing their not exactly straight path to a solution. It was phantom's turn now.

Alright where were we? Ah, yes, I see a boat arrive. I see someone on the boa...

Alas! my innermost self is consumed by the vile poison injected into me! Oh, world! Oh, pain! Why do you not take me, yet?

I do not understand this arcane language. Nerwen admitted, but people with more lore and less wisdom already continued the debate:

I heard from the people of Further Harad that the quark star is supposed to turn a cobbler into a banana split. Nilp explai...

Goodness has forsaken me, darkness is embracing me, and when it has taken me, my body shall wither and wane, and I shall be no more! Ah! painful bite of ruthless malevolence!

Alright, what if we decide to delay our debate now... and just kill her instead? Mithalwen suggested.

Verily! the crowd responded, and in a sudden unison, which just before would have been unthinkable given their diverse points (or lack thereof), the heroes surrounded Kitanna and silenced her quickly, even though death would have taken her anyway. Nobody was surprised to see her shape unchanged after she had died (cuts, stabs, fractures, and bruises aside). She had been innocent.

*~*

Dead:
Macalaure and Rikae (mods) - killed by wolves and turned into faulty quenya in Night One
Kitanna (ordo) - lynched by a pointless mob on Day One

Alive:
Feanor of the Peredhil - visionary whose visions lean toward the abstract
Shastanis Althreduin - loner roane
Formendacil - snowbird
Eönwë - seller of pointless fakes
Nerwen - treasure-seeker
Kath - unemployed bum
Nilpaurion Felagund - aged tale-seeker
Durelin - eccentric, misanthropic archaeologist
Brinniel - junk collector
Gwathagor - warrior librarian
Nogrod - pointless philosopher
Lalaith - absent-minded professor
A Little Green - blind astronomer who sells stars at the stock exchange
the phantom - obtainer of rare antiquities
Thinlómien - marine zoologist
Groin Redbeard - dwarven miner
Mithalwen - factotum


Night 2 has begun.

Wolves: chat. Seer: dream. Assassin: assassinate.

[Rikae]

Long after the last adventurer had been overtaken by sleep, the absent-minded professor tossed and turned, haunted by the nagging fear she had lost something important.
Finally, she reached into her bag for a piece of chalk, planning to write her thoughts down on the stone floor, and thus, clear her mind...
Horrors! The chalk was missing. How would she ever think clearly without it?

Lalaith scrambled to her feet, plucked a torch from the wall, and made her way clumsily back along the passageway, searching the floor for her precious writing implement. She rounded the corner and walked on several yards before, putting up her hand to push her hair out of her eyes, she discovered the chalk tucked behind her ear. Turning, she found herself face to face with two massive creatures whose twisted, inhuman shape made her step back in alarm.

Don't hurt me! She gasped. The wolves gave a hoarse laugh, ending in a growl.

Not tonight, old woman. But never fear, your turn will come soon! Melkor has decreed that none of you shall leave this place alive.

The professor retorted:
Do you not know that Melkor's nihilism will in the end destroy you as well?

What? No, no, no. Melkor gives strength!

Only strength to conquer his enemies. And when his enemies are conquered his slaves will be destroyed.

Slaves? That is not true. Morgoth is the Giver of Freedom.

No, Melkor gives no freedom. See, as slaves of Melkor, you have no choice of your own, apart from the choice to follow him, although some might say that this choice alone is enough exercise of free will, and that those who choose good over evil make the same sort of choice... where was I? The choice to follow Melkor... is the choice to forgo further choice. Unless you take back that choice, you have no choice but to do as your master chose. Right now, I assume you are wandering about in order to take out your master's orders and kill one of us. You are not free to deviate from this plan. Of course, whether or not you would want to is another matter, because as creatures of supernatural strength, perhaps you must kill weaker beings in order to exercise your will to power, and thin the herd, ensuring the survival of the fittest - however, you cannot even do this freely, because as slaves of Melkor, you kill only on his orders.

Well, we do have the choice to kill whomever we want.

No, that is not true. Let me prove my claim. If you didn't have to follow your master's plan, you could just change your target at will, couldn't you?

Yes.

Therefore, if you had the choice, you could now simply choose to kill me instead of your scheduled victim.

Yes.

Thus I have proven my claim. You cannot kill me!

The wolves exchanged looks.

Go on, kill me and disprove my logic.

Well, I suppose we can forgo our decision to follow Melkor for just a little while...

The professor looked pleased. The first step had been done.

...and follow your command, just once.

The professor now no longer looked pleased at all, but only for a very brief while. One wolf leaped onto her with incredible speed and one powerful bite of his jaw severed the professor's head from her body.

When the expedition awoke the next day, only a blood-soaked piece of chalk on the floor indicated what had happened during the night.

*~*

Dead:
Macalaure and Rikae (mods) - killed by wolves and turned into faulty quenya in Night One
Kitanna (ordo) - lynched by a pointless mob on Day One
Lalaith (ordo) - severed from her chalk, and her head, in Night Two

Alive:
Feanor of the Peredhil - visionary whose visions lean toward the abstract
Shastanis Althreduin - loner roane
Formendacil - snowbird
Eönwë - seller of pointless fakes
Nerwen - treasure-seeker
Kath - unemployed bum
Nilpaurion Felagund - aged tale-seeker
Durelin - eccentric, misanthropic archaeologist
Brinniel - junk collector
Gwathagor - warrior librarian
Nogrod - pointless philosopher
A Little Green - blind astronomer who sells stars at the stock exchange
the phantom - obtainer of rare antiquities
Thinlómien - marine zoologist
Groin Redbeard - dwarven miner
Mithalwen - factotum

Day Two has begun. Wake up and talk! And vote. Especially those of you who didn't yesterday...

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

-what I intended to post last night.

I copied it into a word document so I wouldn't lose all my thoughts.

So, without further ado, here is what was on my mind almost exactly 24 hours ago:

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil @ 4:01pm EST on the 20th of August

Has he ever not been in it?

Agreed. And with people playing who want the wolves to win? Freud would be having a field day, but I wouldn't base any life-threatening judgments on his opinions anyway.

Peach, perhaps? Oh, that would make my day... If only I had the proper pan for such things, I'd make the best cobbler you ever came across. Oops, sorry Papa Freud; you were listening? Don't mind me, I'm just amusing myself... no, I don't wish that! How could you accuse me of such things?!

Aww, Phanty, casting aspersions on my character when everybody involved knew perfectly well I wouldn't be around for a few days? However, later on in my post, when I actually start mentioning anything of substance - rather than just reflecting on what I've missed thus far - I'll get to you...

I think your phrasing on this statement nails it: you didn't say you don't think he's telling the truth, you said you don't think he means everything he says. HUGE difference.

Because, you see, the phantom doesn't lie. He bends the truth, yes. Stretches it so thin it starts to resemble taffy, sure. But he doesn't lie. He tells pieces of truth that get him what he wants. Which makes him dangerous, because you won't be able to nail him on any falsehoods, and he doesn't outright state things he doesn't actually believe, though he will say things with a politely phrased excuse to preclude his wrongness. Analyzing his posts for manipulation? You could have killed him after his first post of the game. He's a pro at bending people to his will. But that doesn't guarantee he's evil. It just guarantees that he's charismatic.

Anyway, here's my point on the phantom:

Being a creature of habit, I firmly believe he's guilty as sin and should be lynched asap before he can cause more damage.

BUT:

I also know that because he manipulates via truth-telling, even if he's guilty, we should keep him around because he's still going to come up with excellent theories, he's still going to point out key information, and he's still going to have informative and amusing posts. He's educational, even when he's trying to kill you.

Besides: we can always kill him later.

[the phantom]

So, the one single post you were going to make yesterday was dedicated to me?

How sweet of you.

You should've shown up. We could've argued. And then tempers would've flared and you'd get yourself lynched. And when it was discovered that you weren't a WW I would've been lynched the following day to avenge your death.

See what you miss out on when you don't show up!

Just fyi, I will be gone for about seven hours or so, but I'll be around quite a bit the rest of the day. And I'll talk a lot.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by the phantom

So, the one single post you were going to make yesterday was dedicated to me?

I would have made more posts but that was the only one I'd actually composed by that time since I was busy abandoning you to frolic with another man for a few days, and since my initial return plan was to post my first thoughts upon reading and go from there.

It's phantomocentric because of your penchant for taking over all discussions and directing attention to yourself. Since you're stealing the spotlight, wolves can float under the clichéd radar simply by letting you do it. They don't have to expend effort casting suspicion on somebody else when you're busy garnering everybody's attention. Such a boon to them, giving them invisibility like that by being such a flagrant narcissist.

Originally Posted by phantom

And I'll talk a lot.

Is that supposed to surprise anybody?

("I've missed you, darling... you've no idea...")

[Eönwë]

So, Lalaith has been killed. Laughter doesn't seem to be killed though, judging by tp and Fea's post today.

Ok, so let's look at the:

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Trails of evidence and all that.

Well, she immediately attacks Gwathagor and (at least as I interpret it) accuses him of wolvery. Then she calms down on that case and says that she'll "watch and wait on him".

Next she agrees with Nerwen that cobblers as afraid of lynching wolves as ordos are of lynching gifteds.
Then she immediately votes the phantom, as she says he is cobblerish.

So, was it one of those two (or both) that were wolves, or were they framed?

*dun dun du-u-u-u-un*

*Find out next week on Ye Eönwë Showe.

[Nogrod]

So Lalaith it had to be then... that's too bad as she made sense. But also an excellent choice from the wolves. I mean there are certain patterns in wolf-kills even if people may consciously try to avoid them or try to mislead others by acting differently every once in a while. So some people just go for getting the strong or loud players out for maximum effectivity, the others go for sportiness and kill the quiet, some go for the "no-tracks left behind" and others for maximum confusion, and all go out for the seer. And many of us know what to think or where to look, if we see certain kind of pattern emerging from the kills.

Now Lalaith seems to be a pick about anyone of those stereotypes could have made and which could point at any direction.

Now let's look at the next scenario which might be the one which the wolves would like us to come up with:

Lalaith voted for the phantom and just insisted on him without too many arguments. So tp is a wolf and they thought Lalaith is the seer... The phantom voted for Lalaith (though overtime) to make himself look better toDay - just a thing tp would be able to think already in the end of Day1.

Fine and dandy. But at least for now I think it's not the case. It's just a bit too neat. The seer had a dream on Night1 and from all the other 17 she picked the lupine phantom and went for him with a "hunch" and speaking more of "cobblerism" to hide her seerdom. But the wolves thought they had caught her and thence tp voted her to be better off toDay and then they killed her.

Somehow I don't buy that. At least yet.

So maybe it was because Lalaith didn't have any specific suspicions and only voted with her hunch so the kill leaves no track? And it could have been done by anyone...

... and it might point at tp, almost frame him... so who's the most annoyed with him?



What other leads do we have toDay?

There were five votes for Kitanna and it would be an interesting thing indeed if there were no cobblers or wolves in there. Not perhaps in the early voters as it is clear lynching Kit was against their own good (loosing a free "one-villager-down") but maybe later, when it was looking quite clear Kit would be lynched anyhow so they would have tried to take advantage of the obvious outcome (Nerwen, maybe already Nilp?).

Those trying to sway the Kit-lynch early on, eg. those trying to make the lynch more profitable to the wolves, should be ones to be looked at more closely as well toDay. That means basically Lommy, Greenie and Dury.

And even if I think about everyone not voting / posting on Day1 came forwards in the discussion thread explaining their situations I still think it was outrageously too many who went through the Day1 with giving us no or very little clue about themselves. This is no personal disclaimer or anything like that. I'm one of those who always declares that we should really trust what others say and that the game depends on trust in each other's words and deeds outside the game (and distrust for about anything said inside the game). So we just had tough luck this time with 1/3 of the village either not posting or not voting. That's a bit too much even if we can't do anything about it - and it gives the baddies the advantage.

So let's speak toDay, all of us...

EDIT: X'd from Eönwe's first post onwards...

[Eönwë]

Come on- Talk ye invisible people!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I'm bored with being the only person around.

I believe in the early-game significance of analyzing first day posts exactly as much as I believe in the easter bunny. Give it a few days and maybe it'll be worth something. Probably not.

You don't get ANYWHERE until people start analyzing the first real wolf kill, because there's nothing for anybody to hide until then. There's no crime. There are no criminals until after the first day is over. First day posts, therefore, hold no evidence of crime.

So I'm going to go read a book. There's no point in me sitting here alone whilst folk across the pond are settling in for bed and everybody else is still busy with their days.

Call me when there's something worth discussing. Like how people react to Wolf Kill One.

Because until we have that? We have nothing worth going except the same old rehashed arguments about hypothetical hunting techniques and friendly banter.

On that note, I think I ought to be in character for a second or two:

I have a dream. A dream where one day... the world becomes kaleidoscopic, like a lemming. Yes... that is my dream. Make of it what you will. It is profound though. Never doubt its profundity.

edit: x'ed with Eönwë, who is as impatient as I.

[Kath]

Well, now I've got my brain in gear, hello! Just posting to let you know I am actually around toDay because I need to disappear and post for an RPG quickly and then I'll be back with you.