Tol-in-Gaurhoth XXIII: Journey to Hy Brazil

[Durelin]

++Kath

Help me...

[Cailín]

I know it does seem unlikely and you innocents are all despairing... but in theory each party (including the Ordinary Passengers) can still win! Do not give up!

[Anguirel]

In theory. Ahem.

But if a wolf is lynched, then an innocent will die tomorrow night and then either the Lovers or the Wolves will win the next day depending on the lynching.

If an innocent is lynched the wolves will win.

If we Lovers (yes, I said that) are lynched, the wolves win.

I still say: do the crew of this ship want two patently obvious, standard-issue wolves named Gurthang and Kath to ruthlessly conquer?

Or do they want two desperate, doomed, but hopelessly in love people, who don't mean any harm but are powerless in the grip of destiny, called Anguirel and Lalaith to scrape through despite the odds stacked against them?

These are the only options left, because the Lovers will not be slain tonight unless two true wolves live and if two true wolves live then they'll have won already.

Lynch anyone but Gurthang or Kath and those two Wolves win. Lynch one of them (and to do that you must combine all your votes hence on one of the bandwagons-and I'd rather it were Gurthang) and we promise amnesty to one passenger. We don't really want to kill you anyway.

We just want to live together in happiness and peace. Won't you help us, my friends?

Amor vincit omnia

Sir Anguirel Spens, Knight and True Lover of the beauteous, chaste and peerless damoiselle Lalaith

[Lalaith]

*blushes prettily*

What he just said.

++GURTHANG

[Anguirel]

Thankyou, my beloved lady. It is now imperative that anyone seeking, for whatever reason, to avoid an outright wolvish victory today vote for Gurthang. We can worry about his accomplice Kath later.

[Firefoot]

So what happens if we lynch a wolf, and then the two remaining wolves (one lover, one not) absolutely can't make a decision? Because obviously, if they took out an ordo, the lovers would win; if they took out the lovers... well, I guess the ordos would win because we would just lynch the last wolf. No kill? Then it would be:

One wolf
One lover wolf
One lover
three ordos

So we kill the lovers, the wolf kills an ordo, and the two remaining ordos kill the wolf.

Well, the wolves don't win, as I see it. I guess it's sort of up to the wolves - do they want us afflicted ordos to win or the traitorous lovers?

And is there any way that Ang and Lalaith could be bluffing...? Gurthang and Kath aren't really the lovers - Ang and Lalaith wouldn't know the ordo lover in that case, right?

[Anguirel]

Firefoot, that strategem of yours relies on preferring the flimsy goodwill of a wolf to the intensity of true passion.

It also relies on the wolf in question preferring the triumph of the masses to the valiant gambit of we Lovers, the true underdogs.

I assure you that Lalaith is my lover. I mean, cast an eye over our Werewolfing history (and Survivor record, come to that)-we were obviously meant to be.

But in any case you, like us, need to lynch a wolf. Gurthang and Kath will resist such a move together if at all feasible so you need to go for Gurthang, who has got the more votes so far, to be safe.

[Lalaith]

It's terribly romantic really, Der Rosenkavalier meets Company of Wolves.
But we can't expect the rest of the crew to understand. Tomorrow it will be quickest on the draw, I suppose.

[Anguirel]

I don't know. I'd far rather die in the cause of Love than in the cause of filling some wolf's belly, myself...