Morvai stared out infront of him with a blank look in his eyes. he had been so lost in his thoughts that he barely heard anything of the conversation around him. however when people started voting he was ripped from his thoughts.
“Well we need to do something and since I have no clue who to suspect I will follow golden arrow and Drakhan and hope the best of it.”
Vote: lordofnight
SAU X: Traders and Traitors
Moderator: The Makers of Chains
Masters of Mischief (NC background)
The Black Blades (DE). W: 2 D: 2 L: 1
The Black Blades (DE). W: 2 D: 2 L: 1
-
Lordofthenight
- Malekith's Personal Guard
- Posts: 803
- Joined: Mon Jan 15, 2007 7:57 pm
- Location: Hell
- Contact:
"Well, that seemed fairly conclusive. Evidently speaking up in this gathering is enough to throw suspiscion on you."
Punishment leads to Fear. Fear leads to Obedience. Obedience leads to Freedom. Therefore, Punishment leads to Freedom.
Kuyoz Nightkiller
WS: 4 S:3 T:3 D:4 I:4
Repeater Crossbow, Short Sword, Shade Cloak, Light Armour
5 throwing daggers, 90gc
Kuyoz Nightkiller
WS: 4 S:3 T:3 D:4 I:4
Repeater Crossbow, Short Sword, Shade Cloak, Light Armour
5 throwing daggers, 90gc
-
The golden arrow
- Cold One Knight
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:15 pm
- Location: Halmstad, Sweden
- Contact:
-
Tarbo
- Morathi's Best Friend
- Posts: 1203
- Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:06 pm
- Location: Flanders, Belgium
“Four hundred damage claims! And you still didn't catch a single perpetrator!”
Despite the temple's excellent acoustics—in the chapel even more so—the high priestess could draw upon a voice few others could fathom into her build. She had her hands on her table, bending over precariously far, the sheer air displacement of her shouting keeping her in balance. Anleth and Tarbo, on the other hand, were inclined to lean backwards despite said displacement.
“The city's in complete disarray over your little freak accidents! This is a disgrace to the Temple all over Naggaroth!” A big, heaving breath was pulled into her lungs before she continued: “And you call yourselves an elite force!?”
“Well, ah,” Anleth dared, rolling her eyes to Tarbo.
“Yeah, ehm... sort of,” Tarbo agreed.
°°°
Darts' eyes scan around. He's confused. Clearly, something is amiss in the chamber. Perhaps he doesn't expect to find himself on land for this long. Perhaps there is something sharp and pointy on his chair. Or perhaps the whole talk about games and posts is a bit outside his realm of expertise. Land people. Different culture.
“Gentlemen, lady, it seems we have an accord. You are all released from custody for the time and place being our current whereabouts, and our dear friend Zantroth will confide his deeper secrets in the captain. The other one, that is.”
Darts raises from the seat, holding his captain's hat, and bends over to Zantroth momentarily. “If I may add the personal request to not do anything...” His teeth show while thinking of a way to put it diplomatically, a flawed smile chiseled onto his face. “...extraordinarily inconveniencing.”
“Like trying to escape?” Zantroth replies, still seated.
“Oh, good example, hadn't crossed my mind.” He pats Zantroth's shoulder twice. "Good thinking."
_________________________
lordofthenight was a hapless councillor caught at the wrong end of the repeater crossvoter.
Innocent.
__________________________
Trivia Questions
What killed Surin (DancingPigeon)?
For the answers on the previous questions, check the OOC thread.
Despite the temple's excellent acoustics—in the chapel even more so—the high priestess could draw upon a voice few others could fathom into her build. She had her hands on her table, bending over precariously far, the sheer air displacement of her shouting keeping her in balance. Anleth and Tarbo, on the other hand, were inclined to lean backwards despite said displacement.
“The city's in complete disarray over your little freak accidents! This is a disgrace to the Temple all over Naggaroth!” A big, heaving breath was pulled into her lungs before she continued: “And you call yourselves an elite force!?”
“Well, ah,” Anleth dared, rolling her eyes to Tarbo.
“Yeah, ehm... sort of,” Tarbo agreed.
°°°
Darts' eyes scan around. He's confused. Clearly, something is amiss in the chamber. Perhaps he doesn't expect to find himself on land for this long. Perhaps there is something sharp and pointy on his chair. Or perhaps the whole talk about games and posts is a bit outside his realm of expertise. Land people. Different culture.
“Gentlemen, lady, it seems we have an accord. You are all released from custody for the time and place being our current whereabouts, and our dear friend Zantroth will confide his deeper secrets in the captain. The other one, that is.”
Darts raises from the seat, holding his captain's hat, and bends over to Zantroth momentarily. “If I may add the personal request to not do anything...” His teeth show while thinking of a way to put it diplomatically, a flawed smile chiseled onto his face. “...extraordinarily inconveniencing.”
“Like trying to escape?” Zantroth replies, still seated.
“Oh, good example, hadn't crossed my mind.” He pats Zantroth's shoulder twice. "Good thinking."
_________________________
- Players
- Drakhan
- The Golden Arrow
- SBOD
- Morvai
- High Executioner Kalus
- Mel'Reyna
- "Deaths"
- 51la5 (Night 1)
- Sirist (Day 2 - inactivity kill)
- XtremeNL (Day 2 - inactivity kill)
- Khelmor Blackspine (Day 2)
- DancingPigeon (Night 2)
- Ashnari Doomsong (Day 3 - inactivity kill)
- lordofthenight (Day 3)
lordofthenight was a hapless councillor caught at the wrong end of the repeater crossvoter.
Innocent.__________________________
Trivia Questions
What killed Surin (DancingPigeon)?
- Excessive tripwire.
- Poisoned toothpaste.
- His own letter opener.
- His wine glass was poisoned.
- the continuing and often bizarre murders.
- the escape attempt by XtremeNL and Sirist.
- the Cold One "Spike" on a sugar high.
- the repeated sounding of the invasion alarm.
- The High Priestess of the city temple.
- A regular of the city council.
- An emissary from the king.
- A high-ranking officer of the Temple Guard.
- One of his many exploits of a raid on Lustria.
- He cajoled it out of one of the prince's diplomats.
- He kept it after one of the prince's children threw it away.
- It's part of his pay from the Temple Guard for being here.
- Rensat
- Tarbo
- Anleth
- Darts
For the answers on the previous questions, check the OOC thread.
"Another innocent has been taken into account, yet no traitor in sight" announced Osthil glumly as he rose from his chair, looking at those assembled with an expression ranging between a loss of will to exhaustion, before sighing resignedly and trudging wearily to his quarters.
OOC: Ugh, this SAU has turned out to be a wholesale slaughter, not one traitor has been captured! I liked it when the innocents had counters of their own like in SAU II: KAU. Whatever happened to things like that
?
OOC: Ugh, this SAU has turned out to be a wholesale slaughter, not one traitor has been captured! I liked it when the innocents had counters of their own like in SAU II: KAU. Whatever happened to things like that
?Well that was a total screw up once again. Let’s just hope that the trade negotiations with the prince go better.
Catching Darts and Zantroth’s conversation Morvai could help but smile.
Given the circumstances that weirdo is pretty humorous.
Catching Darts and Zantroth’s conversation Morvai could help but smile.
Given the circumstances that weirdo is pretty humorous.
Masters of Mischief (NC background)
The Black Blades (DE). W: 2 D: 2 L: 1
The Black Blades (DE). W: 2 D: 2 L: 1
-
Tarbo
- Morathi's Best Friend
- Posts: 1203
- Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:06 pm
- Location: Flanders, Belgium
Dreary clouds pulled over the city. A downpour was on its way, kharmic payback for the beautiful weather that had graced the temple the past few days. A chilly wind was accompanying the sudden turn in events and bringing people back to the reality of living in Naggaroth which, it bears to mention, had a tendency to suck on occasion.
The temple itself was dark, even gloomy. Despite all of its defenses, its denizens were the target of seemingly haphazard interrogation and calculated serial murder. Curfew had become less of an issue to enforce now that the dignitaries felt ever more likely to be the next target. Their numbers were dwindling, increasing the odds that they would go to sleep and never wake again. Some tried to stay awake, but that wouldn't save them.
Again, the Temple Guard was patrolling the corridors at night; again, there would be a slipping through the net by suspicious characters; again, there would be a murder—tonight was little different from the other nights from an outside perspective. But there was a difference.
Following the incessant murders, the Temple Guard made a desperate, last-ditch attempt to bring them to a halt. Captain Anleth Lareight ordered for all the guards to patrol the halls. Nobody—not the officers, not the guards with day shifts—nobody was relieved from duty before the dignitaries were back and safely in the council chamber. The whole patrolling system, aging back to far before her appointment as captain, was rescheduled and reimplemented to adjust for the current situation's dire needs.
The Guard would collapse before failing.
°°°
“And in the unlikely event of spotting said assassins, what is the suggested course of action?” Darts had his eyebrow raised, looking Anleth in the eye as much as his wavy nature allowed. “Pray, nothing that could be interpreted to varying degrees as extraordinarily... stupid?”
“You call for reinforcements and give chase,” Anleth replied, perhaps more curtly than she had liked, but then again, she was starting to get under a bit of stress.
“That suggested course of action assumes that the spotted assassins perceive me as a threat and choose to evade me rather than act in a more assassin-like way and dispose of me, which they will be inclined to do.”
“Then you stay alive until reinforcements arrive.” Anleth looked around in the armoury, checking the other guards while they were gearing up. Some looked genuinely tired, others were up for their shift anyway. “You're a captain, you should be setting an example.”
“Since, out of the two of us, you are the one who can be reliably called their captain, it should be you setting the example, not I.” Darts pulled a large, endearing grin on his lips, showing two golden teeth. “Compared to me, your troops will see you bask in the holy light of righteous fury, religious zeal, and resplendent courage. I'm truly doing you a favour here, lass.”
“Just... squeal when you see one.”
“No worries, mate. You can rely on me for the squealing.”
°°°
A haunting draft pulled past Vlieth's feet as he walked through the empty, dusty temple corridors. Lightning forked in the sky, flashing the windows' strong structure onto the floor. It had been quiet, very quiet, as he walked alongside Tarbo. Perhaps a little too quiet to his taste, seeing how the silence made him listen so intently for any sound that every haphazard noise had him jumping to his toes.
“So, ah, how long've you been with the guard, sir?” he asked, trying to get any kind of conversation going.
“Not,” Tarbo replied, his own ears focused for anything out of the ordinary. Once his hearing was attuned to the rhythm and sound of his environment, it was a matter of concentration, focus, to spot any irregularities.
“Then... why are you here?”
“Because I train these people.”
“You train them? So you know what to look for?”
“No. Unfortunately, I happen to be very good at what I do. And what I do is train these people to be ghosts.”
Vlieth nodded very slowly. A pebble dropped—he looked sharply over his shoulder before keeping pace with Tarbo again.
°°°
Osthil paced around in his room. The prince, his annoying offspring and his irksome entourage were becoming the least of his worries. The price of success was high, and it was perhaps becoming too high. Under any other circumstances, he would long since have left the figurative negotiation table and went home but, as it happened, he was in custody. Protective or prospective custody, it didn't matter—he was being held against his will.
But Osthil was clever, more clever than he had given his less gifted peers, even if he had to say so himself. Before retiring to his chambers, he had some of his entourage clear the entire living space, stepping on every possible tile, tasting wine and food, and even using his toothbrush (though he had now ordered a new one). His drawers were checked for any traps, his clothes for contact poison, small slits and holes for spring darts, arrows and daggers. Nobody died in the sweep.
Relieved, he sat down on the bed. Some other unfortunate soul would be tonight's target. Fleetingly, he wondered: why was it that the assassins targeted only one person every night? Did assassinations require such preparations as to allow only a single target every 24 hours? It made sense, considering how Surin met his end. At least he didn't suffer.
Osthil shook his head. He needed to get some rest. There was a chair set against his door in case anyone dared enter without his permission, and he had heard there were increased patrols in the hallways. If the assassins were going to strike, it would be from a very unexpected angle, he wagered while lying down and resting his head on a pillow. The only thing that could go wrong was if the sky itself came down on him.
Click!
They had got to be kidding him.
°°°
Tarbo carefully pushed the already open door a little further. A number of tiny feathers still hung in the air, while most of them had settled as a thick layer covering the floor. A few guards were already on the scene, being Osthil's living quarters. He wanted to ask Anleth what happened, but the image pretty much pointed it out to him.
A massive, man-sized slab was missing from the ceiling. Finding it was a simple matter of following its most likely trajectory when subject to gravity: straight down. Tarbo rolled his eyes further down and indeed found the giant slab, having mauled Osthil's bed beyond repair, each of the legs pointing inwards as the frame collapsed under the sudden slam. Sticking from between the once feathery mattress and the unforgiving granite was a single, motionless hand.
“We followed the deafening 'ba-oom',” Tarbo explained briefly when Anleth seemed surprised to see him and Vlieth so quickly.
“Looks like we have our victim for the night,” Vlieth wagered, stepping towards the murder scene. “And I think the feathers are a definite clue to what happened here. The assassin may have left them to confuse us.”
“Gents,” Tarbo raised, “if you want anything, Vlieth is going for coffee.”
Anleth shook her head while staring at the scene. There was something amiss, something dreadfully amiss, something other than the obvious casualty they had just suffered. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but her senses were stinging. She looked around in an effort to find what was alarming her.
“Captain, why don't you go and get some rest?” Tarbo offered, taking a good look at her. “Just about the entire Temple Guard is here; they'll manage without you for a night.”
Anleth looked up at him slowly. “Say that again?”
“No offense to your capabilities,” he chuckled, hands raised in defense. “I just don't believe there's anything you can do here that you can't do in the morning.”
“You're absolutely right,” Anleth said, not listening to a word he said anymore. “The entire Guard is here in this room. Every other dignitary is unprotected. We need to get back out there.” She took a deep breath of realisation, stopping just short of inhaling a loose feather. “Sir, you stay here, see what you can find out. Everyone else, back to the corridors, on the double!”
°°°
“I think he's still alive.” For once, Vlieth had it right. Sbod might have been badly injured, lying in his chamber, but he was still alive. “I'll call for a doctor.”
“Assassins kill people,” Anleth noted, scanning the environment quickly with her eyes.
“Maybe he missed his mark?”
“Maybe we interrupted him.”
Vlieth turned an admirable shade of white. “You mean...?”
Anleth nodded wordlessly and stood. She pointed two fingers at Vlieth, then at the door, and held her hand up.
Vlieth blinked and stared back.
“Guard the door.”
“Got it.”
Anleth silently walked through the room, senses honed to spot anything out of the ordinary. Under the bed, perhaps? No... no, it would take too long to escape from under the bed, especially with Vlieth standing at the door, looking into the room—he'd spot the assassin instantly. The bathroom? No escape from there... Better be careful, the assassin would react like a cornered animal, injuring anyone in its path to escape capture.
“Captain?”
“Watch my back.” Anleth drew her sword, standing right in front of the bathroom door. She raised her leg and kicked in the door, then took a few steps in, looking around.
Water and towels to the right. An empty tub to the left. The torrenting rain ticked loudly against the heavy, immobile glass letting light through right in front of her. She checked the mirror briefly, a glance to view any corners she might have missed.
“Captain, we should really get a doctor.”
Anleth nodded to herself. Regardless of whether the assassin was found, it was important that Sbod survived. It would be ironic were he to survive the initial assault only to die once brought to safety. She walked back into the living room and saw Vlieth kneeled near Sbod again.
“Very well,” Anleth said, “I will guard him, you will find a doctor. Be sure to—” As she walked past a closet, one of its doors swung into her with a rough kick, throwing her against the bed while the assassin burst out. Before Vlieth could well rise to his feet, he was roughly kicked to the ground again while the assassin made with his escape.
“On your feet!” Anleth shouted while she clambered onto her own. “After him!”
°°°
“Now, where'd he go?”
Anleth didn't comment on that, having no idea herself, while both caught their breath. The only possible way the assassin could have run was into this chamber. Thunder rolled as lightning cracked: they were right in the middle of the weather now.
The chamber was an exceptionally large and tall specimen, used as a VIP dining room. It was larger than the council chamber, and a more recent architectural addition to the temple, less cramped for defense and more open and modernly designed.
Right now, the room was lavishly decorated, hinting towards the visiting prince. Tapestries hung from the walls, reaching all the way up to the roof—Anleth recalled working all day long to get all those heavy tapestries up there, a time- and manpower-consuming task.
Another lightning flashed through the tall, cathedral windows from high above. As shadows were redrawn on the wall, one in particular showed itself in the crisscross of beams... Anleth looked up sharply and, when the lightning bursts subsided, managed to make out a shadow, jumping from beam to beam. How did he get up there, she wondered while looking at the height difference.
“Find backup,” Anleth ordered. The assassin would be slowed by having to jump from beam to beam, rebalancing with each step. “And get a doctor to Sbod.” She took a deep breath, gathering courage, took off her jacket and looked up at one of the pillars. Damn, that was high.
“Sixteen feet,” Vlieth commented, ready to move off.
“Do me a favour and... keep that kind of stuff to yourself in the future.”
°°°
Mioralynthia pulled her robe closer to herself while her steps echoed hollowly through the empty temple halls. An out-of-place thud on Richter's scale had roused her from her sleep, and she knew better than to roll over in bed and try to catch some sleep again: no matter how anonymous, noises come from somewhere, and she had trouble imagining the source was not some structural damage.
She froze when she witnessed... pillow feathers flying by. In droves.
“Hold the door, please.” That was Tarbo's voice, coming from one of the dignitaries' chambers. And an inordinate amount of feathers swept over the floor and into the hallway. “Let's not make this more difficult on the cleaning crew than it already is.”
Prepared for anything, Mioralynthia took a careful step into the chamber and closed the door behind her. Or perhaps not prepared for anything: she had not expected to see a metric tonne of granite crashed into a bed. “Oh my... what happened here?”
A lopsided smile rose on Tarbo's lips at the familiar voice. He and Lynthia went back a while. “They ran out of tripwire.”
“Is he...?”
“Dead. Yes. Very.” Tarbo turned to the sorceress, widening his smile. “And you really make that robe look good.”
“Oh, thank you,” Lynthia replied.
“The feathers really put this 'Careful, cute'-sign on you. If only I had a canvas, paint, brush, and skill.”
“What happened?” Mioralynthia repeated her earlier question, willing for more detail.
“One theory goes that the granite slab you see was in fact tired of holding on all this time and decided to get a rest in the cosy bed underneath it. That theory is currently being overshadowed by the belief that the stone was brutally tricked into murder by falling once a certain condition was met, like a physical or magical trigger.”
“...I don't sense any magic at play here. A physical trigger, then?”
Tarbo nodded, hands in his pockets. “The thing is, I already searched this entire room for possible triggers. The only place I haven't looked yet is under that piece of granite. You can imagine I'm happy you showed up.” A smile turned on his lips again. “Perhaps you could hocus-pocus it out of here?”
“If you're referring to inanimate telekinesis with hocus-pocus then, yes, I might as well give it a try. But I'll need room to move it.”
“There's a hole in the ceiling. Should be an exact match.”
“No?” Mioralynthia aimed at him, sarcasm seeping from her voice.
“I kid you not.”
Mioralynthia shook her head, a gentle smile still rolling onto her lips before her face froze in concentration. She closed her eyes and focused on the magic roaming about her, pulling any she could find and channelling it into the massive rock in front of her. Slowly, with a deep, heavy rumble, the rock started moving;
“Sir! Ma'am!” Vlieth bashed through the door, stumbling into the room, and staggered two steps before bumping into Mioralynthia's back. “We need a medup and backic!”
Torn from her concentration by the sudden bump, Mioralynthia's spell was forcefully ended with a colourful spray of sparkles and twinkles. In mid-flight, the granite slab stopped being supported, rising almost an inch from the sheer inertia it still had. It held, as if slowed by a sadistic mind, before gravity regained its pull on the heavy object, crashing it mercilessly into the bed and the owning councillor again with a thundering slam.
Then, with surprisingly little noise—a mere groove of stone—the granite slab fell through the floor, taking itself and the one slab of the same size along to the floor below. Mattress feathers flew up into the room above.
Three heads cautiously peeked down into the room below to gauge the caused damage.
“Scratch the medic,” Vlieth broke the silence.
°°°
Anleth had given up on yelling for the assassin to stop. She had a serious amount of ground (and breath) to catch up on. But she had a trump up her sleeve—all she needed was a clear field to use it. She breathed deeply through her nose, gathering strength... Just a few more jumps, a few more beams to cross, and she could turn the corner into the long hallway, where she would certainly spot the assassin.
With a deep grunt, Anleth leapt at the next beam a few yards off. To her surprise, she landed on her feet and kept her balance. Already, she had a few bumps and bruises from nearly missing but narrowly hanging on. Still, it was better than cratering on the dinner table below. She took another jump—where were those reinforcements?
To her left, another impressive array of beams—the room never looked this big from a frog perspective. And there, her target, the assassin, several beams away. Clearing her mind, she pulled out her trump card: boleadoras, bolas. She swung them over her head, building momentum and waiting for the right moment. When the assassin was about to jump, she launched the projectile at him.
With a low hum, the bolas soared through the air, barely skimming over the beams on their way to their target. The assassin had just leapt, landing ably on both feet—a sudden jerk pulled on his ankles as the bolas wrapped around them and removed his fragile balance; he fell but held the beam with both arms. Good reflexes, Anleth admitted, but this gave her the time she needed to get closer, and she made haste.
With careful appliance of strength and skill, the assassin swooped back onto the beam. Anleth took a good look at the figure while he checked what had hit him and tried to untangle his feet: a light covering cloak over the body; a scarf covering all but the eyes; a dark, non-descript, tight robe; but most important of all, a goodsome amount of weapons all strapped securely to the body. It was impossible to say whether the assassin was male or female—Anleth neither had the time or the light to tell properly. But by now, she was only one beam off.
While Anleth leapt for the last beam, the assassin had freed his ankles and leapt onto his feet, balancing instantly and perfectly on the narrow platform. In contrast, Anleth swung her arms for balance when she had made the jump—almost overjumped—but quickly noticed the assassin had no intention of running any more. Both drew their weapons. Or, well, Anleth drew her sword while the assassin pulled out two of them.
“You're not going to come peacefully, are you?”
The assassin cocked his head. He glanced down at the beam, visibly making note of her balance and, most importantly, lack of experience in fighting a good five yards in the air with five inches to stand on. His body language said it all. She couldn't possibly be serious.
Anleth looked at the floor far, far below for a moment, then advanced with a careful step. “You and me both,” she muttered.
The attacks were swift and deadly. Anleth had hoped to be more in the attacking section and less parrying for her life, but she didn't find much reproach in the twin blades soaring past her body. In any other situation, she could have relied on her nimbleness to keep her safe, but being restricted to a five-inch beam ruled out that option. An opening, a flaw, anything that would give her a chance...
Spotting an opening as by divine revelation, Anleth noticed the assassin shifting balance for a new swooping of his blades. Seizing the opportunity, she lunged forward with her sword and, although she did not strike home, she did force the assassin back a few steps. He didn't seem to like it a great deal but, then again, that was part of what made it all sound like a good idea.
“I didn't get my rank in a box of crackers,” Anleth raised. “This is your last chance to lay down your arms and surrender.” As much as she had rightful confidence in her skills, she knew that she didn't stand a chance against a trained assassin. Then again, all she really needed to do was buy time.
Again, attacks started, but this time, she was the main attacking party. Attacking wasn't easy; she needed enough strength to swing her sword and yet enough balance to keep from plummeting down. It limited her repertoire severely, making it all the more tiring to try to break through the meticulous parrying. All the skill in the world still made her feel like a toddler with a club. And then, the odds turned on her.
When Anleth made a final strike to beat through the parry, she seemed to almost succeed. What the assassin was in fact doing, was luring her out of balance by suddenly resisting much less, removing himself from her equation. It worked partly—Anleth rebalanced instantly—but an instant was all he needed.
With his free sword, the assassin swung at Anleth, cutting in her upper arm while, at the same time, he dropped himself onto the beam and swept at her shins, scoring a hit. Anleth dropped from the sudden hit, landing flatly on the beam and slid off—she held on with both arms, legs swinging powerlessly in the air. The tear in her upper arm kept her from pulling up again. Her eyes followed the assassin while he rose calmly to his feet. He took a deep, respectful bow, blew a kiss, and left.
°°°
“How bad is it?” Tarbo picked up a vial with what looked like an expensive substance and shook it around a little. He wasn't in an infirmary often. Because he didn't get hurt.
Talden chuckled good-heartedly and checked his pad while standing next to Anleth's bed. “Oh, I'm afraid she has only two more days to live.”
Anleth opened her eyes widely in surprise, looking at the 'good' doctor. Tarbo followed with a similar stare of disbelief. Poison? Lotus?
“Oh, apologies, I'm holding the wrong pad.” Talden chuckled again, then turned briefly to the patient on his other side. “We'll talk.”
“So, how bad is it?” Tarbo repeated his question, sitting on Anleth's bed.
“Oh, nothing to worry,” Talden assured both. “We've bandaged her arm and checked her bruises, nothing serious. All she needs is a night's rest and she'll be up and prancing like a jolly horse again. Though she might be a little stiff.”
“Sounds like you'll be alright, captain,” Tarbo summarised with a smile.
But Anleth had already slipped into a deep, blissful sleep.
°°°
Early morning. Birds twittered and whistled happily as they flew in and around the temple's outer structure. Fluffy clouds scrolled gently through the blue sky, white dots decorating the beautiful, calming sight. And all of Naggaroth was restful and peaceable.
All of Naggaroth?
No, in a temple to the north, but not too far to the north, all was not restful and peaceable. This time, however, it was not a single, pitched, complaining whine piercing the surrounding air. This time, it was a different flavour of panic.
“Khaine's love,” Anleth sighed, her eyes wide open in disbelief.
The Cold One pen saw several guards convened near the fence. The Cold Ones were finally more or less up and about—except for Spike, who was doing an impressive impersonation of a lizard dying of migraine—and circling around and playing with a singular object in their pen.
A human toddler.
“H-How the... how'd he...?”
The nearest guard lifted his shoulders helplessly. He had no idea.
“You were right to call for help; this is going to need serious equipment.”
“Oh, actually, it's not for the toddler. We figured that one would be pretty easy.”
“Then what for?” Anleth asked, curiosity swirling around her voice.
The guard pointed up at the ceiling. “It's for him.”
Another guard hung from a pole, arms and legs clenched around in a near-feutal position. He pulled up his feet a little more, his pants showing broad tears and a bite marks around the buttocks.
“We gave it a shot already.”
°°°
You sit in the council chamber, waiting for your host to appear. None of you had the luxury of a long night's sleep, what with the chases and collapsing ceilings, though you have been able to sleep in a bit more following the lack of a little girl not getting what she wanted. Perhaps the Guard finally collected the courage to gag or. Whatever they did, you silently commend their judgement.
It is a beautiful weather again. The sun shines brightly into the chamber, scaring away those that suffer from a hangover, while those that are merely sleepy bask in the light, dozing off peacefully.
You've already heard who passed away, and how. Osthil was killed deliberately, a precise strike at him in his own quarters, set up far ahead in time. More surprising, however, is Sbod's unfortunate demise, a sad display of kharmic sadism: while having (barely) survived the initial assault, interrupted by the Guard's timely intervention, an undetailed and non-descript accident made the ceiling collapse on him. Not the entire ceiling, but a single, well-placed slab covering precisely and only his body.
The doors to the chamber open. Only four of you remain, and Mioralynthia has been volunteered to keep you company. Despite the Temple's absurd situation, she managed to display a cool composure and calm but strict demeanour. In her arms are history books, most likely on the Reik.
“Good morning, everyone,” she greets you briefly, heading over to her seat at the head of the table. “Normally, captain Darts would be keeping you company, but he seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet and, despite my best efforts, people hold the belief that I have nothing better to do, so here I am.”
With a surprisingly silent slam, Mioralynthia drops the books on the table and picks up where she seems to have left off: reading.
_________________________
The following event cards were in play this Night:
Above and Beyond
Collateral
With 4 players left, 3 constitute a majority.
In case it is significant: High Executioner Kalus was an intentional target, while SBOD was a casualty of the Collateral event card.
The activity deadline is set to pass at Friday, about 10h00 GMT. The final deadline will probably be an additional 72 hours from then.
The temple itself was dark, even gloomy. Despite all of its defenses, its denizens were the target of seemingly haphazard interrogation and calculated serial murder. Curfew had become less of an issue to enforce now that the dignitaries felt ever more likely to be the next target. Their numbers were dwindling, increasing the odds that they would go to sleep and never wake again. Some tried to stay awake, but that wouldn't save them.
Again, the Temple Guard was patrolling the corridors at night; again, there would be a slipping through the net by suspicious characters; again, there would be a murder—tonight was little different from the other nights from an outside perspective. But there was a difference.
Following the incessant murders, the Temple Guard made a desperate, last-ditch attempt to bring them to a halt. Captain Anleth Lareight ordered for all the guards to patrol the halls. Nobody—not the officers, not the guards with day shifts—nobody was relieved from duty before the dignitaries were back and safely in the council chamber. The whole patrolling system, aging back to far before her appointment as captain, was rescheduled and reimplemented to adjust for the current situation's dire needs.
The Guard would collapse before failing.
°°°
“And in the unlikely event of spotting said assassins, what is the suggested course of action?” Darts had his eyebrow raised, looking Anleth in the eye as much as his wavy nature allowed. “Pray, nothing that could be interpreted to varying degrees as extraordinarily... stupid?”
“You call for reinforcements and give chase,” Anleth replied, perhaps more curtly than she had liked, but then again, she was starting to get under a bit of stress.
“That suggested course of action assumes that the spotted assassins perceive me as a threat and choose to evade me rather than act in a more assassin-like way and dispose of me, which they will be inclined to do.”
“Then you stay alive until reinforcements arrive.” Anleth looked around in the armoury, checking the other guards while they were gearing up. Some looked genuinely tired, others were up for their shift anyway. “You're a captain, you should be setting an example.”
“Since, out of the two of us, you are the one who can be reliably called their captain, it should be you setting the example, not I.” Darts pulled a large, endearing grin on his lips, showing two golden teeth. “Compared to me, your troops will see you bask in the holy light of righteous fury, religious zeal, and resplendent courage. I'm truly doing you a favour here, lass.”
“Just... squeal when you see one.”
“No worries, mate. You can rely on me for the squealing.”
°°°
A haunting draft pulled past Vlieth's feet as he walked through the empty, dusty temple corridors. Lightning forked in the sky, flashing the windows' strong structure onto the floor. It had been quiet, very quiet, as he walked alongside Tarbo. Perhaps a little too quiet to his taste, seeing how the silence made him listen so intently for any sound that every haphazard noise had him jumping to his toes.
“So, ah, how long've you been with the guard, sir?” he asked, trying to get any kind of conversation going.
“Not,” Tarbo replied, his own ears focused for anything out of the ordinary. Once his hearing was attuned to the rhythm and sound of his environment, it was a matter of concentration, focus, to spot any irregularities.
“Then... why are you here?”
“Because I train these people.”
“You train them? So you know what to look for?”
“No. Unfortunately, I happen to be very good at what I do. And what I do is train these people to be ghosts.”
Vlieth nodded very slowly. A pebble dropped—he looked sharply over his shoulder before keeping pace with Tarbo again.
°°°
Osthil paced around in his room. The prince, his annoying offspring and his irksome entourage were becoming the least of his worries. The price of success was high, and it was perhaps becoming too high. Under any other circumstances, he would long since have left the figurative negotiation table and went home but, as it happened, he was in custody. Protective or prospective custody, it didn't matter—he was being held against his will.
But Osthil was clever, more clever than he had given his less gifted peers, even if he had to say so himself. Before retiring to his chambers, he had some of his entourage clear the entire living space, stepping on every possible tile, tasting wine and food, and even using his toothbrush (though he had now ordered a new one). His drawers were checked for any traps, his clothes for contact poison, small slits and holes for spring darts, arrows and daggers. Nobody died in the sweep.
Relieved, he sat down on the bed. Some other unfortunate soul would be tonight's target. Fleetingly, he wondered: why was it that the assassins targeted only one person every night? Did assassinations require such preparations as to allow only a single target every 24 hours? It made sense, considering how Surin met his end. At least he didn't suffer.
Osthil shook his head. He needed to get some rest. There was a chair set against his door in case anyone dared enter without his permission, and he had heard there were increased patrols in the hallways. If the assassins were going to strike, it would be from a very unexpected angle, he wagered while lying down and resting his head on a pillow. The only thing that could go wrong was if the sky itself came down on him.
Click!
They had got to be kidding him.
°°°
Tarbo carefully pushed the already open door a little further. A number of tiny feathers still hung in the air, while most of them had settled as a thick layer covering the floor. A few guards were already on the scene, being Osthil's living quarters. He wanted to ask Anleth what happened, but the image pretty much pointed it out to him.
A massive, man-sized slab was missing from the ceiling. Finding it was a simple matter of following its most likely trajectory when subject to gravity: straight down. Tarbo rolled his eyes further down and indeed found the giant slab, having mauled Osthil's bed beyond repair, each of the legs pointing inwards as the frame collapsed under the sudden slam. Sticking from between the once feathery mattress and the unforgiving granite was a single, motionless hand.
“We followed the deafening 'ba-oom',” Tarbo explained briefly when Anleth seemed surprised to see him and Vlieth so quickly.
“Looks like we have our victim for the night,” Vlieth wagered, stepping towards the murder scene. “And I think the feathers are a definite clue to what happened here. The assassin may have left them to confuse us.”
“Gents,” Tarbo raised, “if you want anything, Vlieth is going for coffee.”
Anleth shook her head while staring at the scene. There was something amiss, something dreadfully amiss, something other than the obvious casualty they had just suffered. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but her senses were stinging. She looked around in an effort to find what was alarming her.
“Captain, why don't you go and get some rest?” Tarbo offered, taking a good look at her. “Just about the entire Temple Guard is here; they'll manage without you for a night.”
Anleth looked up at him slowly. “Say that again?”
“No offense to your capabilities,” he chuckled, hands raised in defense. “I just don't believe there's anything you can do here that you can't do in the morning.”
“You're absolutely right,” Anleth said, not listening to a word he said anymore. “The entire Guard is here in this room. Every other dignitary is unprotected. We need to get back out there.” She took a deep breath of realisation, stopping just short of inhaling a loose feather. “Sir, you stay here, see what you can find out. Everyone else, back to the corridors, on the double!”
°°°
“I think he's still alive.” For once, Vlieth had it right. Sbod might have been badly injured, lying in his chamber, but he was still alive. “I'll call for a doctor.”
“Assassins kill people,” Anleth noted, scanning the environment quickly with her eyes.
“Maybe he missed his mark?”
“Maybe we interrupted him.”
Vlieth turned an admirable shade of white. “You mean...?”
Anleth nodded wordlessly and stood. She pointed two fingers at Vlieth, then at the door, and held her hand up.
Vlieth blinked and stared back.
“Guard the door.”
“Got it.”
Anleth silently walked through the room, senses honed to spot anything out of the ordinary. Under the bed, perhaps? No... no, it would take too long to escape from under the bed, especially with Vlieth standing at the door, looking into the room—he'd spot the assassin instantly. The bathroom? No escape from there... Better be careful, the assassin would react like a cornered animal, injuring anyone in its path to escape capture.
“Captain?”
“Watch my back.” Anleth drew her sword, standing right in front of the bathroom door. She raised her leg and kicked in the door, then took a few steps in, looking around.
Water and towels to the right. An empty tub to the left. The torrenting rain ticked loudly against the heavy, immobile glass letting light through right in front of her. She checked the mirror briefly, a glance to view any corners she might have missed.
“Captain, we should really get a doctor.”
Anleth nodded to herself. Regardless of whether the assassin was found, it was important that Sbod survived. It would be ironic were he to survive the initial assault only to die once brought to safety. She walked back into the living room and saw Vlieth kneeled near Sbod again.
“Very well,” Anleth said, “I will guard him, you will find a doctor. Be sure to—” As she walked past a closet, one of its doors swung into her with a rough kick, throwing her against the bed while the assassin burst out. Before Vlieth could well rise to his feet, he was roughly kicked to the ground again while the assassin made with his escape.
“On your feet!” Anleth shouted while she clambered onto her own. “After him!”
°°°
“Now, where'd he go?”
Anleth didn't comment on that, having no idea herself, while both caught their breath. The only possible way the assassin could have run was into this chamber. Thunder rolled as lightning cracked: they were right in the middle of the weather now.
The chamber was an exceptionally large and tall specimen, used as a VIP dining room. It was larger than the council chamber, and a more recent architectural addition to the temple, less cramped for defense and more open and modernly designed.
Right now, the room was lavishly decorated, hinting towards the visiting prince. Tapestries hung from the walls, reaching all the way up to the roof—Anleth recalled working all day long to get all those heavy tapestries up there, a time- and manpower-consuming task.
Another lightning flashed through the tall, cathedral windows from high above. As shadows were redrawn on the wall, one in particular showed itself in the crisscross of beams... Anleth looked up sharply and, when the lightning bursts subsided, managed to make out a shadow, jumping from beam to beam. How did he get up there, she wondered while looking at the height difference.
“Find backup,” Anleth ordered. The assassin would be slowed by having to jump from beam to beam, rebalancing with each step. “And get a doctor to Sbod.” She took a deep breath, gathering courage, took off her jacket and looked up at one of the pillars. Damn, that was high.
“Sixteen feet,” Vlieth commented, ready to move off.
“Do me a favour and... keep that kind of stuff to yourself in the future.”
°°°
Mioralynthia pulled her robe closer to herself while her steps echoed hollowly through the empty temple halls. An out-of-place thud on Richter's scale had roused her from her sleep, and she knew better than to roll over in bed and try to catch some sleep again: no matter how anonymous, noises come from somewhere, and she had trouble imagining the source was not some structural damage.
She froze when she witnessed... pillow feathers flying by. In droves.
“Hold the door, please.” That was Tarbo's voice, coming from one of the dignitaries' chambers. And an inordinate amount of feathers swept over the floor and into the hallway. “Let's not make this more difficult on the cleaning crew than it already is.”
Prepared for anything, Mioralynthia took a careful step into the chamber and closed the door behind her. Or perhaps not prepared for anything: she had not expected to see a metric tonne of granite crashed into a bed. “Oh my... what happened here?”
A lopsided smile rose on Tarbo's lips at the familiar voice. He and Lynthia went back a while. “They ran out of tripwire.”
“Is he...?”
“Dead. Yes. Very.” Tarbo turned to the sorceress, widening his smile. “And you really make that robe look good.”
“Oh, thank you,” Lynthia replied.
“The feathers really put this 'Careful, cute'-sign on you. If only I had a canvas, paint, brush, and skill.”
“What happened?” Mioralynthia repeated her earlier question, willing for more detail.
“One theory goes that the granite slab you see was in fact tired of holding on all this time and decided to get a rest in the cosy bed underneath it. That theory is currently being overshadowed by the belief that the stone was brutally tricked into murder by falling once a certain condition was met, like a physical or magical trigger.”
“...I don't sense any magic at play here. A physical trigger, then?”
Tarbo nodded, hands in his pockets. “The thing is, I already searched this entire room for possible triggers. The only place I haven't looked yet is under that piece of granite. You can imagine I'm happy you showed up.” A smile turned on his lips again. “Perhaps you could hocus-pocus it out of here?”
“If you're referring to inanimate telekinesis with hocus-pocus then, yes, I might as well give it a try. But I'll need room to move it.”
“There's a hole in the ceiling. Should be an exact match.”
“No?” Mioralynthia aimed at him, sarcasm seeping from her voice.
“I kid you not.”
Mioralynthia shook her head, a gentle smile still rolling onto her lips before her face froze in concentration. She closed her eyes and focused on the magic roaming about her, pulling any she could find and channelling it into the massive rock in front of her. Slowly, with a deep, heavy rumble, the rock started moving;
“Sir! Ma'am!” Vlieth bashed through the door, stumbling into the room, and staggered two steps before bumping into Mioralynthia's back. “We need a medup and backic!”
Torn from her concentration by the sudden bump, Mioralynthia's spell was forcefully ended with a colourful spray of sparkles and twinkles. In mid-flight, the granite slab stopped being supported, rising almost an inch from the sheer inertia it still had. It held, as if slowed by a sadistic mind, before gravity regained its pull on the heavy object, crashing it mercilessly into the bed and the owning councillor again with a thundering slam.
Then, with surprisingly little noise—a mere groove of stone—the granite slab fell through the floor, taking itself and the one slab of the same size along to the floor below. Mattress feathers flew up into the room above.
Three heads cautiously peeked down into the room below to gauge the caused damage.
“Scratch the medic,” Vlieth broke the silence.
°°°
Anleth had given up on yelling for the assassin to stop. She had a serious amount of ground (and breath) to catch up on. But she had a trump up her sleeve—all she needed was a clear field to use it. She breathed deeply through her nose, gathering strength... Just a few more jumps, a few more beams to cross, and she could turn the corner into the long hallway, where she would certainly spot the assassin.
With a deep grunt, Anleth leapt at the next beam a few yards off. To her surprise, she landed on her feet and kept her balance. Already, she had a few bumps and bruises from nearly missing but narrowly hanging on. Still, it was better than cratering on the dinner table below. She took another jump—where were those reinforcements?
To her left, another impressive array of beams—the room never looked this big from a frog perspective. And there, her target, the assassin, several beams away. Clearing her mind, she pulled out her trump card: boleadoras, bolas. She swung them over her head, building momentum and waiting for the right moment. When the assassin was about to jump, she launched the projectile at him.
With a low hum, the bolas soared through the air, barely skimming over the beams on their way to their target. The assassin had just leapt, landing ably on both feet—a sudden jerk pulled on his ankles as the bolas wrapped around them and removed his fragile balance; he fell but held the beam with both arms. Good reflexes, Anleth admitted, but this gave her the time she needed to get closer, and she made haste.
With careful appliance of strength and skill, the assassin swooped back onto the beam. Anleth took a good look at the figure while he checked what had hit him and tried to untangle his feet: a light covering cloak over the body; a scarf covering all but the eyes; a dark, non-descript, tight robe; but most important of all, a goodsome amount of weapons all strapped securely to the body. It was impossible to say whether the assassin was male or female—Anleth neither had the time or the light to tell properly. But by now, she was only one beam off.
While Anleth leapt for the last beam, the assassin had freed his ankles and leapt onto his feet, balancing instantly and perfectly on the narrow platform. In contrast, Anleth swung her arms for balance when she had made the jump—almost overjumped—but quickly noticed the assassin had no intention of running any more. Both drew their weapons. Or, well, Anleth drew her sword while the assassin pulled out two of them.
“You're not going to come peacefully, are you?”
The assassin cocked his head. He glanced down at the beam, visibly making note of her balance and, most importantly, lack of experience in fighting a good five yards in the air with five inches to stand on. His body language said it all. She couldn't possibly be serious.
Anleth looked at the floor far, far below for a moment, then advanced with a careful step. “You and me both,” she muttered.
The attacks were swift and deadly. Anleth had hoped to be more in the attacking section and less parrying for her life, but she didn't find much reproach in the twin blades soaring past her body. In any other situation, she could have relied on her nimbleness to keep her safe, but being restricted to a five-inch beam ruled out that option. An opening, a flaw, anything that would give her a chance...
Spotting an opening as by divine revelation, Anleth noticed the assassin shifting balance for a new swooping of his blades. Seizing the opportunity, she lunged forward with her sword and, although she did not strike home, she did force the assassin back a few steps. He didn't seem to like it a great deal but, then again, that was part of what made it all sound like a good idea.
“I didn't get my rank in a box of crackers,” Anleth raised. “This is your last chance to lay down your arms and surrender.” As much as she had rightful confidence in her skills, she knew that she didn't stand a chance against a trained assassin. Then again, all she really needed to do was buy time.
Again, attacks started, but this time, she was the main attacking party. Attacking wasn't easy; she needed enough strength to swing her sword and yet enough balance to keep from plummeting down. It limited her repertoire severely, making it all the more tiring to try to break through the meticulous parrying. All the skill in the world still made her feel like a toddler with a club. And then, the odds turned on her.
When Anleth made a final strike to beat through the parry, she seemed to almost succeed. What the assassin was in fact doing, was luring her out of balance by suddenly resisting much less, removing himself from her equation. It worked partly—Anleth rebalanced instantly—but an instant was all he needed.
With his free sword, the assassin swung at Anleth, cutting in her upper arm while, at the same time, he dropped himself onto the beam and swept at her shins, scoring a hit. Anleth dropped from the sudden hit, landing flatly on the beam and slid off—she held on with both arms, legs swinging powerlessly in the air. The tear in her upper arm kept her from pulling up again. Her eyes followed the assassin while he rose calmly to his feet. He took a deep, respectful bow, blew a kiss, and left.
°°°
“How bad is it?” Tarbo picked up a vial with what looked like an expensive substance and shook it around a little. He wasn't in an infirmary often. Because he didn't get hurt.
Talden chuckled good-heartedly and checked his pad while standing next to Anleth's bed. “Oh, I'm afraid she has only two more days to live.”
Anleth opened her eyes widely in surprise, looking at the 'good' doctor. Tarbo followed with a similar stare of disbelief. Poison? Lotus?
“Oh, apologies, I'm holding the wrong pad.” Talden chuckled again, then turned briefly to the patient on his other side. “We'll talk.”
“So, how bad is it?” Tarbo repeated his question, sitting on Anleth's bed.
“Oh, nothing to worry,” Talden assured both. “We've bandaged her arm and checked her bruises, nothing serious. All she needs is a night's rest and she'll be up and prancing like a jolly horse again. Though she might be a little stiff.”
“Sounds like you'll be alright, captain,” Tarbo summarised with a smile.
But Anleth had already slipped into a deep, blissful sleep.
°°°
Early morning. Birds twittered and whistled happily as they flew in and around the temple's outer structure. Fluffy clouds scrolled gently through the blue sky, white dots decorating the beautiful, calming sight. And all of Naggaroth was restful and peaceable.
All of Naggaroth?
No, in a temple to the north, but not too far to the north, all was not restful and peaceable. This time, however, it was not a single, pitched, complaining whine piercing the surrounding air. This time, it was a different flavour of panic.
“Khaine's love,” Anleth sighed, her eyes wide open in disbelief.
The Cold One pen saw several guards convened near the fence. The Cold Ones were finally more or less up and about—except for Spike, who was doing an impressive impersonation of a lizard dying of migraine—and circling around and playing with a singular object in their pen.
A human toddler.
“H-How the... how'd he...?”
The nearest guard lifted his shoulders helplessly. He had no idea.
“You were right to call for help; this is going to need serious equipment.”
“Oh, actually, it's not for the toddler. We figured that one would be pretty easy.”
“Then what for?” Anleth asked, curiosity swirling around her voice.
The guard pointed up at the ceiling. “It's for him.”
Another guard hung from a pole, arms and legs clenched around in a near-feutal position. He pulled up his feet a little more, his pants showing broad tears and a bite marks around the buttocks.
“We gave it a shot already.”
°°°
You sit in the council chamber, waiting for your host to appear. None of you had the luxury of a long night's sleep, what with the chases and collapsing ceilings, though you have been able to sleep in a bit more following the lack of a little girl not getting what she wanted. Perhaps the Guard finally collected the courage to gag or. Whatever they did, you silently commend their judgement.
It is a beautiful weather again. The sun shines brightly into the chamber, scaring away those that suffer from a hangover, while those that are merely sleepy bask in the light, dozing off peacefully.
You've already heard who passed away, and how. Osthil was killed deliberately, a precise strike at him in his own quarters, set up far ahead in time. More surprising, however, is Sbod's unfortunate demise, a sad display of kharmic sadism: while having (barely) survived the initial assault, interrupted by the Guard's timely intervention, an undetailed and non-descript accident made the ceiling collapse on him. Not the entire ceiling, but a single, well-placed slab covering precisely and only his body.
The doors to the chamber open. Only four of you remain, and Mioralynthia has been volunteered to keep you company. Despite the Temple's absurd situation, she managed to display a cool composure and calm but strict demeanour. In her arms are history books, most likely on the Reik.
“Good morning, everyone,” she greets you briefly, heading over to her seat at the head of the table. “Normally, captain Darts would be keeping you company, but he seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet and, despite my best efforts, people hold the belief that I have nothing better to do, so here I am.”
With a surprisingly silent slam, Mioralynthia drops the books on the table and picks up where she seems to have left off: reading.
_________________________
The following event cards were in play this Night:
Above and Beyond
Collateral
- Players
- Drakhan
- The Golden Arrow
- Morvai
- Mel'Reyna
- "Deaths"
- 51la5 (Night 1)
- Sirist (Day 2 - inactivity kill)
- XtremeNL (Day 2 - inactivity kill)
- Khelmor Blackspine (Day 2)
- DancingPigeon (Night 2)
- Ashnari Doomsong (Day 3 - inactivity kill)
- lordofthenight (Day 3)
- High Executioner Kalus (Night 4)
- SBOD (Night 4)
With 4 players left, 3 constitute a majority.
In case it is significant: High Executioner Kalus was an intentional target, while SBOD was a casualty of the Collateral event card.
The activity deadline is set to pass at Friday, about 10h00 GMT. The final deadline will probably be an additional 72 hours from then.
-
The golden arrow
- Cold One Knight
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:15 pm
- Location: Halmstad, Sweden
- Contact:
"Holy ... Well it seems I'm one of the last ones to be left alive and that probably means that my theories are so bad it helps the assasins more then us. Well, I can calculate so much, that there is actually only one assasin. We can't use people teeming up and anything like that then. I'm pretty much clueless now, how about you?" The Golden Arrow said with a tired and confused voice.
Drakhan started twisting his ring."Alright as far as I'm concerned it is back to square one. I'm discounting my old thoughts for Now. Mel'reyna's temporary saving of Sbod could have been a ploy to avoid suspicion (Hell I used the same strategy in one SAU). Morvai could be just hiding in plain sight, if you know what I mean. and Golden.... I don't really have anything."
Drakhan who was once Shaadan who was once Drow sorcerer who was once Tangas who was once Drow Sorcerer.
Damn you SAU!
Damn you SAU!
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Mel'reyna
- Beastmaster
- Posts: 379
- Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:53 am
- Location: Canada...the other Land of Chill!
-"Same here for me, absolutely nothing on Golden. You, Morvai and myself have all put ourselves on the line inside the council chamber by expressing our thoughts and suspicions in order to root out the assassin, but Golden has remained relatively passive, but not too passive for us to accuse him of not speaking at all. He's been staying right on that fine line the whole time now that I think of it, just throwing his vote in with a brief explanation and rarely initiating any of the debates or votes himself.
As I've said almost from the very beginning, I don't suspect you or Morvai, because an assassin would not have put himself in the spotlight as early as you did, he would wait and study us all for a while, study our reactions so that he was sure we would not retaliate against him. This is exactly what Golden has been doing, and he continues to do it. He just pretty much told us that he had no opinion, expecting us to turn on each other and ignore him so that he can once again throw his vote in unnoticed. I can say without hesitation or doubt that my vote will be against him. Vote: The Golden Arrow."
As I've said almost from the very beginning, I don't suspect you or Morvai, because an assassin would not have put himself in the spotlight as early as you did, he would wait and study us all for a while, study our reactions so that he was sure we would not retaliate against him. This is exactly what Golden has been doing, and he continues to do it. He just pretty much told us that he had no opinion, expecting us to turn on each other and ignore him so that he can once again throw his vote in unnoticed. I can say without hesitation or doubt that my vote will be against him. Vote: The Golden Arrow."
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The golden arrow
- Cold One Knight
- Posts: 242
- Joined: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:15 pm
- Location: Halmstad, Sweden
- Contact:
"I did not voice many suspisions in the beginning cause I did not have any and no one else had any clues eíther. I did not think that Morvai acted suspisious and was to late to write anything about Khelmor (many people had already said what they tought about him and I could just agree). I mean, it doesn't really help if I just say the same as the poster before me so that I could have said to have voiced my opinions. Now resently I looked through the posts and thought about what people have said (I have not had that much time for this so I haven't been able to be active all the time or post huge posts like Morvai) and then I spoke of them to all of you and voted for a person. Sure, it failed but you can't say that it haven't tried."
"If we look at the remaining people, Morvai has been most active by far and started a lot of votings in all directions. You have also voiced your oppinions and started some votings (notable against Khelmor). The we have Drakhan. He has not started any voting except for the random votings in the beggining to get people active (and a random, I think, vote against me here in the end when he hadn't much time or something like that) and has not posted that many suspisions, but been quick to follow when others have voted. He has also supproted Morvai which fits pretty well in with the killings. I have no clear evidence, it's just that he feels slightly more suspisious to me right now, so I Vote: Drakhan"
"If we look at the remaining people, Morvai has been most active by far and started a lot of votings in all directions. You have also voiced your oppinions and started some votings (notable against Khelmor). The we have Drakhan. He has not started any voting except for the random votings in the beggining to get people active (and a random, I think, vote against me here in the end when he hadn't much time or something like that) and has not posted that many suspisions, but been quick to follow when others have voted. He has also supproted Morvai which fits pretty well in with the killings. I have no clear evidence, it's just that he feels slightly more suspisious to me right now, so I Vote: Drakhan"
Morvai stared out in front of him with a blank look in his eyes. It had been a bad night. First he had suffered from the wear off from the courva and then when he finally slept he was rudely woken up by a loud noise. First eh had thought that the citizens had finally snapped and were lobbing rocks at the temple, but when he had seen the guard running around he understood that it was another inventive way of killing.
The rest of the night he had stayed awake in his room, looking at the ceiling every five seconds.
When he walked in the council chamber this morning he shook his head. Only four councillors remained and one of them had to be the killer. However they were still clueless to who it was. Sighing heavily Morvai sat himself done and waited for someone to come up with another theory, he for one was all out of ideas.
***
first Golden told them what everyone already knew. There would be one assassin and he had no idea who it was.
The second to speak up was Drakhan. He voiced his theories, however none give the council anything new to go be.
Mel’reyna was the next to speak up. She however went straight to the case, making perfectly clear that Golden was her prime target for today.
And then Golden made his defense and like almost all Druchii who get attacked he immediately fought back. However not in Mel’Reyna’s direction but in Drakhan’s.
Morvai was first spectacle about the defense but the more he thought about it it all seemed really logic.
“Although you completely lost me with that post and player speech, but I see your point in your last words. From the four people here I know one is innocent. That is ofcourse me. And on my top suspicion list was Golden. However a thought just struck me when Golden spoke. Something that put Mel’Reyna and Golden of my list. And since I know I’m innocent that only leaves Drakhan. So Drakhan, I’m sorry for the council that I haven’t done this sooner.”
Vote:Drakhan
The rest of the night he had stayed awake in his room, looking at the ceiling every five seconds.
When he walked in the council chamber this morning he shook his head. Only four councillors remained and one of them had to be the killer. However they were still clueless to who it was. Sighing heavily Morvai sat himself done and waited for someone to come up with another theory, he for one was all out of ideas.
***
first Golden told them what everyone already knew. There would be one assassin and he had no idea who it was.
The second to speak up was Drakhan. He voiced his theories, however none give the council anything new to go be.
Mel’reyna was the next to speak up. She however went straight to the case, making perfectly clear that Golden was her prime target for today.
And then Golden made his defense and like almost all Druchii who get attacked he immediately fought back. However not in Mel’Reyna’s direction but in Drakhan’s.
Morvai was first spectacle about the defense but the more he thought about it it all seemed really logic.
“Although you completely lost me with that post and player speech, but I see your point in your last words. From the four people here I know one is innocent. That is ofcourse me. And on my top suspicion list was Golden. However a thought just struck me when Golden spoke. Something that put Mel’Reyna and Golden of my list. And since I know I’m innocent that only leaves Drakhan. So Drakhan, I’m sorry for the council that I haven’t done this sooner.”
Vote:Drakhan
Masters of Mischief (NC background)
The Black Blades (DE). W: 2 D: 2 L: 1
The Black Blades (DE). W: 2 D: 2 L: 1
-
Mel'reyna
- Beastmaster
- Posts: 379
- Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2005 2:53 am
- Location: Canada...the other Land of Chill!
-"Hmm, well, I must admit that your defense was quite confusing, Drakhan, but from the parts that I was able to understand, you do seem to make a good point. I'm not saying that my suspicion towards you has evaporated, but the case you and Morvai have build against Drakhan seems far more promising. Not that I have much of a choice, since if I don't redirect my vote, nothing will get done and we'll be cadavers by tomorrow anyways. I vote: Drakhan.
OOC: What the... Where'd my deffence post go? And Mel I assume the first name you said was meant to be The golden arrow. Otherwise it would be kinda confusing.
Drakhan gave a small smile. "And that thought being?.... At the moment I have to say I'm hoping you are innocent. This might not be pleasant but I'll still be around. The same might not be true of you. Morvai you should not be sorry for the council.... If your innocent you should be feeling very sorry for yourself."
Drakhan stood up and started walking towards the door. "Pity I'll miss it."
Drakhan gave a small smile. "And that thought being?.... At the moment I have to say I'm hoping you are innocent. This might not be pleasant but I'll still be around. The same might not be true of you. Morvai you should not be sorry for the council.... If your innocent you should be feeling very sorry for yourself."
Drakhan stood up and started walking towards the door. "Pity I'll miss it."
Drakhan who was once Shaadan who was once Drow sorcerer who was once Tangas who was once Drow Sorcerer.
Damn you SAU!
Damn you SAU!
-
Tarbo
- Morathi's Best Friend
- Posts: 1203
- Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 5:06 pm
- Location: Flanders, Belgium
“Packing already?” Tarbo strolled into Mioralynthia's chambers, seeing that the sorceress was well over half-way packing her belongings. Lynthia didn't live or even work at the temple; she was a guest here for as long as the trade negotiations were busy. And now, she was leaving. “I thought the trade negotiations were still ongoing.”
Mioralynthia almost sneered in reply, slamming her books in a suitcase her servants would be carrying. “Thirteen dignitaries, Tarbo, and now there are three left. They will accept anything the prince's retinue offers them, and I've seen what the prince's retinue offers.”
Tarbo nodded in understanding, skimming through the room to satiate his ever-present curiosity. True, the pressure was getting to the dignitaries. In light of so many of them perishing, one forgot that their actual purpose were the trade negotiations. “The captain seems convinced she can get the identity of our mystery killer from her captives. Her convictions and methods can be very compelling—Hel-lo...” He picked a distinctly colourful amulet up by two fingers. “What are these?”
“Those,” Mioralynthia answered with a pause, “are moon amulets, portable and volatile magic wells. I'll thank you not to hold them out into the sun.”
“Oooh, yes, they catch the sun, release a goodsome of magic and explode violently,” Tarbo suddenly recalled, holding the amulet in front of his eyes, though out of sun's reach. “We had one of these funk out at the temple down south.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, we were having a graduation test and one of the students managed to get her hands on one. Blew a slice out of our eighth floor.”
Mioralynthia frowned. It had been a while since she visited the temple in the south; perhaps she should, in the future. “Does that temple have an eight floor?”
“Bits and pieces.” Tarbo shook his head, muttering under his breath while thinking back of the damage it caused. “Downright nasty stuff.”
Mioralynthia returned to packing her belongings. “Goes to show it's best not to trifle with magic.”
“You don't mind if I borrow one of these, do you?”
“You'll find this temple is very fond of its architecture. And honestly, what are you going to do with a magical well?”
“I'll figure something out.”
°°°
There was a deft silence in the temple dungeon. Drakhan and Anleth had been staring at each other for a while now. It wasn't a moon- and candlelight stare.
“Could you run that by me again?” Anleth finally asked him.
“I was too supportive of people and, at the same time, uncooperative. Or so I caught—not everyone was making a comparable amount of sense.”
Anleth brushed a hand through her hair and leaned on the table, looking Drakhan in the eye for a while, thinking it over. Drakhan and her went back a while, a long while, with him once having been a high-ranking member of the Temple Guard. Finally, she took a deep breath and pointed him to a chair. “Alright, have a seat.”
“Yeah, ah, I think we've established I'm not a Slaanesh cultist.”
“We're not looking for Slaanesh cultists.” Anleth leaned a little further over the table, stressing her words to make sure it couldn't be mistaken for a request. “Have a seat.”
°°°
The bar was almost empty. The band was playing instrumentals with only three members left—all others had been conscripted into the Temple Guard. It was a typical, jazzy tune, one that makes any room—bar, dungeon, stables—feel like a stylish lounge.
Guards sat haphazardly spread out over the tables, mimicking a constellation that never made it into the official astrology tables. They deserved a break. It was all over now. The trade agreement was signed. And it sucked.
At the counter, four figures sat next to each other, each with a drink set out in front of them. From left to right, from a bartender's point of view, that would be Rensat, Mioralynthia, Tarbo, and Anleth. Tarbo was the only one not looking like he was going to use nearby bridges for abrupt vertical—rather than the more common horizontal—transportation.
Rensat saw her beautiful plan smashed to pieces by forces both internal and external. She had been told that dignitaries had been dropping like flies by the hands of an internal Temple faction. However, she had also been made aware that all this could never have happened without outside influence—very highly placed outside influence. As in, from out of town.
Mioralynthia could only imagine the administrative and diplomatic nightmare it would be to inform all the respective Houses of failure and/or loss of life from the side of their emissaries. In a sense, she was happy to finally be rid of the prince, his grubby hands, and his nerve-grating, jarring offspring.
Anleth stared dully ahead of herself. Having gotten close to whoever was responsible for this mess, close enough to actually fight him or her, it felt all the more frustrating to have it all slip through her fingers. Sure, people told her there was nothing she could've done under the circumstances, but she took pride in her work, and that pride had taken a serious hit. Today was Friday, but it sure felt like Monday.
And Tarbo? Tarbo was enjoying his drink.
“Sometimes,” Anleth raised, “I wonder whether we ever had a chance. At every step, we were thwarted by higher hands.”
There were quiet nods in agreement. In hindsight, all they had really done was try to fight the inevitable. It took some of the sting out of failure, but not all of it, not by a long shot.
“They had it all planned out neatly enough,” Tarbo answered. “I'm sure they knew that you people would snatch any chance of success from defeat's clutches. No shame in losing a battle you can't win.”
“You people?” Mioralynthia picked up. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you here to make sure everything went according as planned?”
Tarbo wordlessly hid a knowing grin in his drink.
°°°
The Asur ship was closing in, and closing in fast. Darts had to hand it to them: their interceptors could be fast, expediently fast. The Asur had been very picky about their territorial waters, and they often objected to Druchii vessels parading through.
There was a reason Darts found himself in Asur territorial waters, though, a very good reason. He needed to drop the prince off at a friendly port again—friendly to the prince, that was—now that the trade negotiations were finished. He had suspected that they would be attacked once or twice before arriving there. Undoubtedly, the Asur had learned of the trade negotiations and their intentions, hence their move to intercept.
“All hands on deck,” Darts shouted at the top of his voice. “Arm yourselves and prepare to be boarded!”
The prince was standing on deck, chewing off his nails while observing the incoming vessel catching up with them. Right now, he felt silly for giving into his greed and deciding to trade with the Druchii rather than the Asur. The Asur had learnt, and they were going to make him pay. So much for free markets. “We can hold them off, can't we?”
Darts cocked his head with a doubting groan. “Asur are nasty buggers. Better not mess with them.”
“Can't we negotiate with them?”
“My recollection is that negotiations are what ticked them off considerably in the first place.” His eyes rolled to the prince with a serious stare. “Better stay below deck, mate. This will get ugly.”
°°°
They had been standing off for a moment now. A thirtysome Asur warriors were standing on the deck of the comparably large Druchii ship they were boarding. Right across from them, though, were a good hundred warriors, likewise armed to the teeth, pointing their weapons right back at them.
Darts eyed the Asur boarding force. They would be easy pickings: the crew had obviously been at sea a while longer than necessary; the lieutenant wasn't steady on his feet, clearly more of a politician than a sailor; and did he mention the Druchii outnumbered them three-to-one?
“Right,” Darts exclaimed. “Obviously, we are horribly and irrevokably outmanned and out-pointy-weaponed. Gents, lower your weapons, let's not shed blood pointlessly.”
Trained, in a single move and with a single sound, all Druchii warriors dropped their weapons on deck. Darts smiled widely at the Asur lieutenant standing on deck, and took a bow, removing his captain's hat briefly. “We are at your humble command.”
“Ah, eh...” The lieutenant scratched the back of his head in surprise. This was not what he had expected when he boarded a vessel of this size. He quickly regained what composure his recent bout of seasickness had left him. “Ah, give me your, eh... bounty.”
“Cargo. Nautical term.”
“Cargo. Cargo will be fine.”
“Men, carry the cargo onto the other ship. Move, put your backs into it, you dogs!” Darts turned to the lieutenant again with a flawless smile on his lips. “This'll only take a moment.”
“Yeah, ah, in the meantime, we have to talk about what we're going to do with you and your ship.” And a large ship it was. The lieutenant was visibly impressed.
“May I make a suggestion? Send us back on our way.” Darts held up both index fingers before the lieutenant could react. “Think of the image, mate.” Darts stood next to the hapless lieutenant, one arm around his shoulder, the other stretched to the horizon before continuing.
“You and your merry men board a Druchii vessel—much larger than your own—violating your territorial waters, take off with all of our valuables and belongings, and send us sailing back into the setting sun. No blood spilt, no mark on either ship, a true testament to your leadership, an unbearable blemish on our pride and honour. What better message to send the superiors, both yours as ours?” He swung his arms as if describing a headline of sorts. “And on your next sortie, it will be: commodore.”
The lieutenant listened to Darts with raised eyebrows. He did have a point in that the Asur vessel hadn't the crew to man both ships, leaving little option than to let this ship be. “Commodore?”
Darts rolled his eyes to the lieutenant, his arms and legs as if frozen to the spot. “Commands a fleet. A good step over captain. And you get a really big hat.”
“...That sounds about right.”
Darts pulled a facesplitting grin on his lips and offered his hand. “Do we have an accord, then?”
°°°
“Mail call!” an industrious elf said when he walked into the bar and dropped a letter off to Anleth, a letter that had obviously seen better days. The envelope was covered with stamps and scripture denoting redirection after redirection. The intended destination was already obscured several redirections ago.
“You get mail?” Tarbo asked.
“It's one of the few things that are not sent to my desk,” Anleth answered. “Wherever that may be.”
“You have a desk?”
“Yes, and—Lord knows—I have searched the temple entire for it, haven't found a single trace of anything resembling a desk.” She opened the letter. Water stains and rough handling had made the letter fragile and difficult to read. She wondered who on earth would send her a letter, anyway.
“Who is it from?” Mioralynthia asked, her curiosity piqued as well.
“It's from an expeditionary force, asking for a renewal of poisons. Apparently, the sender is afraid his samples might've gone stale.” Anleth frowned and checked the envelope again. “This doesn't make sense; the letter was sent from Ulthuan by a man named Urial Shadowblade. He is speaking of having a big target in his sights and would like to do it right.”
Tarbo and Mioralynthia rolled their eyes to eachother. Anleth might not have the age to recall Urial, but to the both of them, it was more recent history. “Yeah, ah,” Tarbo started carefully. “Don't worry about that.”
“...Oh,” Anleth commented, looking intently at the letter. “That Urial Shadowblade.”
°°°
The captain's cabin hopped and bumped a little on the rough waters. The Asur captain was fairly pleased with the outcome, sitting back with a smug grin. His lieutenant had acquired a great amount of riches and managed to thwart a possible Druchii raid. There were things he was less happy about, though.
A small, scaly, tooth-wielding creature was violently ripping a pillow to shreds. Feathers flew out while it shook the pillow around, tearing it apart with its razorsharp teeth. Once little more than a rag was hanging flatly from its mouth, it dropped it, vigorously wagging its tail, its large, discerning eyes looking around for another pillow to devour. Instead, it settled on chewing on some rare Naggarothian flowers the prince had along with him.
“Ghastly beast,” the captain muttered. He could only imagine how much meat this creature was going to chow down on a daily basis. Imagination failed him altogether when pondering on how a human prince and his family came across a Cold One.
“Lieutenant,” he suddenly asked. “Have you seen my dog?”
The lieutenant looked around briefly. A good amount of the prince's personal riches and possessions were in the captain's cabin, scattered over the bed, desk, and any other furniture with flat, horizontal surfaces. The captain's dog was a fairly small creature, usually inseperable from its owner. Strange that he wouldn't be in the cabin.
“Well, hel-lo,” the captain suddenly raised, holding an distinctly colourful amulet up by two of his fingers. “Take a look at what his little girl had with her.”
“A gift from the Druchii?”
“Looks like it. Hey, look, it's catching the sunrays.”
°°°
Sunlight shines brightly through the windows into a small room on the third floor in the city hall. A single chair and a desk are standing around, neatly positioned as you would expect them to stand in a catalogue. On the desk's right side, impressive stacks of paper are waiting.
An elf walks through the open door, holding a paper in his hand, the title reading “Memorandum”. He looks around, sighs and drops the memo on the desk before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
_________________________
The infiltrator "team" has won the game! The infiltrators were Mel'Reyna and Sirist, though Sirist was not replaced when she dropped out of the game.
After the night's killings, with no way to stop the kill, the game would've been over anyway, so I went ahead and called it a SAU.
If you'd like to discuss the game, the OOC thread is still open.
Mioralynthia almost sneered in reply, slamming her books in a suitcase her servants would be carrying. “Thirteen dignitaries, Tarbo, and now there are three left. They will accept anything the prince's retinue offers them, and I've seen what the prince's retinue offers.”
Tarbo nodded in understanding, skimming through the room to satiate his ever-present curiosity. True, the pressure was getting to the dignitaries. In light of so many of them perishing, one forgot that their actual purpose were the trade negotiations. “The captain seems convinced she can get the identity of our mystery killer from her captives. Her convictions and methods can be very compelling—Hel-lo...” He picked a distinctly colourful amulet up by two fingers. “What are these?”
“Those,” Mioralynthia answered with a pause, “are moon amulets, portable and volatile magic wells. I'll thank you not to hold them out into the sun.”
“Oooh, yes, they catch the sun, release a goodsome of magic and explode violently,” Tarbo suddenly recalled, holding the amulet in front of his eyes, though out of sun's reach. “We had one of these funk out at the temple down south.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, we were having a graduation test and one of the students managed to get her hands on one. Blew a slice out of our eighth floor.”
Mioralynthia frowned. It had been a while since she visited the temple in the south; perhaps she should, in the future. “Does that temple have an eight floor?”
“Bits and pieces.” Tarbo shook his head, muttering under his breath while thinking back of the damage it caused. “Downright nasty stuff.”
Mioralynthia returned to packing her belongings. “Goes to show it's best not to trifle with magic.”
“You don't mind if I borrow one of these, do you?”
“You'll find this temple is very fond of its architecture. And honestly, what are you going to do with a magical well?”
“I'll figure something out.”
°°°
There was a deft silence in the temple dungeon. Drakhan and Anleth had been staring at each other for a while now. It wasn't a moon- and candlelight stare.
“Could you run that by me again?” Anleth finally asked him.
“I was too supportive of people and, at the same time, uncooperative. Or so I caught—not everyone was making a comparable amount of sense.”
Anleth brushed a hand through her hair and leaned on the table, looking Drakhan in the eye for a while, thinking it over. Drakhan and her went back a while, a long while, with him once having been a high-ranking member of the Temple Guard. Finally, she took a deep breath and pointed him to a chair. “Alright, have a seat.”
“Yeah, ah, I think we've established I'm not a Slaanesh cultist.”
“We're not looking for Slaanesh cultists.” Anleth leaned a little further over the table, stressing her words to make sure it couldn't be mistaken for a request. “Have a seat.”
°°°
The bar was almost empty. The band was playing instrumentals with only three members left—all others had been conscripted into the Temple Guard. It was a typical, jazzy tune, one that makes any room—bar, dungeon, stables—feel like a stylish lounge.
Guards sat haphazardly spread out over the tables, mimicking a constellation that never made it into the official astrology tables. They deserved a break. It was all over now. The trade agreement was signed. And it sucked.
At the counter, four figures sat next to each other, each with a drink set out in front of them. From left to right, from a bartender's point of view, that would be Rensat, Mioralynthia, Tarbo, and Anleth. Tarbo was the only one not looking like he was going to use nearby bridges for abrupt vertical—rather than the more common horizontal—transportation.
Rensat saw her beautiful plan smashed to pieces by forces both internal and external. She had been told that dignitaries had been dropping like flies by the hands of an internal Temple faction. However, she had also been made aware that all this could never have happened without outside influence—very highly placed outside influence. As in, from out of town.
Mioralynthia could only imagine the administrative and diplomatic nightmare it would be to inform all the respective Houses of failure and/or loss of life from the side of their emissaries. In a sense, she was happy to finally be rid of the prince, his grubby hands, and his nerve-grating, jarring offspring.
Anleth stared dully ahead of herself. Having gotten close to whoever was responsible for this mess, close enough to actually fight him or her, it felt all the more frustrating to have it all slip through her fingers. Sure, people told her there was nothing she could've done under the circumstances, but she took pride in her work, and that pride had taken a serious hit. Today was Friday, but it sure felt like Monday.
And Tarbo? Tarbo was enjoying his drink.
“Sometimes,” Anleth raised, “I wonder whether we ever had a chance. At every step, we were thwarted by higher hands.”
There were quiet nods in agreement. In hindsight, all they had really done was try to fight the inevitable. It took some of the sting out of failure, but not all of it, not by a long shot.
“They had it all planned out neatly enough,” Tarbo answered. “I'm sure they knew that you people would snatch any chance of success from defeat's clutches. No shame in losing a battle you can't win.”
“You people?” Mioralynthia picked up. “Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you here to make sure everything went according as planned?”
Tarbo wordlessly hid a knowing grin in his drink.
°°°
The Asur ship was closing in, and closing in fast. Darts had to hand it to them: their interceptors could be fast, expediently fast. The Asur had been very picky about their territorial waters, and they often objected to Druchii vessels parading through.
There was a reason Darts found himself in Asur territorial waters, though, a very good reason. He needed to drop the prince off at a friendly port again—friendly to the prince, that was—now that the trade negotiations were finished. He had suspected that they would be attacked once or twice before arriving there. Undoubtedly, the Asur had learned of the trade negotiations and their intentions, hence their move to intercept.
“All hands on deck,” Darts shouted at the top of his voice. “Arm yourselves and prepare to be boarded!”
The prince was standing on deck, chewing off his nails while observing the incoming vessel catching up with them. Right now, he felt silly for giving into his greed and deciding to trade with the Druchii rather than the Asur. The Asur had learnt, and they were going to make him pay. So much for free markets. “We can hold them off, can't we?”
Darts cocked his head with a doubting groan. “Asur are nasty buggers. Better not mess with them.”
“Can't we negotiate with them?”
“My recollection is that negotiations are what ticked them off considerably in the first place.” His eyes rolled to the prince with a serious stare. “Better stay below deck, mate. This will get ugly.”
°°°
They had been standing off for a moment now. A thirtysome Asur warriors were standing on the deck of the comparably large Druchii ship they were boarding. Right across from them, though, were a good hundred warriors, likewise armed to the teeth, pointing their weapons right back at them.
Darts eyed the Asur boarding force. They would be easy pickings: the crew had obviously been at sea a while longer than necessary; the lieutenant wasn't steady on his feet, clearly more of a politician than a sailor; and did he mention the Druchii outnumbered them three-to-one?
“Right,” Darts exclaimed. “Obviously, we are horribly and irrevokably outmanned and out-pointy-weaponed. Gents, lower your weapons, let's not shed blood pointlessly.”
Trained, in a single move and with a single sound, all Druchii warriors dropped their weapons on deck. Darts smiled widely at the Asur lieutenant standing on deck, and took a bow, removing his captain's hat briefly. “We are at your humble command.”
“Ah, eh...” The lieutenant scratched the back of his head in surprise. This was not what he had expected when he boarded a vessel of this size. He quickly regained what composure his recent bout of seasickness had left him. “Ah, give me your, eh... bounty.”
“Cargo. Nautical term.”
“Cargo. Cargo will be fine.”
“Men, carry the cargo onto the other ship. Move, put your backs into it, you dogs!” Darts turned to the lieutenant again with a flawless smile on his lips. “This'll only take a moment.”
“Yeah, ah, in the meantime, we have to talk about what we're going to do with you and your ship.” And a large ship it was. The lieutenant was visibly impressed.
“May I make a suggestion? Send us back on our way.” Darts held up both index fingers before the lieutenant could react. “Think of the image, mate.” Darts stood next to the hapless lieutenant, one arm around his shoulder, the other stretched to the horizon before continuing.
“You and your merry men board a Druchii vessel—much larger than your own—violating your territorial waters, take off with all of our valuables and belongings, and send us sailing back into the setting sun. No blood spilt, no mark on either ship, a true testament to your leadership, an unbearable blemish on our pride and honour. What better message to send the superiors, both yours as ours?” He swung his arms as if describing a headline of sorts. “And on your next sortie, it will be: commodore.”
The lieutenant listened to Darts with raised eyebrows. He did have a point in that the Asur vessel hadn't the crew to man both ships, leaving little option than to let this ship be. “Commodore?”
Darts rolled his eyes to the lieutenant, his arms and legs as if frozen to the spot. “Commands a fleet. A good step over captain. And you get a really big hat.”
“...That sounds about right.”
Darts pulled a facesplitting grin on his lips and offered his hand. “Do we have an accord, then?”
°°°
“Mail call!” an industrious elf said when he walked into the bar and dropped a letter off to Anleth, a letter that had obviously seen better days. The envelope was covered with stamps and scripture denoting redirection after redirection. The intended destination was already obscured several redirections ago.
“You get mail?” Tarbo asked.
“It's one of the few things that are not sent to my desk,” Anleth answered. “Wherever that may be.”
“You have a desk?”
“Yes, and—Lord knows—I have searched the temple entire for it, haven't found a single trace of anything resembling a desk.” She opened the letter. Water stains and rough handling had made the letter fragile and difficult to read. She wondered who on earth would send her a letter, anyway.
“Who is it from?” Mioralynthia asked, her curiosity piqued as well.
“It's from an expeditionary force, asking for a renewal of poisons. Apparently, the sender is afraid his samples might've gone stale.” Anleth frowned and checked the envelope again. “This doesn't make sense; the letter was sent from Ulthuan by a man named Urial Shadowblade. He is speaking of having a big target in his sights and would like to do it right.”
Tarbo and Mioralynthia rolled their eyes to eachother. Anleth might not have the age to recall Urial, but to the both of them, it was more recent history. “Yeah, ah,” Tarbo started carefully. “Don't worry about that.”
“...Oh,” Anleth commented, looking intently at the letter. “That Urial Shadowblade.”
°°°
The captain's cabin hopped and bumped a little on the rough waters. The Asur captain was fairly pleased with the outcome, sitting back with a smug grin. His lieutenant had acquired a great amount of riches and managed to thwart a possible Druchii raid. There were things he was less happy about, though.
A small, scaly, tooth-wielding creature was violently ripping a pillow to shreds. Feathers flew out while it shook the pillow around, tearing it apart with its razorsharp teeth. Once little more than a rag was hanging flatly from its mouth, it dropped it, vigorously wagging its tail, its large, discerning eyes looking around for another pillow to devour. Instead, it settled on chewing on some rare Naggarothian flowers the prince had along with him.
“Ghastly beast,” the captain muttered. He could only imagine how much meat this creature was going to chow down on a daily basis. Imagination failed him altogether when pondering on how a human prince and his family came across a Cold One.
“Lieutenant,” he suddenly asked. “Have you seen my dog?”
The lieutenant looked around briefly. A good amount of the prince's personal riches and possessions were in the captain's cabin, scattered over the bed, desk, and any other furniture with flat, horizontal surfaces. The captain's dog was a fairly small creature, usually inseperable from its owner. Strange that he wouldn't be in the cabin.
“Well, hel-lo,” the captain suddenly raised, holding an distinctly colourful amulet up by two of his fingers. “Take a look at what his little girl had with her.”
“A gift from the Druchii?”
“Looks like it. Hey, look, it's catching the sunrays.”
°°°
Sunlight shines brightly through the windows into a small room on the third floor in the city hall. A single chair and a desk are standing around, neatly positioned as you would expect them to stand in a catalogue. On the desk's right side, impressive stacks of paper are waiting.
An elf walks through the open door, holding a paper in his hand, the title reading “Memorandum”. He looks around, sighs and drops the memo on the desk before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
_________________________
The infiltrator "team" has won the game! The infiltrators were Mel'Reyna and Sirist, though Sirist was not replaced when she dropped out of the game.
After the night's killings, with no way to stop the kill, the game would've been over anyway, so I went ahead and called it a SAU.
If you'd like to discuss the game, the OOC thread is still open.