Shadows

"You clearly don't understand what it is to be Captain. We oversee others who do the work, give advice and make important decisions at the right moment. I think Gabby and the rest have things under control for now." "Not the most creative theory, certainly not all the possibilities. Perhaps he knew his assailant, who entered the room with him while discussing whatever arrangement was to be reached. Something goes wrong, they argue and fight, there is a struggle, things are thrown around and broken and then the stabbing. However it went, it seems somewhat unplanned, wouldn't a killer bring a more suitable weapon if it was planned?" *continues* "I do suspect that someone involved in this could easily have suffered an injury of their own, perhaps we need to make note of anyone with cuts or bruises or anything of the sort. Like Ms. Young, for example, with the odd pencil wound. I don't even understand why people are still carrying around pencils in this day and age. Perhaps to keep logs of engine grease. Makes about as much sense." "As for the door, it would let that person out and lock behind them, as all the doors to the private cabins and other secure areas. This isn't exactly a locked door mystery and I doubt anyone climbed a trellis to get in the window, leaving muddy prints in the roses below. Saw that one in a holovid once. The butler did it. We don't have a butler, but perhaps a steward would do. No, I'm not serious. "

"That particular skill has never come up before. I suppose we could simply scan it for electronics and potentially identify the type fairly easily." *wipes some grease off the handheld scanner before trying to use it on the frog*

"Now you've just gone and made it weird."

Why do we even have grease now? There are only like 12 moving parts on the whole ship that aren't based on electromagnetism and energy fields. Oh well, I'm glad I thought that and didn't say it. "Good job, Gabby."

"He's not coming back and he clearly wasn't the easily embarrassed sort, look at what he was wearing. I vote for reading it out loud, I'm curious."

"I'm pretty sure that if the teapot could do that much damage to Alfie, it would have broken before now. No one is being arrested. Yet." *inhales deeply before continuing* "HOWEVER, the lack of respect for Blue Star property about this ship is disgraceful. I would ask if you all were raised in a zoo, but thus far, Colin has been better behaved than anyone. Until he eats someone, at least, and at this point, some of you might not be missed. Just know that every last thing you needlessly break, every stolen bottle of wine, every mess you make, I'll be watching you. And billing you. Or your daddy, for the brats amongst you. I don't care, someone will pay!" *mutters to her self* "About? Aboard."

"You'd have to ask the narrator that, I didn't actually touch anything." "We have your financial information on file, you'll pay."

"Just fiddling with things trying to get them to work. I'm not that good with my hands, though I've been told that I make up for it in other ways. Whatever that means." "Of course." *hands her all-access pass to Gabby (it fits)* "Be sure to give that back." "That's going on your bill."

"Would you like to experience a space walk, without a suit? Stick to the news." "If we could do that, they wouldn't be missing."

*addressing the group* "I do hope you'll forgive Engineer Palmer's, well, slightly abrasive attitude. I think it's that brainslug she tries to call hair, it looks uncomfortable." "I think I might need to start drinking..." "Seriously though, that thing ... I think I saw it in an old scifi holovid called The Trouble with Triboniophorus Tyrannus."

"I think you greatly overestimate the caliber of your pants pistol."

"You sound like you've never been on one of these trips before. Of course we eat with the guests, it's one of the highlights for them, chatting up the crew, hearing about our adventures, real or imagined, and trying to get in our pants, of course. I despise the whole thing, but at least we eat well." *orders her traditional steak, medium, with sauteed onions and baked potato with butter, sour cream, cheese and crumbled bacon, and garlic toast* "What? I know the secret menu by heart. Plus the assassin and/or spy can't poison food they aren't expecting anyone to order. Dessert? Oh no, that would be fattening, as opposed to all the stuff I already ordered. If I get hungry later, I'm sure I'll find something to satisfy me."

"Don't worry, I have plans for you and I did not reveal it in front of everyone, except the people spying, and they already know they're spies." "I always say exactly what I mean. You'll figure it out later, in my cabin. Now wipe the drool from your mouth and get back to whatever it is you're doing, I have something important to attend to." *leaves for Section C*

"You seem upset, but you can't let the passengers see it, stiff upper lip and all. Don't worry too much, I made up the assassin just to see your face. Priceless." *whispering* "Good thing none of the nosy passenger heard or they would be panicking. Actually, if any of them did, it's a clue to finding the spy, because only a spy would be so bold as to listen in on clearly private conversations. Yes, I said spy." "I will need to see you in my cabin later, there is undercover work to be done."

"It's probably because one of them is a dangerous assassin. Got the message via direct comm, no one else knows. Keep it quiet." I begin to wonder why I would tell the chattiest person on the ship a secret, then laugh to myself. "Yes, it is. The computer does most of the work and you overestimate all of your repair times so you can be a hero when you finish sooner. It's tradition, and I respect that, but we all know." "Someone is going to get such a tongue lashing later," I think with a smirk.. "I can think emotes, too."

*ahem* We DO NOT knock up the NPCs for a quick bang in the middle of the night. And YOU do not fly the ship, you simply keep the engines in working order so that I may fly the ship.

Getting the ship there and back in one undamaged piece. Oh, and most of the passengers, damage slightly more optional.

Most of them drink too much and throw up on the carpets. Oh, you mean the tiger. There will be no speciesism aboard this ship, Colin is just as welcome as the rest of you animals as long as everyone behaves. All of this comes as news to me.

They may supply my credits, but they are in no way my superiors when we're on this ship. I am, however, aware of who you are, I just wasn't certain that was information that should be shared with the rest of the passengers. Discretion being the better part of valor and all that. You'd be surprised how many ships are captained by females now. Male captains get lost at a 72% higher rate than female captains while muttering, "I know exactly where we are" to themselves.

*strides into the room, glancing at the assembled passengers disapprovingly* I'm Captain Bennett, I will respond to Captain or Captain Bennett and nothing else. Just to get this out of the way now, I am not looking to make friends and certainly not for romance, so don't get any funny ideas. I have to get back to work now, this ship doesn't fly itself. Well, it does, but I like to keep an eye on things to make sure that you space tourists can see the galaxy and then go back home. Oh yes, and on behalf of Blue Star Cruises, "Enjoy the stars in style with Blue Star Cruises.™"

That was just good googling, I expected others to do it, so being accurate was important to maintain my ability to *ahem* help the town. I think I'm ok with this. Yep. Oh no, it was thoroughly tasteless. It may have made me laugh harder in mafia than I had in a long time. I've been told it was 8.5 years. I appreciate this comment though because it gives me a chance to reiterate something I said privately and have said since, I really started to feel bad about some of the scummy elements of mafia at one point. Like, REALLY bad. I don't mind the general deception, that is absolutely required to get the job done, but some of the emotional side bothers me a bit. I think it was because of the amount of roleplay, the characters all became real people, not just nicknames on a screen. And then the final day came and I got over it. To this day, I don't understand the trickster role, but I especially didn't then. Is everything just absorbed, or is it optional or are only good/neutral things allowed to happen or what? We wanted to kill the trickster for a long time and if I had thought it was possible to do so at night, we would have tried much earlier, but I was convinced it couldn't be done and required a lynch. I used that lullaby clarification to defend you in a way that I thought would help gain your trust and then the good roles kept coming my way, so there was no point in even trying to kill you yet. When Holbrook knew you were the commuter and I didn't, I knew the trust was gone, but it didn't matter by then. Aw, you're too kind. It was the conversations with you that made me feed bad about being scum, albeit not enough to stop, so it's safe to say it was a two-way street and a very different mafia experience for me. Thank you for that.

Like I said in the final day, I really wanted to lynch you and pumpkin the fox, it was the only way I could legitimately claim to have aimed early, then no one ever asked. There was definitely a point where we just got lazy, or too bold, or something, but it was obvious that nobody was reading anything said, so I started saying slightly odd things (this was before the mad cow episode in the final day). We got into poking at each other, which for all of it's insanity, probably looked more town than the alternative, but we definitely didn't worry about voting patterns or anything. It must have been day 4, but I remember talking about the likely breakdown by alignment and flat out based it on 4 scum, which was the number left and something no one seemed to even consider along the way. Not a word was said.

I would like to walk to the front desk where I take the quill, dab it in the inkwell, then sign the guest book with a flourish. "Corrina Cow." Er. "Shadows!" Yes, with the !, it adds a bit of excitement to the whole affair.

I was actually stunned when people starting saying that the bomb would blow up everyone who targeted it. Most of my reason for writing was to get a handle on who was being the most suspicious and to give the illusion of working with you so my eventual mistakes would look innocent. The pumpkin, on the other hand, was legitimately confusing because it's intended as a town role. Early aiming guarantees either killing a scum or a very low chance of killing town. So for me, that would have been idiotic, yet I needed to make it look like I was using it in a townie fashion and just got very unlucky. Then no one questioned it and all my worrying was for nothing.

Hey, in the end it looked like everyone was confused by the defuser role, thinking the bomb was a role and not an item. At least I figured that out well enough to write a long post explaining how poorly the monkey had chosen his target, only to be completely ignored by people agreeing that they thought he understood it properly. Don't get me started on the pumpkin, it took me multiple clarifications to understand it and nobody contradicted my use of it, despite it being all wrong. I'm not bad, I'm just written that way.