CMP

Mortimer found himself standing amidst Annienal and Avina just past the foot of the stairs. The woman in red nodded, with a bit of a grin as she went over to Sapphire, who was still fluttering around serving drinks. "Bah, anyone who in't me in 'ere may as well be onna the Wolfers, they've an eye on every street 'ere now. Tell me more 'bout this Lord Z fellow." "She's the kind of person we're fighting against. Errantly abusing magic like that is a danger to everyone around her." Avina looked around, nodding at Mortimer as he approached. "He has at least one other person ready to support him. The crazy one over by the bar. It seems like your 'Calamity' is handling the leprechaun up top. Where'd the woman and the undead go?"

"Eh? Machines? The 'ell do ya take me for, some kinda inventor? Goldilocks and 'is sad excuse for Wolfbangers were just whinin' about somethin' like that down by the bar. I'm drinkin' 'ard Mead 'ere and if I don't get more soon I-" Bo blinked as Calamity spoke about the great Lord Z, enraptured by her religious guidance. "Z? Who the 'ell's that?"

"Fine. What did ya want?" The woman next to the leprechaun scratched her head. "He pays well, someone's gotta do it." "Wait, what? Are they talking about me? Oh gods, don't tell me they're talking about me." "Just calm down Briar, nobody's going to hurt you." "What?! Reg says I fight best when I'm panicked!! I have to be scared or I can't be scary!!" "But...you're always panicked!" "Perhaps that's true, virtuosos are just. I fear of late that noble goals elude us. I do not drink, but if you wish, Val does..." "Nah, we were about to leave anyway. We had a gig here, but it's over now, and this place is far too noisy for my liking." "When my song stops the pleasure ends, No passion or flirtation. The secret is, my one-eyed friend: My Oboe of Damnation!" "But also this song." The bard handed the warden a slip of paper. Lover's Lyrics (Minstrel's Battle Song; deal the enamored-effect to all enemies at the cost of 1 ether per affected enemy.) In the time it takes for Mortimer to briefly skim the scrap of paper to see just what it is they gave him, when next he looks up, Val Helsinger and Caede have vanished, leaving him to ponder just what exactly had transpired.

"A bard, who lives to slay the dead: 'twas a path I no longer tread." "A name bestowed by grateful folk she saved. But now her goal's to drink and sing all day." "And damn if I'm not good at it." "A day once came when vivacious Val sought a corpse to kill; But she did not know the (handsome) corpse also hunted dead. In Babeleth they fought a fight, atop an ancient hill. It drew phantoms, they slew them all, now they're lovers instead." Just his own, yes. "Three, I think. Used to be more, but I hardly keep track of 'em." The waitresses turned to Kellim as he walked up to the bar when he came inside. Aquamarine gave him a glowing smile. "The Mountain's Punch is supposed to pack a quite a, well, punch!" "...Well, Bo's managed to run out of money, so he's getting all angry up on the next floor. I don't want a repeat of last time, so I wish he'd just get out...or at least continue drinking so he'd shut up. Topaz and Emerald are having it out...which is business as usual, except that Reg Goldjaw has front row seats." The leprechaun looked up at Calamity, his wine bottle empty, his face red with rage for no apparent reason. "I'm outta drink ya damn pixie, wha' the 'ell's it look like to ya, eh? 'Less yar 'ere to buy me another, get outta my 'air!" "Erm, Bo's something of a regular. He lives in the Hovels, and this is about the only place to get a drink..." "I'll be 'avin' more of the pleasures of the flesh once I get a few more pleasures out of these bottles, do ya get it?"

Global nuclear apocalypse.

Vote: Toki (TrumpetKing)

It looks like it. I wouldn't think about it too hard until I flip town if you're trying to fit me being scum into everything. That's what I tried yesterday and it was just frustrating.

I'm just starting to think they've just not been doing anything because as far as they know we've had a tracker, blocker, protector, and investigator snooping around for the past few days, and Petr took a risk to convert Toki.

What if the scum can convert someone into a bomb that passively redirects anyone who targets him to the second to last person to vote, and then after they use that conversion whoever Pernilla is facing in the last picture in the beginning of every day has a 50/50 chance of turning into an inventor that can only invent a one-shot arsonist kill.

It just seems spectacularly unlikely. There's exactly one person these bombs can be killing. Two if you count the scum forgetting and then killing their own bomb. Three if you count that and think Petrus is an SK. But there's no way that would replace their regular kill.

Except they would still be tracked targeting the guy that gets killed. I'm still thinking they had a conversion but it only works on vanillas and they have been hitting PRs trying to get a more experienced player.

...What? So rather than kill, the scum have spent six days creating bombs. Bombs that can only be detonated by exactly one role. And somehow we haven't hit any of them? And then asked Crane to make sure Petrus was blocked? Then why would he need to be targeted twice? It takes two nights to arm a role that is inferior in nearly every way to a kill?

No, now that I know Petr was scum. I suppose not, but I still don't see what would be different. The order of 'who's being killed next' probably hasn't drastically changed since yesterday.

You did find out. You tracked me. I told Cranebeinn I protected him earlier. I mentioned it today without even having known you tracked me. Crane asked for my opinion on who to block between you and Petrus. I advised he block Petrus. You obviously weren't blocked and I know I wasn't, so I'm assuming he took my advice. If not, then, well, my entire reason for protecting Toki has been completely validated, slowing down our killing spree so the scum or SK can't pull something out of their hats because there's a handful of townies left. The less people that know who's being protected before it happens, the better. I've protected you like five times. So if I don't get the chance to tell you before you have me killed, you're welcome.

What opinion were you expecting? If he came up scum then you were town, if he came up town then you were scum. Mafia is rarely binary like that but he was going to die one way or the either (the idea of lynching you was quickly shot down so I was trying to be realistic about what kind of solution we could come up with), I wouldn't've bothered trying to stop that even if I could've (I tried to delay it to night so that we wouldn't end up with two kills, looks like that wasn't necessary anyway) since we needed an answer. Hell, what defense are you even talking about?? His defense was "Pudding-Head is lying". You knew my opinion on that statement at the time. I had no idea what you even wanted from me. I still don't. Either his 'defense', if you can call it that, was right or wrong, and there was no way we could know one way or the other until one of you was dead. I've never told any of you who I was protecting beforehand. I told Crane if you were concerned about my actions you could track me. And you did! And apparently that's only fueled your suspicions against me, so what would him reporting back to you "he's protecting Toki" have changed? Why would you need me protecting anyone else? What difference does it make if you think you have the only person who's actively killing anyone under control? I guess I should've expected you'd come up with something like "now that Petr's primed Toki for conversion, of course now Canute's targeted him to activate the damn thing." If I was scum, what would converting Toki have even accomplished? Assuming I'm scum, of course I know the game is going into the next day since I'm still alive, so obviously Toki is going to get IMMEDIATELY lynched for being targeted by Petr. I know you're suspicious of me and you're going to night-kill me, but can we at least come up with some more realistic scenarios for what the scum could be doing?

Maybe I was just expecting to sweep up the scum too easily. We were doing great at first then we inexplicably started getting nowhere and I tried looking for an explanation. We probably should've been more careful before deciding to kill someone, but I guess hindsight is 20/20 there. That my logic behind leaving Petr alive. I figured we needed to space out our kills but it seems like you think every moment we waste is another moment the scum have to gain an advantage because they haven't been killing. I wonder if they're actually just not doing anything and waiting around for us to kill eachother. You laughed it yesterday, but like it not, if that is the case, it's working.

Mortimer could hear the hooded woman snickering distinctly as he approached. "Here he comes now, just one eye down-" "Why did you just have to come over here." "-but at least he can wear a frown!" "You ought to stick to music, Val, my dear." "I'm a Helsinger, not a Helsongstress. We've been over this before, Caede dearest." "That didn't rhyme." "That wasn't in pentameter." "...What did you need from us, my half-blind friend?"

I'm not continuing the discussion, I'm defending myself. I don't see why I would've bothered converting you if I was scum, you were the most obvious lynch choice going into today. In either case, you're our best lead right now. Sorry if you haven't actually been converted, but we don't really know what else to think right now.

Aquamarine helped grab Briar's arm and lug him to his feet. The man's eye was twitching slightly but otherwise he didn't respond immediately. Diamond gave him a disapproving head shake and proceeded to mix Annienal a Gold Dragon. "Er, sorry. He's usually much, gentler, or at least, much less nervous- " "It's because she's a hero, Aqua." The wererabbit sighs exasperatedly. "Seriously, you need to watch for the signs. Armor, check. Weapon, check. Mismatched companions, check. Goes straight for the bar, check." "Wait, really? Is that true, miss?" "Oh, it's...nothing, it's, it's like, she's just...." Red mumbles something under his breath. "...like her...damn mother....oh, she doesn't understand, she don't know what things are like out there, yaknow? With the, the muggings, and the violence, and just...damn this city. The Wolves take care of their own but she won't have it no more. With her writing and her...ugh. I told her, that's how Reg ended up here, on the streets." "...he lost his wife to this city, now he thinks he'll lose his daughter to it, too. Wouldn't be the first story like this I've heard. Don't worry about him sir, Big Red's strictly a healer, he doesn't get violent or anything. Can't say the same about his boss over there." Amethyst gave Reg Goldjaw a beady look across the room.

Either way, I don't think my death will matter much assuming Toki is in fact the last scum. But if there is a scum or an SK in the block, you'll know it when things devolve into three-way free for all, and a protector probably won't matter much then.

Did you read what I was just said?? I was not totally convinced you were scum anymore at that point, I think you were willing to have Toki immediately night-killed because if you were telling the truth then you'd probably be so convinced that Petr was scum that you'd be certain Toki would too. I wasn't as sure, I figured if there was any chance of the game continuing should Petr turn up town I had to try and prevent the likeliest night kill. There was no way Crane was getting targeted, nobody would take that kind of risk, especially because he was the obvious protection target, as I indicated yesterday... ...by saying this.

No I didn't. I protected Toki because I thought that you would've had the SK kill Toki before we could see if Petr was scum or not. "Hey guys, thanks for converting me, despite having the names of the blocker and tracker and most recently the vig, let's convert Toki." "Let's not go back to our kill now that there's no protector and kill the blocker, let's convert Toki. " "Boy oh boy, I know it'd sure be great not having a tracker potentially screw us over, let's convert Toki. " "Let's not convert the vig, we don't want to have two kills, that'd just be unfair! Let's convert Toki." I think they can only convert vanillas and they've been using that fact to try and find the PRs for when they get their kill back after they successfully convert someone. *A vanilla. Has any game with a non-cult scum team had multiple conversions?

I decided after my argument failed that the game's continuation practically depended on you being town so I dropped my theory. Didn't I say as much yesterday after Petr's lynch? "And then, believing I was an honest townie, you didn't do what you would've done assuming that I was a lying scum?" My accusing you ruined your plans if you were scum, not to mention nobody would've believed you were scum anyway, so I was operating under the assumption that you were townie. That's why I said to Crane that you may as well track me. If the Petrus even attempted to kill Crane he would've been screwing himself but there wasn't a doubt in my mind that if you had your way he'd be killing Toki. So you're saying that the scum, as per the previous game, had one convert, that works on anyone, and they used it on Toki. Not you, the tracker in the town block. Not Crane, the blocker in the town block. Toki. And somehow it took six days to do it. What would unvoting you have accomplished? I was willing to go along with Agnar's suggestion but you didn't even entertain the idea, so I was worried that for some reason you had no concern about our numbers and wanted to kill anyone with even an ounce of suspicion, because they have some sort of six-day-long conversion ritual they need to get done. Even lynching Toki is a risk, but we're out of leads. My argument was wrong. Since your argument relies on me having been scum from the start, can you explain why I chose to protect Crane and you for the entire game instead of killing you both as early as possible? You were able to be lead the charge in lynching multiple scum where I haven't exactly escaped suspicion from people outside the block. If it takes "us" two days to convert the most suspicious vanilla still alive, what exactly were we doing on Nights Four, Five, and Six when there were no kills and (according to your logic) no protector to screw us over and I knew ahead of time who would be blocked. I don't think the convert works like it did in the first Ragnarok, otherwise they chose literally the worst target they could have at this stage. Why was I so utterly desperate to "keep Petr alive" (you know, after agreeing to let him get night-killed to try and prevent an additional kill) if I could just finish the worst conversion ever by myself?

This is why I liked my theory better, it doesn't rely on the scum having...half-conversions? Was I not pushing to have Petr killed AND blocked rather than lynching him? Okay, what about the other four days without a kill? If I'm not the town protector and I knew who was getting blocked wouldn't that have given me a road map as to who to kill? And if the role is exactly the same as you've described it, wouldn't've we have gone for you or Crane or Petrus to convert, rather than Toki, who's been hovering around on your scumdar for the entire game?

I gave up on my theory after Petr got lynched. Whether I was right or wrong didn't matter because nobody agreed with me, so even if I was right it wouldn't really matter because there's not all that much I could do on my own. I chose to assume you were townie, which is why I advised Crane to block Petrus rather than you. I chose to protect Toki because I didn't know if Crane actually wanted my opinion or if you asked him to get some kind of read on me. Toki was the obvious choice for a night kill and I didn't want one to happen. Call me out for being overly cautious or whatever, but no matter how sure you are, Pudding, we need to be freaking careful of who is getting killed. We're at six people now.