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[Vector]

[Warning: if you're easily squicked or at work, you probably don't want to read this.]

The Prince awakens from a nightmare, sheened with sweat.  When he tries to stand up and open the curtains, a hand reaches out from beneath the covers and caresses his side.

"Who--"

"Darling," says the body in his bed.  "We need to talk."

She wraps herself around him, whispers pet insults in his ear, bites down.  She smells of manure, her tongue of rotten meat.  Her hands are cold.  Her breath, when she takes it, rattles.

"Listen to me, Prince.  I don't care how many mortal lovers you seduce, but you are duty-bound to honor me.  Your subjects serve you, and you obey me.  That's the natural or--that's how things go, because I decree it.  Yes."

He should call out for someone.  His brother's ghost visited him again last night.  He was reminded again of his cowardice.  Is reminded.  He won't call.

"Look up there," she says.  "Look at those roses you've clipped and put in a vase.  They've died.  But the rosebushes outside, growing colorful on a hearty breast of swan, are flourishing.  If you enjoy being alive, then you must offer me tribute."

"What do you want," says the Prince.

"Turn and let me see you--we don't have long together," says Mother Death.  She turns him towards her when he won't move, caresses his silky hair.  Though she looks something like the 'goddess' who had died, though she has the same glossy black curls and soft, vacant expression of the corpse she inhabits, something cracked and bitter lives in it.

She pulls down the sheets to her bare waist, reveals a sopping red wound in her chest, takes his hand and dips it in.  She tastes his finger.

"Give me blood," she says.  "You will hold a ceremony as each king did before you.  Bedeck your hair with flowers.  Hire musicians.  Serve fat birds roasted whole.  Appeal to the crowd's sense of spectacle.  And then lay your sorry body out on that bier you foolishly dropped me on, and have Horatio roll up your snow-white shirtcuffs, and order him with your own breath to cut you.

"--It must be he who loves you best.  Be absolutely sure of it.  Only such a person can officiate our marriage.

"Lie on that stone until your color fades to match it, and I shall come to offer you your crown."

"And if I do not?"

"Don't you believe in me, Princeling?" she asks him, pushing his hand deep into the warm cavity of her ribcage.

"Yes," he says in a nauseated gasp.  "Here you are, in my bed, aren't you?"

"This is the depth to which I know you," she says, gesturing to his hand quaking where her heart would be.  "You are a Prince of the land.  You stand above the rest, and I deign to take you as lover.

"Disobey me and your line will bear no fruit, for I am the darkest and sweetest of them all; stray from me and your reign shall know unending violence, for I am the tender guide and caretaker of each soldier you would send gravewards; adore any other first and you shall be plagued with a cuckold's sorrow, for I am the passionate romantic to whom all bored and aged lovers appeal.

"Be faithful to your beloved," she says.  "Thou shalt take no others before me.  Be faithful to my laws and bury your dead as I order.  Permit no others their disgusting pagan habits; they displease me.  The first in every great monarch's heart is Death."

The Prince is silent.

"This body is nearly done, I think," she says, yawning luxuriously.  "I'll miss you, Sigfred.  But we'll meet again. . . soon."

She looks at him as though for the first time, with a penetrating gaze that does not suit her face.

"You have your father's stubborn streak and your mother's vitality," she says.  "You would have made a magnificent king."

With a satisfied sigh, she expires.  The Prince bundles her naked body in his bedsheets and tries, in vain, to wash the blood from his shaking hands.


"So you abandoned your duties again and one of the girls was banished," says Vektor.  "What happened the next morning?  I assume you didn't have the sense to call your search off."

"Nothing," says the Prince.  "Nothing at all.  For once, I spent the dawn resting comfortably in bed."

He says later, having quietly nursed his mead for the better part of an hour:

"Isn't it funny?  We think we know so much of the gods, but inevitably we give them names that don't quite suit."

You are Jim Groovester the Sleeping Beauty.

You cannot be bounded by a nutshell, nor can you stretch across all infinite space.  You have touched all existence with your fingertips; you have touched nothing; you have been a pauper; you have been the other; you have loved and hated all creation with a fervor the exorcists feared.

You have been drowned, you have been lit ablaze, you have been buried, you have been resurrected, you have seen kingdoms fall and rise and stagnate, you have seen the secret strings of the very universe, touched God with your lips, made courtesy to the Devil, traipsed a thousand miles to hell and guided a damned man to heaven, scraped clean, gorged fat--in your dreams.

You were meant to be sent to the prince by your well-meaning parents, to see if your nightly terrors, your passions and your glories, could be cured by his touch.  Instead you were entered in his marriage lottery with twelve other girls, in your heavy homespun.  He doesn't seem very choosy, and this you like--he, like you, seems to still be dreaming.

What your parents don't know is that you have always controlled your nighttime vagaries and chosen where you walked, too curious to abandon the highest and lowest imaginings.  It was you who, in your sleep, deduced the threat to the Prince, spoke while still resting, warned the other women.

Who knows what you might discover yet?

You are town.  You win when all threats to the Prince are gone.

Each night, you must choose one of the below topics for your nighttime explorations, and a target other than yourself to share the dream with; each dream may only be chosen once.

Bell
Taste
Cut
Anvil
Clarity
Gift
The Writer's Curse
Prince Gauss
Sanctity
Touch

[Solifuge dies]

You are town.  You win when all threats to the Prince are gone.

You no longer share your dream with one person during your nighttime explorations, but with everyone.  Those topics available at this time are:

Bell
Cut
Anvil
Gift
Touch

You must choose one and use it each night; each dream may be used only once.  Attempts to awaken or redirect you will be unsuccessful.

[zombie urist and Solifuge are dead]

You are Mother Death's avatar.  Your win condition is as follows:

Kill all the other prospective brides.

You may continue speaking with the dead.

You may kill one person each night by dreaming with them.  As such this kill cannot be blocked.

Summary for those who don't like reading flavortext:

"And in strange coming aeons, even Death may die. . ."

JimGroovester was Mother Death, and she died of a fatal chest wound after using her last breaths to traumatize the Prince.


Day end is scheduled for Thursday, October 3rd at 9:30 (-8GMT); I have an appointment at 7:00.  Two votes required for an extension to Monday at 7:00 (-8GMT).

[Jim Groovester]

Goddammit.

[Tiruin]

Though I'd love to say the aforementioned I told you so thanks to my intuition, I won't. Jim played..darn annoyingly perfect >_> No I'm not claiming I touched him, because I didn't-hmm, wait.

Lenglon: Anything from last night?

Toaster: Why did you kill Jim?

I find it intriguing, that the homethread in this weave was both the wallflower and the supporting thread that affected us all.

I have details on what happened last night, but will withhold it until I have yours. Nothing can threaten me on this point.

Everyone: What did you do last night.

[Lenglon]

Tiruin: Toaster's clean. please unvote so scum can't quickhammer.

[Tiruin]

o_O

Unvote.

So..you followed Toaster. What'cha get?

Also, by cumulative guess..we've got 1 scum left (barring Jim >.>) and-
Leafsnail
Tiruin
Lenglon
Toaster

. . .Oh.

[Tiruin]

PFP

Leafsnail: Did anything change for you overnight?

Lenglon (I'm guessing you're busy) but what was your action, and corresponding flavor?

Toaster: What did you do last night-and where did you sleep?

[Toaster]

Tiruin:  I targeted you, just like I said I would.  My flavor doesn't specify where I slept, so I'll PM Vector.  I do know, however, where you slept (since you were asleep when I stuck a rose in your hand).  It was one of these places:

Behind a statue in the garden
In a small bed in a low bedroom
In a laundry basket
On a couch in the drawing room

Let's let you confirm which one it was.

Why do you ask where I slept?

[Tiruin]

-snip-

Before I answer your query [...seriously, drawing room? >_>], I'd like to ask how you found me.

..Because I didn't feel../those/ urges.

Who else did you see in my vicinity when you did such-and was I asleep-ASLEEP at the time of your action, or something else?

Why do you ask where I slept?

General information query.

[Toaster]

Tiruin: It took some effort to find you, but there's no elaboration on said effort.

There's no mention of anyone being near you, and not really a lot of detail at all.  It looks like my character assumed you were asleep, though you did grab the rose when I put it in your hand.



Also, did anyone else have bad dreams last night?  I did.

[Tiruin]

What dreams were that?

Also, really now. I did not see any rose on me, nor did I have any note of receiving any rose. Nor did I have any inflammation of copulating interest in that nature.

[Tiruin]

>_>
<_<
Post button. I'm lynching you.

Tiruin: Toaster's clean. please unvote so scum can't quickhammer.

And could you detail in detail how TOaster is innocent and/or 'clean'?

[Leafsnail]

I did nothing.  I had a bad dream about cheating on my lover before waking up and feeling like the Prince could never love me because of my melancholy.

However, I think I have cracked the puzzle behind this game.  I'm PFP so I can't explain now.

Tiruin: Would you say that your character is feisty and erotic?  Did you get attacked by Jim last night?

Lenglon: Please explain your role's flavour in a lot more detail.  In particular, is there any sexual dimension to your role (as with Toaster's)?  Why do you track people?  Why do you love the prince?

Toaster: What is your real win condition?  Be honest, we can't afford to lynch anyone other than mafia at this point anyway.

Vector: Can we ask about dead people roles?  If so, how old was TWS?

[Toaster]

Tiruin:  Per Vector, I slept in my bed in the room the Prince assigned me.  Nothing fancy.


Leafsnail:  I am town and have the standard town wincon.


I dreamed of humans needlessly eating all the roses.

[Lenglon]

"Well, um. I, I saw Lady Toaster last night, and watched as she searched out Lady Tiruin, but I left before I could see what she did or anything. Afterwards, I went to rest, and I...
I didn't sleep well.
I had a nightmare, a nightmare of lilies turning black and rotting."
"I... I think that Lady Toaster can't be the last killer. I mean, she visited Tiruin last night, not Jim, the person who died."
"Um, lady Leaf? I... I really do just kinda... follow someone around. I don't really have an explanation for why or anything. It's... It's kinda a mundane thing, but I seem to be good at it, I suppose. It's... It's not anything like that! No, I... I just... kinda... do it because I can? Anyway, as for the prince? I love him for his beauty and purity, both of body and soul. his ability to see the good in people hidden beneath the surface. It... It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Tiruin: Toaster is clean because she visited you last night, not the person who died.
Leafsnail:I follow people around, nothing sexual about it, no explanation for why I track people, I love the prince for his beauty and purity.

[Tiruin]

Tiruin looks at Lenglon, then back at Toaster, then at the last one.

She smiles.

"I had a dream last night. It involved the Prince in gruesome texture.

"Also, I had tasted dirt-sort of an eerie notion right before going to sleep.

"I was a target last night. And one of you did it."

Tiruin: Toaster is clean because she visited you last night, not the person who died.

Right.

I really suspect one of you flower-people due to what I had experienced last night. No, I did not see my attacker. I specifically got the hint of dirt. Soil. Earth. Loam. Without any cause.

However, my dream entailed..and did lead to more than what I feared. It..shattered a part of me-left me ill and bereft in a laundry basket, and..only by sheer willpower did I live.

So here's my guess.

Toaster's a dirty liar, literally. But he's innocent--he's only guilty if Lenglon is backing him up.
...But that damn feeling of soil without any context.

Jim targeted me with his kill. I laugh at him. Hahaha.
But then Lenglon would've easy-lynched back there is she was scum..or is just good mannered scum by making this day count.

Leeeeaaaafffsnail: What happened to you again when TWS died? And what abilities did you have? I'm forgetful.

Toaster: Where did you say you were going to act on me? No I don't want to do you.

Lenglon: Clean as in squeaky squeak clean? My intuition is still buzzing awry here.


..Or there are 2 scum >.>

Leafsnail:I follow people around, nothing sexual about it, no explanation for why I track people, I love the prince for his beauty and purity.

Interesting.

I did nothing.  I had a bad dream about cheating on my lover before waking up and feeling like the Prince could never love me because of my melancholy.

Very interesting.

I dreamed of humans needlessly eating all the roses.

Eww.

Toaster: I'd love to know what else you did last night. Where was I, exactly? As in, what area?

Someone guess what I did last night~Oh, and I've something about the Prince either, but that..remains to be in flavor.

It's sad, and I'm pretty glad I can talk about it with you other three and no other guard or servant around.
...
(It's really weird how we're all always left without mention in the flavor. )