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[webadict]

Seriously, quinnr, you need to vote someone.

[Vector]

Vote count:

Siquo [2] - Webadict, Solifuge
Solifuge [1] - Siquo

Not voting: Quinnr, GlyphGryph


He looks at them, their eyes lit to dancing by the flickering fire, and is lost.  He knows not if he is trapped in memory, or in time; whether he is walking through the vales of truth, or those of deception.  Somewhere in the course of the tale he lost his heading and, almost as though he were breaking a path through waist-deep snow, began to stumble from word to word.

It is no longer a mere abstraction, an unreality laid before him with all the immutability of spun sugar candy.  He wanders blind and drunk through ice and imagination and memory, his hands shaking, his flesh crawling with cold.  He wants to find some warm place and burrow in it, to close his eyes, to cover his ears, to be ignorant.

"The next day began in silence, as did those days all," says Dakarian.  "They did not want to continue.  They had seen too much blood, too much death, too much misery."

"The next day began in cowardice, as did those days all," says Pandarsenic.  "They did not want to continue.  They had seen too much of their own sooty hearts--too much fear, too much wrath, too much blood lust.  They knew at last who they were and what they had done."

"They knew at last what they faced and that they neared the end.  They could taste the future in the air."

"They could smell the future wafting up the catacomb stairs," says Pandarsenic.  "They were gaunt and haggard, and that morning they drank the bloodstained holy water dry.  They winced as they swallowed every stagnant drop--but a desperate man does desperate things.  Isn't that right, Aureliusz Vektor?"

"Yes," he says.  "A desperate man does desperate things."

He keeps his eyes on his quivering hand, which wipes the counter in the same smooth arcs of hours past.  This place is unclean.  He sees no blemishes, but he knows that everything in his tavern is dirty--he has seen rats and scuttling insects, and men spilling their guts in a place once thought clean.

Though he swept the floor and killed the vermin, the stains remain.  He hauled the reeking drunks outside, listening to them retch streams of gibberish and sad stories.  They saw themselves reflected in the cool glass of their empty tankards: endless glimpses of an unsatisfactory past.

They told him they wanted to be dead, or children, or men who had to feel no hurt.  He told them fairy tales as gin-flavored tears ran down their worn and tired cheeks.  They are framed that way in his memory--not men, just drunkards, a moment of fragility in the midst of what might have been a normal life.

He wonders how they remember him.


"They could not resolve themselves to kill each other--they had lived together three days, after all, and were brothers in brutality.  They had each grown accustomed to the others' crooked noses and yellow teeth, and recognized in his fellow man his own sickness and unraveling sanity.  No, it was too late.  They did not have the stomach for it, Aureliusz Vektor.  Even those most criminal of men had grown to care for each others' lives, their friendships bonded by blood, their cruelty binding them as surely as chains."

It is as though a sort of delirium seizes him in that moment, and for that precious second he believes he sees clearly.  Pandarsenic's eyes glow fever-bright, his cheeks flushed, his hands trembling.  Dakarian peers into the bottom of his glass, eyes dulled, his heavy jaw supported by a hand ruined with scars.  They are drunk.  He is drunk on their madness.  They are saying things they do not mean to say, doing what they do not mean to do because they are all sick on ale and spoiled memories.

"Yes, the tale is sad, friends," Vektor says, trying to smile.  He fails.  "I am sorry so many of your friends died.  But you will not find the thing you are looking for here.  Go to find a priest and be... how do you say? dissolved."

He pauses.  They are staring at him like foxes.  Licking his lips, he tries again.

"I am sorry," he says, "but friends, you must listen.  Do you know the story of... of the sleeping knights of Koscieliska Valley?  It is a story from my homeland, where the snow is so cold and deep that--that it looks blue.  There was once an honest blacksmith who was visited by a great knight, a man tall, strong, and brave.  He asked--"

"Fairy tales?" says Pandarsenic.  "You think to bore us with fairy tales, as though we were children caught crying wolf?  Our tale does not end here, with a pack of cowards trapped and too craven to do what must be done.  No, Aureliusz Vektor, they were intent on leaving.  They cared chiefly for their own futures, their own prospects, their own lives."

"Fairy tales?" says Dakarian.  "You think to regale us with fairy tales, as though we did not tell this tale for you?  Our stay does not end here, with a barkeep still trapped and too frightened to look himself in the eye.  No, Aureliusz Vektor, we are not leaving.  I do not care merely for my own future, my own prospects, my own life."

"Yes, a fairy tale!" says Vektor.  "You think I tell simple stories just for your own good, as if it was not long past midnight!  Who do you think I am, a monster?  A saint?  Why hurt me for what you did?  No, my friends, it is you who are wrong.  It is over.  Say no more.  I will not throw you out in the snow, but I will not listen to your words filled with trash, your fun-making, your evil, your obrzydliwe brud.  It is over."

He is gasping and drained.  At the bottom of his heart he knows that they will keep speaking, the words dripping out over their lips like bitter honey.  He is drowning in it.  He can almost smell it.  They are not done, but they have done for him; there is more to say, and now he can do nothing but hear it.  He has tried.  It is over.



My apologies to whoever wrote Fruits Basket, as well as to the Polish people.  The full tale can be found here.

[Vector]

They look at him with something almost resembling pity, but their eyes are cold.

"They did what all men do when they want to hate each other more," said Pandarsenic at last.  "They got to know each other better."

He allows his words to stand in the air a while.  Aureliusz Vektor is mute.  He cannot retort; the words themselves do not come to mind.  He feels forced to submit--and yet he wonders if there is something he might possibly do.  Is he forced, or is he subjugated by his fear?  Is there a way forward he is simply unwilling to take?  Have they mastered him, or has he merely failed to master himself?

What can he do, after all?  He does not know.  Though questions loop and reel through his mind, rough statements, images of boots treading newly-fallen snow, he remains mute.  He would like to think "I have been burdened by these men, and I have the right to hurt them," but he cannot.  He is not that man.  He feels weak in the face of his own morality.

For now, he remains silent.  When the words come, he will speak.

Pandarsenic smiles.

"One stepped forward, a man of middle age with weary mien and shadowed eyes.  Streaks of silver brightened his black hair.  Said he:

"'I am Webadict the Guardian, protector of children and soon to die.  Rise, men, and speak your piece.'"

"In so hearing one stepped forward, a youth with weary mien and shadowed eyes.  Streaks of silver brightened his black hair.  Said he:

"'I am Quinnr, Prince of Denmark--all Denmark.  I am the rightful ruler of a land of empty promises, the king uncrowned.'"

"One stepped forward, a man full grown and strong of arm.  He waited a moment before soon saying:

"'I am GlyphGryph the Wanderer, walker of the land.  A bird is my mother, my father another; my homeland the hills and my lover the sky.'"

"Then came the fourth, bent and sun-browned, who looked upon them with bright and serious eye.

"'I am Solifuge the Gardener,' he said softly, 'tender of the graveyard garden.  I plant death and never reap what I sow.'"

"And then the last, a man made old by years of loneliness and internal turmoil.  His pate was prematurely bald, as though tonsured by Nature herself.  Said he:

"'I am Siquo the Priest, guardian of men's souls.  I am a man like any other--nothing more, and nothing less.'"

Pandarsenic laughs.

"He lied, Aureliusz Vektor.  He was not a man like those other men.  He was like you, a blighted stump bent by the cold, a self-indulgent madman who covers his mistakes with--"

"He lies, gentle host.  He was a man of faith."

"As I said," says Pandarsenic.  "He was a man of the cloth, a man other men pretend to be when they are feeling especially ignoble.  He girded his loins with illusions and would not look deeper into himself--and to this end he called himself faithful, and a good man, and a gentle one.  He denied his true nature and thought himself better than the others, and purer, and more true to the illusory god he served.  Indeed, that fool above all fools had only created his own scapegoat, to blame or adulate as the whim struck him."

"If he was a fool," says Dakarian, "why did you choose him?"

Pandarsenic pauses.  His mouth is hard.

"You know why," he says.  "Even the most faithful can readily be convinced, and the most foolish led like sheep to the slaughter.  It takes no wits to kill a man, and no matter how devout a creature presumes himself to be, he is just as faithless as any cynical wretch.  He is an egotist and a hypocrite.

"They knew this upon hearing his confession, and he read murder in their eyes.  They did not know he had been one of the killers in the night, of course; no, they were dumb and blind.  All they knew was their own short-sighted hatred, and all he knew was his own reeking fear."

"He slipped away," says Dakarian.  "His terror led him up the staircase to his cell, just below Bayer's final resting place.  He knelt there, his bony knees rubbing against the cold stone yet another time.  That place before the window was polished smooth, from years and years of his kneeling.  He clasped his hands together and whispered with all the reverence he could muster--for he was a faithful man, and loyal.  The evil in his heart had only just taken root, and was nothing beside the warmth he had tended for year after year."

"The good in his heart had withered long ago, and--"

"He continued to kneel, as he heard them coming up the stairs.  He confessed and he cried, shaking with shame and regret--but he was not afraid of them.  He feared himself, and the deeds he had done.  They stormed his room and stood around him, laughing at the aged priest's bald forehead as they were certain he laughed at them.  They poured blows onto his sides and shoulders, but he did not move.  He was a strong man, broad of shoulder and large of hand."

"He was merely stubborn.  He did not want to admit that he was wrong."

"They made a sport of cracking his ribs and breaking his fingers, so that he moaned and wept even in the depths of his prayer.  At long last they tired of that sport and hemmed him in from every corner.  His lips were cracked, his soutane split in the shoulder.  He was a derelict, his breath lost, teeth broken, fear's cold fingers wrapped around his heart.

"'Where is your God now?' they asked with horrible smiles.

"He looked up at them and said:

"'Here.'

"Then, wincing, he picked up a candlestick and with it smashed the window.  In their surprise, they did not stop him--nor would they have, had they understood.  The panes of colored glass struck the snow below and shaded those white ruins blue and vermillion and scarlet.  He looked down as snowflakes gathered on his gray lashes, blinking away either melt or tears: I know not which.  His smile was bitter and full of blood.

"'I'll see you in Hell, my friends,' he said, and jumped."

Spoiler: Siquo the Priest (click to show/hide)

You are Siquo the Priest, an incorruptible man of deep faith.  You tend to the sick and give alms to the poor, and console sinners' restless hearts.  You are a good man.  You are a gentle man.  You have given up worldly pleasure to keep others on the straight and narrow path, and you are happy--no, satisfied--with your life.

One snowy winter's day, a knight walks over the threshold and comes to you directly.  He does not genuflect before the altar.  He does not moisten his gloved hands with holy water.  He walks as though he is above those things.  He walks as though he thinks he is a man above every earthly care.

"A word, Father," he says.  You draw him behind the chancel and listen to him speak.  His eyes are sharp and bright, his smile narrow.  "Father, I have lived a good and honest life.  I was a young man and studied for the priesthood.  I was a young man who never knew the touch of a woman.  Whenever I heard the rustle of a petticoat, I hid my face behind my hood.  I was a young man who fed the sick and was gentle with children.

"I was a young man who never had anything I really wanted.  I was a young man who was burdened by the pains of others.  I was a man who was hardened by daily life.

"Father, I have sinned as you have sinned.  I have sinned the sin of wishing--but I am no longer hungry like you are for the trappings of a normal life.  Unlike you, I live... and since I live, I am strong.

"I am Pandarsenic, Le Chevalier du Glas, and I have what you want.  I have what you need.  Just kill everyone in this building--other than the vagrant and the knights--and you will have everything of which you ever dreamed.  You will be eternally satisfied."

"This is madness," you say.  You stand steadfast.

"Do it," he says, putting a dagger and gold coin in your hand.  It is as though by magic that your objections fade.  Whatever man you once were is now gone.

"Mea culpa," he says, chuckling under his breath.  "Ego te absolvo."


You wait and you watch, numb, as Pandarsenic approaches the other knight.  He listens for a moment before blanching and seeming positively ill.  He inhales deeply.  His breath is shallow.  He leans against the wall, shakes his head, closes his eyes.

Then he steps into the middle of the stone room.

"Everyone!" says Sir Dakarian of Pane.  "Two among your number are evil men who would murder you as you rest.  You must find them and kill them before you are all dead.

"More than your lives hangs in the balance.  For the sake of all that is good and holy, I ask for your aid."

Virtue and purity have given you nothing so far.  They will give nothing to that other flock of miserable men, either.

You are a villain (scum) with NGAHAHAHAHA.  You win when you outnumber or achieve parity with the innocents (town).  You may communicate with your IC, Pandarsenic, and scumbuddy here.  Good luck.

Priest (Godfather): Once per night, you and your scumbuddy may pick another player to kill by PMing me that person's name.  Additionally, if you are inspected, you will appear innocent.

Siquo the Priest, Villain, has been lynched.



My apologies to Jean-Paul Sartre and Nietzsche.  Love you, dudes.  More apologies to Victor Hugo =/  I mean, loads of them.  You must be seriously spinning in your grave right now.  Infinite apologies to the creators of LOST, for I am sure my viewing of that particular program influenced the theme of this conversation.

I'm also sorry for anyone I may have offended by Pandarsenic's speech.  He is a bastard, and said what he thought was necessary.  I'll note that I disagree with the wanker on various counts.

[Vector]

He cannot say he is surprised, and yet some sort of shock washes over him.  It is just another death among other deaths--a death in a story, even, which may have never existed.  He is bewildered, almost as if swimming for a distant and unreachable shore, as the thought surfaces that the entire tragedy had been invented--but he does not know, and cannot know, and cannot even bring himself to ask the question.  It does not matter.  What matters is not what has happened, but what he must do with what he has heard.

His moment of insight escapes him, and he is just as lost as before.  Vektor is trapped in a room with two knights and five ghosts--soon to be six, he is certain--and all he knows is that he must find his way out.

"Nothing to say, old man?" says Pandarsenic.  He shakes his head, waiting.  He has learned, slowly, that it is better to be silent with these men than to confront them.  No matter what he says, they will deny it; and so he sits, mute and quivering, nurturing a seed of hope.  Perhaps he will know what to say or do in some distant and unseen hour, but for now all he can do is listen.

"Good," says Pandarsenic.  "I see that even you can learn, as they did.  With the death of the old priest they changed, their minds twisted, their hearts blackened.  Whatever pretense of goodness they had clung to escaped them, and they were as animals, slavering after the slaughter and an end to all things.  They hardly spoke, but to howl and roar and rage."

"With the death of the old priest they changed, their minds fogged, their hearts closed.  They knew they had to protect what goodness they had grown within themselves, and so they became cruel in a desperate attempt to defend it.  Their circumstances blinded them to the others' hearts.  They were all good men, but they could not see--and so they did not speak, either, their feelings confused by their lack of eyes to guide them."

"They did not care to see or speak.  They closed their eyes, and covered their ears like children to defend themselves from the truth.  That night none of them slept, each preoccupied with his own sins and forgetting what might happen to the others.  In their sightless stubbornness, they ignored the screams echoing in the night as Webadict the Guardian burned to death.

"They awoke that morning to find his body smoldering on the altar, a wreck of cooked and putrid flesh.  The three men stared down at him, mouths watering, and--

"Eyes watering, and sweating from head to toe in fear," Dakarian added quickly.  "They carried his corpse to the catacombs and--"

"Threw it down the stairs with the others, nearly retching from the stench.  They could not face what they had done--"

"But knew they had done what they could, brutal as it was, and allowed it to sit with them.  They came to understand themselves, as their lives were stripped away like flesh from a bone.  They felt a sort of brotherhood in their madness, but it kept them from each other no longer."

"They had passed the point of no return."

Spoiler: Webadict the Guardian (click to show/hide)

You are HFS the Guardian, father of six children and a protector of your town.  When a wolf pack carried off the miller's young daughter, you were there to slay the beasts.  When robbers assaulted traders passing through, you struck them down and saved the day.

Last summer, when the air was hot and dry and the farmers' crops failed, you were there.  You were there as your wife thinned and your children starved.  You were there as their gaunt faces and hungry eyes beseeched you.  You were there when you stole wheat from the storehouse and it wasn't enough to feed them.  You were there when your greatest efforts were never enough.  You were there when they died and you were there to bury them.

You are the father of six ghosts and husband to one.

You came to the cathedral on this snowy day to offer alms and pray for forgiveness.  Their deaths were not your fault, but their lives were your responsibility--so you trudged through the white drifts to this sanctuary and prayed.  As you knelt there, the snow deepened and, though some part of you knew you were trapped, you did not care.  You are trapped with ten others--two knights and an assortment of odd personages.

A voice shakes you from your devotions.

"Everyone!" says Sir Dakarian of Pane.  "Two among your number are evil men who would murder you as you rest.  You must find them and kill them before you are all dead.

"More than your lives hangs in the balance.  For the sake of all that is good and holy, I ask for your aid."

Some seem surprised, but you are ready.  It is a natural continuation of what has come and a stepping stone to what will be.  You are prepared to protect the innocent, no matter the cost.

You are an innocent (town).  You win when the villains are dead.  Good luck.

Guardian (Doctor): Once per night, you may PM me the name of another player to protect.  They will be immune for that night to the villains' killing attempts.

Webadict the Guardian, Innocent, has been killed in the night.

[webadict]

So long, my friends (Or at least, those of you that are my friends.) I leave for a better place! I wish all of you good luck in your endeavors (Even to you, my murderer.)

Heaven, ho!

[quinnr]

Aw, goodbye webadict!

[Siquo]

What, don't I get a "goodbye we'll miss you?!"

[Vector]

What, don't I get a "goodbye we'll miss you?!"

Hardeeharharhar.

[GlyphGryph]

Well, since you probably didn't kill yourself, there goes my dreams of you pulling a beautiful Xanatos roulette of epic proportions, pulling the wool over all our eyes in a violent maelstrom of deception and implausability. :/

I mean, I didn't really think it was true but I couldn't help but hope.

So back to the game.

If not for the way the game ended yesterday, I would be on solifuge in an instant - but Quinnr, why the hell didn't you vote? You wouldn't even state your suspicions! You never even said who you thought was scummy despite webadicts repeated pleas.

So why don't you explain what the hell you were doing?

[GlyphGryph]

As for why I didn't vote, which I'm sure someone will mention:

First, I was hoping Quinnr would show himself - if he voted with Siquo, it would have been very telling. My voting also would have resulted in a no-lynch if quinnr didn't vote - I suspected Solifuge, but didn't vote him because while a lynch would have been bad, a no-lynch would have been certain death, and if quinnr was scum, he would have easily been able to decide the balance.

So is that what was happening? You weren't ready to bus your partner yet, and you weren't voting in the hopes I would give you a chance to avoid having to do so?

[Solifuge]

Wubadict is dead.

I did not see that comming. No sir. In honor of this most unexpected tragedy, I shall step in to provide teh flavor texts. Behold them.

Webadicts sat in his room. It was a cold room, and smelled of fishes. That's because it was winter and because he ate a fish earlier but didnt clean his plate and now it made everything smell even him and his room.

He was very sad. Every Body kept dying which was sad too. He tried to make people know that it was okay and we should all give piece a chance but no one listened so he went back to his room. There was some fishes left on his plate from earlier what still had a note that said 'To: Webadict From: Siquo You're secret Admirer. It was a day old.

Webadict ate the fishes. He thought he choked on a bone in the fish and died. But it was actually poison Blowfish.

...and I'll continue offering my writing services free of charge, until Vector wants to step in and cover them again.

In the meantime, this is the fun part. Would Quinnr like to voice his suspicions in numeric order?

[Pandarsenic]

I approve of this flavor text insofar as it attempts to imitate Peter Chimaera's "Style," but I think the rampant spelling and grammar errors provide a lot of the, ah, personality, of his works. You should edit some in.

[Vector]

... Pfahahaha.

Oh god

Most elegantly written fiction mine eyes have ever beheld

Gold star

[Pandarsenic]

You'll love this:

http://www.peterchimaera.com/doom.html

[webadict]

You'll love this:

http://www.peterchimaera.com/doom.html

I lol'd in class.