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ICs

Spoiler: Sir Dakarian of Pane (click to show/hide)

You are Sir Dakarian of Pane, a knight known throughout many lands for your valiance and derring-do.  One particularly snowy winter's evening, you hole up in a cathedral to seek refuge from a blizzard.  It seems that ten other men had the same idea, and as the snow falls deep and bright, you are trapped.

One of these men is Pandarsenic, Le Chevalier du Glas.  He is a swordsman from Southern France, and wherever he walks disaster follows.  Kingdoms fall, good men fall to taint, and fields lie in rot.  It is thus somewhat surprising when he approaches you with a narrow smile.

"Let's play a game," he says.  His accent is ridiculous.  "In this little flock of sheep are two men who were... somewhat weak of heart.  They're so overcome with greed that they'd kill every man in this building for pennies.  Isn't it sad, how fragile people are?

"Now, that's a very boring game, when only nine hang in the balance--you and I, of course, can probably get away.  So let's raise the stakes.  You help the good men, if ever you can find a good and honest man, and I will help the bad... and whichever one of us loses will leave this fair land forever.

"What do you think?"

The offer is grotesque, but strangely appealing.  Surely the reward outweighs the risk.  You comply.

You are the Town IC.  Flavortext aside, you have nothing to gain from a town win.  You do, however, need to teach the townies how to play this nerve-wracking game without going positively bonkers.  Win or lose, focus on teaching them how to play as well as you possibly can.

Spoiler: Pandarsenic, le Chevalier du Glas (click to show/hide)

You are Pandarsenic, le Chevalier du Glas.  You are not a swordsman from Southern France, though as for what you really are... well.  Better not to say.  Where you walk, blood, death, and ruin follow. 

One particularly snowy winter's evening, you insinuate yourself in a cathedral where ten men are seeking refuge from a blizzard.  Being somewhat bored with the usual mortal trials and travails, you draw aside Halmie the Wanderer and Siquo the Priest.  You then offer them more gold than they can carry or want, if they will kill every man in the cathedral... save yourself and Sir Dakarian of Pane, of course.  You have business with him.

They readily acquiesce.  You give them a dagger and a gold coin apiece before approaching Dakarian.  For a man so purportedly noble and brave, he has astonishingly cold eyes.

"Let's play a game," you say.  "In this little flock of sheep are two men who were... somewhat weak of heart.  They're so overcome with greed that they'd kill every man in this building for pennies.  Isn't it sad, how fragile people are?

"Now, that's a very boring game, when only nine hang in the balance--you and I, of course, can probably get away.  So let's raise the stakes.  You help the good men, if ever you can find a good and honest man, and I will help the bad... and whichever one of us loses will leave this fair land forever.

"What do you think?"

Dakarian is clearly not so good or honest of a man as he thinks he is.  Without a moment's hesitation, he readily complies.

You are the Scum IC.  Flavortext aside, you have nothing to gain from a scum win.  You do, however, need to teach Siquo and Halmie how to play this nerve-wracking game without going positively bonkers.  Win or lose, focus on teaching them how to play as well as you possibly can.

The scum chat is here.  Please note that you can feel free to help the town as well, though your help should be helpful rather than WIFOM in disguise.

Villains

Spoiler: Halmie the Wanderer (click to show/hide)

You are Halmie the Wanderer, a vagrant searching the world for a land of honest men.  You have seen and done many things, but it never seemed enough.  The sight of one beautiful woman only makes you want to search out another--more slender, more gentle, more tender.  There is no one that can calm you and nothing that gives you solace.  You are always looking for something better and brighter.

You are a vagrant and an exile.  The village of your birth rejected you, because--no, you don't like thinking about that.  Suffice it to say that you simply weren't good enough.  They wanted more.  Well, now you want more, too.  There's no reason to live a mediocre life of fear and suffering.  There's no reason to settle for good things when you might trip upon splendor around the bend.  Why would anything but perfection deserve your love?  If you could not be accepted despite your mild faults, why should they expect you to give them anything more?  They cannot expect to receive any more gentleness than they dispense.  That would be madness.


You are thinking over these unhappy musings on yet another snowy day when, exhausted, you step into a cathedral to rest.  When you wake up from your nightmare, you see a knight regarding you with kind eyes.

"It isn't your fault," he says with a narrow smile, then amends: "You talk in your sleep.  Don't worry, I don't think anyone heard.  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 priest and the knights--and you will have everything of which you ever dreamed.  You will be eternally satisfied."

The choice is easy.  The cathedral is currently home to two knights and eight other men, and you are unafraid.  Anything to stop wandering.  Anything to have your hunger satisfied.


You wait and you watch as Pandarsenic approaches the other knight, who 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."

You feel somewhat betrayed--you had hoped this might be easy.  For now, however, you are prepared.  No one will ever underestimate you again.

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

Villain (Mafioso): Once per night, you and your scumbuddy may pick another player to kill by PMing me that person's name.

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 Halmie the Wanderer.  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.

Innocents

Spoiler: Org the Leper (click to show/hide)

You are Org the Leper, a man who heaven has seen fit to curse with a blighting disease.  You were begging on the cathedral steps when the snow began to fall, white as the linens with which you cover your wounds.  When snow falls, the flies stop swarming.  It's a blessing, if a small one, but the chill strikes deep in your bones and leaves you pained.  If there's one thing you've learned, it's that everything in life is a balance.  The meek rise, the mighty fall, and the downtrodden tread on their masters.

You entered the sanctuary crawling on stumps of hands and knees.  Ten others seem to have had the same idea--two knights and an assortment of odd personages.

You rest and you sleep and you wait, until a voice awakens you.

"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."

This announcement is met by gasps and some swearing.  Life is a carnival, and it's not always roses.  They shouldn't have been surprised.

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

Spoiler: HFS 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.

Spoiler: Jaaswb the Gardener (click to show/hide)

You are JaaSwb the Gardener, a man given to gentleness and a lover of peace.  You spend your days tending plants and growing flowers in the graveyard behind the cathedral, though as it is winter right now you find yourself bored, hungry, and out of a job.

You aren't just a gardener of plants.  You're a gardener of men.  They come to you to ask advice, and you guide them--always saying "Well, I'm a gardener, so maybe I don't know... but I think I might be able to help."  If the parishioners are sheep to deacons and priests, to you they are a bouquet of roses and lilies, asking for nothing but a little water and soil.  They are beautiful, even in their greed and cruelty.  You love them all.

It is as a result of this somewhat paradoxical situation that you spend much of your time in the cathedral, in case anyone might come by and ask for your help.  There's nothing else to do, really, and it's better than finding a barn full of warm livestock to hide in.

Men come filtering in, seeking refuge from the driving snow--two knights, and an assortment of odd personages.  You wait for someone to talk to you, but no one comes.  That's all right.  You're patient.

One of the knights walks into the middle of the room.  He seems agitated.

"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."

This was not the request you were looking for and suddenly, it seems as though your fate has turned.  Your soft world is in collapse, and everything you thought was safe is no longer.

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

Spoiler: SirBayer the Child (click to show/hide)

You are SirBayer the Child.  You have lost your mommy somewhere.  You have lost your daddy somewhere.  Your mommy said your daddy is "a lying unprincipled bastard."  Your mommy said she would come back.

Your mommy said she would come back five days ago.  Your mommy is gone.  You have been waiting in the cathedral like she said and she has not come back.

Your daddy said he would never come back five years ago.  Your daddy is gone.  You have been waiting and hoping he was lying and he has not come back.

The men and women walking in and out whisper that you are an unwanted child.  It isn't true.  Your mommy said she would come back.

She has not come back.  The days are cold and she has not come back.

This day is very cold.  It is snowing.  It is snowing like the world is covered in white flowers.  It is snowing like years of crying.  This day is very cold and the men outside were very cold.  There are two knights and some other men inside now.  You don't know how many men there are.  One of the knights steps in the middle of the room.  You wonder for a moment if he is your daddy.  He cannot be your daddy.  Your daddy said he would never come back.

"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."

You are not sure you understand.  You have to be here for your mommy if she when she ever comes back.  You have to be here for your daddy if he when he ever comes back.

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

Spoiler: Quinnr the Prince (click to show/hide)

You are Quinnr the Prince.  You wear a lot of black clothing.  Your uncle is an asshole (dead) and your girlfriend is a chit (insane and dead).  Your father is dead (ghost), your kingdom (Denmark) in peril (seriously?), and all you can do is wander around foreign countries (England, France, unfortunately Switzerland) trying to forget about your best friends (dead), your father's advisor (longwinded and dead) and your father's advisor's son (unsurprisingly, both longwinded and very dead). 

Your mother's dead, too.  Poison.  It's like someone (That Bastard) looked at your life and decided everyone around you needed to die, for Some Great Purpose (oh the drama!).  Your very best friend ever is still alive, but he's a rationalizing poncy jerk nowadays who looks back at the Incident (see: everyone dead) and wants to make something good out of it.  He thinks it's his responsibility to Remember Everything and make sure it Doesn't Happen Again (see: rationalizing poncy jerk).  You asked him to come along and help you find a woman who wouldn't go and drown herself (see: chit girlfriend), but he said something like

HORATIO: If you do not your kingdom wish to save
              I will in your place watch over its grave.

He's probably insane.  They're all insane.

...

Where were you going with this?  Somewhere.  Right.  You're kicking around England or something and it's snowing, I mean, I don't even know what's up with this shit.  You're in a cathedral because it's so damn cold it's like you're seriously freezing your toes off.  There's a couple of knights there--reminds you of your friends (the dead ones).  They're like a couple of peas in a pod or some other pair of matching objects.

Your girlfriend always told you you were a terrible poet, and she was right.  Anyway, there's some other eight people in there with you, if you're not counting the knights.  They mostly look half-starved and peasanty, though they perk up when one of the knights walks in the middle.  He's completely white in the face and looks like he's about to fall over or something I mean I don't even know.

"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."

Story of your goddamned life.

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

Spoiler: Spitfire the Lover (click to show/hide)

You are Spitfire684 the Lover, and the sort of man people write great dramas about.  You were born in the snow of the forests of Wales, to a gentle mother and a father who was honest but stern.  In your youth you hunted with the boys, growing strong of arm and brave of will--and so you thought it would continue, on and on.

One day you were hunting and met a tall woman riding a white palfrey, her gown of white samite, a hooded falcon on her hand.  Isolde.  Isolde, pure flower among men, light of your life, the lady for whom your eyes shine.

"Please, fair lady, what is your name?" you asked, and she smiled at you and said "Isolde"--and turned and rode away.  You're following her.  You'll follow her forever.  One word, one glance, one name, and you knew you had to have her.  Beauty beyond compare.

That's why you're in England, happily freezing to death in a cathedral with ten strangers--two of whom are knights, and the rest a motley assortment.  You'd do anything for her.  You may be young, but you know this is it--Love--yours now and forever.  As long as you live, you will seek her out, who rode in beauty like the night.

The sound of sabotons on the stone floor wakes you from your reveries.  One of the knights stands in the center of the floor.

"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."

It's a test.  You'll surpass this.  You'll find her.

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

Spoiler: Rolan the Sage (click to show/hide)

You are Rolan7 the Sage, and extremely old.  You are, in fact, the oldest man in the village, and you have the longest beard of them all (even though Urist the Wise was catching up to you three winters ago.  You are still convinced that he was cheating).  You have seen many harsh winters.  You will see many more.

You know the hearts of men, and of women.  You know about worries and fears and praying in the night to find love, to find food, to find satisfaction with one's life.  It comes of being extremely old, like rheumatism and a hatred of young children who come to disturb the woodpile.  Yes, you understand them all, and know that those who hold evil in their hearts may not be true villains.

Evil is made not only of thoughts, but also of deeds.  You'll tell your great-grandson that when he next comes by.  You'll sit there and stroke your beard, and pretend to be harder of hearing than you really are... and then he'll draw close, and you'll say "Great-grandshun, evil ish made not only of thoughts, but also of deedsh."

You have your fantasies.  Being old gets old after a while.

Unfortunately, on this day your granddaughter seems to have forgotten you in the cathedral after morning mass.  Ten others--two knights and an assortment of odd personages--have likewise been forgotten, or perhaps they are trapped.  It is in fact very snowy outside. 

One of the knights step forward.  He is shaking, his face white, and in your heart you know he is good.  Probably.

"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."

You feel young again.  Sometimes good things do come to those who wait.

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

Sage (Cop): Once per night, you may PM me the name of another player to inspect.  I will then tell you if that player is a villain or an innocent.

Scum Chat
Dead Chat

[Vector]

Day One Prod

Spoiler: Halmie the Wanderer (click to show/hide)

You're certain you fell asleep for just a moment, lulled by the midday silence.  In that distant land of dreaming, you remember ashen faces and the eldritch moans of women.

You walk through the flames.  The coals are hot against your bare feet, and billowing white smoky winds sear your face.  The world is a gray veil.  The world is full of suffering.  You wander through this dismal dying town, struck by despair.  It didn't have to happen this way.  Everything could have gone differently.

If only you could turn back time...


"Halmie," says a voice.  "Halmie, you've fallen asleep.  Wake up.  Halmie--"

Sir Dakarian of Pane shakes your shoulder.

"Please wake up.  We need your help if we're ever to find those villains.  ...Are you all right?  Your eyes look a bit red."

"There's nothing wrong at all," you say, and stand.  You find that you are trembling beneath your cloak.  If only he knew.


Consider yourself formally prodded.  Now come kill some townies!

Night One

Spoiler: Rolan7 the Sage (click to show/hide)

You wait until the cathedral fills with the sound of even breathing, before standing and searching for JaaSwb.  You are still strong, though no one else knows it--you are quick on your feet for an old man, though you would not have them suspect you are anything but feeble.  Everything is fine so long as you can lean on Dakarian... he seems like a nice young man, if a bit bold.

Eight bright candles flicker at the altar, painting your stumbling image on the high vaults of stone.  Slowly, slowly you make your way to the vast oaken doors at the west end, nearly tripping over other sleepers as you wend your winding path.  Beneath the great rose window, its roseate splendor clouded by gathered snow, you find JaaSwb sleeping.  You crouch to lean closer to his dark ear, and whisper:

"Young JaaSwb, what do you want most in the world?"

In his sleep he mutters this:

"An ageless garden that won't die in winter."

Cursing yourself for a moment that you asked such a stupid question, you try again:

"Young JaaSwb, are you a villain?"

"Not a villain.  A man.  Like other men."

Satisfied, you stand and turn about to see a thin man in a long brown coat behind you.  He trembles in the candlelight's soft glow, mouth working, his ashen skin slick with sweat.  His thick hair is red as Judas'.

"Old man," he says, "I've been looking for you.  I've been searching you out for ever so long."

"Who are you?" you ask.

"A man," he says, drawing a sharp blade.  "Like other men."

He slides the knife into your gut, yanking upwards before you have a chance to stand aside.  Your breath escapes you in a gust.  Tremors from his still-shaking hands make their way into your body and reverberate against your spine.  Peering into his white face, you see fear etched in his mouth and eyes--and yet he withdraws the knife and cuts again, twice.  The pain is searing.  You cannot cry out.

"Lilies and roses," says JaaSwb, as you fall.  "Like lilies and roses slathered in dew."

You crumple, a gray heap of bone and beard splayed on the stone floor.

"Good night, old man," says he with the red hair.  His departing steps resound in your ears, and you hear him gulping and gasping.  Perhaps he is frightened.  Perhaps he is sick.  Perhaps he

You hear a sizzle as he puts the eighth candle out.

JaaSwb is innocent.  Unfortunately, you are dead.  Enjoy your stay!  The mod is always prepared to converse.

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

The cathedral is cold and dank and dark, save eight bright candles gleaming at the altar.  You navigate by these flickering stars in the sea of the night, searching for SirBayer's sleeping body.  At last you find him, sleeping near the nave with a psalter for a pillow.  You will defend him from those who would walk in the dark and steal his life.  Though you may have helped kill Org the Leper, you know you are worthy of redemption.

Sometimes, the wrong men die.  Sometimes, the wrong children die.  Sometimes sheer strength is not enough, and you can do nothing but walk away from a massacre.  Sometimes an ill deed is attractive beyond reason, and good men do bad things.  You know you were in the right.  You were right to rip the bandages from Org's emaciated body as you listened to his agonized screams.  You were right.  You were always

You rub your forehead and tired eyes.  The night seems too long.  You should have done something.  Anything... surely there was a better answer.  Why does death follow you wherever you walk?  Why could you not have defended him from the mob?  Why could you not have seen his innocence, when he shouted it to the high hall?

You bury your face in your hands, wearied by the burden that weighs on your heart.  When you look up again, the eighth candle has gone out.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

Spoiler: Halmie the Wanderer (click to show/hide)

You sleep briefly, though thankfully your dreams are empty of the great fire.  A chilly hand shakes your shoulder, and fitful, you wake to see Siquo the priest standing there.  The altar's candles reflect off his shining pate, illuminating dark circles under his eyes and pale streaks on his hollowed cheeks.  His soutane is creased where his bony fingers gripped it, and you can see a feverish gleam in his bright eyes.

Silently, he points down the long aisle, past the crossing and the nave, to the west end.

You nod and stand, running your hands through your bright red hair and stretching your thin arms.  The walk is long and you have time to think over the old man you are about to kill.  Surely, he deserves it.  Your step is shaky because you are tired.  You stumble because it is dark.  Your hands are slick and sweaty--surely that Siquo hasn't made you sick?  No, no indeed.  You are perfectly well, a man with a mission.  Under your breath, you mutter "I'm a man like any other, just a man, I'm a man like other men.  I'll kill that old man just as anyone else would.  I'm a man like other men."

You see Rolan standing beneath the vast rose window, looking young for what must have been an impressively long life.

"Old man," you say, licking your dry lips, "I've been looking for you.  I've been searching you out for ever so long."

"Who are you?" he asks.  It's a stupid question, but you humor him.

"A man," you say, drawing the blade Pandarsenic gave you.  It is heavy in your hand.  "Like other men."

You slide the knife into his gut, yanking upwards before he has a chance to stand aside.  It is a good job.  His breath escapes in a gust.  No time for last words.  But he is still alive.  You can see life in his pouchy old eyes, and so, shaking, you plunge the knife into his flesh again and again, shredding the viscera and nicking the spine.

Someone mutters something in his sleep, and you are terrified--but Rolan falls, and that is all.

"Good night, old man," you say.  Your hands are painted red, your knife slick and reeking.  You swallow, and you swallow, but you still feel your gorge rising.  Turning, you search blindly for the basin of holy water and thrust your hot hands into it, feeling tears form at the corners of your eyes.  It was not supposed to be like this.  It was supposed to be easy, and then you would be rich and satisfied forever.

You spend a few moments there before, still shaking, you make your way to the transept where you had been sleeping.  In doing so you pass the altar, where eight candles are shining.  Smirking, you reach out and pinch one wick between your still dripping fingers.

Seven candles glow.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

Spoiler: JaaSWb the Gardener (click to show/hide)

When night falls, you traipse to the west end of the cathedral and lie flat before the wooden doors, beneath the cold rose window.  Though you did not help kill Org the Leper, you watched as he was stripped and beaten--so though you know your conscience should be clear, your hands still feel unclean.  You sit there, for a moment, missing your flowers.  How unfair that they should bloom and die so soon, as though a moment's beauty were their entire purpose before fading uneventfully away.

You sleep.  You dream.  The night is cold, but you walk through your garden and smell the rich and rising earth once again, the dirt soft between your toes.  The roses are bright and blooming, the lilies, too.  You pick armfuls and envelop gravestones in piles of the inviting flowers.  Here is a child.  Here the empty coffin of a man lost at sea.  Here two lovers, still embracing.  Here another innocent man, just another man--but they are all innocent--but the roses you arrange melt into blood, the lilies ossifying into bone, and your hands are slick and dirty.  They are pungent.  You cannot wash them.  You are unclean.  You claw at your face and your hair and besmirch yourself with swathes of crimson.  You quiver and you shake and you scream and

Someone says: "Good night, old man."

You wish you had a son, a little flower bud of a boy.  You would carry him everywhere and teach him every plant.  You would protect him until the day you died.  You dream and sleep and are calmed.

When you wake up, your hands and face are covered with blood.  The cold and reeking body of Rolan lies beside you.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

Spoiler: SirBayer the Child (click to show/hide)

That man screamed.  He screamed a lot.  He screamed like someone went inside his chest and ate his heart.  He screamed and died.

It was loud.  He told you to kill him.  They told you to undress him.  It was easy to pull apart his white cloth with your little hands.  He smelled bad and you were sick.  They patted your head and said, "it's okay, he's a bad man."  They are all nice men.

So it was okay, and he's a dead bad man now.  You saw them drag his body away and it went away under the stone floor.  Now he can't do anything bad anymore.

You just can't understand why everyone looks so sad.  You ask but they are walking away and do not hear you.  They look so tired.  They look like they need naps.  So you find a bench and lie on it.  You put your head on a book.  Soon you are dreaming of becoming a Sea Captain.  You will find your daddy and travel the big waters far away.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

Spoiler: Quinnr the Prince (click to show/hide)

You've seen this all before (sucked then, sucks now), and you're sure you'll see it all again (life sucks like that).  Death, destruction, loss of redemption--like some mad cycle that turns and turns and turns until you're sick and want to get off the wheel of the world, but you can't because you're strapped there.  Like Prometheus to his rock, but with other men ripping out your liver, rather than eagles.

You're the Prince of Denmark (not Switzerland, thank God), and comparatively this really isn't so bad.  Org the Leper is dead, to be sure, but he hasn't started floating around all ghosty and telling you to kill your uncle.  You're going to chalk that up as a win.

Okay, so he screamed a little as he went.  Maybe a lot.  But that's death for you--messy.  You can't expect anything else.  All the other dying men you've seen vomited up speech after speech, as though they were struck by some sort of Terminal Logorrhea and felt the need to wallpaper the floor with poetry.  Agonized screaming is refreshing, really.  Almost up there with "Oh, I am slain!" in terms of brevity and not-drawing-things-out-ness.

You'll call it a day, after that bit of musing--more of these "killing people" and "hopefully not dying" things tomorrow.  There's some sort of chair in the quire, and so you sit there, arms folded, and drift to sleep.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

Spoiler: Spitfire the Lover (click to show/hide)

You walk past the crossing and behind the altar to the ambulatory, where you find a little chapel and lie down.  Org the Leper is dead, perhaps, but you are still alive.  You can still find Isolde, love of your life, light of your heart, the possessor of that long-desired smile.  She is beauty and boldness and bright sharp blue eyes.  She is elegance and linen-white skin.  Lily-white.  Not linen-white.  What's wrong with you?

Nothing.  She is beautiful.  You feast your eyes on her skin.  Her perfect, clean, unblemished skin.  Smooth.  No rot.  No wrinkles.  No reeking flesh.

You love her.  You love her now and forever, and as long as you love her nothing can touch you.  Not death, not fear, not misery.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

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

You find Pandarsenic, Le Chevalier du Glas, and tell him this:

"I am a man of God," you say, trembling from head to toe, "and this is murder."

"What did you think it would be?" he replies.  He is nonchalant and sneering, and has a sharp scar along his hairline and across his forehead.  "You are an evil man, priest, like any other.  Now go do as you said you would."

He pauses.

"You have beautiful hands," he says.  "Fine like a harpsichordist's.  Such straight long fingers and strong thick bones.  Any woman would say the same.  Can you smell the scent off her fine, dark hair?  What a lovely creature.  She dances in the street.  She is a harlot.  She looks at you with big black eyes and a pout on her full rosy lips.  You are hers and she is yours.  Can you feel her soft body pressed against you?

"She loves you for your fine hands on her back and narrow brown shoulders.  It is a simple love, and largely meaningless.  Now go, before I break your fingers."

You can smell her.  You can see her.  You can feel her.  She is warm.

You walk away, still shaking.  You feel hot and miserable, your fingers clenched in the folds of your soutane, and you know you will never be forgiven for what you are about to do.  Soft breath wafting over the curve of your ear.  Screams for forgiveness.  Screams for redemption.  Screams for death.  A beautiful woman.  Seven innocent men.  Your stomach feels as though you have been stabbed, your chest seared with pain as tears form in the corners of your eyes--not for the dead, but in shame for the living.

"Father, forgive me, for I have sinned," you whisper, and find Halmie sleeping in the transept, his hair red as Judas'.  You wait a moment, weeping, and then you touch his shoulder.

He awakens, blinking in the soft candlelight.  Silently, you point down the long aisle, past the crossing and the nave, to the west end.  The night is long and growing longer.

You are still alive.  Lucky you!

Day Two Prod

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

You spent the night defending SirBayer, and now that day has dawned you are exhausted.  With every heavy-lidded blink of your eyes you wander deeper into sleepy musings.  It is as though you have begun to dream, though you are still awake.  You hear the other men shouting, and it does not matter.  They might as well be giant heads of cabbage, for all you care.  That's right, vegetables.  They're vegetables and soon you'll all be a lovely tossed salad.

You pinch your face.  All you can do is cling to your remaining shreds of consciousness (for what they're worth) and hope everything will soon draw to an end.

You drift off to sleep, of course--a sleep of pure and utter darkness--but someone calls your name within moments, a mailed gauntlet heavy on your shoulder.  It is Sir Dakarian of Pane, wan and stubble-cheeked.

"HFS, wake up.  They'll kill us all if we aren't careful.  You can't close your eyes for a minute.

"...Are you all right?  Did you not sleep well?"

"Just a little tired," you say, and stand.  You are still exhausted, but at least now you can keep your eyes open.  Hopefully your energy will last you through the night.


Consider yourself formally prodded.  Now come hunt the scum!

Night Two

Spoiler: JaaSWb the Gardener (click to show/hide)

When you were a young man, you dreamed of planting a garden beneath the almond trees, full of snowdrops and jonquils and roses.  The garden has a high wall and a wrought iron gate.  It is the garden of a rich man, before a rich man's manor, and you are his gardener.  The rich man is a good man.  He allows the poor children to play in his--your--garden and walk among the flowers.  The girls pick passion flowers and tuck them behind their dirty ears.  The boys climb the trees, clamber among the branches, smile great gap-toothed smiles at each other and chatter like birds.

Bayer is in the garden, mute, his face purple, his tongue distended.  He plays with the other children and Org the Leper sits in a tree alone, watching the crowd.  You think he is smiling.  You cannot be certain.

You are still alive.

Spoiler: Quinnr the Prince (click to show/hide)

Look no longer and await no stories
No love awaits beneath the linden trees
No future peril can this fear surpass
No waiting longer in this dark morass

Here innocence is ended, your path dim
In a child's untimely death, your chance slim
For how much longer must a good man wander?
Why not march on like brave Lysander?

If in inelegance your heart grows tired,
Forget not what you once strongly desired.
The end grows near; its footstep this way comes
The future defies all measure, all sums

If in bewitching words you find no peace,
Tomorrow you may speak your final piece.


Herp derp a nonsense sonnet of suck (but also full rhyme) o_O  You are still alive.

Spoiler: Halmie the Wanderer (click to show/hide)

Three are dead and soon four and so it almost ends.  With just one more all will be easy--no one to push you out the windows or approach unawares and sneaking.  So you curl up in the transept and tuck your knees to your chin.  Though at first you think you will wait for Siquo, you slip into sleep and find yourself walking, once again, over the embers of your home town.

Is it your home town?  Or was it some other village?  You cannot remember.  Your feet are hot.  You remember that heat.  It is burned into your memory, as is the scent of the smoke.  Pungent and warm, it stings your nose.  You remember that after your home town burned--or was it some other town?  You remember that after the burning of the village you reeked of smoke for days, and could barely speak.  You are still somewhat hoarse, the edges of your fingers still pink-red with scars.

You look at your hands, lit to glowing in the gloaming light.  They are blistered, stained with charcoal and sticky with fluid.  They quiver and ache, but somehow it doesn't matter.  There's splinters somewhere in that mass of flesh, but it doesn't matter.

You drop the remnants of the torch and walk away.  You're a wandering man.  It could have been your home town; it could have been some other town.  It doesn't matter.  They all looked the same before.  They all looked the same after.

Like so many things, it was there.  Now it's gone.

You are still alive.

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

It is night, and this time the death is your responsibility.  It is in some combination of fear and curiosity that you abandon Halmie to his quivering nightmares and slip away to the little chapel where Spitfire sleeps.  Your sandaled footsteps shush against the cold stone, your rosary clacking faintly with every step.  If they hear you, you will tell them you are walking to the bapistry to pray for the lost child's soul.  You are a good and honorable man.  You are incorruptible and the embodiment of faith.  You--

Here is Spitfire sleeping and here is a priest shaking in his soutane, blinking away beads of sweat.  Here is the priest who did not bring his dagger, fumbling with clumsy fingers as he closes the bapistry door.  And here he looks about him and sees the baptismal font, and thinks, and scurries away from that thought, and approaches it.  He sneaks up on his thoughts and traps them.  He readies himself.  He is young and strong, perhaps slightly hard of hearing with the bells' hourly resounding ring.

He walks closer to the sleeping Spitfire, whose long brown curls obscure his pale pointed face.  He leans down and remembers that he is strong and quick, then lifts Spitfire by the back of the shirt and forces his face into the font.  Spitfire struggles and flails, his arms striking about him.  It is harder for Siquo to hold on than he would have thought, and for a moment his victim pulls his face from the pool, gasping and hacking.  Water streams from his eyes and nose.  His eyelashes flutter.

Siquo the gentle priest winds his fingers in Spitfire's thick hair and pushes down again, his knee in the small of the other's back.  He is trembling with exertion.  He pushes.  The front of his soutane is soaked.  How long before Spitfire stops struggling?  How long until he is dead?  How long until

Spitfire claws at Siquo's bony wrists and for a moment Siquo's hold weakens.

"You!" Spitfire croaks, grappling with Siquo.  They are a pile of bone and gristle, one trying to gouge the other's eyes, the other soaked in cold sweat and shocked, struggling not quite so hard as some part of him thinks he should.  "It's you--"

Siquo the priest cracks Spitfire's head against the base of the marble font, leaving a faint smear of blood there.  Then he drags Spitfire's limp body to the stone lip, pushing his head down in the water for the third and final time.  It is simple--no struggling.  It is done--he is dead.


You are a good and honorable man, incorruptible, the embodiment of faith.

You are still alive.

Spoiler: Spitfire the Lover (click to show/hide)

You sleep, and in your sleep you walk in a field of flowers with dear, sweet Isolde, hand in sunwarmed hand.  The breeze blowing from the lake is cool and soft and tender.  Purple hyacinth.  You are walking in a field of hyacinths, dark and yellow-patched.  Her white dress scrapes the blooms, the hem blackening.  Her feet are covered in rot.  Isolde is rotting.  Isolde is crumbling.  Isolde is an old woman with long gray hair and crows' feet around her watery whitened eyes, no longer beautiful in her age.  Isolde is a young woman miscarrying, for the third time.  You find her with another lover.  You catch the wet nurse drinking.  Your beloved baby is drunk, and barely born.

Isolde twists and turns, a kaleidoscope, and finally she mutates into a man with docile eyes and tonsured hair, who pushes you into the lake.

You wake up, and you are still in the lake--no, you are drowning--no, you cannot breathe it is impossible your chest burning wild with fear, you, your breath, your chest, the pool is bottomless, where is your face you strike out with your hands you will die attack for you cannot defend for otherwise you will die are powerless you can say nothing for you will die

Air.  Sweet and blessed air, a hand in your hair.  You cough and you splutter and nothing matters but breathing in every aching gasping breath.  You see nothing and it does not matter.  Your throat tastes sour.  Your stomach is heavy.

A hand, inevitable, on the back of your head, pressing, and you can feel the tip of your nose touch the water your cheeks your lips your forehead the soft skin of your eyelids panic rising.  There is nothing you can do you are going to die no never again you fight you cannot see you refuse to die here a man here you fighting so you will not die

A man here his hand his wrist here your fingernails because you will not die all thought fading you your fingernails here why you will die you will die you will die

He lets go slightly, finally, at last, and you pull your face from the water.  It is not Isolde that you love, but air, but breathing, but life itself, treasure beyond pearls, beauty beyond measure and this time you pull away from that man and turn to face him to subdue him yourself.  It is a man with docile eyes and tonsured hair, his wrists scratched, his body hidden under a soutane.

"You!" you croak, coughing, your throat aching.  You jump him and try to force him to the floor, but he is tall and strong--so you reach your bloodied fingers toward his eyes.  "It was you--"

His body is slick.  He is covered in sweat and water, and easily slips out of your hold.  His gentle hands take your face and here is the base of the marble basin CRACK

You are dead.  Lucky you!  Have a dead chat.  Laugh it up with the mod and her troupe of ghosts ~

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

You were drifting in and out of sleep and wakefulness all day.  You can't say it was your fault that you saw an innocent child die, though you had stood watchful over his young body just the night before; you weren't responsible.  People live, and people die, and sometimes good men make mistakes.  They make mistakes when they're tired and can't think, their thoughts running together like so much melted snow.  You can't think and you couldn't think and that's all that went wrong, you just need sleep.

You'll sleep and that will fix everything, even if you guard no one, even if someone dies tonight because you were not vigilant.  It will be enough and everything will be fine.  You'll piece together the puzzle and everything will be fine.  You'll stand up in a minute and protect an innocent man.  You'll stand and you'll find someone and they will not die and they will live--no purple-tongued monstrosities no bells ringing with no breeze with no bell sounders.

You'll stand up and

Maybe you just have to sleep a minute before you go and

Halmie.  You'll protect him, no matter what.  It's a last-minute decision, born of years of duty and watching too many men die when you might have saved them.  Stumbling, you search for his sleeping body--ah, there he is, quivering in one of the transepts.  You stand over him.  Sleep can wait for later, but for now you have a man to defend.

You are still alive.

Night Three

Spoiler: Solifuge the Gardener (click to show/hide)

You knew that aged and faithful man.

As a boy he was solemn and asked about the flowers, the graveyard, the gargoyles guarding the cathedral's slate roof.  He never opened his mouth, save to ask another question--an eternal "why" aimed at heaven and earth, demanding to be answered.  You answered what you could, and distracted him when he requested information no one knew.

One day, he said:

"If all people are born good, innocent, and holy, then how do we become corruptible?"

You smiled at him, sitting there beneath the apple tree (or was it pomegranate?) and said, for once:

"I do not know."

He stared back with something resembling fear in his brilliant eyes.  For a moment you wondered if he would ask again, refusing to believe that you might not have the answer.  No one told him that you were just a gardener, and he seemed to have mistaken you for a wise man.  He passed a hand through his flaxen hair, then stood and abruptly walked away.

He asked no more questions of you for twenty-three years.


He grew and you aged, and then both of you were aging--him inside the stone church, and you outside in the sun.  He passed by you, from time to time, but did not speak.  His silence had acquired a certain gentleness, an aura of goodwill and tenderness.  He understood compassion.

When you met his gaze, you could still see something of his youth glimmering there, and that monstrous curiosity that threatened to engulf him.  As he traipsed along the grounds, examining the sky, the birds, the plants, you saw the little boy in him--that little boy who needed to know and would not speak, his mind plagued with questions.

Wherever he walked, he carried the same haunted, hungry look buried in the lines of his face.  You pitied him, as you pity him.


You were the first to arrive in his cell on that day, as he sat there trembling and praying on the cold stone.  You know these stairs, this man: the cathedral is your home as much as it his.  You waited for a moment to catch your breath in the frozen air, and he looked at you.  Fear sharpened his eyes, and hunger deepened the lines around his mouth.

"Even you, Solifuge?" he asked.

"No," you said.  You weren't quite sure if you were lying.  "I'm not like the rest of these men."

He nodded once.  He had a smile like a withered weed.

"Why do we do these things?" he asked.

"No one knows," you said, putting your hand on his shoulder.  "But soon, it will be over.  Have faith."

"Thank you," he whispered with tears in his eyes.  You stepped away from him as the others ran into the room.  So it began.  So it ended.


You hear someone shouting and thrashing in the night, but you cannot move yourself to help him.  You do not know why.  It does not matter.


You are still alive.

Spoiler: Quinnr the Prince (click to show/hide)

You sit in the chair as you did last night, and the night before, and feel something like a king.  You're not much of a king, really, and this isn't much of a kingdom--but you can cling to it, and call this vast hall yours with all its ghostly presences and chilling drafts.

Not that different from the old castle, really, when you think about it.

There's someone screaming in the night, but you don't go to him.  A king doesn't have to do much but sit on his throne.  You can sit here quietly, and your loyal subjects will take care of the mess before coming back to say:


ROSENCRANTZ: Fair king of the mad and cruel and joyless race,

GUILDENSTERN: It seems another subject has broken his face.

QUINNR THE PRINCE: Hmm.

ROSENCRANTZ: Up for some question tennis?  Oh, I know!  How about we bet on coinflips?

GUILDENSTERN: You always want to bet on coins.  Can't you see that we're only seeing a shadow of reality, and that the true reality is so much greater than this one?  We see but a reflection of the world and base our decisions on these empty notions!  How senseless is that?  And besides, the world is full of flaming hypocrites.  You're all phonies!  We're in a world full of mindless drones, playing stupid games to appease our sense of nothingness--and no one else even knows!  What can I do?  ... What can we do?

ROSENCRANTZ: Shh, you're dead.  Flip, Guildenstern.  I call heads.

GUILDENSTERN: We're both dead.  We're all dead--might as well be, anyway.

                      Fine, I'll call tails.  Whatever.  It doesn't matter.

                      He flips a coin.

                      Heads again.  As usual.  ... Hey, wait.  This has heads on both sides ...

QUINNR THE PRINCE: I'm surrounded by idiots.

HORATIO and LAERTES: Pretty much, bro.

OPHELIA: Buzz, buzz.


You rub your eyes.  Your imagination has been getting away from you more and more recently.  You haven't told the rest of them--what would they say, after all?  What could they do?  Poison you?  No, you don't think so.  You have something else to do.  You have a kingdom to rule, a crown to take, a string of murders to sit you firmly in the desired seat--

What's this on your hands?  Blood?  You wiped them clean after the old priest jumped, on one of his old sets of robes.  You all did.  You were in it together.  You didn't kill him, it was all of you--you and the guardian and the gardener and the wanderer, all of you together, and so you can't see why you would have blood on your hands.  It doesn't make sense!  It was their fault.  They're the killers.  You're a prince, no, King!  You're the king and you didn't kill him.  You're a wise and generous ruler.  You're a good man, a decent one, you know, you know, you know.

Your hands are stained.  No, they aren't.  Not enough sleep.  They aren't shaking, that's the light from the four candles on the altar.  That's not blood.  It isn't.  Blood would come off better when you rub at it--you should know, really--and this isn't coming off.  It's stuck there.  It's a trick of the light

You rub.


You are still alive.

Spoiler: GlyphGryph the Wanderer (click to show/hide)

Another one dead.  You can't remember if you were supposed to kill him or not.  Did that knight tell you to kill them all?  Did he tell you what you were supposed to do with the priest?  You broke his ribs and his fingers, laughing at him all the way.  Sometimes you had to laugh and break for four people, it seemed like, and Siquo's eyes looked sad.  Were you supposed to do that?  You hate being confused.  It makes you angry and sick, as though you had eaten rotten fire and it was spoiling in your belly.

He jumped.  You don't like that, either.  You like knowing what will happen from beginning to end.  You don't like surprises.  You didn't want him to talk or say anything, but he said something about the fires of hell and you remembered

embers in your hair, hot and blistered skin, a chilly breeze from the sea

long hours spent listening to other priests and you said

"Can I hold the candles by the altar, Father?  Can I light the fires?"

and they smiled and turned away, saying something about your temper and helping out in the fields.  You came early one Sunday, before even the cocks started crowing.  You lit every votary candle you could find, and the ones in the candelabras for good measure.  You were a good boy, after all.  You could be helpful, even if no one asked you.  Then you left, leaving the dazzling arrays of light as a surprise for the fathers.  They would be forced to be kind, and maybe they would even ruffle your hair as they exclaimed over how good you were.  You had seen other boys' fathers doing that, and you ached for the experience.

The church was made of wood.  It did what wood does.


And now this other Father Siquo is dead, and you can't quite see your way through to what needs to be done next.  What do you do?  Pandarsenic du Glas said to kill them all and so you'll kill them.  You can take orders, after all.  You can do what needs to be done without prodding.

You'll start with Webadict, then, that guardian or soldier or whatever he was.  High and mighty.  You find him stumbling about, clutching his head and saying something about children.  Maybe he's a father, too.  Maybe he'll try to kill you tomorrow--him, too.  This time, you don't ask if you can get him something or help him out.  You learned your lesson, there in the church, you learned it, you learned to be angry.  It's cold, and you're angry that it's cold.  You're angry that the broken window up in the tower lets in the wind.  You're angry that Siquo is dead and you're angry that he jumped, because you could have killed him all the way and maybe it doesn't count if the old man jumps.  You want Pandarsenic to tell you you were brave, with that hooked smile of his.  He is life surrounded by death, or maybe he is death personified in the midst of the living.  You don't particularly care for the difference--you like the man, anyhow.

So you don't even try to be quiet this time as you struggle with Webadict, kicking and biting, trying to kill a man who is too alive.  He slams you against the wall, shouting:

"I protected them!  I protected them, and they're dead!  Four left, only four, and I protected them and they're all dead!  It's your fault and it's mine, and they're all dead!"

He's clearly insane, so you knock him out with a candlestick.  You drag his body out onto the altar, left naked long ago of its hangings.  There's a lot of oil in Siquo's cell, so you go and get that and douse him with it.  Then you kick him in the head a few more times.

Once that's done, you light him on fire.

Webadict is just another man, made of flesh and blood like other men.  He dies screaming, as most men do.


You are still alive.

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

You were here to protect, and to pray.  You were here to save men.  You were here to erase your footprints, to calm your weary heart, to do some good--and here you are.  You have not slept in three days.  You are tired, so tired, delirious, broken, pounded into exhaustion.  Your head aches

Who are you supposed to protect tonight, anyway?  You can't sleep.  You can't remember.  There's no point in remembering, anyway, because the kindly father priest who heard your confession is a villain and a coward.  What can you do when the best of men runs with the worst of them?

He was saintly, compared to the rest of you.  What does that make you?  Is there any purpose to this dance of life and death, or do you live in a place without

You are a guardian.  You are here to protect your children.  You will protect them

You think you see the red-headed wanderer, stealing along in the shadows.  He is shaking from head to foot, his eyes rolling in his skull.  You will protect

"I have to protect my children," you mutter, surprised that you're saying it aloud.  Or did you say anything?  You don't

He attacks you and pushes you against the wall, and suddenly you are fighting a man you just vowed to protect.  Do you kill him?  Do you save him?  Do you subdue him?  Would it be better to hurt him so that the others aren't hurt?  is he trying to hurt anyone but you?  should you defend yourself should you defend anyone what is your place here anyway

He bites you, so you wrestle him into the wall and try to explain:

"I protected them!  I protected them, and they're dead!  Four left, only four, and I protected them and they're all dead!  It's your fault and it's mine, and they're all dead!"

You're not sure if he understands you or you understand you

He coughs and tries to catch his breath.  You and he are still for a moment.  Then he slips away, returning with a candlestick


You smell something burning and you scream without understa


You are dead and on fire.

[Vector]

Character Notes

Spoiler: Aureliusz Vektor (click to show/hide)

I initially wrote him as comic relief and thought I'd set this up as a sort of Scheherazade's stories situation, with Pandarsenic and Dakarian paying for ale with a surprisingly gruesome story.  Then they got a life of their own and I realized listening to a story like this would be a sort of emotional torture, so I altered it a bit.  This change was especially prompted by Org's virulent opposition to his lynching, almost as though he really were fighting for his life.  I think the initial version of the story wasn't going to be anywhere near as bloody.

His appearance is based almost entirely on this guy's, though the man in question looks older now... so the character looks older, too.  I also thefted a couple of other things--his gait and hand movements, mostly, as well as a bit of philosophy.

"Aureliusz" is a Polish first name which means bright or golden.  It seemed nicely fitting for a largely drab character with a habit of uttering simple truths.  I wanted to make him a sort of innocent, solid character: someone down-to-earth to go with all the philosophy the other two are spewing.

Spoiler: Sir Dakarian of Pane (click to show/hide)

He was created to be a foil to Pandarsenic in all dimensions--from the inter-country rivalry, to the mannerisms, to the outlook on life, to the speech pattern.  His name is a pun between pane and pain: he's putting Aureliusz Vektor in pain, but he also puts things in focus and allows a window into a different way of viewing things.

He ended up being a knight because it would be more epic like that.  More than anything else, he is a sort of facilitator and softener for Pandarsenic.  A story with just Pandarsenic would kind of suck.  There would be some tension between Pandarsenic and Vektor, but not much.  I also couldn't let Dakarian be too far on anybody's side--he's a bit of a middleman, to keep the tension at bearable levels so that no one blows up too much.

I based his appearance and habits roughly on a withdrawn nerd I hung out with in high school.  I don't know why I did this, but it seemed necessary.  Most of his dialogue is in response to stuff Pandarsenic says, so it's surprisingly easy to write.  He's the passive half of the pair.

Spoiler: Pandarsenic, le Chevalier du Glas (click to show/hide)

One of those "Horsemen of the apocalypse" sorts of figures.  I don't have too much to say about him, other than that he's a mean son of a bitch with a big nose and a hilarious accent.  I like guys with big noses, though most of his odd appearance happened because I wanted a humorous lead-in to what was probably going to be a rather sad story.

"Glas" means "knell" in French.  It also kind of looks like "glass," which goes with Dakarian's "window" motif.  The two knights are a looking-glass into the world of the story, and the basis of the frame for the "framed narrative."

Spoiler: The Wanderer (click to show/hide)

There's not too much to say about this guy.  I wanted to add someone who was inevitably a stranger.  He was going to be a bard-type minstrel or something until he rolled up scum, at which point I gave him red hair and made him into an arsonist.  He is the most "evil" character among the nine, in my point of view.

Most of his backstory and appearance details came from his scum partner, actually.  When The Priest also turned out to be scum, I figured I'd make the one into a Claude Frollo-type and gave the other some Quasimodo traits.  This is why The Wanderer ended up an orphan, and shares Quasimodo's rusty-red hair.  The other reason why he's red-headed is that the trait and color are typically associated with Judas.

I tried to characterize his narratives with a sort of eagerness, tempered by false regret and real fear.  He likes what he's doing, but he knows other people would never approve, so he tends to rationalize a lot and characterize his actions as "normal" (see "I'm a man like other men" in N1).  This slips more and more as time goes on, turning into unguarded insanity around N3 or so.

Spoiler: The Priest (click to show/hide)

I unashamedly stole from Victor Hugo on this one.  The Priest is actually Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, with a few character changes.  He has similar struggles with curiosity and temptation, as well as some matching character traits.  The "natural tonsure" belongs to Hugo, as well as his near-devastating search for knowledge.  The Priest's N1 PM gives a nearly matched description of Esmeralda.

As for the way he kills Spitfire, I thought it would be sort of amusing if he used the baptismal font he was so familiar with for another purpose.  I was also running out of ways to off people imaginatively at that point =/

His suicide was written to match Frollo's death, though when Frollo died in corruption (shouting "damnation" as Quasimodo pushed him), I felt he had held onto his own peculiar sense of goodness.  He knew that what he had done was wrong.  He didn't particularly attempt to save himself from the crowd, choosing instead to flee and pray for forgiveness before dying.  I wrote his dialogue there in an attempt to create a jarring effect.  The typical FPS game shouts of "where is your god now" and "see you in hell, bitches" turned into something rather more somber.  My hope was that the reader would remember the standard uses of those phrases, and feel a bit disturbed.

Much like The Wanderer, he spends a lot of time trying to pretend he's doing nothing wrong (mostly by pretending that he's not the one doing it).  He becomes miserable pretty quickly.

Spoiler: The Leper (click to show/hide)

I originally intended to have "The Slave" to go with Quinnr's Prince, but that just seemed bad.  Instead, I decided to play with the outsider just beneath our noses--the sick and the homeless, as a foil to the wanderer from another land.  I'm actually very glad Org ended up dying so soon, because I hadn't thought up much of a story for him.  His character concept was one of balance, marked by a belief that what goes around comes around.  Despite this rather idealistic point of view, he's also pessimistic.

My guess is that in the psychological pressures of the rest of the story, he'd probably end up a bit less crazy than the others.  He seems pretty down-to-earth already.

Spoiler: The Guardian (click to show/hide)

Another one of those characters I probably should have thought about more.  I was playing about the difference between guardian as in "guard" or "parent," so I thought it would be kind of hilarious to make him successful in one only so long as he was unsuccessful in the other.  As he succeeds in guarding the town, he fails to be a good guardian to his children and wife.

Again, I didn't think about him enough, so we ended up with the rather boring story of someone going insane from lack of sleep and his own impotence.  I also made him a "failed guard" for the purpose of character development here, though I think it would have worked somewhat better if he had actually succeeded to predict the nightkill at some point.  Meh.

Spoiler: The Gardener (click to show/hide)

The Gardener is a recurring character from most of the stories I've written.  If you're familiar with the story of The North Wind and the Sun, you might recognize him: he's playing the sun to The Priest's wind.  I don't really know what I would have done if he had rolled up scum--make him into a sort of Grim Farmer?  It would have been odd.  Anyway, I made him into something of a father figure and guide for The Priest on a whim.  Given that they'd lived near each other for a long time and had the same job, they seemed like they'd be good foils.

Since I always write him as such a "pure" character, I ended up torturing him a bit more than most of the other guys =/  Some brief notes on symbolism and the night PMs are due here, since his ended up with rather more "story" than some of the others.  Roses and lilies represent purity and love, the two dimensions of the human character which The Gardener considers most vital.  They also happen to be the same color as bones and blood, which are the two "body parts" most people associate with the state of living.

For N2, there's quite a bit of flower symbolism--almonds and snowdrops for hope, jonquils for affection, roses for love.  More white and red flowers.  Passion flowers are for devotion and sacrifice.  The scene is very loosely based on The Selfish Giant, by Oscar Wilde.

N3 is mostly about The Priest, but I put an emphasis on the apple/pomegranate tree to portray curiosity as a vehicle of temptation.  It's lucky for me that there are arguments about which fruit tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, because otherwise my job would have been rather more difficult.

Spoiler: The Child (click to show/hide)

Seriously, I have no idea what I was thinking with this one.  I put him in to balance off The Sage and The Guardian (via age/filial relationships), but I think the general result was a bit unfortunate.  D2 being mostly absorbed by hanging a child (and Aureliusz' Vektor's resulting chagrin) probably caused issues for most people.  I'll admit, though, that I really had a lot of fun writing his PMs.  Childish terror is so delightful :3

... I also found it hilarious that SirBayer ended up rolling up Child, because I always associated him with a sort of youthful exuberance.

He was hanged from the "Little Maria," which is traditionally associated with dead children.

Spoiler: The Prince (click to show/hide)

Iiiiiiiit's Hamlet Caulfield!  Other than N2's kind of unfortunate sonnet (I was taking a course on poetry, mostly Shakespearean), I really liked writing this guy's material.  Part of his voice was ripped from Homestuck's Dave Strider, while the rest was stolen wholesale from Catcher in the Rye and every teenager I've ever talked to.  If I'd read Catcher more recently (read: fewer than 7 years ago), I probably would have tried to work some more references in.  As-is, I just ended up with what I could remember of a really absurdly annoying speech pattern.

Then he turned into Lady Macbeth and a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead reference happened.  To understand why he ends up L. Macbething, I'll have to note that he spends the three nights sitting in the archbishop's seat.  By killing the last remaining priest, he effectively has usurped a kingdom of sorts.  Thus, the reference is marginally appropriate though in reality I just like Lady Macbeth.

Spoiler: The Lover (click to show/hide)

Sir Tristan, of Tristan and Iseult fame.  Appropriately, "Tristan" means "time of tears."  I don't have too much else to say about him, unfortunately--he was one of my least favorite characters to write.  The absence of the desired beauty from the stage, and lack of invented backstory, led to a rather dull exposition of desire and lack.  I have to admit that initially, I wanted to portray his relationship with a sort of naivety and doomed love, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  I was already bored of that story before I'd written it, and felt I had more than enough "true love 4eva owait" in the frame storyline.

It also surprises me that the "absent object of desire" plotline worked so well for everyone else, but fell flat on its face when it came to Tristan and Iseult.  Maybe it was the fact that the electric tension of young lovers comes not from distance so much as from painful closeness.  In any case, I screwed this one up and hope I'll be able to make something better next time.  Would have been a better scum character, I think.

Spoiler: The Sage (click to show/hide)

Heheheh.  This was basically a mashup of all the "cool old guys" I could think of.  The petty arguments over beard lengths felt vaguely Terry Pratchett-ish to me, and I had a great time making a bit of an odd guy cop.  He's another character who I think would have probably held it together better throughout the course of the storyline... too bad both of them died after the first day.

In the end, there isn't too much to say about this one.  Unlike most of the others (save The Gardener), he doesn't have a sad story of any sort.  Fun to write, but he would have probably been difficult to treat properly throughout the rest of the tale.

References and Translations

Spoiler: "Aureliusz Vektor's menu" (click to show/hide)

Niewdzięczny szarpnięć.

"Ungrateful jerks."

Spoiler: "The Prince of all Denmark, and other nose-crushing royalty" (click to show/hide)

Quinnr, running bony fingers through his dark hair, said simply this: 'I am the Prince of Denmark--all Denmark.  Believe no other stories and give credence to no other tales.'

This is a corny Dragonball reference I shoehorned in because I wanted to see if I could get away with it.  Apparently, I could =)

And some--in that quiet, blessed place--some lied outright in the pretense of goodness.  They learned what friends know after many years: that the ones they love are strangers."

As for this, the last sentence is a reference/nod to the novella Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux.  It's about a woman who becomes obsessed with her lover, who is a married man and a foreigner.  One of the most famous lines in the work says that she had known immediately what most women only learn after many years: that the man she loved was a stranger.  In French, the same word is used for both "strange" and "foreign."

Spoiler: "Searching for an honest man" (click to show/hide)

I strongly suggest reading Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.  Should you do so, I'm sure you will recognize some of my odd weavings of speech patterns within the "introductory story" portions.

I suppose the House reference was obvious, but I was thinking about the recurring statement "everybody lies" as I wrote this section.

Spoiler: "The first death" (click to show/hide)

"Język przeklęty!  Mówię sens i można rzygać szaleństwo!  A ponadto, pijesz moje piwo!"

"Accursed language!  I speak sense and you spew madness! And furthermore, you drink my beer!"

Spoiler: "There, and back again; the slaying of a saint." (click to show/hide)

If any of you are familiar with the Georgian sculptor/author George Papashvily, you may recognize Mischka's name.  I named her after one of his dogs, mostly for the hell of it.

Similarly, the name "Anna" was taken from Kratos' wife in "Tales of Symphonia," since there are parallels of sorts between the two stories.  I won't explain any more here, since thar be spoilers.

Other references came mostly in the form of a couple key phrases, which you can probably recognize.

Spoiler: "The wind shifts" (click to show/hide)

"They lived in a flicker between light and darkness," says Dakarian.  "The morality of our circumstances did not apply.  They chided each other for being too gentle.  They chided each other for being too kind.  Each of them wanted only to live, and in ensuring that life they ensured that others died."

"They lived in a flicker between dank despair and unbridled hope," says Pandarsenic.  "Their morality forgotten, they fought and hunted each other like wolves.  They abandoned clean logic for the tremulous caprices of the heart.  When we left them, they were less than human."

"We live in the flicker -- may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday."

It often astounds me how much original material I accidentally make up by virtue of mis-remembering some quotation or another.

Spoiler: "The end of Innocence." (click to show/hide)

The title was taken from this song.  The game is about Chopin traveling through a dream-world as he lies on his deathbed.

Spoiler: "Truth" (click to show/hide)

I stole Lancelot's post-Grail quest facial tic from T. H. White's rendition (which I highly recommend).

Spoiler: "Fairy tales" (click to show/hide)

The bit about "wanting to cover your ears and close your eyes" is a reference to the beginning of Fruits Basket, a manga about people locked in a cycle of torturing each other learning to move on.

[Vector]

All right, guys: quick update before I get back to work.  I finished updating D3's flavor and lynch scene.  If you check the OP under "Links to Flavor," at the bottom of the screen, you can access them more easily.  The new sections are called "Fairy Tales" and "Man of faith."  They're both pretty long.

There's also links to the role PMs, night PMs, and prods.  The night PMs will be updated pretty soon, because I need to finish writing the four dreams from N3 before I can put them up.  I'm feeling inspired, though, so that shouldn't be long 

Anyway, please enjoy.  I think the rest of the writing should be up by Monday at the latest, including picking through to explain all those references in little print at the bottom.

[Solifuge]

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.

Suddenly, I'm reminded of the latest Dresden Codak arc:

"I've connected their remains to my Thanatropic Generator, which essentially converts posthumous indignity into clean energy! If sufficiently disgusted, an author's spinning corpse can produce over 400 megajoules per grievance."

Anywho, I think I caught the new flavor bits. The death of the priest was... disturbing, to say the least, but some excellent writing. I guess Mafia is a pretty horrible, horrible game when taken literally.
._.

[Vector]

Suddenly, I'm reminded of the latest Dresden Codak arc:

"I've connected their remains to my Thanatropic Generator, which essentially converts posthumous indignity into clean energy! If sufficiently disgusted, an author's spinning corpse can produce over 400 megajoules per grievance."

Anywho, I think I caught the new flavor bits. The death of the priest was... disturbing, to say the least, but some excellent writing. I guess Mafia is a pretty horrible, horrible game when taken literally.
._.

Haha, I'm mostly reminded of this one joke I heard about either some mathematician or some author (Gertrude Stein, Newton, or Gauss) "spinning in his/her grave so hard that he/she struck oil."

And, erm... thank you.  I do try so hard to write an interesting story.  The only problem, really, is that I shifted the balance between Pandarsenic and Dakarian based on the scum/town relationship, so by necessity things ended up getting darker and darker in general.  I felt like the priest ended up with a somewhat better ending than the others, though, in that his emotional and physical destruction at the hands of the others was incomplete.  He, at the least, had something left--or, at the very least, Dakarian thought he did 

Hm.  Well, anyway.  The next piece should be interesting.

[Vector]

Thank god, it's done

[Siquo]

And How!

Just read it all, and was reminded of how dirty this game made me feel.

Criticisms:

The theme of "Man like other men". Two possibilities:
1. As the men who say this are usually evil, hell, almost every man in the story is evil, and the author is NOT a man, this is obviously feminist propaganda.
2. Gay.

That's all I could think of, for now

[Solifuge]

Good on you for finishing this up, and thanks for sharing your talent with us. It was highly entertaining, and had a surprising level of depth, from what I've come to expect from a forum game. Here are some thoughts:

I'd actually figured Pandar's character was a sort of "Devil" stand in... a tempter and corrupter, in the traditions of Faust/other European Folklore (I could see a Horseman too). I really dug Aureliusz's character as well... he ended up being a nice Foil for the Dakarian/Pandarsenic duo, while they each played off one another's traits as well. I did think his emotional moment felt a bit out of character to me... but I think I'd just come to expect more lightheartedness from him. they were a great way to set up and maintain the "Story within a Story" feel though, which works surprisingly well for Mafia. I do think that the story could have used a more sympathetic scoundrel, though. It was tough to relate to Dakarian and Pandar's characters, since they were basically Paragons of Bipolar Allignment.

Spoiler: Quinnr the Prince (click to show/hide)

You're the Prince of Denmark (not Switzerland, thank God), and comparatively this really isn't so bad.  Org the Leper is dead, to be sure, but he hasn't started floating around all ghosty and telling you to kill your uncle.  You're going to chalk that up as a win.

Okay, so he screamed a little as he went.  Maybe a lot.  But that's death for you--messy.  You can't expect anything else.  All the other dying men you've seen vomited up speech after speech, as though they were struck by some sort of Terminal Logorrhea and felt the need to wallpaper the floor with poetry.  Agonized screaming is refreshing, really.  Almost up there with "Oh, I am slain!" in terms of brevity and not-drawing-things-out-ness.

The Prince as a Shakespeare reference made me quite happy... I loved how you presented him, too. The phrase "Terminal Logorrhea" is ridiculously full of win, but the whole package is just a great piece of irreverent satire. Highest Kudos. Voltaire would be proud.

I loved the dynamic between the Gardiner and the Priest, and I have to second that I felt... honestly bad about his death, and the deaths of other characters in this game. Some of the scenes were rather unsettling, but definitely in a compelling way. You have succeeded in evoking an emotional response in me, and through a forum game no less. And I pride myself on my stoicism!


Anyway, I'm only now getting a real sense for how much time and craft went into this. You've created a branching, multi-perspective narrative, using the actions of a series of players to drive the story along. Your writing is rife with literary allusions both silly and serious, parody and satire, life philosophy, and generally skillful storytelling. It's like Dave Arneson, Socrates, and Geoffrey Chaucer got together in a coffee shop, and wrote a collaborative story-telling game meant to explore the nature of ethics, knowledge, and human behavior through a group of colorful medieval characters stuck in a European monastery. It's just the sort of mix that I look for in some of my favorite authors.

This isn't just flippant praise either; you have an honest-to-goodness talent for this, especially given that you work within the constraints of a narrative driven by other people, and yet are able to craft a compelling story. You'd make a world-class Game Master, I wager... moreover a damned fine author, given the right story ideas. So, what's your Major again?

I can tell that this must have taken a good investment of time and effort to make, in its entirety, but it was highly enjoyable. Thanks very much for running this, Vector, and please keep writing... and if you ever run a Tabletop RPG or something, please let me know!

[Pandarsenic]

*Claps for epic flavor*

I absolutely agree with everything Solifuge said.

[Vector]

And How!

Just read it all, and was reminded of how dirty this game made me feel.

Heh!  I guess I did my job, then >:3

The theme of "Man like other men". Two possibilities:
1. As the men who say this are usually evil, hell, almost every man in the story is evil, and the author is NOT a man, this is obviously feminist propaganda.
2. Gay.

... Hahaha.  To address your first point, I actually thought a bit about the distinct lack of women in this mess.  Then I ended up with a mental image of a bunch of guys and a couple of women starving to death in a cathedral and trying to kill each other (+ goodness knows what else), and I said "Hmm, that might be a bit too intense for the first time I try this.  I'd better get back to torturing this little kid."

I also wanted to make sure that the characters were all at least marginally relatable to whoever would be playing them.  Given the demographic and what happened last time we had guys playing female characters around here, I figured I'd just stick with the dudes this time around and say "to hell with feminism.  Next time."

I'd actually figured Pandar's character was a sort of "Devil" stand in... a tempter and corrupter, in the traditions of Faust/other European Folklore (I could see a Horseman too). I really dug Aureliusz's character as well... he ended up being a nice Foil for the Dakarian/Pandarsenic duo, while they each played off one another's traits as well. I did think his emotional moment felt a bit out of character to me... but I think I'd just come to expect more lightheartedness from him. they were a great way to set up and maintain the "Story within a Story" feel though, which works surprisingly well for Mafia. I do think that the story could have used a more sympathetic scoundrel, though. It was tough to relate to Dakarian and Pandar's characters, since they were basically Paragons of Bipolar Alignment.

Yeah, I kind of worried about the end flowing--mostly because I wrote the very last section before working on the two before it.  I'm actually really surprised by the way the finale ended up tying itself together, with its "introductions" and explanations that turned into three men playing a sort of verbal mafia game.  The echo of "I am a man, like other men" and its different implications also ended up being fun, as well as Aureliusz Vektor's passes over different rooms in the halls of memory.

For the record, I think they were all good men, like other men--men of faith and men of science, old men and young, curious and down to earth, angry and sarcastic, gentle and wise.


In the beginning, I ended up with the framed narrative in hopes of distancing the players from the action a bit and providing a vehicle for commentary.  It turned into an odd and sprawling thing, particularly because originally there was very little tie-in between the frame story and the mafia game.  Then I noticed how nearly everyone had ended up with some sort of guiding/protecting relationship, and that I was spending a lot of time exploring the different ramifications of that--so I figured I might as well change things up a bit, and give Vektor a more visceral emotional response to SirBayer's death.

I think I agree with you on the rather rocky descent from humor to pathos, though I lucked out in this case with a clean divide between "before Bayer" and "after Bayer."  I definitely agree on the Knights of Bipolar Alignment being difficult to relate to--though in reality, that was part of the point.  I hoped that the reader would start out thinking "Hm, that's an interesting way to see things," move on to "Wow, they really have some interesting things to say," and finish with "STOP SQUABBLING YOU MORONS, IT OBVIOUSLY DOESN'T MATTER."  Dakarian's interruptions as a mediator ended up easily maneuverable to that end, especially in the second-to-last section.

You can definitely expect some sympathetic scoundrels in the next one I run.  It's going to be spectacular, and the tone should be far more vibrant.

-Compliments-

-More compliments-

Thanks so much, you guys.  You really made my month--and this is not flippant thanks, because it's been a pretty good month already   Thanks also for the criticism.  I'd like to publish a novel someday, and every little bit helps.

I hope to see you in the next round, if not as players, then as spectators.  You guys were all absolutely fantastic.  I looked forward to your adventures, sat on the edge of my chair wondering if town or scum would win, and steeled myself to spend yet another night writing what felt like a billion PMs.  I loved the flavor you wrote yourselves, that twinge of pleasure that announced: "Yes, they're into it, they understand these people."  Most of all, your rising to the occasion inspired me to do a better job and put in more effort than I might have otherwise, and I feel the work was vastly improved for it.

See you in another story, brothers =)

[Pandarsenic]

men of science

You just gave me a brilliant idea for a flavor-heavy themed mafia to run after BYOT.

So expect it around this time next year.

[Vector]

men of science

You just gave me a brilliant idea for a flavor-heavy themed mafia to run after BYOT.

So expect it around this time next year.

Well, I know what I'm going to get in on   I'm looking forward to it.

And come on... BYOT can't possibly take more than a year.  Only 9 months or so.

[Pandarsenic]

9 months or so.

I'm pregnant with tropes.

[Nolor]

I don't usually read mafia games; I much prefer meta-discussion about the games themselves. The analysis of how and why people acted the way they did fascinates me.

This game, however, I read with the intention of familiarizing myself with the participants of Pandarsenic's Trope Mafia, though soon I found myself utterly enrapt in the flavor you've written. The characters and their backstories were of such quality that I read the entire thread in a single sitting. I suspect it's due to the procedural nature of the tale -- from the outset, neither the players nor the writer knew the outcome; the descriptions of the lynchings in particular, while gruesome at times (and necessarily so!) crawled beneath my skin and the imagery they evoke is truly haunting. I rather hope I'll be able to write as well as you do someday, and I eagerly await your next venture.