Mini 1090: Of Rogues and Curses ~ Game Over

[gandalf5166]

Clearly, they would want to shoot me. I'm obviously the most important member of this town.

[nocase]

unvote. vote: exe.

[nocase]

I AIN'T NUTTIN' TA FUCK WIT.

[inHimshallibe]

VP Baltar actually a tad suspicious if Exe is town. A tad.

[Exe]

Really? Meh, I just couldn't get into this game for some reason. That's probably why I was lynched. Well, hopefully you'll actually lynch scum D2.

This case on me is real weak by the way. Talk about some bandwagoning scum. The only people who have even been doing anything other than parroting are basically VPB and Vi.

[nocase]

Zorblag actually a tad suspicious if Exe is town. A tad.

[inHimshallibe]

Zorblag actually a ton suspicious if Exe is town. A ton.

[Ythill]

That was a hammer vote. We are now in twilight. I will post flavor and reveal sometime this evening. Feel free to post here until I do so.

• Vote Count
  
  
  7 ~ Exe (tanstalas, Zorblag, xvart, VP Baltar, Vi, Mariyta, nocase)
  
  3 ~ mothrax (Exe, gandalf5166, inHimshallibe)
  2 ~ gandalf5166 (mothrax, Uite)
  
  Not voting:

• Notes
  
  
• With twelve alive, it takes seven to lynch.
  
• Deadline is December 21st, 22:00 PST (GMT-8).
  
• Overall prods: Zorblag (1).
  
• Zorblag will be V/LA until December 21st.

[Exe]

I also like that you guys lynched the only confirmable role we know about right now.

[Uite]

If Exe flips town, I'm certain there's at least one scum among the last three to pile on the wagon. That just went way too fast.

Crazy statistic for Day 1: nocase is the only player to not receive any votes at all.

[nocase]

I'M UNTOUCHABLE.

[gandalf5166]

Exe is going to flip town. I want to be clear. When I said that his role could easily be scum, I simply meant that his claim was a crappy reason to unvote him, not that his claim was scummy.

[Ythill]

There is no great uproar. The crowd is thoughtful for a moment and Mrenica’s cloudy eyes sweep over your faces. Then he looks back into the fire and, tentatively, your tribesmen go back to their meal. A few make joking accusations, but no great trial ensues. After all, the show must go on.

Nadya chuckles softly, the bangles of her veils jingling enticingly with the jiggle of flesh. She rises and stretches, catlike. Her skirts sway in the same breeze that pulses through the camp, moving around her in sync with billowing walls and creaking branches. They are translucent before the firelight, revealing a silhouette both succulent and lithe, darkly up-thrust from the soil like an icon of bounty and fertility. She scans the crowd, smirking at the wave of desire that passes palpably over the men. Beneath oiled black ringlets, her cunning eyes smolder.

Her spell is broken by the distant sound of an engine sputtering through the hills. As one, the diners rise and ready themselves. Some slip hurriedly towards the stage, others to the road. The rest adjust their costumes or busy themselves cleaning up the meal. It is a chaotic dispersal into which the temptress vanishes, letting the crowd sweep her along. She doesn’t notice that Beznik is following her.

As the townies roll in, first in trucks and then by coach, the camp comes to life. Each is greeted, welcomed, solicited, and panhandled by crowd of ghosts who hover in the dark spaces between torches. The air is musky with strange incense and perfumed oils. The outsiders are engaged and lead away to the stage or the stalls; plied with sweets, beautiful strangers, and potent Roma ale. Thus are fools and their money parted, by merriment and desire, and yet the tone among the ghosts is somber, introspective.

The Law has been invoked. Tonight, someone will die. There are accusations in the wings. Heated whispers stir and clash at the edges of the crowd. Here and there, a torch or stray spotlight illuminates a calculating glare or a heartfelt plea. The townies bumble on, mostly unaware. Around them, the plot unfurls in the shadows.

Nadia watches, bemused, from the edge of the crowd as several swarthy figures surround a cowering juggler. The lass professes her innocence to no avail but, just when it seems like she’s going to be lead off to her doom, she is summoned to the stage. There, she is a flurry of flipping blades and spinning rings, a sight to behold.

“An interesting show, isn’t it?” Startled, Nadya turns to face Beznik. “Life and death. Feast and famine and the stage.” He gestures with a flourish, sweeping the camp with an embroidered sleeve.

“Intoxicating,” she agrees huskily, inching imperceptibly toward him. Even that subtle shift increases the cadence of his breath.

“I’ve been watching you,” he says, eyes playing over her curves. Her smile is shy and genuine and hungry. She bites her lip just a little and sashays forward, angling her hip to land under his dangling hand.

“I know.”

His fingers tense on smooth flesh, caress it, and glide upward, over the chiseled swell of her ribcage, past graceful collarbones, to encircle her throat at first gently, then with warning force. She pushes against his strong grip, almost managing to touch his lips with hers, but the lean minstrel holds her there, whispering fiercely into her hot breath. “I’ve been wondering what it is you do here.”

He pushes her away forcefully enough to cause a stir in the crowd. She is jilted and pouting but otherwise unruffled. Behind them, the juggler is finishing up her act. “I dance,” Nadya declares.

“Wonderful.” As the applause rises and crests, he flashes a gold-toothed smile and plucks a tuning chord on his mandolin. Under the spotlight, the old dwarf announces a musical interlude. Beznik gestures toward the stage, “Then dance.”

Strumming boldly, his dazzling coat flashing under the gaslights, Beznik sways up the stairs, driving the beauty before him. There they are met by flautists and drummers and singers, all in harmony. Together they surround the girl, vibrating together in perfect union, drawing the strains of the Ungrika people down through the generations. Nadya faces the murmuring void between the footlights. Her spell of lust and jealousy sweeps over the audience but, though her skirts are still a billowing microcosm of the camp, her gyration is too lascivious for the dirge, her trembling limbs too timid.

A few jeers salute the bawdry act but the crowd is still appreciative and no townie among them catches the subtext. The minstrels are another matter entirely. As they take their bows, Beznik appraises the temptress knowingly. She leaves the stage arm-in-arm with the band and that is how they drag her to the corral. Her protests are drowned out by applause and, later, her distant, dying screams incorporated into an act.

In the chill of the wee hours, Bezink kneels beside the Kris, offering him a bloody locket taken from Nadya’s still-warm corpse. “It is done, grandfather,” he says with grim pride.

Old Man Mrenica grasps the gold chain, letting the heart-shaped pendant spin and glint with reflected firelight. His stare is distant; his voice, soft and patient. “Done? My child, it has only just begun.”

Exe's role was drawn and quartered, she was a

Servika Temptress (unique)

.

The first migration phase begins! Deadline for night actions is Tuesday, December 21st, 15:00 PST (GMT-8).

[Ythill]

Arkansas ~ November, 1929.

On the distant, glistening streets of New York, snow is settling. Temporal empires have crumbled. Dreams of easy riches lay in ruin and the crackling prophecies of broadcast economists have warned of a prolonged downturn likely to be the worst in history. But here, on the muddy tracks of the rural southeast, where bubbles come from soap and speculation is performed while whittling, there is no such thing as a stock market crash. Poverty lives here as it always has. Nothing seems to have changed.

Upturned cap cradled in his hands, Gyorgy winds through the gaggle a second time, but all he gets are glares. It’s been raining off and on all morning. The crowd is thin and the sodden musicians sound uninspired without Beznik leading them. Around the corner in the alley, an inadequately shrouded pile of flu victims serves as a grim reminder that times are hard all around.

Gyorgy enjoys his lot in life. He’s not just a panhandler, he’s the caravan’s ambassador. In every town they pass through, it is Gyorgy who ventures out to speak with the locals, spinning tales and posting handbills. On a good day, the townsfolk find his pied coat and solicitous manner exotic and they flock to him, bearing gifts. He savors every handshake and walks away with pockets full of money.

Today, with only a few spare dollars and a cartload of indignation to show for his efforts, the beggar is relieved to see the vardos.

They are heralded by clanking and neighing, by an aura of haunting voices singing traditional traveling songs. Then, all at once, the procession comes into view. A serpent of jointed wood, the wagon train slithers through the mud. All along the street, shutters open and awed faces peer out, gaping at the colorful, magical parade. Without ado, the buskers pack their instruments and hurry toward the road. The vardos don’t stop, but they do slow down enough for everyone to jump aboard. Gyorgy leaps onto the running board of the leader, and climbs inside.

“You seen him yet?” the dwarf asks pointlessly from the hatch. Gyorgy shakes his head. If they’d found him, he’d be here. Scowling through his beard, the squat stage manager snaps his reigns to pick up the pace. The train winds through the town and into the hills, criers shouting invitations from the last cars.

They ride in silence for a spell, watching clouds gather over the scrub oak. “Going to be a hard night, maybe a hard week,” the dwarf says as the camp rolls into view. “I’ll need to get everything battened down pretty well, could use a few spare hands humping. You up for it?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not if we want to be up and running by sundown.” Gyorgy has just enough time to nod in response before the runner reaches them. Thus begins a frenzy of parking and debate, the period where chaos and sweat make a village out of rolling boxes. It’s a blur, and the beggar becomes a cog in the machine, disemboweling entire wagons, carrying their contents to wherever he’s told.

An hour later, Gyorgy’s taking a much deserved water break when he notices a concerned crowd gathering around on one of the stage wagons. With a pit forming in his stomach, he wanders over to observe the commotion. Several men haul two large, lacquered crates out and deposit them in the middle of the crowd. Both boxes are caked with coagulated blood that appears to have seeped from their crevices. The porters are all wearing bandannas over their faces and there are gags downwind, where the odor of death is wafting.

As the beggar watches, the lid is pried from one box. The sight within inspires gasps and weeping: the lower half of a dead man is crumpled on the floor of the crate like a discarded pair of pantaloons, abuzz with fat flies. There is no mistaking the man’s attire, or the filigree on the fret-board of the mandolin that lay beside him. Nobody has to open the second box to know that the search for Beznik has come to an end.

Gyorgy curses under his breath and hurries away to deliver the news.

VP Baltar's role was cut in half, he was an

Ungrika Minstrel (VT)

.

The second encampment phase begins! Three days have been added to this phase to account for the holidays. Deadline is Saturday, January 8th, 22:00 PST (GMT-8).

[tanstalas]

Exe is going to flip town.

I want to be clear. When I said that his role could easily be scum, I simply meant that his claim was a crappy reason to unvote him, not that his claim was scummy.

Can you explain the above bolded? Did you think that Exe's flavor would make it look like a town death? Or was the above WIFOM-y so we would think oh look Gandalf says Exe is going to flip town... oh wait, Exe flipped scum, but Gandalf thought he was town, so he must be town or was it just a case of not paying attention to what you were typing, which in a game of mafia.. not too smart.. I always re-read what I say a few times as town or scum.

Also not liking how you and Exe both tried to say "Your whole case relies on the three of us being scum together" and well, it doesn't.

You say you always bus D1, so I guess if you flip scum then Mothrax is your partner?

Also previous points on you still stand, so..

Vote:Gandalf

[mothrax]

Tans, I agree with everythingbyou just said minus rage fact that I am not his partner.

[mothrax]

Ebwop: "everything you" and "minus the fact." way to fail auto correct, way to fail...

[Vi]

I really should have seen that flip coming.

gandalf can answer his own questions, but right now I'm going to

Vote: inHimshallibe

(L-5)

[inHimshallibe]

Don't you dare.

Yay, bodies. Let's do work.

[Vi]

Don't you dare.

Yay, bodies. Let's do work.

I think I just dared, actually.

[Mariyta]

Don't forget, xvart is scum. However, I like the inHim wagon, too.
VOTE: inHim

[inHimshallibe]

This is going to get ugly fast, isn't it.

[inHimshallibe]

vote: gandalf

I think.

[gandalf5166]

Ummm........ I thought Exe was town..... because I thought Exe was town. I don't think I should immediately be cleared because he flipped scum, and I think you're SERIOUSLY grasping at straws with this whole "his flavor would have made it look like a town death" bullshit. I mean, why would I think that my scumbuddy would flip town? And how could the flavor "make it look" like it was a town death unless he was going to flip town? If I thought he was going to flip town, it would have been because he told me that he was going to flip town. And no, none of this post is a scumslip, I'm just using perspective to answer tans' loaded questions. Isn't it possible that I MIGHT be just town who was wrong? You're seriously reaching with your "case" against me, to the point where I feel perfectly comfortable with a

VOTE: tanstalas

[inHimshallibe]

Yes. I think.