The Syndicate

Day 11: Dunes of Doom

After Shokoti’s revelations, the party stopped by the southern shore that pressed against the Dunes of Doom to think. The insight gained on the previous evening led to much discussion regarding potential threats and, of course, who should perish on that rocky coast.

They had several revelations about their voiced ballots. It led to a number of people ganging up on reywaS, who rattled off several defenses.

“Take him to the beach,” someone said. “Drown him.”

They dragged reywaS to the rowdy ocean. They forced his face down into a crashing wave and held it there. There was one time the body came up for breath. And when the sputtering face resurfaced, it was the face of >SpaghettiEverywhere

No one relented. “Drown him harder!” it was cried.

But the hands let go when the skin underneath became green and slippery. The muscular, worm like thing forced its choking self out of the ocean. It spurted out water and slithering sounds, but nothing coherent. It made for the safety of the rocky terrain. A wave knocked the struggling creature down and a swift current dragged it under.

It was twilight when the body washed up on the shore.



>SpaghettiEverywhere has been lynched. He was Leech.
It is now Night 11. You have 24 hours to send in your PMs.

Night 11: The Temple of Hordak

After destroying the creature called Leech, the party, sensing a storm from the south, moved east into the Land of Shadows.

In time they happened upon an ancient structure. “This is the Temple of Hordak,” someone said. “So the legends are true.” But in the same instance as their wonder erupted, several soldiers surrounded them.

“Halt and state your business!”

After a time, the soldiers led the party into the Temple of Hordak.

“Count Marzo, we captured these prisoners who were lurking outside the temple!”

Marzo slammed his fists against the table where he was working and shouted, “You have interrupted me yet again!” He sent a shockwave that knocked several of his own guards to the ground.

“You!” Marzo said. “You have one more chance to tell me what this says!”

The feeble old man begged for his life. He told of an ailing wife, his sons and daughters, and his grandchildren. Marzo grabbed the pleading one by his tunic and magically seared the palm of his own right hand into the old man’s face. “You remembered all them. Now you will remember me.”

Count Marzo turned to address his unexpected visitors. “Who are you, then?” he asked. He was a younger man, with black hair and a neatly trimmed beard, but anyone with two eyes could see that his gentlemanly looks were counterfeit.

The room was a disaster. Strewn about were alembics, calcination devices, mortars, pestles, and a surfeit of diverse ingredients. A single scroll sat on the large rectangular table in the midst of it all.

“If any of you have arms or possess any harm toward me and my interests, abandon both, for I shall quickly end you.” Count Marzo studied the company. “Do any of you have a mastery of languages? I have been here for a fortnight, and I cannot understand this confounded language, and neither can that so-called linguist who continues to grovel at my feet!” Marzo kicked the old man in the stomach.

“If you can help me, I can reward you. I must know how to create this potion, or I will become elderly again.” Marzo scowled. “Like him.”

He showed the scroll. It read:

IKHWGVWJUXLWJRGDDAWQRJDXCWGWHAWFHQQHXUWJAXIIA

Yay. Finally got one!

How dare you bags of puss take down another of my comrades? All of you civvies will pay.

And someone silenced me! Which would have been very annoying if I had not already been Stinkored (a fact I was hoping to hide from all of you), so I suppose it all worked out... only not really.

Here's to you, buddy. I admired your baddieness and you deserve a worthy musical tribute, so here's something awesome with Spaghetti in the title.

MovingPictures07 wrote:How dare you bags of puss take down another of my comrades?

You spelled "pus" wrong~ just sayin'

S~V~S wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:How dare you bags of puss take down another of my comrades?

You spelled "pus" wrong~ just sayin'

Thanks for the correction.

EXCELLENT!!!!!!

MovingPictures07 wrote:How dare you bags of puss take down another of my comrades? All of you civvies will pay.

And someone silenced me! Which would have been very annoying if I had not already been Stinkored (a fact I was hoping to hide from all of you), so I suppose it all worked out... only not really.

I was hoping I had been the only one to receive that Knife information. Then I saw BF was copied on it and knew it could be a bad day.

Minor setback, I assure all of you.

So who silenced me anyway? Apparently they don't like my taunting. Too bad I don't kill tonight.

Also, I must emphasize again, absolutely fantastic and very well-written posts, Robert. Definitely one of the highlights of the game, in addition to the all the night votes/events.

If I were going to make a cocktail using those ingredients, it would contain Laudanum, Orange Zest, Vanilla and Wormwood. Great, now I've gone and made myself thirsty.

thellama73 wrote:If I were going to make a cocktail using those ingredients, it would contain Laudanum, Orange Zest, Vanilla and Wormwood. Great, now I've gone and made myself thirsty.

What, no duck liver or volcanic ash? What is wrong with you??!

MovingPictures07 wrote:

A Tribute to Leech (aka >SpaghettiEverywhere)

Here's to you, buddy. I admired your baddieness and you deserve a worthy musical tribute, so here's something awesome with Spaghetti in the title.

it was an honor serving with you, sir. Long live the horde! Civs dont stand a chance

>SpaghettiEverywhere wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:

A Tribute to Leech (aka >SpaghettiEverywhere)

Here's to you, buddy. I admired your baddieness and you deserve a worthy musical tribute, so here's something awesome with Spaghetti in the title.

it was an honor serving with you, sir. Long live the horde! Civs dont stand a chance

it was supposed to be dead color :c

Excellent result! Glad we were able to work together on this to take down another member of the Horde. I've still got two big eyes on Stormcrow and if we can't figure out who the Snake Mountain meanie is, I will likely be voting Stormcrow or MP next.

woot got a baddie. wonderful storytelling as always

also, I didn't click on the fourth ingredient I wanted to click by mistake, *facepalm*, I don't suppose the host is forgiving in that regard?

I am not sure it would be a good thing to vote the actual ingredients on the scroll.....

Awesome! All the Shokoti revelations were a huge help this time. Great writing, Epi. You have such a talent

Elohcin wrote:Awesome! All the Shokoti revelations were a huge help this time. Great writing, Epi. You have such a talent

A bit biased

Am I supposed to know which of the ingredients I should be picking?

Okay, after re-reading the host post (which, as usual is EXCELLENT!), I guess it will be okay to vote the scroll ingredients. The Shokoti stuff turned out well so maybe this will too

LittleTiger wrote:Okay, after re-reading the host post (which, as usual is EXCELLENT!), I guess it will be okay to vote the scroll ingredients. The Shokoti stuff turned out well so maybe this will too

OK I did the same.

I've got no time to decipher that code (okay, actually I do have time, but i failed miserably) so for shits and giggles I'm picking what are apparently the wrong ingredients.

And nice work on the lynch people, I'm glad to see how it all worked out. And BF, sorry for freaking out on you, LT's and your posts about it make sense. I was running out the door and it just seemed like a major slip so I pounced, lol.

Kate wrote:

LittleTiger wrote:Okay, after re-reading the host post (which, as usual is EXCELLENT!), I guess it will be okay to vote the scroll ingredients. The Shokoti stuff turned out well so maybe this will too

OK I did the same.

as will I.

timmer wrote:I've got no time to decipher that code (okay, actually I do have time, but i failed miserably) so for shits and giggles I'm picking what are apparently the wrong ingredients.

Bravely done, sir! Wrong ingredient voters unite!

The ingredients need to be "equal parts" - so if anyone else comes along to vote, please pay attention to that and vote accordingly Laudanum currently has 1 too many votes.

I must confess to being somewhat nervous about this poll

I evened up the leading vote getters. I hope that helps.

LittleTiger wrote:Laudanum currently has 1 too many votes.

Thanks to me. I like laudanum.

I don't know if anyone has screenshots of every lynch poll (because I know I sure don't) or even just perfectly accurate records of how everyone was listed in the poll, and how everyone voted. But here was an idea that I had - we don't know if votes shift down 1 person everyday, or anything, actually.

But if someone has screencaps of every poll, or an accurate representation of the poll in their game notes I was thinking we could go through them and compare them to the lynch results for that day. Maybe we could decipher if the votes always shift down 1, or if there is some kind of pattern to the lynch polls. If we could possibly figure that out we might have a shot of cracking the lynch poll wonkiness on tomorrow's poll.

If anyone has screencaps (or even perfectly accurate notes) you could post them, and then I'd be willing to help (along with y'all, I'm sure) examine them and see if we can figure something out.

It's a long shot I know, but I know some of you are super organized mafia players, so I'm putting the idea out there just in case.

I have all of the voting orders recorded in my spreadsheet. I will have time tomorrow to analyze them based on the idea of votes shifting down (or maybe up?) and see if this has been happening all game. That's a good idea!

That's AWESOME FH! I don't know if it will help, but what if some days they slide down 2 positions? Or up 3 positions? Or who knows what else? I mean maybe it will at least be a starting place to work from. Maybe not, but it's better than randomizing (I think LOL).

I'm happy to help if I can, because I do think it will be (or at least has the potential to be) a somewhat tedious job.

Indiglo - I think there have been different things happen each lynch, tbh. I did look last night to see if I could spot a pattern, and the only thing that I could think of is that the "lynch switches" were actually the result of two players being tied in the poll together. There are other factors going on as well, as we have seen. So, I don't think we will be able to figure it out completely just from looking at the polls.

D1- we had a straight lynch of Boomslang;
D2 - Timmer had most votes but Roxy was lynched;
D3 - He-man had most votes but survived;
D4 - BWT and no lynch;
D5 - BWT lynched;
D6 - He-Man lynched;
D7 - Dom had most votes but Orsonkidd lynched;
D8 - Snow Dog lynched;
D9 - DFaraday lynched but MP had most votes;
D10 - MP most votes and no lynch;
D11 - Spaghetti lynched.

I totally agree - I think each day has been different, personally.

And I know that just looking at the results like that doesn't really tell us much. But I'm curious if we saw the results in their entirety (including the complete layout of the entire lynch poll for that day and how many votes each person in the poll got) if we might not be able to spot something. Maybe we won't be able to spot anything helpful, but do you have any other suggestions? (Besides just randomizing?) Because I'd love to try to head off in a direction here, I just don't see many.

Night 11: Count Marzo's Gifts

“People of learning! Out here in this oasis among desolation! Marvelous!” The people in the room could not discern whether Count Marzo was being sincere or sarcastic. “Equal parts Gar blood, ambrosia, laudanum, and mustard seed. Good!”

Count Marzo looked at MovingPictures07. “Your perception has served me well, stranger. As a reward for your swift service, take this Potion of the Forked Tongue. You seem to be a devious enough fellow.”

The count addressed the others. “That is not to say that I am displeased with the rest of you. You have assisted in the preparation of a formula that will keep me young and healthy for decades to come. Ten batches of it! Well done!”

There was a rustle in a nearby corridor, followed by the sound of heavy retching. A green, awful mist appeared around them.

“I will make you stink!”

“Who goes there?” Count Marzo called.

“I am Stinkor the Pelleezean! I am here to make you all stink!”

Count Marzo (and several others) covered their mouths and noses with whatever they could to defend against the olfactory assault. Through his handkerchief, red and black and covered with strange designs, Count Marzo spoke: “My amulet tells me that you are an outcast, even among your own people. Tell me...Odiphus…what you would give for some measure of acceptance.”

The Pelleezean merely looked at Count Marzo.

“This stench of yours may be of great use to me in my campaign against the nomads in the Sands of Fire. We leave on the morrow to assault their camps. If you are interested, you may come along. But you will damn well keep your distance from my own men. You filthy, wretched thing. Join with us and earn some mark of dignity.”

Stinkor looked elated at this proposition, but was bidden to wait outside.

“Wait,” Count Marzo said. “Before you go, stand in that chamber.”

Stinkor looked unsure of that particular proposition.

“Do it!” Marzo shouted.

The stinking one entered a cylindrical chamber that contained his odor.

“Switch it on.”

The sudden roar of the machine frightened everyone except Count Marzo, and everyone could see Stinkor’s stench being dragged up through the vents toward the top of the contraption. Thin green liquid traveled down a spiraling tube, heated along the way.

“I cannot leave my guests empty-handed,” Count Marzo said, grinning. “Each of you shall have a vial of this stench to use on anyone you want! What is the concentration?”

“About twenty-five percent, my lord.”

“Well, whatever Stinkor did to you, you can do a quarter of that to your foes! Or yourself, you disgusting pigs, if that is what you wish. Now leave me to my slaughter of the nomads of the Sands of Fire.”

It was indiglo who was the first one to exit the Temple of Hordak. As soon as her face met the dusty outdoor air, it was also met with a violet blast. She careened over the stony railings.

indiglo has been killed by Snake Mountain.
There were two missing PMs.
It is now Day 12. You have 48 hours to lynch someone.

RIP Indiglo.

I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this, but I have reason to believe that voting in this particular lynch poll could be hazardous to one's health. As for myself, I plan on abstaining.

RIP indi.

Indiglo - let's hope we can avenge you today!

RIP indi!

Yes i was wondering the same thing, do we need to worry that the votes may be shifting up or down etc again, or do you think that was a one-time use thing? If we are worried about that potentially happening, rey might be a good choice, since if it shifts one up, we hit MP, and if we shift down, we hit stormcrow. But I'm unsure about rey, so if it doesn't shift at all, that could be a problem.

Well, I look forward to seeing FH/LT's conclusions on the votes and whether this type of manipulation has possibly been used before.

blindfaeth wrote:RIP indi!

Yes i was wondering the same thing, do we need to worry that the votes may be shifting up or down etc again, or do you think that was a one-time use thing? If we are worried about that potentially happening, rey might be a good choice, since if it shifts one up, we hit MP, and if we shift down, we hit stormcrow. But I'm unsure about rey, so if it doesn't shift at all, that could be a problem.

Well, I look forward to seeing FH/LT's conclusions on the votes and whether this type of manipulation has possibly been used before.

In my opinion, it's not a shifting thing, it's a voting altogether thing.

Is there any reason to think that MP wont die if we lynch him?

Llama, are you saying that voting at all today will be harmful to us? As in, if I vote it will harm me? Or do you mean the civvies in general? How will we lynch someone if we're abstaining from voting? I am confused.

I will have some time today and will try to analyze the lynches and see if I can see any patterns, though I fear the manipulations have been different every day.