In the world of the Foreign Vampire Ghosts, very little was known about the romantic machinations of the Empire. This didn't stop there from being much written about it. Harems filled with dancing girls able to tell stories that captivated men for thousands of nights, or a study devoted to finding higher meaning through sex achieved mostly with ropes, pullies and exceptionally vigorous calisthetics and most likely more than a few strained muscles.
In fact, courtship was more or less that same inside The Wall as it was outside of it, with one important difference. Before and after marriage, a man's wives were a reflection of himself. The most powerful man would have the most beautiful wives, and they would be dressed in opulance and for the truly successful, their wives would not be allowed to do any sort of work at all, and to make sure that people knew they were successful, their feet were bound.
It didn't take long for the physicians to realize that if you wanted a women's feet to be permanently bound, it was better to alter their bodies than to employ some form of crude restraining device. Princesses of the court whose destiny was to be the wife of another high ranking noble, were lucky. Their feet were bound early and they wouldn't know any better. Those who married up in station and knew the joys of podiatric freedom were less fortunate.
The footbinding process generally started innocently enough. Toes were folded beneath the feet and then bound to stay that way. Except if a girl had stubby toes, in which case they might need to be broken to get them into the correct shape. Then the foot was forcibly arched and bound in that shape. Every few weeks, the bindings were released, and replaced, invariably tighter, and if parts of the feet needed to be... altered... in order to do so, that was well worth the price of beauty. This also had the side effect of allowing them to wear shoes you'd normally expect to find in a snowy workshop attached to someone named Jolly working on a wooden rocking horse. Small feet were considered sexy.
This made even the most simple pedestrian travel nearly impossible for any length of time and ensured that his wife would never leave him and cause him dishonor. Those that did try to run couldn't travel quickly at all and the pain often forced them to stop short of their intended destination, though with the complications and infections that invariably developed, it certainly brought many to their final destination that much sooner.
TehSpectre knew that this was neccessary and logical to maintain beauty and order, but he simply thought that people shouldn't take joy in it. After all, nobody wanted to be shamed by having an ugly or runaway wife, but at the same time, doctors shouldn't cackle with glee as they did it either.
It was while inspecting the newly widowed royal wives to perhaps take one as a new concubine that he was entertaining these thoughts. Some of the royal wives looked like they had lived for the last decade on their knees, and not because of excessive tantric sexual calisthetics. This proved their loyalty, but he couldn't help feeling somewhat sorry for them.
His gaze passed over one woman, and then snapped back to her. The mind is predisposed to fill in the blanks and see what is expected, but even the dullest thinker would have spotted this concubine in the crowd. Very few wives, even of the most progressive-minded Emperors sported a needle moustache and a goatee.
The 'woman' quickly stepped forward and buried a stiletto into TehSpectre's stomach before taking flight. He grabbed his stomach and tried to stop the gushing wound while the ladies of the court screamed and due to their inability to run, mostly fell over as well, adding a great deal of silk and flailing bodies to the general carnage.
The assorted nobles quickly convened on the scene in time to untangle the Lady Xu from what could have been the Three Congresses of Amorous Cranes with Lady Jia, or possibly a near fatal wardrobe related entanglement. Precisionk and Thorgot immediately set to arguing about who was responsible for disrupting the tranquility of the inner court, wresting the Imperial Seal back and forth between eachother.
Then Rygar unthinkingly made the decision for him. Dislodged by the chaos and swinging from the ceiling, he careened into the mass of nobles and sent everybody sprawling into the still writhing mass of fabric that may have contained anywhere between 1 and 30 women. He only avoided joining them because he was attached to the rope in such a manner that it would be impossible for him to have come free. At least, impossible without an exceptionally severe shaving accident that would sever his head from the rest of his body.
The assorted nobles slowly began to pick themselves up out of the mess, some more reticent to leave the embraces of the women they suddenly found themslves entagled with than others. One woman screamed, calling attention to RonnieDobbs, grinning manically at the ceiling, a feat which was made doubly impressive by the fact that the rest of his body was lying on its stomach.
Thorgot angrily stood up in the mass of cloth and shrieked out indignantly "You have made a mockery of our ancestors for the last time, Frosteey" and without even waiting for official recognition or acceptance, drew the blade out of TehSpectre's body and plunged it through Frosteey's chest. "The time for court pleasantries is over, tomorrow, each man shall bring his units to the field and we shall settle this by the art of war, and there is where the sinners shall be punished." With this declaration, he attempted to storm out, stumbling over the Lady Qu still trapped in half a yard of silk leaving the rest of the nobles in slackjawed shock. Thorgot and Precisionk were elected this round and immune to death. Frosteey was put to death by Precisionk and Thorgot and was from the Johnson Family.
Rygar was killed and was from the Johnson Family.
TehSpectre was killed and was from the Johnson Family.
RonnieDobbs was killed and was from the Dong Family.
Tomorrow, my flight is due to get me back home at 11:00 PM EDT. Therefore, tomorrow ends at midnight. I already have it written up, but I'm flying home into supposedly sleet and rain and other horrible disasters, so even if I'm not delayed, the 20 minute drive home may take quite a bit longer than 20 minutes. You'll survive I'm sure.
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
I suddenly have a bad feeling that those two want this power struggle to go on until everyone's dead but them. It's unlikely, but that's the impression I've been getting. I'm staying with pk in hopes that he'll kill Thorgot and the drama will end, but... at this rate, if everyone stays divided, that's not going to happen.
And I don't want to vote myself in to kill either one, because I'm not sure if they're on the same family(brothers), separate familes(lovers), what. I just get the impression they're working together somehow.
I !vote for cj iwakura
He may not wish to vote himself into office to kill one of the two, so I shall attempt to vote him in for completely different reasons.
I suddenly have a bad feeling that those two want this power struggle to go on until everyone's dead but them. It's unlikely, but that's the impression I've been getting. I'm staying with pk in hopes that he'll kill Thorgot and the drama will end, but... at this rate, if everyone stays divided, that's not going to happen.
And I don't want to vote myself in to kill either one, because I'm not sure if they're on the same family(brothers), separate familes(lovers), what. I just get the impression they're working together somehow.
Hopefully I'm wrong though.
The lovers died last night. Otherwise there wouldn't have been 4 dead people.
I vote for Thorgot.
This whole "Dong party" thing is becoming a bad joke when both of the strong parties are Dong parties too.
Avaritia on
May contain sarcasm, irony, hyperboles, lies, slander, personal opinions, madness and crimes against grammar.
... and nuts.
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thorgotthere is special providencein the fall of a sparrowRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
RonnieDobbs posted once Tuesday, and once Wednesday. It's possible he was killed for not posting Thursday or Friday.
Hello. Sorry, just got home. Plane was delayed 40 minutes. Car was literally frozen in a brick of snow a foot and a half high. Gimme like, 15 to count votes and shit.
Dizzen was up particularly late this evening pouring over his oft-neglected copy of Sun Ping's Art of War. The man had been hailed as a military genius for the past 800 years for pacifying the last remaining tribes and squabbling fiefdoms and bringing them under the heel of The Empire. Once his strategies and tactics had become officially codified and recorded, it was said that modern battles had simply become a flurry of orders given and then a furious scramble to cross-reference the correct counter measure.
Boiled down to its most common denominator, Sun Ping's writings could be summed up as "Know Thy Enemy." In knowing their leverage points, knowing their weaknesses, and knowing what strategies they would be attempt, you would be able to counter them at every turn. He also wrote that enemy no more wanted battle than you did, and that the most glorious thing to do in war, was to come home with your lives and many of his most famous conquests were those won without a single arrow being fired.
There was one man sequestered in his room reading a somewhat older document which was a binding short of being called a book, but far too brittle and fragile to be able to pass for a scroll either. This one was written by Wang Jia, the tactical advisor who guided the First Emperor in unifying entire feuding city-states to become the Empire.
The tactical advice between the two was... different. Where Sun Ping wrote to "Know Thy Enemy," Wang Jia wrote simply "Know." Sun Ping was once quoted when returning home from a campaign "I can see my house from here." Wang Jia once boasted at the start of a battle "I can see your house from here." Sun Ping came from a civilized era where the men sat and thought and behaved rationally. Wang Jia lived in a time where the only difference between men and the feral horses they rode into battle was that the horses wouldn't set fire to your home in the middle of the night.
Sun Ping conquered cities.
Wang Jia conquered men.
Wang Jia was fond of noting that war was a series of possibilities. If it rained, if the men lost their leader, if the horses were spooked, if you beat a drum through the entire night preventing them from sleeping, all possibilities that could swing the tide of a battle and it was nearly useless to try and account for all of them. Instead, his philosophy was to force the ones that you could to the forefront. Do not have a plan, but take action immediately, even if the action involves simply waiting for more favorable conditions.
Dizzen had finally come to a decision about his forces. They were well positioned and were equipped to deal with heavy cavalry, light cavalry, archers, and even if someone tried to duplicate Sun Ping's ingenius Yellow River strategy, he was content in his safety because the the Yellow River was on the entirely opposite side of the city.
If he had been familiar with the strategies of Wang Jia, he would have realized that this all depended on him being able to choose the correct strategies at the correct time. If he had been familiar with the fourth rule of Wang Jia, he would have posted extra guards this evening. And if he had been familiar with the story of Wang Jia sending five men under cover of darkness to decimate an entire camp of his enemies, he may have thought to have done the same. Sadly for him, somebody was familiar with all these, and Dizzen failed to realize that all the best strategies in the world fail to help your forces if you do not survive to the battle.
Regardless of his participation in this particular battle, the various small cadres of troops marched out in the morning. Each endevored to look mighty enough to be difficult to defeat, but small enough so as not to be ganged up on. What ended up happening is that each milled about for most of the morning, trying to lure the others with textbook feints, which, since the textbook was the only accepted manual of war, were summarily ignored and countered with the appropriate feints. It was reasonably difficult to bring more than 10 sides to a battle anyway and have it remain orderly.
This continued for most of the afternoon after an appropriate break for lunch. This was a battlefield, but there was no reason to be uncivilized. The soldiers marched out. The soldiers marched back. The tactics were applauded by all involved as being sufficient enough to keep their men safe and in good enough shape to return home that evening.
Precisionk's forces sortied out and began advancing his pikemen forward, a classic attempt at drawing out and obliterating the cavalry. Psycholarry1 was the first to notice and dutifully responded by signaling his archers forward and prepared to order them back into a slow advance as Precisionk's withdrawal would imminently begin. Precisionk's troops began to advance. Dumbfounded, Psycholarry1 did the first thing that came to mind and signaled his men to advance into them. It wasn't his responsibility if Precisionk's foolishness caused his men and himself to die. Self-doubt began to creep in though, and he grabbed at his travel version of Sun Ping's Art of War to double check.
Perhaps if he hadn't done that, he would have been more attentive to his surroundings. Perhaps if he had been facing the other direction, he would have noticed Thorgot's forces in time and realized that the pincer attack was already upon them. Perhaps if he hadn't lost his place in the Art of War, he wouldn't have signalled a cavalry charge while his troops were still facing the wrong way that wouldn't have immediately trampled his own archers only to be skewered on Precisionk's lances.
Perhaps then he wouldn't have been overwhelmed and crushed in an instant.
This sudden and unexpected violence on the battlefield sent the remaining nobles and their squads into a complete panic. Suddenly the air was full of trumpet signals, screams, men rushing everywhere and a great general bloody mess. When things finally quieted down, most of the men were fine, barring a few badly trampled footmen and at least one case of what could colloquially be called "friendly stabbing."
In the evening the nobles met in court again, and all were too ashamed of their own troops to come face to face with Precisionk and Thorgot over their utter decimation of Psycholarry1's units. It was, of course, what each of them had been formally trying to do, but none thought it would actually happen. The Imperial Seal was placed at the front of the room, and the vote began once again.
Thorgot was elected this round and immune to death. Psycholarry1 was put to death by Thorgot/Precisionk and was from the Dong Family.
Dizzen was killed and was from the Dong Family. TODAY IS THE FESTIVAL KNOWN AS THE DAY OF THE DEAD.
The spirits of the deceased are allowed this one last day among the living to share their advice, give their warnings, etc etc etc. All communications between the dead and -ANYBODY- must be public though, including between the dead and the dead. Furthermore, this is the one day a year that Evil Foreign Vampire Ghosts are allowed into the city, so they're chat it up as well, also publicly only.
FINALLY (oooooh secret Ruuuuuullllleeeee), since it's a damn bloody giant festival, it's a little hard to keep track of whose votes are legitimate, and which were voiced by the dead or travellers simply wanting to get a rise out of people. Each person still only gets one vote, but I can't tell the difference between a dead voter, a live voter, a foreign voter, etc.
Ham it up you bastards.
Turn ends tomorrow at 10 as usual. I'm back from the funeral in Texas, so apologies for that. Lack of punctuality pisses me off as much (if not more) than it does you, but I think I get special dispensation for this one.
Aroduc on
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thorgotthere is special providencein the fall of a sparrowRegistered Userregular
Thorgot, Precision K, just to let you know. I know one of you is a Johnson, and the other, A Dong. But who is it? Slowly, fading...Can't stay much longerwee-ooo wee ooo wee ooo
HEGAHURGURK!
Gorilla Salad on
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
edited March 2007
If they're of opposite families, then I think I have an idea of what their role is.
A vigiliate might be gone for the last round, possibly. Remember that the family blade was supposed to pass on on the owner's death but it'd take a round.
Hylianbunny on
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thorgotthere is special providencein the fall of a sparrowRegistered Userregular
Thorgot, Precision K, just to let you know. I know one of you is a Johnson, and the other, A Dong. But who is it? Slowly, fading...Can't stay much longerwee-ooo wee ooo wee ooo
Posts
In the world of the Foreign Vampire Ghosts, very little was known about the romantic machinations of the Empire. This didn't stop there from being much written about it. Harems filled with dancing girls able to tell stories that captivated men for thousands of nights, or a study devoted to finding higher meaning through sex achieved mostly with ropes, pullies and exceptionally vigorous calisthetics and most likely more than a few strained muscles.
In fact, courtship was more or less that same inside The Wall as it was outside of it, with one important difference. Before and after marriage, a man's wives were a reflection of himself. The most powerful man would have the most beautiful wives, and they would be dressed in opulance and for the truly successful, their wives would not be allowed to do any sort of work at all, and to make sure that people knew they were successful, their feet were bound.
It didn't take long for the physicians to realize that if you wanted a women's feet to be permanently bound, it was better to alter their bodies than to employ some form of crude restraining device. Princesses of the court whose destiny was to be the wife of another high ranking noble, were lucky. Their feet were bound early and they wouldn't know any better. Those who married up in station and knew the joys of podiatric freedom were less fortunate.
The footbinding process generally started innocently enough. Toes were folded beneath the feet and then bound to stay that way. Except if a girl had stubby toes, in which case they might need to be broken to get them into the correct shape. Then the foot was forcibly arched and bound in that shape. Every few weeks, the bindings were released, and replaced, invariably tighter, and if parts of the feet needed to be... altered... in order to do so, that was well worth the price of beauty. This also had the side effect of allowing them to wear shoes you'd normally expect to find in a snowy workshop attached to someone named Jolly working on a wooden rocking horse. Small feet were considered sexy.
This made even the most simple pedestrian travel nearly impossible for any length of time and ensured that his wife would never leave him and cause him dishonor. Those that did try to run couldn't travel quickly at all and the pain often forced them to stop short of their intended destination, though with the complications and infections that invariably developed, it certainly brought many to their final destination that much sooner.
TehSpectre knew that this was neccessary and logical to maintain beauty and order, but he simply thought that people shouldn't take joy in it. After all, nobody wanted to be shamed by having an ugly or runaway wife, but at the same time, doctors shouldn't cackle with glee as they did it either.
It was while inspecting the newly widowed royal wives to perhaps take one as a new concubine that he was entertaining these thoughts. Some of the royal wives looked like they had lived for the last decade on their knees, and not because of excessive tantric sexual calisthetics. This proved their loyalty, but he couldn't help feeling somewhat sorry for them.
His gaze passed over one woman, and then snapped back to her. The mind is predisposed to fill in the blanks and see what is expected, but even the dullest thinker would have spotted this concubine in the crowd. Very few wives, even of the most progressive-minded Emperors sported a needle moustache and a goatee.
The 'woman' quickly stepped forward and buried a stiletto into TehSpectre's stomach before taking flight. He grabbed his stomach and tried to stop the gushing wound while the ladies of the court screamed and due to their inability to run, mostly fell over as well, adding a great deal of silk and flailing bodies to the general carnage.
The assorted nobles quickly convened on the scene in time to untangle the Lady Xu from what could have been the Three Congresses of Amorous Cranes with Lady Jia, or possibly a near fatal wardrobe related entanglement. Precisionk and Thorgot immediately set to arguing about who was responsible for disrupting the tranquility of the inner court, wresting the Imperial Seal back and forth between eachother.
Then Rygar unthinkingly made the decision for him. Dislodged by the chaos and swinging from the ceiling, he careened into the mass of nobles and sent everybody sprawling into the still writhing mass of fabric that may have contained anywhere between 1 and 30 women. He only avoided joining them because he was attached to the rope in such a manner that it would be impossible for him to have come free. At least, impossible without an exceptionally severe shaving accident that would sever his head from the rest of his body.
The assorted nobles slowly began to pick themselves up out of the mess, some more reticent to leave the embraces of the women they suddenly found themslves entagled with than others. One woman screamed, calling attention to RonnieDobbs, grinning manically at the ceiling, a feat which was made doubly impressive by the fact that the rest of his body was lying on its stomach.
Thorgot angrily stood up in the mass of cloth and shrieked out indignantly "You have made a mockery of our ancestors for the last time, Frosteey" and without even waiting for official recognition or acceptance, drew the blade out of TehSpectre's body and plunged it through Frosteey's chest. "The time for court pleasantries is over, tomorrow, each man shall bring his units to the field and we shall settle this by the art of war, and there is where the sinners shall be punished." With this declaration, he attempted to storm out, stumbling over the Lady Qu still trapped in half a yard of silk leaving the rest of the nobles in slackjawed shock.
Thorgot and Precisionk were elected this round and immune to death.
Frosteey was put to death by Precisionk and Thorgot and was from the Johnson Family.
Rygar was killed and was from the Johnson Family.
TehSpectre was killed and was from the Johnson Family.
RonnieDobbs was killed and was from the Dong Family.
Tomorrow, my flight is due to get me back home at 11:00 PM EDT. Therefore, tomorrow ends at midnight. I already have it written up, but I'm flying home into supposedly sleet and rain and other horrible disasters, so even if I'm not delayed, the 20 minute drive home may take quite a bit longer than 20 minutes. You'll survive I'm sure.
Malkor
HylianBunny
PsychoLarry1
B:L
Archonex
DoNotPursueLuBu
Avaritia
Cantide
Elbonian Man
cj iwakura
Dizzen
precisionk
13 people left.
I !vote thorgot for election.
We will march to victory.
Hmm, so it seems the lovers have perished? That's one too many deaths...
Regardless, I will keep my vote as is for now. precisionk for leader.
It's a power struggle from here on in.
And I don't want to vote myself in to kill either one, because I'm not sure if they're on the same family(brothers), separate familes(lovers), what. I just get the impression they're working together somehow.
Hopefully I'm wrong though.
Anyways, time to take the throne for myself:
I !vote for Precisionk
thorgot - 3
==========
thorgot
Cantide
DoNotPursueLuBu
precisionk - 3
==========
Hylianbunny
cj iwakura
precisionk
He may not wish to vote himself into office to kill one of the two, so I shall attempt to vote him in for completely different reasons.
The lovers died last night. Otherwise there wouldn't have been 4 dead people.
I vote for Thorgot.
This whole "Dong party" thing is becoming a bad joke when both of the strong parties are Dong parties too.
I certainly know nothing. Does anybody have any information about them?
thorgot - 5
==========
thorgot
Cantide
DoNotPursueLuBu
Avaritia
archonex
precisionk - 3
==========
Hylianbunny
cj iwakura
precisionk
cj iwakura - 1 (Dizzen)
At least I don't shoot lightning from my hands.
Jerk.
I !choose PsychoLarry for death by suffocating vagina
One more !vote for precisionk.
*crosses his arms*
Dizzen was up particularly late this evening pouring over his oft-neglected copy of Sun Ping's Art of War. The man had been hailed as a military genius for the past 800 years for pacifying the last remaining tribes and squabbling fiefdoms and bringing them under the heel of The Empire. Once his strategies and tactics had become officially codified and recorded, it was said that modern battles had simply become a flurry of orders given and then a furious scramble to cross-reference the correct counter measure.
Boiled down to its most common denominator, Sun Ping's writings could be summed up as "Know Thy Enemy." In knowing their leverage points, knowing their weaknesses, and knowing what strategies they would be attempt, you would be able to counter them at every turn. He also wrote that enemy no more wanted battle than you did, and that the most glorious thing to do in war, was to come home with your lives and many of his most famous conquests were those won without a single arrow being fired.
There was one man sequestered in his room reading a somewhat older document which was a binding short of being called a book, but far too brittle and fragile to be able to pass for a scroll either. This one was written by Wang Jia, the tactical advisor who guided the First Emperor in unifying entire feuding city-states to become the Empire.
The tactical advice between the two was... different. Where Sun Ping wrote to "Know Thy Enemy," Wang Jia wrote simply "Know." Sun Ping was once quoted when returning home from a campaign "I can see my house from here." Wang Jia once boasted at the start of a battle "I can see your house from here." Sun Ping came from a civilized era where the men sat and thought and behaved rationally. Wang Jia lived in a time where the only difference between men and the feral horses they rode into battle was that the horses wouldn't set fire to your home in the middle of the night.
Sun Ping conquered cities.
Wang Jia conquered men.
Wang Jia was fond of noting that war was a series of possibilities. If it rained, if the men lost their leader, if the horses were spooked, if you beat a drum through the entire night preventing them from sleeping, all possibilities that could swing the tide of a battle and it was nearly useless to try and account for all of them. Instead, his philosophy was to force the ones that you could to the forefront. Do not have a plan, but take action immediately, even if the action involves simply waiting for more favorable conditions.
Dizzen had finally come to a decision about his forces. They were well positioned and were equipped to deal with heavy cavalry, light cavalry, archers, and even if someone tried to duplicate Sun Ping's ingenius Yellow River strategy, he was content in his safety because the the Yellow River was on the entirely opposite side of the city.
If he had been familiar with the strategies of Wang Jia, he would have realized that this all depended on him being able to choose the correct strategies at the correct time. If he had been familiar with the fourth rule of Wang Jia, he would have posted extra guards this evening. And if he had been familiar with the story of Wang Jia sending five men under cover of darkness to decimate an entire camp of his enemies, he may have thought to have done the same. Sadly for him, somebody was familiar with all these, and Dizzen failed to realize that all the best strategies in the world fail to help your forces if you do not survive to the battle.
Regardless of his participation in this particular battle, the various small cadres of troops marched out in the morning. Each endevored to look mighty enough to be difficult to defeat, but small enough so as not to be ganged up on. What ended up happening is that each milled about for most of the morning, trying to lure the others with textbook feints, which, since the textbook was the only accepted manual of war, were summarily ignored and countered with the appropriate feints. It was reasonably difficult to bring more than 10 sides to a battle anyway and have it remain orderly.
This continued for most of the afternoon after an appropriate break for lunch. This was a battlefield, but there was no reason to be uncivilized. The soldiers marched out. The soldiers marched back. The tactics were applauded by all involved as being sufficient enough to keep their men safe and in good enough shape to return home that evening.
Precisionk's forces sortied out and began advancing his pikemen forward, a classic attempt at drawing out and obliterating the cavalry. Psycholarry1 was the first to notice and dutifully responded by signaling his archers forward and prepared to order them back into a slow advance as Precisionk's withdrawal would imminently begin. Precisionk's troops began to advance. Dumbfounded, Psycholarry1 did the first thing that came to mind and signaled his men to advance into them. It wasn't his responsibility if Precisionk's foolishness caused his men and himself to die. Self-doubt began to creep in though, and he grabbed at his travel version of Sun Ping's Art of War to double check.
Perhaps if he hadn't done that, he would have been more attentive to his surroundings. Perhaps if he had been facing the other direction, he would have noticed Thorgot's forces in time and realized that the pincer attack was already upon them. Perhaps if he hadn't lost his place in the Art of War, he wouldn't have signalled a cavalry charge while his troops were still facing the wrong way that wouldn't have immediately trampled his own archers only to be skewered on Precisionk's lances.
Perhaps then he wouldn't have been overwhelmed and crushed in an instant.
This sudden and unexpected violence on the battlefield sent the remaining nobles and their squads into a complete panic. Suddenly the air was full of trumpet signals, screams, men rushing everywhere and a great general bloody mess. When things finally quieted down, most of the men were fine, barring a few badly trampled footmen and at least one case of what could colloquially be called "friendly stabbing."
In the evening the nobles met in court again, and all were too ashamed of their own troops to come face to face with Precisionk and Thorgot over their utter decimation of Psycholarry1's units. It was, of course, what each of them had been formally trying to do, but none thought it would actually happen. The Imperial Seal was placed at the front of the room, and the vote began once again.
Thorgot was elected this round and immune to death.
Psycholarry1 was put to death by Thorgot/Precisionk and was from the Dong Family.
Dizzen was killed and was from the Dong Family.
TODAY IS THE FESTIVAL KNOWN AS THE DAY OF THE DEAD.
The spirits of the deceased are allowed this one last day among the living to share their advice, give their warnings, etc etc etc. All communications between the dead and -ANYBODY- must be public though, including between the dead and the dead. Furthermore, this is the one day a year that Evil Foreign Vampire Ghosts are allowed into the city, so they're chat it up as well, also publicly only.
FINALLY (oooooh secret Ruuuuuullllleeeee), since it's a damn bloody giant festival, it's a little hard to keep track of whose votes are legitimate, and which were voiced by the dead or travellers simply wanting to get a rise out of people. Each person still only gets one vote, but I can't tell the difference between a dead voter, a live voter, a foreign voter, etc.
Ham it up you bastards.
Turn ends tomorrow at 10 as usual. I'm back from the funeral in Texas, so apologies for that. Lack of punctuality pisses me off as much (if not more) than it does you, but I think I get special dispensation for this one.
Also, Malkor, you were supposed to die tonight, but I was in a hurry and didn't check for the idles. You got off lucky, Mister.
Finally, I'm not telling you if either of the monks are left alive. You get to know (or attempt to deduce) from the death count for this day.
Thorgot, Precision K, just to let you know. I know one of you is a Johnson, and the other, A Dong. But who is it? Slowly, fading...Can't stay much longerwee-ooo wee ooo wee ooo
HEGAHURGURK!
And if that's the case...
Interesting. We'll have to fix that, then.
I !order precisionk for execution.