Machinations of Light's Glory - death, decisions, doom

At the far side of the ruined land that some are now referring to as Mount Sturm, the Knife silently calls to you.



It is raining heavily, and the water pools here on the hard cracked land, before running off the edge. Pylons carrying magical power across the island leave a charged taste in the air. This place carries enormous tension, and the feel of the Knife's hungering for your blood does nothing to ease it.

This is where the next sacrifice will take place, five and a half hours from now.

"Yes, ma'am, that much is obvious." Chance shakes his head. "But what ah'm curious about - deathly curious, if you take mah meaning - is what the alternate explanation is. If you're with us on the side of the angels, then who are the two Cultists? Not one but two Ascended Spirits? One of whom, of course, must be one of the three, out of Nute, Dazzler, and Cormac." He clears his throat. "Now, Cormac was one of the votes for sacrificin' Phoenicity, who we know to have been the Demon Sorceress. An' ah'm assumin' that she was working with the rest of the cultists, because otherwise we still have three evildoers in our midsts."

He gestures with the Bo at Dazzler and Nute.

"That, ah believe, leaves my fellow Ravens to be the two most suspicious members of our company. But..." Chance shakes his head. "Two Ascended Spirits? That would be quite the luck. An' wouldn't it just about have to be, if Nebty is to be believed that she's on the side of Light? That, or someone has a separate power that can hide their alignment from a circle, a power ah've seen rumors of but certainly have never heard confirmed."

Chance nods to himself. "Ah've made up mah mind. While ah have the greatest of respect for the impromptu ties of the Raven School which ah found myself part of, ah think it more likely that one of Nute or Dazzler's a cultist than the circle was made to fail by someone not partakin' in it, in such a way that permitted the other circle to still succeed." He pulls a card out of his deck. The face of it is Nute the AI-implanted convict.

"It may well be that Nebty, too, is evil, which would make the saboteur of that spell-circle simply covered by her lies rather than an Ascended Spirit. But ah don't think my vote for Nute is goin to prevent anyone from makin the Priestess face the knife."

This is so confusing. Everyone is good??? If only someone could explain this. I guess I will have to rely on my gut then. Surprise! My gut says sacrifice Nebty .

"Very well then, I will also vote to sacrifice Nute."

The only way I could be one of the cultists is if you lied about my alignment. Which you obviously couldn't do on the first night because that'd immediately out you as a cultist. You've been far too secretive and I'd have given you the benefit of the doubt if not for your attempt to use me to save your skin. Chance I can understand, he's a suspicious sort. But you scried me yourself, so obviously your lies have caught up with you.

Send Nebty to the Knife.

"Everyone here has been scried either by me or by a circle. Therefore, it is obvious that someone is hiding their alignment somehow. As Chance says, you are one of the better options so that is why I am voting for you."

"There is another possibility. We still do not know why the cultists chose not to kill anyone that one night. Perhaps they had to abstain from killing in order to use another sort of power, a power which would protect one of their own from a circle scry the following night. Who was found innocent the next night?"

"That would suggest, if it were true, that the cultists have an ability to fool our scry for any single given member. What night was it they failed to kill?

Also, Nebty this is important: Did QuantumBit manage to confirm to you his scan of the Baron was true before his death?"

"He was. He did so in a private communication we had previously been using to talk (he had not set it up specifically for the purpose of telling me the Baron's alignment). I do not know why he only told me. Perhaps either he or the Baron or both did not trust Bladida at that point."

"The night before Soli was killed. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it was the fifth."

We did not trust Quackers or Bladida at that point. Quackers was giving away every Dove secret we had and Bla was an unknown quantity.

While Nebty is certainly in doubt at this point, the matter of Soli-chan's failed circle still stands in the same light as it has since Equis was proven good. Either Nebty is lying about someone or thier alignment is proof against magical scrying. Either way the result is much the same. I vote to sacrifice Nute.

Nute today, Nebty tomorrow.

"Good lord, can't you people keep it down?" A rather hungover Dazzler joins the assembled company, rubbing a stressful night out of her eyes.

"Given the circumstances here, I can understand why people would vote to sacrifice our Priestess. However, I hope you all understand that I would throw myself on the knife in her place if it made any sense to do so. Therefore, with regret in my heart and cotton in my brain, I vote to send Nute to the knife. May your curse and your sentence both be commuted, and may you end up in a better place."

Hehehe, thanks for being so concerned about me, Ms. Ann, but-

Ana suddenly lets out a large belch and dark flames spew forth from the valves on her mask before dissipating harmlessly into thin air. She shakes her head, coughs slightly, and turns back to the group as her features return to their usual neutral look.

All right. Right now, we have a group of confirmed goods and a single person with an unknown alignment. I don't know why we need to start knifing the confirmeds today, when we don't even know the nature of the deception that's been practiced on us. For what's it worth, I think our answer is obvious. We have at least two cultists left to root out. TWO cultists who have been hiding amongst us from the very beginning. Even if somebody was turned after that, that doesn't change the fact that we have two beginning cultists who've been scried and escaped detection, either through appearing innocent... or appearing to be unknown. Do you really think even if there's a cultist who can fool the scries amongst us, there'd be two of them? Seriously? Not even the Eye who Watches would be that sadistic. No, far more likely that Nebty's a cultist and she lied about somebody's alignment.

Either way, if we find out if Nebty is innocent or evil, that's going to provide us with a much more solid basis for our votes from now on. Is she lying? Is she not? Can we trust her scries and the people she's confirmed to be innocent? If the cultists are hiding amongst us, exactly how are they doing it? Are they banking on Nebty to shelter them? Can they hide their nature completely from all scries? Are they both Ascendant Spirits? (Which is highly unlikely, but knifing Nebty is the only way we have of finding out if this is indeed the case.) Did somebody sabotage that circle from the outside? We have so little information to work on, and a Nebty-lynch would narrow down the possibilities immensely. We cannot afford to have an unknown amongst us any longer, especially since that unknown has already long outlived her usefulness.

"So it seems we wait on soundlyParanoid, Bladida, and Kohei."

Suspicions are all well and good, but let's not forget that we have nothing but Nebty's word to take for the alignment of Baron Ji-Sidas. QuantumBit could very well have confided in the Priestess that Demon was a cultist, and then she had him killed before he could spread that knowledge further. Sarkus gave him that box of sealed evil, and now Sarkus is dead. He's been hiding in his ship more nights than not and managed to trick his own school into wasting a circle on the very first night.

I change my vote and instead say - sacrifice the Demon ji-Sidas.

Are you sure that's wise, Nute? If you're questioning the Demon's alignment, shouldn't you be questioning Nebty instead, who was the one confirming that alignment? I get that you may have a grudge against him for voting you to the knife, but honestly, people - we have an unknown right here in our midst, so why are we talking about improbabilities like two Ascendant Spirit cultists?

Then we do this the smart way. Send Nebty to the Knife (changing my vote back) and tomorrow night, then two circles are made to kill myself and the Demon. That way, every unknown is accounted for. If Nebty's evil, her scry of me can't be trusted and obviously neither can her vouching for the Demon.

"What are the current vote totals?"

"Still tied, my lady love, with three non-participants."

Five for each of us, Priestess. It all comes down to the numbers.

"I am honestly more in favor of Sacrificing Nebty currently than Nute. It stands to reason that even if the cultists did intend for us to make a misstep regarding her, they almost certainly would not have waited until the last possible second in order to do so with her having scryed and confirmed a large swath of people.

I'll head the killing circle. We do not need two, we just need one."

"And why would that be necessary? Do you believe the knife insufficient to kill me?"

Votes:
Nebty: soundlyParanoid, Nute, TurinTuramba, Anxifera, Corma, Anabanana, Kohei - 7
Nute: Demon G Sides, Lazy Shiftless Bastard, The Sofa of Luck, Nebty, Speak With Bread - 5

I would urge people not to forget that Soli-chan's failed circle was presumably caused by one of the following: Nute, Dazzler, or Cormac.

Unless that Box of Evil that Demon holds has something to do with it.

For lack of better concrete evidence, I vote to sacrifice Nebty.

Nebty smiled thinly at Ana.

"You are correct. Now that I have fulfilled my purpose I suppose my only option is to die to maintain the shields. After all, I have spent my whole life as a loyal servant of the Light. My death should be no different. It is quite poetic." She walked over to Dazzler and threaded a dark blue Morning Glory through the singer's hair.

"Thank you for trying to protect me."

Just to be clear, you are saying that the members of the failed circle should not be under suspicion because baron Demon might have used the mysterious cursed lockbox given to him by Sarkus to cause your circle to fail that night?

Alright, why do you people think it's likely anyone who was in the circle proper was the cause of its disruption?

Isn't it just as likely the cultists targeted the circle to cause dissension?

Like call me skeptical, but whatever power caused every circle to fail night two is probably at work on a much smaller scale, and lynching in scrying circles just because they happened to fail is not particularly bright.

I'm with the bear - but logically you can't rule out that it could have been Cormac or Dazzler or me sabotaging the circle.

"My lady...Nebty...if I could save you from this fate, I would. I...I wish there was some other way for this to end." Dazzler, ignoring the technical conversation around them, throws her arms around the Priestess's neck and tries to restrain a flood of bitter tears.

Is there any historical precedent for the existence of such an ability? The recurring Orb of Mass Disruption artifacts have shown up multiple times in the past and are a matter of record. While it is not entirely outside the realm of possibility and Nute is correct that Demon would be the most likely candidate to be possess it, I am not sure there is any evidence that it exists outside the arguments of a human desperately trying to divert suspicion from himself.

Which is why there's the easy solution if Nebty's found to be a cultist: that will leave 12 of us. Demon and I cannot cast, that means there are two circles available. Kill both of us, that's the course that will likely eliminate the final cultist. I think it's the Demon, but the evidence could just as clearly point to me.

I ain't saying that I want to die, but if these bastards win, then everyone dies. And as much as I think humanity hasn't convinced me it's worth saving, there's a chance that it could someday be worth it. If we let the cultists win, the world never gets that chance.

It's all about the numbers.

I got this box from Sarkus, and have had no other item. This box is locked, so unless someone's offering me the key, it's not opening. Not that I'd want to, it's got a decidedly evil aura.

I do not vote for the plan that has us being killed by circles. Why don't we stab you now, and if you're all still worried about my allegiance, scry me tonight. But killing me because Nute's pissed he's going to be today's sacrifice is not a smart move.

Team Evil doesn't get a vote, assbutt. Sit down on your Box of Evil and shine your shoes.

Dazzler lifts her head from Nebty's shoulder long enough to hiss, "Both of you sit the fuck down and stop acting like children. Demon, if the box is that bothersome, go throw it in the abyss. You assholes, we are trying to have a moment here."

The Priestess gently wrapped her arms around Dazzler. Her eyes were dry as they no longer possessed tear ducts.

"Please do not cry. I have never wanted to cause you pain."

not team evil, I'm just holding onto this for them. I die, they get it, so maybe you shouldn't kill me.

"As the wise philosopher A. Nonymous once said, 'It takes only an hour to like someone and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.' The only pain you cause is by being such a wonderful person."