Roleplay Mafia Minigame ❧ NIGHT SIX

Sayaka struck the ground with her cutlass already in hand. The familiar weight of her cape fell over her shoulders at once, and she snapped her head back, throwing her arms out as she pulled the cutlass into a double-handed grip. Rusty greys and blurry yellow streaks bled through the fading afterimage of Mitakihara's wide, bleached streets, and the witch's lair resolved into focus. She assumed a defensive stance and raised her blade, but there was nothing there—just an empty, narrow street of cobblestone brick lined with plain burning lampposts along the way. There were doors, windows, and wooden lofts, and signs and posts etched with characters and words she had not learned in school, but no fiendish familiars, no witch's constructs lying in wait. Nothing at all to interrupt the otherwise unassuming urban crawl, but there were shadows, shadows purpled by the faint glaze of starlight from a sky that Sayaka did not recognize, and she studied it, cutlass limp at her side, realizing that she had never seen the sky in a witch's maze before, and a hand fell upon her shoulder.

Sayaka jolted away and twisted about in a sharp pivot, her long white cape flaring out like a whip. Her body was numb with tension, but she drew up her cutlass as a young woman came into view. The woman was smiling. Her attack fell short.

“Ah, a newcomer,” the woman said, and Sayaka noticed that she respected the blade enough to take a step back. “I thought I heard—well, nevermind! What's your name?”

Sayaka narrowed her eyes and offered no answer, but neither did she move to attack. The woman bore a loose gait and held a soft pose. She swayed a little, her head tilted with expectation, but even in the dim pools of lamp light, Sayaka noticed that the familiar—if she were a familiar—lacked the typical stiff and erratic movements she had come to expect. Her demeanor was calm, perhaps even kind.

“N-newcomer?” Sayaka said, as if she were discovering words for the first time, but then they came easier. “This trick is foul! I'll—”

“Oh—not a trick, no!” the woman cut in.

“This is Traverse Town.”




Sayaka looked down at her open hand and stared at the soul gem cradled in her palm. Pale gold bands caged a sapphire orb that pulsed along to the beat of her heart, the azure surface rippled like the crest of a moonlit ocean swell. It burned hot, the ticklish warmth both soothing and familiar. Sayaka had stared into its depths several times since she arrived in this sunless place, thinking of her family, her friends, and wondering if they peered into their gems and thought of her as well. This world may not obey time as she had learned it, but as she stared at her soul gem, no other measure of time's passage carried more weight than the changes to the gem's core. Murky shadows that once lingered closer to the edges of the orb now reached their hungry fingertips into its heart, clouding out the gem's brilliant light. Traverse Town had no witches, and thus no grief seeds to purify a corrupted soul gem... but that could soon change.

Clutching the soul gem to her chest, Sayaka took a steadying breath and returned it to the folds of her blouse. She did not wish to inflict her troubles upon others, but if she did not act soon, both her and Kyouko would cause much despair and pain to this place and its people, and that was something she could never allow to happen.

And so she walked into the square of the First District and added herself to the growing crowd here to discuss the feather. Already, a man stood upon a staircase addressing the early arrivals, though she was not yet in range to catch any of what was said.

I don’t know how it happened… it’s just gone.  Pondering their situation, Pearl hadn’t been much for interaction since they’d arrived.  The strange creatures they’d found upon arriving turned out to not be gem beasts—the only reason they would have warped to this strange place.  Instead they were “Heartless,” strange little shadow creatures that had destroyed their only means of egress from this weird little world.  

Traverse Town.

It looked like something out of one of Steven’s games, and Pearl was not happy about this.  She and Amethyst had to get back to Steven and Garnet.  Logically, the taller gem knew Garnet could handle herself, but what if something happened and Steven got injured because Pearl and Amethyst weren’t there?  “Oh… this is just horrible.  How are we supposed to get home?”  She mused out loud to herself.

She’d heard someone pipe up about science, but her mind was too focused on trying to solve their problem that she’d ignored the man’s entire little speech.  Until Amethyst piped up and goaded the man:

“Amethyst!  That is entirely uncalled for.  Calling him a nerd… really.”  Pearl shook her head at the display and returned to her pondering.

There are 9 players remaining. It will take 5 votes to lynch someone. The phase will end when a player (or no lynch) has the majority of votes on them.

In order to vote, please simply bold the name of the player you are voting for (and if your character doesn't know their name, you can bold "that guy over there" and then clarify who you're voting for OOC. Let me know if you have any questions.)

(( Replying to Sammie's post. And then my next post will be a timeskip to post actual D1 speculation, because I have actual D1 speculation to post. ))

---

Carlos’s colleagues often told him that he had selective hearing. This wasn’t entirely true. His ears were in perfect working condition; it was his brain that honed in on the word “science” and completely disregarded anything else going on around him.

“Oh, science doesn’t turn innocents into ravening beasts that are but a shadow of their former selves. You’re thinking of spider wolves. Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake. Actually, just last week, I— hold on, I think that’s me.“

Some two or three weeks ago, Cecil had managed to get his hands on Carlos’s cell phone and, as a joke, changed his alarm tone to the Inspector Gadget theme song remixed with the wailing of a thousand desolate souls fleeing in terror from the existential void. Carlos had yet to figure out how to change it back. In any case, an upbeat and yet somehow also morbidly forlorn jingle was currently echoing from inside his lab coat pocket, reminding him that he had Important Experiments to check in on.

“Oh. Hey, as much as I would love to continue this conversation—and I would! I always enjoy conversing about science—I also have a really important experiment I need to get back to, and my phone is ringing so I really need to go, and I actually don’t even really remember how to turn this—Cecil, how do I turn this off?—but anyway it was really nice talking to you and we should continue this conversation later. Goodbye!”

And with that, the scientist fled down one of First District’s many alleyways, pattering footsteps and the ghostly lament of a remixed Inspector Gadget theme fading slowly into the distance in his wake.

(( since very little actually happened i'm just going to continue the conversation if that's okay :'3 ))

(( ALSO I SEE THAT ROCK JOKE. I SEE IT. HOW DARE. ))

See, logically speaking, it would have been a better idea for Amethyst to have just walked away. Or spoken to one of several other people in the general vicinity. Or just head to the tavern and get the food she'd been going after in the first place.

But no. This dude told her to shut up. This dude told her to show some respect. This dude made a terrible mistake.

"Ohh, I'll show ya respect, little man," nevermind that she was considerably shorter than him, "I'll teach ya respect-"

Her form glowed white and morphed bigger, taller. When the glow faded, where Amethyst had been was the Purple Puma, her wrestling persona -- bigger, badder, better- or, rather, taller, hairier, and considerably more intimidating. Also a dude now.

"You wanna go, shortstack?"

Soren opened his mouth to respond to Carlos's apparent dismissal of something Soren KNEW to be true, his red eyes flashing with his anger. As much as he disliked Laguz in general due to his treatment as a child, he hated what had been done to them.

He was quite startled and distracted, however, when what to him sounded like unholy screeching began, gripping his tome tightly in realizing it was coming from Carlos and wondering exactly WHAT Carlos was despite his senses not indicating anything particularly unusual about the man.

He remained silent in watching Carlos rush off, slowly sitting back down and having a very strong urge to go and get a drink or something, even if his appetite was nonexistent.

"This is most definitely NOT Tellius... How on earth was that Beorc able to produce that horrific screeching. That sounded like several feral Laguz..."

Soren was fully prepared to go find somewhere quieter to sit and think when the purple-skinned girl spoke up, making him pause for a moment to focus on her. Only to promptly jump back in shock in seeing her shape shift, nearly losing his footing and more then a little staggered by the sight.

And hesitantly approached Amethyst, somewhat inclined to think she was a very unusual laguz.

"How did you do that, exactly?"

Amethyst was moments away from teaching the other guy a painful lesson when some... scrawny kid came up to her.

"Dude, why aren't you scared. I'm badass. You should be scared."

"Once you stare down and help defeat a actual goddess that is very intent on causing the demise of you and everything you've ever known, there is nothing else left to fear in the world." Soren replied briefly, raising a eyebrow at her even if he was still very cautious about her, all too aware that she was quite powerful from what he could sense off of her.

A few hours later, or maybe shortly afterwards (who really could say, given that time may or may not actually have been real), Carlos returned to the plaza. He’d been meaning to call in to break the news to Cecil to break the news to everyone else, but he hadn’t managed to turn off that alarm, and his phone had progressed from an inconsolable wail overlaid on a theme song to oozing actual bodily fluids. He figured it’d be safer to wait for an experienced technician to take a look at it first. In any case, he was here, in person, with some important scientific discoveries to announce.

The plaza was… just how he had left it, really. Everyone standing exactly where they were, saying exactly what they were saying, and overall just being in exactly the same manner as they had always been, and would always continue to be. Cecil was in the middle of an argument. Carlos had no idea what about. And as much as he knew that Cecil hated being interrupted in the middle of arguing, and that they’d established rules in this relationship about interrupting and not interrupting, the rules were different when an important scientific discovery had been made. An important scientific discovery was grounds to interrupt anything!

“Cecil,” he began, because after a few years of publishing one’s research via community radio broadcasts, one got used to prefacing their research publications with the name ‘Cecil.’ Also because ‘Cecil’ was a nice name, and Carlos enjoyed saying it for personal and non-personal reasons. “Cecil, I have made an important scientific discovery. So I was in my lab, okay, and I’ve been running experiments on the roads here in Traverse Town. I have a piece of road-measuring equipment—you remember the one, right? I wanted to put it on the kitchen counter but you were all, ‘You can’t put it there, it will get in the way of my coffee summoning rituals’ and I was all, ‘Well where do you think we should put it instead?’ but you didn’t answer because you’d gotten your coffee summoning rituals mixed up with your Eldritch horror summoning rituals and were busy combating unspeakable terrors from dimensions beyond our fragile human understanding.

“So that road-measuring equipment. Well, I ended up putting it on a road, okay? Because I thought, ‘Hmm, a road seems like a good place for road-measuring equipment.’ And then I monitored the road. And I made measurements and I said ‘Hmm’ a lot and also sometimes put my finger to my chin in a thoughtful manner, because this is how one does science. And I did it! I made a scientific discovery! I found out—get this—that there are no bus drivers in Traverse Town. There are vehicles that seem like buses, that have wheels and many seats, so that it would make more sense for them to be buses than not. But there are no buses, and so, there are no bus drivers in Traverse Town. I’m not really sure what this means in the grand scheme of things, or in the schemes of grand things, or even in the schemes of things that aren’t very grand at all. But I’ll keep you updated. Also I've freed up my schedule for another experiment, so if anyone wants me to run more experiments I can run more experiments. But not on Tuesday, okay? Tuesday is date night.”

A deep inhale, followed by a deep exhale.

“So... that’s all I wanted to say. What have you been up to?”

---

(( To clarify, there are no roles that can redirect night actions in this game. You might be thinking, "Um, this is not very exciting information. Why is it in bold?" to which I must answer, knowingly, "Because." Also, that was not just in-character, I am taking requests for another experiment, if anyone has any questions they would like science to answer.

Today's proverb: Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Next time, go all out and write in StrexCorp on the ballot. ))

Amethyst looked down at the scrawny kid curiously, about to speak, but was interrupted by the reappearance of the science dude. Who then... started...

"HOW ABOUT AN EXPERIMENT ON HOW MUCH I CARE, NERD!" She shouted grumpily, before glowing bright white and shrinking down to her previous form, giving her attention back to the boy who was now taller than her.

"You. I like you. Not afraid of a damn thing."

Soren turned his head in hearing the foot steps from Carlos, wincing and eying him extremely cautiously. And all the more concerned that he may or may not start letting out the horrific screeching from before, unaware it had been a phone. Or what a phone even was.

He settled down to listen to the next exposition from Carlos, puzzled at the mention of coffee summoning rituals and then a Eldritch summoning ritual and battling something beyond the ken of a human mind.

He grew even more confused at the mention of a bus, much less a bus driver, and stared at Carlos even more, a deeply puzzled look on his face.

"What is a bus and a bus driver, exactly? I am unfamiliar with suuch a term." Soren asked slowly, feeling deeply confused but keeping calm and stoic even as he wondered what kind of world he had wound up in.

"What is the airspeed velocity of a unladen Heron laguz versus another bird tribe laguz attempting to carry a Heron laguz?" Soren asked with a tinge of sarcasm but otherwise had a blank face, figuring he had nothing to lose. And actually a bit curious on what the strange scientist might say in response.

Soren refocused onto Amethyst, standing his ground in seeing her glow and shrink, keeping calm despite being somewhat wary of her.

"Thank you. My name is Soren."

It's hard to eavesdrop when you're busy devouring all the food that they had in this little canteen. Kyouko swore - swore! - that she was going to split her raided food with Sayaka. It's fine though, she'll just tell her that they're having some sort of food shortage and she couldn't find much, all while wearing a convincing pout.

Yeah that'd totally work! Sayaka can be gullible sometimes.

She couldn't, however, mute the voices that were heard just outside of her temporary sanctuary. Something about science, something about nerds, something about..respect and purple. Her ears perked up like a cat's out of curiosity and she peeked outside. There was a small crowd gathered in this district, which was surprising, since they had detected little life in this town prior to this. Sayaka was the only one there to calm her loneliness, and she couldn't be more grateful that it was her. A light blush tickled her cheeks.

Kyouko peeked out slightly to get a better view of the people conversing outisde. She needs to be cautious! 'They're probably here to steal my - our - food!' They didn't seem to notice the little pop of red hair and eyes poking out of the window. They must be having too much fun making friends or plotting ways to steal food.

Kyouko started to eat faster, but kept her munching silent, not wanting to ruin her stealthiness.

'Hm. That girl is purple. What a tacky color. Wait, is that a mummy? Oh that guy has weird tattoos. Was he the one with the smooth voice?'

And there, barely visible appearing from a side valley, Kyouko spotted a blue blur of color. Sayaka! Ah, this makes things much simpler! She wouldn't need to look everywhere and get lost looking for her..like last time! She waved frantically from the window in her direction, making funny faces and wild gestures. Surely she would look this way any second and notice her!

'Notice me already! Sayaka!'

All thoughts about stealth and secrecy from the crowd were gone. She was prepared to bust out of the door (even though it had a very functional door knob) any second and reunite with her lov--best frie--err...friend.

Head still low, still sniffling away, Amumu stole glances at the crowd. He didn't know how long he had been standing there, though if the puddle of tears at his feet were any indication, it had been a while. He hoped no one would come too close and slip (out worse) on his tears. He hoped even more, however, that people would start talking about the feather again.

Some of the crowd seemed to disperse, but others had come along in the meantime, it seemed. There was the red-haired man looking at him, though with sympathy, or (more likely) distaste, Amumu couldn't tell. Another man seemed to be with the one talking to the crowd, and appeared to have gotten into a shouting match with the scary, name-calling woman. And her attention now seemed split between the men on the stairs and a green-haired fellow who was apparently just as fearless and as socially adept as Amumu wished he could be. A very tall woman had just walked in too, seeming to look for someone or somebody.

Maybe she was looking for friends too?

She then called out to the purple one.

So much for that...

That just left the blue-haired girl who was being hungrily stared at by another girl behind a window. If Amumu didn't know any better, he'd think the staring girl was wanting to eat the other one. There was something familiar about the expression though, as if she were looking at the blue-haired one and wanting something...more.

Something Amu- err, she could never have.

An interesting (hopefully friendly...except for the loud, purple lady, anyway) group. Still, while there had been whispers in the crowd about maybe voting, getting rid of people so they can find the feather (a proposition that scared Amumu) these others seemed to have their focus elsewhere.

He looked up at the man at the stairs again and asked, as loud as he dared, "What about the feather?"

Luke study the courtyard, feeling a bit lost on what to do. Wishing in part that he could just demand a answer, he zoned in to one random faceless person that said something like, "them to reveal the location of the feather through any means possible". His eyes narrowed, as he frowned deeply.

In the months that he traveled with Tear, Ion, and the others, he learned that to a lot of people, any means possible meant injuring or possible hurting someone. Through his friends, he learned that there were times you have to kill someone when protecting yourself. But the thought of hurting someone to gain info, made him almost sick in his stomach.

As he watch the others in the courtyard, he felt a little lost. Luke shook his head, wishing that he was home. He would never complain about Mieu being annoying again. He would listen to his father more. He would do almost anything to go home, as long as no one died.

Luke shook his head again then jump as horrible screeching flooded the area, which caused Carlos to run off. He continue standing uncomfortable as the weird guy that had been talking to himself started making friend with the purple girl. The man - Carlos- seemed to have a good friend, demanding people to listen to Carlos's words; staring at the purple girl. In what seemed like forever, Carlos ran back talking about how bus aren't buses and there are no bus drivers in town. Luke shook his head.

"What about the feather?" asked a small voice. Luke turn towards the person to find it to be the mummy. It took only a second to notice puddle of tears underneath the mummy.

"Hey, are you okay? You are crying a lot."

Without waiting for an answer, Luke looked up than asked the whole group,
"What exactly does science say about that feather thingy?"