TA1LGUNN3R wrote:Haggis wrote:I can post all the story if anyone wants, but it's a fuckin short novel
Please do, if it's not too much trouble.
Ha I told you fools Edoku was a baddie.
Always follow my gut...
-Tailzo
Yeah that was incredible bad luck for Edoku ... poor guy
Also, no problem at all, just copy past, but seriously I'm warning you, it's big.(btw, i kind of repeated a paragraph in the back-stories, You'll notice a lot of people were ronins at one point
)
Here goes:
[spoiler]STORY:
People:
You are Edoku Shin.
------------------STORY AHOY----------------------------
You were born to a samurai family, a 5th child. Even as you were little you have always had a burning ambition to succeed and a conviction that you were destined for great things. To achieve your potential you did everything in your power as a child to increase both your physical and mental prowess.
Eventually you ended up a young samurai, serving the same
daimyo as the rest of your family. However you didn't have much of a chance to prove what you are capable of as within a year of you becoming of age your daimyo was defeated and killed. Honour demanded that you die with your master, however, in this moment something fundamental changed in you. You realized that you cannot, that you WILL NOT end your life simply to maintain your family's honour. You know you were meant for more than that. You decide to flee and become a
ronin, a warrior with no master, an outcast.
Months later, surviving as an animal, the divide in yourself becomes unbearable. On the one hand you cannot forgive yourself for being a coward and dishonouring your family, an act that goes against everything you were ever taught, on the other you cannot fathom how you have arrived in this situation, how YOU of all people could have gotten here, YOU were supposed to do great things. As you fear you are approaching insanity you hear a conversation between two farmers, they are talking of the
yamabushi. You had heard of them before, the stuff of legends. Hermits. Ascetic, warrior monks, said to posses supernatural powers. On the spot you decide that this must be a sign.
Many years later, you have finally found peace among these monks. You are now one of them. Living not exactly like hermits, but not exactly like a community either, this is the best way to describe your groups way of life. You can mostly provide for yourself, and you can easily get the few things you cannot grow from a little nearby village, you offer them very good trade deals and in return they offer you privacy and the promise to keep your location secret. You grow old, and your burning ambitions grow dull, though no matter how much you meditate you can never completely remove them.
One night though, you realize your location has stopped being a secret as your settlement is raided by bandits. They must have watched you for a good while as they used the cover of night to kill the men which where still in the prime of their life, and only after this is done did they proceed to the old and young. They did however miscalculate in assuming you were as feeble as you look. Being alerted by screams, you sense the assassin approaching you, so you simply pretend to be asleep until he is close enough and then, in one swift movement, draw an arc with your blade which hits one of his legs just below the knee, cutting it clean off and then gets stuck in his other. You quickly remove your sword from the screaming man's leg while cursing under your breath that you didn't have enough strength left to cut the second leg as well. On your way out you slit the man's throat and quickly flee. You have lived here for more years than you'd like to count, the bandits have no chance of finding you even if they tried.
Hours later you return to investigate the damage, as suspected everyone else is dead. This is something you cannot accept, this was the final straw.
You decide to create a new settlement for yourself, the place you choose happens to be the little village you conducted trade with, yes Sanmatsu-mura will make a fine camp. But, you think to yourself, "there are too many people living there already, they would only intrude on my yamabushi way of life". The answer is clear "in that case i'll just have to clean Sanmatsu-mura of it's infestation, so that it may become suitable to be my new camp"
The world has given you enough shit for this lifetime. The world is now going to pay ...
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You are Yamabushi / serial killer
You can only kill once every 2 nights due to your old age. You need more rest than you used to.
Even though you are old, a whole life as a warrior monk isn't forgotten easily. You can survive ONE direct attempt to kill you(night or day kill), you will however be injured in the attempt(you're old). This injury will prevent you from sneaking around anything, so your night kills will be over. You will however be able to summon all your pent up anger into one last deadly attack, a day kill.
So basically if you get nk'd or dk'd you lose your ability to nk but gain ONE (and only one) dk.
You cannot survive a lynch.
You win(at least in your twisted, maddened, mind) if you are the last survivor.
You can reveal your role(yamabushi / sk) but NOTHING ELSE about your role or anything that happens in private(past, present or future) unless i specifically say so.
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If anything is unclear please PM me. I may have made mistakes or something, so just shoot a PM and I'll see what's up.
Also, please confirm and/or complain about not having to read so much since junior high in
this thread===========================================================================================================
You are Kenta Ryutaro.
--------------------------STORY AHOY---------------------------
You were born a farmer, a 3rd child. Even as a child, however, you proved to be exceptionally difficult, even lazy. Many times you were beaten by your parents, but to no avail. The farmer life, though respectable, didn't have any appeal to you whatsoever, and this feeling only amplified as you got older.
Even though you are obviously illiterate and entirely uneducated, people did seem to remark that you were somewhat quicker than the regular man, so you were confident that you could find a solution to this predicament, one that did not involve any manual labour.
Eventually, you came of age and were promptly informed that it is time to either start working or leave. You weighted your options, there aren't that many professions open to you. Of course you would like to be a samurai, but obviously that is out of the question. A monk perhaps? No that too seems too much like work to you. An artisan, you are much too old by now to take that path, and besides you can't picture yourself in that posture. Perhaps a merchant, but how does one go about becoming a merchant anyway?
You cannot think of anything, and yet you are too proud to admit so, thus you do your family a great dishonour, and leave. A few weeks later you become the only thing you could have become, a thief. At least all of that sneaking off to get out of work will come in handy.
You also realise that while it might not be so easy to become a merchant, it is quite easy to pass of as a merchant. This is partly because being a merchant is considered so dishonourable that most people would scarcely imagine why anyone would want to lie about being one. However, the merchant lie has two immediate benefits, you can easily explain were you got your money from, and while being dishonourable, being a merchant isn't a capital offence, which is more than you can say about thieving.
Thus, over the months you manage to survive one way or the other, and you even acquire a few skills that might come in handy, for instance being able to follow people without them knowing you are there is quite a useful skill for a thief. You lifestyle carries you from village to village.
Currently you are posing as a merchant in Sanmatsu-mura, this small mountainous village is precisely the type of location you prefer staying in. Small villages means weakly guarded resources and mountainous are means plenty of places to hide. You plan to stay here for a few more nights and then move on. Things out of your control may interfere with your plans though ...
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You are Thief / tracker
Each night you can follow someone undetected and see what they are up to during the night.
You win if only pro-town players are left
You can reveal your role (Thief / tracker) and the results of your investigations(obviously), but NOTHING ELSE that happens in private(past, present or future) unless i specifically say so.
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If anything is unclear please PM me. I may have made mistakes or something, so just shoot a PM and I'll see what's up.
Also, please confirm and/or complain about not having to read so much since junior high in
this thread ==========================================================================================================
You are Gatsu Shinichi.
--------------------------STORY AHOY---------------------------
You were born a samurai, more than that, the second son of a
daimyo, a territorial lord. You lived a privileged but still harsh childhood, so that, when the time comes, you may be ready to carry your family's name with honour.
You started your adult life as a samurai under your fathers rule. You fought in battles, and killed bandits, you were never exceptional, but never an embarrassment either, furthermore you have always been content with that. You have never wished for fame or power, a simple honourable and happy life is all you've ever wanted.
This mindset meant that even though your elder brother was killed in battle, you were not the one who was to take your fathers place, one of your younger brothers had that honour while you became the samurai leader of a small farming village, situated in a mountainous area. You have been here for 3 years now and you have been generally content. The people hold you in very high regard and are quite friendly towards you, well, as friendly as farmers can be towards a samurai, and things have gone quite smoothly.
You have a generous farm here, a good wife that efficiently handles the monetary matters of the household(such matters are beneath you of course) and several concubines. By most standards, including the ones you yourself held for all your life, you are a happy and accomplished man. As you aged however, some doubts have started infiltrating into your mind.
As of late you have been having some second thoughts about your life choices. "Perhaps you weren't ambitious enough in life", you think to yourself. "Think of how much you could have achieved", however the response quickly comes: "There is nothing wrong with a honourable and simple life", the mantra you've been repeating for so long. Still you can't help but feel that perhaps you are missing out on something. If you had lived a few centuries later perhaps this would have been called a mid-life crisis.
However, as you will soon find out, your life as the head samurai of Sanmatsu-mura is about to become a great deal more exciting ...
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You are Samurai / Cop Each night you can choose to investigate someone, doesn't matter if they are dead or alive, your great influence in the town allows you to convince a servant of the man you are investigating to tell you the truth about his master. The poor servant will probably later commit suicide out of shame for having betrayed his master, but that is no concern of yours is it now?
If this is the first time you investigate them you will only get their alignment(pro or anti town).
If this is the second time you investigate the same person you will get their role.
You win if only pro-town players are left
You can reveal your role (Samurai / Cop) and the results of your investigations(obviously), but NOTHING ELSE that happens in private(past, present or future) unless i specifically say so.
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If anything is unclear please PM me. I may have made mistakes or something, so just shoot a PM and I'll see what's up.
Also, please confirm and/or complain about not having to read so much since junior high in
this thread===========================================================================================================
You are Tailzo Gunshin.
--------------------------STORY AHOY---------------------------
You were born to a samurai family, a 3rd child. Even as you were little you have always had a burning ambition to succeed and a conviction that you were destined for great things. However, you didn't view the way of the samurai as the only path, you were fascinated most by stories of black arts, of dark magic. One such story that particularly stuck with you was that of being
kaishaku(the second which ends the suffering of the one performing seppuku by decapitating him) in the execution of a man who isn't committing seppuku of his own free will but because he is being constrained to. The story went that, as the
kami, or spirit, of the deceased leaves this plane, another kami can enter it and temporarily find it's way to the kaishaku, and that such a spirit could grant unimaginable powers to the person it inhabited ...
Eventually you ended up a young samurai, serving the same
daimyo as the rest of your family. However you didn't have much of a chance to prove what you are capable of as within a year of you becoming of age your daimyo was defeated and killed. Honour demanded that you die with your master, however, in this moment you discovered something fundamental about yourself. You realized that you cannot, that you WILL NOT end your life simply to maintain your familie's honour. You decide to flee and become a
ronin, a warrior with no master, an outcast.
Months later, surviving as an animal, the divide in yourself becomes unbearable. On the one hand you cannot forgive yourself for being a coward and dishonouring your family, an act that goes against everything you were ever taught, on the other you cannot fathom how you have arrived in this situation, how YOU of all people could have gotten here, YOU were supposed to do great things. As you fear you are approaching insanity you hear a conversation, two farmers seem to be talking about a local daimyo that is in desperate need of manpower and so is hiring ronins.
You make the decision in a instant, this is your chance, you can get back on top. You don't know how to contact the daimyo, but you know a little nearby village that is in his domains, surely you will find a way to contact him there. You run as fast as you can to the village, see some farmers and immediately ask them to direct you towards the samurai leader of the village, they stare at you in shock, but once you reiterate your request in a harsher tone they oblige and point towards a house.
As you make your way towards the house, almost out of nowhere, a middle-aged samurai appears, and before you can act his sword is taken half-way out of it's sheath. You know that if the sword comes out completely you are a dead man, and suddenly realize that, in your excitement, you had forgotten not only your manners, but also the fact that, except for your swords, you now look worse than a common farmer. The samurai looks at you impatiently, however after a dozen or so apologies and an explanation on your part he seems appeased. He does however note that you are in no condition to meet his daimyo right now and suggests instead that you first spent a few days in the village, get cleaned, and ready and then he will take you to his daymio.
You are now in Sanmatsu-mura, feeling the closest you have felt to human in many months time, and your old dreams of might and powers seem to be starting to return, how will you act on them ...
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You are Ronin / Vigilante You have ONE daykill that you may use at any time during the day. You must write it like:
[/color]ATTACK HAGGIS[/color]", in the thread, and format it as shown. Remember to use the Japanese names(cause it's fun ...)
Your interest in the black arts and disgraced status make you susceptible to the lower kami's. If you ever act as kaishaku(meaning you hammer someone) one of two things can happen.
If you hammered scum, a neutral kami will enter you, and give you supernatural powers which will allow you to kill someone in the night undetected. The kami will leave at first daylight.
If however you hammered a townie, a evil kami will enter you. This kind of kami has no intention of leaving, however you, yourself, not being evil this will create a massive tension within you. You will still be able to night kill someone, but by morning you will have also killed yourself to stop the suffering.
So basically, if you hammer you get a night kill, but if the guy you hammer is town you also die after you perform the nk.
You win if only pro-town players are left
You can reveal your role(Ronin / Vigilante), but NOTHING ELSE about your role or anything that happens in private(past, present or future) unless i specifically say so.
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If anything is unclear please PM me. I may have made mistakes or something, so just shoot a PM and I'll see what's up.
Also, please confirm and/or complain about not having to read so much since junior high in
this thread======================================================================================================
You are Ictorizu Sullimoto.
--------------------------STORY AHOY---------------------------
You were born to a samurai family, a 4th child. Even as you were little you have always had a burning ambition to succeed and a conviction that you were destined for great things. Having 3 bigger brothers though, you learned to develop your speed and agility more, as your strength obviously couldn't compare to theirs.
Eventually you ended up a young samurai, serving the same
daimyo as the rest of your family. However you didn't have much of a chance to prove what you are capable of as within 6 months of you becoming of age your daimyo was defeated and killed. Honour demanded that you die with your master, however, in this moment something fundamental changed in you. You realized that you cannot, that you WILL NOT end your life simply to maintain your family's honour. After all, you are destined for bigger things, you reasoned, how could you die such a premature death. You decide to flee and become a
ronin, a warrior with no master, an outcast.
Months later, surviving as an animal, the divide in yourself becomes unbearable. On the one hand you cannot forgive yourself for being a coward and dishonouring your family, an act that goes against everything you were ever taught, on the other you cannot fathom how you have arrived in this situation, how YOU of all people could have gotten here, YOU were supposed to do great things. As you fear you are approaching insanity you hear a conversation between two farmers, they are talking of the
Shinobi(ninja), apparently such an assassin was captured and will be executed later today.
You don't hear anything beyond the mention of Shinobi. In a moment you decide that that is your solution, it was so obvious, you must become a shinobi, firstly don't care about your honour or lack thereof, and secondly they are the stuff of legend, who hasn't heard of the mighty shinobi assassins.
Thanks to your heightened reflexes and agility you do indeed prove worthy of joining the shinobis. Once in however you realise that it isn't exactly as you had imagined, that the shinobi life is mostly like that of Buddhist monks, growing their own food, self-sustaining, the only difference being that, once in a while, one of you would go on a mission.
In time you completed your fair share of such missions, though nothing that would be mentioned in the history books. You have even dabbled in the occult arts, though by no means mastered them, however, as you aged, your burning ambition dulled and you were content in this life. Eventually, as you grew too old, you decided to leave your friends and spend your remaining years in some peaceful little village somewhere.
You have now been living in Sanmatsu-mura for 2 years and have integrated nicely, though obviously no one knows of your dishonourable past. The village however, may not remain peaceful for very long ...
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You are Shinobi / BulletProof Townie
You cannot be killed at night, you have spent too many hours of training perfecting your senses for the night-time environment to be caught by surprise, even in your old age.
You can be killed in the day, either by lynch or by day kill. If this happens however, you can either go peacefully or also kill the person who killed you(like a bomb). If it's a daykill you kill the guy who dk'd you(duh), if it's a lynch you kill the guy who is performing
kaishaku (the guy who hammered). If you are lynched or day killed you must post either
BOW HEAD to go peacefully or
UNSHEATHE SWORD to attack, both need to be formatted like I've shown.
Your dabbling in the occult arts allows you to detect the alignment of a dead person. So, each night you can send me an action to investigate a dead person and you'll find out if they were pro or against town. You can only do this for dead people.
You win if only pro-town players are left
You can reveal your role(Shinobi / BulletProof Townie) and the result of your investigations(obviously), but NOTHING ELSE about your role or anything that happens in private(past, present or future) unless i specifically say so.
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If anything is unclear please PM me. I may have made mistakes or something, so just shoot a PM and I'll see what's up.
Also, please confirm and/or complain about not having to read so much since junior high in
this thread======================================================================================================
You are Lala Ando and Aagetamori Yabu.
--------------------------STORY AHOY---------------------------
You are brothers, the 1st and 2nd sons of a farmer. Your early childhood was a happy if Spartan one, you were a pretty regular family and seemed content with the life you had been given. As it turns out that was not to be your life at all.
When you were 10 and 9 respectively, your father was killed due to a misunderstanding where a samurai, not knowing that your father was deaf in one ear, was under the impression that your father was disrespecting him. In fact he just hadn't noticed the samurai but, regardless, one sword slash later your father was decapitated.
You cried and pleaded, you even went to the farmer in charge of the village, but ultimately there was nothing to be done, the man was a samurai after all, and your father but a peasant. The seed of hatred had been planted in your hearts though.
After this unlucky event your family had no way of sustaining itself any more, what with you not being old enough to take over you father's work. Your mother was faced with a hard decision, but ultimately she had to try to provide for your smaller sister and your baby brother any way she could, and let you make your own way in the world. You pleaded to let you help her, but she insisted that her children will not become thieves or worse just for her convenience. You tried not to even consider what your mother might have to do in order to provide for her youngest children, however you obeyed her wishes. You left her alone, and went to work at a monastery. Here you were rightly fascinated with this new world and wanted to learn as much as you could, the pain you felt seemed to dull with time and meditation.
Through this attitude, in time, you became monks yourselves, but, though calm and restrained on the outside, the seed of hatred was still growing on the inside, almost unnoticed, and monks full of hatred are a dangerous thing indeed. Still curious, always curious, you wanted to find out more, not for any specific purposes that you were aware of, but just for knowledge's sake.
Eventually you started reading fragments and hearing tales about something called the dark arts. At first it seemed frightening, tabu, but the more you thought and heard about it, the more it seemed like the others were just ignorant. If the war
kami(spirit) himself is the protector of Japan then how could summoning any kamis lead to the horrible things that you heard whispered, it started to seem like all of your friends were just simple minded.
Eventually you decided to test this theory by performing a simple ritual that wasn't considered too dangerous, and in normal circumstances it wouldn't have been dangerous, but the hate in your hearts proved fertile ground, and the ritual did change you, though you didn't know it at the time. No, as far as you were concerned the ritual had had no effect whatsoever, you were quite disappointed actually, the oddest thing did happen though, you both started to have almost nightly nightmares about your mother and father, about his untimely death and about whatever hardships she had to endure.
The change from unpleasant nightmares to uncontrollable fear of sleeping was a gradual one, as was the change in your personalities. Eventually the monastery could not cope with your increased levels of aggression and frustration any more and had to kick you out, at this moment your course of action became clear. Everything id the fault of the village, id it not? If the village had acted your father wouldn't be dead, your family would be safely together, and you wouldn't have these horrible nightmares, yes it seems obvious now that everything is the fault of the village, Sanmatsu-mura. Well, if the Sanmatsu-mura has made you suffered so, perhaps you should make Sanmatsu-mura suffer as well ...
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You are Monks / Mafia
You can talk with each other as much as you please, but only at night, and you have to forward me the message as well(just hitting reply all on this message should work fine)
You DO NOT have any night kills right now because you are locked in at night and you cannot exit and enter without leaving traces
However, if any of you acts as
kaishaku(meaning you hammer someone), then a lower kami will enter your body, this gives you supernatural powers for a limited time allowing you enter and leave the house as you please. The powers end at first daylight when the kami leaves.
So basically if you hammer someone you get the option of a night kill for that night only.
From your days as monks you can still communicate with neutral kamis, one of them took pity on you and decided it would help you. If you wish you can give this kami a message and he will pass it on to the town cop. The town cop can then send a message through the kami back to you. The kami will not tell you who the town cop is as he doesn't want to risk the chance that you will kill the cop and it will be responsible. The cop knows absolutely nothing about you, he's just sleeping when a kami appears and gives him a message.
So it works like this: once every night you can send me a message for the cop if you wish, i'll resend it to the cop, then if he wishes he can send me a reply, which I'll forward to you. You can tell him whatever you want(except quoting my PM's and so on), you can try to get him to reveal who he is, or what he found out, whatever.
I'll only modify your and his pm's to try to remove indirect hints towards one of your identities(say one guy always use 'u' instead of 'you', I'll change that you can't figure out who he is from the way he's talking).
You win(or at least you think so in your twisted minds) if you kill everyone else.
You can reveal your role(Monks / Mafia), but NOTHING ELSE about your role or anything that happens in private(past, present or future) unless i specifically say so.
-----------------------------------------------------
If anything is unclear please PM me. I may have made mistakes or something, so just shoot a PM and I'll see what's up.
Also, please confirm and/or complain about not having to read so much since junior high in
this thread===================================================================================
Sanmatsu-mura(literally mountain pine village) is, as the name suggests, a little farming village nested between two ancient mountains. It is also your home, for one reason or another.
Generally life in Sanmatsu-mura is as peaceful as the scenery, except for the odd bandit raid or warring faction, but there's been little even of those occurrences lately. The
daimyo that your village belongs to seems to have negotiated a satisfactory peace agreement with his neighbours, which means that for the last few years the samurai haven't been to battle, but have instead stayed in town watching their farms and deepening their appreciation of life and Bushido, this in turn meant that bandits were apprehensive to strike, what with all the samurai about.
The news about the unusual tranquillity that your region benefits from has spread though, so over the months and years a number of "interesting" characters seem to have decided to either visit or even settle into your daimyo's region, including your little village. Thus Sanmatsu-mura has become quite a diverse place, a mix of all different social classes, from the occasional thieves, to only slightly more respectable travelling merchants, to the disgraced
ronins, warriors with no master, to the simple yet honourable peasants, to the ascetic monks(some of them even have a settlement nearby) and, of course, the noble samurai.
Despite this unusual diversity, everyone seemed to manage to stay out of everyone else's way(and especially out of the samurai's way, of course), and your little village continued to coexist peacefully.
Peacefully, that is, until today, when the whole village is awaken by a shriek of terror. One of the children of a local samurai was sent to fetch water, when he didn't promptly return his mother sent a servant to scold him. The servant however could only shriek in horror as she found the boy dead near the fountain. One slash is all it took.
The sword had hit him on the left side of the neck just below the chin and had cut transversally through his young body like through butter, eventually exiting just below his right armpit, the boy's head and right arm now lay detached from his body, mixing their blood with the dirt. This doesn't look like the work of bandits.
The child's family collects him and starts to prepare for the funerary customs, meanwhile, the village head samurai, he who is ultimately responsible for the welfare of Sanmatsu-mura, orders everyone else to gather in the village centre to try to uncover the truth. Soon everyone arrives and ritualistically confirms their attendance of the special meeting. A few short laughs are heard when Ictorizu Sullimoto manages to pronounce his name wrong, obviously he has had a bit too much sake the night before, but the grave circumstances soon return to everyone's minds.
Day 1, go:
The meeting now underway, accusation start to be fired wildly by everyone involved without any tangible results. Tailzo Gunshin notices that the approach they are currently taking is futile and tries to point this out. Unfortunately the others take this as insolence and soon enough a significant faction of Sanmatsu-mura finds itself advocating Tailzo's death.
Under pressure, and facing a barrage of questions, Tailzo starts talking about his past, in an attempt to appease the villagers. He doesn't get much further than mentioning he is a Ronin though. Amidst the surprised gasps that this confession creates one voice rises adamantly. It is Edoku Shin, and he seems to not want to hear any more.
"An innocent boy was killed this morning, with a slash of the sword that could only have been made by a samurai or a *spits loudly on the ground* ronin. And conveniently enough here you are, a ronin, with no allegiance to this town, A COWARD". Continuing in a similar manner, Edoku Shin makes his case. While there are 1 or 2 villagers that still seem doubtful, it is becoming clear that the majority are starting to agree with Edoku. Tailzo tries to get some words in edge-wise, but has no such luck against the torrent of accusations and the growing mob that seems to want his head. Eventually he snaps, loudly shouts "I AM NO COWARD YOU ... AAAHH". Without finishing his sentence he grabs his sword and lunges towards Edoku.
Time seems to slow down as Tailzo silently moves through the air, however, by the time he reaches his target, Tailzo only manages to strike the fence on which Edoku was resting. With amazing reflexes Edoku had dodged the blow. He then immediately kicked Tailzo in the back of one knee thus forcing him to kneel down on one leg, but while this manoeuvre was being performed Tailzo does manage to strike Edoku Shin on his other leg, thus causing him to fall down as well.
After the second or two in which all of these happened has passed, the town leader has managed to pull himself out of his amazement and is now standing in between the two, his sword half drawn. "This fight is over, if any of you disagree you shall have to fight me first". Once he sees that both of them have stepped down he turns to Tailzo. "Since you claim to be a Ronin, you won't have any problems with giving me your sword, will you?" Seeing that Tailzo is hesitating he adds: "I believe you know what the alternative is". Tailzo reluctantly accepts and, still kneeling down, hands over his sword.
The samurai then turns over to Edoku over which some men are now hovering. "How is he?" "He will live, the sword hit was done in short, didn't have time to build speed, and our Ronin friend over here doesn't seem exactly a master swordsman. However he won't be running through the woods or taking part in battles any time soon by the look of it".
After the men finish dressing Edoku's wound the head samurai announces that the meeting has now commenced once again.
Day 1 continue The meeting now having commenced, the group in favour of Tailzo's death is more vocal than ever. "He attacked an innocent man simply for expressing his views, the fact that he is still breathing is an insult to us all" and similar arguments were heard. The few remaining members of the village who still had doubts seemed to waiver, they asked Tailzo to explain, and explain soon if he values his life.
Tailzo, still kneeling didn't have much to say, he muttered something about his honour and how Edoku had disrespected him. At this point Aagetamori, who had generally been against Tailzo's death until this point frowns, then he steps up and says: "If you are indeed a ronin, then it is impossible for Edoku to disrespect you, since you have no honour and your death would be fair retribution not only for your actions here, but also for your cowardice. If however you lied to us about being a ronin ... well ... need i say more ?"
Tailzo momentarily looks up, a fire burning in his eyes, but then he bows his head again. "Well then, are we in agreement?" the head samurai asks. Everyone nods. "Very well then". The samurai turns to Tailzo: "Disgraced as you may be, you were once a samurai, and therefore you may have a samurai's death if you so wish. Perhaps it will somewhat attenuate the dishonour you have brought to your family".
Tailzo looks up, relief showing on his face, he nods. Aagetamori wavers for a second, then steps up: "I shall be his
kaikashukin". Tailzo nods again, takes off his coat and extends his hands, in which his
tanto is placed. He prepares himself, looks in the distance for a moment and then silently plunges the sword in his abdomen slicing from left to right, obviously struggling with the pain, but still without a word he then removes the blade and stabs himself again, above the initial cut and tries to repeat the slicing motion, but his strength seems to have left him. Obviously having great difficulty in keeping silent he extends his neck at which point Aagetamori unleashes a almost too powerful blow of the sword and decapitates Tailzo in an instant. While this is not exactly how the ritual of
seppuku is supposed to go, considering the circumstances it seemed acceptable.
The men dispersed, and then the body was taken, only a trail of blood matching the one made by the child only hours earlier is left.
Night 1 goNight 1 Actions:
Gatsu Shinichi:
*** First a correction, the alignment you can determine on a first investigation aren't pro or anti town, but rather "pro-town" or "not pro-town", sorry about that *** As the evening comes and you eat your simple meal you can't help but think about Aagetamori. Why would he volunteer so easily to be kaikashukin and why did he execute his duty in such an odd manner, not nearly as restrained as he should have been. This doesn't seem right at all. You leave your meal half finished, and after making sure no one is around leave and head for Yabu's house.
Soon enough you find a servant apparently on his way to use the toilet, as soon as he sees you he freezes and drops on his knees. You smile knowing it won't be exactly straightforward, but sooner or later you'll get what you need out of this poor man. A few minutes later you do indeed manage to accomplish your goal and the servant is talking freely, it was even easier than you had thought, seems you were lucky enough to find a cowards tonight, even by servants standards.
A few more minutes pass and you are now thoughtfully approaching your house. It seems your intuition was right, while the servant wasn't able to articulate himself too well you gathered that there were some odd things going on at the Yabu residence. It seemed clear enough that Aagetamori had his own interest at heart, and not the well-being of the town, besides this all you could get from the poor man grovelling in front of you were some incoherent tales about supernatural powers and folk tales. You decide this second part is most likely irrelevant, common people can be quite superstitious after all.
Still contemplating the consequences of your discovery you go to sleep, seems like it wasn't meant to be a restful night though.
After what seemed to you like minutes, but was actually hours, you are awoken by a light of some sort. This light though, seems to have an odd, almost metallic quality to it, you soon realize that it is not of this world. After your eyes adjust somewhat you think you can almost make out a shape, perhaps like a cloud at the centre of the light, but you don't have too much time to look at it before the weird apparition starts speaking in a soft voice.
"Do not be alarmed" it says. "I am a kami and have come here only to deliver a message. After i deliver it, if you so wish, i can give your response back to the original sender. I will not however deliver two messages in the same night, only a maximum of one message and one response. I will tell you what the message is now:"
Cop:
I am permitted to contact a Dayvig or nightvig or cop once a night, I obviously chose you.
I am basically a mole within the mafia faction. The mafia thinks I'm simply another goon.
I win when the rest of the mafia are dead and I survive with at least two town-aligned people.
I am not allowed to tell you my name or the names or the mafia, as per my PM.
Can you help me in any way?
PS. From the general story components of the thread, I got the impression that the thief would probably be 3rd party. What are your thoughts on that?
Hope to hear from you and speak to you tomorrow night!
"Do you have a reply?"
In case it wasn't clear you found that Yabu is not pro townIctorizu Sullimoto:
*** First a correction, the alignment you can determine aren't pro or anti town, but rather "pro-town" or "not pro-town", sorry about that *** As you go home you can't help but wonder if Tailzo truly had the towns downfall at heart. Sure he was a ronin, but were you not yourself a ronin at one point? Is being a Ronin and defending one's honour really enough to be executed for? Of course you couldn't express these thought in the open, but in your mind the idea grew, what if you had just killed an innocent man?
As you're trying and failing to sleep, Tailzo still on your mind, you make a sudden decision: why don't you just see for yourself. You shouldn't have any problems sneaking undetected through the night, and the magic you know, little though it may be, should be enough to get a glimpse of a dead man's soul, especially one who died in such potent circumstances.
Sure enough you have no trouble sneaking into the room where Tailzo's body has been temporarily lain. Once in you begin the ritual and hope no one will come to interrupt you as you are deep in meditation. It takes a little while but sure enough you manage to get a glimpse of Tailzo Gunshin's soul, and what you see saddens you. Though Tailzo was by no means a warrior poet as in the legends, and he did have his flaws, it seems that he cared quite deeply about the state of the town. You are not sure why, perhaps he thought that he could somehow redeem himself here, perhaps it was something else entirely, it matters not now. Your suspicions now confirmed you slowly return to your hut and can't help but think that if the circumstances had been slighlty different you might have well ended in Tailzo's position, condemned for a crime he didn't commit.
You doubt you shall get much sleep tonight.
-------------------
[/i] Tailzo was pro-town[/i]
Edoku Shin:
As you limp home for your night you can barely conceal your anger. "How could I let myself be injured in such a stupid manner, I should have snapped his neck in an instant ..." you think to yourself. You do not know how or when but you are now more determined than ever to carry out your plan.
Once at home you forgo any food and start meditating immediately, activity which you carry on for quite a few hours until you eventually fall asleep. You only manage to get a few minutes of rest though, when you are suddenly awoken by a sound, someone is in your house. Instantly you lunge to the side, and it isn't a moment to soon as you can almost hear the blade being plunged in the bed where your throat was moments ago.
You manage to grab your own sword and try to jump to your feet in one swift movement. Unfortunately you forgot about the sword wound in your abdomen. Your ambitious manoeuvre re-opens it, sending blood dripping on your legs and an unbelievable pain soaring throw your whole body. You fall back, flat on your back.
As you get a glimpse of the figure towering above you and wielding their sword like a dagger, it has burning red eyes. You attempt one more move, a kick to destabilize them. However you are either weaker than you thought or the man is exceptionally strong, as it doesn't seem to have any effect. The sword is plunged straight into your chest, you recoil in pain, then you see the sword approaching your eye, it is the last image you will ever see.
Thus ends your story, your vengeance unfulfilled, perhaps you will manage to find peace once more in another life.
I'm really kind of bummed that this happened to you, you were one of my favourite characters, oh well Kenta Ryutaro:
As the evening comes and you eat your simple meal you can't help but think about Aagetamori. Why would he volunteer so easily to be kaikashukin and why did he execute his duty in such an odd manner, not nearly as restrained as he should have been. This doesn't seem right at all. You leave your meal half finished, and after making sure no one is around leave and head for Yabu's house, determined to see anything that might be worth seeing.
A few hours pass without any activity, but a few hours is nothing to a skilled thief like yourself. Then as you lose concentration for a second, you suddenly notice Yabu has left his house and is moving quickly. You find this quite odd, how come you didn't hear him? but there's no time to ponder, you need to follow him, and follow him you do, straight to Edoku's house. Here Yabu seems to take a peek inside, then he takes a position where he can easily observe the house but where he can't be easily seen, looks like he is doing some tracking of his own.
You wait a few more hours and nothing seems to happen, you do become increasingly worried that Yabu might notice you. Careful as you are, a man can't stay still go so many hours without making some noise, and Yabu seems to be scanning his surrounding continuously, perhaps you have seen enough you reason, and quietly sneak off and go back home.
The rest of the night passes uneventfully.
Day 2:
The sun comes up and it's a new day. All is not well however in Sanmatsu-mura. Despite the death of Tailzo, no one feels really safe and this fact can be easily noticed in the everyday actions and interactions of the people. There seem to be significantly less children outside for instance.
One by one the people of Sanmatsu-mura wake up and go about their morning routines. Eventually the time comes for the town meeting to re-commence. Here however it becomes evident that someone is missing, it is Edoku.
Suddenly worried that his wound might have re-opened you all rush to his abode. The door seems to still be locked, though you have little difficulty breaking it down. Once inside you suspicions are confirmed, his wound had indeed reopened, but that was the least of his concerns.
Edoku is laying next to his bed, unsheathed sword in hand and a look of grim determination on what is left of his face. I say what is left of his face because he is a bloody mess. It is impossible to count correctly but there must have been at least a half dozen, maybe even a dozen stab wounds all over his body, the most prominent one being directly into his eye socket. There is no way a fight this brutal was done without waking anyone up, but then how? Perhaps he was stopped from shouting somehow, or perhaps he was killed quickly and the majority of the wound done posthumously, it is impossible to tell.
Upon closer inspection you notice a stab mark in the bed, one that didn't hit it's target. This and Edoku's reopened wound leads you to believe that he must have opposed some resistance, obviously not sufficient though. "If only he hadn't been injured during the day, perhaps he would have had a chance" someone remarks. "Eh, destiny's destiny" the response comes.
You hover in Edoku's house for a moment longer, then, one by one you exit and go towards the meeting place.
Day 2 go ------------------------------------------
Night 2: Just as most people find their way back to the meeting place Gatsu launches a heavy accusation against Aagetamori, he claims that he has unequivocally found that Yabu is acting against the best interests of the town, then he asks the rest of the town for input on this matter. The rest of the town, however, seems paralysed, perhaps the events of the last day and especially this morning has had a heavier effect on the villagers than it first seemed. Even Yabu himself seems slightly lethargic in defending himself, preferring to talk more about the death of Tailzo, seems like it still weighs on his mind for whatever reason.
Eventually Lala utters an agreement with Gatsu and Ictorizu seals the deal. The villagers have decided that Aagetamori is guilty. Yabu is also given the chance of performing seppuku, but he claims that his honour doesn't need cleansing. Therefore it is decided he will obly perform seppuku in the symbolic manner.
Before the punishment can be carried out however someone notes that Kenta hasn't showed himself at all in the past two days. In the excitement this had somehow slipped the villagers mind.
As they visit his household Kenta's wife announces them that her husband was called with urgent business to the north. The head samurai notes however that it is not proper for the Ryutaro household to have no voice in this critical moment for the town. After a few moments of thought the head samurai decides that the eldest son Shino Hana Ryutaro will assume his father's role for the purpose of this crisis.
As Shino is brought up to speed on the happenings of the last few days, and he vehemently states his agreement with the ruling regarding Yabu, the latter is prepared for his death. Since Sullimoto had sealed the fate of Yabu, it is decided he shall act as Yabu's second.
Yabu, kneels, a fan placed in front of him while Sullimoto takes his position behind. Yabu, once more looking almost indifferent picks up the fan, thus signalling he is ready. Sullimoto doesn't waiver a second and with a slash of the sword cuts everything except the first centimetre of Yabu's throat which causes his head to now hang from the flap of skin and rest on his chest. A perfect execution.
As Yabu's body is taken away the villagers start heading towards their houses once more, a fresh trail of blood matching Tailzo's marks that in Sanmatsu-mura the executioner can quickly become the executed. Doors will be securely locked tonight, that much is certain.
------------------------------------------------
Ictorizu Sullimoto:
As you head home you decide you will use your magic once more, this time on Yabu. After all it worked flawlessly last night, and it's always good to know the true heart of someone for which you acted as kaishaku.
As night comes you once more sneak into the mortuary room. Here, beside Tailzo, lies Yabu. You prepare yourself, make sure no one is around, and begin the ritual.
You have scarcely begun when you feel that something is wrong. There seem to be powerful entities interested in Yabu's soul and they don't appreciate you snooping around. It feels like you are being pulled inside a vortex, like you cannot leave whatever place you may be, you struggle with all your might but it seems in vain, then suddenly you are released and awaken lying flat on your back on the floor, a terrible migraine pounding in your head and a thin trail of blood leaving your nose.
You wipe the blood as you can't help but shiver, you hadn't expected that, you hadn't expected you'd get intimate with lower kamis tonight. Even though you didn't manage to get a glimpse of Yabu's soul the presence of kamis makes it pretty certain that he had bigger problems on his mind than the welfare of the town. You decide that you must have done the right thing by executing him.
You make your way back home, and despite your eventful evening, with the help of some sake you manage to fall asleep.
Lala, Yabu
After Yabu's death the lower kami's were worried. Their last source of power in the village was all alone and seemed unsure of his actions. It seemed that soon their influence upon this village would be at an end. However they could not directly interfere without being previously summoned by a kaishaku. Their last recourse was, instead of leaving Yabu's soul to find whatever peace it may, to bind it to Lala's. This way, they reckoned, at least the two would still be able to reason together, two minds being obviously better than one.
Shino Hana:
Since last night's tracking went fairly well you decide to do the same tonight, only this time it is Lala Ando who has attracted your curiosity. He did seem overly quiet the last day.
Once more you await the night, check you surrounding carefully, and set off for Lala's house. Once there you find an appropriate spot for spying and start waiting.
The hours go by, yet nothing happens, Lala's house is sunken in darkness and silence. Eventually you figure that if you don't leave soon, you won't get any sleep, and you don't want your tiredness to attract suspicion the next morning.
You return home, and sleep uneventfully till morning.
Gatsu Shinichi:
Happy with the results of the day you head towards your house and ponder who you should investigate tonight. You decide on Ando, he has been awfully quiet recently, and hasn't been acting quite right.
After your meal you make your way to the Ando residence, however here you notice the oddest thing. There are no servants outside the house at all.
You wait for a while, circle the house impatiently, still no servants to be seen though.
Annoyed, you grab a servant from a different household and inquire about this odd occurrence. The man seems very surprised that you are interested in such matters, and just murmurs that he knows nothing of it, apparently they all just left before sunset, though the Ando family is certainly still inside, you can see them dining through a window right now.
This really is an unusual turn of events, but there is nothing else you can do, there are all sorts of dishonourable places that the servants frequent and it would be both dishonourable and impractical for you to start searching these.
Disappointed you go home, not having found anything new tonight.
As you go to sleep you half expect to be awaken in the middle of the night by the same kami, however this night turns out to be a quiet one and you sleep undisturbed.
Day 3:
The sun rises once more, unaffected by the dramatic events unfolding in Sanmatsu-mura.
A good while after the darkness has dissipated people start unlocking their doors and cautiously tending to their daily rituals. Fear is still very much in the air.
Eventually the remaining heads of families gather in the meeting place. To everyone's relief, no one is missing this morning.
Day 3 go--------------------------------------------------
Night 3:
The oddly uneventful night seems to have been echoed by the villagers into today's actions. No new information or leads are found.
This does not mean however that the day doesn't have it's fair share of strange occurrences. On the one hand Ando makes some odd remarks about being able to communicate with other villagers during the night, remarks which strangely enough seem to be accepted as truth by the other villagers immediately. On the other hand Sullimoto acts erratically for the whole duration of the day. Perhaps the sake is to blame once more, perhaps it is something else?
Either way, eventually, the villagers decide that they cannot afford to kill a man without any kind of evidence so, grudgingly, the decision to end the meeting without any tangible result is made.
Will the unusual streak of calmness continue tonight? Only time will tell.
Night 3, goGatsu Shinichi:
You don't have much to go on tonight, however you did find Sullimoto's behaviour mighty suspicious, so you decide you might as well pay his servants a visit.
As you approach the house you are slightly anxious, considering the odd occurrence of the previous evening, but all seems to be fine, servants are all around the house doing their duties.
You manage to find one that is alone and appear before him. As the man drops to his knees you start pressuring him. This one manages to resist longer than Yabu's servant, but soon enough he starts talking. It seems all kind of interesting rumours about Sullimoto are circulating among the servants. There is the usual nonsense about spirits and supernatural powers, but despite your meeting with the kami, you still find these tales hard to believe. However, two things do catch your interest. First of all, Sullimoto's past seems to be a close guarded secret, no one knows a thing about his life before he settled in Sanmatsu-mura, and that's just the way he wants it to remain. Secondly, some servants swear that they can hear sneaking of during some of the nights, mighty suspicious behaviour that. These two stories seem enough to you, and you make up your mind that Sullimoto does not actually have the town's best interest at heart.
Satisfied with this result you return home and prepare for sleep, wondering if tonight the kami will make himself known once more.
After a few hours of sleep you are indeed awoken by the now somewhat familiar yet still extremely strange light. The kami speaks: I have a new message for you Shinichi, the message reads:
Last night, I tried to make contact with Day Vig, but either we don't have one (anymore?) or I was blocked or something because I was told that it failed. I did not contact you again because I was just trying to make more contacts and get more info if I could.
I am not allowed to tell you who the other scum is, and I also cannot be the first vote on a person tomorrow.... no quite sure why, but it's what Mod told me... and I'm not going to disobey.
The scum who could make the night kills is no longer alive, and so there shouldn't be any kills tonight... unless it's by another party. The remaining scum member has a clause where if (s)he can make a kill if a certain chain of events happen then (s)he gets a nightkill, but I'm not sure on what those are specifically, and if I did I wouldn't be allowed to tell you.
Basically, there's a 50% chance of hitting scum if we both know that we're town. Hopefully your investigation tonight will narrow it down.
Do you have a response for me?
Lala Ando:
Soon after sending the message you are bathed in the other-wordly light once more. The kami relays his message and the dissapears:
I suppose the day vig was Tailzo, anyway I have pretty clear who's the guilty party now... I just hope that the certain chain of events you speak of isn't related to the nonsense we saw at the end of the day and that we all can make it through the night safely.
You feel satisfied with yourself. Your scheming seems to be working.
The rest of the night passes uneventfully.
Ictorizo Sullimoto:
You decide there's no reason to stop investigating the dead now. Though you have no reason to suspect Edoku, he is the only one left, so he must be your choice for the night.
Once more you manage to make it to the mortuary room without incident, and once more, after verifying that no one is around, you start the ritual.
You are somewhat apprehensive after the happenings of last night, but this time there seem to be no kamis around, as you start feeling the soul of Edoku.
As soon as you start you realise something is wrong here. Hate, so much hate, it's almost all hate. You've never felt something like this before, this cannot be the soul of any sane man, all this pure hatred. You break out of the ritual once more, shivering, though for different reasons. Who would have thought this lay under the calm exterior of Edoku. There is no doubt, Edoku definitely had other, significantly darker motives at heart than the welfare of Sanmatsu-mura.
As you head back to your home you realize that perhaps Tailzo didn't die in vain after all, if his death is at least in part responsible for that of Edoku, it might have all been worth it.
Shino Hana:
You decide to try your luck once more tonight, perhaps you'll manage to uncover something. This time your choice of target is simple, no one acted more strange that Sullimoto today.
You move silently to a hidden spot near his house and wait. Later, much later, in the dead of the night, you think you see something. More out of boredom than anything you decide to investigate. To your surprise you realize it is actually Sullimoto, you hadn't dreamt that any man, especially such an old one could move this quietly.
Soon, from a healthy distance, you see him head into the mortuary room. This is the place where all of the bodies are temporarily deposited. The remains of Edoku, Yabu and Tailzo are all still in there. After half an hour or so you then see him heading out and going back to his house. You decide to peek inside the mortuary but can find nothing out of the ordinary in here.
Not really understanding what he possibly had to do in there in the dead of the night, you decide to go home and get some well deserved rest.
--------------------------
Day 4
The morning comes once more in Sanmatsu-mura, and there seems to be something new in the air, it's optimism. People are starting to return to their normal daily routines. Villagers are starting to hope that all the drama is over, since there havn't been any death in a while.
The head samurai though isn't so easily convinced, and he once more calls for a meeting. One by one the members gather, and to everyone's relief this was another bloodless night.
Thus, on a note of renewed hope, the meeting begins.
Day 4, goNight 4
As soon as the meeting starts Gatsu coldly announces that he has proof of Sullimoto's guilt. Sullimoto's only defence is some odd claim about not going down so easily. This peculiar threat, combined with his odd behaviour of late ensures that the town people quickly reach the conclusion that they'd quite like to see his head next to his feet.
The proceedings for seppuku go uneventfully, Sullimoto seeming quite at peace, not worried in the least. He kneels in the traditional position, Lala Ando behind him having volunteered to act as kaishaku. He grabs the knife, waits a moment, then suddenly lifts his body mass just enough so he can pivot on the ball of one foot and lunges at Ando.
Lala is obviously surprised by this sudden burst of speed, who would have thought an old man capable of such a feat, this causes him to hesitate for a moment, which means that my the time his sword strikes it doesn't hit Sullimoto's neck, only his left arm. Sullimoto seems to not even notice the sword half-way through his upper arm and instead completes his lunge by putting his dagger through Ando's chest, just as Gatsu's sword strikes through his.
"Fools" he mutters one last time before Gatsu flips him over on the ground and decapitates him.
In the mean-time, Shino rushes over to see what state Ando is in. The dagger went straight through his heart, killing him on the spot. The old man was certainly no amateur.
This was indeed a bloody day, but, it also saw the last threat to the village killed. The townspeople would continue to be careful for some time, and the meeting would continue to be held, but no more killings would occur.
Sanmatsu-mura was once again safe.[/spoiler]
Idk why people think it was unbalanced... If town had so much going against them, then how could we have won...?