Serial Killer Round 58: A Brotherhood Betrayed (Game over! The Traitor is dead!)

[Malbourne]

Welp, here goes. A last stand! For justice, honor, maybe a promotion. And maybe I managed to make a difference!

Spoiler: And I got to use my role as Paladin!

Being an initiate and all, I hadn't really been down to the reactor core that often. One of the engineers was always slapping my hand when I touched the handle, said it would "melt your brain faster than a bowl of sugar bombs." Here I was, though, and it really wasn't that scary...or dangerous.

That is, unless the reactor suffered sudden bludgeoning trauma.

After an indeterminable time (I lost track of the days we'd been under lockdown, but it definitely felt like years), I'd decided it was time to try something, anything. So I followed the person I thought most guilty down here and locked the door behind me. Bravado does funny things to a rookie's mind. Now I was kneeling by one of the bunker's reactors, holding a big, fat monkeywrench in my hand.

Still, this was my role as Head Paladin, and I was damn well gonna make the most of it. Too late to back out now. Time to go Prime on this sucker. The reactor was beginning to whine, growing more and more unstable as I repeatedly buried the wrench deep inside the tin shell. It was only a matter of time now, and I dropped the wrench, searching for the exit once more as the reactor's humming grew in intensity. This place was going to become a tomb in a couple of minutes, and I didn't want to be anywhere near here.

Now where did I put that key...

 

[Schizzy]

Spoiler: I'm sleeping with this under my pillow tonight.

 

[deserteagleeye]

Spoiler: Despair double whammy!

I knew when they called me in to check the reactor core that one of the initiates must've been fiddling with the console again. Honestly, it's as if the title "Scribe" had become synonymous with "babysitter" all of the sudden. Not to mention Paladin Jak always asking me for spare microfusion cells or as he likes to call them, "green batteries".

I examined the console banks while checking off the values on a clipboard. They seemed to all be in order, so why in god's sake was I called down here. Suddenly I heard clanging inside the reactor chamber. I tried to peek through the chamber door's glass window but it had fogged up too much from the inside. I cautiously entered fanning the area with my clipboard. As soon as I stepped in I heard a single solid clang of something hitting the floor, then some figure sprinted right past me out the chamber locking the door behind him.

"Hey! What did-?"

I stopped short after a scalding hot burst of steam burns my clipboard hand. The reactor was spouting steam from the rivets as they shoot off and ricochet around in the compact chamber. I banged at the chamber door screaming for help only to find Initiate Malbourne standing right outside rummaging through his pockets. He looked up the stairs leading up and out of the room with a sudden pause. A sudden green flash of light poured from the stairwell facing Malbourne. Malbourne fell flat on his back with a melted hole in his torso. And there walking down the stairs with one slow purposeful step after the next was my hero clad in power armor and armed with plasma rifle. I smile in relief as the soldier spots me peeking in the window and motions towards the door.

"Boy am I glad you ca-"

*Soldier busts in glass window with the butt of the gun*

"AAAAAAH GOD MY EYES! THERE IS GLASS IN MY EYYYYYES!"

*Soldier takes off helmet*
"Hey Scribbles! You got any more green batteries lying around?"

"JAK YOU MOTHERFU-"

[HEADING=2]*BOOM*[/HEADING]​

Not only was I innocent, I was also Entwined with Jak23.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot...this is like shooting your own severed foot at your other foot with a Rock-It Launcher.

 

[Neuromancer]

@Desert: You really are a magnet for arbiting, aren't you?

 

[Neuromancer]

Wait, wait, wait.

The Head Paladin has the power to instantly execute one other player without the need for a vote, or intervention on any other player's behalf, or that of the GM. Should the Head Paladin do so both the they, and their target are killed to maintain the balance of the game, and thus allow the Traitor to continue should they not be executed.All the other roles save for the Hacker and the Traitor are immune to the Head Paladin. Should the Head Paladin pick one of the immune roles for their target they will lose their powers for the rest of the games regardless.

Emphasis mine. The Entwined are a role, so doesn't that mean that no one dies and the Head Paladin just loses his powers?

 

[Drummodino]

@Neuro: Was that always the case with the other roles? I don't recall them being immune to the Arbiter before...

 

[Neuromancer]

@Drum: No, when I was Arbiter it was that the chosen person dies regardless of role. I believe it was changed last round.

 

[deserteagleeye]

@Nuerohamster: Well that's no fun.

 

[Neuromancer]

@Desert: [sub]I'm trying to save you you numbskull![/sub]

 

[Jak23]

@Desert: I love that you made me a complete retard. It seems fitting due to my seeming inability to check my inbox.

However it looks like we may not be dead?...
Though let's be honest, even if this gets retconned, we both know who the killer will pick next...

 

[username sucks]

Wait, wait, wait.

The Head Paladin has the power to instantly execute one other player without the need for a vote, or intervention on any other player's behalf, or that of the GM. Should the Head Paladin do so both the they, and their target are killed to maintain the balance of the game, and thus allow the Traitor to continue should they not be executed.All the other roles save for the Hacker and the Traitor are immune to the Head Paladin. Should the Head Paladin pick one of the immune roles for their target they will lose their powers for the rest of the games regardless.

Emphasis mine. The Entwined are a role, so doesn't that mean that no one dies and the Head Paladin just loses his powers?

Wat.

Just... What? Why... As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason for that rule to exist and I would just ignore it, but I guess I'll just have to wait for official word from that SK council.

The problem is, I completely forgot everyone on the council. It may not even exist and is just a figment of my brain-addled mind, but I'm pretty sure I remember something about a council.

 

[Neuromancer]

@username: I am inclined to believe that it is made so to encourage Arbiters to use their power more. As it stood before the Arbiter would hesitate to go for anyone because it is very much possible they'd kill someone with a "friendly" role.

It also adds utility for the role, allowing them to see if a person has a role. Risky utility, mind you, but it could work well when someone's claiming to have a role.

 

[username sucks]

@Neuro: ... you have a point.

Whelp, it looks like I fucked up on my second try running a game of SK as well. I don't really know if a retconn would be a good idea at this stage, so I'll just wait for the council that may or may not even be around to tell me what I should do.

 

[RaNDM G]

@shenanigans: If you ask me, the Arbiter is a glass cannon to be used as the wielder sees fit. Shouldn't matter who it's pointed at.

 

[Neuromancer]

@RaNDM: A glass cannon that has very little usefulness. The role needed a buff, especially with the introduction of the lawyer.

 

[username sucks]

@Topaz: There is that all-powerful council that has not said a single thing since its creation. They make the rules now. The thing is, the rule that we have an issue with is a new rule that was never mentioned by anyone and so I failed to notice it. So I somehow managed to break a rule that I never knew existed.

 

[Drummodino]

@Topaz: There is that all-powerful council that has not said a single thing since its creation. They make the rules now. The thing is, the rule that we have an issue with is a new rule that was never mentioned by anyone and so I failed to notice it. So I somehow managed to break a rule that I never knew existed.

Well I'm a council member and I wasn't even aware that the rule had been changed that way. I say we just carry on with Mal, desert and Jak all dead for now and before next round we hammer out the details over the Arbiter role. That seems to be the simplest solution.

Unless the other council members want to chip in?

EDIT: The others on the council are Aero, Michi, Link, desert and Neo by the way.

 

[Schizzy]

@user: Don't feel too bad about it. Usually any changes are announced, but I don't recall this particular mechanic being in there for the Arbiter.

 

[Link_to_Future]

All the other roles save for the Hacker and the Traitor are immune to the Head Paladin. Should the Head Paladin pick one of the immune roles for their target they will lose their powers for the rest of the games regardless.

Oh god dammit.

This is what happens when people don't think before they enact a goddamned rule.

You know why this rule was put in place? It was to specifically counteract when an arbiter hit the spy deliberately to help the killer.

When it happened last, it was extremely stupid. But putting a rule in place to counteract it defeats a lot of the risk involved in a normally played arbiter.

Did I accidentally kill an important role? Who knows? Guess we'll find out.

But this is especially egregious with the entwined in play. The entwined is entirely there as an equalizing factor. If the arbiter neutralized that, it would literally make it impossible for the killer to win barring Ran levels of betrayal. In fact, it would make ties far more possible since there would be an even number of participants for every single voting cycle.

Basically, I say ignore that fucking rule. It shouldn't be there and whoever put it there was not considering the impact it would have on the entire system...