"Kill you all how dare you all alone I'll kill you myself I'll kill you I'll kill you pay all of you kill you KILL YOU ALL
-Vangua"
There is only one note the next morning, written in a hand they all recognize but in a tone that is distinctly and distressingly
not reminiscent of smiles and conceit and little flourished hearts at the end. In fact, there isn't much of anything at the end—the letter just stops mid-signature, only a few specks of blood where the rest of the word "Vanguard" ought to be. There are a few seconds of silence and bewildered blinking—wait,
what?—before Squirrel notices that there seems to be something written on the back.
"Haha. Hahaha. Ha. Ha. Fucking. Ha. And 'ha' to your stupid friend over there, too.
-Lloyd Irving was here :)"
The confused muttering the group starts up is curtailed by a jaunty whistle coming from down the street. Karkat Vantas saunters up, late to the party but apparently not concerned about that in the slightest. His only answer to the flood of questions that comes his way is to hold up a hand and motion back down the street he'd been walking along.
Save for the gleeful disembowelment of Derpy Hooves a few days earlier, the scene that greets them once they turn a corner contains perhaps the highest quantity of blood they've seen yet. Apparently that katana pinned Grate Aural Sects to the door of the bakery quite some time ago, judging by the size of the red pool spreading out beneath it. There is rather a lot more red surrounding the corpses of Jack_the_PumpkinKing and Eifie—Jack is probably responsible for the majority of the mess, considering the way that massive sword Eifie is still holding has sloppily but efficiently cut him up into a bunch of little Jacks, but the second katana blade blooming from her own back has created a sizable puddle as well. She honestly doesn't seem to mind it, however. She looks so happy with that big grin still plastered all over her face, and those wide, wild eyes, and... okay, maybe she looks crazy. But the
happy kind of crazy. The kind of happy-crazy that is totally okay with being stabbed and falling on top of a pile of unfinished, raving notes. It's all good, really. At least she's not alone anymore.
Before Karkat can resume his preening and tell everyone that, no, really, it was no big deal, just doing his job, no need to thank him except maybe with a lot of money and also girls and do they make good hotdogs here? there is a high-pitched, keening scream. Someone rushes out from the crowd and collides with him in a flying tackle, knocking him straight into the pool of coagulating blood. "No, no, no no no no
NO you bastard you killed it you killed my master
I'll kill you!" Mai shrieks, slamming her clenched fists into every part of him she can reach. Her screeching crescendos, she bares her teeth in a feral snarl and her hands close around his throat; had Kirby-Chan and Seritinajii not been quick to jump on her and pull her off, she probably would have throttled the smug look right off of his face. Now properly restrained, she resigns herself to wailing and shooting heartrending looks in Grate Aural Sects's direction before she is dragged off to be dealt with.
There is silence again as a sobbing Mai is carted away, but it lasts only a few seconds before it gives way to raucous, tired cheering. It's over. It's finally,
finally over. No more killing, no more violence, no more crazy notes, no more staying up at night unable to sleep because they feel like they can't trust anyone ever again. The Vanguard has fallen and Meltokio is safe, if a bit more sparsely populated than it was before. The loss of over half of their number, including the recent demise of Jack, still leaves an uncomfortable tightness in their chests, but for now they laugh as they go about cleaning up the last of the destruction. Time for grieving later; time for relief and the release of all that pent-up stress and fear now.
And then, after that, maybe time for some breakfast they won't be too nauseated to keep down.
Jack_the_PumpkinKing is dead. He was not mafia.
Eifie is dead. She was mafia.
Grate Aural Sects is dead. It was mafia.
And since Eifie was the last remaining member of the Vanguard proper,
the innocents win!
As I've said before, my GM docs are a haphazard mess distributed across multiple files that I am just plain
not in the mood to go through and make presentable right now; the night action log, my comments/explanations on certain confusing things and the running tally of posts I considered point-worthy (if you guys want to see that) will have to wait until sometime Wednesday, I'm afraid. In the meantime, though,
here is a pastebin of the role PMs; the role/player list follows.
- Phantom - Alice/Poisoner
- Derpy Hooves - Noishe/Friendly Neighbor
- Grate Aural Sects - Richter/Terrorist
- Applebloom - Decus/Roleblocker
- Twilight Sparkle - Zelos/Doublevoter
- Mai - Aqua/Rolestopper
- OrngSumb - Kratos/Bodyguard
- Karkat Vantas - Lloyd/Vigilante
- Keltena/tehSR (replaced d1) - Presea/Commuter
- Arylett Dawnsborough - Tenebrae/Distractor
- Cirrus - Hawk/Framer
- Jack_the_PumpkinKing - Colette/Jack-of-all-Trades
- Flower Doll - Genis/Inspector
- Stormecho - Botta/Voyeur
- I liek Squirtles – Raine/Doctor
- InvaderSyl - Regal/Tracker
- Applejack - Mithos/Serial Killer
- Legendaryseeker99 - Dirk/Inventor
- Kirby-Chan - Yuan/Streetear
- Seritinajii - Marta/Deactivator
- Wargle - Wonder Chef/Pitcher
- Dannichu - Corrine/Mirror
- Squirrel - Sheena/Doctor
- Negrek – Emil/Alien
- Chief Zackrai – Brute/Hitman
If the mafia doesn't mind, I can also post the link to the quicktopic they used to carry out most of their discussion.
Good game, everybody. It was fun to watch and GM! (And also fun to not get killed. That too.)