Mafia IX: Information and summary thread

[GeneralHankerchief]

This thread is only to be used to house the write-ups and relevant information from Mafia IX.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Post 128 of main thread.

Day breaks in the Frontroom. All is quiet. It was a tranquil Spring day, the first truly beautiful weather the villagers had witnessed since they had hunkered in for the long, dark, cold winter back in the fall, several months ago. Finally, there looked to be rebirth. Finally, the sun was coming out again.

My, how quickly this would change.

A white, unmarked van slowly pulled up to Crazed Rabbit's house. Outside stepped a man, sharply-dressed save for the fact that he was wearing stereotypical 1950s deliveryman clothing. When Crazed Rabbit went to answer the door, he too was bemused by this man's clothing choice, but never got the chance to mention it.

"Telegram," said the deliveryman, handing CR an envelope.

"Telegram?" CR asked, eying the deliveryman while at the same time taking the envelope. "Those things are still around?"

"Well," the deliveryman said, "like everyone else, we're tightening the belt a bit with this economy. But yeah, despite phones and the internet and everything, there's still a market for telegrams. Chalk it up to them being obsolete enough to be classified as 'retro' and thus cool I guess, I don't know. I suppose it's a moot point, since it's paying my bills. Anyway, you'll sign for it?"

"Uh... sure," CR said, still off-guard by the strangeness of the entire encounter. He accepted a pen from the deliveryman and signed the paper on his clipboard, returning both to the deliveryman. He then attempted to tear open the envelope, with little success.

"Say, this is sealed pretty tightly," CR said. "Do you by any chance have a letter opener on you?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," the deliveryman said, digging into his pockets for one. A second later, he came up with it, but instead of handing it to CR he instead moved quickly, slitting the unsuspecting homeowner's throat. CR fell to his knees, gasping for air that would not come.

"But... but why... not kill... me right a-... away?" he managed to choke out.

"All telegrams must be signed for," the deliveryman said with a flourish, and then walk out. He did not bother to see Crazed Rabbit expire in his own foyer.

Andres was out and enjoying the pleasant day along with the various flora and fauna of the Frontroom, taking in the sight of the golden sun dazzling its light on all the creatures of the earth. Yes, Andres was truly one with nature for the moment; he was mowing the lawn.

Mowing the lawn provided a nice bit of solitude for Andres. The ever-present sound of the motor conveniently tuned out any other annoying human and their annoying requests, allowing his thoughts to truly wander as he completed his task. In addition, it got him out of the house, and on a beautiful day such as this he jumped at the chance to get out and manicure the grass into uniform precision.

Andres didn't really have a set pattern for cutting the grass; he took whatever route fancied him that day. Today's route, as it would have it, had him cut a long stretch of grass while facing north. It was a very long stretch of grass, as a matter of fact. It often took Andres well over a minute to finish that stretch before turning the mower.

As he would have it, it only took well over a minute for someone to approach him from the south while (oddly) lugging a cooler, set the cooler down, take an icicle out of the cooler, and stab him with said icicle from said cooler. As Andres lay on his well-kept lawn, watching two puddles from his blood and the icicle form and then increase, the only thought that went through his head was that maybe the lawnmower's motor wasn't so pleasant after all. Maybe it was, as his wife had informed him on countless occasions, overly loud, obnoxious, and liable to make him miss something important.

In a certain office in the center of town...

"Hello?" the man said, picking up the phone. "Yes? What... oh... oh, no. O-okay. Yes." He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, sighing heavily. It seemed as if the weight of the word had just been dropped on him all at once. After about a minute of despair, the man rose from his chair and walked over to a section of wall. On it was a plaque, entitled "Esteemed Predecessors". Below the plaque was a picture of a man who, despite his cowl, looked very much like a lumberjack:



The man brushed aside the picture, for behind it was a hole in the wall. In that hole was a thick binder. He took it out of the wall and examined the cover. "In Case of Mafia Assault on Frontroom," it read.

"Right then," Chief of Police Lemur said to himself, "Let's do this."

Thirty minutes later, he had gathered everyone in the town square and prepared to make an announcement. "All right, folks," he began. "About thirty minutes ago, I received a report of there being two separate murders in the town. Unfortunately, Crazed Rabbit and Andres are both dead, CR courtesy of his throat being slit and Andres due to a stab wound. I have reliable information that these murders are mafia hits, meaning that they're trying to wipe out our town."

There was an audible gasp among the people in the town square. The Frontroom was the Kingdom of Peace and Love! Why would anyone want to assault it?

"However folks, remain calm. I do have a plan," Lemur said. "Now then..." he muttered to himself, thumbing through the binder. "Ah, yes, it says so right here. In cases like this, democracy is the best defense against annihilation. You all know each other, surely you'll be able to figure out who the two traitors are amongst yourselves better than honest police work can. Therefore, it will be up to you to smoke out the mafia and lynch them. Every day until the murders stop, you will vote for who you think is guilty. At the end of the day, whoever has the most votes is lynched. Got it?"

The villagers nodded. "Good, then the first day of voting begins. Let's hope it's the last day, too. Best of luck, everyone."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (32)
Yaseikhaan
Sasaki Kojiro
Secura
Csargo
johnhughthom
Askthepizzaguy
Beefy187
Methos
White_eyes:D
Sigurd
Kagemusha
Subotan
Beskar
Captain Blackadder
Joooray
pevergreen
Renata
atheotes
shlin28
Diamondeye
Winston Hughes
Double A
Centurion1
Chaotix
Thermal Mercury
Cultured Drizzt fan
Ibn-Khaldun
woad&fangs
Psychonaut
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
TinCow
Reenk Roink

Killed:
Crazed Rabbit
Andres

It is now Day 1! Voting will close in around 24 hours.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Post 271 of main thread.

The sun crept ever lower into the sky, a sign that voting for the day was nearly complete. The villagers of the Frontroom had been a lively bunch for the entire day, taking up their task with gusto and flinging around accusations like there was no tomorrow. For some of them, this would be the truth.

One of the earliest of such accusations was directed at Diamondeye. Some people initially questioned the validity of this accusation, especially considering the fact that the accusation was made up entirely of rhetoric and no actual information or evidence, but it was popular nevertheless. As a matter of fact, it was only in the middle of the day when Diamondeye gave a defense of himself that the votes started shifting elsewhere. Soon, Renata appeared to be in very hot water. As a matter of fact, the votes were even tied at one point.

"All right..." Chief of Police Lemur muttered to himself, looking alternatively at his watch and the setting sun. "Voting will close in five seconds... four... three..."

"WAIT!" shouted one villager, and then another right after him. "I don't like my vote! Move me into the 'abstain' column!" The other villager shouted his like-minded change just as time expired. Renata breathed a huge sigh of relief. Diamondeye groaned.

"Okay, Diamondeye," Lemur said, "Step right up to my new execution platform. It's still somewhat under construction to be able to handle more... elaborate... methods of death, so right now it's just a platform. But it'll still suffice." He paused, leafing through his binder. "Ah, yes, before I'm to execute you, it's customary that the condemned is allowed a set of last words. So, uh, any last words?"

"Not really," Diamondeye said, the gravity of the entire situation still not fully clear to him. "Uh, sorry, I guess, and good luck catching the two mafiosi since you screwed up with me."

The entire (suitably large) crowd gathered in, as if they have been conditioned to expect an elaborate and cool execution. However, they were to be denied, as Lemur simply took out a pistol and unceremoniously blasted Diamondeye in the head.

"What?" said Lemur as the crowd started to mutter with disapproval. "I'm still new to this Chief of Police stuff! Give me some time to get on my feet and cook up some really creative executions! They'll be awesome, I promise! But... uh... let's hope we never have to use them and that you were on-target with your choice today, and all that jazz. Good night, folks!"

Day 1 tally:

Diamondeye: 6 (khaan, Beefy, ATPG, TinCow, Renata, Kage)
Renata: 5 (Diamondeye, Joooray, Winston, atheotes, Sasaki)
Yaseikhaan: 3 (Secura, AVSM, Split)
Psychonaut: 1 (Centurion)
Centurion1: 1 (Beskar)
White_eyes:D: 1 (Psychonaut)
Sasaki Kojiro: 1 (Methos)
Csargo: 1 (pevergreen)
Beefy187: 1 (woad&fangs)
atheotes: 1 (Csargo)
TinCow: 1 (Thermal)
Beskar: 1 (Double A)
A Very Super Market: 1 (Subotan)

Abstained: 5 (Chaotix, Ibn-Khaldun, Reenk, shlin, White_eyes)
Didn't vote: 3 (johnhughthom, Sigurd, Captain Blackadder)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (31)
Yaseikhaan
Sasaki Kojiro
Secura
Csargo
johnhughthom
Askthepizzaguy
Beefy187
Methos
White_eyes:D
Sigurd
Kagemusha
Subotan
Beskar
Captain Blackadder
Joooray
pevergreen
Renata
atheotes
shlin28
Winston Hughes
Double A
Centurion1
Chaotix
Thermal Mercury
Cultured Drizzt fan
Ibn-Khaldun
woad&fangs
Psychonaut
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
TinCow
Reenk Roink

Killed:
Crazed Rabbit
Andres

Executed:
Diamondeye

Congratulations on surviving your first full phase. It is now Night 2! Orders in 24 hours, please.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Post 309 of main thread.

Day breaks in the Frontroom. All is quiet. Despite the horrible deaths of yesterday, many villagers were still determined to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go outside to partake in various leisure activities. One such villager was atheotes, and his leisure activity of choice was walking. Normally, he took the scenic route around the Frontroom Park (where he got the visit the osmium-rich pond and the ducks), but today he decided to hit the denser part of the town. Buildings flanked the street.

atheotes paused to examine the architecture, not really paying attention to much else. Therefore, he was taken by surprised when somebody else's voice rang out.

He heard someone screaming "atheotes, Watch Out! There is a red dot on your chest! It's a Sniper!!!"

The man threw atheotes what appeared to be a bulletproof vest, and he put it on without much thought. Not noticing that it was a vest covered with C-4 explosives!

It was too late to take off the vest though, the button was pushed, and atheotes went KABLOOEE!

A laser pointer was found at the scene...

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Double A had decided to sleep late. After the long execution vote of yesterday, Double A realized that he had not yet begun his St. Patrick's Day celebrations. He decided that it was only fair to all the Irish out there that he would have to start making up ground, and quickly. So he drank. And drank. And drank some more, going strong on Guinness (which he had never had before) until roughly 4:30 AM, when he finally passed out.

As such, it took the man at the door well over a dozen doorbell rings before Double A finally rejoined the world and stumbled downstairs to answer the door.

"Carpenter," the man said, dressed in overalls and carrying a bag of tools in one of his hands. A white van was parked outside the house. "Need a patio built? Porch reinforced? Sunroom added to your house? I'm your man!"

"...gurgh?" Double A managed to mutter after unsuccessfully trying to comprehend the man at the door.

"Well, all righty then," the man said cheerfully, and then let himself in the house. Looking around the house, he didn't waste any time at all giving his appraisal of the situation.

"Hmm, this'll do, perhaps here - no, here's better, yes, here. We could make it 12x18, not too bad a size really, when you think about it. Roofing would be a different story of course, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it - sorry, did I say 'burn'? I meant 'cross', of course. Why in Heaven's name would I say 'burn'? I mean, what's the point of burning a bridge when you come to it? You do that, you can't cross the bridge at all, which isn't a very efficient use of your time. If you were absolutely insistent on burning bridges, you should probably do it after you cross, that way nobody gets to follow you across, which could be useful, I suppose, depending on the situation you're in-" He finally paused, glancing at the still-out-of-it Double A. His eyes were barely open, feeling around for a lightswitch that was on the other side of the wall.

"Oh, there's no point in keeping up this charade any more," the carpenter said. "You're much too hung over to do anything about me anyway. Reaching into his tool bag, he brought out his staple gun and made one adjustment to the house before leaving. The south wall of the foyer now had a Double A-sized ornament stapled to it.

Later that day, Chief of Police Lemur gathered everyone in the Frontroom square in order to make an announcement.

"All right people," he said, "Obviously, there were two more deaths today. Double A was found dead from puncture wounds and massive loss of blood. atheotes died from a stratagem so deadly and so original I had never even thought about such a method before. No, as a matter of fact I had never even envisioned such an original and creative kill. As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody has. Ever." He finally stopped, staring out at the crowd as if to drive home a point.

"Anyway, yeah, so that's where we stand. The mafia are still obviously loose, so you guys get to try again. I wish you better luck this time!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (29)
Yaseikhaan
Sasaki Kojiro
Secura
Csargo
johnhughthom
Askthepizzaguy
Beefy187
Methos
White_eyes:D
Sigurd
Kagemusha
Subotan
Beskar
Captain Blackadder
Joooray
pevergreen
Renata
shlin28
Winston Hughes
Centurion1
Chaotix
Thermal Mercury
Cultured Drizzt fan
Ibn-Khaldun
woad&fangs
Psychonaut
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
TinCow
Reenk Roink

Killed:
Crazed Rabbit
Andres
atheotes
Double A

Executed:
Diamondeye

It is now Day 2! The round will last approximately 24 hours.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Post 397 of main thread.

Day Two of voting had officially ended. All in all the day was a bit more subdued than yesterday, although there were still several interesting discussions that happened. Several of the townspeople took very professorial tones when discussing their cases - although truth be told it was more about the theory of wider detective work than actual cases on people - and others, much to the chagrin of the official vote-counters, voted for targets that had no chance of getting lynched.

Early in the day though, Chaotix set himself to be the main target. However, this was not because he was the object of the passionate-but-random bandwagon that doomed Diamondeye. Instead, he was bandwagoned because he spoke out against that exact type of bandwagon; too loudly, some reasoned. "Almost as if he had something to hide," one villager would say afterwards.

Chaotix, however, would not lie down and die, instead trying to engage the "professorial" townies with academic logic of his own. This endeavor was mildly successful, but the increasingly-verbose Chaotix, forgetting how he got into this situation in the first place, probably kept talking too much for his own good.

"See, now, folks," he said, "the problem is with random lynches is that they're just that: random! They fail to factor in the data or the context of the situation, which means that in reality their percent chance of success is actually lower than what it should be because the Mafia know this and are thus able to manipulate the context to make it less likely that the 'random' votes will attract them, which means that in reality random votes are not random at all! So, faced with this parcel of knowledge, we should instead not randomly, but purposefully, vote for those who would randomly vote for others, since their randomness is precisely the purpose and unrandomness that dooms us all! So, in conclusion, the random achieves predetermined, manipulated results, and only by fighting the random can we truly embrace it! Uh, mind getting your votes off me now?"

General bewilderment and silence followed this discourse.

Chaotix tried to reword his argument so that the unenlightened peons would be able to better understand the majesty of his rhetoric, but Chief of Police Lemur stepped in and formally called a halt to voting. "A pretty speech my friend, but it's too little, too late. You have the most votes. Step on up to the execution platform now."

Softly cursing, Chaotix did as he was told, still muttering under his breath about the value of randomness in voting. As he mounted the steps to the execution platform he changed the subject, openly about to ask Lemur a question. "You know, Chief, so what do I-WAAAAAAGH!" On the final step, Chaotix had failed to notice the placement of a banana peel and slipped on it, falling face forward.

Fortunately, there was something to break his fall. Unfortunately, it was a giant spike. Chaotix fell right into it, the spike impaling him through the mouth.

Lemur shook his head. "Should've kept his mouth shut," he said.

Day 2 tally:

Chaotix: 5 (Renata, Joooray, Csargo, ATPG, Sasaki)
Methos: 4 (Beskar, shlin, Secura, Chaotix)
Subotan: 3 (khaan, TinCow, john)
Secura: 2 (Psychonaut, Blackadder)
Sasaki Kojiro: 1 (White_eyes)
White_eyes:D: 1 (Reenk)
Yaseikhaan: 1 (Methos)
Joooray: 1 (Beefy)
Renata: 1 (Centurion)
woad&fangs: 1 (Kage)
Beskar: 1 (Ibn-Khaldun)
Psychonaut: 1 (Winston)
Beefy187: 1 (woad)
TinCow: 1 (Thermal)

Abstained: 1 (pevergreen)
Didn't vote: 4 (Sigurd, Kage, Subotan, CDF)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (28)
Yaseikhaan
Sasaki Kojiro
Secura
Csargo
johnhughthom
Askthepizzaguy
Beefy187
Methos
White_eyes:D
Sigurd
Kagemusha
Subotan
Beskar
Captain Blackadder
Joooray
pevergreen
Renata
shlin28
Winston Hughes
Centurion1
Thermal Mercury
Cultured Drizzt fan
Ibn-Khaldun
woad&fangs
Psychonaut
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
TinCow
Reenk Roink

Killed:
Crazed Rabbit
Andres
atheotes
Double A

Executed:
Diamondeye
Chaotix

[GeneralHankerchief]

Post 433 of main thread.

Day breaks in the Frontroom. All is quiet. The unmarked van was once again puttering through the sleepy streets, searching for its next target. After a few minutes of driving, the mafioso found a house he liked, parked it, and once again walked out.

*ding dong*

Centurion1, still dressed in his nightgown and sleeping cap, opened the door after about a minute. He wore a very drowsy expression on his face. "...yes...?" he mumbled.

"Accountant," said the man at the door, stepping into the house without being invited. "It's tax season, you know! Nowadays more people than ever are getting audited because they didn't file their taxes on time. You don't want the government taking more money just because you were a little late mailing some papers, do you?"

"I don't think that's much of a problem considering I'm likely to die in the next few days," Centurion said.

"Nonsense, nonsense," the accountant said, far too cheerily. "Say hypothetically for a moment that you survive this. You're alive, sure, but all of this is bound to be a traumatizing experience. You might even have PTSS afterwards. The last thing you're going to want to do is some soul-crushing pencil-pushing, right? No, you just want to relax and recuperate! So why don't you worry about staying alive and I worry about making sure your finances are in order?"

Centurion thought about it, but it was far too early to really mount a defense to this man's quick tongue. "Well... all right."

"Excellent, excellent," the account said, continuing his penchant for repeating the first statement in his speeches twice. "Now then, the first thing we need to worry about is excess paper. You really don't need more than ten or so sheets that tell you all about your finances, so the rest of it's just liable to get in your way and royally confuse you. So, today we're going to do nothing more than get rid of those papers. Do you have a shredder by any chance?" Centurion nodded, pointing to the room it was in. "Well, all right then," said the accountant, "let's head on over then, by all means!"

The two of them walked to the room that substituted for Centurion's office. In it were several filing cabinets and a small if serviceable paper shredder mounted over a trash can. Taking note of his surroundings, the accountant started directing Centurion. "Okay," he said, "why don't you go into that first cabinet on the left and bring me every paper in there?" Centurion complied, and as his back was to the accountant, the accountant made his way to the shredder and stealthily unplugged it.

"Here they are," said Centurion, turning around with a large handful of papers.

"Right," said the accountant, "Why don't you just start shredding them then?" Centurion did so, but quickly turned to the accountant.

"It doesn't work," he said. "That's odd, I was just playing with it a couple weeks ago and it seemed fine..."

"That brand of shredder is notoriously unreliable," the accountant said, quickly cutting Centurion off before he could think things through. "Here, I've got my own." He rummaged through his bag and somehow managed to pull out a very large, industrial-strength shredder that had no business fitting in a standard business bag. Upon seeing Centurion gaze upon the size of the shredder, he chuckled. "In my business, sometimes you have to shred a *lot* of paper. This bad boy takes care of the business quickly for you. Anyway, try it out for yourself!"

Centurion did so, noting the sharpness of the saws as he put his first pieces of paper in.

"Keep going, keep going!" the accountant said, smoothly stepping out from next to the trash can and moving behind Centurion. As Centurion got more and more involved in the task, the accountant decided it was finally time to act. He gave Centurion a little nudge and Centurion toppled over forward, falling over, before he could stop himself, directly into the industrial-strength shredder. The shredder was so efficient that it even was able to stop Centurion's guts from splashing out and ruining all the walls, instead having all of it collect in the trash can.

"Now that's efficient shredding," the mafioso said, walking back to his van.

The Frontroom Caves were for the most part unexplored. Most of the villagers regarded them as dark, dank, disgusting, and scary. Sure, they were interesting ecological features, but if asked, most of the villagers would say that some ecological features are best left to nature, and that's that.

Csargo was not one of these people, however. An amateur spelunker, he had explored the caves many times, finding lots of interesting features. He only indulged himself a couple of times a year, as spelunking equipment was expensive and difficult to maintain, but today was one of those days. Plus, he figured that the day's excursion would serve as a good hiding place for a mafia attack.

Entering the mouth of the cave, Csargo lowered himself down to the "atrium", if you will, and saw the usual paths: Left, right, and center. He had gone center and right many times, but never to the left. "Might as well today," he said to himself, and then headed left.

He quickly realized why he had usually headed to the right and center. While there was water to the right and lots of interesting paths and rocks in the center, the left path just kept going straight, deep into the cave, getting darker and darker. Ignoring a path off to the left which looked like it lead to a singular room, Csargo decided to keep heading straight. "I want to see how deep this cave actually goes," he said, and kept walking.

About thirty seconds later, a very large spider skittered by him. Stopping in his tracks, Csargo looked all around, wondering where the spider could possibly have come from. He was about to shake it off and keep walking when three more spiders, all relatively enormous, crawled by, one of them starting to climb up his leg before he hurriedly brushed it off.

It was at this point where Csargo realized exactly how far away from rescue he actually was. He had been walking down this path for a good fifteen minutes. The air was particularly dank and foul down here, as if there hadn't been very many disturbances to circulate it in a very long time. It was incredibly dark too, the only source of light seeming to come from...

"...that room off to the side," Csargo mentioned to himself, now wanting to get out of this cave as quickly as possible. "Maybe it's where the spiders are coming from, maybe there's an exit that nobody knows about!" He started running now, stopping at the room where he saw something he did not expect at all.

"Or maybe it's where somebody decided would be a good spot to park a giant box full of poisonous, hostile spiders," the mafioso said, carrying a torch and "inadvertently" dropping the box on the ground, allowing all the numerous spiders to crawl out and slowly, up Csargo. Screaming like a girl, he struggled to brush them off, but there were too many and then they started to bite. His screams grew shriller but they did nothing to placate the spiders, which had just brought him to his knees.

It was only when they had fully swarmed Csargo's body and were starting to eat his eyes did the mafioso leave and make his way back aboveground.

Later that day, Chief of Police Lemur gathered everyone in the Frontroom Square in order to make an announcement.

"All right people," he said. "Unfortunately, at least one of your choices these past two days was wrong, because we have two more deaths on our hands today. Centurion1 got shredded into oblivion and Csargo has gone missing, presumed dead. So, here we go again. Let's hope you're up to it, boys!"

"Wait a minute," shouted one villager, "How about you do some actual detective work on this for a moment? I mean, that had to be a big shredder in order to fully kill a person, right? Why not run a search on the shredder, get its serial number, and found out who bought it and where? You know, something that will actually get us somewhere!"

"Yeah!" a couple villagers shouted in agreement. "Stop leaving the burden on us!"

"Enough of this silly talk!" shouted Lemur. "Are you telling me you people have something against democracy? Against freedom? Are you telling me the Kingdom of Peace and Love doesn't believe in the value of individualism? Why do you hate freedom?"

Shamed into silence, the villagers once again began the task of voting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Still alive: (28)
Yaseikhaan
Sasaki Kojiro
Secura
johnhughthom
Askthepizzaguy
Beefy187
Methos
White_eyes:D
Sigurd
Kagemusha
Subotan
Beskar
Captain Blackadder
Joooray
pevergreen
Renata
shlin28
Winston Hughes
Thermal Mercury
Cultured Drizzt fan
Ibn-Khaldun
woad&fangs
Psychonaut
spL1tp3r50naL1ty
TinCow
Reenk Roink

Killed:
Crazed Rabbit
Andres
atheotes
Double A
Centurion1
Csargo

Executed:
Diamondeye
Chaotix

Note: Due to my sleep schedule, this round will last longer than usual so I don't have to be up until 2am a night before I have an 8:30 class. Therefore, the round will last 36 hours or so.