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Voting Athen died first. Killing Athen required multiple stages of setup. Obtaining a waiter disguise, planting a device in the boiler room to shut off the power, manipulating Polly into an argument as a distraction (may have involved stealing someone else’s phone). So the most likely timeline is the killer does all the necessary set up, then kills Athen. Then they exit, get spotted by Max who’s waiting around outside for some reason and decide to kill him to cover their tracks. The alternative possibilities don’t seem as likely- A) Killing a guy outside, then doing a bunch of setup work inside to kill someone else all whilst hoping to hell that nobody spots the dead body outside B) Doing a bunch of setup work inside, then exiting to kill a guy, then reentering, then finishing the kill setup then exiting again. Athen also seems more important/influential/powerful so has more of a reason to be specifically targeted.
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Jul 7, 2023 17:42
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ApplesandOranges posted:Well this is an interesting set-up. I don’t think they’ll be our other perspective characters because they seem a lot less “fun” than Laverna. I mean the hapless cops Seth and Baldera have more personality than Gani or the Waiter... and they have extremely strong “side character“ energy. I’d expect: The dice is a gambler The fists is a fighter The computer a hacker The flashlight guard/cop? The mask a thief? The gun a cop/mobster? I also think this first section with the gala is probably towards the end of the timeline. Partially because it seems like things are heading to a big confrontation soon, and there’s a lot of ground to tread to find out how we got here and also we’ll because it’s at the end of that aforementioned poem. I’ll copy paste the poem here if anyone’s curious and doesn’t feel like looking it up; Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin. Who saw him die? I, said the Fly, with my little teeny eye, I saw him die. Who caught his blood? I, said the Fish, With my little dish I caught his blood. Who'll make the shroud? I, said the Beetle, with my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud. Who'll dig his grave? I, said the Owl, with my pick and trowel, I'll dig his grave. Who'll be the parson? I, said the Rook, with my little book, I'll be the parson. Who'll be the clerk? I, said the Lark, if it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk. Who'll carry the link? I, said the Linnet, I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link. Who'll be chief mourner? I, said the Dove, I mourn for my love, I'll be chief mourner. Who'll carry the coffin? I, said the Kite, if it's not through the night, I'll carry the coffin. Who'll bear the pall? We, said the Wren, both the cock and the hen, We’ll bear the pall. Who'll sing a psalm? I, said the Thrush, as she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm. Who'll toll the bell? I, said the Bull, because I can pull, I'll toll the bell. All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing, when they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin. The naming conventions here also seem they should probably mean something here. Unless that’s all some misdirection of course.
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Jul 7, 2023 20:06
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Junpei posted:A lot of people in Divine Deception have mythology-based names. We have a Seth (Egyptian god of chaos and the desert), a Pandora (Greek girl who opened a box), and three of the people here have short versions of Greek ones, one which even have a direct link: Athen is short for Athena, and the two brothers, Polly and Art, are short for a pair of twin gods: Apollo and Artemis. There’s some more mythology links already. The word Panthea is from Greek, meaning "all of gods" . See also Pantheon In Roman mythology, Laverna was a goddess of thieves, cheats and the underworld. Ukko, also known as Äijä, Äijö or Uku, is the god of the sky, weather, harvest and thunder in Finnish and Estonian mythology. In Hawaiian mythology, Kāne is considered the highest of the three major Hawaiian deities, along with Kū and Lono. Kane’s paper is called The Oracle Baldera could be Baldr / Baldur / Balder Gani could be Ganymede Arriane, maybe Adriane? Of the names we’ve gotten so far the only ones that don’t seem to have even a tenuous mythology connection are Maximilian and Veronica Collins. Neither of whom have really appeared on screen (Max turned up but was already dead).
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Jul 8, 2023 21:49
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NeoRonTheNeuron posted:Gambling is a core theme in this game! Lock is definitely scheming something. Either he’s a very good gambler who’s been throwing games here waiting for an invite to a higher stakes game (where he’ll take everyone for a ride). Or he’s working another angle and has just been playing the role of gambler. All his comments about skin in the game and wasting time/resources only make sense if he has grander plans than just throwing his money away.
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Jul 11, 2023 19:21
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quote:
I’m not sure but I think it looks like the monorail episode from The Simpsons.
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Jul 13, 2023 01:35
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Isn't that a nice little brainteaser to end it on? How on earth do you go about swindling an entire city? Does that mean you swindle each and every member of the city? Because... that feels like it needs, like, an institutional level con.
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SimplyUnknown1 posted:So Kane is the connection between all our viewpoint characters so far, huh? I'm only hoping that there isn't going to be a point where Kane reveals himself to be evil with a catchy musical number. Polly Deisma was in the previous 2 sections too (in a more minor role), and we’ve only just started this one so there’s still scope for more characters to turn up. I’d be surprised if Polly turned up here and I think you’re right about Kane being the connection between these viewpoint characters but there might be some other connecting characters that turn up (can easily imagine Vels running into some of the cops or maybe Ossa later on). And Kane is more of a nuanced character than I expected. In the first section he seems like a total slimy loser, in the second it kind of shows that he has some principles even if they’re ones that other people disagree with. Also funny how basically everyone dislikes him.
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Jul 15, 2023 03:26
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Whether Yi has Krish’s interests at heart is immaterial. Yi has already said he’s been forced to do things he doesn’t want to do because he has “no choice”. The wisest choice is not to trust him. It’s possible he might have some change of heart and heroic redemption after betraying people, but the chances of him being trustworthy the entire time are basically zero.
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Jul 18, 2023 07:05
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This is an awful POV character, but “The Devil raised some good points” is a great thread title. Anyway what Chara is doing is well... kind of dumb. Olif is some internet nobody and his word means jack, so she can just deny everything and say some rando is out to get her. If she passes him real information then any future accusations he makes hold a lot more weight because then he must have had a source on the inside. So giving him juicy info is just giving him more leverage. I can definitely buy that she has things she wants to reveal but has no avenue to do so, that’s the reason she’s posting about it on that site in the first place. But Olif seems like a particularly awful confidant, given that he has no interest in any of the underlying issues and antagonises people solely for his own amusement. And it’s not like he has any ability to publicise the issue or help her. The greatest help he could provide is forwarding her info to TheDevil, a character he met 30seconds ago and who he found on a random website. That said, for narrative reasons Chara is probably being genuine. An inside source who exists solely to pass the player fake information would be a waste of everyone’s time.
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Jul 22, 2023 08:57
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Mercury says that she isn’t a cop, but it sounds like this investigation is related to work so I’m thinking Mercury might be a reporter. So the ‘coworker’ on the phone might be Kane. It’s also possible we might be investigating what happened to Jacy Nazea. Not sure what’s going on with the ship. I assume there’s a mundane explanation for everything rather than a supernatural one, in which case this is some kind of criminal operation to torture and kill people. But using a container ship for that seems... kind of insane? Unless you need to kill like a hundred people. The Ducats are the main criminal organisation we’ve heard of, but it sounds like they have a very wide range of operations (so explains how it ranges from street thugs to huge ships). A container ship could also be used for human trafficking, and Olif’s section did have a mention about “lots of somebodies disappear in Panthea”. Not sure what to make of The Devil message written in blood. I suppose that The Devil website might be some sort of controlled opposition thing, where they weed out enemies with promises of insider information? Mercury seems to know exactly who this message is referring to. Going back to an Olif update for a moment: quote:Like, The Devil reported on this one rumor about someone seeing this female police officer putting on a jet black mask at night. That one felt like someone was just yanking his chain. I’m betting that this rumour is actually true, and is one of the viewpoint characters. Maybe the gun icon.
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Jul 26, 2023 00:07
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TheDavies posted:Yeah, it's utterly impossible for there to be supernatural phenomena in this town filled with people whose names and deeds echo those of deities. Well if there are supernatural elements, and no rules for the supernatural are established then it kind of makes Laverna’s and Lock’s deduction mini games a bit pointless. “a ghost did it” “they used actual magic” To me all the references to gods seem like more of a metaphor than them being literal deities. And I don’t think their deeds echo mythology either so not sure what you mean by that. Olympo is powerful is the closest thing to spring to mind, but the old boss was Odin (rather Zeus or Chronos) so that’s coming from the wrong mythology and things are muddled up weirdly.
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Jul 26, 2023 07:51
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If there’s one thing I’ve learned from manga it’s that it takes loving years to get off a boat. Voting that Mercury will be still alive and boating. quote:why did Thane shoot the bloodied man first? I'd like to think I would've dodged either way... However, it felt as though, in my dazed state, if he shot at me first he would've killed me. So... why attack that guy first? ...Think about it logically: either way, it looked like he'd given up on whatever he was doing at that point. He just wanted to kill us both. So... why kill him first? The only thing that made sense was that he knew I couldn't escape. That it was only a matter of time before he caught me, so he might as well finish his current job first. That the bloodied, beaten, barely conscious man was more of a threat than me... was that right? No, poo poo, I was giving him too much credit. He was a loving demon, sure, but he was still a man. ...Probably. He might've just been caught off guard, didn't think things through. I was going to point this out too, however the conclusion I reached is that Thane is an idiot. Standing around with a gun with one bullet and shooting the basically-already-dead tied-up guy over the person running free. Elite fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 18:49
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The other thing is after Mercury woke up she’s been wandering around the ship for a fairly long time and heard plenty of torture noises but no gunshots. So.... has Thane been standing there waving a gun around with only 1 bullet in it for 20 minutes?
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Jul 27, 2023 21:02
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Really wasn’t expecting to see Thane as a viewpoint. Also kind of funny how it likes ambiguously saying ‘work’ for the first couple of paragraphs, but we know what that work involves. Then there was more evidence that Thane is kind of an idiot. (Burying bodies with arms sticking out, strolling around town in their murder suit) Then it turns out that it isn’t the actual Thane. Which makes the earlier thoughts about playing a ‘role’ make more sense. We got confirmation that Thane (and thus the ship) are tangled up with the Duats. He’s a senior officer. We also got confirmation that Yi is involved with the Duat’s wetwork, contrary to what he said but surprising exactly nobody. And seems he’s more senior than Thane. Sounds like Marduk might be the big boss of the Duats possibly. This viewpoint character impersonating Thane has to be familiar with the Duats, since they recognise Yi purely by the sound of his voice. A question is, is the Thane on the boat the real Thane or the impersonator Thane. I’m thinking boat Thane is real, because a) torture seems a bit much for a viewpoint character, b) impersonator Thane seems a lot less talkative than boat Thane. I’d also say that’s confirmation that there’s a significant time differential between different perspectives. Thane cannot simultaneously be out in the forest on a murder errand, whilst also be doing torture work on a boat when both of them take up a long time. (Whereas I do think it would’ve been possible for Kane to turn up in Vels’, Lock’s and Laverna’s perspectives all in one day). Also betting that someone does uncover impersonator Thane. It can’t be the Duats as a whole as then this character would just die. But maybe a third party or a character within the Duats who has an agenda of their own (there’s already signs of some internal conflict within the Duats). That’s a way to ratchet up the tension because then there’s another character that could expose them at another time.
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Jul 29, 2023 07:55
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Lock is the gambler Vels is the one who fought some thugs at a restaurant Right now I’m most interested in ‘Thane’, it’s a setup that surprised me and could end up spiralling out of control in a couple of different directions. Olif stands out as the worst perspective. Firstly because the character is just... obnoxious. Secondly because there’s no real hook. He was poo poo posting on the internet “for the lulz” and accidentally made some connections that are offering secret info. Most of the other perspectives are dealing with matters of life and death so in comparison there’s just nothing happening here. And I think it is possible to write a jaded netizen perspective, but they need to have more going on than trolling for the sake of their own amusement. Also interesting to note that Devon doesn’t mention killing the person outside the Gala. And it seems like the Cock Robin motif was his idea. So either a) he killed Max before killing Athen, or b) someone else killed Max and dropped an item to match the cock robin motif. Also weird that Devon thinks of himself as dumb when he seems kind of smart. (Although his last party quip is godawful)
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Aug 2, 2023 02:22
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quote:Later forensic evidence did reveal a few interesting details about the case. Apparently, when we found the body, he had been dead for several hours. He had originally been killed with a blow to the back of the head, around the time that the gala was starting up and people were still making their way in. Whoops! Well I still think Athen dying first was the most reasonable guess even if it ended up being wrong. This way it means like 20 people entering the gala missed a dead body on their way in. quote:At present, a certain pink-haired employee was typing something on a laptop. This is almost certainly FuschiaDemon from Olif’s perspective. Who’s also a prime suspect for the theft. As to what happened to the laptop I’m betting it’s still hidden on the floor somewhere. What’s valuable is the information on the laptop rather than the device itself so they don’t need to sneak it past the metal detectors they just need to find an opportunity to extract the data. It could even be the laptop she’s using right there if Olympo is particularly dumb. quote:Art:I assure you, it is more than necessary. Given what's on this floor, we need to take such precautions. Some of the decorations on this floor, especially in my office and the meeting rooms, are worth enough to consider stealing quote:Art: This is only my office. I can assure you, my penthouse is quite lavishly decorated. However, such aesthetics would only serve to distract me during work time. Bit inconsistent here. Art says his office has super expensive decorations, then it turns out he has a minimalist office because decorations would distract him.
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Aug 4, 2023 09:16
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Excluding the jokers and the clubs suit there are 39 cards in the deck. Both players start with 13 cards. On your turn you can play or pass. Passing means you don’t want to play on any of the battlefields. When both players pass it enters the war phase, but if only one player passes then the other can play as many cards as they like. After the war phase both players draw back up to 13 cards, the loser from the previous war phase draws first. The deck is never reshuffled so there’s only a pool of 13 remaining cards to draw from. So if you dump all your cards on the first round, deliberately losing 2 battlegrounds by going over 21. Then a) you push a ton of cards to the opponents side whilst only losing 2-3 stacks, b) you draw back up to 13 but then the deck is empty so your opponent draws nothing, c) game continues until both players have no cards left so having X more cards in hand means X guaranteed stack wins if you only play 1 card per stack. Edit: The only wrinkle is that the loser of the previous war round plays cards first. And playing first is bad. The sum of 2 cards will always be 21 or lower, so if you play first and the opponent plays into the same stack as you then you can only win if you play an additional card into the stack. Elite fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 00:33
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Junpei posted:We haven't seen much of either of them, but would you vote for Aija or Bach? Bach. Yeah he’s a bit out of his depth and definitely doomed for failure, but at least he seems like an actual person. Aija seems on the other hand just seems utterly fake. Aija posted:Ah, Officer Baldera, was it? Thank you, really. I'm glad to have such reliable members of our city's esteemed police force at my aid. Truly, it moves me to see Panthea's justice in action. Does anybody think she actually means that? Aija posted:My point is, I believe in second chances... and the people. And I believe in forgiveness. Why, that's why I've given the most gubernatorial pardons of any of Panthea's governors throughout history. Or that. Aija posted:Well then, don't let me bother you. Go on and catch a criminal! ...On behalf of dear Mr. Athen. Or that she’s deeply concerned what happened about Mr Athen? Everything about Aija feels aggressively fake, except for when she’s kind of being an rear end in a top hat to Laverna / the cops for doing their jobs. She offers Laverna a job but it still seems like she doesn’t like her, she just thinks she might be useful. And there’s almost certainly some level of corruption around Aija. The other party guests on Devon’s route mention “paying their dues” as “it’s not worth the hassle otherwise”. Which seems to suggest there are some material rewards for supporting Aija or some negative consequences for not doing so. The Duats seem to operate quasi-openly (for some of their ventures anyway) and Kane says this is a good thing as it brought order so it seems there’s some kind of quid-pro-quo arrangement between the Aija administration and gangs (possibly related to all those pardons she mentioned).
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Aug 12, 2023 18:55
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Regallion posted:For example, there is no rule that you can't just push all your stacks to the loser, once you win, to make them pay more. Elite posted:So if you dump all your cards on the first round, deliberately losing 2 battlegrounds by going over 21. Then a) you push a ton of cards to the opponents side whilst only losing 2-3 stacks, b) you draw back up to 13 but then the deck is empty so your opponent draws nothing, c) game continues until both players have no cards left so having X more cards in hand means X guaranteed stack wins if you only play 1 card per stack. Well between us we got that almost exactly right mechanically. Pulling 3 extra decks of cards out of his pocket was some extra level bullshit though.
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Aug 14, 2023 23:42
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FoolyCharged posted:How has lock not gotten a bullet to the head, old western style? If he pulls this kind of nonsense on the regular, you'd think someone would have just blasted him and taken their money back. He doesn’t pull this on the regular though. Ossa said before that Lock doesn’t make enough money gambling for his lifestyle to make sense. So it seems like he only does this kind of thing rarely, and tries to milk it for all it’s worth when he does. Thing are a bit inconsistent though. “Trying to pull bullshit on people” seems like kind of the point of this venue - that people propose weird gambles and their opponent has to try to figure out what the trick is. But Ossa also warns Lock not to pull any scams/swindles and this gamble definitely seems like more of a swindle than a game. NeoRonTheNeuron posted:After losing the game and suffering through Lock's gloating, a competent Bach can still argue his way out. Ossa will have no choice but to acquiesce since there won't be any rules broken with these approaches. Until Lock pulled 3 packs of cards out of his rear end I think Lock could argue that the game was “fair”. Yes there’s a trick to it but, A) It was reasonably possible to grasp the trick from the stated rules B) Both players could have performed the trick C) Using the trick gave an advantage but not a guaranteed win. If Bach had realised what Lock was doing and also dumped his hand round 1 then Bach would win. If Bach started playing cards again when Lock’s hand was nearly empty then could take ownership of all the battlefields and be the one to draw up. And it wouldn’t be 13 cards vs 8, it would be 13 cards vs ~0. When Lock adds more cards is when things get bullshit, because it’s subverting obvious reasonable expectations. And at that point Bach can say he’ll pay 32nd of Nevervember and there’s nothing in the rules that prohibits that. And what’s really compelling Bach to pay? I can buy that a weird underground gambling den might have some burly blokes they can send to get people to pay their debts, it just isn’t clear why they’d do this for Lock’s sake. Collecting that debt isn’t their problem, it’s Lock’s. And it’s money Bach doesn’t even have - so investing any amount of money/resources collecting this debt is a losing proposition because he can’t pay it even if he wanted to. Also if someone roughs Bach up to press the issue then that seems like the sort of thing that could blow up in their faces. “Thugs beat up Mayoral candidate” is an awful look for the police so it’s something they’re forced to take seriously (in a way that they might not if it happened to Joe Slob). And if someone is brazen enough to intimidate a Mayor candidate to pay an obviously bullshit debt then why bother with the debt in the first place, might as well just try extorting money from him from the start.
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Aug 16, 2023 21:36
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Marluxia posted:It was a swindle UNTIL Bach explicitly agreed to the rules, as they were stated. There was no rules stating that there was X number of cards, no rule... etc. If rules need to explicitly prohibit every possible unintended action then you’d need an infinite number of rules to cover every conceivable way to cheat or sabotage the game. There was no rule against pulling out a gun and shooting your opponent in the face to win by default. There was no rule against marking the cards. There was no rule against stealing cards from your opponent’s hand. There was no rule against having accomplices spy on your opponent’s hand. There was no rule against refusing to take your turn and trapping the game in infinite limbo. There was no rule against players using additional cards. There was no rule against players looking at the face down cards (stacks can’t be be altered, but looking at something isn’t altering it and you need to be able to move stacks for the purposes of scoring) There was no rule against adding, removing or changing rules during the game. There was no rule against refusing to pay owed money. There was no rule against demanding “double or nothing”. An infinite number of times. They also didn’t explicitly define a “card”, “white chip”, “side of the table”, or “paying”. Yes any reasonable person knows exactly how to interpret those things but reasonable interpretations aren’t an element of the rules.
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Aug 17, 2023 19:46
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Junpei posted:Do you find Krish's optimism endearing or frustrating? Largely annoying but the —Yeah, I totally agree! —It is pretty weird, huh? -… —Well, lucky us! exchange was pretty funny. And I for one am shocked shocked that Mr Yi turned up with gangsters in tow.
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Aug 18, 2023 23:26
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BassMug posted:Was “playing to your outs” explained in this or in Zodiac Trial? I swear I’ve heard it before but don’t remember what it means. It was in zodiac trial yeah. Edit: In update 39 “Playing your outs”. Elite fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 01:56
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So Lara is the one that took Polly Deisma’s money back in Lock section 1. The drinking place she mentions is probably the underground casino we saw in Lock’s chapters. So presumably something bad will go down there. There’s a line “Man, what was with people asking regulars to give passwords?” which again refers back to Lock section. Lock section 1 also has a line “Jeez, you're killing me. What, you think somebody's gonna be able to just disguise themselves as me?” lol. Lara’s also the one that rescued Mercury from Thane in Mercury section 2. It also sounds like Lara has a specific reason to be nervous around Thane. Most obvious thing is the boat scuffle in Mercury’s chapters, but it’s unclear how fake-Thane would know about that. I think we can start assembling an idea when some events occur relative to each other now too. Devon1 is before Laverna1 as she’s investigating the murder that he committed. Olif1 and Olif2 are before Laverna2 as she’s investigating the theft that Chara was still considering in Olif 2. Lock1, Lock2, Mercury1 and Mercury2 are probably before Thane1 and Thane2 just based on some of the conversations in Thane 2. Elite fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Sep 7, 2023 |
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Sep 7, 2023 17:21
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AweStriker posted:I wonder who this “one person” Marduk mentioned is, the one who won’t join the Duats but truly understands his will is. Are they someone we’ve heard of? Are they relevant to the overall story? I’m guessing the person who understands Marduks’ will but won’t join is “The Devil”. Just calling yourself The Devil probably vibes well with Marduk based on his passwords. Most obvious way for the Duats to solidify their position is to make inroads to the other major factions.
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Sep 13, 2023 02:34
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FoolyCharged posted:I like how they're too busy being upset at each other to see the obvious point of concern. If none of the three people they think knew about the oncoming hit did it.... The most obvious read is that Aija organised it but didn’t want to justify or explain herself to Devon. Meaning she has two hitmen at her back and call, that don’t know about each other.
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Sep 16, 2023 03:29
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quote:Name: Lock Devon is going to violently stress test the “if it isn’t explicitly forbidden then it’s allowed” rule, when he shoots Lock in the face mid- gamble.
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Sep 21, 2023 13:52
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NeoRonTheNeuron posted:Yay, Vels backstory revealed. Lock’s a reckless gambler so it makes sense for him to take a punt on things that only have a slim chance of working. And from what we’ve seen Devon is Aija’s main source of muscle, so this situation fits him better than Gani. “How did Lock find her home” is a valid question though, since if there’s no on-site security then she was relying heavily on obscurity.
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Nov 24, 2023 11:54
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