Forum Mafia STORY (Day 6 ENDS)

[FMLSheWas12]

That wasn't really funny.

it was pretty funny i liked the part where rick accidentally selfhammered

We know Rick survived the hammer, he must be lynchproof!

[Rickdaily12]

=== Night 1, 10:20 PM ===

I check Darren's Watch as I approach my back yard from the trees, sighing at what had just happened roughly 15 minutes ago.
No doubt, I got my answer as to why the first lever doesn't activate the tower. When the second switch was pulled, a gargantuan boulder dropped down and slammed into the lynch platform. I couldn't have been more than a couple feet away from the thing, if even that.
The impact knocked me back and blew the wind right out of me, along with my hearing. While dazed, I found myself stumbling over to a rather distant water well, apparently directly above the hydroelectric plant. Right around then, my senses came to again, but not before discovering a small crowd had gathered to start searching for me at the Tower, ensuring that I was actually okay- and that I hadn't died when the boulder dropped.
'They're a pretty persistent bunch, for a crowd of people considering we had a Night Lynch without everyone being present.'
It really wasn't an intentional onset of chaos, but during the confusion, I realized now would be as good of a time as any to try putting my Investigator powers to good use. After walking into my house through the back door, I retreat to my bedroom, grab my forensics kit, and strap it to my back.
Then, once I'm sure I'm not being watched, I exit through the back door again, back into the forest surrounding the houses.
It probably isn't a good thing that it's far too easy to hide in these trees for the Town, but right now, it's serving a very welcoming purpose.
"The last thing I need right now is all the attention and unwanted questions about why the Lynch Tower activated and I disappeared." I mutter to myself.
With one last careful glance, I cross the trees beyond Player 12's backyard, making my way to my target's house.

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--- 10:26 PM ---

As the trees cleared around the water well, I approach the structure again, frowning. I see a figure hunched over the lip of the pit.
'If they catch me turning back, it'd probably be worse to be seen doing that, rather than just answer any questions they might have alone.' I bite my lip.
I take the high road, approaching them. "Hey, did you drop something in there?"
They gasp, probably startled by my approaching them. It was the boy from House 24. He frowns at me.
"Player 11, right? Weren't you the guy everyone's been talking about a moment ago? Something like you just got killed by the Lynch Tower?"
I smile awkwardly, moving to sit by them. "Heh, yep, that's me. Not here for even a half day, and already I'm making everyone panic over some noise."
24 grins. "Well, I'm glad you aren't dead, but what were you even doing there in the first place?"
"Well, you know." I study the grass. "No, I just wanted a better look at the way this city operates, and I was surprised to see we weren't running this town by hanging people like how people normally do in Mafia. All I saw was a Tower without a kill button. So yeah, I got a little curious?"
"And a little too close?" He chuckles. "You could have gotten yourself hurt trying to explore, you know."
"Wow, this coming from the kid I just saw hanging his head down a deep well?" I nudge him. "Don't you have any sense of fear of heights?"
"Haha, I guess not over here..." He shrugs off nervously. "Normally at home I'd be a lot more freaked out by heights. I don't know if I'm more afraid of being shot or stabbed by someone over here though. I'd imagine in a place like this, falling down this well is like, the least of my worries."
"What brings you out here, if you don't mind me asking?" I raise a brow at him. "Are you also trying to get a better feel of the city?"
"No, actually... this might sound a bit embarrassing..." He studies the ground. "Alright. If I tell you something, promise you'll keep it to yourself?"
My face straightens. "Sure- but if it's your role, I probably wouldn't risk telling anyone tonight."
"Well.... yes and no." He stares off toward the tower. "That's the problem. I actually don't have any clue who I am."
I smile. "I told you not to tell me your role, dumbass. That means you're an Amnesiac."
He knows I'm being sarcastic and nudges me back. "Whatever, you dick. But I'm being serious, it's kinda got me worried, you know?"
"We had a bit more than a half hour to explore our house when we got here before being called out... what happened?"
"Well... I just don't know, I guess." He sighs. "I suppose I might have gotten overwhelmed by everything that was in my house? That or... I'm not good at solving puzzles, maybe. It's why I wasn't saying much today, because... I'm terrified. I have no idea if I'm supposed to help Town, or if talking to you right now means I'm about to die because I'm helping the Town instead of helping other Mafia. I kinda... figured I'd have a role card kicking around."
I nod, with an understood sigh. "Yeah, as I'm sure you found out... that's not quite how this new place works."
"Ugh, I just feel so dumb though." He sounds tired and frustrated. "I decided maybe it'd just be better if I took a stroll and tried clearing my thoughts, see if that ends up helping me at all. When I went to my basement, I saw so many freaking boxes, and there drawers and cupboards and cabinets literally everywhere. I almost didn't want to grab food for myself earlier, because that meant adding shit to the house that I can't understand."
"I get it." I smile at him. "Well- at the risk of possibly helping someone who can end up killing me... maybe I can help."
Player 24's eyes go wide, and he eagerly turns to me, beaming ear to ear.
"Have you ever gone through something in your house, looked at something you owned now, and just outright said, 'Wow- that's just not me?'"
"A couple times, yeah..." He rubs his chin.
"Follow that feeling." I stare at him. "That's you- as a player- trying to remind you that this is something you're not. But what seems to be going on is that there isn't just one of you. There's two of you- the you that was a resident of this city- trying to point out to you that this is something you are now."
"That... sounds really confusing, but I think it makes sense."
"The more you explore this part of you that wasn't there before, you should start unlocking memories and urges that don't belong to you, but match the person you are now. Whether you're BodyGuard, Vigilante, Godfather, or Serial Killer- I think you'll find these compulsions helpful and they will protect you. It's important that you embrace these bursts of memory, because I think they're the closest things we're getting to clues that we can ask for."
"Are you sure that's going to work?" He asks with a hopeful smile.
I nod, grinning as well. "It's what helped me figure things out. I think it's a problem everyone ended up having- but that's how I got through it."
He gets up, eagerly, running back toward his house. "I'll go try that out right now! Thanks, 11! You're actually a really cool guy to talk to!"
And just like that, he was off.
I get back up, resuming my walk to my target's house. 'Huh, that went far better than I first expected. I'm feeling really damn good about myself now.'

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--- 10:49 PM ---

After a bit of a detour, I finally arrive in the back yard of my target's house- Player 14.
I quietly approach the back door, at which point I feel my body reaching into a pocket in my kit. My casing is pulled out, then forced into the door latch.
-click!-
The lock now undone, my right hand swiftly, yet gracefully, eases the door open without causing too much noise. Eventually I'm inside her kitchen.
'Wow.' I glance down at the casing in my hand. 'So, Investigator Me, let me get this straight. Not only do you use this tiny little thing to get a magnified look at a crime scene, but you also figured out how to break into people's houses without snapping it? ...Damn, you are freaking cool.'
I examine the kitchen carefully in the moonlight I have. I feel my eyes adjusting quickly enough, starting with the dining table.
My eyes focus on the tucked chairs beside the table, each spot in front of the table, one at a time, before finally breaking my focus from all of them.
Next, my body reaches into my kit, grabbing a pair of rubber gloves, and equipping them.
Then, it walks me over to the fridge, opening it. The fridge is stocked with a reasonable amount of food, but only for that of one person.
"Geez." I whisper inaudibly. "I'm following, what you're doing makes sense. Uh, I guess."
'But, I think you missed something.'
I turn back, focusing on the table again, but my eyes fall on a painting to the wall farthest from the back door. Immediately my body takes over again, using two fingers to push up and out to reveal nothing behind the frame- as silently as possible. Satisfied, it gently eases the painting into place again.
'See? Maybe I'm not so bad at this myself.' I smile at myself.
Free to move again, I bring myself into the next room- her living room. I stand myself behind her couch, my eyes falling onto the bookshelf to the right. I quickly glance over all the titles. I see books on Organic Chemistry, Particle Physics, History of the Middle Ages, Atlases, Pre-Calculus, Calculus, Works of Beethoven, Rene Descartes, some works of classic fiction- even some Shakespeare. There was even a French/English/Spanish dictionary in here.
"Nothing here seems out of the ordinary..." I mouth silently to myself. "Actually, I'd probably own several of these for school back home."
'By the way, weren't our academic books a bit like this, but slightly more about actual forensic science in the topic variants?' I refer to my persona.
My body takes over again, seeing paintings to the wall again, carefully nudging them to check their backs. Nothing of interest. Nothing out of place.
Next, I move to the couch, feeling about the cushions, squeezing them, and feeling along the cracks for anything hidden. Nothing.
Finally, the cabinet in the living room. The only thing in there is a photo of Player 14 and the Mayor, and an antique wedding dress inside. My eyes fall to the very bottom of the bare cabinet. My body hunches down to the lowest part of the shelf, giving the bottom a light tap.
-donk-
Not hollow. My body stands me up, swiftly yet gently closing the cabinet without making a sound, while giving me control of my body again.
I give the room one more brief look. "So, you don't think there's anything useful here either...?"
I look up to where her bathroom and and bedroom should probably be.
'I'm noticing that a lot of this house looks very similar to mine. But... I don't have to go up there, while she's probably up there.... right?'
A feeling of worry and doubt washes over me like water. Taking that as affirmation, I move around the stairs up, heading for the stairs down.
Carefully closing the door behind me, my body reaches for the kit, pulling out a flashlight, and carefully working the stairs without making much sound.
Finally at the bottom, I feel a surge of confidence. My body must feel as though we're safer, being two floors and a closed door down from where Player 14 might be, so I notice my body moving quicker and slightly more freely than normal.
I look around. There's a lot of boxes everywhere, some stack taller than others. Inside some of them were portraits, school awards, and clothes.
"There's far too many to try going through most of these." I whisper. "How do you propose we move forward?"
My eyes dart more to the walls of the room, rather than the center. Probably the hardest part of this task was moving boxes without causing too much noise. Any stack larger than 3 boxes usually had to have the top boxes put down and pushed away from the walls, just to push them back and stack them again. But eventually, after checking the moved ground and the freed walls, my body didn't seem to think there was anything more here.
'Hang on, this could be a double bluff. What if anything was hidden under or beside only one stack?'
Free to move, I quickly check boxes that weren't stacked, but after checking almost all of them, I feel a strong, anxiety-inducing urge to leave now.
I comply. I allow myself to carefully move back up the stairs, out the door to the main floor, and out the back door again.
Once I'm finally in the trees again, I take a quick moment to stop, relax, and think to myself.
"So, based on all that, we couldn't find anything pretty striking." I rub my chin. "Not even forged papers, so I guess that means she's a Citizen."
And with that, I check my bearings one last time, and rush back to my house.

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--- 3:47 AM ---

The house's owner silently creeps down the stairs, but after reaching the bottom, only saw an intruder waiting for their arrival.
"Interesting." The intruder smirks. "How did you know I was here?"
"The same way you knew I was coming." The owner sighs. "Damn it. I thought I was careful, but I guess you got to me without realizing it."
"I could say the same." He shrugs. "But I gotta admit, you impressed me tonight. The really crappy part is, I almost didn't see you."
He takes a seat on her couch. "Well, I've got nowhere better to be. Wanna chat for a bit?"
"Do I have a choice?" She quips back.
"We can end this sooner, but something tells me we'd both rather not."
She sighs, and moves to the couch, having a seat. She pulls a pair of Night Vision goggles down from her head, putting them on her face.
"Hello, 20." She greets him.
"Hello, 12." He greets her back, watching her through his own pair.
"Are you what I think you are?" She asks him. "Seeing as how we're both equipped with the same gadgets, I think our only difference is alignment."
"Yeah, I'm thinking you're right." He nods. "So, I guess we both that means we're from the same forums, if neither of us are shocked by that."
"How can you do this?" She demands. "You haven't even been here all that long, and already- look at what you're willing to sacrifice! You know I'm probably one of your friends back at home, and you tell THEM to visit me, just after you discover that?!"
"I'm sorry, but how is that any of my fault?" He defends himself. "For starters, I saw exactly what you did tonight. Don't sell yourself short. Odds are, if we kept you alive tonight, you'd be selling all of us out and we'd be pretty dead as a result. You learned way too much more than you were supposed to."
"That's because I did what it took to protect all of us." She spits back. "That is, I'm trying to protect people, like our friends, from people like you, who let one crazy kidnapping turn into a murder scheme so that you can save your own hide. I'm trying to help as many of us survive from YOU."
"Again, you can't blame me for being caught." He shakes his head. "You got careless."
"Why are you here?" She sighs.
"Because you're going to die." He turns his head. "And we just can't allow you to live. Not after what I saw you did tonight. But I know that you're probably someone I do care about, so I didn't want you to die alone."
The room gets silent and awkward.
"Can I... ask you something?" 12 asks, breaking the ice. "Was it because I had the Mafia tapped?"
"No. This wasn't a Agent trumps Spy thing." 20 shakes his head. "In fact, if any kind of duel like that ensued during the Night, I always figured you'd end up outperforming me, seeing as how Agent's only stronger than Spy during the Day. At night, we're seriously much weaker than you."
"So why am I being attacked?" She raises a brow.
"I saw you actually being where we were." He stares her right in the eye. "You got much too close to us."
"...You mean... when I... ...oh."
"Yeah." He sighs. "Fuck, 12, you shouldn't have done that. That's exactly why you were warned not to go. And you heard everything we said, didn't you?"
She sighs again. "...Yeah. I did. You guys really screwed up too."
He gets up. "That's really unfortunate. Hopefully, there's either too much red tape regarding a Medium or Retributionist, but that's it for you, then."
"And that's all?" She laughs. "You're just going to hope I can be swept under the rug? Come on. We both know this world is too crazy, and so much more than meets the eye. If you're going to pretend as though real life physics strictly dominate this world, I think you're in for a rude awakening."
"Or maybe that'll be you, seeing as how you'll be dead and all in the morning." He counters.
Silence falls one more time, as 20 stands at the archway leading to her back door.
"C- can I ask who you are? ...so that I know who to grossly apologize to if... I manage to get back home?" He struggles to finish.
"Oh, just call me Eleanor." 12 shakes her head in defeat. "Don't worry. When I'm gone... it'll be pretty obvious who I was really. What about you?"
"On the unlikely chance that you're revived and I die and you survive?" He laughs. "Sure. Call me Watt. Sorry it has to be like this."
"Are you even remotely truly sorry?" She asks before he leaves.
He turns at the door. "Heh. I'm not remorseful. Your death was always going to be necessary to see the ones I care about, Eleanor. If I can't go back to the family I love and care about, because I let you lynch me, then yeah. You're going down, hard. I do hope you understand."
"It's fine." She shrugs. "If people knew the truth about what kind of sick twisted monster you've become now, Watt, I'm sure it'd ruin everything."
"Well, I guess on that note, it's a good thing you won't be going back to tell everyone that, then, right?"
Finally, he opens the back door.
"You'll probably recognize the person who should be arriving at any moment. She'll talk to you for a bit too, but then yeah. That'll be our goodbye."
When he finally closes the door, she breathes a deep sigh of exasperated frustration.
Then, she furiously grabs a pillow, screams desperately, and sobs hysterically into it.

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*THUD THUD THUD!*
Sounds of a knocking person at a door wakes me up. I frantically check Darren's watch. 4:30 AM in the morning.
'Oh god. Oh my god. They're here.'
I jump out of my bed and hurry to my metal briefcase. I stash all my tools and information in there, and frantically hide it all underneath my bed.
'Damn it, I completely forgot to write a will when I got home!!!' I grit my teeth. 'How could I be so damn stupid, and forget just about only the most freaking important thing to do when you're an Investigator! UGH!!!'
My heart's racing, my eyes desperately on my desk to the paper under the lectern, but I know there's no time to do anything about it.
'Damn it... DAMN IT!!!'
I rush back onto my bed after hiding everything of value. Everything I have is safe. If there's a house search tomorrow, they'll find what I need them to. Leaving the only thing left to do now... is grim anticipation...
'Please... don't do this...'
I hear a door kicked open, and frantic rushing down below.
'I'm so freaking sorry, Darren...'
I take his watch off my wrist, and I start sobbing.
All of a sudden, a man starts screaming at the top of his lungs across the city. I begin sobbing uncontrollably with fear.
And then a female's shrill voice, next door, started screaming as loud as she could. I scream, startled by the sudden piercing cry.
*BANG!* -thud-
I'm still crying, but her screams end with the gunshot.
I clutch Darren's watch tightly to my chest, and continue sobbing until the sun begins rising.
'They are letting me live. For now.'

END OF NIGHT 1

[FMLSheWas12]

I bet Eleanor's forum identity is Arc. I always thought he'd make a cute girl.

[Watt2015]

Rick you know me so well :p

[Swordsworth]

r i c k
i
c
k


w h e n
h
e
n

[ryanyb]

oh shit

[leyva45]

Rick include me please

[itsmedash2]

Goddammit

[FMLSheWas13]

gang gang gang gang gang

[Rickdaily12]

heck got called out rip me

[Arcthurus]

dude i remember this this was so good </3

[ShortcutButton]

this made me cry back then

[ShortcutButton]

say "shut up exe" in the story itll be funny

[3cheersforidiots]

I just read a couple hours' worth of quality fanfiction, only for it to have been left hanging

[Rickdaily12]

Alright, so, guys, I have a question for you all. Like I said in an earlier post way back, whenever I would reread previous chapters, I would feel disgusted (they're like, unacceptably poor compared to the quality of later chapters), so I began working on a complete total rewrite of the story a couple years back.

How big a rewrite, you might be wondering? Well..... the whole damn thing. Where I'm concerned, everything on this thread is no longer canon. Yeah, the old chapters disgust me that much. I really didn't like how some characters never impacted the story. Some plot points were just mishandled on my part, the dialogue isn't as interesting... it needed to be fixed.

That's why I've been completely changing the story from front to back all this time. We're talking on a pretty massive scale, too (I've logged 167 pages into a Word document so far). Pretty much every character involved has been blown up, given some personality, and a lot of additional events have been added to enrich or directly explain something that I never explained before. Some scenes have even been completely scrapped and rewritten entirely. It's been a long process, but I can honestly say it's been for the best. I'm so much more happier with my work now, and I enjoy reading the whole thing now.

So guys, here's my question. As I said, I consider everything before this post to be no longer canon. I have rewrites of epic proportions now going all the way up to Day 4. The story is, aside from the most major characters and plot twists, completely and entirely different.

Do you guys want me to post all my rewritten content now? Or would you rather me post when I've fully written the entire story? (To compare, for this new draft, the new story going up to Day 4 is already much longer than the entire current story as is.)

What would you guys rather I do?

[Swordsworth]

I'd be fine with posting it when it's done, honestly

[3cheersforidiots]

Apparently, this has been sitting for 4 years, so I see no issues with letting it sit until it's finished.

[Arcthurus]

yeah i will wait

also holy shit yes top 10 anime moments nobody asked for but is 100% happy it happened

btw rick am i character in this one

[ICECLIMBERS]

btw rick am i character in this one :(

Arcthurus totally jacking off

[Rickdaily12]

btw rick am i character in this one

Arcthurus totally jacking off

WHAT?! Oh my god, where the hell did I say this???

[ICECLIMBERS]

This thread. There’s context but I removed it.

[Rickdaily12]

Many people asked me if it'd be okay if they draft a game idea or write another story based on the concept. But the only thing I've ever actually seen as far as incorporation goes is Arcthurus totally jacking off scenes from this and slapping them onto ASG 2. (As well as Animate totally copying me from 2C).

Damn.

Yeah, my choice of diction hasn't always been the greatest over the years, I guess.

[Arcthurus]

[FMLSheWas12]

[cmitc1]

I remember reading this a long time ago, ill have to keep an eye on this =P