Assassins 4: Free-For-All! Official Reports Thread

[Amorphous]

Hello all!

The game is due to start soon (in roughly one hour), thus the official reports thread has been created.

To prevent this thread from getting bogged down and confusing with player chat, this thread is for game organisers (most likely myself) ONLY, keeping you up-to-date with the latest in the world of Assassins(*). Feel free to create the corresponding unofficial commentary thread!


(*) Perhaps not strictly true - my flat still has no internet (don't ask, I have infinite rage on this subject) so my internet access is limited and reports might come in a kind of 'daily digest' form. I shall endevour to be quick, however!

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Time: 4.45pm (appx. 5 hours after game start)

Somewhere in the depths of Melville in a small, darkened room, a computer monitor blinked on, accompanied by a beeping noise. Roused by the sound, the occupant of the room sat up and stared at the computer screen, first in confusion and then with increasing alertness as the details and photographs of seven other St Andrews residents wound their way on screen and projected onto his face in a manner that is not physically possible with CRT or TFT monitors and yet is shown happening in movies all the time anyway.

This could mean only one thing.

The occupant dressed hurriedly, yet took care and time over the last few details of his appearance: his choice of weaponry. For an important occasion such as this a mere gun would be too brash, too noisesome, and far too easy – the life of an assassin required a greater sense of class and dignity. Or a ruddy big greatsword.

Thusly armed, he switched the computer off and left the room, keeping a watchful eye out for any of his seven targets as he stepped out into the corridor.


Elsewhere in Melville the recipient of a similar message was already on the prowl, armed with a cutlass in one hand and a rapier in the other, hoping to keep his options open with regards to fighting styles. His eyes narrowed and pulse quickened every time he thought he might see a target and fellow assassin out of the corner of his eye. There, with a gun! No, it was an ordinary student pulling a book out of their bag. There, in the kitchen, with poison! No, it was a fellow resident seasoning their own food. There, at the end of the corridor, walking towards him! No, that was just someone carrying a greatsword around.

Hang on a minute...

Tensing himself, Spider Zakash wondered if he'd been spotted already and how best to deal with the situation. Both the cutlass and the rapier lent themselves best to close-quarters fighting; any sort of greatsword charge by his opponent was probably going to end badly from Zakash's point of view. Before this train of thought could be followed any further his opponent began to run, hefting the sword up into an attacking position, and Spider Zakash's desire to survive took over – taking a defensive posture he tried to remain still, willing his muscles not to respond until the last possible second... there!

Dodging to one side, Spider Zakash narrowly missed a ferocious attack that had threatened to cut him in two and quickly set about with attacks of his own, seizing weaknesses in his opponent's position wherever possible.

Staggering backwards to a position of comparative safety, the man with the greatsword lifted it again and glared at Zakash resolutely as he began to charge for a second time. Watching the figure bearing down on him, Spider Zakash hesitated and realised the awful truth: there'd be no dodging this one. There was one short, brutal swing of the greatsword, and then a sudden lack of action.


A minute later, with the screams of Melville residents already ringing in his ears, the assassin known as Spadge Mince stared down at his opponent's body in silence. That was one down, six to go.

Raising the greatsword again, this time into a position that made it easier to carry, he turned his back on the mess and walked back the way he came, down towards the darkness.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Monday, 11pm(ish), possibly.

Arming himself for the night, Tintin gave himself one last critical look in the mirror and tried to psychologically prepare himself for the night ahead. The mission instructions he'd received at noon had included one very familiar name, and while to take the life of a friend would be regrettable... well, if it had to be done, it had to be done.

His mind settled, Tintin performed one last ammunition check and then set out for Aikman's Bar and Bistro, currently one of the finalists for the coveted "Slightly Less Dangerous Drinking-Hole Than 'The Whey Pat' " pub award.


After a short time and some walking, Tintin had managed to establish a good lurking spot in which to wait for his target, Winstanley. Minutes passed. He tensed as a taxi drew up to the entrance of the pub and dropped off the fare who walked into Aikman's - a known associate of Winstanley, and all the more reason to believe that the man himself would turn up tonight.

Minutes more passed, and Tintin stamped his feet in the cold to offset frostbite. Casting a look up and down Bell Street, he stopped stamping when he spied a very familiar hat bopping along the road towards Aikman's. While it was unlikely that a hat such as this would belong to anyone else in St Andrews, the life and job of an assassin required care and precision in the execution of all things, especially when those things were people.

Readying his gun, Tintin started to run across the road. "WINSTANLEY!" he shouted at the top of his voice.

Instantly Winstanley ducked to a crouch, readying his blade as the first shot from Tintin sailed harmlessly over his head. Noticing the knife, Tintin abandoned the gunfire approached and reached for his own dagger quickly before lunging forward wildly. Winstanley's quick reflexes allowed him to duck and roll just in time, after which the two assassins began circling each other, trying to search for weaknesses while at the same time defending their own.

As they circled, Tintin felt his foot touch metal on the pavement and glanced down hurriedly - his earlier discarded gun. Unfortunately Winstanley had noticed the same thing and started sprinting away as Tintin seized the weapon, ducking into the doorway of Aikman's just as Tintin had finished reloading. As Tintin approached he could hear Winstanley appealing for help from all who would listen, eventually enlisting a nearby girl who attempted to advocate peace.

"Stop that! Come inside and have a pint," she suggested to Tintin as he fired in Winstanley's direction.

Tintin paused. The offer was tempting, and he thought hard about it for a good ten seconds before realising that Winstanley had seized the opportunity to run away. Charging down the steps and back onto Bell Street, Tintin immediately ducked for cover and then, when he thought it safe, took the time to glance around the street. Silhouetted by streetlights, Winstanley's shape lurked at the Market Street end of the road. Tintin slowly turned and walked in the other direction, trying to remain unnoticeable and keeping an ear out for following footsteps - there, in the distance, definitely following but not quickening in pace. Perhaps Winstanley didn't realise his target was in plain view.

Tintin turned left onto South Street and lurked there, feigning interest in a nearby shop and keeping a wary eye out for threats. Soon enough Winstanley followed, appearing at the other side of the junction and casting a suspicious look around.

Tintin drew his gun and ran towards his target, startling Winstanley into running back towards Bell Street, causing pedestrians to scatter left and right as the two assassins ran down the length of the road and left out the other end towards the Mansefield building where Winstanley took shelter behind a nearby bus stop. Tintin saw his opportunity and fired, surprising everyone with the discovery that bus shelters are apparently made of bullet-proof glass. Time for the back-up plan then; drawing his knife, he quickly ducked around the side of the obstacle and struck out at Winstanley, finding his target in his opponent's lower back while Winstanley drove his own knife well and truly into Tintin's side.

Reeling from the pain and shock simultaneously, they each staggered back to supporting scenery and glared at each other levelly, neither of them willing to make any unnecessary movements for fear of the pain it would cause.

For a minute all that could be heard was heavy panting, and then Winstanley spoke. "We’ll finish this later," he announced sinisterly, walking backwards towards the relative safety of Bell Street and Aikman's Bar. Tintin watched him until he was gone and, once certain that there were no nasty surprises awaiting him around the corner, made his way home, wincing.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Monday, later than 11pm(ish).

Lurching forward and trying to ignore the pain, Tintin finally arrived home where a housemate greeted him warmly, if confusedly. Having helped him up the stairway, the housemate promised he would get some dressing for the wound and disappeared back downstairs.

Tintin paused at the top of the stairs. "Oh my God!" he cried out, realising that he had some Jaffa Cakes in his coat pocket.(*)

His housemate came rushing back into the stairwell again. "Are you alright? Did it get you?" he asked with concern.

Tintin frowned in confusion and was about to question the meaning of this statement, but stopped as a quiet sound at the edge of his hearing finally managed to draw attention to itself.

There were some peculiar scratching noises coming from behind his bedroom door.

Drawing his gun, and trying not to cry out at the resulting pain in his side, Tintin advanced towards the door slowly and listened again. That shuffling noise, was that... human?

Kicking the door open suddenly, Tintin's world became full of fur, screaming and monkey claws. Firing blindly, Tintin earned a brief respite as the monkey paused to regroup for another attack. Tintin wasted no time in firing again, three times, each one finding its mark as the monkey fell backwards and stopped moving.

The danger past, Tintin approached the monkey slowly and reached towards its neck to pick it up. Instead of fur, his fingers touched some sort of leathery band - a collar! Intrigued, he carefully parted the fur to examine the collar further and was surprised to find text: "If found, please return to Winstanley."

Curious stuff. Having determined the origin of the monkey, Tintin gingerly picked it up and pushed it through the bedroom window into the bushes below. That should take care of the problem for now.


(*) I apologise for this shameless Spaced reference. Not very sincerely, though.

[Amorphous]

Tuesday afternoon at some point.

Lurking around the edges of the Physics Building, Ark - no stranger to the art of killing - waited for his prey to wander past.

In time he did in the form of Spadge Mince, who hovered just out of killable range and instead of moving away chose to address Ark's hiding place. "You honestly think hanging around Physics is a good idea?" he asked.

Ark chose to remain silent, wondering if he could just pretend to not be there.

"If you're serious about this, meet me in the New Hall car park in an hour and we'll settle this with swords," Spadge Mince continued.

Having spoken his piece, Spadge Mince turned his back and walked on, leaving Ark to consider his next move.


His next move, as it turned out, was to turn up in New Hall car park in roughly an hour's time with a variety of weaponry at his disposal. At the other end of the row of cars Spadge Mince stood, planted in place, his fingers already wrapped around his greatsword in preparation.

The two assassins stared at each other. An anachronistic tumbleweed rolled between them. As the nearest church bell started to toll the hour, Ark reached for his pistol and was surprised to find that Spadge Mince drew faster, shooting the pistol out of Ark's hand and planting the second shot in his chest.

Ark fell to his knees and stared upwards at Spadge Mince as he approached, his weapon still drawn.

"Spadge Mince..." Ark whispered hoarsely. "Who the hell brings pistols... to a sword duel?"

"You should know," Spadge Mince responded evenly.

Ark laughed in a manner that came out more like a hacking cough and looked up at Spadge Mince once more. "They know... where you live. You've been watched."

Spadge Mince frowned, a sense of fear trickling into his stomach. "Who? What does that mean?" he asked urgently.

But it was too late. Slumping forward, Ark passed out from his injuries, never to be roused again.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Wednesday, 6.30pm.

Crunching up the gravel pathway to the door, Tintin winced inwardly at his own noisiness while at the same time knowing that making a normal approach to the doorway was essential to maintaining his cover. After only a few eventful, paranoia-filled days, he was already beginning to consider any sound louder than his own heartbeat to be a needless invitation for death.

Arriving at the door without incident, he settled his nerves before reaching out and pressing the call button to buzz the flat, that of Luigi 'Cannoli' DeAgostino.

There was an irritating series of beeps, followed by a clicking noise and a suspicious male voice. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Adam," Tintin lied, hoping he'd get away with using the name of a mutual friend's friend. "I think I left something here. Can I come in?"

There was a long pause while Cannoli thought this over. Tintin waited with bated breath, and tried not to give a sigh of relief when the response eventually came: "Okay," followed by a buzzing noise.

Tintin readied his gun as he walked up the stairs, resisting the impulse to run or betray any sign of excitement. Reaching the door to the flat, he knocked firmly and prepared to shoot - waiting no longer than the split-second that was necessary to identify the door-opener, he dispatched Cannoli with a bullet to the forehead, leaving his unfortunate target to slump backwards onto the wall.

There was silence, and Tintin looked around suspiciously. Compared to Monday evening that had been positively straightforward, and the absence of any dramatic follow-up was by itself alarming.

Warily, and on the look out for surprises at every turn, Tintin stole away from the building as quickly as possible.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Wednesday, 7pm (possibly).

Returning from his nefarious deed earlier, and having finally calmed down and realised that there was to be no second part to the Cannoli death, Tintin surveyed the houses in Albany Park critically. The light was off in Winstanley's room – perhaps now was a good time to set some traps while he was out.

Creeping in through a conveniently open window, Tintin snuck to Winstanley's room and opened the door carefully. Seeing no sign of defensive traps he went in further and set about his grizzly business with the help of local wildlife, persuading an attack wolf to stay behind the door and a small attack bear to hide under the desk. Applying gloves, Tintin removed a tiny vial of liquid from his jacket and carefully spread out a layer on the underside of Winstanley's phone handset – molecules thin, but more than enough to have the effect Tintin desired should the opportunity arrive. His work done, Tintin left by the same method he arrived and made his way back to his own room.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Wednesday, 7.05pm

Walking along the corridor of his house, Tintin was feeling comparatively relaxed but stopped rigid as he stepped into his bedroom. Without knowing how or why, he could sense that something wasn't right - there was a sense of malice hanging in the air, the feeling that someone or something was lurking nearby with ill intent. Casting a suspicious look around his room, Tintin found his eyes fell naturally upon his dressing gown, lying on the floor in an uncharacteristically messy heap. And moving.

Having invested in some more humane equipment since the last time, Tintin drew a tranquiliser gun out of his jacket and fired twice at the dressing gown, which made a high-pitched shrieking noise and stumbled around groggily before falling over. A few minutes passed until Tintin satisfied himself that the creature, whatever it was, was definitely unconscious - once he was certain, he approached the dressing gown and pulled it off to find a monkey underneath. Tintin was no expert on monkey appearance, but it struck him as looking remarkably like the last monkey that had attacked him - perhaps Winstanley was cloning them in a secret lab somewhere.

Picking the monkey up carefully, a thought crossed Tintin's mind and he grinned to himself. In his hands he held someone else's property - the only right thing to do, surely, was to return it?

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Wednesday, 7.30pm

Returning from his walk, Tintin felt refreshed. Planting Winstanley's attack monkey in his own bed may have had something to do with it, or maybe it was the brisk sea air afterwards and the fact that every lurking shape he had seen on his walk had NOT turned out to be someone wanting to kill him. Either way, Tintin returned to his house as a slightly different man - still very wary, but also feeling more confident, more in control of his destiny.

Such confidence was crushed almost immediately upon entering his room and switching on the light. "Sephiroth!" (*) Tintin cried in anguish, surprising himself at how attached he had grown to the random wolf he'd enlisted an assassination aid. That wolf was now dead, hanging from Tintin's light fixture in a gruesome display of human brutality and the long-running fight of teeth versus guns.

Even through his grief, however, Tintin could sense that something else was amiss in the room. Looking across, he noted that the wardrobe door was left ajar – not something he was in the habit of doing, especially having begun his careful life as an assassin, and almost certainly a bad sign. Now was not a time to take chances, and so he spurned the tranquiliser gun in favour of its more fatal cousin. Approaching the wardrobe door carefully with weapon in front, Tintin readied himself and then kicked the door open very suddenly – there, sitting the pocket of his undergraduate gown, was yet another monkey-clone. Screeching in rage, the monkey struggled for a few moments to free itself of the pocket and Tintin seized the opportunity to fire once, twice, three times, stopping the monkey quite thoroughly in its tracks.

Casting an angry look around his bedroom, he came to a conclusion. This was no good: it was time for the ongoing games with Winstanley to end, now.

Regarding Sephiroth's poor, sad body one last time, Tintin left the room, stopping only to arm himself with his most important weapon yet: his mobile phone.


(*) Yes, a near-shameless Final Fantasy 7 reference. In my defence, I have this video to blame:
http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/wii-catz-2-is-an-adventure-324394.php
Bear in mind that you'll need to be an FF7 fan to understand it and also that it is 8 minutes and 19 seconds of your life that you WON'T GET BACK.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Wednesday, 7.45pm.

Finding cover from the howling gale in the form of another house, Tintin kept close to the wall and gazed up at Winstanley's window with determination. His target was in – that was good. His target had company – that was less good, but Tintin was in no mood to wait. If someone else acquired lifelong trauma as a result of Winstanley dying right in front of them... well, that was just too bad.

Tintin carefully dialled Winstanley's room number and waited while it rang, watching at the same time as Winstanley's silhouette paused speaking to his guest and reached across the answer the phone.

"Hello?" Winstanley's voice carried down the line.

"It’s your old friend," Tintin announced.

"Ah, Tintin," Winstanley remarked, his voice betraying no sign of emotion.

"I saw what you did to Seph-- to the wolf. Brutal thing to do to an animal."

"Don't leave him in an assassin's bedroom, then," Winstanley replied easily. "I noticed you returned my monkey as well. You'll be disappointed to hear he hadn't woken up by the time I discovered him. Honestly, I expected better from you."

"Well, I considered using contact poison on the doorknob, but somehow it just seemed to lack style. And I thought it might be too quick – I wanted to be there to see things through to the end."

"An understandable reaction," Winstanley responded, casting a glance towards the window. "So, are you coming up to kill me or did you just phone for a chat?"

"Actually, I was just wondering... how much time does contact poison need before it takes effect?"

In the window, the silhouette shrugged. "I'd suppose the average is thirty seconds. Why?"

"And, my dear friend," Tintin went on, ignoring the question, "how long have we been having this conversation?"

In the window, the silhouette transferred the phone to his other hand and then reached up and rubbed his ear, apparently a sudden source of irritation. Looking at his fingers, Winstanley cried out and dropped the phone in horror.

Outside in the cold Tintin smiled and hung up. The only thing left to do now was make sure Winstanley didn't make some kind of miraculous recovery.

Entering his room carefully, Tintin found Winstanley lying on the floor by his bed, still poking at his damaged, bloodied ear in mild confusion and disbelief, his guest having fled the room in horror moments ago.

Hearing the door open and heaving himself into an upwards position, Winstanley tried to look up at Tintin and found instead that the world was spinning and swirling and pitching around far too wildly for him to focus on anything.

"Tintin," he coughed out, half-guessing.

"I'm here," Tintin responded, both guns trained on his opponent just in case.

"I knew... that you were up to something. I knew... that the phone call must be a trap. But I didn't think that you could kill me... over the phone..." The rest dissolved into a coughing fit, and Winstanley collapsed onto the floor as he lost the strength to hold himself upright any longer.

Tintin choked back a tear as he watched Winstanley writhe on the floor. "We had some good times, old friend," he announced sombrely. "Rest easy. You will be missed."

As his friend lost consciousness for the final time, Tintin backed out of the room slowly, returning to his own dwelling with a heavy heart.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Thursday, 8.55am.

Still physically and emotionally drained from the events of the night before, Tintin was not at his most alert while walking to lectures and the world as a whole seemed less bright – the bowling-green by the museum dulled in colour, the nearby flowers stooped after the abuse of the previous day's rain, the other figures around him hunched over and lonely-looking.

He was alarmed when one of the hunched-over figures stopped suddenly. Instinctively Tintin started running and tried to reach for a weapon, but was thwarted by a stuck zip that had chosen to make its presence known at precisely the wrong time. Cursing his luck, Tintin glanced over his shoulder and watched powerlessly as his opponent, codenamed DemonMonkey, drew a handgun and fired. The effect was almost instantaneous; Tintin stumbled and fell, and once on the ground did not get up.

Prodding his target's body with his foot just to be sure, DemonMonkey felt a flush of success at what had just happened. Not bad for a debut.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

Friday, noon. (It took a long time to get confirmation for this one!)

Attempting to protect himself from the bitter cold, hitherto unknown assassin Science Is Fun huddled deeper into his fleece as he passed the Purdie Building. The sooner he was indoors, the better.

So focussed was Science Is Fun on thoughts of future warmth that he neglected to notice the shady-looking character approaching him and as a result did not react as DemonMonkey drew his gun and fired...

...And missed, owing to a mechanical malfunction. Swearing under his breath, DemonMonkey performed a quick fix on his gun as Science Is Fun took the opportunity to bolt as fast as his legs would carry him, trying to put as much difference between himself and his would-be dispatcher as possible.

Charging after him, DemonMonkey struggled to keep a steady hand and so the second shot also went wide, leaving nearby civilian students scared but thankfully uninjured.

For the third shot, DemonMonkey was more careful and paused to take aim – squeezing the trigger at precisely the right moment he was rewarded for his patience, as the bullet flew true and struck Science Is Fun in the neck.

Falling forwards to the ground, Science Is Fun quickly considered where the nearest medical facilities were and came to the conclusion that they simply weren't near enough.

Curling up into a ball, his last thought was to reflect that at least the cold wouldn't be bothering him any more.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

[Amorphous]

After a full week of non-action some members of the St Andrews Panicking Society were beginning to emerge from their underground bunkers and stand, shaking, in the cold winter daylight, casting fearful glances around them and clutching onto their battered tin helmets with the tight, whitened knuckles of the terminally jittery.

It was quiet. Not even the 'too quiet' of the world holding its breath waiting for something dramatic to happen: it was just plain quiet.

Curious stuff. By St Andrews Panicking Society records there were still two assasins left - what was happening? Had one of them fallen off a cliff? Gone into hiding in a little bunker and a battered tin hat of his own? Had they, horrors of horrors, reached a truce?

As the SAPS members stood pondering this and other things, trying to adjust to the sensation of open air and having no roof, a seagull flew past and made a loud noise. Fearing for their lives they immediately scattered and scampered back to the bunker, fumbling with their helmets and trying not to fall over.

Assassins or not, the real world was still far too scary for any sane individual to spend time there.

[hr]

If Jack Bauer was put in a room with Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Nina Myers and handed a gun with two bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.