Rata Mall - The Office 2 - Phase 8

[ambic]

The wall phone might be able to talk with the phone you have picked up if you find somewhere to plug it in. Otherwise ringing stuff like 111, 000, 911, will all be futile. THeres nothing else on the phones.

[Talitha]

I like how you save your time, and mine

[RubberDuck]

Oh you have no idea how many 100's of searches I tried in other rooms that resulted in Ambic waiting 24 hours before processing my actions and started netting me sarcastic "Stop looking at this" type responses

[ambic]

Sometimes I wait 24 hours because thats a combination of nap-time and work time

[Talitha]

Just thinking about the explosion, and Xavier. He told me he was going to the secret lab this rotation. His cover story is that he's trying to get the time machine going (or maybe it's not a cover story, maybe it's true).

[Talitha]

I think Jia went to secret lab / fashion store too.

[RubberDuck]

Carla and I were discussing that earlier.

Jia said fashion store, but Johannes indicated he wasn’t going to the cinema alone. Given that he has Jias lasergun. It makes sense if Jia could be with him there too if she wanted her gun back and safety in numbers.

I was down in the phone store and then in here with you. Carla we know is in the bathroom.

That leaves Xavier (who could have also followed Johannes) Harry, and Cindy unaccounted for.
Carla and I think it’s odd Cindy went to the bookstore 3x turns straight and would like to ask her about that later..

We know something big has blown up so I’d guess Jia or Xavier did something in the lab?

Carla and I have also noted that only

half

of the mall cctv cameras were viewable from the lab. Rooms like the phone store, hardware store and barber shop aren’t viewable from the lab despite having cctv cameras in them that are on and recording.

We concluded that if Mark did find a locked door to a lab, it cannot have been the cafe door, and therefore we think there could be a second wing or part to the lab in the west side of the building between the bank and the barbers, which is how we came up with the mad tunnel plan using my radiation drugs.

[RubberDuck]

If something blew up in the lab, there could be several possibilities.

1) An accident. He tried to do something and it backfired.
2) Deliberate - either to open up a new area, destroy some evidence or even an attempt to kill Jia - What if he set something off and then escaped the room?
3) The explosion came from elsewhere.
4) What if Johannes and Xavier did actually fix the gas but just lied about it to everyone and that’s what blew up?
5) The explosion was story related and not triggered by players.

Other than the cloning vats, what was in the lab? Anything explodey? Perhaps the lab had a self destruct button or similar.

[Talitha]

I didn't see anything obviously explodey in there. There was also a non-working teleporter in need or a part and/or some expertise to get it going. The unfinished time machine.
A tool bench. Pipes along the walls. A floor drain. I probably missed stuff I should've found down there, I was quite preoccupied with handling the Green Crayons situation and watching the CCTVs.

[Talitha]

I also find Cindy suspicious. From what Sir Leo (RIP) said to me in the fashion store when he thought I was a bad guy, I think the other bad character here is a Sorceror.
It could make sense that a sorceror is looking for books of spells maybe...

[RubberDuck]

Carla is asking if the rooms Xavier rented are specified in the contract?

[RubberDuck]

Blood rituals are typically dark magic, so if anyone was a sorcerer - I'd argue that it was Sir Leo, but why was he trying to commune with Xavier while Xavier was in the room?

Xavier also went feral about Leo not being the one after him for his "youth", stating it was never him and that Leo was trying to expose him. In the heat of everything that went down in the eatery, no one questioned Xavier further and he started threatening to chop peoples hands off (with a baseball bat, ironically.)

[Talitha]

Regarding Leo, Johannes had an interesting theory that he explained to me...

According to the book I found, Leo's interest was to impede others. Johannes thought Leo's goal was probably just trying to get in everyone else’s way. His theory was that Leo had some sort of knowledge of the other player's objectives or roles, but he didn't know which person was trying to achieve what.

...Consider some of his actions:
- He claimed to own the mall (Carla is trying to find information about her mall-owning family)
- He quickly took a stand against drug use (Terry was searching for brewery/substances)
- He was on the lookout for thieves almost immediately (Me)
- He made a comment to... someone... about “are you also looking for the young man that appears old?”
- The odd ritual, no clue what that was.

I think Johannes' theory makes a lot of sense. And if Leo wasn't the sorcerer, he might've been trying to smoke out the real one or somehow thwart them.

[Talitha]

And to Carla - no, sorry. The contract didn't specify which rooms in the mall he was renting.

[Talitha]

By the way, I'ma have to pickpocket Xavier for my wincon. Also we highly suspect he has a weapon. I might try specifically for the knife so he can't lash out with it once he finds out we're on to him. What do you think? Any help would be greatly appreciated....

[RubberDuck]

We know Xavier has a baseball bat - unsure where he got it from, but he had it after coming out of the basement the 2nd time after rebooting the generators and not the first. Perhaps a room opened up down there? He was also carrying a fuel can in his other hand. To use a knife, he'd have to drop something.

He hinted to Terry that he found a sharp knife in the Cafe in phase one - However, this is unconfirmed.
He also picked up a shard of glass from the broken truck in the eatery - unsure if this is a weapon or if he wanted to prevent people seeing his reflection.
Sir Leo used broken glass to cut himself, so I'd guess it also counts as a weapon?

Worst case scenario is you fight him, knock him out and loot him. You have the handcuffs here you could use to restrain him?
Fighting is probably a bad idea, as I pointed out to Johannes when they jumped Mark, supporters only add a +1 and their weapons aren't counted. Jia very nearly lost that fight and Mark could have killed her for it.

I think its likely that Jia and Johannes will defend Xavier given how close they've been so far.

I'm still the crowd favorite for being Marks killer (Because I threatened to in the eatery when i accused him of cheating), Jia's AL drone and the remainder of the group still think I might be the mad scientist because of Mark's accusation.

Honestly I'm amazed they haven't just mobbed the rest of us and sailed to an easy win. I suspect thats how the game will end, a small group out tank everyone else, finish their win cons and call game.

Everyone must be close to their end game, I say this because Carla is claiming to have done her 1st part and Terry's was collect ingredients, find the brewery and brew the alcohol. Terry had all his ingredients by phase 2 and just needed to get into the brewery to win. So even though people thought my win con was simple, Terry's was just find stuff and then get to a specific room. Carla finding the box with H.T seems to have been her first condition and now needs to get to a specific room. I'm concluding that the game must be nearly over, or that win conditions are totally independent everyone wins or loses on their own irrespective of everyone else.

For example, if Terry or Carla got to their needed rooms, how does that affect anyone else still playing? It doesnt make sense that would be game ending for everyone else.

[RubberDuck]

Does your chainmail help you in melee combat at all, surely it would give you a +1 defense to melee or something? Maybe take the hard had from in here before we go back?

You already have a crowbar, you said there's a knuckle duster too, you probably can't use them both at the same time, so pick which one you think might be better?

The crowbar has more practical use, i.e. we need it for the manhole cover in the carpark so I'd vote for keeping that.

[RubberDuck]

hard hat[*]

Obviously wont help if you get shot, but I'd suggest that would give you reasonable defence against melee attacks?

[RubberDuck]

I think trying to steal a weapon is risky, because no matter which one you take, he potentially has 2 more that he can use. Also we don't know for certain that he had a knife, only that he told Terry he had one and we know that Mark was stabbed which could either be a knife or the shard of glass..

How about this?
Do we know for certain that he had any other specific items on him? You mentioned your odds of stealing were higher if you didn't specify an item right? So if you can't disarm him because he has too many weapons, my suggestion would then be to take a random item off him for higher odds to meet your wincon.

[Talitha]

Cool good advice, thank you. I'll go for a random pickpocket when I get a chance.

The chainmail will "undo the effects of most bonus weapons used against me". So I guess it'd only be Xavier's base strength I'd be up against, unless he has some weapon that chainmail can't protect against.

Maybe I could give you the handcuffs? So if I end up in a fight with him, you can slip in and handcuff him if I am otherwise preoccupied.

I do think Johannes would support us, if we explain to him what we've learned.

[Talitha]

I think we need probably need to end him, one way or another. I suspect him being alive and continuing with whatever he is scheming will be bad for the rest of us.

[Talitha]

And he's shown absolutely no hesitation to murder whoever is in his way

[RubberDuck]

If Ambic has done his D&D research, chainmail probably negates bladed weapons to +0, but blunt weapons like bats and hammers and knuckle dusters typically bypass armor, so I'd still recommend taking the hard hat in case he tries to knock you out by whacking you in the head.

Really depends on how Ambic has simplified the mechanics to suit the forum.

We could try to cuff him mid combat, but I'm not exactly strong, so he could easily throw me off.

Didn't you already steal the dark chocolate off him though?

And he's shown absolutely no hesitation to murder whoever is in his way

That's true, that also might be because the failed clone openly stated wanting to kill the mad scientist. So he'll say it was a kill or be killed situation.

[RubberDuck]

We could always try jabbing him with my needle, though after using it on you, I doubt anyone will let me get close enough to another person, but what if I lent it to you, you inject Xavier and then while he's having a seizure, you cuff him?

It works the same way your stealing mechanic does, you have to wait for them to perform an action first, otherwise it counts as starting combat.

We also suspect I'll most likely be attacked and killed by Jia and the others the second I go back out into to the Eatery. They are still convinced that I am the AL drone and if not the drone that I must have at least killed Terry. Jia even went as far as suggesting that I put Terry in the Freezer to hide the body.

If Xavier is cuffed, you could always decide to finish him off if his alibi doesn't line up? I would caution executing him in front of the others though incase they buy his story and start accusing you of being a killer.

We could try convince him to come with us to the irradiated tunnel on the basis that there is another underground room that might have what he needs to fix his time machine.

[RubberDuck]

Also, I've been wrong about every assertation I've made about players so far, so there's also that to consider.

Groza/Johannes typically plays devils advocate, so I guess he would ask, What if the clone was the evil and needed to die, if his task was only to kill the mad scientist, what would that mean if he succeeded. We all automatically lose because Mark killed Xavier? That seems unbalanced.

Ohh snap, Xavier did say something was after him specifically... He was probably talking about the clone Mark Knorp. Durrr Duck