Betrayal In the Senate...

[Xaphon Zessen]

Hello Homins!

Our newest elected Senator; Senator Dios has asked for an audience with all Fyros and friends of the Fyros on Saturday 16th May @ 8PM UTC at the fountain in Pyr.

She has been talking lately about an investigation into corruption in the senate. However, she didn't say whether or not this request was because of that. She did, however, ask for diplomatic Homins who are good with reason over brute force.

But then remarked that sometimes brute force is needed over diplomacy!

I am confused. But I shall be there; I hope you will be too.

[ooc: Event will be re-run on Sunday 17th May @ 4AM UTC]

[kiakaha]

Great! Also good to see you're thinking of our non-european friends. Although it will be on the early side for the Asian-Pacifics, at least they won't have to lose much sleep

[rdfall]

interesting... wish i could be there.

[suib0m]

Suibom sat in the Yrkanis tavern, slowy drinking his psykopinthe. He drank quietly at a table in the far corner, covered in shadow, but his ears were very attentive. The tavern was often an excellent source of information exchange, particularly for a homin that quietly listened and knew how to sort the seeds of truth from the drunken slurs of overly talkative homins. Today was one of those days.

Sui's ears perked up as he saw a pair of Tryker merchants take a table near his. Trykers loved to talk.

"I'm so very glad to be away from the desert," one of the Trykers said to the other. "Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the desert. And my business there is often quite successful. But there's some very strange goings-ons with the Fyros. Stay far away for a while."

"That's not good news," said the other. "I was gonna join a convoy headin to Pyr. What kind of goings-ons is goin on?"

"There's many a rumor of corruption in the Senate. I hear that Senator Dios has begun investigations. She has put out a call to loyal homins to meet in Pyr."

"That is bad news."

"I have not heard anyone say for sure that the meeting had to do with the corruption investigation, but I'm betting my little left toe on it."

"It wouldn't surprise me. These kinds of meetings always have a significance."

"Yes. I'd definitely be staying away from Pyr for a while. Things are surely going to become a mess if the investigation goes the way of most Fyrosian investigations."

Sui stood up and made his way out of the tavern. He had long had a sense that many of the governmental factions were at odds with the leadership in each of the peoples lands. He was glad to hear action was being taken in Pyr. If only the Matis would look into their own ranks. He knew that corruption amongst the Matis elite was extensive. He may not be loyal to the Fyrosians, but he had enough friends of Fyros decent. And he needed proof for himself of the corruption that was spreading in the governments and was curious if there would be any links discovered between the corruption and the Kami that the Fyros worshiped. Or, for that matter, even a link to the Karavan.

Time for a trip to Pyr.

[vonzuben]

[OOC] This was my favorite event so far in Ryzom! We had a blast, largely because it ended up with us role playing and throwing in our own twist. I don’t know if the Event Team was prepared for it or had to wing it hehe.

Here’s pictures and story of how this event unfolded for our group… CLICK HERE

[katriell]

Ooh, that is magnificent. Power to the players.

[suib0m]

[OOC]
While I really enjoy the fact that the Event Team tried to respond to new circumstances in a positive way, I feel that the initial event had some problems in the way that it went down. Though, I do feel it was a nice step in a good direction.

With the initial event, as SM mentioned, that team broke off to try and help Xylos. Unfortunately, there was a bit of faltering of leadership in the beginning, which was compounded by myself taking that role for a short time though I hadn't planned to be completely attentive to the event. So, with the SM team breaking off and myself having to go AFK a bit into things, there seemed (to me at least) to be a lack of direction as we raced through the desert to try and catch up with Xylos. As we entered into the forest lands, it seemed we were just running the ropes as our team had dwindled and splintered off when we were directed to the Arena.

The Arena... yes we really should have figured it out, and I had some inclination that there would be nastiness waiting, but I didn't put all the pieces together that it would be part of the initial group that met up with Dios. Sadly, my game crashed just as we entered the arena and I was forcefed some PvP spells upon reconnect, so I'm not really sure how the Arena portion of things went down. By the time I realized what was happening, I had a SweetMarie sititng on me .

Soo, I was left with a feeling of discord and wondering how this event would affect those players who were not expecting a PvP related event (as non-PvPers were effectively led into a PvP trap). In the end, Senator Xylos and his documents got away.

The second event went along more smoothly. There was a more cohesive feeling towards things, but we (Dios helpers) did not run into the opposition we had before, which was very interesting. In the end of the second event, we had diplomatic sparring with Xylos, who eventually relented and decided to return to Pyr and face up to his decisions. I did enjoy the second event more, as we had much more chance to RP (which may have just been my perception due to my connection issues the first time around). Overall, I think both events were quite fun, though. I now understand the roughness of the first.

However, we have a bit of disjunction on the outcome of the Events. The end result was the same, the Matis got hold of the documents, even though the prizes say the documents were recovered for the second event . If I were to write this up, I would leave out the specifics of what happened to Xylos and just state that the documents were lost, Xylos was eventually captured (to account for the fact that he was not captured right away in the first event, we leave the timeframe out) and brought to an Inquiry that looked into his actions and revealed the contents of the documents (we were promised this at the end of the second event).

If we were actually supposed to retrieve the documents (i.e. the other servers were able to retrieve them and we diverged from that storyline), I would probably say that the documents Xylos had did not contain the information he thought they did and the Matis ended up with useless information.

Thank you, Event Team, for a great time and for responding to the desires of the players. I would probably announce ahead of time that an Event may possibly become PvP related if such divergences may occur. And I would also plan for such pressures from the players in advanced, as a precedence has been set. Also, finding a way to communicate changes to the leaders of the scenario in an IC way would be nice. That is, when we started to converge on the Arena, it would have been nice if Dios had mentioned to all that Xylos had supporters in the Forest and we may encounter opposition, rather than "regarless of the outcome meet me back in Pyr at the fountain", which was kind of disheartening to hear.

Those are my thoughts on a great event weekend
(and thanks to Inifuss for the Tourney of the 4 Peoples and to Marelli for hosting Ring events!!)

Peace,
- Sui

Edit: added a small bit of emphasis: (as non-PvPers were effectively led into a PvP trap)

[sidusar]

I have to admit, giving the two runnings of the event different outcomes makes it very clear the players have an actual influence over how the event ends, which is awesome.

I wonder which outcome is going to be considered canon now, though.

(Notice that that reward axe has every stat maxed, so it's an interesting crafting novelty at least )

Edit: Ack, ninjad by Sui! But thanks for the mention. I didn't actually get to attend the events so I can't judge about the details, but I would like to say in regards to:

(i.e. the other servers were able to retrieve them and we diverged from that storyline)

If that is the case, then the story should simply evolve differently on each server. Different outcomes between different servers just makes it livelier and more interesting, it's only when there's different outcomes on the same server that it gets confusing.

[suib0m]

Llewellyn(sp?) requested a log upload and this one was interesting enough that it's definitely worth having, so I've uploaded the event logs I was able to capture. I quickly hacked together a log parser, so hopefully it got everything (minus emotes and superfluous data).

[url]http://ryz_ezine.home.comcast.net/~ryz_ezine/betrayal_in_the_senate.html[/url]

You know, looking over the logs, I'm wondering if these logs were the documents that Xylos was trying to deliver .

Another interesting twist on things that I forgot to mention... Towards the end of the second event Xylos became unresponsive. Inifuss delivered him to the Arid Matis camp (I hear they owed her a favor) to hold until an elite Fyrosian squad could pick him up. We have not yet discovered whether he was delivered or if he somehow escaped again. Hopefully all will come to light soon.

Peace,
- Sui

[suib0m]

Suibom sat on a hill some distance away and overlooking the capital city of Yrkanis, hidden from view. The city he could once call his home. He had not been back to Yrkanis since his journey to Pyr, having traveled to the Fyros capital to be an observer to the statements of Senator Dios and somehow letting himself fall into the center of a surreal play; a drama of corruption and betrayal.

On that day when Senator Dios began to speak, weeks ago now, Sui had noticed that there were members of each of the races gathered including clusters of Matis. It surprised him a little to see so many Matis at this hearing but it was somewhat comforting to know he could blend in with the crowd a bit easier. He recognized some of the Matis as known Kamists, so seeing them was not too out of order. Senator Dios addressed the crowd with open suspicions of another Senator, Ionn Xylos, whom she feared was trying to smuggle sensitive documents to the Verdant Heights. The news made him feel uneasy, hearing his people were implicated in her suspicions, but his interest in uncovering corruption in the Matis monarchy kept him in place to hear Senator Dios out. As her words continued, a subtle tension could be felt building in one of the clusters of Matis. He recognized SweetMarie in that group, a feared Matis Kamist warrior, as well as other members of the Hearts of Thunder guild. In hindsight, he felt Senator Dios should have been more discreet than to hold this open meeting and he, himself, should have been more wary of the situation. As he listened on, though, he felt a growing need to help stop Xylos from his plans.

As events unfolded, he found himself being one of the driving forces behind the chase for Xylos. A sense of urgency to reclaim the documents and discover what information Xylos was trying to deliver to the Matis pushed him forward. The group caught up to Xylos as he crossed the bridges over Outlaw Canyon, but he managed to escape their grasp. Sui realized he had gone too far and, if Xylos made his delivery, he could be implicated as a traitor to his race. If he could help stop Xylos and gain evidence to uncover the corrupt Matis behind this plot, his actions would be justified. It was at this point that he noticed the Kamist Matis were no longer with the group hunting Xylos.

Xylos managed to evade the hunt and entered the Verdant Heights through Hidden Source. Dios informed the group that Xylos was likely to head to the Arena. The group pushed hard through the forest, trying to stop Xylos before he could reach his allies. They finally caught sight of him disappearing into the massive Arena walls. It was at the Arena that SweetMarie and the Hearts of Thunder made their presence known again. It was an ambush. The Kamist Matis were protecting Xylos. The ambush caught the group by surprise and was viciously efficient. The group chasing Xylos was quickly suppressed and Xylos made his escape again. The Hearts of Thunder escaped under a hail of well timed spells.

Feeling defeated and stunned by the levels of treachery, the group that had once been chasing Xylos began to make their retreat back to Pyr. The forest was far too dangerous a place to be at that moment. The trees began to thin as the sands of the Hidden Source began to overcome the grass of the forest when Dios stopped them. Xylos had been seen alone in Davae. They had one last chance.

The group was joined by other homins that supported the capture of Xylos. Sui was happy to see his guildmates, Inifuss and KilgoreTrout, were among them. With renewed vigor, the group pushed forward again, into the heart of the forest. Their path to Davae met relatively little resistance and they were able to spot Xylos on the streets of the city. A few of the homins snuck into the city and corralled Xylos away from the main streets and prying eyes. Xylos followed them with little argument and seemed somewhat disoriented, not having the same fevered drive he had before their encounter in the Arena. The homins noted this change in the behavior of Xylos and decided to try some verbal sparring again. As a Senator, Xylos was used to making passionate arguments and tried to draw the group to his side, to no avail. The group finally wore Xylos down and he relented, agreeing to return to Pyr in their custody. But the documents were already lost. Xylos said they were in the hands of the Matis already, but he would not say what they contained or who had them.

On the journey back, as the group entered the Hidden Source again, Xylos collapsed. His unconscious form slumped to the ground. Fever burned his flesh and sweat drenched his body. Poisoned? There was no way to tell. The group sought the help of a nearby camp, hoping there would be a healer that could see to the fallen Senator while they made their back to Pyr in search of help.

That is where Sui broke off from the group. Senator Dios informed them that the matter would be taken up by Emperor Dexton, an inquiry would be held for Xylos, and the contents of the documents would be disclosed. Sui returned to the forest to contemplate the events and what impact they would have. He could not return to the Matis cities for fear of being arrested as a traitor. He had no home now, as even here, surrounded by trees, it was too dangerous.

As he looked over Yrkanis from his hidden vantage point, thinking about the events that transpired, he wondered why there was no word from Dios or Xaphon. There was very little chatter at all about what occurred. More curiously, why were the Hearts of Thunder, a Kamist guild, involved with matters of the Karavan loyal Matis monarchy?

Troubled by the events, wondering if he would be able to return to his home, Sui stood up and walked away from the city of Yrkanis, his home.

---

Taking some liberties, I combined the two events into one story. I'm very curious to hear what Xaphon and Dios have to say about the matter {nudge, nudge }. Now to find a new home, maybe the lakelands.

Peace,
- Sui