Yes, it's true. Sensing that we had hit a bit of a lull in the officially-sanctioned battle activity, our good friend The Rogue Knitter has been busy, and spent the weekend killing not one, but two more members of the power structure of this game.
First, Chesley opened the shop Saturday morning and discovered a pair of Killer Zaps left on the flagpole for Peter. Now normally, one would think that a delivery at the store would not be an effective way of taking him out; his appearance at the shop is irregular and unpredictable. As fate would have it, however, he was covering the shop for a short time Saturday afternoon, so the delivery was completed, and he was cut down.
Sadly, Alec came to the shop with Peter that day, so the death took place in his presence. Fortunately, he was busy standing on his head and watching Bunnytown on the iPod, so the emotional scarring seems to have been kept to a minimum.
Why Peter, you ask. He was not a judge. He certainly did not understand the knitting aspects of the game (while some of us examined the socks for fiber and technique, his entire analysis of the socks consisted of "Mmmm. Comfy."). Rogue's note gives a hint to the devious reasoning behind the hit:
"Peter,
You have been assassinated with a pair of Electric Zap killer socks. Since you are in charge of all things technical and electronic, it is only fitting that your demise comes in an electric yellow zap.
Sincerely,
The Rogue Knitter"
By seeking to remove the technical support from the game, Rogue is clearly looking to destabilize the entire thing. A clever move. Fortunately, the systems Peter had put in place largely run themselves, so his continued presence, while missed, is not required.
In a move much closer to the core of the game, word reached us from the SPA weekend in Freeport that Amy, the mastermind behind the pattern for the Zaps themselves, was also taken out by Rogue.
We imagine that Rogue is relishing the irony of Amy's demise coming from a killing object of her own design. That, combined with the sheer audacity of an anonymous in-person kill, in a very public place, provides us with some interesting personality traits to add to our profile of The Rogue Knitter.
Yes, while we know that there is rampant speculation as to Rogue's alter ego, no one is more curious than we are, and we are compiling all of our information to identify our wayward assassin. Do we know who it is yet? We do not. Do we have information? We do.
We are assuming Rogue is a Maine knitter - we doubt one of our Missouri friends is making personal deliveries to the shop.
We have analyzed Rogue's knitting technique - Peter's socks show a very nice three needle bind-off.
We have determined that Rogue's death notices are using a font called Synchro, a retro, non-standard font, which puzzled us for a while. We then discovered that it was a font which can be installed as a part of iDVD, so is Rogue a Mac user? Intriguing.
We know that Rogue, despite the killer tendencies, is also very considerate; the taunting letters included with the kills also include a pleasant P.S. with washing instructions.
So the dossier is growing. We are on the trail.
We apologize for the lack of updates on the official battle. With relatively few people left, we don't have the same frenzied activity we saw earlier on. We think that many of the remaining players are on similar stages of death-delivery, so we expect that the end will be brought closer with a flurry of activity.
We reported last time that there were 11 left alive. We regret to say that we were a bit premature in our counting and included one person who has not actually died yet, so the official count at the moment remains at 12.
We do, however, know of at least 2 deliveries which are on the way, so we should be below a dozen come tomorrow. And there are likely others on their way, so we should see some more action shortly.
We would remind you that we will only report deaths when they are officially acknowledged by the recipient, so be sure to let us know when death actually arrives for you...
In the comments from the last post, the suggestion was made that at the end of this we provide details around the paths taken by all of the socks in the game. We find this suggestion to be a good one, and will work on something to deliver at the end of the game.
Until next time...