Call to Assize: Mister Rhodri Taliesin

[Dreadlust Shadow]

I am sorry for the delay and have no more questions to ask Sir Otto.

[Altus Whyte]

Either party may now go ahead and make rebuttals or arguments regarding specific statements that have been made such far. This is not the closing arguments. You have 24 hours to do so.

The court will then decide with the jury whether any further information is required before proceeding to closing arguments and deliberations.

[Altus Whyte]

A clarification on killing-related crimes: After the crown being consulted on the matter, it is established that a killing is to be classed as a murder if it is deemed serious enough to warrant an exile, such as a killing in a perma-death game or an evidently malevolent killing in a regular MMO. Otherwise a killing is to be classed as different forms and degrees of aggravated assault and battery depending on how serious it is. This is because a killing in a non perma-death world doesn't carry the permanence essential to the severity of murder as a crime.

[Rhodri Taliesin]

I've nothing more to say, thank you Sheriff for the clarifications.

[Dreadlust Shadow]

I have no arguments and rebuttals to make.

[Altus Whyte]

The following is a condensed summary for the reviewing of what has been said such far:


//d

During Friday, ‎October ‎4, ‎2013, ‏‎3:37:01 PM (Oceanic time zone) It started off as a boring day where the server war between 7L alliance and the GUTS alliance was coming to a complete stop due to both sides being bored from sieging assets so i asked 7L if there war was active and they told me that they did not know so i decided to take the tunghsteel-steel set and many other steel pieces i had looted in a battle, from Kranesh to Bakti due to the fact that Wessex is based out of there on my Dreadlust character. After i arrived into Bakti i transferred the armor set to my character named Kumiko due to the fact that i kept all the good armor pieces that i couldn't use on my main due to armor taking up too much bank space. While transferring the armor set i had noticed a old friend of mine from WSX was in Bakti who had left Wessex due to drama within the guild. I went up to him on the current character i was on which was Kumiko and added him onto my friends list to ask him why he had left and to see if he had changed his mind about leaving Wessex and tried to convince him to join Wessex again. After a while of talking to one another somebody yelled out that GUTS was outside the west gates, so i told Castiel to wait then grabbed my minimum dencity flakestone armor and some magic reagents and went outside to fight them. After i went outside of Bakti i spotted two mounted red GUTS members which ones name was Chicollo and the other one i forgot the name of circling around Bakti's west gates attacking people (Chicollo being a hammer user and the other one being a mounted archer). Due to GUTS being outside a few people engaged them including Rhodri and I near the hillside west of the town. Rhodri went all out and was fighting them 1 vs 2 and eventually got dismounted. During that time i could not heal anyone due a slight bug where your magic wont work on anyone. After a few minutes of skirmishing Rhodris mount eventually died and got knocked off of it and decided to walk towards the guardzone outside of Bakti in order to call the guards on the people outside as demonstrated in a different PvP video showing Rhodris habit when a fight is being lost ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8SC6lkCGk 3:40 onwards ). After Rhodri had called the guards on the enemy Chicollo got stuck on a bush due to a glitch and died to the guards. While his other friend was trying to get away he also got stuck on the same position and died. Due to no body being around i ran up to the lootbags and looted most of the loot off of the enemies bodies. The loot i got off the enemies included 3 messing and 1 steel mauls, 1 steel 2h star mace, a bow and almost 2 armor sets which included a molrium set and a steel/flakestone set. Due to me picking up so much loot i was weighed down tremendously and my speed was cut off more than half. Due to the fear of being attacked I decided to go the the outside, west fence of Bakti to log out while trying to contact Castiel to help me transfer the loot to my bank because he was afk i decided to log out once i arrived at the fence but canceled the logout when i saw a naked Rhodri arrive outside of the town gates along sides the south west fence and look down on the floor at his blue lootbag. Due to me seeing him dead and his lootbag being there i decided to follow the west fence northwards while using the auto run and to get this loot into my bank. After i arrived into town through the west gate Castiel had replied to the message i sent a while ago and asked if i needed help getting all of the loot into town and i replied "no I'm in town" then typed "I'm tiptoeing" reffering to how my character was moving. Before i could press enter to send the message to Castiel, Rhodri came out of no were naked with a one handed steel greatblade and started to attack me causing him to turn blue and ended up killing me. After he had killed me the guards then killed him due to him attacking someone in town. After taking screenshots( http://i.imgur.com/cWfLTAO.png Friday, ‎October ‎4, ‎2013, ‏‎4:02:55 PM)and ranting about Rhodri to Castiel, i quickly ran to the priest and resurrected making my way to my lootbag swiftly so it wont be looted by any griefers. When i arrived at my lootbag two lines of weapons + armor was missing. Even tho this was the case i looted all of my original gear and some of the gear that was left and banked most and afterwards gave the rest of the armor to naked players around Bakti. Before i gave the armors away i decided to rant about Rhodri in town about him killing me and why would he kill me and then after the 2 minute gray timer was up Rhodri had ressurected at the priest and said "I see your working with the Gutternsipes ey" (or something close to that) and i ranted more until another Wessex member that i forgot the name of came up to me and said "It sounds like butt hurt to me". I replied back to him forgetting what i actually said then Kreager (A person that i had not spoken to since January) requested to be my friend and started to ask me question such as what guilds are you with, are you guilded etc. I replied as straightforward as possible and removed him off of my friends list then gave the armor away to naked aroundBakti since i could not use it due to me being a free to play.

Corrections by the plaintiff:

Before i could press enter to send the message to Castiel, Rhodri came out of no were naked with a one handed steel greatblade and started to attack me causing him to turn grey and ended up killing me. After he had killed me the guards then killed him due to him attacking someone in town.

I replied back to him forgetting what i actually said then Kreager (A person that i had not spoken to since April) requested to be my friend and started to ask me question such as what guilds are you with, are you guilded etc.

//r

First of I'd like to thank the Jury and the Sheriff for their time and participation here.

On the day in question I remember see a /yell around town that the Guttersnipes had arrived in Bak'ti. After trying to assemble a counter force in town and finding none to join the fight. I decided to take a stand against the red raiders myself. I was in Teamspeak with Kreager Stonewall at the time, who was not logged into game, enjoying general banter. After a few minutes of the fight going back and forth with some performance issues on my own end (such as freezing in place at inopportune moments). I ended up being an easy target for the raiders.

As I was attempting to make my way towards the safety of the town riding down hill, I noticed a grouping of players blue flagged and grey flagged, one of those players being "Kumiko", who was throwing healing spells onto the Guttersnipe raiders blue-flagged players. Kumiko was wrapped in scale made Khurite Splinted armor. A character that until then I had never seen in or around Bak'ti. At this point I had been dismounted and cornered against the fence, surrounding Bak'ti, where I was struck with a few flamestrike spells and killed.

Before I fell I had called the guards a few times, in hopes that if I were to die that my enemies might be taken with me. I ran to the priest, resurrected and made my way back towards the gate and towards my corpse to see what had occurred while I was dead, it appeared the enemy was dead, and that their bodies were looted, my own corpse looted empty (probably by the reds) upon passing, I noticed Kumiko who was now wearing pieces of steel armor where there was none before.

Believing this person to have assisted in my demise and having looted his friends equipment as well as my own to preserve it for their own nefarious endeavors, I grabbed a blade and slew this person, upon inspection of the fallen Kumiko, my suspicions were confirmed when I found pieces of my armor with my armor markings. I always make my steel pieces marked as "Cavalier" & "Knight" As well as my personal sword. Within moments after having my suspicions confirmed I grabbed what was mine and then fell when the guards sought retribution upon my mechanically criminal status.

Correction: I slew Kumiko with a 2h greatblade made of steel rather than a 1h steel greatblade. All under the presumption that Kumiko was assisting Guttersnipes.


//d

· You claim that I was wearing steel armor pieces; can you clarify which pieces I was wearing?

· You were fighting the guttersnipes members in close combat, how and when did you get time to look at the surrounding and the people on a sloped hill where targeting people is close to impossible.

· You had claimed that you had called the guards on the enemy which had died since you had claimed that I was carrying the enemy’s armor, why would the guards not kill me even tho as you claim I was gray?

· You claim a possibility that the so called “reds” looted the armor and then you say that I had looted the reds dead bodies and also claim that you had called guards on the mounted reds. How can it be that they could pull that off in that short amount of town near the guard zone?

· You had claimed that somehow I had looted your armor near the town guardzone and was not killed by the guards. How could I manage to carry all of the armor that you claimed I had on me when I was on a mage that could not carry much weight due to its stats as shown here? (http://www.mortalonline.com/db/?cn=Kumiko).

· Let’s just say if I looted your armor off of the so called enemies (which I didn’t) and you claim that you name all of your armor Cavilier and Knight, due to your tendency of dying a lot in battle wouldn’t it mean that the enemy might have looted those armor pieces off of you during a previous battle and the enemy decided to wear it?



//r

1: The steel chestplate, a sleeve, and the boots.

2: Any half decent and seasoned fighter is well aware of their surroundings and who they are up against.

3: Read my statement far more closely, I had never claimed you were grey flagged.

4: How quickly two people can loot a body is irrelevant to this case, and clearly they did not pull it off as they were killed by the guards.

5: Even though the Strength on that character is now 18, it does not reflect the characters strength as of the date of the action. "your" screen shot shows you had a Steel greatsword equiped, to use one functionally it suggests that at the time your strength was as of at least 87 - the in game strength requirement for that weapon.

In fact I would appreciate a master weapon smith to verify the strength requirements of such a sword.

6: I do not tend to die that much in battle, though that is besides the point. In this particular battle, only one other person was wearing any steel parts, that being one of the mounted reds wearing a steel torso. If he was indeed wearing any of my armor, then it would have been found that he had two pieces of steel armor of the exact same name designation on his corpse instead of just the one set I found on Kumiko.



//d

.Why did you yell out " I see your working with the guttersnipes ey" to me after ressurecting form the priest?

.How did you learn that my character Kumiko was Dreadlust?

.Why did you claim that i was/or am a guttersnipes associate. What was your reasoning behind this?

.Why did you not ask to see if i might have gotten or accidentally gotten your armor instead of killing me?

.Why did you kill me instead of asking if i might have gotten your armor?

.Why would I go out of my way to help the group of people that i consider a enemy that i had destroyed assets belonging to them worth over 1000g during the war?

.Do you have any evidence to prove that I am working/ have worked/ or had worked with the guttersnipes?

.Were you not aware that the Duchy of Wessex has a court system to punish the crimes committed by the members within the empire?

.Why would you take the laws into your own hands based on assumptions?

.Do you consider yourself to be a superior member of Wessex or more superior to Wessex law?

.How did Kreager know that Kumiko was me and you didn't?

.Why did Kreager add me to his friends list and ask which guild i was in or working with straight after the confrontation between me and you had ended?

.If the enemy had looted your gear after you had fought them and died fair and square and looted you, wouldn't that mean that gear had become the enemies gear since it had become a part of their inventory?

.If i had looted the enemy that might or might not have looted you (I'm using you as a example here), wouldn't that mean that I had looted the enemy and not you?



//r

1: Because it was assumed you were with the enemy Guttersnipes when I witnessed your character throwing a healing spell onto one of the blues in their group.

2: Through Kreager Stonewall only in hindsight.

3: This question was already answered previously

4: Because you were assumed to be with the enemy, I'm not going to waste words trying to negotiate for equipment looted, I will act and retrieve it myself.

5: You are repeating your previous question.

6: You have been known in the past to have had alternate characters that have been part of enemy guilds and even gone as far as to assist them. Anyone other than myself remember the character "Dreadmine(d)?

7: Investigating it myself I have spoken with Aly and Vyncent of the guild AA, though their collective memories are fuzzy since the time of the incident, the name "Kumiko" does ring a bell amongst those two and the rest of their guild. In what context is inconclusive.

8: Of course I am aware of this court, as I've been here before concerning an issue with another disgruntled Villein.

9: As a soldier it is lawful to deal with an assumed enemy with lethal force.

10: I object to this question, as to it's accusatory nature and has no place in this court of law.

11: I cannot claim to speak for Kreager Stonewall, if you are curious you should ask him yourself.

12: I shall repeat my previous answer.

13 & 14: This question is repeated twice. In short, No, if the enemy murders a person belonging to our people and take his property, the items and equipment still belong to the original owner, period.



//d

1. Do you have any evidence that I was healing any of the guttersnipes members?

2. If I was indeed working with guts, wouldn't i have jeportised my standing with the alliance that was formed in order to destroy the guttersnipes in the first place?

3. Would it not have been a worthwhile investment in the long run to have had a few words with me back then, rather than murdering me and using the words that you have already used throughout in this court-case?

4. Do you have any evidence to prove your claims of me having alts in other guilds?

5. My understanding was that it is lawful for soldiers to deal with CONFIRMED enemies (such as wardec'd opponents, or people on the KoS list) rather than SUSPECTED enemies. Otherwise, are we not supporting chaotic vigilantism where we can murder people, even members of Wessex, based on suspicion without the need to produce evidence?



//r

1: No more evidence than you have with your claims of murder.

2: Due to mechanical constraints your so called "allies" wouldn't know that you were running around with Guttersnipes if you used an alternate character to do the deed, one that they were unaware of.

3: I continue to object to this question as hindsight is based off of an opinion and not pertinent to my guilt or lack thereof as it pertains to the incident in question.

4: I do intend to call the Author Sir Otto Osterwind to make his statement public, though if possible and to save time I would also request the original statement be made publicly available. Or if it is permitted, I could also supply a screen-shot of the post referenced.

5:It is an unwritten mantra amongst veteran Garrison that it is better to act and ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission when regarding points that require immediate action to be taken.

Though it is entirely possible to argue that at the time in question the leadership of Kora Havion disavowed my association with Wessex and that I was not actively a member of Wessex in Mortal Online and therefore not subject to following a soldiers code of conduct.



//otto

The post in question:

"I realize he's off to war with GUTs, but during the war he had his alt Kumiko tagged as an AA member. He admitted this to me when I confronted him saying he "felt bad for them."

-removed-

-removed-
"
Word for word.



//r

Further questions:

How many accounts both free to play and subscribed does the plaintiff actually have, including those unlisted and unnamed?

How many of these are in guilds or clans deemed as enemies?

Do you recall a character by the name of Dreadmine(d?), if so what became of that character?



//otto

I am unaware, currently, of how many accounts Dreadlust has, only that there may be numerous.

Aside from Kumiko who was tagged "AA" as a subset of the guild GUTS, I am unaware.

The character was under investigation and believed to be an alternate of Dreadlust's whom was on the opposite side of the war and supposedly feeding information to the enemy. After the leadership transition from Kreager to Kora, the investigation did not continue.

I am only completely, without a doubt, aware of one free to play account in his possession. Kumiko being tagged [AA]. Dreadmined was under investigation, thought to be Dreadlust. After the leadership transition from Kreager to Kora, the investigation fell by the way side.


//d

Sir Otto Osterwind has always been an upstanding member of the Duchy of Wessex and does justice to the Osterwind name for his piety and honesty. There I'd like only a tiny bit of clarification about your conviction that I was a member of AA. I do not recall ever saying that I had a character tagged in AA. I do recall, however, having a conversation with Sir Otto where he asked me if I had a character in AA, to which I replied: "I felt sorry for them" because, as far as I knew, they were merely a crafting guild but are assumed to be part of GUTS. Could this possibly be another case of a broken telephone deal?

I understand that the next point regarding Dreadmind is that that assumption in mind that Dreadmind is one of my alts. I do not recall having this as any of my characters, so my next question would be this: How did you manage to verify that Dreadmind was, indeed, one of my alternate characters?


//otto

You offer me kindness in your words, thank you.

The conversation that I recalled did regard Kumiko being tagged [AA] for that brief moment to which you responded that you had felt sorry for them and that they were "tricked" into joining a war with GUTs and that is why you were seen with an [AA] tag. It could be possible.

Dreadmind was never verified as an alternate character, hence the investigation.

[Altus Whyte]

The following question is to be answered by both parties:

Were there people other than the GUTS nearby? If so, how many were they and how many of them were involved in the fighting?

[Rhodri Taliesin]

To my memory, some random Bak'ti citizens ran out, possibly Blackguard or NWO, but none of us were organized or working together, so the fighting was mostly localized to me and the GUTS members.

[Dreadlust Shadow]

My memory is a bit fuzzy but the only parts i remember was that Rhodri and I were the only 2 engaged in the combat, there were a few people near by the town entrance and if my memory is correct 1 or 2 of them were known griefers at the time. One of them if i believe correctly was either Manok or xspartanx. That was during the battle. Castiel was also nearby alongside Kiwi from NTC and Sweet from NTC but i am not too sure if they were watching the battle or not.

[Altus Whyte]

To be answered by both parties:

Were there blue GUTS around? How many were they, and how did you distinguish them from the random Bakti citizens?