Round Ten: Self Preservation Mode

To begin the round, I announced that a) you WANTED votes in the finals, and Safety Stones would be used for such, and b) I was asking for the audience to submit questions for Sudden Death. Anything at all they wanted to ask, and the best questions would get in.

But this was still a round away. In the meantime, David had home-field in Sydney, Australia and won 2 Safety Stones for beating me in the minigame. It was originally going to involve the Yahoo Fighters background for thise YIM environment thingie, but David didn't have a compatible version of Messenger. So I had him try and beat me at JT's Blocks. Which he did.

This would put him at 12 Safety Stones to Cindy's 4 and Chrissy's 2. Chrissy had just had her How Bad Do You Want It? stone-ban lifted and could now use stones again. She still couldn't trade, donate, or be donated to, however. She felt the need to pretty much tell David- quit it, we know it's you.

Next stop on the Global 24/7 Tour Of Terror: Pulau Tiga. Where 16 Americans lived on a remote isle in the South China Sea. For 39 days, they were left to fend for themselves. Forced to work together to create a new society while battling the elements and each other. They must learn to adapt, or they'd be voted from the tribe. In the end, one remained to claim the million-dollar prize. 39 days, 16 people, 1 "fat naked gay guy"- I mean, Survivor. And one future reality show host (Rudy), one movie star (Colleen), one lawsuit-against-CBS filer (Stacey), one person who milked snakes and rats for all they're worth (Susan)...
Okay, I'll shut up. They'd play Fallen Comrades. Cindy's initial reaction, as told to me:

Cindy (Egypt): oh no

Well, THAT'S not a good sign. Cindy knew it wasn't, and was ready to hedge her bets, not wishing to become a fallen comrade herself.

Cindy (Egypt): It's time for me to use all my safety stones. Anything to get me to the next round would be helpful. Definately it would. So I'm using them all. I wouldn't be surprised if David used 10 of his and Chrissy used all of hers. This is self-preservation mode we're in right now. I'm using all 4 of my stones.

David (Australia): I'll probably be using at least 5. I'll let you know for sure as more information comes in.

Chrissy (Ireland): Id like to use both of my remaining stones... seeing as I have nothing to lose by using or not using them.

Self-preservation mode, indeed. The three knew that in order to be the winner, you had to be in the finals first. And winning Fallen Comrades could earn someone more stones, with which to lop off more votes.

The challenge began normally, as Cindy and David correctly identified Andrew as having beaten Colin in the second Delayed Flight. Then it became apparent nobody did any discernable job of paying attention. Nobody knew how or where Nork was exiled (firing squad in Moscow), and they couldn't get the number of questions right that James answered in Good or Bad (5).
Cindy did correctly guess the name of the character central to the Porvenir game of Lost (Tooter), and everyone knew Scotland was Toby's home-field nation, but another 2-question slump befell them, as Greyson's last word (Waaaaaa-hoooo!) was forgotten, as well as the city "It's A Bird, It's A Plane, Why Yes It Is" took place in (Lisbon, Portugal). David thought it was Paris, and Chrissy, Yorkshire, England. (Which wasn't even on the route.) Cindy DID originally get the Portugal part right, but I needed both a city and a country, and she couldn't name a city, so she switched to Mexico City.

Everyone knew that James was the one living in Hillsboro, New Hampshire, and that Pat Buchanan recieved votes in Istanbul- but nobody was on the same wavelength I was in terms of how many votes. I wanted total votes (1,000 in audience votes, and the standard 500-vote penalty for failure to turn in a confessional), but they only gave numbers of audience votes- and David got that wrong. Everyone also screwed up the number of rounds Stephen finished as the leader (he led twice; everyone thought it was 3). And nobody knew where the challenge had nothing to do with the location (Tirane, Albania)- Cindy and Chrissy were thinking Vladivostok, and David figured K2, Nepal (K2 is in Pakistan). At this point, Chrissy was mathematically eliminated.

The final question was how many votes Colin recieved in Vienna in exchange for an inoculation- David guessed correctly with 8,500. This caused a tie. The tiebreaker question: How many votes did Royann recieve in Paris? David went over, and Cindy guessed 15,001. The correct answer being 22,017, she won.

So really all that was left this round- other than to see if David had proven himself innocent yet (nope), was to do the pre-count and wait for the exile in Honolulu. Which was easy for the first time in a while. Chrissy had performed worse than Cindy and David, she had less Safety Stones to use, she was the weakest. And she knew it. She also guessed the mode of death correctly (volcano sacrifice). Only question was whether David or Cindy would finish on top. I had my money on David, as those Safety Stones were proving quite powerful. And he was using the most. It only mattered because it would decide who would perform the final challenge, which was a complete game of luck, but still.

Turns out it'd be Cindy. As if to drive the point home that Chrissy was to go, David's gang had targeted her. But a second gang was casting more votes for David than were cast for Chrissy. Cindy recieved one vote.

Chrissy was exiled, of course, and sacrificed to the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele. (Yea, it's spelled the same as the soccer player.) Which left Cindy Walsher of Seattle, Washington to face David Tepper of Alexandria, Virginia for the 24/7 championship.

2 contestants, 1 round.