-thwack-

 is the eighth episode of Survivor: Lithuania.

Day 25
The episode began with a story of the Hanseatic League. It was essentially a trade union, and one Lithuanian city - Kaunas - was a member of it, still having yearly festivals to celebrate this membership. In relation to that, the reward challenge for this episode was a bit more complex - instead of a reward, there was an auction. Surprisingly, the auction was actually hosted by an old enemy and wrecker thwacker of the 703 - Lumber Services. All urns’ contents were hidden during the announcement.

Nemo gets to the merge idol spot, but it’s already empty. The next day, in the alliance chat between Nemo, Ryan, and Samb, the latter admits about having found the idol.

The winners and contents of the urns:

Urn 1. Ugly manga. Winner - Piper.

Urn 2. Hidden item. Winner - Samb. The item was Holy Water, purifying one parchment with Samb’s name on it at the first applicable case (until F5).

Urn 3. Hidden item. Winner - Pendant. This was encouraging words and some shiba pictures from our shibafan host Isaac.

Urn 4. Hidden item. Winner - Ryan. It was a ticket on the Lithuanian Railways train to Kaunas. Or rather, a ticket out of a tribal council, boringly known as Safety without Power.

Urn 5. Idol clue. Winner - no one, as there were no bidders.

Urn 6. A flask of mead aka advantage in a future immunity challenge of choice. Winner - Anubis.

Urn 7. Forestry lessons by Lumber Services. Winner - Matty.

Urn 8. Lithuanian treat Šimtalapis aka an advantage in the next rounds’ immunity challenge. Winner - Frog.

Urn 9. Hidden item. Winner - Samb. The item was Gavin time - some advice from S46 winner Gavin.

Urn 10. Hidden item. Winner - Samb. Talk Like A Boomer prize. Starting from the next Immunity Challenge, Samb would need to talk like a boomer for 24 hours in the public messages within the server. This included Dear XXX, / Love, Samb message format, with non-mandatory minion pictures and/or memes.

Urn 11. A fun fact about Lithuania on every game day until the end of the season, provided by catnip in the winner’s confessional. Winner - Pendant.

Day 26
After announcing the auction winners and distributing prizes, players and viewers were educated about quite an emotional time and aspect of the Lithuanian history - the ban of the Lithuanian language in the press. The related challenge was Mouse of Games - a mini game from a British TV gameshow Richard Osman’s House of Games. Essentially, players received clues about various books, but their titles were changed by one letter. This is also where the Mercenary twist was introduced. Any player who beat the mercenary’s score for the round, would be receiving an advantage in the next immunity challenge.

Five players managed to beat the mercenary. They were Frog, Pendant, Piper, Ryan, and Samb. The winner of the individual immunity was Pendant, with the score of 14/15.

Day 27
Players who beat the mercenary were given out a clue to what the next immunity challenge would entail. At Tribal Council, Anubis was voted out in a 6-1-1 vote.

Challenges
Reward Challenge: Auction

In this special event, Lithuanian Lumber Services took hold of the proceedings and held a blind auction, with both legitimate prizes and gag gifts.

Immunity Challenge: Mouse of Games

In this challenge, the castaways were asked to play Mouse of Games - literary clues were received, with the answers being book titles with one letter edited. For example, Of Mice and Men could become Of Rice and Men.

Winners: Pendant

Voting Confessionals
"katzole"

- I truthfully did not expect to be writing your name down at all. But, you gotta get before you get got.

"katzole"

- The vote says it all, you said you didn't want a boring pagonging, so your wish has been granted. I am a bit worried that it could be me tonight, but at this point I just need to trust the people that have given me their word.

"katzole"

- Sure, why not

"katzole"

- Sorry, Anubis! Wanted to go further in the game with you, but oh well I’ll give you props for trying to shake things up, but you picked the wrong person to target

Final Words
"katzole"

- Looks like I got got. It’s always 8th place, but it was a very good move. Good luck you guys because you WILL need it

Trivia

 * The episode title is referencing to the appearance of Lithuania Lumber Services. This was the first appearance of Lumber Services' catchphrase, *thwack*.
 * All mercenaries were 703 alumni. The mercenary for this round was no other than the immortal admin of 703, Josephine.
 * Lithuania trivia facts included the Lithuanian name of the month August, and columns of Gediminas.