Fifth Scholar

The reason would be to get me killed, while conveniently not needing to provide scan results on a cycle when they’d be the most informative; additionally, if we assume a team of yourself and Ventyl, it allows you to submit the Eliminator kill unimpeded. The issue with Devotary’s claim is that it’s not possible unless both she and Ventyl are evil. 1) We know there’s a village Smoker; therefore, because there needs to be a reason for that Smoker’s existence, one of Devotary and Ventyl are evil. 2) Devotary lays out a scenario in which both she and Ventyl are village; in this scenario, a third Hazekiller, which has somehow escaped detection this entire game, and another player, use their actions to roleblock her and kill Araris. 3) Since 1) and 2) contradict each other, Devotary is lying about what happened last night, and therefore is evil. Ignoring the wisdom of you issuing this claim, which I still think is something you would do, its logic falls apart; either we as a village received a Smoker which can only harm us, which makes zero sense, or Devotary is lying, which doesn’t make complete sense but makes a lot more sense than a backwards Smoker. Ventyl isn’t even necessarily evil with her, though I suspect that to be the case. Stick, Aman and Araris. Most of which are now dead. Araris did not roleclaim to me, though I’ve suspected he was a Smoker for quite a while based on PoE, and implications from statements he made in our PM when I started pressing him on his role. And it was possible, and something I continued to consider. I tend to play with a very paranoid playstyle, so while Drake/Rath soothing conspiracy was unlikely, it was still possible, particularly with the inference I made regarding Smoker!Araris. Regardless of what alignment you believe myself and Devotary to be, the conflict which both of us have essentially forced is sane from whichever alignment we’ve drawn up to be. This is the deciding lynch. If the Elims get a mislynch here, they needn’t worry about future lynches, which is why your support for Devotary should you be her teammate makes sense. If you two can lynch today and kill tonight, you win. In terms of my mentality shifting, it was partly because Devotary forced this to come to a head, but with my fears of a village Smoker confirmed, I’d probably be in the same place I am now even had she not pulled this gambit. Also, it’s hardly accurate to say I had you as completely village before today; I’d been souring on your alignment since the end of D4.

Is there a reason for your sudden confidence in my alignment? I’ll admit my voting history has been subpar, but so has everyone’s; we’re only alive right now because of Aonar. Meanwhile, I was one of the only voices who reserved a modicum of distrust for Aman and his WGG when it was first mentioned, and though I ended up on the wrong side of things later, that was due to me listening too much to the voices telling me to trust him, and not enough to my inner paranoia. I understand I’ll likely be lynched next cycle if I’m wrong, though as the game will likely be over thanks to an Eliminator vote majority of you and whoever else your teammate is, or perhaps two of Lum/Coop/Stick, I don’t think it’ll particularly matter.

Scanning me as Roleless would prove nothing, though. You know this; it would be consistent with my Smoker claims and you’d not have any meaningful lynch to push. But claiming to have been blocked by a Hazekiller is much more powerful of an assertion, allowing you to cast immediate suspicion on a group of people who I mostly trust; however, given that Coop is a non-Hazekiller role, and that Stick and Lum contacted me with their claims as early as C1 and C2 and haven’t changed them, I’m inclined to believe that you’ve completely fabricated this Hazekiller. The only player it would make sense for, should it be real, would be Stick or Lum, and even if one of them are lying, that still doesn’t answer why we have a Smoker; it would make Ventyl evil instead of you, as that’s the only reason a village Smoker makes any amount of sense. All this added up makes me fairly happy where my vote is, though there’s a compelling argument for lynching Ventyl and then killing a Devotary on a coin flip if we’re wrong; one of the two is evil if we’ve got a Smoker around.

I did, but that was really just so you could scan me as Roleless. And now that you’ve done so, you presumably can’t stand to tell the truth? Or you could never scan in the first place, and Ventyl was your teammate? I find a third Hazekiller incredibly implausible, even for the Eliminators, and knowing that I’m Roleless, it’d mean that one of Lumgol, Stick and Coop is lying; while that’s not impossible, if they are all telling the truth about their roles, then you’re the one who’s lying to us. Which I find far more likely. I’m willing to lynch you now, because you’ve essentially used a ploy and a gambit to frame me. I’m pretty sure you’re on a team with Ventyl, so while I would like him dead, you’re a higher priority target as I’m far more confident that you’re evil. With the assumption that I’m a rebel Hazekiller, you ignore several facts which destroy the idea of me being an evil Hazekiller with yourself as the village Seeker. If I was truly concerned about being scanned as a Hazekiller, I’d have killed you one of these last two nights over a shot in the dark like Araris, or even a cleared villager like Drake; without a village Lurcher, the PRs would be a higher priority for the Elim kill. You also bring up no evidence as to why I’m evil outside a situation in which only you and I can attest as to what actually happened; knowing that I’m not a Hazekiller, I’m forced to conclude you made the entire situation up to frame me, and therefore view you as evil for it. Also, if I’m the Hazekiller, why wouldn’t I be worried about being scanned on cycles other than this one? Sure, I’d claimed Smoker to you, but any one of a few people I’d told my actual role to could have told you that was a lie, and you could have called my bluff any time you wanted. Killing you far earlier would make sense if I was on such a team. Yet here you are, having survived as an essentially outed Seeker for three cycles without Lurcher protection. Right, so Ventyl is not hard-cleared; in fact, he’s probably your teammate, but let’s play along in a world where I was Elim and did all the things you mentioned. Again, if I was so concerned about your Seeking, why not kill you and accept Araris’ presence as probably-village rather than killing him and creating the situation you mention, which creates two cleared villagers, reveals an Eliminator role, and an Eliminator as well? It simply makes no sense at all. As an Elim, I don’t have to lynch Araris; I just have to string up Lum, Stick or Coop (whichever isn’t on my team in your world), kill Araris or Ventyl and cruise to victory. Assuming an Eliminator team acting rationally, your version of events doesn’t hold up to inspection. It does make perfect sense, however, if you were an Eliminator yourself, and want to get a final mislynch off on a player who is already cast in a poor light from earlier lynches. @_Stick_ @Coop772 @Lumgol I don’t trust you guys fully, but if I’m right about my Devotary/Ventyl team we need to all vote against Devotary if we want this lynch to succeed.

Right. So it’s probably high time I came clean with my role, or rather my lack thereof; I’m Roleless. I’ve been claiming Smoker to all and sundry to try and draw the Elim kill, but at this point it’s basically an exercise in futility, as apparently I’m to survive and watch all my village reads slowly dying. To start, I’m going to go with Devotary, as I don’t buy her claim of being hazekilled, as with no remaining Lurchers, killing her as an outed Seeker would have been a far more effective strategy than eliminating Araris, who never said much of anything about his role. It’s clear that one of her and Ventyl is evil, as otherwise there’s little point to having a Smoker. Perhaps both, if Stick is what I think she is. @_Stick_, do you stand by what you roleclaimed to me, or would you like to modify your claim and publicise it? Similarly, what are you, @Coop772?

Right. I was suspicious of Straw, no denying it, but...I did not want this result from the lynch. Two police Hazekiller strengthens my convictions that an Eliminator Thug and an Eliminator Lurcher would be possible—with Hazekillers to block their abilities, they’d not have been as hard to kill, which again points me toward Lum. In a quite frustrating manner, the vote patterns have given us little to work with—Devotary voted late enough in the cycle that Coop was forced to vote in self-preservation, though I’m curious that he chose Straw over Lum. I suppose it somewhat makes sense, though we may have to have a wasted lynch at some point if Lum is actually evil.

Friedrich smiled softly to himself. The capacity for amusement had not been lost on him in his transition, and seeing the humans coming closer, turning to their higher natures in droves, was truly wonderful. He looked at Ian, who seemed to wish to negotiate while remaining human. Friedrich frowned. Couldn’t they see that the terms on his side involved the removal of their older, inferior natures? He spoke to Leon, who had come to his senses and joined him. “That fool,” he rasped, pointing to Ian. “He will soon be one of us, and no better for his resistance. Can they not see that by fighting, they only enter into their new states weakened and disadvantaged?”

The Black Wind comes. It shall take you all, feast upon you, in a way I never could. Beware its voice, for it sounds your doom with the vicious whispers it pours into your ears. It comes. It comes.

If we could be reasoned with? The presumptuous attitudes of this race would never cease to amaze him. Were not they the unreasoning ones, singlemindedly attaching themselves to the irrelevant status of “humanity” when their own survival would be assured if they simply consented to being, as they themselves put it, “infected?” What a blessèd disease to have contracted! Clearer sight and purpose, amicable relations with one’s fellow beings, longer life and enhanced mental acuity—were not all these qualities which men themselves sought? Why, then, did they resist them so? Yet Friedrich would persist. Negotiations would work, if undertaken. He now hoped only that the people had the wisdom to see it.

Nothing, unfortunately. And while the second Tineye being on our side would be nice, it’s by no means a guarantee. Perhaps, though that’s not saying Aonar didn’t claim earlier; regardless, my suspicion for Lum remains, as the post still defends Xino in the hedgy way I associate with Eliminators.

Right. Here I go with delayed analysis and last minute voting again, but I’m setting aside my suspicion of Ventyl for now. I feel like there hasn’t been enough notable pressure in the opposite direction to justify his lynch right now, though would put him on a team with Stick if he is still evil, and upon re-examining the thread yesterday and today I’ve found far more reason to suspect Lumgol. Here are the posts which make me suspicious: This is classic hedging, as I pointed out at the time, and it’s notable that Lumgol takes care to press Aman, without ever committing to a vote, and mostly hiding behind the D1 lynch discussion which was completely NAI in nature. One of the things I thought about the most was PMs, and the one-per-round limit—the reason I was incentivising people to contact me in certain cycles was that if I got multiple PMs, I could be reasonably sure that most were from villagers, as Elims wouldn’t waste the resources to double-tap me. Similarly, I expected Eliminators to take some rounds off from PMing so they could claim contact with a teammate should they need to; I suspect that’s what happened here, particularly given Lum’s carefree attitude towards sharing what would be normally private information; it seems like an agenda at play here. Lum’s analysis here brings up nothing new against Fura, hedges on Aman while trying to subtly cast him in a village light, and allows her to contribute while remaining below the radar. I’m not sure what I think of this comment. It feels pocket-y, but may be genuine; I’d also suspect Ventyl a bit if Lum flips evil. Pokes Aman here, pointing out an interesting discrepancy but failing to back off from the sorta-trust she’d given him all game. Response to a comment from Aonar, and the most clearly evil post she’s made. If the Elims knew this early that Aonar was a killer of some sort, and I believe they did, then this would be a way of trying to keep Xino, a teammate, out of his crosshairs. Lum’s Sart vote didn’t feel great, but I can’t really fault anyone for that lynch considering how badly I messed up. First, Lum goes from “Aman is not the SK” to voting on Rath next turn. Second, while she does condemn Aman here, she ties his alignment to Devotary’s, which I don’t like the look of—if Lum flips evil I suspect Devotary to be clean.

Friedrich, or the person who had once been Friedrich, stood up slowly from the kneeling posture he had been assuming on the ground. Dimly, he registered a stick in his hands, impaling a corpse which bled crimson from every pore. Truly, his fellow zombie had been ripped to shreds by the unenlightened mobs of humanity. He had participated in this foolish exercise himself. But no more. The wound on his arm seemed to bring him the clarity he needed to complete a work which had already begun in earnest. Friedrich had naïvely assumed that zombies were brainless brutes, driven by bloodlust and passion, and unsuitable to form any sort of community or organised effort. How startlingly wrong, how presumptuous, he had been! The humans were truly the ones which lacked strategy and coordination. Had they—had he—possessed the immense stupidity to come within infection range of a foe? Or to antagonise a herd of sacred calf that trampled those who opposed them? Surely, if all humanity merely possessed the enlightenment which this new state conferred upon him, the world would be infinitely better for it! Was he dominated by his lust for brains to consume? He had felt inclinations, true, and an immense irritation and loathing towards humanity, but he was not slave to these passions. Not as the humans were slaves to their desire for “preservation” and “survival,” or for their mindless prejudice against a race of beings they would never understand. And their petty squabbles! The division, the lack of unity among this supposed higher race! He tested his vocal chords, confident he could remain intelligible, and addressed Leon. Friedrich had thought him the most sensible of the group; perhaps he alone would see reason. “Friend, you see that you fight a losing cause,” Friedrich croaked out. His voice was too raspy for his liking—he winced internally. “Submit yourselves to us, and we may end this bloodshed, this senseless conflict, with a unity which transcends any truce or understanding you may form as mere humans, but with the true oneness of purpose which your new station shall confer upon you.”

The worst mistake in British spelling. I’ll admit maneuver looks nicer, but British spellings are a package deal when it comes to autocorrect, and as everything else looks infinitely nicer I’ll let this one go.

Hmm. I dislike these manoeuvres with a passion, as while I’m a fan of gambits, I’ve never particularly understood the mindset which leads people to troll like this. Whether as a villager or Eliminator, it makes me disinclined to view Ventyl favourably, and pending further analysis, which will hopefully appear tonight or tomorrow, I’m fine leaving my vote here. @Ventyl, rather than trolling, would you mind sharing your thoughts beyond a simple roleclaim?

Ah, perfect. Alright then, to lay out my brief thoughts: -Even if Lum is a symptom of a greater problem, and I believe that she is, I would like her dead if only to see what Zombies can do, as that’s presumably something we’d discover upon killing her. I’d also like to see how many more people fall to this blight this cycle, which might help determine OoA if zombies have a conversion ability. -I’m currently engaging in raids for supplies and weaponry, as well as attacking Lum with my stick to make sure she’s truly dead. If something happens to me as a result of the latter, that may be informative.