Fifth Scholar

Al Funcoot straightened his cloak. A thin trickle of blood was running down his left arm where a stray dagger had caught him in the conflict—Caliex’s last attempt to reach “Mint” before being forcibly restrained had instead connected with his arm, and fencer though he was, he had not the agility to avoid the quick strike. The new crew leader had fortunately taken Caliex away before more harm could be done, but Funcoot saw in her eyes, and in the eyes of several around him, suspicion for Mint nonetheless. It was all but confirmed that she was an Obligator now, so he hung back, joining in the chorus of general condemnation, while darting his eyes side to side when he judged nobody would be looking. Grim nods passed between him and the others. They would do what needed to be done, when the time came. Just before the crew leader’s scheduled arrival, they would spring the trap. But not yet. They let Mint be bound, knowing her freedom was imminent, and their positions strengthened as Rae took her away. Varen was taken down by Ash, and still Funcoot waited. The blood continued to trickle, more slowly as the wound clotted, yet still running in a steady stream down his bare flesh. Olaf clenched his fist, allowing the red liquid to seep under his dirtied fingernails and spread around his hand. A bloodstained hand: that seemed accurate enough. He had murdered, or was complicit in the murder, of most of these men. Yet what did this pathetic group of skaa hope to achieve? The Lord Ruler’s might could not be tossed aside by a dozen, however committed. Power resided not in desperate groups of peasantry with no coherent plan, but with those who possessed the adequate means to seize it for themselves, or those who sought the already powerful. Funcoot had been forced to do the latter, bending his back to the obligators and helping them infiltrate this crew. It pained him, but he did it. He had experience acting noble—he had, after all, been one before—but nobility of character, he surmised, had long since been abandoned. It was a different nobility he sought, and it was not one the thieving crew would grant him. Those with the Lord Ruler’s favour, however? They would. And so his decision was easy. A new position, and he would begin magnifying his own strength without needing to appease those now above him. The false documents had been almost child’s play, especially given House Ffnord’s lack of rigour in monitoring family connections. But getting an Obligator to accept them was always going to be the challenging part; until now. He had three standing by, eager to help him assume the identity he had painstakingly crafted. An identity far more in line with his true self than the buffoonish Funcoot had ever been. An arsonist. A politicker. And above all, a broken idealist, an expert in using the systems he had once decried to gain ever more control for himself. Count Olaf of House Ffnord.

Alright, here goes. I realise Truthwatcher might not be awake to respond to or see this, but here’s my reasoning in response to his points. If you want to go to a good fabric store, I recommend Reap What You Sew, a quilt shop with a convenient location in nearby Tathingdwen, and a friendly proprietor. Vote Tormander instead so we can rob the house Orlok seized control of. I am gonna say that this is not far from my suspicions, and I’m definitely considering Straw bussing you in addition to Vapor or Eternum as inactive fourth eliminators. I will agree that Mint should have had the good sense to include at least one or two Elims in her suspicions list, which is why I’m leaning Vapor/Straw as the fourth elim over Eternum. An obvious hammer at the end of D5 onto an eliminator, when hammering onto anyone wouldn’t have guaranteed an elim victory, seems like a pretty foolish move for an Elim to make; there was no need for elim!Lotus to put Mint at risk when Devotary was a perfectly good mislynch which she was already uninvolved in. I think Lotus was trying to say this, but probably didn’t want to reveal if she had a PM with Devotary, which I understand. Villager-villager PMs are one of the few pieces of information the Elims don’t have access to, and there was no need for the public to know if the two were PMing when Devotary had already flipped village, and the hammer was fairly clearly devoid of malicious intent. I just think that Lotus’ behaviour is utterly devoid of evil intent when she could have easily secured an Elim victory at multiple points, and was being pushed fairly obviously as an alternative to Mint by yourself and Ash last cycle. Not really? Outed eliminators (and I would consider you decently outed, given your vote on Lotus last cycle) rarely receive defence from teammates, as that ties them closer together. Consider Mint, who basically wasn’t defended for four cycles straight—the lynch just kept getting deflected elsewhere because she and her teammates kept quiet and let discussion slide off her, until we finally committed to killing her last cycle. It’s another reason I’m not eliminating Straw from my suspect pool despite his attacks on you this cycle, as it could be very effective distancing.

We’re definitely robbing House Tormander. More seriously, this clarifies a lot. It looks like we have two easy lynch targets in Truthwatcher and Ashbringer, as the Elims would have hammered if one of those votes was innocent. The fourth elim is probably the non-voting Straw or one of Eternum/Vapor who wasn’t on to switch back from Mint, but our lynches should be fairly clear the next two rounds. I really don’t see a reason for anyone to suspect Lotus at all.

@Straw, even if you’re evil, I’d like you to put down a vote now. If we’re going to lose this by a hammer, I at least want the hammering Eliminators to be distinct from villagers voting last-minute.

I mean, there’s little to be offered besides self-defence; I’d do the same in her position (in fact, I did, two cycles in a row )

I think a far more likely explanation for last cycle is Devotary contacting Lotus through PM, convincing them that she’s a villager, and going for the last-minute hammer onto Mint to save Devotary. Due to timing, this was obviously largely ineffective, but I don’t think it’s profitable to suspect Lotus at this point on the basis of that alone. If last-minute voting indicated eliminator behaviour, Devotary would have flipped evil. Maybe it’s an impermissible inflexibility in my reads, but I still can’t see Striker as evil. Lotus I’m inclined to trust, as she seems naturally set up for a mislynch, which means I’ve left room for two villagers in [Eternum, Vapor, Ashbringer, Mint, Straw, Truthwatcher]. Currently I’m leaning Eternum and one of Truthwatcher or Vapor, which is bad because that means in the world I’ve constructed (Elims Straw/Ash/Mint, which...makes a surprising amount of sense), we already have three votes placed on people who are, in my estimation, probably village, and one by a misguided villager who may not rejoin us. The only question is therefore which of the people in that pool I’d like lynched. I’m loath to divide the votes again, and am quite tired of unintentionally saving Mint, especially if she’s just going to use her survival to keep pushing my mislynch, so I’m keeping my vote where it is unless there’s a hitherto unforeseen pool of support for a Straw or Ash lynch and literally everybody currently on Mint or Lotus switches off. It also helps that she’s the person I feel by far the most discomfort towards. Whatever happens, we need to get the pool of votes down to two people or fewer, as if there’s a three-way contest, we’re handing the Eliminators a victory on a silver platter. Ultimately, that’s why I think Mint needs to finally die, as she appeared to be trying to do just that with her vote on me.

Alright, a bit bleary and tired, but evidently we were wrong about Orlok putting in five Elims. I guess this cycle we really are definitely at LyLo, as 3/22 is too low even accounting for the absence of village power roles. I’m going to sleep but am putting a vote on Mint until I can re-examine both last cycle’s lynch, and my suspicions in general. Good night.

Devotary of Spontaneity Frozen Mint We are literally begging for a hammer right now. @Eternum I see you viewing the thread. Is this a more acceptable vote for you? @Straw please no, we do not need another situation like C3 where the Elims would probably just hammer everyone viewing the thread right now needs to say something. I feel like half the players just have a hammer vote saved in the text editor and are waiting to push it

There are way too storming many lynch targets. @Eternum, @TJ Shade, your single votes probably aren’t going anywhere. Please switch them? And agreed at the very least with Devotary that we need a more centralised lynch. This needs to clarify itself in the next ~3-4 minutes or we’re just asking for a hammer.

Storms, I did not have the time to do the reread I wanted. Much quicker thoughts on the people I said I’d look into: Striker: I don’t see a world where Striker is evil from a reread of his posts; there’s too much genuine villager-searching-for answers in them. Evil!Striker tends to be either highly defensive or very clinical with his votes; I’ve seen neither of those from him, and am getting an overwhelmingly good tone read from him. If he’s the Elim who’s tricked me this whole time, he deserves a hearty round of applause after we lose this cycle or the next. This all means I have to cautiously assume Mint is evil. Of course, that places me in the rather uncomfortable position of having saved an eliminator who I’ve wanted dead since C3 twice, and potentially doing so again now by refusing to move my vote. Mint: After rereading (some of) her posts, I’m still unsure. On the one hand, I obviously don’t appreciate her accusations of me, which I feel don’t come from someone trying to honestly analyse the game, and she has been mostly quiet when she wasn’t defensive; on the other, the material she posts doesn’t seem to match with what an Elim would say, particularly one of Mint’s experience (as she has played before). I’m mostly struggling to interpret her vote on me this cycle, which came with no reasoning against one of the people instrumental in her survival—I think an Elim!Mint would pick a different target. Vapor/Ashbringer: I’m honestly pretty convinced that one, if not both, of these are eliminators who have successfully lain low the entire game. Ash has a slightly more “suspicious” voting record, ending up on a lot of the village trains, and if Mint is a villager, I’d be unsurprised if he was one of the Elims pushing for her mislynch this cycle. Unfortunately, I doubt there’s enough sentiment or evidence against either right now to bring them to a vote, but if we make it out of this cycle alive, they’d make good follow-up lynches. Straw: Making his way slowly into my list of potential Elims simply from a lack of alternatives. I feel Shade’s analysis of why he could be evil is fairly good, though it doesn’t give enough credit to the possibility of a village!Straw worried about bandwagoning, but what’s most disquieting to me is his dropoff in activity after C1/2, when we started having the closer lynches. While his LG is certainly to blame at least partially, I think it might also be a deliberate choice to avoid giving opinions as discussion heated up. Probably evil if Mint is as well. TJ Shade: Still my strongest village read after Striker. Has been giving actual analysis rather than speculation (kudos to you for that; I’ve sadly not done any real analysis since C2, mainly because of time). Is putting in genuine effort, even if I disagree with a few of his conclusions. In particular, I like his recent posts which rightfully pointed out how narrow we’d allowed our pool of suspects to shrink. Eternum: Overhauling him from strongly village to neutral. Shade’s analysis illustrated fairly well how he’d been essentially hopping between suspicions, seeming unwilling to consider certain players (particularly Straw), and the general use of motivated reasoning in his last few posts—he seems to have a conclusion in mind as to how he should vote and then find a way to get there, rather than looking at evidence and deciding his vote from there. On the other hand, the analysis he does have doesn’t necessarily seem flawed, so I’m not ruling him out as a paranoid villager disillusioned by the failure of the last few lynches. I feel like I’m getting there myself Think that’s everyone except Devotary. Honestly she’s still suspicious to me, and I’m not as sold as I was on Mint a cycle or two ago—I’d much rather kill Devo here, as Mint just seems too obvious and unopposed. But the alternative, it appears, is me, and I’ll vote for someone I presume to be village over someone I know is village. As such, Mint.

I’ll join this as Lardre, a minor lighteyed lady definitely unaffiliated with any secret organisations.

All right. I’m tempted to go along with Striker and vote Mint immediately, especially for the blatant ingratitude here: I’ve saved you two cycles in a row from lynches you’d have otherwise died to, intentionally or unintentionally, and you believe I’m evil? That’s an incredibly odd perspective coming from a village!Mint. I’m rather of the mind that you’re looking for an easy mislynch on me, given that I’m already under fire for...voting my convictions C3? I’m not really sure where the suspicion is coming from. I’ve yet to see any argument against me not grounded in “what if Fifth/X are Elims together, then Fifth’s actions can be interpreted as defending/saving X, so Fifth is evil”? Perhaps those of you using this logic should be pursuing X instead to see if my defence or protection of them has any implications as to my actual alignment before you lynch me on unproven assumptions. The point stands, however, that if you’re village, a vote on me makes a lot less sense than one on Striker or Lotus. On the other hand, I have no idea why elim!Mint would do this either. So I suppose this post just confuses the storms out of me. Do you have anything beyond this, Striker? While I agree Mint has dodged the lynch twice under less-than-ideal circumstances which were arguably preventable (for instance, Mist PMing me last cycle that he was planning to hammer his vote would have resulted in Mint’s death, as I wouldn’t have felt compelled to hammer myself), this post hardly provides reasons why Mint is suspicious in the first place. And I’d like your thoughts on some other players; it’s too easy for people to get by at this stage in the game by just stating their opinions on one person and leaving it at that, and I’m sure you have thoughts on more people than just Mint. I’m...seriously starting to suspect at least one of the people pushing a five-person elim team and emphasising that every villager *must* vote a certain way is actually part of a four-person eliminator team trying to create needless bandwagoning. Five Elims has gone unquestioned the entire game, of course, but it’s still an assumption. (4/22)≈0.182 and (5/22)≈.227. I’m not sure how true this is anymore, but the rule of thumb is usually 15-25% of players are Eliminators, with 20% as the default. From these percentages, I’d say both a four-person and five-person team are equally likely, with a four-person team actually being closer to 20%, and I’m not sure why the latter is being universally assumed and even insisted upon, unless a smaller eliminator team is pushing it to try to get villagers to commit to a bandwagon in order to spare them the trouble of having to hammer a cycle early. See my comments to Mist above. Why do you suspect me, other than hypotheticals you’re considering with other people you also don’t know the alignment of? If you’re not evil, which I’m beginning to suspect, I believe you’re at the very least tunnelling, or at least you haven’t laid out enough of your reasoning for me to understand why I’m being placed in your crossbeams so consistently. I think the collective failure of the village to focus on anyone outside of myself, Mint and Striker (and Straw to some extent, I suppose) for the last three cycles has hurt analysis significantly, which this section above highlights quite nicely. I understand why you don’t have a plan for a world in which none of our major suspicions turn out to be evil, but we should, and the mostly lost and confused state of the thread right now makes me feel like I’ve been pointed onto the wrong people entirely. I want to seriously re-evaluate Striker, and take a close look at some people who haven’t gotten any discussion at all recently (Vapor, you to some extent, Ashbringer), but for now my vote is going on Devotary. I’d like her to explain her suspicion of me in greater detail at the very least, laying aside my concerns that she’s simply using her usual pattern of last-minute votes in order to balance lynches and generate paranoia while staying neatly under the radar.

Wait storm it Mint Mist Edit: Probably too late

Frozen Mint Mist If Striker’s count is right it’s currently tied 4/4/4 and I’m not leaving my death to random chance. Sorry Mist.

At the time it probably would have been for the reasons I stated in my reads posts D2, which was mainly from tone at that point since they hadn’t posted much when I analysed them. C3 I don’t think much had changed—while I still didn’t like their reasons for voting Shade, their thought process seemed genuinely village. My 1-2-3 was Ventyl-Mint-Striker. Points I agree with on Vapor, ash and Straw, but the rest of this I pretty much disagree with. I had Pyro as the stronger of two elim reads C1 when I was posting on low time, and my vote narrowed the gap between him and Silber, so my suspicion of Pyro C2 by no means came out of nowhere. I didn’t really “keep the attention” on you and Ventyl either, considering the number of votes Striker received after my post, and the fact that any of the voters on the Ventyl wagon (or yours) could have condemned him by the cycle’s close. But if you’re wondering why I defended Striker and are taking suspicion of me from that, wouldn’t it be more prudent to lynch him first and see if he’s evil before you go after me for it? I understand a village!Mint would automatically see Striker as the elim in the threesome from last cycle, but that assumes village!Mint, an assumption I can’t make. As such, because I find this vote poorly reasoned, and because my accumulated suspicion from the past three cycles hasn’t really evaporated upon reread, Frozen Mint. I...forgot why I quoted this. Oh. Now that there’s a switch back to Mint, would you mind joining? I would appreciate not dying, and find her a lot more suspicious than Mist. I don’t think Lotus is being ignored. I’ve certainly brought them up a lot recently, as has Devotary. And they’ve been a good, consistent contributor, so I don’t see where your issue is here. And agreed that there’s probably an elim in the lower-actives, and that Mist is a good starting point (though Vapor is another person worth looking at), but on review I don’t think there’s a reason to let Mint go again when she looks the most legitimately suspicious out of the three lynch targets last cycle. (I will switch to Mist in self-preservation, though, if I have to. Which doesn’t look to be the case for the moment.)