Kasimir

A+ scan, most gamechanging move award

Thanks to Drake and Striker for running and IMing, and thanks everyone for playing! Fun game, even though TUN got terribly cursed by RNGesus. @Lord Spirit - FWIW, you put up a really good defense. You got me to consider the other options and spend forever on a wild Transportation hunt but I've been lynchpin Villager in these scenarios enough to just cling to the knowledge that you have to flip the scan result and work from there. The Illumination/Transportation play via Moelach could've been interesting to see - Drake taunted me about Nergaoul and it was part of my reasoning for voting Spirit first in the day, under the assumption a Nergaoul bomb if set at all would be primed for CadCom. (That and I wasn't sure about the odds I had Cohesion, meaning CadCom could not have put in the kill, so I didn't want to tunnel on CadCom first thing.) Ultimately I didn't feel Nergaoul mattered enough to my personal calculus though, it was a future problem I liked the setup of the several potential oneshot powers for the Elims to have. It kept things fresh and kept Village on our toes a little. Also, love the write-up, though I laughed so hard and pinged Moth first thing to let her know A. she was the missing Transportation user we were breaking our brains over, and B. it is doubly ironic Giethri can't leave Cryptics recognise good content when they see it! It's also doubly ironic I was worried that Spirit had Transformation and could break the vote except it was me, I was the Transformation user I was worried about Truly a messy shopper problem. I kinda liked Volo - a bit more futuristic than Roshar is fully ready for, but I find the silly meme side of the future Cosmere can be pretty fun to play around in. I don't always enjoy RPing these days, I think I get bored with some of the concepts I tried, so it was nice Volo was fun to do.

It's not that they aren't fallacies. It's that formal fallacies only deal with deductive logic, and arguments have many other types of logic - inferential logic, as you allude to. So yeah ad hominems are formal fallacies but deductive certitude isn't the be-all end all in this case. Hell, in most cases outside of the logic 101 classroom, fallacies just aren't super useful because the world doesn't run on deductive logic.

Edited to add: (Storming thread ninjas.) In sum, Jonoh could not have it both ways. If Jonoh wanted to insist incredibly specific Unmade powers that might or might not have been granted the murderers hitting the exactly correct targets, then there was no particular reason to believe it was Matoro over anyone else who had an accounted-for action. It could just as easily be a Midnight Essence kill with the murderer having actually used their genuine Surge. If Jonoh wanted to insist it was the Surge of Transportation, then supposing Volo did not make up his own death and salvation, then working directly off claims, the logical space for that was purely in <Arenta, Jonoh, Matoro, Volo.> Metorem had provably used one of Abrasion or Adhesion due to Giethri's corroboration, and Sever's claim was distinctive. Both arguments ran on distinctive tracks and should not be conflated.

Apparently, the fact Volo had said this at least three different times was insufficient for Sever There was, however, other news. Giethri's confirmation of a message with Metorem made it more likely that Metorem genuinely had Abrasion or Adhesion, due to independent corroboration. As Giethri had correctly suggested, this indeed ruled out Progression, Illumnination, Abrasion, or Adhesion for her, narrowing the pool which Jonoh was relying on to generate alternative hypotheses. It also did indicate Volo likely lacked Cohesion, for Metorem had successfully carried out an action. He carefully outlined the table he had been working on for the stream, to allow viewers to keep up, and no doubt, to correct him. The theoretical space for Transportation was rather large, but Volo did not particularly see that as an issue. While he wondered if such a table would be unfriendly in the hands of the enemy, he supposed viewer engagement came first (and anyway, they could probably work it out for themselves!) Either way, nothing Jonoh was saying was particularly convincing Volo to change paths at the moment. Matoro was the most opportunistic and lowest-hanging counter-proposal available (minded of a sort of scam in the markets of Nalthis where the scammer would make an insultingly cheap offer in order to swindle you into buying counterfeits) - the suggestion that Matoro was not saying anything to avoid being caught in a lie seemed particularly strange: for one, with no ability to really narrow down the Surges and with Jonoh doing his utmost to drum uncertainty by generating all sorts of speculation surrounding esoteric scenarios with Unmade and alternative Surges, this was clearly evidence that it was possible to claim any target and not get caught for it. (They had, for one, zero evidence that Jonoh really had targeted Volo with a Surge, even if there was also no evidence against it.) Too, if Jonoh truly believed the Unmade had been involved, then once again, anyone could have put the kill in, and they returned to needing to do basic investigative work. Work that Jonoh, it seemed, had declined to do for the softest target. For another, the basic play remained. From what Volo understood from those social deduction streams, if they were in an endgame situation, where a single mistake was costly, then perhaps the calculus would be different. However, they were not, and any attempt to insist they were would be rampant scaremongering. If they were not, then the play for a claimed scan on a criminal was clear. It was certainly true the scan was probabilistic rather than mechanistic, but this did not change the need to play towards the most likely scenario, rather than a series of contrived occurrences that needed to happen altogether for the proposed scenario to occur. (Again, nothing Jonoh contended - every single claim about Matoro lying about his action - still required Unmade action, and Unmade action specifically targeting both Sever and with the exactly correct Unmade, due to the laws of time levelling constraints on actions.) Suppose they were really wrong about Jonoh. If Jonoh was really a townsman of Ru Eris, he should not consider that a problem, for if it were open-and-shut obviously Matoro, then they would execute Matoro next, and Ru Eris's nightmare would end. (If Jonoh protested it was not so easy, then Volo believed it should be taken as tacit admission the case was not so straightforward as that. He also wondered who Jonoh intended to accuse next in the world Matoro was executed. For him, in the world Jonoh was discovered by the Elders to have been a Villager, then Volo intended to examine Matoro and Metorem*, with a slight preference for Matoro due to Metorem's clearly having used a Surge. He thought Arenta might be an outsider possibility but for the moment, he thought that she was behaving in what he'd consider to be pretty normal for a grouchy landlady in her Matoro accusation, though he could be convinced otherwise.) Volo acknowledged he was not saying this aloud to the others; he was, more than not, working through the possibilities to once again determine his position on the issue. As Volo did not think he could make it back before the day ended, due to the need to work on the rest of his upcoming stream, he felt it was worth considering if he was truly committed, knowing the possibility for error, or condemning an innocent man to death. *One could ask why Matoro and Metorem, to which Volo would once again recite - everyone started from a default position of suspicion and then exonerated or made themselves more suspicion by their actions. In short, Sever looked the most innocent from the first day, and Volo thought he wanted to give Giethri some credit for first accusing Cillian, even if she could have been trying to distance from him. While Cillian's seconding of Arenta's vote made them appear unpartnered, Volo was not sure how much load that assumption would bear. Nevertheless, if he struck Arenta from the pool as well, despite misgivings, considering her behaviour today, he was left with Matoro and Metorem who had not in some way appeared innocent. This world assumed that Ru Eris was still endangered and Jonoh was innocent. While they played to the most likely of all worlds, Volo always felt that it was basic decency: if you wanted to condemn a scammer to prison (or, he supposed, a criminal to execution), you had better consider the other options and the way forward, if it had to be mapped in their blood. Volo said, not unkindly, "Sever, supposing the worst case scenario, if Jonoh is not in fact the culprit, and if they kill me successfully tonight, you will really need to pay closer attention to what people have been telling you rather than repeatedly asking them it. As the person with Illumination, you need to be on the ball." He really hoped that translated well to a Rosharan. Adonalsium only knew how Tarachin expressions translated sometimes. "You are their Radiant," he added. Perhaps it was easier to translate than the colloquial, "You are their Mistborn now." (There were worlds where the murderers went for Sever, as he was no doubt a much higher priority, but the way Volo thought of it, it really didn't matter in those worlds as Sever would be too dead to care about what was going on next.)

"People are being murdered in this village, and your reaction is to only care about tossing coins at people? I don't think you're one of the murderers, but that's pretty anti-social behaviour. Would make a fellow wonder why you even bothered coming to Ru Eris." Volo was, specifically, asking about Yelig-Nar in that context, rather than Re-Shepir, due to wanting to know if using Yelig-Nar forced all actions by the same person to target the same victim. Volo considered that nugget of lore from the Elders carefully. If so, then it could not be ruled out that Volo had Transportation. It was a little less informative than Volo had hoped. He did consider as well concerns with Arenta and Transformation, but his general view was that it was too early in the day to broach them, and he would only feel more concerned past the midday mark. In short, he did not appreciate the thought of his vote being potentially hijacked by Arenta. However, in the world Jonoh was genuinely a murderer, unless Jonoh had used Sja-Anat's powers, it seemed likely that Arenta had Progression. He supposed there was as well a marginal world in which Jonoh had Progression and ended up visiting his own victim while using Sja-Anat, but that seemed unlikely. The other option in a Sja-Anat world was Jonoh using Transformation to hijack Volo's suspicions, which Volo was not appreciating. Edited to add: A thought occurred to Volo. While he was still convinced they had to check Jonoh first, he was not averse to exploring the logical space of possibilities that Jonoh was appealing to. He turned to Giethri ( @stiltedmoth ) , who'd apparently been scammed by sailors who were supposed to take her to Herdaz. "By any chance, did you have any messages with Matoro?" he asked her. In his view, if Giethri could be ruled out from having Adhesion or Abrasion, it was easier to narrow the possibility space when it came to Jonoh's claims. ...He figured he might need a table to explain that to the viewers on his stream.

"Volomir Kessarm, at your service," Volo said. "What are your thoughts on Jonoh having been scanned to be evil?" He had the feeling that Matoro hadn't any idea how to even nominate a suspicion, but admitted it was frustrating to deal with. According to clarifications from the Elders ( @DrakeMarshall ), Volo had discovered that Yelig-Nar granted the use of any Surge, but that the Surge still required an action; that was to say, Yelig-Nar couldn't break the laws of time to the extent that a murderer could both kill and use a Surge. This removed Yelig-Nar from contention, unless Jonoh believed there were two murderers left, or that the murderer in question had simultaneously called on Yelig-Nar and Sja-Anat, or Ashertmarn. At this point, there were so many boxes which had to be ticked that Volo felt it was best to test the simplest hypothesis. Still, he was interested in Arenta's ( @Araris Valerian ) thoughts on the matter, and also wanted to hear from Metorem, who had apparently vanished.

None of which pointed to anything conclusive. Jonoh's picking on the most obvious target and 180 from previous suspicion of Sever seemed odd to Volo. He wondered how you got from suspicion of Sever: To immediately accepting there was a scan but insisting it had been the use of a Surge. Too, Jonoh seemed to only turn to suggestions of the Unmade after Transportation discussion had been somewhat exhausted. From Volo's point of view, if you were genuinely suspicious of Sever, then the more logical response to Sever's claim of a scan would have been to doubt Sever. Why would you believe someone you thought a scammer and murderer to be truthful about a scan you knew was wrong? This sudden shift in attitude didn't sit well with Volo and he wondered if that was because Jonoh's initial suspicions had been of convenience, or because Jonoh did not dare to counteraccuse Sever, knowing the death of a Radiant with Illumination would immediately spell his own. Volo would like to hear from Metorem ( @CadCom) and more from Matoro as well. It seemed to him that Matoro was more likely just disengaged and a soft target, but he really hoped that Matoro ( @Ookla the Irreplaceable ) would help them solve the murders.

Volo thought through the implications. He listed each claim down on a mental table in his head, in order to make sense of them. For the moment, they did not know what Matoro had been doing, nor Metorem. There were several factors to consider. 1. First, Volo recalled the list of Surges currently still active in Ru Eris: 2. For Sever to have affected by Transportation, as Jonoh was suggesting, someone would have had to have targeted Jonoh with Transportation, and that someone had to be a murderer. If not, Sever would not have detected a voidspren. Yet, murder was an action, and as such, took time. Ordinarily, someone could not both kill and use a Surge at the same time—there wasn't enough hours in Ru Eris for this. If they believed there was one murderer left, then this was a difficult thing for a murderer to achieve, simpliciter. This entailed that a townsperson had likely caused Transportation, in which case as soon as they knew where the visits were, they would be accurately able to exonerate Jonoh. Failing which, they would know Jonoh was lying to save himself. The only exception was if Jonoh thought that Yelig-Nar or Re-Shepir was active in Ru Eris. But Volo did not know enough about Yelig-Nar and felt he needed to seek the wisdom of the Elders. @DrakeMarshall Was it, in fact, possible for the fell and eldritch powers of the Unmade to allow a person to both commit murder and at the same time, use a Surge on someone else entirely? 3. Volo thought it was worth re-examining the Surges, and re-grouping everyone together. The first group he deemed Volo-fans; that was, people who thought to visit Volo at night. Perhaps they wanted his autograph, knowing his streams were doing well offworld? VOLO-FANS: The second group was Jonoh-visitors, of which they had, for the moment: JONOH-VISITORS: Third, they had those visiting Metorem, which seemed to be just Volo. METOREM'S VISITORS: The final group he deemed encounters, for had Giethri not mentioned encountering Matoro on her attempt to leave the madness that was Ru Eris? MATORO ENCOUNTERS: Too, what Matoro and Metorem had done remained unknown. UNKNOWN: The way Volo saw it, they needed to match potential Surges by groups. This would help them get a better grasp of the situation. Volo believed it was unlikely anyone with Transportation had targeted him. If this were true, someone else would've woken up to the unpleasant discovery that someone had tried to stab them in the night, and the more pleasant discovery that someone else had saved him. As such, he thought it was possible to make the following inferences: First, neither Jonoh nor Arenta had Abrasion or Adhesion. This was because Volo had received no messages. Similarly, he supposed neither Jonoh nor Arenta had Transportation, for reasons he had already outlined. Moreover, one of Arenta and Jonoh needed to have Progression, unless someone else was coming forward as having targeted Volo (though he could understand why someone might be leery to do so, which made Jonoh's hunt for the ostensible Transportation suspect all the more suspicious.) Neither Jonoh nor Arenta had counterclaimed Illumination. For that reason, Volo believed that one of Jonoh and Arenta had Progression, and the other had Transformation or Cohesion. Second, Sever had pretty much made an Illumination claim. As the Surge was distinctive, Volo did not think it needed further elaboration. Third, Volo lacked messages with Metorem. However, the possibility one of Jonoh or Arenta had blocked him could not be ignored. If Jonoh or Arenta had blocked him, then Volo figured he probably had any Surge that wasn't Progression or Illumination. However, he hoped the Elders could shed light on what happened if Cohesion hit someone with Transportation (@DrakeMarshall) Fourth, Giethri then logically had anything that wasn't Progression or Illumination. He wasn't sure, but he thought Giethri was suggesting it was neither Adhesion nor Abrasion. Volo stopped there. It boiled down to, as he saw it, several factors: First, he'd watched his share of social deduction streams. Prima facie, a claim to have scanned Jonoh as a criminal via Illumination needed to be resolved, simpliciter. If it was indeed Transportation at work, then they would have nonetheless learned something. While he did not particularly mind Jonoh's hunt for an ostensible Transportation user, he also felt that unless Jonoh could present a good case for pursuing that alternative suspect instead, changing his voiced suspicions did not seem appealing. Second, the purpose of drawing Surges in baskets meant that the potential Transportation suspects Jonoh could attempt to deflect onto were in <Giethri, Metorem, Matoro.> Volo weakly felt that if a criminal, Matoro would probably have claimed to have visited someone, rather than no one at all. If Matoro, however, was a normal townsperson of Ru Eris, then he had no reason to lie, implying he should be removed from contention in either world. He was also minded to give Giethri some credit for having brought Cillian into contention in the first place. Third, while it was possible that Ashertman had redirected Sever onto one of the murderers, which would neatly resolve the issue, it did require the murderers to have made the correct decision in complete ignorance. For that reason, Volo was not so sure that this had taken place.

Volo did have other thoughts about the situation but he had to get a stream done first. He'd also rested poorly as he'd spent the night first trying to use any Surge he might have had on Metorem and then trying not to die. He was still wary of Metorem and thought to voice suspicion of Jonoh for the moment. While Volo thought it unlikely that Nergaoul was in operation (too swingy), he also felt that Nergaoul was easily managed by making note of the earliest voters on each person and only worrying about that Unmade should the Elders determine there were more than two murderers in total. His concerns with his earlier suspicions of Metorem lay with the likely distributions of Surges. For that, Volo needed sleep to be able to think about the results.

"Welcome to Volo's Special Guide to Roshar," Volo said brightly, though really he felt a little shaky inside. Knowing someone had tried to kill you and that someone else had saved your life did that to a person. "I seem to have made some new fans! Last night, someone tried to stab me in my sleep. Fortunately, someone else saved me. According to the Elders, it had to be via Progression, because Cohesion would not result in my knowing I had been saved."

Volo ran the initial soundchecks from his seat at the corner booth of the inn, just enough to give him some distance from the others. He didn't fancy having to explain to the locals about the Silverlight streaming industry. Warren confirmed both sound and visuals were doing just fine. At least the Everstorm didn't seem to have caused too much interference with the Shadesmar relays. "Welcome back to 'Volo's Special Guide to Roshar!'" he said, putting his streamer face back on. "I've seen some of your comments on the shorts I've been uploading, and yes, as it turns out, Cillian the Sailor was one of the murderers blighting the small fishing village of Ru Eris! Kudos to—" a brief glance to his notes, scrawled in shorthand on the table for the name—"ElantrianWorldhopper27253725 for calling this before the Elders of Ru Eris took action!" "Now, some of you have been asking about the food. It is indeed true that Roshar is simply crawling with a creature known as the cremling, whose flesh tastes faintly sweet, with a subtle hint of salt. Because of the commonness of the cremling, it forms a reliable source of food for the Rosharans, and the inn I'm staying at has a simply delicious way of making a creamy cremling soup—" Easy enough to prattle on, setting the scene, falling back into the way he'd gone on and on about the various places in the Cosmere that streaming Volo's Guide had taken him to. Meanwhile, his mind drifted. The Elders of Ru Eris had seemed certain that each person had access to one Surge. Moreover, they'd warned that trying to target yourself with a Surge was too dangerous—impossible, one of them had said, though Volo didn't understand why. He didn't feel different, nor had any sort of spren approached him (though Volo really thought they should, he wouldn't mind featuring one on his stream), so the thought of having a Surge just felt about as strange as the thought he'd access to AonDor, or the Metallic Arts of Scadrial. Nevertheless, Volo figured that the villagers of Ru Eris would probably be experimenting tonight, trying to figure out what Surges they'd access to. He wasn't sure if there was a case for targeting those you trusted or those you suspected, but figured that this was something people should try to convey in their death rattles, taking advantage of the presence of the Unmade. For the moment, Volo was relatively content that Sever seemed to be an ordinary Shin. To a lesser degree, he was willing to give Giethri some grace for having condemned Cillian as well, though certainly Giethri could not have known that someone else would join her. His suspicions had wandered to Metorem and Jonoh, primarily, though he considered Matoro as well. Although he did not particularly suspect Arenta at present, he had the feeling that an old innkeeper as wily as Arenta should not be underestimated. In his head, he imagined a series of brackets, as though they were all players in one of T'Telir's infamous Tarachin tournaments. Primarily, Volo's problems with Metorem came from a casual interaction with Cillian that weakly suggested they might be conspiring elsewhere. He also felt that the stormwarden's accusation of Giethri was particularly odd: Metorem had not really framed his suspicions of Giethri carefully. On the one hand, it looked like he was responding to Giethri's suspicions of Cillian. But those were in fact reasonable suspicions: Giethri had named the speed with which Cillian had battened onto Arenta's initial suspicions of Sever. Sometimes, scammers did that: they tried to make you think something was your own idea, so they backed you to the hilt and let you take the lead and the fall. On the other hand, suppose Metorem claimed he wasn't in fact responding to Giethri's suspicions. What, then, was he responding to? Was it a suspicion cast by pure chance? If so, then what was the value of it? Hospitality was respected in Marabethia: enough that most present likely knew Giethri was in no danger, not as a stranger so new to the region. And yet, suspicions cast when a traveller was protected by hospitality was no real suspicion at all, because it lacked teeth. Either way you sliced it, it seemed strange of Metorem, and more showy than not, which suggested Metorem had nothing particularly at stake and was avoiding the main trains of suspicion. This fit the profile of a murderer who would have noticed early on that it was mostly Sever and Matoro whose necks were on the line. It had also not been lost on Volo that Jonoh had been quick early on to declare they were on the same side. Volo distrusted that declaration: why would they know if they were on the same side or not? After all, he was a stranger to Ru Eris himself. Similarly, Jonoh seemed to hedge a number of his suspicions, suggesting self-consciousness. The difficulty was determining if this was the uncertainty of a murderer realising he needed to frame the folk of Ru Eris and believing his reasons did not pass muster. To a lesser extent, Volo also noted that Matoro had continued to be present, and yet offered little in the way of thought, or reaction to the ongoing events. This need not suggest that Matoro was a murderer, but Volo did question Matoro's investment in staying abreast of the Elder's decrees that all in Ru Eris remain active, and yet little apparent interest in finding the murderers. Thus, those were his three suspects for the moment, ordered from strongest to weakest.

Volo wished he could claim credit for it but to be honest, he thought Lady Luck had more of a hand in it than he did, and he was pretty darn surprised too. Still, the Elders had somehow worked out that Cillian was one of the murderers they were all looking for, and that Cillian'd had access to the Surge of Tension. As far as Volo recalled from reading some dated local travel guides, the Surge of Tension could be used to make a target impervious to any action save attacks. In practice, this could be used to commit unstoppable murders or to prevent investigation, though Volo figured that the murderers would've needed to know they'd Tension in the first place. This inclined him a little towards believing that someone aligned with Ru Eris might have access to Illumination, but not overtly so. Cillian's calm willingness to leave a vote on Sever and double up behind Arenta made Volo come to several conclusions, some weaker than others. First, he thought that it was less likely that Cillian and Sever were aligned. Again, this was a weak conclusion—sailors like Cillian often had a strong risk appetite. You'd have to, to be willing to sail despite the dangers of highstorms and the sea. Nevertheless, it was on the face of it a little strange for Cillian to attempt to create artificial distance between himself and Sever by placing a second accusation on Sever, particularly without any real reaction from Sever either. In addition, Sever had seen Volo's late accusation of Cillian and simply hadn't cared. However, Volo's late accusation had created a three-way tie. Had Sever and Cillian both been partners-in-crime, Volo struggled to see Sever having more or less no reaction at all with a 2/3 chance of loss. Second, he thought that it was a little less likely that Cillian and Arenta were aligned. He did not feel that Arenta would be fine with the way Cillian had simply joined her in accusing Sever, as though to slyly ride off her initial suspicions. Certainly, scammers often sought to downplay any appearance of collaboration, rather than blatantly act in concert, though people like Cillian and Arenta were always somewhat difficult to predict. In that light, he felt that Matoro and Cillian were probably not teamed. While it was difficult to tell who'd seen the late switch to Matoro, and Volo's own late accusation of Cillian, Cillian might have caught the shift and been fine with the Matoro shift. Overall, it was not a conclusion Volo felt confident in, and he was probably okay revising it subsequently. Nonetheless, while you could not really read off silence, Volo did believe that it was a little odd that Matoro should be a murderer and yet there was no response to Matoro being accused. Third, he didn't have a good handle on Giethri and her risk appetite. A merchant plying as far as the Purelake probably had a decent risk appetite, but Volo didn't know enough to be sure. Still, he felt that he was alright giving Giethri some credit for having voiced suspicions of Cillian for the time being. In his head, his updated thoughts went something like this:

Volo shrugged. He tried, timezone maths was not his forte They probably should've gone with someone like Arenta. With her insistence on debiting the people of Ru Eris for more or less everything, she probably would've had a better set of calculations.

As it turned out, the sun was not due to set for at least two more hours.

Giethri wasn't wrong to mark Sever's hesitance—Volo had noted it as well, though he'd no idea what to make of it. Was it assurance or risk tolerance? Wouldn't a murderer's accomplices help him? On the other hand, wouldn't an innocent be more apt to defend himself, knowing there was no one else he could rely on? Still, the point was moot now, particularly since Sever had declared his intentions to defend himself should the need arise. Volo thought it better to go back a few steps in trying to understand what was currently transpiring. For most of the day, accusations had remained stable on Sever, with Arenta being the first to toss a whisper of doubt, and then Cillian following up shortly after. (This seemed a tad opportunistic, and Volo wondered about the self-conscious way Cillian had cited the need to accuse someone or risk being thrown out of Ru Eris. After all, as far as Volo could tell, the Elders in Ru Eris were not particularly tolerant of indolence, but that boiled down to needing to make an appearance in a public area of the village each day.) No one, as far as Volo could tell, was falling afoul of the Elders, although Matoro had made the most blatant attempt to show up and then subsequently vanished thereafter. Volo himself had wondered about Arenta's complicity in murder, but had eventually shifted his thoughts to Matoro, wondering if the Herdazian's hustling had anything to do with the murders. Perhaps he'd been caught running some sort of scam and had turned to taking up with strange spren and killing thereafter? Eventually, Giethri had accused Cillian. Sometime later, Metorem had accused Giethri in turn. Nothing particularly outstanding, given Ru Eris was currently running on fumes: scandal, gossip, and suspicion. The last two doubling on Matoro caught his attention though. Unlikely for Sever and Matoro to be partners-in-crime. Volo couldn't think of any scenario in which scammers would throw each other to the axehounds rather than someone else entirely. Given only two accusations on Sever, it was very much possible to pull off. For Jonoh to elect to accuse Matoro was interesting though. It suggested Jonoh wasn't in a scammer gang with Matoro, since Jonoh didn't particularly care about endangering Matoro. But there was a hint, perhaps, that Jonoh was fine with saving Sever. And that was interesting to Volo. He updated his mental list: And mulled on his thoughts on what had transpired thus far in Ru Eris. Edited to add: Volo thought to stir the pot a little, and decided to focus on Cillian for the moment. @Ookla the Benefflicted @DrakeMarshall

I have more than a person should, but they're so nice, truly bang for buck.

Volo didn't think Sever was connected to Cilian: he thought they were disconnected: It was true, however, that there were two points of uncertainty to Volo's thoughts: First, Sever hadn't seemed particularly concerned about collecting two accusations, which might imply some behind-the-scenes collusion. Against that, Volo weighed the thought it was passing strange for Cilian to accuse Sever, for them to be partners in crime, and for Sever to just...completely fail to react. Something like that had happened before: he'd seen scams run where one partner just ignored the other, and one of them had behaved much like Cilian. Second, he figured that if Cilian'd truly wanted to make some appearance of antagonism between him and Sever, there'd probably be more telegraphing of the move. Some scammers worked like that: they made big flashy moves, to distract you from the sleight-of-hand going on. All in all, Volo's overall judgement was for the moment that Sever and Cillian were less likely to be accomplices. He was just less certain of it and thought it wise to flag his own uncertainties.

I see Pilot is releasing more Kakuno types. Clearly they've begun to understand the power of Kakuno

According to Warren, the most recent stream was doing pretty well, even if it was just a quick snapshot of the first couple of seconds of Volo talking to one of their 'cast', the assassin in black, who seemed uncommonly sociable. The team'd uploaded the stream as a short with a couple of hot hashtags and it'd done numbers pretty quickly, with the team keeping track of what viewers seemed particularly interested in. Volo figured they were all winging this as he went, but engagement was promising, so he wasn't really complaining at the moment. Maybe he should keep doing cast feature shorts, one after another. Get the viewers more interested, and speculating where the other murderers might be. He nursed his soup—by now, Volo'd figured the locals knew to come down to Arenta's, especially when her brother was doing anything with lavis grain or cremlings, and today it was some kind of savoury broth—and worked things out as he waited to see what the travelling merchant, Giethri [moth] made of the situation. As it was, Volo figured you sometimes got better replies by knowing when to listen. Didn't mean he had to do nothing, though. He felt rather rusty at this sort of thing, but he reckoned that Jonoh and Arenta were unlikely to be partners in crime. He added Metorem and Jonoh to the list in his head as well, and after a moment's hesitation: Sever and Arenta. (He didn't know how many more there were, but Volo kind of figured given everything in play, they were looking at the vicinity of two more, with three being the absolute upper bound involving potential madness.) The list in question was starting to look something like this: The way he saw it, he figured that Arenta was the sort to push for more real distance with any kind of accomplice. She just seemed like the no-nonsense, down-to-business sort to him (unless you had gossip, and that was something else then.) Apparently she'd voiced suspicions of Sever, but Volo kind of thought Arenta wouldn't parlay it into whatever was happening, with the way Sever was interacting with her and almost hanging off her. No, two confederates would put a little more distance between them, particularly with Arenta's accusation. So he figured Arenta and Jonoh probably weren't doing evil red spren things together. He figured there was maybe something like this as well with how blatantly Jonoh was calling for Arenta, and then how Jonoh'd singled out Metorem for casual conversation. Of course, maybe Jonoh's comfort with either of them suggested a connection beyond the obvious, but once again, Volo had the gut feeling that it worked like scams: you never wanted to appear too obviously connected, and the casual way Jonoh'd talked to them both suggested no real connection there. (He needed a better psychological profile of Jonoh to make more sense of this, alas.) Weakest yet was the disconnect between Cilian and Sever. Apparently, in Marabethia, it often took two accusations for anything to be taken seriously. For Cilian to opportunistically insert himself into suspicions of Sever seemed to indicate he wasn't particularly concerned about Sever's welfare. He'd an inkling that Sever's nonreaction there felt...significant, and yet Volo couldn't put his finger on what it was. Confidence that a partner would soon retract his accusation? Committed nonchalance? The bliss of the innocent? The day was yet young, and Volo felt the least confident about that line of thought. He'd heard sailors had a particularly high risk tolerance, especially on Roshar where you never wanted to be caught out at sea when a highstorm came. Matoro'd [Ookla the Irreplaceable] had been pretty quiet, though. Showed up, and then disappeared again. Maybe Volo should work on finding out what more could be known about that one.

Well, at least it wasn't one of the locals. Things had been quiet for the moment, and there was word of an announcement in about twelve hours local time. Something to do with the Elders seeking out collaborators. May as like to be that shady fellow—Volo thought he'd heard Arenta referring to him as a Shin assassin, though he could count on one hand the number of times he'd heard anything to do with the Shin when it came to Roshar. Things being quiet was interesting, though. As far as Volo could tell, just about four names had been thrown about, with little shifting. Maybe it was too early. Or maybe it suggested the murderers were too comfortable with the current state of affairs. Sever seemed comfortable enough that he hadn't yet voiced suspicions, and yet promised to do so if given more time. Volo wasn't sure what that meant for Sever. He did want to wait a little longer to see how long he'd keep that up anyway, before drawing any conclusions. Though Volo supposed that for all he knew, some of those red spren'd bonded just as easily to travelling strangers as to locals. He had to keep his suspicions broad. "It's the storming Everstorm," he said, lightly. "I don't think anyone's getting any travelling done while the storm's raging through these parts. What's your thinking about things right now? An Elder stabbing a seafood vendor after taking up with a strange spren?"

As it turned out, at least Metorem wasn't the only one struggling to keep his job Although he'd been unfortunately interrupted by an intrepid local who'd started scribbling on Volo's notes about the Unmade staying quiet and it being too early to start pointing fingers with the need to watch and wait. Turned out the local was some kind of shady figure who started arguing with Arenta shortly after, but at least he wasn't as disruptive as the gang of Tarachin hooligans in T'Telir who'd repeatedly trashed the bar he was filming in due to their favourite Tarachin side having lost the match of the season. Streaming, Volo thought. Go around, see the Cosmere's sights, and repeatedly deal with...colourful characters. No wonder he'd preferred the latest scambaiting focus on his show. 'Course, the thing was, Volo was pretty sure this was the sort of thing that they argued to death on true crime serials, so he wasn't about to point out the utility of an actual investigation. With the small population of Ru Eris, it seemed likely the killers would overrun the fisherfolk too soon if they were passive. The shady fellow seemed a tad too hesitant, but wasn't accusing anyone in the inn, so Volo figured there was maybe some sincerity there. He filed it as something to watch out for. After all, if the cast was what kept the audience tuning in to the drama taking place on a God-forsaken corner of Roshar, then you had to run the human angle, to keep them interested. Start profiling everyone, add a dash of "Could this be the killer's accomplices?" to that. ...And of course, somehow avoid getting murdered in the process. He'd felt safer dealing with scammers. But the Everstorm meant there wasn't going to be traffic through Shadesmar for the foreseeable future, and he wasn't going to make money by hunkering down instead of embracing the prime streaming opportunity. Mentally, Volo began figuring out the profiles of each person he planned to feature on the upcoming stream. Arenta: Wasn't sure what I was expecting. An innkeeper with a penchant for gossip would be the ideal accomplice to an Elder, wouldn't she? Still, as much as I've watched her so far, I haven't really figured out how I feel about her. Shady fellow - Sever, I think his name was? Seems a tad hesitant, but consistent with behaviour so far. Watch for sincerity. Metorem: Read the town a long lecture on the difference between predicting the future and pattern recognition which boiled down to a conflation between causal analysis and understanding. As far as I can tell, the fellow was under some pressure for having failed to predict the incoming Everstorm. His concerns didn't seem to be on the murders in his village, though whether that reflected a killer's callousness or simply a preoccupation with his job, I couldn't say. Matoro: Profile for a future episode. Jonoh: Anxious about the apocalypse, and apparently paranoid. He'd made a pre-emptive declaration about being on the same side as me, and I didn't really understand how he worked that one out. I'm not even sure who in Ru Eris might not be a killer at this point in time. Something to watch. Cillian: Apparently a singing sailor? Was quick to accuse, which can be uncharacteristic, but cited a worry about being thrown out, which I guess could explain his behaviour. Watch. It was, after all, early yet. He'd heard at last that anyone saved by Progression would know they'd been saved from an attack, which at least reduced his concerns that the killers would simply run a protection scam to gain trust from Ru Eris's inhabitants.

Of course it was a scam. Call it what you will: the Marabethian princess, the Scadrian lord, the Elantrian official, or in one particularly memorable variant, the darkeyed Alethi king; this particular scam typology seemed to crop up throughout the Cosmere. Volo hadn't really expected anything else. A Marabethian princess promising bars of gold? Roshar's most commonly-used currency were chips which contained the local Investiture, which they called 'spheres.' And even if she had bars of gold, promising to send them to a random individual on the other side of the Cosmere was most definitely a scam. No one with that amount of wealth would really be so careless about it. You didn't get something for nothing. And if it was too good to be true, it was probably a scam. Still, Volo, of course, had to spring the trap. Some people like Elimster could get away with doing a livestream from Roshar focusing on the way the locals handled Investiture. Volo though, had his niche. People, you see, detested scammers. They wanted to see those nasty vagabonds get suitable comeuppance. And so Volo had thus made the journey to one of the most savage backwaters on the Cosmere, with the exception of the Drominad, or perhaps the Threnodite, to unmask the scammer behind the Marabethian princess lure. Well, he had unmasked the scammer. That much was a long story, involving a husky and someone who thought himself so bloody funny. From what his team had mentioned across the gemlink, his audience had liked it, enough that he'd gotten a modest uptick in positive engagement and views. "It looks like they're interested in Roshar," Warren had noted. "You have got to be kidding me," Volo snapped. "Nothing except war happens on Roshar!" "I think that's part of the attraction?" Warran replied. "Look, at least 39% of all positive feedback has been asking for you to do a Rosharan special, like back when you used to do 'Volo's Guide to the Cosmere.'" And he'd stopped because it was a bloody pain in the arse trying to run away from the latest gangster or bloody-minded local who'd rocked up at said locale. And then there was the time he'd tried a Horneater white and spent half the night sicking up because the Rosharans thought alcohol was the sort of thing you ideally used to strip paint with. It kind of killed the mood when you were trying to paint Roshar as an exotic destination to visit. It was Elimster's sort of thing, really. "Fine," Volo growled. He could always use the increased viewer engagement, sadly. Maybe he'd get a few more sponsorships that way, increase his earnings for the quarter. Which was more or less the story of how he'd ended up in a remote fishing village, broadcasting from his room at the inn. Sure, one of the local elders had gone stark raving mad, and really, Volo blamed the spren, nothing about Roshar was remotely functional, and even the spren seemed to be into the war, but the locals of Ru Eris had started to take exception to murder, which was more or less reasonable. And so, here he was, streaming surreptitiously, and wondering if the viewers would love a murder mystery special. He outlined the notes in his head: Introduce them to the cast. A small cast of characters, but the human interest angle was always more appealing when it came to a murder mystery. Sure, there was whatever he could pull about the wretched Elder in question, but then he'd need to keep them hooked, ask if the Elder had worked alone. A singing sailor, a old lady with a loose tongue and a penchant for insisting everyone was indebted to her (Arenta), a paranoid resident who stockpiled goods while surreptitiously whispering about the apocalypse... Outline the stakes. The audience never got engaged until they knew what was going on. The Elder had started by swearing an oath with a large red spren, and Volo'd gotten some footage of the moment, enough to trust his team to splice and replay it for viewers. Of course, that meant there were probably more people in Ru Eris who'd taken up with some unsavoury spren. The problem was, who? Some research Volo'd done for the series suggested that the spren in question were the Unmade: particularly prominent and powerful spren aligned with Odium, which was troubling enough to make him wonder if he'd made the right decision, deciding to keep on streaming. Supposedly, some of the townfolk in Ru Eris had sworn their own oaths to Radiant spren, allowing them access to potent Surgebinding powers. He'd the vague intuition that the Unmade and the Surges probably balanced out, and that Sja-Anat in particular was too volatile to show up in a fishing village as small as Ru Eris. Too easy to attract attention if everyone dropped dead. All the same, he didn't feel too confident about it, especially if Sja-Anat only had that one shot at detonating that trap. It was the sort of thing you figured out as time went on and you learned more and more through the episodes. There were eight people that Volo had identified as crucial to the situation in Ru Eris. The Elders had also announced that (Volo hadn't the faintest idea how they'd worked it out so he was just going to handwave it and pray the viewers didn't ask too much about it) they had identified eight separate Surges in operation. Since each person could only access one Surge, he believed that everyone in Ru Eris had been granted a Surge. The numbers tallied neatly. Because of the presence of the Unmade around Ru Eris, the dying would often utter death rattles. This, Volo believed, could be of immense help to the living in trying to understand events that had occurred the previous night. For this reason, Volo intended to do his best to make sure he uttered a death rattle informing all of who he had previously targeted. In this way, the dead of Ru Eris could yet lead the still-living to clarity. If he had been granted access to a Surge (the idea was quaint), he would at least pass that on as well. (He had his own private thoughts about how those aligned with Odium were likely to react here, but he didn't feel it was necessary to give voice to them just yet.) He did not feel any particular named Surge seemed Odious. However, at the same time, Volo believed it would be possible to do basic plausibility analysis. He'd sketched it out on a piece of paper while preparing to go live for this episode. He made sure the gemlink to Shadesmar was operational—once it got to Shadesmar, the relay beacons would bounce it all the way clear to Silverlight—drew in a deep breath, forced a wide grin onto his face, and began. "Welcome to 'Volo's Special Guide to Roshar!' In this episode, I've found myself holed up in the tiny fishing village of Ru Eris in Marabethia!"

Ookla because of Peter Ahlstrom's Ookla the Mok? something like that. Runs from his birthday to Sanderson's birthday. Damn though, time flies when you're drowning in work, I legit went "didn't we just Ookla tho" for a bit. Should I Ookla...should I not Ookla... Now we're logging in via email addresses, the downside of Ooklaing is smaller. I still haven't read the rules so I'm running off a dim memory of the first draft of the game when Drake shot me it. Edited to add: @DrakeMarshall hi drakebro am ookla the villager, am aware this could lead to terribly funny and tragic results

Welcome moth! Urghhhhh it's a Drake game, work is kicking my arse because everything keeps going higher and higher which means longer clearance chains and it's technically good but also bloody tiring. I'll sign up, don't expect overactivity, I'll...figure out a character schtick and name and stuff. Later. Signing up as Volomir Kassarm, a parody an intrepid low-level scambaiting streamer from Silverlight who has wandered to Ru Eris to expose what he suspects is a ruse: a so-called Marabethian princess promising gold bars to intrepid adventurers willing to accept her invitation! Sure, Roshar is a barbaric deathworld, as far as the enlightened of the Cosmere are concerned, but maybe he'll stick around for that little dust-up going on with Odium. After all, nothing like a little war to drive up the views and engagement, right? For context (those who don't use Discord), this was Drake's advertisement: