Kasimir

Side-thought: I'm leaning to at most one Elim in <Drake, TJ> because on further reflection, making that group PM is a Choice. Drake is risk-happy enough to do it but I'm not sure if E!him would be willing to put E!TJ on the spot without talking it through. On that view, we had predominantly Village trains for most of the cycle which would explain stagnancy.

Since I'm no longer hacking my lungs out, or suffering from meds overuse, I'm going to do a bit of a regress through last cycle's voting to piece things together as best as possible. If someone PMed you, if you replied, feel free to mention it so I can fix the votes. I vote Drake to welcome him back. Striker latches onto that. I still like the vote at face value because it's a very relaxed entrance into the thread - E!Striker sometimes have overexplainy tendencies. Sparker asks what Drake has done. @Sparker, why so? (I'll keep my thoughts to myself until Sparker's reply.) Drake shows up and votes TJ for kicking puppies. Indeed this is a terrible and evil thing for TJ to have done. He drops me a PM about an hour later (his post is timestamped 0127hrs, he PMs me at 0234hrs calling me a coward for not having PMed him.) Worth noting this indicates Drake isn't particularly concerned about accumulating votes (as I mentioned yesterday) though I think Drake is risk-friendly enough to do this regardless. Very tentative V!lean? IDK. This actually means that the votes become: Because Drake PMs and I reply him. This post seems to imply Coder has received PMs. I'm guessing it was Drake, but this might mean Coder also accumulated a vote in the process. I italicise this because I'm not so sure of it. Interesting that TOW is considering Kindling at this stage. At around 0334hrs, Drake discovers group PMs can be sent and sends one to me and TJ. TJ replies at 0355hrs saying the game is hitting a bad RL patch for him. (This predates TJ activity in the Day thread.) Effectively, this is the vote situation: Drake and TJ in the lead. I then decide to vote Wonko to see if I can form a reaction read. The vote part actually isn't essential, only the accusation is, but I didn't like leaving my vote on Drake as I felt it'd stuck around enough. Wonko then votes me, which brings me into the three-way tie. This is at 0722hrs. There's an interesting question here as to whether the Elims realise this is a three-way tie. If the me-Drake-TJ PMs aren't Elim-infiltrated (I don't know the odds of that), it's theoretically possible that they weren't aware that there was a triple lead at this point. If so, I'm curious as to what they think the vote-state at that juncture is, but I don't know it is something that can be assessed. I'm guessing the best is they think Drake is in the lead, since I alluded to Drake sending PMs, so maybe something like this? Coder and Sparker aren't particularly bothered by this state of affairs. I don't know this feels like a teamed interaction still, and the stability of the three way tie occurs until 0644hrs this morning, so...4 hours 16 minutes to rollover? @DrakeMarshall, @StrikerEZ - curious about your thoughts behind the tie-breaker. Partly understandable for Drake since he's still in the lead tie, though actually Drake just makes it a different three-way tie: Whereas Drake voting me would have probably removed himself from the three-way. Striker follows the vote an hour later. Since Striker isn't part of the PM cluster, we have to consider both perspectives for Striker: Either he thinks he's doing this: Or he thinks he's doing this: That move has some interesting value in a Striker-TJ world. I just don't know if I immediately buy that. I tentatively agree with Drake about Coder's vote feeling kind of...self-conscious, but not necessarily in an E!way. I feel like E!Coder would probably be asked to fake a reason or something. Thoughts: -Coder can be V for now. -Still okay-ish with V Striker but I'd like to understand more about that vote. -Theoretically Drake being okay with sending PMs early on is a bit of risk for an Elim with two votes on him but I'm not sure E!Drake thinks this is an insurmountable obstacle. -I'm trying to understand how KSauce derives the Coder read because I'm not sure Coder played before, and it seems to wash out quite a bit into a nothing read. -Storm offering a light defense of Wonko but not voting in defense of Wonko is a Choice. Off D1, I'd probably try: TJ. I haven't decided how to read KSauce, and theoretically Storm is being a tiny bit more forthcoming than in last game (worried I'm misreading him but we can talk about that later on - maybe there's a bit of TMI there as Storm is actually making an NAI point about me but it's not framed as NAI, and Storm should be more aware of this having come off a V and then an E game with me in which I did the same thing.) There's some weak stability around the <Drake, TJ, Kas> and then the <Wonko, Drake/TJ, Kas> trinity that suggests there isn't a strong Elim predominance there, otherwise they should be less happy about the result. Part of it depends on the Striker and Coder reads tbf. Let's look at the 'did not vote' pool just to not forget them: <Sparker, KSauce, Storm, TOW>. I have some theories about the Hunter but IDK whether to share them as we don't really know if the Hunter/Target are Villagers, and I could see an exotic distro with an E!Hunter to probably justify a smaller Elim team (recognise I'm walking back what I just said but if I bracket some of the comments from Committee, I guess TUN could get more exotic with the distro.) Current vote: Something to consider: does an Elim make a vote here? I could see them trying to avoid it - if a V/V train is going through, you don't need to help it. Which might mean good things with regard to Coder regardless. With that in mind... TOW instead.

Jinhao 10 gradients are beautiful tbh. I'm just not as much a fan of retractables I guess. I'm admiring your additions though!

I'm not sure if you weren't paying attention, but I was one of the leaders in the votes at the time you died, because as I alluded to, I'd replied PMs. I was fine with being C1ed because I didn't want you C1ed as a returning player even if I thought you were Evil so I figured, whatever, I'll eat the C1 exe but make my thoughts on where to go after I died clear ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't think this is as likely I'll be honest. At the time the ruleset was running in committee, the consensus was that it's a harder game for Elims, and a bit V!sided on account of the bounty hunter/target mech. One of the solutions that TUN was mulling over was a slightly larger Elim team. (There's a world in which TUN gets spicy and cherry-picks the Elim team but I don't really see that as likely because I think that world has a high chance of a you/me, me/TJ, or me/Striker pairing at minimum and that's prima facie false anyway from most of your POVs, and certainly for mine. I also think just trying to pick an Elim team and balance it opens LG20 worries, so I'm not so sure Araris immediately okays it out the gate.) I could see you being screwy enough to skip a kill but I'm not really sure you do it off the box. IDK. Even with Striker being an Elim in the game with Ocho-gate?

1. You directly fell for a pressure test when I was playing against E!you. I deliberately played up my confidence and then felt more sure you were Elim after I noted a long hesitation from you into a placatory response. You can attempt the rejoinder that it's been six years since, but considering you were already a veteran player then, I think it's reasonable to say I should not expect significant evolution since compared to if you'd been a tyro. 2. I'm granting you the assumption it's a pressure test, by the way, when I'm pointing out it reads like a overdefensive and overthought reaction, hence my worries it's more likely to originate from an Elim perspective than a Village one. It's not one, or not in the way you would understand as one. I'm trying to understand why this is a Villagery response because your entire original line of thought was: Nothing about me has been alignment indicative THEREFORE clearly unfounded, THEREFORE clearly a plot to get me killed. The transition from 'clearly unfounded' despite the view it's a pressure test to 'clearly a plot to get me killed' doesn't make sense from v!you's perspective here - you're a returning player; in a game where an Elim can shoot anyone including a lot of soft targets, yes, they would decide to vote you in particular. It's a very contrived line that I'm leaning more E on than not. Don't really give a damn When I flip Village, I've made my views clear; people should flip you next barring a better target. By that time, it'll be C2, so my hesitations on a a C1 exe won't be there.

I wanted to RP but health issues are not going away so I'm going to cut to the point. Striker's opening I'm inclined to give some Village credit to. E!Striker tends to feel a bit more pressure to be helpful. It's a chill vibe. I don't want to C1 Wonko as he's just returned but I do want to note that Wonko's response here felt a tad overreactionary - if Wonko believes it's just a pressure test, then why does it merit the degree of thought/elaboration in response it does? Theoretically I'd like to believe E!Wonko would be more tonally placatory here, but that's a dated meta-read and I think the first level response is that this feels more defensive, and I'm not sure it originates from a Village mindset. Would say to watch/pursue in a future cycle if I'm dead today. I don't have a solid read on Drake at present. Willingness to make PMs is theoretically a positive given he did it at the point there were two votes on him, but Drake eats risk for breakfast regardless of his alignment and I don't feel his thread presence has given me something I'm happy to ascribe a read to. Be funny if Drake randed E two games in a row though. I'd like to make a TJ read but TJ just showed up in PMs saying he's busy. Theoretically you can give some Village credit to the willingness to spend a vote in PMs with a vote already on him but after Jo's QF, I don't feel too comfortable overcredencing on how inactivity affects E!TJ versus V!TJ. I'd like to think Sparker and Code aren't teamed based off their RP together. KSauce is hanging back a little. Either he learned from last game, or he's just not really in a solving mood this game.

Fixed. Just set to No Vote in dropdown if unvoting. Sleep for real now. Edit to add: I lied. Striker can be Village for now. @Wonko the Sane how's it feel to rand Elim again? Edited to add 2: Slep for real now, goodbye all. Edited to add 3: Sorry missed I intended to vote: Wonko SLEP FOR REAL.

Fixed. Will read everything later, actual sheet people should be using is named Cycle One. @The Unknown Order - Not doing the No Vote/Unvote weird fix now, lmk if issue and I will look into it tomorrow morning.

k. Would be great if people didn't touch the voting sheet for, IDK, fifteen minutes maybe? I'm groggy and tired, if I take longer I'll let you know but I'm gonna fix it up real quick.

Vote One, Vote Two, Vote Three etc are for subsequent votes in the same cycle - the tab at the bottom says cycle one. When we move to cycle two, it'll be a different tab. Having a migraine right now, but Drake welcome back @The Unknown Order Yo, when I'm less sick do you want me to fix up your spreadsheet again the way I did for that limited posts game?

Alright soddit. Signing up as Mendacious, the local hermit. Will work out everything else later when I have time.

I think the norm is definitely weaker, and I don't know if it is a good or a bad thing. I do think SE is at the stage where we need to fix the growth stuff. Whether these policies help, hinder, or are neutral is worth asking. I was compiling/writing the final report but my deployment and back injury derailed it and I'm getting back to it. Half the issue where these policies are concerned is it's difficult asking a guy who played one to two games and then dropped off why he dropped off. Some of the answers I'm getting are in the region of "well, honestly I tried but it's not my thing, the game's too hard/too different from IRL werewolf." On the other hand, I remember some responses on people who stayed point to early positive game experiences that made them want to come back. So there's no real direct causal link. I think at most we can do propensity. IDK if advertising got us more people. I'd like to think kind of. I did Reddit, but mixed results - TJ got a response, I didn't. But being heard in more places probably helps. Minimally I just think it did really surprise me M&M hit it for similar reasons (same old players getting fearkilled repeatedly, same new players getting LHFed repeatedly) as us, which is why I was wondering if Stick's experiences had shown how other communities react. We could say (pace TUN) there are tactical reason to avoid this, but it's also probably worth understanding why this existed. Then we can ask if the same factors it's responding to are still here, and whether it's still necessary. My actual two clips is that it's a norm I feel worth keeping intact while I can. But in general I also just feel bad about the extent I push to win these days (e.g. asking KSauce to hang back since some of his posts felt like they were attracting unnecessary sus, e.g. "let me vote to kill a Villager so everyone knows I'm Village") so I'm a fan of trying to keep to small things that keep me from over-optimising.

Low key want to play this because Striker-TJ-Drake, but may have work and health stuff to clear that I've been working on. Also I think this kind of clashes with GUNTHER versus Goldberg and damned if I'm not gonna catch der Ringgeneral work his magic Can you Discord ping me two hours before close or something? Still on the fence.

I think it's interesting that Drake and I both said nothing to tip the scales, and M&M had individually adopted similar kill policies prior to us. I'm curious what @Stick.'s journeys in other communities shows. There's a level on which it should be an exclamation point if different, non-overlapping communities are evolving similar policies or internal principles, which shows they were all responding to the similar needs during their growth. My main thoughts: 1. It's about doing what's practicable, not doing the impossible. If the game is entirely full of new players, then obviously you don't have a choice. I take it to be a bad faith argument to claim that this policy fails in a game of new players. 2. The opposite extreme* is that when you keep killing the same new players because they're chaotic af and don't do standard play because they're new, or the same returning players get fearkilled ten games in a row, then you either tell them to live with it and go full MU "be proud" which you can ask Meta how well it worked for him when he was telling me and Hael that back then (we told him the polite equivalent of f-ing off even though we've come around to that same point of view now - the fact that it elicits this reaction from the player in that position says a lot about.) So question for everyone: where's Teldrin now? (The player everyone is talking about as the correct tactical kill in the White Tower game.) Is he a regular member of the community? He said he'd come back, where is he? I agree we can't really adjudicate on this because there are multiple reasons why retention fails, but we can probably at least assert that "getting to play and form bonds with the community rather than waiting five games for this to happen" is probably playing on moderate mode rather than hardcore mode. *You can say "well, clearly I'm not advocating repeat fearkills" but if it's a natural outgrowth of your policy, then you may as well have the intellectual honesty to own it, because "use your best judgement" isn't a panacea. The fact an Elim player can argue individually in good faith across ten games that this was tactically the correct decision on their best judgement immediately implies the policy is fundamentally okay with this. IDK. Not feeling the arguments here because I think they're failing Chesterton's Fence.

Reactivated!

Process of elimination, just an Evil version of it. If Joe, Striker, TJ, or Bip were Coinshot, someone'd have died N1, period. (Joe disputes this, and fair, but regardless, we scanned him as a regular Villager N1 so we knew it couldn't be him.) These guys reliably send in orders (good work!) So the pool left: <Triple B, Hoid, Spirit, Polly, TOW.> IIRC, Hoid claimed Tineye at this point. So we were left with <Triple B, Spirit, Polly, TOW.> With Spirit and Polly having been too inactive, I decided they probably would've not sent in an order worth hijacking regardless. So let's pre-emptively remove them. <Triple B, TOW.> I then flipped the Sacred Coin to decide who to Riot, and it told me to Riot you. The Sacred Coin has led me astray before, but it also got me to exe the one correct Elim at lylo (in a conversion game where exeing any other Elim would've gotten us killed), it got me to exe an Elim at lylo which led to Ash killing the other Elim the same cycle, and Drake and I finally converging on the last Elim, in another game, had I heeded it, it would've got me to shoot an Elim deepwolf that was leading the Village badly astray, and I just came off a game where I flipped the Sacred Coin and it told me to shoot an Elim N1. (In the end, someone else took the shot but this was for Reasons, and I'd've shot her if it wasn't for those considerations.) tldr; I do have a healthy respect for PoE-guided RNG, and the art is narrowing the pool down. Once it was a cointoss between you and TOW, the odds of getting the actual Coinshot aren't bad.

Yell at me if I don't get back to you by Friday? Work stuff atm.

@DrakeMarshall does some decent simulations IIRC.

THESE WORDS ARE ACCEPTED.

I flipped a coin for it More that it's generally accepted that it's not good Village practice to avoid the exe, and you've heard the debate enough I figured you probably would be sold on the consensus view. My other thought was that if you're a regular Villager, you don't really know the distro, therefore should have reduced faith in night actions saving the game for the Village. (To be more precise: if I'm an Allomantic role, I have reason to believe there are probably other Allomantic roles. If I'm a Villager, I can believe this is a roleslite game.) You and Bip signing up was remarkable thank u I don't take u for granted Only if you carry me Call the game! My E!style is the equivalent of John Cena I just want someone to call it for me so I can focus on doing me

Honestly interesting reasoning doesn't matter. Dead is dead, so you're still in trouble if they get a train on you and there's a kneejerk Elim tell people sometimes look for - it's the one where the player gets a bit overly-defensive of the reasoning. I suspect there are correct ways to play it off, e.g. "This is bad reasoning, therefore I feel this player is struggling to manufacture suspicions" or "This is bad reasoning, they're just trying to push an agenda/find a reason to have a vote here." But it's common enough Elims will just focus on the goodness/badness of the reasoning without drawing inferences from it enough that it's suspicious. LG83 basically had the Elim team complaining they were being sussed for bad reasons, but the Village was still utterly and accidentally correct and Village kind of doesn't really care as long as you're correct IMO wrong reason, right targets, good enough. Your reads were generally solid The only shame was they didn't get pushed hard enough. My judgement call on leaving you alive with keeping the PoE wide enough, and also that I didn't think you'd get enough thread buy-in for that push. The one thing you probably didn't account for was that I'd changed my Elim playstyle since we last played V/E in that game from...I don't recall who, Elan? Yeah I think it was Elan. Tbf I was also not really sure how much the M&M Discord server would change my Elim playstyle so this was a first for me in terms of bringing it back to SE. I think M&M has generally been good for me in teaching me to chill both as a Villager and an Elim but especially as an Elim, so the fluidity in reads you noticed was just me going with the flow and being comfortable in reacting to things/forming reads in the moment. I guess in general I'm happy with the development in my Elim playstyle. I was nursing some health issues near the end and had two panic attacks but figured it was generally a step in the right direction. I did want to beat the allegations I couldn't play an Elim game without PHing out though. Shoutout to @|TJ|, @StrikerEZ, and @The Unknown Order. One day we'll get our Elim game together but I must absolutely insist you call the game and be Punk to my Cena. I ain't got the energy to call, I just want to chill and slack off Or you could just let me be Village!

Thanks to @Araris Valerian for GMing, and @KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren and @TwinStorm for being great teammates! Special thanks to @little wilson and @The Unknown Order for therapist-client confidentiality Village played well IMO. I think Storm and KSauce were decently under pressure in PoEs, there was just insufficient follow-through, I went into D4 expecting to need to bus KSauce until it seemed that Village had gotten completely distracted on Striker, which was a moment of "Okay...guess I'll roll with it?" Your scheme was good, and I was more or less honest in dealing with you in terms of that being what I'd do as Village. The one thing I did not do was I did not point out to you that beyond trying to draw the kill, the entire PM scheme should have been taken as a reaction test and dropped into the thread and summarised for analysis the next day. I think you were correct to catch Storm on the basis of an anomalous reaction, and I think KSauce would probably be findable on that basis too based off what he was saying. I tried to warn them it was coming but honestly it's just hard to get Elim teammates to read the doc in time, or to actually react appropriately to a reaction test and at least one Elim is usually findable that way via anomalous response. Yeah, sorry. I wasn't going to fish for another ML when you were doing the job so excellently This was one endgame where convergence would've been 100% understandable because we'd expect the Spiked to try to bus you here, though I definitely think there are side-worlds where a Spiked team would try a thunderdome here: split the vote, hammer the tie, and then kill in the night. I'm interested in your thoughts tbh! I felt that on a raw distro meat-and-potatoes basis, the distro favoured my team (though not with regard to player comp.) Village not having any protection from the Coinshot or the Spiked kill seemed rough, and I felt it was lucky that Storm never drew Steel balance-wise. And yeah I did a PoE and RNGed to make Trips shoot himself. I guess I can retire now, between this and AG8, I'm never exceeding this peak, it'll be downhill from here Yeah we basically gave him the title "Striker Kalebane, Terror of GMs, Shield of the Lynch" after that game both because he kept getting D1ed so it's like he's shielding everyone else from the D1 exe, and the Terror of GMs was because Hael and I had planned for most game-breaking outcomes...except for the one where Striker didn't read the rules and therefore didn't realise he was immune to the exe, and...yeah, we then had to panic and ask the IM if we could rerun the game.

Keldorn was poring over the reports from his informants, his own scribbled notes about the events that had taken place in the market square over the last several days. So many things, he thought, rubbing at his eyes in weariness. So little time. The first thing that weighed on him was the deepening sense that Var was one of the Spiked they were looking for. The considerations, he felt, had not particularly shifted. When he went back through his notes of the third day, Fox's objections stood out starkly to Keldorn. Perhaps he'd been too blind to see, then. How often it was, Keldorn thought, that we saw what we wanted to, than what was truly there. It was a failing on his part as an investigator. In any case, Fox had pointed out that Var more strongly accused Mil, and yet, Var had chosen to push a case on Jox. He stared at the paper, the scribbled lines tracking what Var had said seeming to taunt him. If Mil, based off Var's analysis, was the most suspicious, then given Var'd advocated it was essential they execute a Spiked that day, he should have advocated for whoever he was most confident was Spiked, rather than whoever he thought was the most informative. The time to gather information was not when the knife was at your throat. That was the time to act in confidence, following from what you were most certain of. It was extremely difficult to look at Var's words and to not feel as though the shift from accusing Mil to voting on Jox didn't make sense given Var's own attitudes about the urgency of the day, to the point Var had called on everyone to show up on the market square to avert disaster. When Fox had called Var on this, Var's response was a retaliatory accusation on Fox, claiming that Fox had been reaching to accuse him and twisting his words. This, Keldorn felt, seemed particularly like something he'd seen before. Sometimes, guilty men immediately lashed out and counter-accused their accusers. Then, Var'd twice asked Keldorn privately at night after the identity of the Village Lurcher. That was something that left Keldorn feeling uncomfortable. He understood the relevance of Smoking, but was increasingly wary of Var's interest in a potential Lurcher. The following day, Var had accused Kéamen of having been a Spiked Mistborn who killed Teal the second day, when Fox had already claimed a Soothe on Kéamen. When Var'd been reminded that Kéamen could not have shot Teal, due to having been Soothed, Var'd acknowledged his accusations of Kéamen lacked basis but had left his vote on Kéamen. (Although Keldorn did not think leaving an accusation in place was itself problematic, he did feel it fed into the sense that Var's behaviour on that day had been fairly lacklustre: he'd dropped an accusation, with the vote being left in place, Mil, whom Var'd already demonstrated a blindspot towards had joined him in voting Kéamen, and then that pair of accusations had simply stuck around. It felt more as though the Kéamen votes had served the function of countering the Var accusations than anything else.) In response to the accusations, Var'd simply chosen to vanish, only to appear at the very last second of sunset to vote on Madiane to save himself. While Keldorn disagreed with Jox that self-preservation was a Village action, he also felt that Var's lack of interest in engaging with the market square and choice to hammer demonstrated he wasn't particularly interested in helping the Village investigate, but was interested only in naked survival and denying information to the Village (via non-engagement.) This didn't strike Keldorn as actions emerging from the mindset of a villager of Blackkeep. Var'd claimed he would attempt his own analysis to guide the Village. Keldorn was fine with this; he was always of the view that he was open to persuasion until the sun dipped below the horizon. In most sensible worlds, Keldorn felt that Var was just Spiked here. The leading candidate for Var's teammate, in Keldorn's eyes, was probably Mil. This was both in light of Var finding a convoluted way of avoiding voting on Mil to accuse Jox, and Mil voting with Var on Kéamen once Var had accumulated two votes. In addition, while Var had opened yesterday with a vote on Mil, that vote had very quickly shifted to Kéamen, which made Keldorn feel the vote had been done for distancing purposes, but hadn't sincere commitment to it. In terms of candidates for the third teammate, Keldorn felt the most likely was just Josha, by process of elimination. The next bracket upwards contained <Madiane, Jox>. He felt as though in a world where Jox was Spiked, unless something had gone terribly wrong, Jox should have voted on Kéamen to force the execution, with a Village loss resulting in most worlds. (Executing Kéamen here brought their numbers to four against three, they killed Antari in the night (conservative assumption), and then deadlocked the Village at three to three into a loss to the koloss the following night.) Another consideration in favour of Jox being a Villager was that it was just strange here for Var to have contrived a reason to vote for one teammate over another. Unless Jox was actually a Thug, or a Spiked Mistborn with a pewter vial, Keldorn supposed. Jox also had a reaction to Kéamen's ploy that felt fairly authentic to Keldorn. However, he accepted he was not easily able to let go of Jox's claim that voting for a tie would soft-clear Var. For this reason, Keldorn had left Jox within that bracket as a soft suspicion. Madiane did in fact have a vote backing Var's push on Fox that Keldorn was concerned about. Keldorn's issues with considering Madiane to be Var's teammate boiled down to both Madiane's push on Var (arguably once Var had been a lock; however, Madiane had been the third voter on Var yesterday, which endangered Var. Voting on someone else such as Kéamen would have easily led to a misexecution and a potential Spiked victory.) This deserved Village credit in Keldorn's eyes. Finally, there was Kéamen. Keldorn supposed he owed an explanation as to why he'd so far repeatedly stated that voting Kéamen would have been a misexecution. Simply put, he felt that since Var had picked Kéamen as his chosen counter-accusation, it was a fairly straight-forward inference that Kéamen was least likely to be teamed with Var. Counter-accusing another Spiked would be counter-productive, and the presence of Mil backing Var up made Keldorn feel a little more sure of this. In most worlds, Var was Spiked, and Keldorn's primary candidates for his teammates were <Mil, Josha.> He felt that <Madiane, Jox> were possibilities, but would not look into them until the primary pool was cleared. However, Keldorn felt compelled to consult the possibility of the worlds in which Var was not Spiked, if only for the purposes of due dilligence. In that world, he would have to redo his analyses of the voting, but the primary thought that came to mind was he would probably need to re-evaluate on Kéamen. Kéamen's voting record had not been particularly good, with Kéamen voting to tie things up on the first day (an inconsistency with his views on pressure voting, in Keldorn's eyes) and with Kéamen following the majority on the second and third day (foiled as he'd scrawled his vote on a missive instead of announcing it in the market square) but not actually committing to his votes. While Keldorn really appreciated that Kéamen had come back to life yesterday, in a world where Var was in fact a Villager, Keldorn would probably wonder if that surge in energy was motivated by the nearness of Blackkeep's defeat. In truth, Kéamen had some factors going for him. He'd claimed Mistborn to Keldorn privately during the day, only to retract and claim it was a test when Keldorn immediately suspected he was the Spiked Mistborn who'd done for Teal out of paranoia even though he also knew in most worlds, it was fairly unlikely. But Keldorn was wary of how Kéamen had shifted from wanting to draw the Spiked kill to give the Lurcher an easy target to protect (he liked the proactiveness) to trying to bait a claim from the Lurcher, insisting that the plan would fail in any world the Lurcher did not claim to him. That felt more like Lurcher fishing to Keldorn, and he didn't like it, particularly since at this point, a significant chunk of Blackkeep's defenses rested on the ability of the Village Lurcher (if one existed, Keldorn was no longer so sure he had faith) to successfully make an interception. It thus seemed to Keldorn that the Spiked would be particularly invested in denying the Lurcher. This was as best as Keldorn had for the moment. He hoped Mil [ @KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren ] had not gotten lost in the crowds filling the market square. Keldorn did feel that Var was their best shot of taking down a Spiked, and despite his own doubts about Mil, they needed everyone casting an accusation, or the Spiked could either hammer or deadlock them. "No more mistakes," Keldorn said quietly, one last time. It was the best he could do.

"Var for now," Keldorn accused, stating the obvious. "However, with Antari dead and the koloss almost upon us, we cannot afford another error. I'm going to go over the events of the past few days again before making up my mind for good." He would also need to get some sleep. He was running on empty at this point. He looked over the empty market square, and shook his head. "No more ties," Keldorn said, quietly resolved, although he did not know who would hear his words. "It's do or die, now."

"'Cause it's not my nature to damn a person immediately," Keldorn said, steadily. "I am always, always known for wanting to hear them out, down to the last minute, particularly if I have history with them, and I was struggling to juggle my thoughts about Var and Madiane on no sleep." He shrugged. "It's a character flaw. My informants have known this in previous encounters with Fox's, Var's, and Copper's predecessors. And—" he hesitated. "Wasn't as if Var didn't have some things going for him. If I felt he was Village after all and still voted to accuse him, it'd be my fault Blackkeep fell, wouldn't it? I was trying to make up my mind on him and he sounded so resigned and the accusations were stable so I was getting worried." "Still, I'll say this. If Var and I were Spiked together, unless you think Madiane is Spiked with us, which I think not, she's probably not Spiked with Var because of their identical claimed Allomantic Powers, we vote together at sunset and misexecute Madiane. In a four Spiked world, Blackkeep dies, there and now. In a three Spiked world, we have the immensely difficult task of dodging the Lurcher at night, and then deadlocking the Village in the day. Slightly longer path that completely disregards any Allomancy we may have access to, but Blackkeep still dies. There's no real reason for my failure to move with Var here if we're both Spiked." "I appreciate your newfound enthusiasm," Keldorn said, "But it's night. You can only vote in the day."