Kasimir

Did they just... Did the Spiked just out themselves? Keldorn cursed himself for being too slow to react. "We're fecked then," he said, bluntly. Couldn't imagine another world in which they'd be satisfied to reveal themselves. "What is it, Mistborn picked up steel? Well played. I kept finding Jox off with each statement he made but you really made me want to think you Village, Var." He straightened up and took a deep breath. "Well, see you all in the morning. If we've got any Mistborn, you know what you should be doing." Keldorn didn't intend to worry too much about the things he couldn't affect. Edited to add: The way Keldorn saw it, it was hard to see a world where this wasn't just outing for Var and Jox. Jox's assertion that it would be Villagery for Var to cause a tie seemed unfounded to Keldorn. Given that Jox's vote was locked on Madiane, the only way Spiked Var could save himself would have been to cause a tie, regardless. There was no reason for Spiked Var to go willingly to the hangman's noose. Therefore, it looked as though Jox had already set out from the beginning of the day to find ways to smuggle Var into his Village reads, ranging from claiming Var was undefended (untrue with the Keamen accusations taking off, much less with Jox's own actions), to suggesting a complex system of vote rigging including preparations to counterhammer, without accounting for the chaos of Villager fog-of-war (which seemed like the perspective slip of a Spiked), which read like a way of trying to shield Var from the votes. Claiming that self-preservation was inherently Village here was just the latest in a string of contrived reasoning, and Keldorn didn't like that. The close timing between Jox's claim and Var's naked Madiane vote, too, raised his hackles. It felt as though it was orchestrated between the two of them to try to claim Village credit for the move. While Keldorn had spent the whole day going to and fro on Var, and he felt that self-preservation was inherently something any Spiked or Villager could do, he felt that the manner of Var's vote seemed more suspicious than not. On discovering that his accusations on Kéamen had been built on weak sand, Var had nonetheless left his vote there and hammered Madiane at the last second. It was as though the man'd given up on trying to defend himself or to help investigate, and had settled for shifting the votes to stay alive. But that didn't help anyone read him, particularly when a decent chunk of the Village thought him Spiked. That didn't feel like a very pro-Village mindset; it felt like a Spiked in trouble trying to deny the Village as much information as possible. Keldorn supposed they could kill him tonight, but he'd made his thoughts clear. The last Spiked (singular, plural, he wasn't terribly sure) was probably in <Mil, Josha, Antari>. He was of the view that Madiane was less likely to be Spiked with Var due to her Smoker claim (and the counterintuitive nature of the claim), and Kéamen had privately offered Keldorn some weak reason to think he was Village. (Also, if it turned out the Spiked were Kéamen, Jox, and Var exactly, Keldorn would have a God-be-damned fit, though that was neither here nor there. He resented the idea they were running rings around him in his dotage.) His leg ached. His back wept fire. He hadn't gone to the clinic. There was too much work on his plate at present. You're washed up, old man, he thought to himself. Fit only for the plantations now.

@A Jo in the Bush "Thoughts about the vote state?" Keldorn tipped his head towards Jox. Wanted to know what he thought, here and now. It was making his shoulder blades itch, as though someone had a dagger there. He didn't like it one bit. Ironically, he was starting to echo Jox's earlier thoughts, a little. It'd been a bit too quiet, since Jox had accused Madiane. Keldorn was worried it portended nothing good. As far as he could tell, it was the three of them, still standing in the market square. Watching. Wary.

Keldorn tiredly wondered why he was becoming the rusting dumping ground for corroboration. "For context," he said, evenly, "Var approached me last night seeking my help in identifying the likely Lurcher to Smoke them for their protection. I told him I was not comfortable doing so given the events of the day, and just wasn't a fan of Lurcher hunting. Var later told me he'd forgotten to Smoke anyone."

"He would have to explain what his scans were for the past two days," Keldorn pointed out. "And why he wasn't clear in his defense of Fox, much less why it was him defending Fox rather than any of his scans, not to mention it'd be a nasty coincidence if everyone he scanned wound up dead and this wasn't communicated. There are just too many gaps in standard Seeking doctrine for this to be something acceptable at face value, and anyone who did believe it probably fell off the turnip cart yesterday. I'm finding it strange you thought you would be satisfied by this." Edited to add: For clarity, Keldorn added, "It's especially the sort of scheme I'd expect a veteran to be more resistant to." Jox's ancestors would probably have encountered Beetle, not to mention there was something a Lord Pending had pulled off, a long time ago.

"The one assumption I think you're making in your analysis," Keldorn stated, "Is that you're assuming the Spiked would intervene as quickly as possible. And I think that's not a warranted one." According to his informants, it'd not been the case for a while. (Infamously, one of Aral's predecessors had told one of his informants that. It'd been a rough time in Tyrian Falls.) Votes had a tendency to disintegrate over time as accusers lost interest, or simply were otherwise distracted. With the way the last two Days had become a last minute frenzy of accusations shifting around, Keldorn found it curious that Jox seemed to think that the Spiked would immediately intervene, especially since it was grounding a push on Madiane to defend Var. (If Madiane and Var were both claimed Smokers, and this was true, then Keldorn felt as though it was less likely they were both Spiked together. Unless God had a cruel sense of humour, he supposed. Of course, there was the world in which one of the two of them was lying about their Allomantic powers.) "Jox, what's your current read then of Antari?"

"Look," Keldorn said, scrawling the letters into the dirt on the side of the street. "Our first event: Jox votes Derrick." "Exactly a minute later, Var complains about a tie and asks Jox if Jox is willing to vote for Derrick or to remove his vote. Jox then points out he has already voted for Derrick." "Then, Var acknowledges the error." While outlining it, Keldorn began to wonder if he'd been too fast to assume this interaction meant Jox and Var could not be teamed. He said, "Var seems to be unaware of Jox's switch here. To me, it seemed like an oddly specific detail for Var and Jox to have orchestrated. Though I suppose as with Madiane and Var on the first day, you could argue they'd privately prepared that interaction beforehand as Spiked." Edited to add: As it stood, by Keldorn's reckoning, there were two votes on Kéamen and three on Var. He wondered how it was that Jox could continue to insist that Var was not being contested as there was a competing accusation right there.

"I can back this up," Keldorn said, calmly. "Var claimed Smoker to me previously, and I claimed my role to him as well. I'm a regular. I was willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt when I read him more easily as a Villager, but started to harbour doubts after last night, and Var pressing me yet again if I knew the identity of the Lurcher. I'm unsure about how to read this now because I do want to think Var's latest comments emerge from a Villager."

This bothered Keldorn, though. Did Spiked Var just take it back like this? He felt like Var should've found an alternate suspicion to advance here as Spiked. Admitting he was clueless while they stood on the knife's edge of loss somehow felt like something Keldorn could relate to, and didn't feel like it came from agenda. But then what of the retaliatory Fox push, Var's shoehorned choices of suspects, and Var's repeated attempts to fish for a Lurcher? At the same time, Keldorn'd also felt Kéamen was suspicious for other reasons, so that put him in an awkward position as he was half-tempted to join Var in accusing Kéamen regardless. No. He needed a nap, to relook this with a clearer mind. He figured he'd switch to accusing Antari for the moment. Hadn't liked Antari's last minute claim of Fox's innocence. Either it was a Seeker scan claim, which Keldorn had many questions about, or it felt like Antari swooping in to claim easy village credit by positioning himself as opposing Fox's flip. No one had been particularly certain of Fox's innocence—Keldorn for instance had found himself torn and swerving between Var and Fox in terms of who he thought was suspicious, so where did Antari's clarity come from, when he'd repeatedly and publicly insisted he was very lost on the events in the market square? It felt like a slight slip to Keldorn. Edited to add: Keldorn went over to Var and drew in a deep breath. Might as well say it for the record. "If you're Spiked, congratulations to you because I'm just thoroughly confused by this point to be honest. I hate your voting record, the Lurcher fishing, and you look suspicious as all hell especially off yesterday, but what you last said also made me want to think you're Village again and I hate it." Listing everything made it seem like he really should be voting Var again. But, damnit, he liked that half-takeback. He did.

Although Keldorn was suspicious of Kéamen, this didn't seem to pass muster. Kéamen had claimed to have been Soothed on the second night, a claim that had been backed up by Fox, who'd turned out to be a village Soother. In addition, they were still able to confer privately, which suggested a Tineye was still in operation. If Kéamen wasn't a Tineye, then he still hadn't shot Teal, and there was a second Tineye in Blackkeep who had said nothing at all. (Keldorn supposed Kéamen could've been Smoked that night, which would allow a steel shot to go through, but wasn't sure if Kéamen would then know to claim he'd been Soothed. He acknowledged he couldn't really explain the lack of a message last night, however.) He didn't really understand or agree with the Spiked Seeker assertion here, and the basis for it felt flimsy. He wondered if it was informational leak at work.

Silence descended on the market square. Keldorn didn't like it. It set his teeth on edge, made him second-guess himself. He wasn't comfortable with the fact that Antari had apparently also decided to accuse Var. At the same time, the situation itself did not feel right. The market square was tepid, stagnant. Did this meant the accusations were incorrect? Or were the Spiked holding their nerve, perhaps waiting until the last second to hammer? He went back to his thoughts about the numbers: they were exactly on par, or there were five Villagers to three Spiked. In the first world, the Spiked, if they moved in force, could force a stalemate, and then a loss. Perhaps this wasn't practicable for them, but Keldorn was always of the belief you considered the worst case scenario in your planning. The fact there was no sign of movement made him worry about a hammer, or at least, that they'd not actually struck close to the bone so far. (In truth, in that world, they'd already lost if the Spiked forced the issue. So maybe that was an indication he shouldn't worry about it.) In the second world, they still outnumbered the Spiked, but a misexecution here brought them to the razor's edge regardless. It did mean there would be no hammer forthcoming; rather, the Spiked would seek to cause a misexecution. He supposed this meant that the vote dynamics in this situation would be more subtle. It didn't really allay Keldorn's fears about the quiet, however. He ran over his thoughts yet again. He was repeating things, and yet he didn't know if he was getting it right. He wasn't sure he could afford to be wrong yet again. Jox and Var could not be Spiked together. Or that didn't seem likely. Keldorn supposed that there could be a world where someone like Kéamen was flying under the radar, while Jox, Var, and Keldorn scrapped among themselves, and two to three other Spiked in <Antari, Mil, Madiane, Josha.> Problem was, postulating the Spiked were lying low was always a risky proposition: you didn't get to it by asserting it, you got to it by the process of elimination, and Keldorn wasn't satisfied he'd run the process sufficiently. He wasn't happy with himself for struggling to narrow the suspect pool down further, but the problem with low activity was that there was only so much you could get off reading the tea leaves. Eventually you felt like you were trying to make signs out of shapes written in water. To reiterate: for Madiane, he'd not liked the Fox accusation, which felt opportunistic. Keldorn wondered if it was a defense of Var, too, which made it all the more curious since Madiane had apparently noted wariness of Var. (Although Keldorn felt that Var and Madiane had been stumbling over each other on the first sunset, he acknowledged it was less conspicuous compared to Jox and Var stumbling over each other as Jox and Var had actively misunderstood each other. That seemed to imply a stronger unpairing.) The Lijal vote could have gone either way; while Keldorn was of the view Madiane would not have needed to cast that vote if Spiked, he didn't feel strongly enough about that given Madiane's profile. For Antari, there was the Seeker claim yesterday, which Antari still hadn't addressed, and complaints about the weight of events, which Keldorn found overblown and potentially a way to justify accusations with thin backing. While Antari was probably less likely to be Spiked if kidnapped, Antari had also shown up of his own accord, which made Keldorn think he was trying to get ahead of Aral sending the guards after him, while still avoiding some of the hustle of the market square. For Mil, there was the strangely-worded vote on Jox the day before, suggesting Mil wasn't interested in investigating or finding Spiked so much as managing his own image in the eyes of Blackkeepers. And then there was the vote on Var before that, though with Keldorn having begun to revise his own views of Var, he was no longer sure about the extent to which such a vote was damning. For Josha, he'd felt Josha's Derrick vote had been unremarkable, but extended him a bit of credit for having questioned Derrick's exclusions of Jox and Astrid from his analysis of Copper's death. He hoped the market square would come alive so he would stop re-treading the same path in the same circles, could figure out if he was just driving himself insane.

There's a notification on Discord, but you mentioned not doing Discord, so it's fine, we'll just ping you. It's possible to subscribe to the forum, but then it's a pain because you'll get pinged with every post from the ongoing game which isn't ideal. The signatures come from this post on the art/memes thread.

Three Spiked to five Villagers, Keldorn corrected himself. He wasn't good at mathematics, but the idea remained - at three to five, one misexecution today meant they went three to four into the Night, and then three to three, which meant deadlock and a Village loss. One way or another, they remained at the precipice, which meant it was all the more important they find a Spiked today. Edited to add: Keldorn had wondered how to phrase this circumspectly, but he supposed this was the best he could do: he'd mistrusted that Var'd been fishing for the identity of the Lurcher at least twice. There were reasons a Villager might be doing so, and Keldorn knew what some of them might be, but in conjunction with the other considerations, they'd led Keldorn to sour on his views of Var.

Currently a Long Game is ongoing. The Quick Fix and Mid-Range game formats alternate, so once the Long Game ends, the next game is likely to be a Mid-Range. Claincy and I are on top of the list for that, but if we're not ready, it'll be someone else. Something like LG -> MR -> LG -> QF. We don't really have the numbers to overlap them too much right now so we're aiming to just reduce gaps. If you only want to play in a QF, do you want someone to ping you when a QF is ready to run?

Death in the night. But not for him. There were only two possibilities Keldorn could see here. If there were four Spiked to four Villagers remaining, then they'd already lost. Today, the Spiked would come out in force, and Keldorn would do his best to stand against them, but he feared they would reach a deadlock in the day, only to find another of their number dead in the night. The alternative was that there were three Spiked to four Villagers remaining, in which case their situation did not change. They stood on the knife's edge, and had to charge into the investigation once again, doing their best to stave off utter catastrophe. The same considerations as yesterday applied. You surrender when you're dead, the grizzled sergeant who taught him the sword had said, a long time ago. Keldorn drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders together, and got up. He'd fought in more than one hopeless retreat before. There were some things he needed to make sense of, before he came to a decision. For one, he'd become more wary of Var. Had wondered if he was too quick to assert that someone like Var shouldn't have voted the way he did on the first day. Had wondered, too, about the events of yesterday. He'd pondered, but Fox had seemed correct in that if Var had more evidence to suspect Mil than he did Fox, then why Mil? Var'd said Jox's death would give more information, but that didn't ease the nagging wyrm of doubt in Keldorn's head. If, as Var had avowed, the situation was as desperate as it seemed to be, why was he going for the more informational vote as compared to the one that seemed more likely to be evil? Keldorn had views about informational accusations that were, perhaps, controversial but he also felt that being on the very precipice of disaster was the very last time one should be caring about being informational. (In stating his thoughts, Keldorn hoped someone would talk him out of it if he was tripping. He'd a tendency to go off sometimes, and he was worried he was doing that, and over-paranoiding on Var when he shouldn't be.) For another, he wanted to understand exactly why Antari had asserted that Fox was Village with such confidence. If he had scanned Fox, who had he scanned previously, and why not clear this up before the Village sustained unnecessary casualties? In fact, why not claim to Fox, since he would have known he could have trusted Fox? If Keldorn ignored Antari's claims, he was left with wondering why Antari spent so much energy insisting he wanted someone to catch him up on things while not actually bothering to do so, despite having the day to do it. It felt to Keldorn like Antari was more invested in appearing to be interested rather than really catching up. Part of Keldorn put Mil and Kéamen in the same bloody category of people he regretted not pursuing his suspicions of more aggressively. Perhaps he really needed to just go for it, at this point. Mil's votes and reasoning for them appeared unsatisfactory. At the same time, Finally, he was wary of Madiane's vote from yesterday, which sealed the Fox train. It felt like the kind of lurker vote that sealed a train, and given their current situation, Keldorn could not find himself letting go of it that easily. Madiane passing off the Fox accusation as being for information also felt somewhat lacking when the Village was, as far as anyone knew, on the edge of disaster. "Rust," Keldorn rasped as he leaned on his cane and made his way out into the market square. He felt like hell warmed over, but he was somehow still drawing breath, so he had work to do and Spiked to find.

The mists gathered outside as night fell. Keldorn leaned heavily on his cane as he made his way down the street. His leg ached something fierce, as it hadn't since the day an unlucky sword-stroke in battle'd laid it open, almost to the bone. He'd spent the first part of the night trying to sleep it off before he forced himself to his feet. He needed to walk, to think. Either it was beyond his hands now, or it was not. If his reckonings and Var's had been correct, then if they presumed five villager left to four Spiked, then the events of the night were beyond their hands. He did not for a second believe there wasn't a Lurcher. God, he thought, was not this cruel, for all they'd apparently killed him at long last. Not in a world with a Coinshot already present. If miracles were still permitted to happen in the Final Empire, with the death of God, then perhaps they would have a miracle this night. If miracles happened at last, or if his reckonings and Var's had been wrong, then they would see another dawn. Keldorn hoped fervently for this. He wished the Spiked had had the decency to stab him already. The fact they hadn't, coupled with Fox's worries, made Keldorn worry he'd been mistaken about Var. Or that he hadn't pursued Jox strongly beyond the point of doubt, because he'd spent too much time worrying on and off about Mil, Kéamen, and about Fox. Stupid, Keldorn thought. He'd been fumbling around like a novice again. They had to proceed as though the situation was still winnable. As though Blackkeep could still be saved. That meant either a miracle tonight, or another dawn. In that world, where would he look towards? He listed the thoughts that came to mind. Antari'd claimed that Fox was a villager and then had vanished. Had he Seeked Fox? If so, why had he not claimed so unambiguously but left it for the last minute? Keldorn'd had his doubts, but he'd accused Mil and watched just to hedge his bets against the world in which it was a Spiked ploy. Figured he could bait the hammer and switch and then move to Fox if need be, but no hammer'd come. Keldorn wondered if Antari had been trying to claim credit for getting Fox's alignment right. Keldorn distrusted Mil. He felt that Mil's vote on Var appeared opportunistic, and didn't like the way Mil had talked about proving himself Village via voting Jox. Why was Mil dependent on Var's reasoning? It felt like Mil wasn't interested in actually finding Spiked, only in how he looked. He wished he could form coherent thoughts about Lipitor but Lipitor just hadn't been present enough for this. Truthfully, Keldorn felt that if Lipitor was Spiked, they were just going to have to find Lipitor's teammates instead, because at this point, Lipitor felt like a shot in the dark. (He supposed you could make an argument that if a kandra ate Lipitor, they might be better off, but regardless, the only reward for finding Spiked at this point would be another day on the knife's edge. If you felt there was any prospect at all that the kandra might be a better shot, then it was worth buying time.) Keldorn felt a little positive about Josha, but this just came down to Josha's questioning of Derrick's kill analysis. Whether he was placing too much emphasis on it, Keldorn didn't know, but he thought it felt like the sort of positive engagement he was looking out for, which had been scarce in the bracket of quiet people. There was maybe a world in which Josha and Jox were Spiked together. It might explain Josha's early insistence on Jox engagement, Keldorn wasn't sure. Madiane. Keldorn'd leaned positive on Madiane earlier, but wasn't sure any longer. Madiane had showed up on the first day to vote Lijal, which Keldorn didn't really feel seemed like the sort of thing she'd do as Spiked, but he questioned that assessment now. She'd shown up on the second day but declined to accuse Var despite pressing strong accusations on him, and then showed up earlier today with another Fox accusation, sealing the Fox train. If you bought what Keldorn and Var'd thought, that this was a desperate juncture for Blackkeep, forcing the misexecution was something Keldorn deeply distrusted. He continued to feel wary of Kéamen. Besides Keldorn's repeated worries about him, Kéamen'd showed up with a soft accusation for Fox that once again hadn't materialised, and the way Keldorn saw it, a Tineye claim that didn't particularly help them at this juncture but probably was going to help the Spiked work around or deal with the Lurcher. Kéamen calling on everyone to solve at this juncture just felt performative, as though he'd only been galvanised by Fox's misexecution, and wasn't himself interested in putting in the work to investigate, and Keldorn distrusted this timing. (Keldorn supposed he could also give Kéamen some credit for the misvote, but wasn't sure it read unequivocally Village.) Kéamen was part of the tangle here, too. More and more so, Keldorn felt as though there had to be at least one Spiked among himself, Jox, Var, and Kéamen. With Fox turning out to be a Villager, the pool narrowed. One answer to why the Spiked weren't killing in that pool was that there was a high preponderance of Spiked within that pool. Another answer was that the Spiked weren't feeling particularly threatened by it. The third answer was that the Spiked within the pool were using Keldorn and possibly others as camouflage. Jox and Var were an interesting conundrum. Keldorn continued to feel it was unlikely that Jox and Var were Spiked together, though one of them might very well be Spiked with Kéamen. Though he didn't think it was impossible for Spiked to get in each other's way, perhaps, he still leaned towards the thought that the way Jox and Var had stumbled over each other without awareness of what each other was doing on the evening of the second day seemed to imply they were not teamed with each other. (Maybe. He kind of felt he'd like another pair of eyes on that interaction now. He was worried he'd been too hasty, too quick to jump to conclusions.) Between the two of them, Jox had an entrance that felt strangely subdued, and that had jumped out to Keldorn when he'd taken a look at it on Fox's urging. He also wondered if Jox was, at points, overcredencing somewhat, particularly with Jox's early hedging. Var's actions on the sunset of the first day arguably were difficult to understand if he was Spiked. It felt as though he was sincerely pursuing suspicions of Lijal, and Jox had concurred. At the same time, Fox had urged Keldorn to consider if he was underestimating Var's capabilities, that of course Var would ensure consistency in that push. Keldorn didn't disagree about pushing Jox over Mil feeling...odd, evidentially, much less Var's reactionary pushback on Fox. Between the two of them, Keldorn would probably lean to wariness of Var first, though he needed to commit to going back over events from the beginning once again with a critical eye. Well, Keldorn thought. At least if the Spiked killed him tonight, he'd done his best and laid out his thoughts. What Aral Penrod or the villagers of Blackkeep did with them was their own affair.

Mil?

Keldorn frowned. "Are you claiming to have Seeked him?"

Keldorn disagreed with Fox's interpretation. Simply put, he felt that Var's analysis actually could be translated into the form of a conditional (helpful, he'd read a treatise by Kassel Erikell on the topic, once, although there was a sizeable amount of marginalia from Lord Pending.) To say that X is true in a world where Y is true, according to Erikell, was best translated as: if Y, then X. To say that Mil was Spiked in a world where Jox was also Spiked would be charitably translated in the vicinity of: if Jox were Spiked, then Mil is also Spiked, which made the logical order of precedence understandable to Keldorn. He supposed you could argue that it was actually a biconditional of the form Mil is Spiked if and only if Jox is Spiked; however, he wasn't sure the biconditional held. (To say it was a biconditional was to say Var believed that Mil and Jox were either Spiked together or Villagers together. Perhaps this was true. Keldorn wasn't sure, and welcomed Var's clarification. @StrikerEZ) However, Keldorn could not really deny Fox's take. He'd understood the direction of Var's implicature, but voting for informational value in a cycle Var had self-admittedly agreed was make-or-break for the Village, in a world where Var had independent evidence to consider Mil suspicious, just felt wrong. It also seemed to imply that Var'd stronger evidence for Mil's being suspicious but was choosing to pursue Jox despite that. That didn't really sit well with Keldorn. Keldorn was concerned this was a retaliatory accusation, and that did not sit well with him when Var had already agreed this day was important. (Keldorn had privately wondered if this was a slip, but felt at this point that he was seeing shadows everywhere he looked in this damned keep. Although he would be a little more scarce due to the need to visit Blackkeep's clinic later this day, he resolved to sleep on it and return to the investigation with a clearer mind, before he began to see Spiked lurking in each voice that spoke up.) Edited to add: Keldorn had begun to leave, but he paused, spun on his heel, and addressed Fox. "In case I wasn't clear, I think that it's an understandable mistake that people make a lot to go from logical order of implicature rather than evidential strength. I do think it's a mistake, but I don't feel it's something that's Spiked-indicative because I've seen enough people make this mistake over the years. And I'm not liking the retaliatory back-and-forth pushing here. It's not something I want to look at without a clearer mind at this juncture." @|TJ| Edited to add 2: He supposed he could make the point even clearer. To go from asserting the truth of a conditional's consequent (Y) to asserting the truth of a conditional's antecedent (X) was fallacious reasoning: it was called 'affirming the consequent.' Fallacies weren't necessarily bad, but they did mean that the truth of the inference was not preserved; if you were right, you were lucky. In that sense, he could understand and was sympathetic to the idea of following the logical direction of inference. ...He just also kind of struggled to see why you would go with logical inference given relative evidential strengths.

Tbh maybe I'm settling and I shouldn't settle at this point in the game. Kéamen Edited to add: Keldorn wondered if he was settling and if he simply shouldn't be settling at this juncture. He still felt that the kill choice was likely to indicate at least one Spiked in <Fox, Jox, Kéamen.> Of the three, Keldorn was the most wary of Kéamen and kept going to and fro on how he felt about Fox. He agreed with Fox about Jox's entry into the market square, but also wondered about how much credit to extend Jox for echoing his thoughts on Var. Meanwhile, Fox's take on Var was setting Keldorn's teeth on edge as Keldorn wondered if Fox was trying to set Var up. Among <Lipitor, Antari, Josha, Madiane, Mil>, Keldorn distrusted Mil for what he believed to be an opportunistic vote on Var, and was reconsidering his thoughts on Madiane. He didn't like how Madiane had shown up to ask Var to convince her of his innocence but hadn't voted, which seemed to point to a disengagement with the results on a day with what Keldorn suspected was two Villagers standing on the hangman's scaffold. On the first read, Keldorn had seen Madiane's vote for Lijal as being more likely to come from a Villager, but now, wondered if Madiane had simply joined the bandwagon. Relatively, Josha'd also what Keldorn considered to be fairly opportunistic votes. However, he'd extended Josha a little credit for asking Derrick about Jox's deemphasis on Derrick's list of suspects with a motive for killing Copper. He thought that had at least showed some engagement and attention, especially when Keldorn had missed it himself. As far as Keldorn could tell, Lipitor and Antari just existed. He wanted to give Antari a few points for commitment, but Antari had shown up. Certainly if Antari was a Villager, Keldorn didn't want him found dead by Aral's guardsmen; at the same time, Antari's time and manner of arrival meant that commitment was not exculpatory. He would not be surprised if there were Spiked among their lurkers.

Keldorn wondered at this. Was Fox now implying he thought Jox was a Villager? Edited to add: This was kind of what was bothering Keldorn a little, in that he wondered if Fox was trying to suppress the positive reasons to regard Var as a villager. It was one thing to acknowledge reservations or caveats. But it seemed Fox regarded Var as one of his suspects? The way Var and Jox tripped over each other at sunset yesterday probably indicated they weren't Spiked together as they seemed to genuinely have little idea of what each other was doing. He couldn't see a villager Jox making up reasons to village read Var, whereas surely a villager Var would call Spiked Jox out on a lie. Why did Spiked Var particularly care about getting Lijal executed over Astrid? True, Keldorn's informants had known someone much like Var to have aggressively pushed to execute Villagers via private conversation. At the same time, Keldorn thought it just fit a picture on which Var sincerely believed Lijal was suspicious, which was something Fox should probably understand since he'd found Lijal suspicious for similar reasons. That he didn't was strange to Keldorn. Edited to add 2: "Ah, screw it," Keldorn muttered, and cast his vote for Fox.

"Life is never this kind, is it," Keldorn swore, exasperated. It had been a lovely thought while it lasted, with the prospect of someone having stopped the kill, or redirected it, in which case they'd've gotten a good lead out of it. This was part of a discussion that Keldorn and Var had just had, privately. The way Keldorn saw it, assuming six to four, which they really had to, there was no other alternative, splitting the accusations too far could expose them to the threat of a hammer. (This was besides considering if everyone would be present, which, given the voices in the market square thus far, Keldorn was beginning to doubt.) However, Keldorn had been balancing that in his head with the thought they also needed to discuss before talking about convergence: over-worrying about convergence prematurely (although it was now midday) could stifle their ability to find Spiked, or to identify them through the voting. However, Keldorn had two considerations in his head which he held against worries of a hammer: first, he was not sure the Spiked could necessarily be around at sunset. As he recalled, on the first day, he, Madiane, Copper, and Var had been around at sunset, whereas yesterday, it had been Var, himself, and Jox. To be sure, the past was not necessarily a good reflection of the present. Keldorn wasn't sure about the schedules of everyone, but the only he he believed might not be present at sunset was Fox. Second, he considered the likelihood a hammer would further expose the Spiked. Suppose they were six to four at present. A Villager executed at sunset meant they went into the night five to four. If the Village Lurcher once again failed to make a save (and given Teal had been a Village Coinshot, Keldorn did not remotely believe God could be this unkind, though if God was Araris Valerian, then Preservation save them all), and if any Village Mistborn there were had not acquired iron or pewter, then they they went into the final day at four to four. But since ties did not kill, reaching four to four was sufficient. Unless any Village Mistborn acquired steel, they would be dead. There was just no way to stop a deadlock in the day, followed by death at night. It was a slightly risky path, but it still looked ugly as hell for Blackkeep, and Keldorn did not like their chances on this line of reasoning if the Spiked hammered. (Was he missing something? He did not know. He hoped people in the market square would be able to identify gaps in his reasoning.) It was do or die, now.

This was worse news to Keldorn. He'd the vague sense that it was often very difficult to manage a Spiked Coinshot, or a second villager of Blackkeep turning out to be a Coinshot. If there was one, then they probably should have seen more deaths the first night, or more survivals over the last day. There were reasons Keldorn could potentially see a Spiked Coinshot working, though he declined to offer too much comment about them. It still wasn't the hypothesis he immediately favoured. To Keldorn, this looked more like action from a Mistborn who'd procured a vial of steel, though whether the Mistborn was Spiked or a Villager, Keldorn could not immediately tell. He was curious about Var's insistence that a Seeker had discovered Teal's Allomantic abilities and sniped him in light of this revelation. Var himself had expressed his suspicions of Teal the previous night, as had Keldorn. Keldorn rather thought he could see a Village Mistborn who had acquired a steel vial choosing to snipe Teal. Perhaps they'd also been suspicious of Teal. He couldn't deny that a hostile Seeker was also a possibility, however. He simply didn't think it was the immediate inference and found that a little strange. (There was a third world in which a Spiked Mistborn had acquired a vial of steel and then chosen to shoot Teal. This was possible if the Spiked wished to leave open the room for claiming for some light Village credit, if only to say they'd made the killing shot as requested. But one thing about this world Keldorn had wondered about: why didn't they simply shoot Keldorn using the extra firepower then? Or Var? Or, assuming they were Villagers as well, Fox or Jox? Or even Kéamen, when he'd been vocal? Studying the patterns underlying the way a criminal committed a crime told you a lot about who they were, how they were thinking. The problem was that Keldorn found himself surprised by their choices. This was part of what confounded Keldorn. The Spiked killing Astrid indicated that the Spiked didn't see it as a problem that the Village learned that the two leading suspects on the first day were in fact Villagers. The other half of it was that the Spiked didn't seem interested in killing the loud, vocal Blackkeepers in the market square. Perhaps it said a lot about Keldorn's personal biases, since he personally thought that was a pretty normal set of targets for Spiked. Keldorn wondered if this implied that the Spiked were not particularly concerned about accusation analysis here, or in fact, thought it would benefit them. There was also the question of why they'd chosen to murder Astrid—was this about informational control, since Astrid had not said or done anything? Or was this because they weren't feeling particularly threatened by where the Village was currently headed? One way or another, what Keldorn thought he could take away from the kill patterns was a sneaking suspicion there was at least one Spiked among Jox and Fox. He felt alright throwing Kéamen in with that group—Keldorn's informants had suggested that Kéamen had a decent amount of skill as well. To Keldorn, the one thing he felt comfortable taking away was that the discipline to choose low-profile or quieter targets suggested that the Spiked could not simply be reactive. That pointed to steady hands on the knife. Though Keldorn thought Jox had brought up a fair point. He was of the view that the stabbing indicated that Astrid had died to the Spiked, but perhaps it was not so, and Astrid had simply died of natural causes. Or unnatural causes, since inactivity seemed fairly unnatural to Keldorn. He wondered if Aral could shed a little light on this. [ @Araris Valerian ] Particularly because if Jox was actually correct...Perhaps the Spiked killer had been blocked by a Soother? If so, then Kéamen's unsolicited claim he'd been Soothed was something Keldorn was side-eyeing. Though this did remind Keldorn that it was possible the Spiked killer could also have been redirected to kill Astrid. He wasn't so sure where he'd weight this possibility, though it seemed a fair one. He'd have thought the more natural redirect was to get the Spiked to stab themselves, but maybe the Rioter was concerned about accidentally catching a Village Coinshot or Mistborn? If so, then Keldorn's qualms about the kill profile just didn't apply here at all. "I've partly outlined my thoughts with regard to kill patterns," Keldorn admitted. "With Astrid turning out to be a villager after all, I don't really feel Kéamen's vote on Astrid is as exculpatory after all. I don't really understand the mentality or motivation behind Kéamen's claiming here and now since I don't really feel Tineye is something that is particularly Village-coded. Given that Teal was a Village Coinshot, I find it difficult to believe there isn't a Village Lurcher out there, and while they haven't gotten a successful interception off, I understand their pain, interception is hard." He'd done a round of Hazekiller training before, back with Garrison. Learning how to use a thick wooden shield to block coins was rough, and Keldorn had the cuts and bruises and even a scar above his right eyebrow to prove it. "Narrowing this pool down for the Spiked isn't really helpful for us," Keldorn added. "I suppose in general: I don't really feel Kéamen has allayed my suspicions of him with regard to the sudden shift in dislike of execution, inconsistency in views on pressure voting, broad suspicion spread leading to pushing soft targets, and I'm of the view there's one Spiked within you, Jox, and Kéamen. If I had to expand it, I suppose I would begin rethinking Var if only because I could see a Spiked Var switching to and fro when the two lead suspects are Villagers, because there's no real investment in either suspect, so as to speak." He paused, and looked over at Var. "Even then, it feels kind of excessive for Spiked Var? I don't know. Var switched back from Astrid to Lijal once he saw Lijal was viable. I still think that felt sincere and I'm not so sure Var, as a Spiked, in the heat of the moment, given the time pressure and the short window to react to Madiane, remembers he's stated suspicion of Lijal and follows Madiane back onto Lijal. I think he'd just stay put because what does it matter? A Villager is dead either way. Maybe I'm wrong about this. What are your thoughts on Var or Kéamen at this point? Why doesn't Var's behaviour on the first day sway you?" He added, a final rejoinder. "I do find myself wondering if Kéamen's choice to step back after facing pressure is to duck the heat and let everyone else slug it out." He'd seen wanted men do that, when the heat of the Steel Ministry's attention became too severe. "At the same time, I think that's just uncharitable, and it makes me wonder if I'm tunnelled. And—rust happens to everyone. Life's just a pain like that. I don't really feel good wondering about that kind of thing, but you asked, and I acknowledge that's a thought that went through my head, even though I'm doing my damnedest to leave it out of my evaluation of Kéamen."

It was a busy time of the day for Keldorn, though later would be better. @Araris Valerian Keldorn frowned. His informants had explained to him that Coinshot deaths were often extremely clear, as they would involve boxings or clips. Here, however, Teal had both been struck by a boxing and had fallen from a building. Yet he didn't think the Spiked were able to muster two kills at once. He figured he'd go talk to Aral, see if this could be cleared up. Edited to add: While Keldorn would be back later, he figured he would accuse Mil.

Keldorn jotted down the list of votes Aral had logged, copying it onto a fresh sheet of paper. Then, he inked in what was known, in bright green ink. Then, he began to think. They had immediately discovered that all those who were voting on side-trains on the first day had been Villagers of Blackkeep. This led to two sets of suspect pools for the Spiked: among those who had participated in the voting on Lijal and Astrid, and among those who hadn't voted. To make sure everyone was on the same page, Keldorn figured it was uncontroversial there were probably three to four Spiked within Blackkeep. Given the numbers within Blackkeep, the larger group required a more significant distribution of Allomantic abilities within Blackkeep. The smaller meant that Blackkeep was mostly full of regular people. In theory, Keldorn thought, the Spiked should actually be distributed across both groups. But he was willing to bet one group held a heavier concentration of Spiked than the other due to a raw numbers game. In the world Astrid was Spiked, it was quite likely that there was a high concentration of Spiked voting for Lijal. At present, Keldorn kind of thought that would point to Spiked in <Fox, Mil>, since he still was willing to think Madiane and Var were probably innocent for the moment. In the world Astrid was not Spiked, he expected a higher concentration of Spiked in those not voting. Since this hypothesis already presumed Astrid's innocence, Keldorn figured this pointed to Spiked within <Antari, Lipitor, Teal, Josha.> He supposed the other alternative in the world Astrid was not Spiked was for Spiked in <Fox, Mil, Kéamen, Jox>, with the Spiked probably feeling no particular or necessary adherence to either train. On the second day, this had been the pattern. Keldorn drew up a fresh sheet of paper, and copied a fresh set of votes, the nib of his pen rasping lightly on the paper with feedback. Keldorn frowned. Surely not? It looked like Aral's sheet had mistakes logged on it. For one, it had missed on Kéamen's switch to Var, though since Kéamen had voted by missive, perhaps Aral had simply chosen to disregard it as rule-breaking. For another, Derrick had removed his vote and had not returned. Keldorn went over the accusations, referencing the last scribed tally, and hoped for the best. Keldorn thought about it. He felt as though his earlier reasoning for Var still pointed him towards Var's innocence. Of these votes, he had several questions and thoughts: Why had Kéamen shifted from Lipitor to Var? It was true that Lipitor was unlikely to be executed; however, it was also a change of heart for Kéamen, who had been vocally against execution, and then who had been triumphalist about a Villager being executed on the first day. (Keldorn wondered if that reflected informational leak.) In truth, if forced to reflect about where he stood on Fox, Keldorn could only point to something known as a Wiw read, which boiled down to something like "I'm wary of you but I'm also relying on exchanging takes with you a lot, which means I probably trust you on some deep level I should pay more attention to." He still didn't like Fox's opening, and wanted to hear from others who'd expressed suspicion of Fox [ @StrikerEZ, @A Jo in the Bush ] to see if he was just letting Tower feelings take over again. The stability of Josha's, Fox's, Mil's, and Teal's votes all pointed to general satisfaction with the state of affairs. Kéamen was aware most of them had not been in the market square by sunset, and indeed, duties prevented some of them from being there (Fox was usually engaged at sunset due to some strange temporal phenomenon) but at the same time, he felt that if an execution was Villager against Villager, the Spiked were more likely to have fairly stagnant votes as they tended not to simulate solving beyond what was necessary, or what the Village let them get away with. If he entertained a world where Var was Spiked, then the way Keldorn saw it, Var'd fooled him twice which really wasn't helping Keldorn's personal crisis of confidence, but such was life. In that world, he'd expect at least one other Spiked among the Derrick voters, which led Keldorn to lean towards a Spiked being within <Josha, Fox.> He kind of felt Var and Jox were unlikely to be Spiked together considering how much they'd stumbled over each other's feet on that first day. Kéamen, Mil, and Teal looked relatively good in that world, with Keldorn figuring that the last one to two would be in <Antari, Astrid, Lipitor, Madiane.> (Given Madiane and Var also being at cross-purposes on the first sunset, Keldorn felt it was unlikely that Madiane and Var were Spiked together, so his lead pool would be in <Antari, Astrid, Lipitor.> At least on the first level, a Var-Astrid teaming also seemed less likely, so that really left <Antari, Lipitor.> The way Keldorn saw it, this meant that on the level of accusations alone, he distrusted how often Fox, Mil, and Teal recurred in multiple worlds. The robustness of that set probably meant that Keldorn would start looking for Spiked there.

"Can you talk to me about your suspicions of Kéamen?" Keldorn wanted to know. Though events had nearly made him forget, he wanted to spell out his thoughts on Madiane a little more: Pathwalking the routes: 1. If Lijal and Astrid were a Villager and a Spiked respectively, it was odd for Madiane as a Spiked to come out of nowhere and accuse Lijal here. Var's switch to Astrid meant that accusing Lijal at best brought the difference between Lijal and Astrid to a single vote, so Madiane wasn't saving Astrid by doing so. He supposed you could argue Madiane hadn't expected Var to switch, but there was two minutes between their reactions. Keldorn felt that was enough time for Madiane to have noticed the switch, although he conceded you could not be sure. In that world, she was better off voting elsewhere, rather than stacking onto Lijal again and being noted to be the last accuser. 2. If Lijal and Astrid were both Villagers, Madiane's vote still felt odd. It attracted a lot of suspicion, and Madiane was arguably indifferent to whichever of them died if she were Spiked. In that world, he'd expect Madiane to decline to vote, or to vote elsewhere, which would have probably attracted some attention, but not as much as voting to kill Lijal did. The considerations made Keldorn lean a bit towards the conclusion that he felt Madiane seemed innocent.