Hecto looked between them all, but then sighed. "...I... suppose it's about time that I step forward," he said.
((Wait--hang on--I'm not done with my musubi--))
"Everyone. Because of Starr's current absence, I suppose I can assist in trying to piece together this great puzzle that we have... even if I may not be as useful as I would like to be."
((Wait, but Hecto, quick thing, uh, we might not actually know for sure--))
"Our numbers are dwindling, and between Starr, Mel, and Dave, the assailants have a lot on their plates. There should be, at most, two remaining, perhaps only one. And it's for that reason I must speak now before I am silenced. If those redirections could happen, it very well could go to me next. A redirect could go to me, thinking I'm a useless target."
((To be fair, you might be.))
Hecto grunted. "...Every night, I have been inspecting one person to verify whether they are innocent or whether they are an assailant. On the first night, before we truly met or knew one another, I inspected Ess. It was essentially at random, but he turned up innocent, despite his silence. On the next night, when we were lamenting the fact that we did not know who to vote for, and therefore didn't vote for anybody, I inspected Karo for his silence. As we can see... he was innocent."
((Starting to see a trend here.))
"On the next night," Hecto growled, "After Psyduck was eliminated, I was suspicious of Mia's actions, if only slightly. I decided that she would have been the next person to check. However, as you recall... I was very reluctant to vote for her." Hecto's eyes dimmed slightly. "That is because she turned up innocent to my inspection."
((Which means...))
"Either my power is... faulty... and I only see an innocent reading, no matter who I am reading or checking..." He looked at the others. "Or Mia was the convert."
((Right. According to the manual I was given, the conversion happens after Hecto does his inspection. In other words, if Mia was innocent before, but wasn't by the time yesterday rolled around... Hecto would've seen Innocent. But at the same time... the manual I looked up also said it was possible to be a naive cop -- someone who only saw innocents. So basically, Hecto and I aren't really sure what our power is. We haven't had a positive reading once on who a mafia could be, so, uh... take this with a tiny grain of salt, but now that we're entering the second half of this thing, I think we should step forward with what we know, just in case.))
Hecto nodded. "I have faith in my powers, but... faith can only take you so far in a situation like this. However... if my powers are accurate... I must apologize to Loki." Hecto nodded to the fellow Zygarde. "I inspected you last night, and you were innocent. If my powers are accurate... then I suspected you for one reason: Dave's attempt at redirecting a strike to you, since it very well may have worked tonight to redirect all the way to Ess, failed... Yet the one to protect Karo failed. Perhaps because a mafia individual cannot strike themselves? I do not know. Perhaps it truly does have a 50% chance of working. Additionally, you are fairly uninvolved. You were truly a wildcard, Loki."
((Which would be a really dumb mechanic, by the way. Not fond of luck-chance baked into the abilities' powers themselves, if you want my opinion... I don't know if that's true or not. I read up on the manual for these powers, and I didn't read anything about a 50% unless I missed a page. I did read about being a "naive cop," though, which is why we're kinda being careful.))
Hecto nodded. "I do not know if Karo is actually a cop as Starr had implied, or perhaps, if he was, then he, too, could have been a faulty one, and I the real one who just happened to inspect innocents up to this point. Alternatively, Karo could have been a bodyguard, or a doctor, or someone else who would claim, in his words, to be hard to get rid of. I do not know what that means, but it does not necessarily sound like the role I possess."
((If only Karo didn't speak so cryptically... but... what can we do? But that's what I'm going by. Check back on the logs to see his messages yourself.))
Hecto nodded. "In any case," he said, my findings, and the evidence we have available, have narrowed things down as such. Author, if you may."
((Right.
So, here's what's going on. I'm working with the assumption that Karo was not a cop, since implying that he's 'difficult to get rid of' doesn't really speak to being one. That means I probably am an actual cop, and we've been poking innocents all this time. Assuming our readings are accurate, we already got our convert yesterday. I don't really follow the reasoning for Starr thinking Mia was mafia the whole time, and Hecto and I are genuinely unsure about it even now, but perhaps by sheer luck, Mia's weird behavior yesterday just gave confirmation bias to everything else -- and she's the convert.
That also means Loki is innocent. Unfortunately, the mafia killed off our two other innocent reads, Ess and Karo.
Starr is... probably innocent, unless she literally just sacrificed two members just to stay afloat under that cover. But since Starr has been making very accurate reads as an inspector, I don't think she's also mafia. But... mafia can also be inspectors, according to the manual. Keep that in mind: some roles and powers can be done by mafia, too. For obvious reasons, being a cop like Hecto and I cannot--because mafia, by default, already know who is innocent or not.
Mel... is probably also innocent, if only because the swap role was corroborated by Starr. Twice.
Then there's Dave. See, I wasn't sure about Dave, because there wasn't really any evidence aside from his own word that it was safe. But here's the thing: I really, really, really don't know if the mafia would want to keep Starr around after the two-kill streak. The redirects happened too perfectly. It led them right to Ess, who did pretty much nothing but rap and scare Hecto.
So I want to say, at least in terms of our best odds, that Starr, Dave, and Mel are telling the truth. It's not 100%, but I feel like at this point, their stories are tied together, and I really, really doubt that all three of them are mafia. Maybe Mel could've been fooled or something, or maybe Dave did this redirect specifically to throw us off and make it seem like he messed with the mafia? Again, this is a stretch, and I want to go for the path of least resistance, and this isn't it. But I want that option to be known.
Anyway, assuming Loki is innocent, Dave, Starr, and Mel aren't lying, and Mia was the convert... That only leaves two people behind that are big unknowns.))
Hecto gulped, facing the two in question. "The one who had been accused of past play of being quiet indicative of mafia... before immediately becoming talkative. Understandable, yes. But the past play, before it was pointed out, feels relevant. Lachlan, you are still not completely in the clear."
((Buuut, Lachlan and his guardian were crazy butting heads against Mia early on. With them already down a mafia member, I dunno if they wanted to lose another like that.))
"True. Which means..."
(It's... I mean...))
After an uneasy silence, Hecto finished their long explanation.
"For two days, he was adamant on voting for nobody out, essentially giving free turns to the mafia, when things went south. He did not even vote to get rid of Psyduck. And he only went for Mia when the tides turned in a trend toward Mia, perhaps in an effort to cover up. His spirit claims to be providing no guidance toward him at all; in other words, perhaps he is not even aware of his own role. The perfect cover to play innocent... Low impact... quiet." Hecto didn't like the idea, but it was all he had. "Cabot, I'm afraid you will need to provide a strong counterpoint for me to choose a different person to vote for."
