[INNOCENTS WIN] Grand Opening Fanfic Mafia - Game Thread

[Namohysip]

Hecto listened to this new piece of information with flashing eyes. “Cabot, I apologize, but I would like to take a moment to address this.”

((I’ll, uh, stay back and talk to him. Go get ‘em, tiger.))

“I do not know what a tiger is.” Hecto looked at Loki, then at Mel. “Please correct me if I am wrong: Mel swapped Starr and Dave. Dave redirected from Mel onto Ess. Loki protected Dave, which was swapped onto Starr thanks to Mel, and Starr detected both Mel and Loki because of this. But why, then, did Ess disappear? Only if Mel was attacked instead, and Dave saved Mel... but why not attack Starr, who would detect a strike? ...Because she can’t detect it. If my readings are accurate, and Mia used to be innocent... then Mia was the convert. And therefore, the undetectable “ninja” is still present, assuming Cabot is correct that there are only three assailants total, which I am still leery of. Starr... cannot detect the assailants’ actions. They have no need to get rid of her.”

“If Starr has confirmed that Loki is a protector of sorts, or at the very least innocent, that further reinforces my readings.” His tail wagged slightly, but then it lowered. “Or... it only confirms that I still don’t know for sure if my powers are flawed or not. A de-confirmation...”

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr gives Hecto a tired look. “Look, I’m sorry. But I’m just… not buying that Mia was the convert. The fighting between Lachlan and Mia held the exact same tone across both day 2 and 3--I’d expect to see some inconsistency if she weren’t mafia the whole time. Something. Anything. I dunno, maybe Lachlan himself can weigh in here."

She glances away, her expression darkening. “And there’s one other problem. If Mia was the convert like you’re saying, then that leaves us with only two options for Karo vanishing: either Dave has been mafia since the start, or we have a different silent killer, in which case… fuck, I don’t know.”

((Full disclosure: I’m being a dirty rotten metagamer here. Mia being the ninja just makes sense, flavor-wise. So far, all of us got powers that perfectly match our characters. I feel like, if Mia had rolled innocent at the start, she would've been given something like vigilante.))

 

[Negrek]

Please don't take role suitability as evidence one way or another. I started with a list of roles I wanted in the game, then randomized them between players and did my best to flavor them so that they worked. In some cases the assigned role fit the character brilliantly. In other cases it did... not.

 

[Chibi Pika]

((Oh. My apologies, I shouldn't have tried to read into that.))

 

[Negrek]

No worries, it's a totally understandable impulse and something I probably wasn't clear enough about! I just thought it would be unfair to let people try to get information out of something that I guarantee is 100% random, and potentially unfair to people who may have gotten roles that don't fit them as well--wouldn't want them to be at a disadvantage because of the randomizer or because I didn't do as good a job justifying their role for their character as I did for some other people.

 

[Namohysip]

((I'm pretty sure the roles were given out randomly and some of them just happened to coincide; I don't know a whole lot about Loki, but we have a protector here. But... I will admit that being someone who can analyze / observe / inspect someone per night is very fitting for Hecto, so...))

"Hold, but Starr just stated that she doesn't believe what I'm saying," Hecto said. "Is she implying...?"

((Well, either that she thinks we're lying outright, or she thinks that we're a 'naive cop,' which--yeah, it's not out of the question. But if that's the case, who was our cop? Karo says that he'd be hard to kill. I still don't see how that would make him a cop, since I feel like we're kinda more on the delicate side. Kinda like you, Hecto.))

"...Thank you for the gesture of confidence."

((I'm not denying Starr, but--oh, Negrek confirmed what I said. Cool.))

"...Who?"

((Not important.))

"Hm... well, Starr. Considering that the powers we gained were completely randomized... do you have any further points to back up the idea that Mia was not the convert?"

((I did mention a while ago that Dave could potentially have been mafia, too. I think. Or was that in my head? Hang on, let me...))

"...Author?"

((Oh, I just realized I made a mistake in our opening post. I said that the redirects led right to Ess, and that was false. Mel swapped Starr and Dave, but Dave redirected from Mel to Ess. I said it right the second time, but the first time I was mistaken. Dave was involved in both, but the redirects weren't chained like I thought they were. But anyway, that just makes all of this a little murkier...))

"...And for the record, Starr, perhaps it's my own confirmation bias, but I felt that Mia's behavior seemed at least slightly different on day three, but I went against my own readings. I let it all happen simply because... well, what if Mia was the convert? I had to know. Perhaps it was a bit too utilitarian of me... but, well, she was indeed an assailant. If I ever get a confirmed reading of someone else as not innocent, then we would know for sure."

((Too bad our days are numbered at this point. Only so many more nights can we do a read on someone and then deliver the news. Possibly zero if the mafia decides to kill us off tonight.))

"Technically, that statement is true for everyone."

((...Say. That reminds me. Pretty much... everyone here has a power, huh? I mean, I can pretty much take a guess at this point on that one. So... everyone except Cabot and Lachlan have disclosed what they're capable of. Talk about the short end of the stick if they don't have anything special going on. Cabot, Lachlan? Anything?))

 

[kyeugh]

"Mm. I'm not really interested in revealing my power unless there's reason to, and at the point I don't think there is. Your suggestion that everyone remaining specify their abilities leads me to question your motives, I'm afraid. Don't you think there's a reason we didn't all just give each other a rundown of our abilities right out the door? No, I'm still more interested in what Loki has to say about his supposed powers."

 

[Virgil134]

“I mean I don’t think I gained any special powers since I got here,” Cabot murmured as he fidgeted with his claws. “I just go to sleep every night like I thought most people did…”

((You do have something though.))

“Wait, really?!”

((Everyone got a fancy role here, so of course you’re not excluded, silly. In fact, your role is the key to this whole case and the primary reason Hecto and Noah chose to set you up in particular. It also answers Noah’s earlier question about why he would do this as a Mafia member.))

“But was it then? And how can it be that important if I don’t even know what it is?”

((Well, let’s handle things one step at a time, okay? There’s still almost 30 hours left before this day ends, and I think it’s best to save this one for last.))

“Wait, but there’s only 24 hours in a day, so how can that be possible?”

((Er… let’s just say time flows a bit different for me and the other authors. The point is that before I get to that, I first want to question Hecto about another part of his statement. In particular his claim to be the detective. Though before I do that, I first want to reply to his and Noah’s earlier response.

Noah, your narrative doesn’t ‘seem‘ false, it is false. Hecto twisted facts and straight up lied about Cabot being adamant not to jail anyone on the second day because it happened to fit you guys’ accusation better. You even just acknowledged that Cabot voted to jail Loki, so why lie about this earlier? I already explained that Cabot wasn’t sure who to vote for at first, which is something completely different than considering not voting for anyone, let alone being adamant about it. So that’s certainly not a reason.

As for the part about Mia, you seem to have a habit for denying facts when they’re not convenient for you. You talk about Cabot’s ‘sudden change of heart’ and how you think it’s ‘bussing’, yet don’t acknowledge the reasons why he did it. You’re not doing it now, and Hecto didn’t do it the prior day when he asked why right after Cabot explained his rationale in detail!

So I’ll ask again, if you two are innocent, why do you present a false narrative? You’re even still continuing it in your response! You two muse conveniently loud enough for everyone to hear that I was supposedly ‘concerned with the term ‘scum’ being used to refer to the assailants’, even though in reality I was confused what the term meant in this context and if ‘Mafia-esque’ was perhaps the definition. If you’re innocent, you don’t need to lie and twist facts in order for your accusations to sound convincing, yet it’s exactly what you two have been doing.))

 

[Umbramatic]

"I've been protecting people every night. Mostly on a whim. I will say the latest was Dave and nothing more."

 

[kyeugh]

"I don't believe you." Lachlan's voice was serious despite the fact that it emanated from behind a beaglepuss. "I didn't want to say this, but I feel obligated to now, and I think there are enough of us left that it'll be okay if I die for it. I have been protecting the town each night. Or, well, trying at least, none too effectively. On the first night, I actually protected you. I've protected Starr both nights since. If you're telling the truth, there are two protectors, and we've both failed every night. I don't buy it. I'll be voting to jail you, Loki."

 

[kyeugh]

Lachlan opens his mouth to speak again, then shuts it and blows into his bubble pipe, then opens it again. "By the way, you've just revealed your powers. Why the secretiveness over who you protected? There's no reason to withhold that information. It's less sensitive than the nature of your ability, and could only serve to help your case. I get the feeling you don't want to say because you don't have a leakproof story on hand."

 

[Namohysip]

((My main motive for asking about powers is because we’ve reached the point in this thing where it might be more beneficial to know what the powers are than to keep them hidden... what information that might be known to you that could be a piece to the puzzle we need. We literally already know two of the most important roles in this—Loki is saying they’re the healer, and I’m the cop. I’m pretty sure anybody who reveals their power now will not be top priority.

We took out two mafia already. I think our ratio is higher than theirs, mathematically. We might even be able to find a way to arrange our powers for the next night to weed out who is lying and who is innocent.))

“That being said, it may only be relevant if the power in question had a noticeable effect or could be corroborated by another, similar to what Starr was able to do with Loki. How many roles were there in that manual of yours...?”

((A... a lot.))

“Hm.”

((I guess it won’t do any harm in keeping your power a secret if it won’t help in the way I described above, but... again. We can probably try to arrange our powers in a way to—oh hi Cabot and Guardian. This was where I will refresh the page to see what you’re saying...

...Oh. Alright. So with that, we now know that every single person here has claimed to have a power. And listen, Guardian of Cabot. Go back to my posts. Hecto and I pressed Cabot on suddenly voting for Mia, back when I was hesitant to call out essentially anyone. At least, I’d hope I came off that way. That’s because I didn’t want to get eliminated before I stated all of my information like now, or before I had anything useful.

I absolutely acknowledged the reason for bussing. It’s literally in the definition for it. Bussing in order to draw attabetion away from oneself as being mafia, by throwing another of the mafia under the bus.

Also, looking back at the posts, the main reason why I was so surprised by Cabot’s quick vote for Mia? Look at the timing of it compared to his vote for Loki. Loki’s was in the final day, after a lot of other Psyduck votes. That’s my main reason for him being so hesitant.

And frankly? Takes one to know one. I have it logged down in my notes that Cabot and Hecto were hesitant voters for the first two days, because I dropped by vote later than everyone on average, except for today, when I have come forward with my vote. I was keenly aware of who was taking the longest to decide who to vote for, thinking that might be a pattern, since if—

Hello Lachlan. You have shaken things up again.))

“I feel ill...”

((There is no way we have two protectors, AND whatever Karo was. But then—why was Starr able to... to...))

“...Wait. Lachlan. You protected Starr on both nights, yesterday and the one before?”

((No, no, hang on. I just checked. Mel swapped Dave and Starr, so that means techhnically, Lachlan would have been protecting Dave that night. Starr wouldn’t have seen it. But still... two protectors...))

Hecto hummed. “Perhaps we can find a way to arrange ourselves after all. Cabot, you mentioned you had one last thing to say. Please, say it now. This is the time for a free-flownof information, and if you have something to convince us that you are innocent, perhaps a power we can use in the coming night to weed out the assailant among us, now is the time to share it. Just ask everything you have so we can move on to planning, please.))

 

[Namohysip]

((Oh cool I’m mixing up my dialogue annotations. Oh well. I just woke up and am doing this from mobile, so excuse the typos. That last bit was spoken by Hecto.))

 

[kyeugh]

"Yes, I protected Starr both those nights. I'm not sure I actually understand what went on last night, though. Do you? If you do, what would have happened in a theoretical world where I moved to protect Starr and Loki attempted to kill Dave?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well... hrm... No. That wouldn't have been possible. Starr claims that she saw Loki; what we know is that Mel claims to have swapped Starr and Dave."

((Hah, Starr of David. Get it?))

"No." Hecto looked to Dave next. "Dave then redirected anything that happened to Mel onto Ess. As it stands with what we know, Loki would have had to have attacked Mel or Ess for this to add up, but instead, Starr claimed to have seen Loki during the night with her, and Mel, who had been the one to perform the swap. Loki had tried to protect Dave, which means that Mel swapped Loki over to protect Starr instead."

((In your theoretical world where Loki tried to get rid of Dave, Loki would have been redirected over to Starr along with your protection, and nobody would have disappeared yesterday... right? I think I have that right. This assumes the shots from the mafia can be redirected at all, which seems to make the most sense--after all, why Ess? When there were so many other intrusive targets to take out? But that's my only real reasoning there.))

"I'd like to also point out that my reading of Loki was innocent."

((And we've literally only been seeing "innocent," and Starr seems really convinced that Mia was never innocent, so... naive cop. Still possible. But even without that factor, I don't know how that works out. Loki was seen with Starr. So unless Loki can do something to Starr for the night while the mafia does its kill at the same time, or Starr and Loki are both lying... I don't really know. Would really help if we had everyone's actions up to today present...))

"And the likelihood that we have two doctors, or healers?"

((...Small. I just don't think that's possible, but that's from a pure meta standpoint, unless, like me, one of them has the potential to be ineffectual.))

"This variable of being ineffectual has only been mentioned by us, hm? I'm beginning to wonder if that's really the case."

((This is a lot of peoples' first times doing this, at least when we started off. I'm beginning to wonder if twist-powers like that are going to be around for one like this... bah... but now I'm getting too meta. I shouldn't have overthought this...))

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr stares at Lachlan as if he just grew a second head. “The hell? If you protected me last night, why didn’t I see you? Why did I see Loki instead? And if you think Loki’s mafia, why did their action, which got swapped from Dave onto me, not kill me?”

((I know Starr sounds really combative there, but I’m mostly just… intrigued. So if you targeted me, but it got swapped onto Dave… that explains why I didn’t see you. Loki targeted Dave, but it landed on me… I saw that. But then why didn’t Loki’s action kill me? Unless Loki has a mafia power and a killing action (sometimes the final mafia left alive is allowed to do both.) Kinda thinking we need Loki to explain their role if they want to clear their name.))

 

[kyeugh]

Lachlan shrugs. "No clue. I think they're mafia because I don't know what other motivation they'd have to lie about their power, and I do think they're lying. How things elapsed the way they did anyway is still a mystery to me."

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave sighed, scratching his scalp. "Look, this isn't that complicated. Assuming everyone's telling the truth, Mel swapped Starr and me, so anything that targeted Starr ended up on me and vice versa. Lachlan's protection ended up protecting me, Loki's ended up protecting Starr. The mafia either targeted Ess directly or Mel, which got redirected to Ess. According to this, if Loki's action were a killing action, Starr'd be dead. We know there's not some other healing action in the mix since she would've picked that up, unless the healer was invisible for some godforsaken reason.

"There's pretty much no fucking reason not to tell us who else they targeted, though. And Loki's been doing this shit-eating troll act for the whole time we've been here. I think they might be serving their own ends entirely, not with the mafia but not with us either. Unless Starr's right about the last mafia being able to do two things at once, whatever the fuck that even means. Why can't everyone do more than one thing in an entire fucking night? I hate this fucking place."

 

[Namohysip]

((So, I’ve been doing some reading, and just I case anybody is unclear about how night actions might work, I found something useful. It seems that when it comes to role and action order, it generally follows a basic golden rule: Actions that modify other actions are applied before the actions that are modified. Look up ‘natural action resolution’ for mafia to see where that’s from. It makes sense; basically, if action X could be affected by action Y in terms of who it targets, etc, then action Y is put to effect first. In this case, Loki’s action, targeting Dave, was affected by Mel, which made it target Starr instead. That’s the order. Any action that has nothing pointing to it happens first. This can hopefully also be applied to that swap-redirect that happened in the past, too, to determine the order that it had happened. Things get... murky if you have circular redirects, though.))

 

[NonAnalogue]

"Stop! Just... Just stop, all of you!" Mel clutched the sides of her head. "There's too much talking! There are only six of you, but there's way more voices! I was wrong, this isn't textbook first day with psychic powers, something is really wrong here!"

"Boss, calm down," Repeat muttered, patting the back of her head. "I hear them too. There's something off here. This isn't being psychic. I've felt what that's like before."

Mel stood up so quickly, her chair clattered to the floor. "And everyone's just... everyone's just going along with it! These 'spirits' or whatever they are... who knows what their deal is? Maybe they're the mafia! Maybe they're making everyone disappear! How do we know that the people we cornered were really guilty? What if we were conned?"

"Conned?"

"Yeah!" Mel pointed wildly at the sky. "These... these things, we don't know what they're capable of! We just have their word! We can't even see them! But all of a sudden, we show up here, some of us have strange powers that we didn't have before, and we're just going along with it?" She stumbled backwards, unsteady on her feet. "There's too many variables here. One of us might be the mafia? Sure! One of those weird voices coulda done it all? Yeah, could be! I mean, how do we know the floor didn't straight swallow all them up? Maybe this whole place in itself is trying to kill us!"

"Boss--"

Mel slammed her fists on the table. "And all of you are just... going along with this? How can we know? How do we know that everything here is on the up and up? What if we've been making a huge mistake all this time? How... do... we... KNOW?!"