With Great Sacrifice [Concluded]

[BSmith]

This is all unbelievably predictable. I was already coming around to the fact that the last killer was either Lewwyn or Lazy, and that the results of the night would tell me who it really was. Let’s face it, neither Edse or I would have been killed last night, as we have both garnered a lot of attention in the thread and it would be dumb to kill one of us.

Lewwyn – you have played remarkably well this game, so if you are successful in lynching me today, hats off to you. You really do deserve the win.

But I am going to make one last stand here.

First off – what exactly is the case against me? The fact that I am still alive and am a capable mafia player that could have pulled this off to the last day? Or is it something more concrete? So far every accusation against me has been an unsubstantiated case with nothing solid.

Here are some recent examples of what I mean:

BSmith exhibits, for instance, the same sorts of tells that got Chaotix wagoned and alerted the other Gods to my identity.

To say nothing of his hollow and one-note denials...

What tells exactly? Lazy votes? This is an empty accusation that sounds good on the face of it, but really is a bunch of hogwash. And how exactly am I supposed to deny these accusations in a way that you wouldn’t consider hollow or one-note. It’s not like I have a role PM to share with you all or a way to independently confirm my innocence.

Between edse and BSmith, neither one has really engendered a lot of villager vibes in me.

Why? This is also an empty accusation. One that sounds good, but is nothing more than a feeling at best. Nothing to back it up. Think about this for a minute, only one of the three us is the killer, yet both edse and I don’t “engender villager vibes”. Not only is this a baseless accusation, but it is meant to spread the wealth as far as possible. How do we not seem like villagers. Examples would be helpful here.

I challenge anyone still paying attention to this game to build a solid case against me.

Speaking of solid cases. Here is one for you. Subject: Lewwyn.

He has played a great game and has not really been the subject of much scrutiny most of the game. He came close to being lynched early on, but was pretty masterful in getting out of it. He didn’t crack under the pressure. Hell, even I have been fooled by his towniness until recently. But there are some convincing things that do stand out:

1.) The DaveShack kill. Despite the general unease many expressed about talking at night, this may have been the best thing to do, as a lot of discussion about the remaining players was had, with specific attention to DaveShack and Edse. DaveShack was top of my list and was certain to get some play vote-wise the next day. But he got killed. Not a very smart move for a killer as he would rather off someone who isn’t likely to be lynch bait.

But this is the kind of “mistake” that someone who wasn’t online to see the discussion could have made. He would have sent in his orders early in the night, and then woken up to see that his choice in kill was actually a blunder.

The next day I thought of this, and checked to see who had been online last in hopes of finding one of the players had not been online for a while and could have made this “mistake”. Well most of you have the last activity function turned off on your profiles, so this didn’t lead to much, but we do have one post that gives us an answer:

That was a pretty awesome post. Honestly though, I'm not convinced yet. I think the crux here is that post 126. Is that confirming a connection to Yaropolk? I went back and looked, it comes after the kills so yeah I can see where you're coming from. Why would you even bring it up if you're not concerned with his death? On the other hand, I think there's a stronger case that a mafia player would ignore it and try to distance himself from the kill, not lament it. I think you're looking at it wrong.

I've been going back through a bit and I've been focusing on those that are here but are contributing very little, mostly White_Eyes and BSmith. This is not to say that one of them is definitely the killer, but I think what we should put pressure on them today to see if they are paying attention enough to defend themselves.

As for edse I've been on his case a lot this game, but for the last couple days we've had pretty much confirmed mafia to lynch. edse I'm still watching but I've seen more guilt elsewhere for now... It's late in my TimeZone. I will try to arrange some evidence to explain my concerns about White_Eyes and BSmith.

Shortly after this post is when DaveShack defends himself and Lazy buys it. It is completely plausible that Lewwyn saw this retraction and decided that DaveShack was a good choice for the kill, then logged off and went to bed, missing the later discussions on DaveShack that raised his suspicion yet again. Lewwyn even points out the next day how it must have been someone that missed the later discussion in the night. Someone just like him.

I also like how he compares me to White_Eyes in this post as someone who has contributed very little, even though I have many more posts that W_E at this time (I had a similar count to Lewwyn in fact) and most of them have been serious posts that contribute to the thread. This is his way of continuing to build a case against me so that I would be the eventual lynch target instead of him at a later time.

2.) Similar to this last point, is Lewwyn’s attention on edse. He has been consistently suspicious of edse most of the game, but one post sticks out to me on this:

Damn that's a write up. So Jarema and Ishmael are dead and Chaotix is banished to hell?

I'm of the opinion that we have some real lurkers here. I mean throughout the last few days we've had so few posts, lots of people not voting or giving more than one post a day. People that aren't sticking their neck out and are hiding. Someone in that group is likely to be a killer. Of course I also still suspect edse who somehow is able to silently deflect suspicion without raising a fuss every time there's a vote on him.

Vote: edse

For now.

That “silent deflection” was almost always people, Lewwyn included, that were voting for edse moving on to other more suspicious targets. Yet in the context of Lewwyn the Killer this does make sense to post as Lewwyn is working to keep the suspicion level high on edse to keep attention away from Lewwyn himself and to provide a scape goat target to keep alive to the end.

3.) Lewwyn’s repeated attempts to remind us that he didn’t get a role PM. It is public knowledge that the town didn’t get a role PM, so him telling us this means nothing. Yet he has mentioned it several times in the game. It’s almost like he is trying to sound townie and identify with those of us that really didn’t get a role PM.

4.) Lazy’s Killing. What better position to be in as the last scumbag then to have two alternative targets that are much “better” than you? As I mentioned earlier in the post, both edse and I have gotten a lot of attention over the past few days. Either one of us could be the lynch target with a little work. Hell, it is working right now with both of you voting for me.

Edse and I have both been cultivated for this moment. You don’t kill off your carefully cultivated lynch bait when you are in the end game. You kill off the unknown vote – the one who isn’t going to get any attention against them. If edse or I had been killed, then it would have been an open game (especially if edse had been killed). Totally unpredictable – which is exactly what you don’t want if you can do anything about it.

Lewwyn killed Lazy to eliminate this unpredictability and to leave his two carefully cultivated lynch bait targets alive, so that no matter how the day went he would have a good chance at lynching one of us instead of him getting lynched. A masterful play, but perhaps too much so. It is all too perfect.

It is really quite clear to me now that the last killer is Lewwyn. The only thing that remains is to vote: Lewwyn.

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@edse It’s all down to you now. Do you want to win this game? If so, then switch your vote to Lewwyn. The game is in your hands.