Novels2Search

Chapter 14

We spawned back in at the table. "Alright, I need names. I can't just keep calling you all by your roles." I said. The Stitcher introduced herself as Marie, and Jack introduced himself as Ed.

"We need a plan, I'm likely out of the woods until more people are eliminated, but Arty is thinking you are the traitor Ed. I've been trying to pull his attention towards the guy that claimed he was a Gravedigger. If we can get him voted out we might be able to pull the attention away from you, we just need a reason to."

"Kill the Hunter, then get the Gravedigger voted off. He can't confirm himself if we kill off a role that he already knows about." Marie said. "Jack can obscure me so the lookout won't see who is silencing the Trapper. I'm struggling to figure out a decent claim for myself though," Marie said.

It was, actually a pretty good plan. "Maybe if you claim a neutral role like a survivor when asked? It's not the best claim, but it might buy you a bit of time while I take out the rest of the innocents one by one." She nodded, and the timer hit zero.

There were no interruptions on the way to Jacqueline's house. The trapper had been neutralized unless Marie couldn't silence him, and most of the town besides that trapper believed I was good. I activated my ability, and the day began again.

In the morning we discovered the Hunter's dead body. Blame naturally was tossed back and forth as everyone tried to make others look more guilty than they were. I pressured the Gravedigger, saying he was 1 of 3 people between the Witness claim and a woman who hadn't yet claimed. In response, that woman piped up and admitted to being the Inquisitor. And now I had found my next target. She named two others in the game, and they corroborated her story of role blocking them. Now it fell between my ally and the Gravedigger.

I took the Inquisitor aside and tried to get her on my side.

"It has to be the Gravedigger claim, I'm telling you. They have had no information, and of course, they can't even use their ability to corroborate themselves because the only dead people are the ones that we are pretty sure we knew the roles of. Even if we hit a town, it doesn't matter that much because we can just vote off the Witness claim as well. I can buy up a grave scroll and we can check after he dies what the role is." I said

"I'm still not sold, he's acting way too much like a townie. Meanwhile, the Witness also hasn't given us any information, and yet you seem convinced he's fine. I need a real reason to put this person on the line besides speculation. If you weren't proven I'd even say you seem like you know something about him. And if you know something about him, that would say to me you are likely mafia. But in that case who placed the trap? Ugh, I hate this. Fine, we will go with what you are saying, but I've got my eye on you"

It's a real shame that won't matter after tonight.

I pushed hard to try and get them lynched. And in the end, it worked. The verdict flashed in the air above the Gravedigger's head, guilty, and he vanished. All that was left behind was a gravestone. I managed to grab the only grave scroll before anyone else could and used it on the gravestone. I told them that he had been a traitor, specifically Jack. I didn't expect us to get away with it, since others could have bought scrolls the previous two days, but no one checked.

It was simultaneously good and bad that the rounds were so short. I didn't want to get to know these people I was stabbing in the back, but without a chance to talk, the danger was people making decisions based on feeling rather than logic. Something that would cause the Jailor problems the next day. That night though, we chose to kill the Inquisitor, as Marie silenced the trapper yet again. The Inquisitor had sussed me out, and I couldn't risk her questioning me any further. Luckily instead of picking me for her ability, she picked Jack, so while we weren't disguised this round, she wouldn't be talking again.

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I wasn't sure why the Lookout didn't check who kept visiting the Trapper night after night, especially given the Hunter had said it was a traitor. But our kill went off without a hitch again. We woke up the next morning to find not only the Inquisitor but also another person dead. And then the Jailor cinched our win. Halfway through the day, the Lookout winds up dead, after Arty confirmed it with a scroll, I knew it no longer mattered. The Jailor had lost his execution, we had 3 and they had 4. It was only a matter of time. All we had to do, was convince them to lynch the wrong person.

Ed spoke up immediately upon getting to the center, he had realized the situation. He pointed at a 60-year-old man and claimed he had seen they were the traitor.

"Okay, we need a role call. Jailor, I need you to speak up." I said. "The person you just executed, were they innocent?" Besides the Jailor, there was only the Seer left to discover. It was between an old man who looked to be about 60 years old and was barely paying attention and a young man, about 20 years old.

"Unfortunately, yes" The Jailor was the young man. "He claimed Lookout, and had no information at all, even though he had been checking to see who visited the silenced man.

"Why haven't we voted off the people who haven't claimed yet anyway?" Arty asked. "Assuming we have 3 confirmed, logic would dictate that unless one of the traitors is silencing themselves that it's one of the two people left."

Marie chimed in, "I'm the survivor, but I'm working with whoever has the advantage.

That was the exact wrong thing to say. There was no point in keeping around a survivor claim, especially one who just admitted that once innocents started losing would side against them. I could only hope at this point that we could convince one of them it was a mistake to vote for her.

"Hear me out. We killed a traitor, right? So that leaves our numbers at 2 vs 5. We can't win this round by voting, but if we vote wrong our advantage drops off, and if one of the guys over there is another neutral role," I indicated the Seer and the mute trapper, "We've lost because traitors will have a majority on us. We need to play this safe, and vote tomorrow. I have enough frost traps outside my house where they wouldn't be able to get me, Arty has charges right? And do you have enough for a protection potion?" I asked

"Yea. And this way we can get the Witness to determine which one of the two is a traitor. If he finds the right person, we kill them, if he doesn't we kill the other. Easy win." Arty was coming around to my side. Now to hammer in the final nail.

"jailor, you with us?"

"I suppose I don't have a choice. It's either this or we kill someone now and take the 50/50."

And with that, we had secured the win. Arty used his protection potion on the Jailor, and vested but we weren't attacking either of them. We killed the Seer instead. In the morning, Ed claimed to have seen the silent guy as a traitor, not that it mattered.

"Wait, why would a traitor silence themselves the entire game? That makes zero sense." Arty realized his predicament.

"Well, that's because he's the real trapper." Sorry, Arty.

"You aren't the trapper?"

"Nope, I fell for your play, really well done by the way, and nearly lost the game because of it. We managed to pull it off thanks to some shenanigans, plus the fact the real trapped didn't announce himself, which meant that I could take credit for his work"

"Well played, as much as I don't want to lose a life, you technically win from here already. I assume there are 3 of you right?" I nodded.

"And of course that means no matter what we do you will just tie the vote. Damn, it feels bad to lose like this."

"I am sorry, if I could win without draining your lives I would," I said.

"What do you mean? Deduction games are free from losing lives. Didn't you read the description at all? Arty asked. Wait, he was joking, right? I suppose it makes sense that game mode, where you could die without any possible control from yourselves, would be a bit unfair to take away lives for, but it was on track for my expectations of the snakes so far. I pulled up the description of the actual game mode.

Deduction based game:

Special notes: You will not lose lives in a deduction-based game, only gain points. Even we aren't so evil as to kill you off without any sort of defense on your side. This is the only game type that has this special rule in place.

"In that case, good game Arty. I hope to see you on the other side." I said.

We voted off the Trapper first. Then we killed the Jailor during the night. With that, it was just Arty left, and we had officially won the game. The light went white around us, and we awoke back in our pods.