Costa Crew: Our Turn To Die

Chapter 21: A friend indeed

Becky stared at them both. Both of her high school friends. The two other remaining members of the Costa Crew. She wished she could read her friends better. It was so rare for them to lie, so Becky couldn't really work out which one of them wasn't telling the truth. Both of them looked somewhere in between being angry and petrified, which weren't unusual emotions to be feeling during this game anyway.

"What is going on here?" Amelia snapped. "There can't be two sacrifices!"

"It's simple really," Charlotte explained. "There was another trade after you left. My tablet rang out when me and Hannah were alone in the room again. I checked my role info and it said 'SACRIFICE' in big, disgusting letters. I'm sorry I've had to deceive you all up to this point. I just... I wasn't ready to up and leave yet..."

Becky's head was spinning. She couldn't concentrate. One of her friends was the sacrifice. No. It couldn't be real. Charlotte had to be lying. Hannah had to be lying.

"You're wrong," Becky said, quickly. "Charlotte, you couldn't have made another trade. My tablet didn't ring out. My tablet rang for every trade. You're making this up. I don't know why, but you must be."

"Becky," Charlotte sighed. "What did that pop-up say whenever you got a notification?"

"Let's see," Becky replied. "Something like role info updated, right?"

"Exactly my point Becky," Charlotte said. "It gives you a notification every time your role changes in some way. For every other trade, your role has been altered in some way. Either you lost the sage role, or the keymaster changed. Now, if someone had made a change in which neither of those conditions are met, would your tablet still have rang out?"

"Well..." Becky said.

"That explains why I didn't know you lost the sage, Becky," Amelia added. "It didn't affect my role in any way, so there was no notification. No contradiction there, right? I think Charlotte is telling the truth."

"So, what are the trades that you are saying happened?" Becky asked. "Because as far as I'm aware, they go as follows. First off, in order for the initial trades to make sense, I was the keymaster, Amelia was the sage, Hero was the sacrifice and you and Hannah were commoners, right?"

"So far, so good," Charlotte agreed.

"Then, Amelia made a trade with me. I received the sage role while she obtained the keymaster role. Next up, Hero traded the sacrifice away to Amelia, and in turn he became the keymaster. At this point, my sage card was stolen by you, Charlotte, and I was left with a commoner in its stead. Am I still correct so far?"

"Yep."

"After that happened, I made the trade back. I took the sage and gave you back your commoner role. Then, we had to run back to my dorm for Amelia to make the final trade. She traded her sacrifice card with Hero and received the keymaster role at last."

"Wrong," Charlotte said.

"I'm afraid not Charlotte," Becky replied. "When the trades ended, Amelia had the keymaster card. That is a fact I know for sure. I saw my role info update at the very last second."

"Well, you could be lying-" Charlotte started.

"Wrong again, Charlotte," Becky said. "That's the one thing I cannot do. If the sage lies about the results of a divination, then they will be executed. I don't fancy welcoming death with open arms right now."

"Damn," Charlotte cursed. "You've got me there. But I do wonder, you said down to the last minute, right?"

"Yes," Becky answered.