...frustrating. But it steps him up a little.

He sees an opportunity to win and passes it up - Findekáno glances at him - and adds more complications. So many complications. Apparently he has an evil alt and he's kind of disappointed the evil alt didn't overthrow the Valar or something - you'd think he'd aim higher than 'take what non-evil versions of me get for free' - and could this plan be even more clever yes it totally could.

Did you just throw the game?

...I am optimizing for dramaticness of victory not odds of victory, I totally still intend to win.

Did you do that before?

You can yell at me if you can beat me.

I can tell Kib whether we beat you or not.

I don't keep things from him. You can tell it to him as 'they had an opening in turn 78, good thing Maitimo was overconfident and very set on seeing how that charging-concealment spell played out' instead of 'they threw away the game to protect your feelings', yes?

He's not in top form, that doesn't mean he wouldn't see right through me if I did that.

Then let me, I can pull it off.

Against people I know I can beat, I play for a dramatically satisfying ending. Kib's not usually someone I know I can beat.

We think he'll get back to normal eventually.

I think so too. I hope so, because otherwise eventually he'll probably reset on us and odds seem he'll be a girl next time.

Sample size is not huge, but yes.

He's only had a few days.

And he returns to making his plans weave together.

And the Bells lose. Alas.

But the real question is whether Kib looks frustrated or despairing about this. After all, he loses about half the time anyway.

Frustrated, a little, but not commenting on it.

Then Maitimo will give him a kiss. Am I going to annoy you if I gloat at length about how there was another plan that might have worked but I rather singlemindedly wanted this one -

Kiss! No, go ahead.

Loki actually called me out on it, she thought I was toying with you. It would probably have been more responsible to lean on the air filters angle, if you had a way around a triple mechanical failure while you were at the party it was not obvious to me, but I'd just had the idea for hiding that someone was charging a spell and changing the lighting system so no one noticed that all my people had new eye colors and I wanted to play it out that way. Could possibly also have assassinated you around a hundred five or so but that one failed badly if it failed and I didn't want to take any chances.

Were you? Toying with me.

I was sure enough I'd win to think about how to do so most interestingly; I'm not usually that. I was not deliberately giving you extra chances. I really like winning.

Okay.

Like you said. We came out with different bits intact. And we're both going to be okay. All the time in the world for it.

I'm not a patient person.