This is a D&D.Sci scenario: a puzzle where players are given a dataset to analyze and an objective to pursue using information from that dataset.

Thank you to aphyer for the original concept. (NB: The concept was general enough that aphyer can play this one without an unfair advantage.)

Intended Difficulty: ~2/5, on average

The people of Calderia have a problem: magic-users have been surreptitiously and nonconsensually healing^[1] citizens’ minor illnesses and injuries, without charging market rate. In the name of justice, their leaders have tasked you with hunting down these vile rightdoers, so they can be forcibly compensated for their time and effort.

(You hadn’t dared to hope that the problem they wanted help with was “we built our city-state around the rim of a volcano”^[2] or “our entire society is based on an inconsistent and demented concept of justice”, but you’d held on to the possibility it would be at least somewhat sensible; no such luck.)

To help you, the Calderians offer a dataset listing the time and location of all confirmed incidences of miraculous healing over the last few years, another listing the locations of all magic-users^[3] over the same time period, and a map of their fair city. Using this information, whom will you accuse of what?

Notes:

• You will get +1gp for every mage you correctly accuse, and -1gp for every false accusation made.^[4]
• Magic users have a strong taboo against starting conflict with other magic users: as such, you can be perfectly confident that no-one is intentionally framing anyone else.
• While all listed recoveries are guaranteed magical and illegal – legal healing is recorded, and there’s an aura that surrounds those healed which is impossible to fake or mistake – not all magical crimes are guaranteed solvable.

I’ll post an interactive you can use to test your choices, along with an explanation of how I generated the dataset, at 10pm GMT on Monday 15th September. I’m giving you nine days, but the task shouldn’t take more than an evening; use Excel, R, Python, prophetic dreams, or whatever other tools you think are appropriate. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about the scenario.

If you want to investigate collaboratively and/or call your choices in advance, feel free to do so in the comments; however, please use spoiler blocks or rot13 when sharing inferences/strategies/decisions, so people intending to fly solo can look for clarifications without being spoiled.

1. ^{^}

   By ancient convention, mages make a habit of casting a few free and anonymous low-level healing spells wherever they go; some hold to this convention even for populations which would prefer they not do that.

2. ^{^}

   The leading theories as to why the Calderians did this are split between “they wanted to ensure no-one would feel left out by not living in the city center” and “they thought it would be unjust if the volcano erupted and some citizens were in more danger than others”. (Calderian historians, of course, know the answer, but refuse to elaborate, as they fear this might leave incorrect theorists at an unfair disadvantage.)

3. ^{^}

   Calderians believe that people who get to break the laws of physics should, to even things out, be subject to arbitrary and restrictive rules: accordingly, mages are only allowed to be present in one sector of the city per day, and have their locations consistently recorded.

4. ^{^}

   You inquire why they don’t just use whatever means they have of determining accusations’ truth and leave you out of it; the Calderians answer that it works too well and would therefore be unfair to the criminals.