"We'll revisit that question if I get a null result.  I will state out loud that I'll consider that suspicious and then probably proceed anyways."

Keltham takes a moment to consider various probabilities in advance.  Augury, in one sense, seems definitely very easy to spoof; they could precommit to doing something bad to him if and only if he tries on the headband, whereupon the Augury returns a doomy result and Keltham therefore doesn't try on the headband and they don't have to follow through on the precommitment... well, except for the part where Augury is noisy and they might have to follow through, but if they cared enough, they could do it and take the expected loss.

Probability of the Augury just failing inside the Ordinary anti-hostile-gods zone:  30% maybe?  Actually, should be higher because sometimes Auguries do that anyways.

More importantly, Ordinary probability of the Augury returning 'doom'?

Tiny.  He wouldn't have been set to do it otherwise.  A negative Augury here will be a very large update.

"We'll revisit that question if I get a null result.  I will state out loud that I'll consider that suspicious and then probably proceed anyways."

Keltham takes a moment to consider various probabilities in advance.  Augury, in one sense, seems definitely very easy to spoof; they could precommit to doing something bad to him if and only if he tries on the headband, whereupon the Augury returns a doomy result and Keltham therefore doesn't try on the headband and they don't have to follow through on the precommitment... well, except for the part where Augury is noisy and they might have to follow through, but if they cared enough, they could do it and take the expected loss.

Probability of the Augury just failing inside the Ordinary anti-hostile-gods zone:  30% maybe?  Actually, should be higher because sometimes Auguries do that anyways.

More importantly, Ordinary probability of the Augury returning 'doom'?

Tiny.  He wouldn't have been set to do it otherwise.  A negative Augury here will be a very large update.

...actually no, they're noisy, but still.

"We'll revisit that question if I get a null result.  I will state out loud that I'll consider that suspicious and then probably proceed anyways."

Keltham takes a moment to consider various probabilities in advance.  Augury, in one sense, seems definitely very easy to spoof; they could precommit to doing something bad to him if and only if he tries on the headband, whereupon the Augury returns a doomy result and Keltham therefore doesn't try on the headband and they don't have to follow through on the precommitment... well, except for the part where Augury is noisy and they might have to follow through, but if they cared enough, they could do it and take the expected loss.

Probability of the Augury just failing inside the Ordinary anti-hostile-gods zone:  30% maybe?  Actually, should be higher because sometimes Auguries do that anyways.  No, lower, because, as he's just realized, Pilar's cake thing still works and he'd expect that to run off a similar mechanism.

More importantly, Ordinary probability of the Augury returning 'doom'?

Tiny.  He wouldn't have been set to do it otherwise.  A negative Augury here will be a very large update.

...actually no, they're noisy, but still.