My baseline ideas were to a motion sensor/security camera system, or an assigned meguca keeping a watch on any activity (from outside aura range; watch incoming roads and such), and who sweeps the houses for squatters.
Since a 'safe' duration is 8 hours, even periodic sweeps during the day would work, though we would likely still want a full watch for afternoon/evening when prospective buyers are most likely to visit. Effectively, 1.0 vet should leave us pretty sure the area is always clear. 0.5 may even be sufficient.
Unlike the Akiya house, the village does have potential a a long term investment. A place to send magical girls for long term training, without any need for a masquerade.
Only thing is, it only makes sense that way if Serena is not living there. If Serena is there we can't use it for anything else. Kinematics seems to think that we will find a way to control Serena's aura to make it safe. I agree that we should pursue that research but I doubt we will succeed at it anytime soon.
Even at @Elder Haman's IMO vastly over-inflated 5% chance that someone moves in in a given month (seriously, if rural houses were in that much demand Japan wouldn't have 81 million abandoned ones and growing, because they'd all be filled within 4 years of them becoming available!) that would still get us an average 10 months of occupancy, a savings of $70,000 over going straight to Getaway.
Why is it over inflated? I'm thinking about it from a balance position, as this was obviously introduced as a game balance to make the choice between the three hard.
In any event, all I really want to do is keep hold of the Akiya house until we find out about someone moving in, then transition Serena out of it, either to the village or (if necessary) the Getaway for a month or two and then the village.
You're actually overestimating the cost in some senses. Serena's group is used to spending a fair bit of their time sweeping around her to make sure no one's loitering. And it's not like there's a whole lot else they can do anyways.
Which should mean that Aranfan's Akiya is the currently winning plan, with myself, Nolrai, and TheEyes. Next is Kinematics with himself and Skelm, and Elder Haman is all alone and needs warm hugs.
Well that depends on how helix is counting things.
He since the only thing your plan disagrees with Kinematics on is the main thing my plan agrees with him on, it's possible that he might say we are tied when it comes to what housing we are buying.
Assuming we can research far enough to neutralize, or at least suppress, Serena's aura, we can have a "tourist season" (either a few months per year, or maybe set up as only open on weekends) for a private, remote vacation spot, probably with hot springs. Advertise it as a true 'getaway' (ie: no internet connectivity, where you don't have to be constantly on call, or checking email, or whatever). Just rest and relaxation and a faint background aura to make you feel good.
Visitors are unlikely to stay more than a handful of days. A suppression factor of 100 would increase the safe time within the aura to about 30 days for a typical individual. We'd probably want at least a factor of 20 (6 days).
$1,000 to rent a house for a weekend (can house 3-5 people, 3-4 days, so $50 to $100 per person-day), with 10 spare houses (not counting Serena's or the 'office') could make up to $40k per month (less food expenses). Heck, at that income rate, we don't technically need the suppression effect; we can flat out pay for Serena to move to the getaway, and just use this as a permanent private village for whatever.
Maybe it's not the best plan, but it was so easy to come up with that I'm sure plenty of other ideas will come along.
Why is it over inflated? I'm thinking about it from a balance position, as this was obviously introduced as a game balance to make the choice between the three hard.
Or, like the last decision with the Nagoya trade deal, there was one obvious "trap" option, that we later got free for the asking from Area 13, where Nagoya tried to charge us $20,000 for a welcome packet.
The Getaway House seems, to me, most likely to be an "emergency fallback" option, the place we have to go if we have horrible luck, roll a nat 1 sometime in the next couple of months, and need to evac the Akiya house before the money is ready for the village. Going there first just sounds like a failure to properly calculate odds correctly, and the more I think about the probabilities the more certain that the Akiya house is the right way to go.
Just had a dangerous dangerous idea that nevertheless might be helpful. I seem to recall muggles can't see miasma, they're just sort of mind controlled unless magical protection is provided to keep it away from them. Well suppose you shot a demon with a mundane paintball gun. A magical girl would still be limited by being unable to see very far through the miasma, and a muggle would get brain drained. But a muggle inside a magical barrier protecting them from the miasma would be able to continuously point the meguca towards the demon.
Of course that only matters for demons that use hit and run techniques to hide in the miasma, since you need to tag them in the first place.
Life is moving much faster than expected, and suddenly we're having to make all kinds of rapid-fire decisions to deal with what's in front of us.
Tokyo's situation is not just bad, it's catastrophic. The probes we sent out towards contacting a particular magical girl to help us with that have hugely paid off, but also requires that we go overtime is setting things up for her, because there are restrictions on where she can safely live. Plans for expanding businesses into Tokyo have been delayed, but at the same time, there's huge opportunity for bringing girls into our organization as we help stabilize the city of Tokyo after cleaning it up. Oh, and we have to clean Tokyo up.
And Nagoya? They're not so bad (well, at least Kyouko doesn't think so, so take it with a grain of salt), and we're going to have to work with them to clean up Tokyo without creating more disasters elsewhere.
The hope for Kyouko's church in the next month or two has been shot down, but the opportunities laid out for us in the next few months mean we could get back to it far more quickly than we might ever have expected.
There is huge danger hanging over our heads as we try to resolve the problems ahead of us, but there are also grand opportunities that we never expected to reach so soon. Things might be a little rough, but know that there's a bright future ahead of us. And most importantly, this is our duty and gift as magical girls: to protect people from the great darkness lurking unseen around them.
~ After that, spend time answering questions and helping everyone get a handle on what's on the horizon.
---
Feel free to suggest rewrites; it was just a quick bit done on the fly.
Mami briefs an inner circle on the situation before making the group presentation, (probably has already), particularly talking with Seto, Kyouko, Taya, Taura, Aiko, Keiko, and the girls from Tokyo (since they are all potentially heavily impacted by this).
Mami then has two briefings to the rest of the girls (one in each house), presenting the following information:
Graphs showing the numbers of class 3 demons in Tokyo, the dropping number of girls in Tokyo.
Discuss the likelihood that Tokyo's eventual state will probably be something like Hong Kong unless someone outside does something in the next three months.
Discuss Nagoya's attempts, ask Kyouko and her assistant to give a presentation on what Nagoya is doing in Tokyo.
Mami then raises the point that Nagoya cannot cleanup Tokyo in time alone, nor can the Serenes provide enough help either with our current resources. Because of this she has approached a girl from Mexico, Serena, who has an ability that will help make clearing Tokyo inside 3 months possible.
Present the information Mami has received on Serena's aura. Including it's effect on demons, and empowering magical girls to resist the class 3 demon despair effect. Discuss how it can become addictive to magical girls, and that once addicted magical girls cannot leave the aura's radius without grief spiraling. Mention that Serena is a very nice girl, who is very upset at how wrong her wish went, and that she is cooperative with effects to protect people from the dangers of her aura, and that she has agreed to help save Tokyo. Present the housing plan, and how we intend to limit exposure to keep everyone safe.
Don't sugarcoat it, this is going to be even more dangerous than the last class 3 demon we took down, but this is our duty as magical girls to protect Japan, and save Tokyo. Discuss the training that everyone will be going through. That Taya will be analyzing demon patterns in Tokyo, and the rest of the preparations. Present the preliminary information we have on the beholder as the major threat we have to deal with.
Discuss how after clearing Tokyo of class 3 demons the work will still not be done. There is a need to establish systematic hunting in Tokyo so that the over hunting that produced the class 3 demons doesn't happen again. For this purpose we are printing up hunting and training manuals for distribution afterwards. This will also require a large amount of resources.
This diversion of resources means we will have to delay purchasing Kyouko's church for our headquarters, but we still hope to do it soon.
Mami speaks to the girls of her faith in their ability to handle this and succeed in saving Tokyo.
Then take questions and try to project confidence that we will succeed.
As I see it, the village is the only real long term solution, but we can't get it up and running this month, so if that's our only choice then we'd have to force Serena to go camping in the forest while we did renovations, and that's just not cool.
The Akiya is a decent short-medium term solution, though we may be forced to clear out at any time if a neighbor moves in. That leaves...
The Getaway, which is a very short-term solution, if we roll badly on the Akiya and need to evac before the village is done.
As I see it, the village is the only real long term solution, but we can't get it up and running this month, so if that's our only choice then we'd have to force Serena to go camping in the forest while we did renovations, and that's just not cool.
The Akiya is a decent short-medium term solution, though we may be forced to clear out at any time if a neighbor moves in. That leaves...
The Getaway, which is a very short-term solution, if we roll badly on the Akiya and need to evac before the village is done.
I disagree with this assessment. The Akiya is a short term solution that takes risks to reduce the financial burden.
Either the Getaway or the village are viable long term options. The Village has a higher cost on cash on hand, is less flexible, and requires significant time to setup, while the Getaway has a higher negative effect on cash flow.
You are focusing only on cash flow effects to the exclusion of all other considerations.
All this talk about the village is making me wonder what kind of demons would spawn if we concentrated 20,000 magical girls in one spot with no mundanes. There aren't enough people in the USA to support such a town, let alone Japan, but I still wonder.
Kaoru trained in the mornings, with her morning jog with Akeno. The embarrassment of losing the bet had been worth being pushed to her limits in an area far from her expertise.
Kaoru trained in the evenings, with her study time with Taya. Trying to gain mastery of focus and awareness — mental discipline to go with the physical.
And Kaoru trained on the weekends. Except in this case, it was their newly recruited greens who were subject to the training, rather than herself. Or at least, that's what she told herself, ignoring the possibility that Mami's casual remarks and scheduling suggestions might be yet more training for Kaoru as well.
~~
A brittle smile graced her lips as she stood in front of Yukari, mental discipline (thanks to Taya) preventing her from strangling the little girl.
As much as she had grown accustomed to some of the eccentricities of the Serenes, gossip about the latest fashion idols from Hokkaido was not something she was used to having casual discussions about. Yukari, however, could go on for hours about them. And had.
Kaoru's arm swung up in a motion very nearly ready to imitate Kyouko's approach, but she managed to stop herself in time. If it had been Kyouko standing here, she would sling her arm over the girl's shoulder, and make some brightly casual, yet deeply sinister remark that had you quaking in your boots. You did not get Kyouko mad. You tried very hard not to get Kyouko interested in you at all, because an interested Kyouko was... enthusiastic. It was part of why she wasn't allowed near the greens during training.
No, she didn't want to be Kyouko Mark 2.
Kaoru nodded and smiled as she gently grabbed the girl's shoulders and turned her towards the field where she was supposed to be running laps. A gentle shove sent her off towards her target, yet the endless chatter never ceased.
Kaoru wanted to encourage her, really. She was no stranger to girls with an obsession for some personal hobby, getting lost in minutiae that others found ridiculous. Practically half the Serenes fell under that description, just from there scholastic fixation on numbers and math, and there were plenty of others with more specialized obsessions, such as Keiko, and Akane.
She wanted to be able to just accept that enthusiasm and channel it towards Yukari's growth. Mami would certainly be able to do something like that. Mami just seemed to be able to slide in right next to your heart without you ever realizing, giving a few gentle words of advice, and the knowledge that she believed in you, had faith in you. No matter how hard the challenge, Mami would be right there beside you, cheering you on, never doubting that you were giving your best. Because you absolutely were doing your best, because the very thought of disappointing her was soul-crushing.
There was no way anyone but Mami could be Mami. For all that Kaoru could put her entire heart and soul into her singing, there was a part of her that just couldn't be what Mami was.
As Yukari finished a loop around the year, Kaoru noticed her occasionally glancing around at random, or waving to someone in a window, or otherwise being a bit distracted. She frowned with sympathetic annoyance with her self-selected teacher, Taya.
Taya was careful and focused. You had the feeling that she could see so much further ahead than you that it was only her politeness that let her hold herself back to your level, showing you step-by-step how to walk the first few feet of the path that she had long since crossed. She drilled the importance of maintaining proper focus and awareness into Kaoru's head every time they studied. The value of it could certainly not be understated, but there was always a gulf that Kaoru could sense, that she could never quite bridge. An awareness of her lack of awareness, perhaps. She always had a sense of her own emotions, but —
"Kaoru-sempai!" announced Yukari as she came to a halt in front of the older girl, once again. "How was that? I hit all the targets! I bet Yuuji-tan would have been soooo impressed if he could see me! He'd totally run right over to me, and sweeeeEEEP!"
Her startled cry accompanied the thud of her landing flat on her back, Kaoru having casually swept her feet out from under her with a bored expression. "You aren't paying proper attention to your surroundings, and, especially, your partner." The latter said as she pointed Tama, currently doing practice tumbles between bushes in another part of the yard. "The entire point of this part of the training is to make sure that no matter what you're doing, your teammate's safety is always foremost in your mind. You don't get distracted by shiny dazzles or scary attacks or just ordinary running around; you always, always keep her in the back of your mind."
Yukari just pouted and turned away. "I always know what Tama-chan's doing!" she said in a huff.
"And what about Mura? And Emi? And Erika?" Kaoru asked pointedly, jerking her head slightly to indicate the other trainees scattered about. She sighed and squatted down to match Yukari's level. "Their lives depend on you," she continued, more softly. "I know you can do better than that; I've seen you get serious, and that serious Yukari is someone I'd be glad to have on my side. But I have to know that you can pull that off anytime, anywhere, without someone having to constantly tell you to pay attention."
Yukari's face seemed to deflate, as if the mask of the bright, cheerful idol fanatic had been washed away. "I know," she said, almost in a whisper, and still refusing to meet Kaoru's eyes. "I know," she repeated.
"Then why—"
Suddenly Yukari was brightly cheerful again, though the edges of the mask seemed to stand out in stark relief compared to her usual demeanor. "It doesn't matter, right? We're just rookies; just stick us on a bicycle riding around town for some pocket money. No risk, just reward!"
"You won't always be doing that, you know," corrected Kaoru.
"Like Kanon?"
"What?" asked Kaoru, uncertain she'd heard the soft whisper correctly, but with a slight dread that she knew what was being asked.
"Like Kanon?" Yukari repeated "She'd good enough to fight, right? That means you're taking her with you to Tokyo." The accusatory glare that accompanied that last line had Kaoru rocking back.
Kaoru sighed and dropped her gaze slightly. "As far as I know, she will be assigned normal hunting duties all next month."
"But you're taking everybody who can fight." It wasn't a question.
"That's only one possible plan, which, I might add, is still in dispute."
The accusing stare didn't lift.
Finally Kaoru looked Yukari in the eye again. She could see the worry and concern and threat within that glare — the eyes of one for whom no half-measure response would suffice. "I will be going to Tokyo," said Kaoru, in a calm, measured voice. "And if Kanon is brought along, I will personally assure her safety. I will protect her as if she were my own sister — as I'm sure you would, if you had to come as well."
Their gazes held steady for several long moments, before Yukari finally dropped her eyes back to the ground. However, before there was any chance for tears, or grumblingly awkward thank you's or apologies, Kaoru was already lifting Yukari back to her feet.
"So!" Kaoru exclaimed, bright and cheery, with perhaps a small bit of... enthusiasm. "You were saying you'd show me that you knew how to keep your focus?"
Yukari's face flashed through emotions, before settling on a determined grin. "Sure.. sempai." Kaoru didn't have to push her off this time, as she made another run through the obstacle course in their yard.
Kaoru, meanwhile, just tried to avoid looking nervous as her mind raced through uncertainties. Gah! I hope I didn't screw that up. Mami would have handled that so much better. God, I hope she doesn't think I'm like Kyouko, throwing her around like that.
Maybe Seto can give me some advice?
Once again, took a turn that I was not expecting.
Yukari is one of the trio of girls from area 10 — Yukari, Tama and Kanon. Kanon made vet last month.
I'd like to, but it would really mess with this month's assignments.
Could pull 1 elite out of hunting, and replace that with 1.5 vets from grief counseling, dropping just 3.4+0.2=3.6 cubes. Would then need to pull another vet from some other action.
Gossipmonger could provide 0.5, and could get up to 1.0 from dropping the healing charms (could produce supplies for that next month).
So, it's possible. If we took out gossipmonger and 0.5 charms, would also save 0.2 cubes, so net cube loss would be 3.4. Plus would cost 1 cube to train her, so -4.4 cubes altogether.
An alternative would be to drop the remaining charm production instead of grief management. (would be left with Kyouko's charms, and 0.5 on barrier charms) That would push most charm production into the Tokyo month, which is technically doable, even if it puts a bit of a squeeze on how many people we can bring in. That would mean getting back the 3.4 grief management cubes, and saving another 0.6 from not spending them on charms. Final net cube cost would be just -0.4.
Also possible. However I'm willing to allow a bit of non-efficiency fluff if someone really wants it (and Aranfan clearly did). Aranfan would have to say whether he's willing to make the trade on that, if we're ready to take the gamble on Kaoru.
Next month would be very problematic, since we'd be in the middle of the Tokyo cleansing action. All elites would be completely allocated, so there would be no one to train Kaoru anyway.
Next month would be very problematic, since we'd be in the middle of the Tokyo cleansing action. All elites would be completely allocated, so there would be no one to train Kaoru anyway.
Are we talking about Kaoru, the girl who has practically sainted Mami, or the green who is practically pouting because she's not allowed to come herself?
