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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Tua said:
Something really bugs me about this update, maybe you guys can help me do a sanity check here:

Either the proctor is so good that she knew embarrassing Keiko would drop her out of the conversation and leave the least social specced people be rail roaded into spilling our guts or she got lucky.

Which do you think is it? Someone who knew enough about our team to find out what to target and in extension, someone the team might have known from their academy days? Or maybe a more boring explanation: Karin managed to pick up on our weaknesses over the days she was with us?

I am sort of hoping it is the former just for that added spice of drama. :p

EDIT:
[X] No ARMAGEDDON INITIATIVE
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I'm putting my ryo on her being Ami.
 
faflec said:
*sharp inhalation of breath*

I don't like this. It makes nervous. Super. Duper. Nervous.
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We've gotten multiple hints that this is driving a wedge between Hazou and his teammates, and that they're defaulting to trying to ignore the problem. I think we need to clear the air a bit. Honestly, what I put under that section is fairly milquetoast and shouldn't result in any harm.

Seems like a good time to do it as well, nothing to do for three days, and nothing for @eaglejarl to write.

Besides, you're honestly considering stealing from other proctors and a friendly conversation between teammates is what makes you nervous?
 
Roomba said:
Besides, you're honestly considering stealing from other proctors and a friendly conversation between teammates is what makes you nervous?
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Yes, I do. I do not recall any rule prohibiting stealing from people who, for all intents and purposes, have to pretend to be civilians. Especially when the stuff we're stealing is part of the Event. At worst we'd get our butts whooped. We wouldn't die or be permanently injured, that's grounds for Konoha and the other EN to bring down the hammer on Mist.

Talking with teammates? ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha nope.jpg We have a terrible track record with talking with teammates. Remember the follow-up conversation with Keiko having haphephobia?
 
I don't think we should give karina any more information, and I really don't think we need any more points.

...But if we want more points...

We can't do normal merchanting. It flat out doesn't work with the distances timescales that we have to work with. BUT...

I have an avenue of thought, one of which has an actual idea attached. Given that we are ninja, what could we do that an ordinary merchant couldn't? Ultra fast deliveries? We can go ~30 miles an hour, and that might actually be enough for arbitrage opportunities.

Could we hunt chakra beasts? Karina pays us in full for a C ranked mission to hunt chakra beasts (so that we can't be said to be giving her anything), and Karina then sells the valuable corpses we collect.

EDIT: could we buy grain and macerate it? Buy those weird bug things and macerate them to make poison? Macerator's aren't a secret, right?

That being said, I want to vote for

[x] Action Plan: Protect the spoils, Extra Paranoid Edition v2

again. Has anything changed to make this not a good idea? Except for Hazou coming up with a good idea for playing merchant, which he hasn't actually, because we haven't, I don't see anything.

Also:

[X] DO NOT SELL SKYWALKERS
[X] No ARMAGEDDON INITIATIVE

 
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Another potential good we could sell - Pangolin peppers. Have Keiko trade some of the gold nuggets with the Pangolins for some peppers, and sell them in Mist as an exotic ingredient. Goes well with the ice sale too, since restaurants would likely want to buy both kinds of things. We could even pre-grind the peppers into a spice to use.

Sales angle could be that with the exam tournament coming up, there's going to be all kinds of foreign dignitaries coming. Having some unique spices would be good for a restaurant.
 
Enjou said:
Another potential good we could sell - Pangolin peppers. Have Keiko trade some of the gold nuggets with the Pangolins for some peppers, and sell them in Mist as an exotic ingredient. Goes well with the ice sale too, since restaurants would likely want to buy both kinds of things. We could even pre-grind the peppers into a spice to use.

Sales angle could be that with the exam tournament coming up, there's going to be all kinds of foreign dignitaries coming. Having some unique spices would be good for a restaurant.
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Ohmygosh I'm an idiot. There are probably HUMONGOUS arbitrage opportunities for trading with another reality.

...except, looking back, I am not certain. Wouldn't everyone do this if it were possible? Wouldn't Keiko especially have done this, given that she is a Mori, and they specialize in logistics? It isn't that goods can't be shipped, because we are getting gold from the summoned realm just fine. I notice that I am confused.
 
Immortal Lurker said:
Ohmygosh I'm an idiot. There are probably HUMONGOUS arbitrage opportunities for trading with another reality.

...except, looking back, I am not certain. Wouldn't everyone do this if it were possible? Wouldn't Keiko especially have done this, given that she is a Mori, and they specialize in logistics? It isn't that goods can't be shipped, because we are getting gold from the summoned realm just fine. I notice that I am confused.
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Everyone that's economically inclined that has a summon scroll oh whoops there goes everyone that might have exploited it.
 
Clarification: All this is legal, yes? We're allowed to sell stuff like Pangolin peppers and ice and stuff for cash that'll count in the Event?
 
Immortal Lurker said:
Ohmygosh I'm an idiot. There are probably HUMONGOUS arbitrage opportunities for trading with another reality.

...except, looking back, I am not certain. Wouldn't everyone do this if it were possible? Wouldn't Keiko especially have done this, given that she is a Mori, and they specialize in logistics? It isn't that goods can't be shipped, because we are getting gold from the summoned realm just fine. I notice that I am confused.
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I doubt we're the only people who have access to a summon scroll who have ever thought of it, but by and large the people who possess summon scrolls are ninjas rather than merchants. Further, the entire market is limited entirely to whoever has summon scrolls available. Furthermore, which goods a particular summoner may or may not have access to is going to be entirely based on which summoning scroll they have - we have access to the Pangolins. (and technically the Toads, but we can't trade with them in this instance without revealing our way to contact Jiraiya)

Exotic spices could sell really well right now. The exams means foreign dignitaries and nobles coming in, so high end restaurants would be very interested in it. We also have a means of grinding up the spices finely, though we'll want to hide that from Karina.

faflec said:
Clarification: All this is legal, yes? We're allowed to sell stuff like Pangolin peppers and ice and stuff for cash that'll count in the Event?
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I'm not aware of any laws against it, specifically, and I don't think Mist has a Merchant Council that would lobby against it like in Leaf. And I don't think they would have any laws against spices.
 
Enjou said:
I'm not aware of any laws against it, specifically, and I don't think Mist has a Merchant Council that would lobby against it like in Leaf. And I don't think they would have any laws against spices.
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I mean for the Exams, and this Event in particular. My concern is mostly for the "cannot give money or its equivalents"; are we going to be trading with Karina for whatever we intend to sell? Is there a way for Mist to finagle an anti-loophole to punish us anyway?
 
Cariyaga said:
Everyone that's economically inclined that has a summon scroll oh whoops there goes everyone that might have exploited it.
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Leaf has the toad summoner, the dog summoner, the slug summoner, and the Nara in the same village. If the Nara didn't insist to the point of making bodily threats that the summoners abuse that, then
  1. It doesn't work for some reason
  2. It does work, and the other summoners are already doing it. In which case, why didn't they tell us to do it?
    1. Perhaps the Pangolins have a reputation of spurning merchant style trade with their summoner
  3. It works, and the Nara don't want the other summoners to have an economic advantage over them. Seems like short term thinking from them, but maybe?
 
Assuming all trade goods don't fall under the 'cash equivalents' rule, Spice and Ice sounds like a good starting point.

We probably do want at least one member of the team or a pangolin doing recon while we shift product, though, since we've made zero progress on that front since the start of the exams. We don't even know who the heavy hitters *are*, let alone what they can do.

I'd rather not go into the final tournament and get placed against a Gaara-equivalent psychopath in the first round without any foreknowledge.
 
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Immortal Lurker said:
Leaf has the toad summoner, the dog summoner, the slug summoner, and the Nara in the same village. If the Nara didn't insist to the point of making bodily threats that the summoners abuse that, then
  1. It doesn't work for some reason
  2. It does work, and the other summoners are already doing it. In which case, why didn't they tell us to do it?
    1. Perhaps the Pangolins have a reputation of spurning merchant style trade with their summoner
  3. It works, and the Nara don't want the other summoners to have an economic advantage over them. Seems like short term thinking from them, but maybe?
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There's also opportunity costs to consider. A powerful ninja doesn't always have time to do merchant stuff.
 
Come to think of it, Karina doing this does indeed increase the probability of her being Ami or someone who knows Mari.

faflec said:
Yes, I do. I do not recall any rule prohibiting stealing from people who, for all intents and purposes, have to pretend to be civilians. Especially when the stuff we're stealing is part of the Event. At worst we'd get our butts whooped. We wouldn't die or be permanently injured, that's grounds for Konoha and the other EN to bring down the hammer on Mist.
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The risk is getting captured and having our secret words and potentially anything we have with us stolen. That's our whole seal loadout, gone, with all the opsec implications. The enemy doesn't need to injure us, they can simply detain us and go knock out our client.

faflec said:
Talking with teammates? ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha nope.jpg We have a terrible track record with talking with teammates. Remember the follow-up conversation with Keiko having haphephobia?
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I remember. It was awkward, but harmless. If that's our worst failure mode, I am even more confused by your reluctance.
 
faflec said:
Clarification: All this is legal, yes? We're allowed to sell stuff like Pangolin peppers and ice and stuff for cash that'll count in the Event?
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Guessing the answer is "no"; for practical purposes it's the same as giving the client money. Meanwhile, reinvesting only makes reasonable returns if we follow @MadScientist (?)'s plan to lean on the yakuza some more.

Personally I'm more inclined to lock in our winnings here; the points and information aren't worth risking our client and getting more in debt to the yaks. AND actually making returns of 50% in a few days on *stuff you can buy in Mist* is fucking insane, so it's even more obvious cheating than the yak overpayment we already got. (And hence somewhat likely to be cracked down on, especially since we're using the same trick twice.)

Ed: I guess I don't know about having the client trade with the pangolins directly. Feels like we already asked about this, so I assume no, but some chance it would work . Don't think we should expect efficiencies here, so making tens of percents is possible; maybe not much more than that.
 
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Langevin said:
Guessing the answer is "no"; for practical purposes it's the same as giving the client money. Meanwhile, reinvesting only makes reasonable returns if we follow @MadScientist (?)'s plan to lean on the yakuza some more.

Personally I'm more inclined to lock in our winnings here; the points and information aren't worth risking our client and getting more in debt to the yaks. AND actually making returns of 50% in a few days on *stuff you can buy in Mist* is fucking insane, so it's even more obvious cheating than the yak overpayment we already got. (And hence somewhat likely to be cracked down on, especially since we're using the same trick twice.)

Ed: I guess I don't know about having the client trade with the pangolins directly. Feels like we already asked about this, so I assume no, but some chance it would work . Don't think we should expect efficiencies here, so making tens of percents is possible; maybe not much more than that.
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Yeah but it'd make Hazou look really stupid at this point :p
 
faflec said:
I mean for the Exams, and this Event in particular. My concern is mostly for the "cannot give money or its equivalents"; are we going to be trading with Karina for whatever we intend to sell? Is there a way for Mist to finagle an anti-loophole to punish us anyway?
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I believe the idea is to sell the spices or other goods we can procure to Karina at wholesale costs (little profit or even at-cost for us) and then Karina sells it to people in Mist at a much higher price.

Immortal Lurker said:
Leaf has the toad summoner, the dog summoner, the slug summoner, and the Nara in the same village. If the Nara didn't insist to the point of making bodily threats that the summoners abuse that, then
  1. It doesn't work for some reason
  2. It does work, and the other summoners are already doing it. In which case, why didn't they tell us to do it?
    1. Perhaps the Pangolins have a reputation of spurning merchant style trade with their summoner
  3. It works, and the Nara don't want the other summoners to have an economic advantage over them. Seems like short term thinking from them, but maybe?
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Our trades with the Pangolins, IIRC, more or less solely happened because we had an extremely useful military resource (Pantokrator's Judging Eyes) that they were willing to pay tons of stuff for, so I find it quite possible that as a general rule summon clans don't feel the need to trade much with the human path. In any event, Mist doesn't directly have any scrolls that I remember, so odds are summon-specific items will have a solid market here.
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
I believe the idea is to sell the spices or other goods we can procure to Karina at wholesale costs (little profit or even at-cost for us) and then Karina sells it to people in Mist at a much higher price.
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No profit for us in terms of the buying from the Pangolins. We would basically have Keiko, in her capacity as a 'hired ninja' use her unique advantage and deal making skills to bargain with Pangolin merchants on Karina's behalf, using Karina's gold (starting with the gold nuggets and jewelry, which are the least likely items to be accepted as Mist ryo equivalents IMO). She then collects the goods in a storage seal, and dismisses her reverse summoning, and hands Karina her property. Then she goes out and re-sells it to Mist, where it's a rare and exotic good, and the upcoming Chuunin exams make it especially high value as restaurants will all want something unique and exotic to make themselves stand out to the nobles and foreign dignitaries that will be visiting for the upcoming tournament.

The line blurs if we want to do ice as well, though there's nothing in the rules saying we couldn't sell our ice to the same restaurants that Karina is selling peppers to, if we wanted to make some money ourselves. Given our clan needs some cash, that may not be a bad idea.
 
If we sell ice and pangolin peppers we also can make a long term deal that make more money in the future
 
Enjou said:
Mainly just saying "easier said than done". We'd need to do both things, and the proctor may well keep an eye on their goods since they'd be expected to return them no doubt. Anyways, we could steal stuff, but we'd have no idea who that particular merchant might have already sold to.


The only solid idea I think we've got right now is sell ice to Karina at a reasonably cheap price, and then she can resell for a profit.



@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @OliWhail - how nice is this jewelry, and how confident would Karina be that she could sell it for more than it's worth? (I'm presuming she took the value in terms of gold, rather than value as a product)
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I'm afraid that you aren't much of a judge of jewelry and Karina isn't volunteering anything. It's relatively simple stuff -- gold chains, a braided-gold-wire rope, necklaces, etc.

faflec said:
Clarification: All this is legal, yes? We're allowed to sell stuff like Pangolin peppers and ice and stuff for cash that'll count in the Event?
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Only Karina's earnings count towards your score, and you aren't allowed to give her goods or money.
 
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