- Location
- Colorado
'2 other greater spiders' could just mean greater than the riff raff in the same way the other six are, not necessarily greater than the 6. Between Xia's sword and our own escape and defense options I have a hard time believing they could prevent us from escaping even if they prove too much to overcome. And that assumes we can't take them. Among other things, after seeing we're ice/dark aligned dropping a fire/earth Xuan Wu right in the middle of them is probably the last thing they expect.[X] Refuse to enter, demand that they speak with you out here. You will not be trapped. If they refuse, have Zhengui seal the tunnel before you leave.
It said that most of the spiders were at least as powerful as us and that there were at least one or two higher. I don't know if we could actually intimidate them into doing whatever we want. We've also heard from this update that Hui practiced arts to defend, ward and fight against each other even more so than outsiders. When this was said, it was indicated that it would be similar to our arts. I don't think we should be confident that we can take em so easily.
As for the other option, I don't see the point in playing along diplomatically when they clearly aren't interested--I doubt they have that useful information for us to retrieve either. Its not like this is one of our Cloud Tribe enemies, its an isolated bunch of Hui spirits that have been out of touch for a long long time.
[X] Enter and engage, but be prepared. Use the trappings of Cai authority and your own power to intimidate them into backing down. If they attack anyway, this is a grouping you can handle.
I'm not sure where some of the 'shock and awe isn't our preferred diplomacy style' posts are coming from. That's basically what we did with the river eel and we were happy to put the fear of cold death into a bunch of minor spirits to make sure they wouldn't trouble Biyu. We prefer to be respectful to spirits, but if it's the better option we've pretty much always been happy to take a leaf out of the Bai/Cai/Zequing playbook and roll to intimidate/terrify.