Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Play along with The Law.
Renxiang will back us up if the Law finds trouble with us, but not if we find trouble with The Law.

I am on the fence on this issue, but all the arguments really tend to lean towards letting the MOI work it out. Might check back if any good arguments are made to support going at it ourselves.

Will what we said to the spirit regarding how we will chase after the interloper have any weight to our decision?

yrsillar said:

And with this gift, I offer the bonus of knowledge that I will seek the one which inflicted this embarrassment upon the both of us."

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Or will leaving it to the MOI mean we follow along with the case, but in a hands off manner?

Pipeman said:

My immediate thought is that this whole mess almost certainly originates from someone outside of the duchy, because holy fuck you would have to be dumb to instigate this if you are under Shenhua's authority.
Bringing open sabotage like this back into the ministries she already reformed...

These folks are either desperate enough that they'd need to take risks like this, which really doesn't scan with how comparatively minor the gains here would have been, already firmly on Shenhua's shitlist, in which case why poke your head out for this of all things, or rather confident that Shenhua won't fuck them up hard for this, which just doesn't really work unless she doesn't actually have direct authority over them.

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Hmmmm. They could be desperate, maybe. Perhaps there's been long-term plotting and scheming at play here and part of the plan hinges on the bad winter here, which Hanyi's performance unwittingly ruined. If your options are to watch as your long-term scheme falls apart or to engage in some small, hopefully undetectable crimes, it's not unthinkable to choose the latter.

Of course we have no knowledge of such a plot existing, so it doesn't seem very likely from where I'm standing, but it's an option on the table.

[] You will naturally cooperate with the Ministry of law and any others, but you cannot just leave this matter be (Begin Idol Days Political Quest)

I just like having "Idol" in the quest name

I think the spirit can recognize both that we can use 'subordinates' as tools and that we have a very personal interest in whichever idiot this is being crushed- and with the way they choose to try and attack us, I don't think the ministries are going to push back on us being the pointy spear of punishment once they are satisfied we are acting as they would.

[] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

This is wonderful.

The gears of law have been known to turn slowly, ever so slowly. But they grind that which is caught between their teeth into the finest powder. Also, if there is ever one way to get a bureaucracy to move in your favor, it is to give them something that demonstrates their rules and policies are being violated or abused. When they get an inclining that there is a breach in their policies, that's when they bring out the big guns.

Well let us be real, this was either done by a complete idiot who brought his own ink pot from his desk and his own faeries from his backyard, or it was done by someone with enough sense to want a scapegoat lined up before poking Shenhua.

If it was the former then we'll probably find out the second we enter his house and find his planning board, complete with a caricature of Ling Qi being crushed by an anvil falling from a great height a la Wile E. Coyote.

I'll be voting for the laws.

We already went loose cannon with the temple shit, we want want play nice now.

Thor's Twin said:

[] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

This is wonderful.

The gears of law have been known to turn slowly, ever so slowly. But they grind that which is caught between their teeth into the finest powder. Also, if there is ever one way to get a bureaucracy to move in your favor, it is to give them something that demonstrates their rules and policies are being violated or abused. When they get an inclining that there is a breach in their policies, that's when they bring out the big guns.

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Plus you know, that way we can delegate more work to other people, since we're not expected to directly participate in breaking into people's houses.

Didn't we promise vengeance to the spirit?
I wonder how making the law do the work will affect this.

Inferno Vulpix said:

Hmmmm. They could be desperate, maybe. Perhaps there's been long-term plotting and scheming at play here and part of the plan hinges on the bad winter here, which Hanyi's performance unwittingly ruined. If your options are to watch as your long-term scheme falls apart or to engage in some small, hopefully undetectable crimes, it's not unthinkable to choose the latter.

Of course we have no knowledge of such a plot existing, so it doesn't seem very likely from where I'm standing, but it's an option on the table.

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Messing up with local ink sounds like somebody with no experience in intrigue but a lot of experience in writing skills did it.
And the faeries were just sloppy, they wouldn't have been necessary at all if the forgery worked...you'd only want the faeries if you were targeting the ritual rather than the one who does it.

Continuing to act like a cowboy is unlikely to help our relationship with the clergy or any other conservative factions, and one of my main reasons to pick the ol' Option 3 in the first place was that we'd have opportunities to increase our relationship with the clergy (and other conservative factions).

Showing that we're willing to play ball will make it more likely for other groups to play ball with us, instead of simply trying to work around us.

Plus, we get a Political Quest regardless of who takes point, so we're not exactly being passive either way. Wouldn't be much of a quest if we just read the reports and called it a day.

DragonWyrm said:

Didn't we promise vengeance to the spirit?
I wonder how making the law do the work will affect this.

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in practice, the spirit didn't set a method or time limit, and so long as nothing else happens I do not think it'll be doing anything drastic to get revenge for a slight it has already been given reparations for.

DragonWyrm said:

Didn't we promise vengeance to the spirit?
I wonder how making the law do the work will affect this.

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Language on both sides was pretty flowery, I'm not so worried about that.

He's a spirit, he has a different perspective on that sort of thing. It shouldn't matter if our meat is doing the vengeance if our intent is causing it.

Actually I suspect this is less of a matter of bending the law vs working with the law, but rather where the source of legitimacy Ling Qi is using to find the perpetrator originates from. Because unless Ling Qi is planning to simply gather information to deliver to the ministries somebody has to empower her legally otherwise she'll be stonewalled by basically any noble clan, and the obvious choice is CRX who is the ducal heir with a love of legalese.

[] You will naturally cooperate with the Ministry of law and any others, but you cannot just leave this matter be (Begin Idol Days Political Quest)

So this seems more like CRX will put her reputation as the Cai heir for the purpose of bringing the perpetrators to Justice, and trust Ling Qi to get the job done via giving her special authority to do so. In essence it is something along the lines of somebody with the legal authority empowering a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of things irl, and the ability* to do so is useful when either some ministries might be put in an awkward position, or there is reason to believe the region of investigation will be a political hot potato.

Also the person being given special authority needs experts whose trustworthiness is rock solid on a very personal level.

*Useful to have if you're a white whose insights have been triggered to hammer a problem into being a nail.

[] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

Something to keep in mind is that while the the ministries have long arms they are not perfect, and seeing as this is a quest it seems likely Ling Qi will become involved when/if they hit a roadblock, which might give her some contacts within the ministries.

Also this might lead a judge empowering a cultivator posse, and that would be all kinds of fun.

This is a minor squabble. I trust the ministry to handle it without Ling Qi expanding personal efforts.

[] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

Its what CRX would want us to do.

Renxiang would not look kindly on us going outside the law, and the Cai love to crush corruption so we should use that to our advantage.

ActionKermit said:

I'm also worried by the name of the quest for option 1, it looks like we'll be using the Dream Idol a lot and that raises the risk of it being discovered

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In this case, the word "Idol" does not refer to the dream idol, but rather to the East Asian cultural phenomenon of idol performers, which is a running joke about Hanyi's singing career.

065tdsa said:

Well let us be real, this was either done by a complete idiot who brought his own ink pot from his desk and his own faeries from his backyard, or it was done by someone with enough sense to want a scapegoat lined up before poking Shenhua.

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Yeah, this was executed so clumsily that I am certain that the obvious culprit will just be a patsy for someone else.

[X] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

We have a lot of official backing but not nearly as much soft-power as another noble. So relying on the backing of the Ministry to support Ling Qi gives her a that small measure of authority needed to do this. She won't get nearly as much in the way of personal clout for success as doing this more "outside the law" but honestly at this point Ling Qi doesn't need the personal clout as much as she does the respect of Shenhua and CRX for abiding the rules the two put so much stock in and that CRX has spent so much time teaching Ling Qi.

[X] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

[X] You may not like the priestess much, but she is not wrong here. Working within the Ministries bounds is important (Begin Laws Long Hand Political Quest)

Time for a crime drama.