Fair enough, like I said I would like to windherd again.
That said I have not seen many options that interest me in the Hysh/Ulgu combinations. I think we should get one of the golds to learn enchanting, preferably Max and then use that. I think we could get a lot more use out of say putting gold armor in our robes, particularly as the ones we have now are not our best work anyway.
We need to get the knack down first, its best to think of it as a training action that ALSO spawns a minor magical trinket in the process, rather than the trinket being the point.
We're basically doing the apprentice thing of carving paperweights so we have the carving skill to work on something more valuable. The paperweight is not the point, and it was specified in the update that the
other party's skill at Windherding also matters, you need to synchronize after all.
So my preference for Windherding enchantment research would be to get the knack down for Lesser Ulgu/Lesser Hysh, then we can take that insight and extend it to Lesser Ulgu/Lesser Chamon, this time knowing what to watch out for so our Chamon partner has less risk of a miscast, and then we can hop onto the next exploratory approach and have Lesser Hysh/Lesser Chamon experiments, this time without Mathilde's direct involvement beyond providing Windsight observations.
Or we can shoot for immediate tangibles and grind coordination with a specific partner to try to produce a useful trinket immediately over figuring out the broader theory and practice of multi-wind enchantments.
We didn't vote to renegotiate so we don't get the payment. We're not running a scam here. We chose to do this job for free. If you want payment, you have to ask for it beforehand instead of springing it up. She didn't set out a bounty for us to collect.
And what reputation we gain from taking out a chaos worshipping (former) Elector Count will easily start evaporating if we instantly turn around and start asking for rewards.
I'd prefer to get the ephemeral rep increase we can keep building on to concrete but ultimately limited payment.
Everyone is impressed when the plumber fixes the leaky tap while they are unplugging the drain without being asked.
Everyone gets annoyed when the same plumber tries to shake you down for extra pay for doing something you don't ask them for.
It's literally a type of extortion (extortion under unwanted service.) examples being cleaning your windows at a stoplight, picking up your luggage for you at a terminal then asking for a tip and throwing a big drama if the person doest pay (a common trick in Egypt, I've gotten into the habit of running to the drop-off and just standing under the opening.) contractors asking if you want to add or install stuff in your house but not telling you its an extra charge until its too late by implying its free or part of the services already. etc etc.
its a trick that often works (if only because its easier than fighting it) but it's a trick that pisses people off.
not a politically sound move when you have to deal with someone more than once.
I'm wondering how well people actually understand the favor economy here.
Think of this as writing papers. Nobody asked us to write those papers. When we submit it, we gain favor and reputation by doing something that they like. By relaying those favors around, we can turn it into a tangible reward.
If someone asked us specifically to do a particular research instead, then we'd be paid at the rate of hiring a Lord Magister for however long the research takes, which is 2-3 times higher than the entire research and paper publishing would have.
Same deal here.
We know Mira would like to hinder Alric, and we agreed to commit to investigating him, without committing to sabotage. We arrived on scene and found that we had the following options:
-Pass the ritual information on to Mira and move on, she can deal with it on her own dime.
-Work with Alric to solve the ritual, which is
technically within the letter of what Mira asked.
-Invest further time and effort into disrupting the ritual on our own, which also wound up sabotaging Alric.
Is Mira expected to pay what she offered for sabotage? No, definitely not, because we already did the job, we can't say it won't be done if not paid.
Would Mira feel indebted to us for going out of our way(we could have done this easier, as far as she knows, though of course she doesn't know about the Heidi connection) to ensure that things fall out in her favor? Yes, but not that much.
And so the favor trade works out, we gain a minor favor out of Mira, which she also knows from our discussion the kinds of things we'd like to get for the Waystone project. And in doing so we reinforce the foundations of favor trading - you
want people to do things you like unasked, and that sort of thing happens more often if you make sure to offer tangible returns.
Mathilde isn't much involved in such things because she's a literal mountain hermit and its a bit difficult to figure out the kinds of things she'd like to be done favors in, other than an eclectic collection of enchantments, and two extremely classified projects.
