Kagome confirms that Kumokōgō is alive. She reports that casualties in Arachnid have been 'minimal' – at least relative to the last rampage, and the Dragons had flown southwest-ish out to sea. She's glad that the Conclave is moving and will hopefully be ready to meet them on the south coast of Arachnid whenever they arrive.
Southwest, huh? Welp, guess that's the Raccoons dead.
 
Investigating the Great Seal would take considerable time in the narrative. Hazō could potentially get much more out of the attempt now!
@eaglejarl @Paperclipped @Velorien

To the best of my understanding Hazou has the entire 3-D picture of the GS downloaded into the IN. So does investigating it mean traveling to the GS and tunneling around, or mediating on the 3-D image Hazou has of the GS in the IN?

It seems to me, that Hazou's IN image would be way better than traveling to the GS, because he can see the entire thing at once, and not just the surface.
 
So we get the Conclave moving and within days the Dragons become active, after years of doing literally nothing? (The retributive strike aside.)

That is so absolutely not a coincidence. They have some method of information-gathering. They know at least part of what's coming, and are – what else? – preparing.

We're marching straight into their maws.
She didn't carry anything identifiable on her, so my guess is that she's either a Missing Nin, or from the Eastern Continent. Perhaps from Demon Country? Though, I admit that the only connection is the name "demon" and the fact that she's had experience with existential threats before.
Or she took down anything identifiable to ensure we couldn't identify her. She was ready to just be immediately summoned in front of a potentially-hostile adversary.
 
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So we get the Conclave moving and within days the Dragons become active, after years of doing literally nothing? (The retributive strike aside.)

That is so absolutely not a coincidence. They have some method of information-gathering. They know at least part of what's coming, and are – what else? – preparing.

We're marching straight into their maws.

Or she took down anything identifiable to ensure we couldn't identify her. She was ready to just be immediately summoned in front of a potentially-hostile adversary.
Clearly we need to be sent on the advance guard, so that we can be eaten by the Dragons and vote for them to stop.
 
[X] Action Plan: Happenings on the Paths

Now that's a plan!

@Sir Stompy
I would really like to squeeze in a discussion about selling lithosealing to Orochimaru. It might be slightly better to wait for the cave mission result, but delaying runs the risk of the hivemind prematurely voting in the Oro deal without any onscreen advice from our advisors. A concerning number of people are trying to do this. Please help.
 
[X] Action Plan: Happenings on the Paths
Would he join the Conclave?
The Conclave is a meeting in Pangolin for the clans in the Eastern Continent. The Crusade is the war against the Dragons. I feel we care more about Kumafuwafuwa joining the latter than the former.
Make sure Naruto is still on-board with repatriating Mareo, as Asuma was.
  • Ask Tsunade about Mareo's age-related memory loss during one of our healing sessions.
    • Is this something she has any interest in treating or studying?
  • As one of the foremost mental experts in Leaf, does Ino have anything that could help Mareo? We will pay for it generously
IMO this stuff should be in the prep stage, before everything else, and labeled accordingly.
Have Noburi on standby during their major delves if they need healing for Neji or additional supplies/chakra.
I will observe that Neji is the only one who can get chakra from Noburi: Lee and Tenten are not Summoners and cannot reach Noburi via Seventh Path. Might I suggest:
  • Have Noburi on standby during their major delves if they need additional supplies or healing/chakra for Neji.
 
XP Award: 3 + 1 (brevity) XP

Noburi:
Orochimaru's MedNin notes #3: S: 30, B: 12, R: 33
1 day, 2 blocks at 3/block = 6

Orochimaru's MedNin notes #3: S: 30, B: 18, R: 27

Hazou:
  • Orochimaru's Sealing notes #5: S:24, B:16, R:60
  • Orochimaru's Sealing notes #6: S:0, B:40, R:60
  • Orochimaru's Sealing notes #7: S:0, B:20, R:30
  • Orochimaru's Sealing notes #8: S:0, B:4.5, R:45.5
1 block each, 2/block and 1/block:

Orochimaru's Sealing notes #5: S:24, B:18, R:58
Orochimaru's Sealing notes #6: S:0, B:42, R:58
Orochimaru's Sealing notes #7: S:0, B:21, R:29
Orochimaru's Sealing notes #8: S:0, B:5.5, R:44.5
 
I would really like to squeeze in a discussion about selling lithosealing to Orochimaru. It might be slightly better to wait for the cave mission result, but delaying runs the risk of the hivemind prematurely voting in the Oro deal without any onscreen advice from our advisors. A concerning number of people are trying to do this. Please help.
I am firmly on team wait until the cave mission. How do you think we should do this? Throw a discussion line in with Mari/Kei? It looks like that's gonna be a scene of its own.

[X] Action Plan: Happenings on the Paths

The Conclave is a meeting in Pangolin for the clans in the Eastern Continent. The Crusade is the war against the Dragons. I feel we care more about Kumafuwafuwa joining the latter than the former.

IMO this stuff should be in the prep stage, before everything else, and labeled accordingly.

I will observe that Neji is the only one who can get chakra from Noburi: Lee and Tenten are not Summoners and cannot reach Noburi via Seventh Path. Might I suggest:
  • Have Noburi on standby during their major delves if they need additional supplies or healing/chakra for Neji.
Thanks for the suggestions. I will implement them now.

EDIT: Now implemented.
 
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If A) is true, then B) is the best case scenario no matter what. Consider what happens if the Dragons attack each Clan in turn, they fight 1 Clan Boss on their home turf and their supporting warriors. They are already strong enough to destroy any single Clan, so the Summon Clans are defeated in detail and the Dragons grow strong enough until they are invincible.

Whereas if the Dragons fight 1 Clan Boss on their home territory with a dozen Clan Bosses and their Summoners supporting them and their cadres of elite warriors, the odds are much better. If the Crusade is defeated, the Seventh Path is doomed, yes. However considering how strong the Dragons are now if another Boss is eaten, it's probably doomed anyway.

It doesn't matter if this is clever gambit from the Dragons to bring their prey to them. It's still the best shot the Seventh Path has at containing this threat. There is no alternative plan that has better odds. It's not like the Dragons can face more than one Boss on their home turf at once.

(Although I wonder if Kumokugo could cede a bit of her territory to the visiting Bosses to give them a buff for the final battle, but put that aside)
Nothing has changed since the last time this was discussed.
 
So we get the Conclave moving and within days the Dragons become active, after years of doing literally nothing? (The retributive strike aside.)

That is so absolutely not a coincidence. They have some method of information-gathering. They know at least part of what's coming, and are – what else? – preparing.

We're marching straight into their maws.

Or she took down anything identifiable to ensure we couldn't identify her. She was ready to just be immediately summoned in front of a potentially-hostile adversary.
I mean a bunch of super powerful bosses marching together in a group must be easily felt by the dragons no? I think that's the most likely explanation here
 
We have things like world-class human doctors
Unless this pans out with Tsunade (e.g. she says she can do something about it) or Ino (ditto) I would prefer to avoid saying anything about his mortality. It's going to be distressing for Kuma to think about and simultaneously, I expect that the attitude will be that he's had a good long life and when his time is up, that's it. The reality is that he's ancient for a ninja and honestly even a civilian. Unless we're sure we can significantly improve his quality of life, I don't think this is worth bringing up.
creature comforts for him as he ages
This is more like it. We know he likes the stuff we can get him and that he likes talking to us. We're companionship and he can play with the kids in Leaf. It's a meaningful QoL improvement.

If we can get Noburi to him (is there a Toad in Dog?) or almost any other Summoner, we can probably make a better case. We aren't enough human contact. Seeing another person delights him. It's solid evidence.

A bonus would be Ruri. She'll totally entertain his flirtations if she's warned and she's a pretty smooth talker.
 
We will pay for it generously
May want to remove this section. Aside from whether or not we actually have the funds to do this, outright stating it is a bit of a faux pas.

Ino knows Hazou, and knows how serious he can be. Ino will be able to tell how important this is to him, and Hazou has a history if going Pretty Damn Far.

Outright stating it is a bit mercenary, and reframes the question away from "do you have this thing" and towards an implicit "how much do you want for this thing?"

It's assuming the Yamanaka have it, which Mari herself was skeptical of. To paraphrase Mari: the Yamanaka would be wealthy beyond belief if they had a cure like that, or at the very least they'd be using it on their own people.
[X] Action Plan: Happenings on the Paths


Do they know the substrate is for us? If they do not, do we care if they find out?
Yes, they know. Their orders from Tsunade were to deliver it to Hazou immediately upon retrieval via the 7th Path.

They don't know why Hazou needs it, but they likely know it is Very Important due to the expediency that the mission has then delivering the package to Hazou.
 
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This sounds rife for abuse, and that anyone of sufficiently political weight can steal something and claim they were merely "inspired" by it.

Ex: Hazou witnesses a clanless ninja using a Void Slash Seal in combat, and reproduces it for his own clan. When they poked, Hazou claims that he was inspired to create a similar effect. Since each sealmaster has to research their own version of a seal, the Calligraphy of the two seals are different.

Hazou the Clan Lord, Hazou the Special Jonin, Hazou the Leaf Summoner, Hazou the Dragonslayer, Hazou the Mad is likely to win in this scenario over the clanless ninja, though social rolls may be involved to determine if it's a polite fiction that everyone sees through (and thus Hazou incurs a reputational loss), or if it's genuinely believed (Hazou was a world-famous sealmaster as a genin, after all).
The clans abusing their superior political weight to exploit the clanless? In our Hidden Leaf?

With that said, the protections work both ways. Clans have more sealmasters and longer sealcrafting traditions than the clanless, and this setup prevents them from using their larger research output to claim ownership of entire concepts and lock out independent talent the way real-life corporations are fond of doing.

To give a real example of the latter, Nintendo have a patent on a prototype emulator which they 100% never intend to develop or use in any way unless someone else starts using that technology to emulate their games, at which point they get to sue them.

False Edit: Leaf has existed for less than 90 years, and a good chunk of that time had the first three Hokage's mandating that everyone play nice or face Essie Anger. So it might be that these legalistic flaws didn't really matter before now?
This is true of a lot of things. Hiashi was the first Hokage who couldn't force people to respect the unwritten rules with the mere threat of his displeasure (though Jiraiya, as a single-issue Hokage, didn't really test his power in this regard).

(Also, idle curiosity, whose Hokage tenure was longer: Asuma or Minato?)
Asuma, but sadly not by much.
 
[X] Action Plan: Happenings on the Paths
Word count: <300
  • Optimize all with Kei/Mari/Noburi
    • Make sure Naruto is still on-board with repatriating Mareo, as Asuma was.
      • Ask Tsunade about Mareo's age-related memory loss during one of our healing sessions.
        • Is this something she has any interest in treating or studying?
    • As one of the foremost mental experts in Leaf, does Ino have anything that could help Mareo? We will pay for it generously
  • Visit with Mareo and the Bears
    • Update him on everything that's happened. Akane, Asuma, Hazou's injury, the Conclave, the Dragons on the move.
      • Don't have an agenda: just talk to him, like he's our respected elder.
      • Maintain OPSEC. But share what you can.
    • We're going to ask Kumafuwafuwa to join the Crusade. Any advice?
      • Kumafuwafuwa
        • Would he join the Crusade?
        • Bring him up to speed if necessary - find out from Cannai what he knows.
        • Apologize for not reaching out earlier. We've had to cajole, convince, and wrangle self-interested, self-absorbed, and intractable Eastern Clans.
          • Implication: Bears are wise and thoughtful.
        • Bring up the possibility of moving Mareo's Seventh Path exit from Honey to Leaf to Kumafuwafuwa.
          • Optimize with Mari hard, this is sensitive and difficult conversation. Don't have it unless she's reasonably sure Kumafuwafuwa won't react badly.
        • We have things like world-class human doctors and creature comforts for him as he ages
        • We expect he'd still stay on the Seventh Path for the majority of the time.
  • Team Lee
    • Mindset: We are throwing our full power behind obtaining the substrate
    • Neji is the Turtle Summoner - we can help them via the Seventh Path
      • Offer additional seal support - skytowers, skywalkers, skyslicers(?), Hazou Goo Bombs, explosives, anything that's not classified or a secret. Run the full list past our sanity checkers + Kagome.
      • Have Noburi on standby during their major delves if they need additional supplies or healing/chakra for Neji.
        • Sorry Noburi, we know he's a pain, but we need them to succeed.
      • King Kamehameha has departed the Conclave. But send him a letter (fully vetted to maintain rune OPSEC) to implore him as the current human expert on the Dragons to -just for this mission- provide Neji with temporary contracts for his strongest warriors.
        • Include a briefing about the threats and challenges in the Caverns of Mild Peril. One of our Dogs was badly hurt by mental attacks there.
      • Depending on Neji's reserves he could get a mini-Summon Army going here. Make sure we have enough chakra drain missions to keep it going.
------------------------
This considerably over WC, I'll be back to trim it tonight and tomorrow. Suggestions welcome. Ping me here or Discord if you want changes.
Yoinking this Bear stuff and adding the super important and super interesting debriefing we need to do.

Seriously, even @eaglejarl says this meeting "looks like fun!"

We have a fair amount of word count so I'm more than willing to add in other things that people want. Just ping me.

[X] Action Plan: Runes and Boons and Bears OH MY!
Word Count: <300 words
  • Schedule a meeting with Naruto ASAP.
    • Sanity checks: MK
    • Address him formally, until told otherwise.
    • Clarify upfront the level of OPSEC required for this briefing.
    • Topics of discussion (brief Naruto as appropriate):
      • The Necromancy Race
        • Discuss briefing the Toad Sages and Tsunade
        • Overview current situation
      • DRAGONWAR/Great Rune Situation Developments (Orochimaru at Conclave, Hyena Accords, Lithosealing, Dragon Movement)
        • Confirm extent of his previously briefing of the situation.
        • As with Tsunade, maintain lithosealing Clan Secret stance.
        • Request permission to demonstrate lithosealing to the Toad Sages.
        • Request SC for Kagome.
      • Earthshaping & Konoha's Iron Situation
        • Later, we should begin exploring the immense economic oppurtunities for Konoha
        • Yes, this is our gemstone source
      • Make sure Naruto is still on-board with repatriating Mareo, as Asuma was.
  • Visit with Mareo and the Bears
    • Update him on everything that's happened. Akane, Asuma, Hazou's injury, the Conclave, the Dragons on the move.
      • Don't have an agenda: just talk to him, like he's our respected elder.
      • Maintain OPSEC. But share what you can.
    • We're going to ask Kumafuwafuwa to join the Crusade. Any advice?
    • Kumafuwafuwa
      • Would he join the Crusade?
      • Bring him up to speed if necessary - find out from Cannai what he knows.
      • Apologize for not reaching out earlier. We've had to cajole, convince, and wrangle self-interested, self-absorbed, and intractable Eastern Clans.
        • Implication: Bears are wise and thoughtful.
      • Bring up the possibility of moving Mareo's Seventh Path exit from Honey to Leaf to Kumafuwafuwa.
        • Optimize with Mari hard, this is sensitive and difficult conversation. Don't have it unless she's reasonably sure Kumafuwafuwa won't react badly.
      • We have things like world-class human doctors and creature comforts for him as he ages
      • We expect he'd still stay on the Seventh Path for the majority of the time.
  • Ask Tsunade about Mareo's age-related memory loss during one of our healing sessions.
    • Is this something she has any interest in treating or studying?
 
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Yoinking this Bear stuff and adding the super important and super interesting debriefing we need to do.

Seriously, even @eaglejarl says this meeting "looks like fun!"
"Hey, question," Hazō said, as he looked up from skimming the various incredibly grim documents Mari had prepared for him. "Just checking: Naruto is going to get briefed on the various top-secret events and problems that have come up recently, right? I don't need to get involved?"

Mari raised an eyebrow. "No, I can't imagine any reason why you would need to. Tsunade is there to brief him on everything she's got, and apart from various things I'm not cleared to speculate on, he's almost certainly going to learn about runes and the O'uzu rift. The only project I can imagine you'd need to brief him on is the Dragons, for which there was no one else really in charge. Even for that, Asuma definitely is going to have left tons of notes for his successor, so while Naruto might call you in to ask some questions to get a better sense of the situation, I doubt he's going to need you to do anything proactive."

"Okay. I just don't want to screw up our relationship with Naruto in any way," Hazō said, "so just double checking—I really don't need to do anything with respect to the various classified pies I've got my fingers in?"

"No, Hazō," Kei said. "While Leaf did not learn from the Fifth's inconveniently-timed death, the Collapse appears to have been enough for them to institute proper transition-of-power rules. In all affairs, OPSEC as previously maintained by Lord Seventh continues, until Lord Uzumaki specifically orders otherwise."

"Right, so that probably covers the rift, and runes, and the Dragons, and Earthshaping... But I can imagine one thing that Asuma plausibly wouldn't have committed to paper. Perhaps Naruto should be informed about that?"

"Assuming your incredibly vague implication is in reference to the affair of which only us three, Shikamaru, and the ANBU trio are aware," Kei said, glancing at the walls to confirm the placement of the privacy seals, "I counsel you in the strongest terms to never speak of it again. Not to any of us within the OPSEC compartment, and especially not to Naruto. I can foresee no positive outcome from spreading this information even to the Hokage, and varying levels of pessimism lead to a range of negative outcomes ranging from merely catastrophic to apocalyptic."

"I'm not sure, Kei," Hazō said, shooting a look at Mari. "Hiding important information from the Hokage sounds like the type of treason that's gotten us in a lot of trouble before."

"That's gotten you in a lot of trouble before," Mari said. "But I think Kei's right. There's basically nothing actionable that Naruto can do and a lot of potential downside. We spent a ton of effort getting him elected, so let's not make him the new shortest lived Hokage if Akatsuki come knocking, yeah? If Shikamaru and the ANBU decide to brief Naruto—which seems incredibly unlikely to me—then he'll also know you're in the know. If they decide not to brief Naruto, it'll be because that's what's best for Leaf. I'm sure Shikamaru would be glad to confirm and explain why expanding the OPSEC compartment here is unnecessary. It's not that what Naruto doesn't know can't hurt him; not knowing is keeping him and Leaf safe."

"Got it," Hazō said, as he stood to answer a knock at the door.
I see no reason why we need to have this conversation with Naruto after Mari and Kei literally told us we didn't need to.
 
[X] Action Plan: Happenings on the Paths


Do they know the substrate is for us? If they do not, do we care if they find out?
They are delivering it to Hazou as @RandomOTP said. I think that this is an acceptable amount of information to release given the stakes right now.
Unless this pans out with Tsunade (e.g. she says she can do something about it) or Ino (ditto) I would prefer to avoid saying anything about his mortality. It's going to be distressing for Kuma to think about and simultaneously, I expect that the attitude will be that he's had a good long life and when his time is up, that's it. The reality is that he's ancient for a ninja and honestly even a civilian. Unless we're sure we can significantly improve his quality of life, I don't think this is worth bringing up.

This is more like it. We know he likes the stuff we can get him and that he likes talking to us. We're companionship and he can play with the kids in Leaf. It's a meaningful QoL improvement.

If we can get Noburi to him (is there a Toad in Dog?) or almost any other Summoner, we can probably make a better case. We aren't enough human contact. Seeing another person delights him. It's solid evidence.

A bonus would be Ruri. She'll totally entertain his flirtations if she's warned and she's a pretty smooth talker.
I'll add a conditional statement about the Tsunade stuff etc. I'm not sure what you want in the plan about other Summoners? How does meeting other humans on the Seventh Path help us move him? It seems counterproductive to me.

But come up with a good suggested wording and I'll strongly consider adding it.
May want to remove this section. Aside from whether or not we actually have the funds to do this, outright stating it is a bit of a faux pas.

Ino knows Hazou, and knows how serious he can be. Ino will be able to tell how important this is to him, and Hazou has a history if going Pretty Damn Far.

Outright stating it is a bit mercenary, and reframes the question away from "do you have this thing" and towards an implicit "how much do you want for this thing?"

It's assuming the Yamanaka have it, which Mari herself was skeptical of. To paraphrase Mari: the Yamanaka would be wealthy beyond belief if they had a cure like that, or at the very least they'd be using it on their own people.

Yes, they know. Their orders from Tsunade were to deliver it to Hazou immediately upon retrieval via the 7th Path.

They don't know why Hazou needs it, but they likely know it is Very Important due to the expediency that the mission has then delivering the package to Hazou.
To be clear, just the "generous compensation" part? Not the Ino part too?
 
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