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Hellfire. The Muscovite smirks and barks like a dog. "The Tsar's hounds are keen, my lord. We no longer wear the black or carry dogs' heads, but — you are missing six men from your little parade, and we are missing one cavalryman with cousins in your Lithuania."
These guys are secret police, or at least their leader is.

I don't think appealing to authority will help us here - they are the Tsar's men, they are the law here.
A bribe may work, but they may turn out to be loyal. 50/50 guess, I'd say.
I think they are prepared for our retreat. That felled tree suggests we walked into an ambush.
Fighting them is a risk - they may have over-dressed to conceal their weapons and armor - but our people may be able to handle it.

So it's bribe or fight. Classic Russia.

[X] "This wagon here is worth as much as a village of serfs. Care to take a look, sirs?"

Following up on our latest confession, I want to try to kill less.
 
[X] "This wagon here is worth as much as a village of serfs. Care to take a look, sirs?"

Wouldn't be a trip to Russia if you weren't shaken down on the exit. So far this has been a pretty painless endeavor, so let's grease some wheels and ensure it stays that way.
 
[X] Whistle loudly and draw your carbine. "Whatever this is, stop it. Make way. Now."

I would only bribe our way out if we wouldn't have the possibility of out-muscling the Muscovites. While greasing the wheels has a long tradition here, so does the iron fist of the stronger party. We are not some poor serfs, that can be bullied into submission.
 
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[X] Whistle loudly and draw your carbine. "Whatever this is, stop it. Make way. Now."

If they wanted a bribe, they'd wink wink nudge nudge.
 
[X] Whistle loudly and draw your carbine. "Whatever this is, stop it. Make way. Now."
 
[X] "This wagon here is worth as much as a village of serfs. Care to take a look, sirs?"
 
[X] Whistle loudly and draw your carbine. "Whatever this is, stop it. Make way. Now."

I would only bribe our way out if we wouldn't have the possibility of out-muscling the Muscovites. While greasing the wheels has a long tradition here, so does the iron fist of the stronger party. We are not some poor serfs, that can be bullied into submission.
My argument for avoiding violence with a bribe is that it is closer to our fulfilling our
confessor's instructions on how to better follow our Christian faith by sinning less. Even though avarice is also a mortal sin, murder is the original mortal sin. So even though we will take a hit to our pride and still lead men into temptation, we will at least avoid murdering them, which means we will sin less in this situation and that is the Catholic thing to do.

Our operation may also benefit from not leaving corpses of the Tsar's men in our wake.

If this reads like a shitpost, it's not my intent. I'm doing my best to interpret faith as an agnostic.
 
My argument for avoiding violence with a bribe is that it is closer to our fulfilling our
confessor's instructions on how to better follow our Christian faith by sinning less. Even though avarice is also a mortal sin, murder is the original mortal sin. So even though we will take a hit to our pride and still lead men into temptation, we will at least avoid murdering them, which means we will sin less in this situation and that is the Catholic thing to do.

Our operation may also benefit from not leaving corpses of the Tsar's men in our wake.

If this reads like a shitpost, it's not my intent. I'm doing my best to interpret faith as an agnostic.
The morality of the men back then was different.

Killing others, while a sin, was far more acceptable socially than today. Death was way more prevalent for the Average Joe. Like I mentioned before, for some people killing a man was a smaller sin, than breaking a fast.

As for corpses... well, since they actually went with the trouble of finding us, I would say that the gig is up. There is really no guarantee, than some of those men won't spill the beans when they return back home, therefore it's a waste of money trying to bribe such an amount of people.
 

Scheduled vote count started by Rolman on Mar 31, 2024 at 11:04 AM, finished with 24 posts and 18 votes.
 
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