EarthScorpion: OK, so Rathan has an action he will be doing, and a request to make of Keris.
EarthScorpion: His major action will be to, with Oula's aid, summon/create around 100 demons to be his workforce.
EarthScorpion: The request is for something to enable his minor action. He needs someone in Saata (probably Elly, he mentions in the IM) to obtain a list of things Oula has provided with him as repair components. He will also need the Baisha to help ship the marble, raw ingredients, etc over to the site as it can be both stealthy and move heavy stone
These two actions are to fulfil the scarcity of the repair project
Aleph: Yeah, just considering. Hmm. Keris is reluctant to commit the Baisha to haulage - she was planning to have it do some herding of Zu Tak ships towards Ca Map. She will... mm, allow it, but tell him to try not to let the Priest know he's not a Hellish demon, and also to get Neride in a state of "eager to prove herself on combat missions again after her fuckup". Hmm. We... actually kind of forgot about the Baisha for nearly two years, so we can assume that it has in fact been doing anti-Zu-Tak patrols, just with orders to be cautious and pick off inidividual ships rather than trying for large raiding parties (eg: they have been attacking the Dead, but Keris doesn't trust them not to wreck her ship again).
EarthScorpion: Yeah, you can ret-action that back in in 772, for example
Aleph: Yeah, so it's been supporting Testolagh in
his actions and doing minor anti-Zu-Tak stuff, but Keris hasn't trusted Neride with major missions on her own yet.
Aleph: I'm thinking that if Rathan can get her particularly eager to prove herself again, it can try to herd some Zu Tak raiders into the teeth of Triumphant Air and get the Realm deciding that these cannibal pirates are getting far too cocky.
EarthScorpion: They don't tend to go that far north, and it does have limited capacity to "herd".
Aleph: Hmm. Well, for now they can play hauler. we'll see about strategy when Neride comes asking to do big girl missions again.
<hilariously poor rolls on the Baisha's part>
Aleph: oh ffs
Aleph: Does she at least get bonus successes from having a demonic magical nuclear submarine?
EarthScorpion: Well this was more about hunting them down. The problem is finding their hide-outs in hurricane season.
Aleph: Because if she
tied with a bunch of raft-sailing- ah. Sigh.
Aleph: Well, I guess that answers why she hasn't had any new important missions.
Aleph: She keeps having to report "um, we didn't succeed very well" to an increasibly unimpressed Director of the Lower South-West. And is in fact probably getting very nervous about her job and not incidentally her life.
Aleph: (the poor crew is probably taking the brunt of her rising stress levels)
EarthScorpion: And then roll me the same pool, at Diff 3, for Air.
<more terrible rolls on the Baisha's part>
Aleph: for fuck's sake, Neride
EarthScorpion: Yeah she finds a major war party, and then loses it in a magical storm called up by weather-witches. All she gets is small scattered pickings
Aleph: Keris, flatly: "So you discovered a major force concentration of the raft-dwelling scum I am employing you to hunt down... and then lost them. In the peerless warship I gave you, made by the hand of Lord Ligier himself. Dare I ask if you damaged it further, or did you manage to limit your incompetence this time?"
Neride: "We were blown off-course by the storm, but undamaged, my lady."
Keris: "My patience is growing thin, Captain Neride. This is two disappointments you've offered me. You still have your post, but if I might suggest?
Don't give me a third."
EarthScorpion: Poor Keris. She's surrounded by idiots.
Aleph:
Aleph: Anyway, yes, this definitely justifies putting her on haulage duty for Rathan for a season.
Keris: "I'm trusting that even you can't find a way to fuck up moving rocks."
Keris: "Rathan, be nice and supportive to her and say you'll intercede with me to give her another chance and... just generally get her really, really determined to do well with whatever I task her with next. One more big screw-up and I'll have to replace her."
...
EarthScorpion: OK, so Eko is tagging out with Vali. She wants to spend time around her little sister while she's still cute and non-lewd and make sure she's raised right, and meanwhile Vali wants to hang out with uncle Ali, learn some mortal smithing, and get to do things up in Zen Daiwye. He wants to get to start building a place for the family to stay when they go up to Zen Daiwye.
Aleph: Ooo, yes, okay. Keris will give him all the notes and sketches she took of the family forge in Baisha and the waterwheel, and tell him to have fun.
EarthScorpion: I mean, this being Vali, he's thinking a bit bigger in scale - not just for Ali's family, but for the main Kerisclan. But yes, if Keris wants them to be beside the river, he'll try to find a place for that.
Aleph: Yeah, but he and Calesco are sort of Keris's Taira-linked souls (although Vali is also one of the Nexan ones along with Haneyl and Eko), and the waterwheel and general architectural style is something he might want to mimic.
EarthScorpion: Yeah. OK, right, so roll me 10 dice at diff 2 for Vali finding a good site and getting the ground work in place (like roads to carry in the resources, etc) as his major action.
<okay rolls>
EarthScorpion: Cool, so Vali's found a really nice little rocky island in the middle of the river which isn't too marshy, and he's planning to build on that, and he's got some dirt tracks in place.
EarthScorpion: Now roll me 11 dice at Diff 2 for him helping out in Zen Daiwye to free up some labour.
<more okay rolls>
Aleph: Good boy!
EarthScorpion: Vali runs around the place ploughing fields by pulling the ploughs himself and lifting massive fallen boulders off people's fields and generally being easy to mistake from a distance for Hercules. Basically, he does enough work in that minor action that he can get 20 or so people in Earth to be Followers 2 to help him, by reducing everyone else's workload
Aleph: hee~
EarthScorpion: OK, so for Rathan, roll me Cog 5 + Occult 4 + Malfean Scholar Style 1 for his bulk summoning. This is Diff 3 as he's a demon lord (and so some of the demons he's making rather than summoning) and has Oula to help.
<excellent rolls>
Aleph: hey hey hey, our first above-average roll!
EarthScorpion: OK, so he's got the large workforce.
EarthScorpion: Then, for Elly, she's taking a minor action to handle this and launder the funds, etc, and conceal the purchases and get them to a port where the Baisha can acquire them. Some of these things are somewhat hard to get, so it's Diff 4. On the other hand this is basically what she's made for, so she has 4 + 5 + 3 + 1 = 13 dice.
<solid success>
Aleph: nice
Aleph: I love how Keris's native demons are just
Aleph: so much better at getting shit done, apparently
EarthScorpion: Oh, and for Rathan, roll me... sigh, 13 dice and 2 auto-successes at Diff 4 for "motivating but also intimidating Neride".
<hilariously successful roll>
Aleph: lol
EarthScorpion: He is, as usual, terrifyingly convincing.
EarthScorpion: Keris why are your demons so competent compared to everyone else.
Aleph: Keris: "The power of family!" : 3
EarthScorpion: OK, so Haneyl spends a bunch of time playing with, but also being greatly annoyed by Eko.
Aleph: So not really any different to before she was chibified.
EarthScorpion: However she also spends her minor action having an existential crisis because of memories creeping back in from her older self, remembering thinking differently to how she thinks now, and working herself up into a panic that she's going to stop existing when Older Her comes back.
Aleph: ... : (
EarthScorpion: Eko is...
<surprisingly good roll>
EarthScorpion: ... actually pretty helpful.
Aleph: Huh, really?
Aleph: ... impressive.
Aleph: (Still probably shouldn't quit her day job to play therapist.)
EarthScorpion: Like, Haneyl doesn't understand a lot of her explanations, but the fact that Eko seems to understand what's going to happen and that she's not losing her adorable little imouto-san and she wants Haneyl to remember being so ickle and adorbs helps reassure her.
