[Exalted, ?] Most High

Regarding that plan, what do you guys intend to do if Ayala stays after losing to Polemgaos (assuming she loses)?



You guys do have meta information on Ayala. Within ~a year of now in the Odyssey, she was a Solar Circle Sorceror.

You don't know whether Hell would be a greater or lesser threat than the Wyld Hunt. You could ask Nilul what she thinks...
My logic on that is they can't do anything that is too overpowered or unsubtle while pretending to be Dragonbloods in the immediate future and getting reinforcements to fuck us up beyond what is already here would take some time to get through Ceceylne and back. Similarly we kind of have the Realm as ablative armor against more overt attempts to fuck with us by hell.

This means either they have to spend a lot of time finding way to bypass those issues making them a long term problem or they limit themselves to cloak and dagger bullshit.

Knowing that she is a Solar Sorceror in a year means that she is very good but it also suggests that she is both good enough at combat to get into the tournament and has heavy sorcery investment. Being good at both is going to take a lot of xp and charm slots which suggest she isn't going to be focused in awareness or investigation which are what we don't want her to have right now. Sorcery is many dangerous things but subtle isn't one of them which suggests we aren't going to have to deal with it right now except in previously made workings.

Hell is a great threat in the long term but at the moment they aren't here to fuck with us personally and they probably aren't specialized in the ways that would be needed to realize what Nilul is. Also how certain are we that they would care if they noticed. I know the ED told them to look out for her but do they actually care what their bosses runaway daughter is doing enough to risk their other projects?

As for Nilul's fear she is a teenage girl who ran away from home and hid behind someone powerful because she is afraid of her parents. Of course she is going to panic when she sees their agents and identify them as a great threat. She is very good at what she does but she is young and inexperienced outside of her specialties. That isn't to says she is wrong but that she isn't really capable of being objective on the matter.
 
You're presently at 230,600 Normal and 18,200 Solar XP. This is after spending 440,000 Solar XP on various stuff since last update. There will be an XP Bonus for the Next 2 days; Double XP, because I think you guys might need it.
 
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My logic on that is they can't do anything that is too overpowered or unsubtle while pretending to be Dragonbloods in the immediate future

How much overpowered stuff can you do while pretending to be a Dragon-Blood? Their disguise Charms aren't any worse than yours. It definitely would not be a good idea to underestimate your enemies, especially when you know so little. The costs of overestimation are usually much lower.

and getting reinforcements to fuck us up beyond what is already here would take some time to get through Ceceylne and back. Similarly we kind of have the Realm as ablative armor against more overt attempts to fuck with us by hell.

This means either they have to spend a lot of time finding way to bypass those issues making them a long term problem or they limit themselves to cloak and dagger bullshit.

That may be the case, or Nilul may know something that makes those assumptions invalid.

Knowing that she is a Solar Sorceror in a year means that she is very good but it also suggests that she is both good enough at combat to get into the tournament and has heavy sorcery investment. Being good at both is going to take a lot of xp and charm slots which suggest she isn't going to be focused in awareness or investigation which are what we don't want her to have right now.

Fei Ling, her "mortal retainer," is also a Scourge Caste Infernal and master assassin.

Sorcery is many dangerous things but subtle isn't one of them which suggests we aren't going to have to deal with it right now except in previously made workings.

Mmm, Sorcery can be subtle. Disguise of the New Face, Peacock Shadow Eyes, etc.

Hell is a great threat in the long term but at the moment they aren't here to fuck with us personally and they probably aren't specialized in the ways that would be needed to realize what Nilul is. Also how certain are we that they would care if they noticed. I know the ED told them to look out for her but do they actually care what their bosses runaway daughter is doing enough to risk their other projects?

You aren't certain of their motivations, it's just a risk. However, IC the only motivation you know of is to look for Nilul and do whatever vague shit Infernals do in their spare time.

As for Nilul's fear she is a teenage girl who ran away from home and hid behind someone powerful because she is afraid of her parents. Of course she is going to panic when she sees their agents and identify them as a great threat. She is very good at what she does but she is young and inexperienced outside of her specialties. That isn't to says she is wrong but that she isn't really capable of being objective on the matter.

So you don't intend to ask her? Is that wise, especially since you have already analyzed the biases?

Could a single Title encompass all three Circles of Sorcery?

Regardless of the distribution, it would cost 150,000 Normal XP either way. You'd need E5 for Solar Circle Sorcery, though.
 
Regardless of the distribution, it would cost 150,000 Normal XP either way. You'd need E5 for Solar Circle Sorcery, though.
I know you can't use Supernal Occult to get it, but I was wondering if you could use BPA to get it. And I wasn't trying to get them cheaply, I just liked the idea of one (no doubt cool sounding) Title giving the key to the cosmos.
 
I know you can't use Supernal Occult to get it, but I was wondering if you could use BPA to get it. And I wasn't trying to get them cheaply, I just liked the idea of one (no doubt cool sounding) Title giving the key to the cosmos.

It would probably give you Solar Circle Sorcery, but you wouldn't be able to get the free spell, since that would have an E5 requirement. Maybe if you committed both BPA charges, but that means no Aegis of Invincible Might or God-King's Shrike.
 
Well, it looks like we're kicking around a few beginning plans; can we get some preliminary coherence by merging synergistic plans into write-ins?
 
It would probably give you Solar Circle Sorcery, but you wouldn't be able to get the free spell, since that would have an E5 requirement. Maybe if you committed both BPA charges, but that means no Aegis of Invincible Might or God-King's Shrike.
I'm not that interested in Sorcery for the spells, so I probably wouldn't want to miss out on one of those charms for one (We'd have to have some way of buying the Control spell later, though). I'm interested in Sorcery for its themes and aesthetics (knowing the secrets behind reality and then making it your bitch), of which Workings tie into more anyway. Plus it has some pretty cool practical benefits (my first write-in for a Solar Working will be transmuting our body into Magical Materials. I don't know if that's acceptable, but the freeform nature of Workings is quite cool).
 
I don't recommend getting Solar Circle before E5, the system isn't designed to accommodate it and it would be glitchy as fuck from a mechanical perspective.

my first write-in for a Solar Working will be transmuting our body into Magical Materials

That would probably severely reduce your long-term growth potential, if it were possible. I don't think you can generate 5MM more XP-efficiently than Wyld Shaping Method allows, regardless, though Ulyssian certainly can use Workings to buff himself in various ways. Unless you're saying that Odyssial's body parts and flesh would count as magical materials for purposes of making Artifacts, which is quite possible.
 
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Hm... having reviewed what's been written so far, it seems like we don't really have a coherent plan or even set of competing plans. The closest we've got is

Stay Here and Send Nilul Away - Which you really should ask her whether she's even willing to do that; her initial response seemed to be no, but was only implied - likely you'd need to convince her that leaving without you is safe, or take measures to ensure it is;

Stay Here No Matter What She Thinks - Consequences will be pretty obvious, I think;

Send Polemgaos and Ayala Against Each Other
- Popular, but has no contingency if Ayala loses and simply chooses to stay, or wins, and doesn't discuss what Nilul does in the meantime;

Assassinate Ayala and Fei Ling - Not really directly brought up, but it's at least coherent. You just try to stealth assassinate the two of them immediately, while disguised.

Throw Against Polemgaos - You won't get a chance to hit E4, but you'd be able to leave with a good excuse. Just have to make sure he doesn't catch you throwing, or at least give a credible ulterior motive for throwing that he would buy. Maybe using Vaela as a vector?

If you need any more information to construct a plan or make a decision, you can still ask Nilul. Currently we don't have a clear way forward.
 
I think in order of preference I support:
Fight Polemgaos.
Polemgaos vs Ayala.
Send Nilul away.

In my opinion we haven't been given any information significant enough to override the reasoning behind our previous course of action. We should keep on our path and fight Polemgaos.
 
We could try winning against Polemgaos with sufficient damage to drop out. Even if we lose, he won't think we threw the match.

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Hm, a major issue with the "fight Polemgaos and win but take damage" plan is that if Polemgaos actually manages to hit you, it will likely be for massive damage. You can sort of control how much damage you take with Heavenly Guardian Defense, but this actually makes the fight WAY harder than you, because you would need to let him not be Crashed. The fight would be like, 200% harder. Maybe 400%.
 
I think in order of preference I support:
Fight Polemgaos.
Polemgaos vs Ayala.
Send Nilul away.

In my opinion we haven't been given any information significant enough to override the reasoning behind our previous course of action. We should keep on our path and fight Polemgaos.

What do you intend for Nilul to do while you fight Polemgaos? Do you have a plan to calm her down and/or ensure her safety?

If you intend to send her away, do you have a plan to convince her to go without you?
 
Does Nilul need to be present as our second, or can she be elsewhere. If she does not need to be present, she can disguise as someone else, so even if the infernals spot here, they won't connect her to Nilul.

Also, do we have any method of swiftly contacting Zao. He could arrange for an emergency that requires us to go back.
 
What do you intend for Nilul to do while you fight Polemgaos? Do you have a plan to calm her down and/or ensure her safety?

If you intend to send her away, do you have a plan to convince her to go without you?
Regardless of whether she stays or goes she should be disguised as someone unimportant. We'll have to make sure to emphasise that this is a temporary stealth measure, as opposed to the hiding lifestyle she dreads.

Mention that we've already layed out the agreement: we do the killy stuff, she does the talky stuff, and talky stuff isn't likely to work on these guys. Also (as it fits her worldview) mention that we have a vested interest in making them not report on our Ody-ness.
 
As we're asking questions for Nilul: Given her knowledge of Ulyssian's general capacities as well as the theoretical ones of the Infernals better than Ulyssian: is assassinating them both relatively possible/easy? Also is it within her capacity to handle the social and temporal repercussions of such an act? Given they may already know things she wouldn't want them to and may thus need killing in the immediate future.
 
I'm against assassinating the Infernals; whatever the risks of their continued existence, Ayala is a member of House Mnemon, so if we kill them... well. An investigation would be launched, and Syn would probably use that to discredit us or get us killed, as Mnemon has close ties to the Order. It's not a good situation, really. Pitting Polemgaus against Ayala is probably the best idea, hit two birds with one stone, but it's difficult.
 
Speaking of Anys Syn, I'm just going to note that the last quest showed that she absolutely hates the Yozi and their servants. Guess what we just found a pair of?

Not sure there's a good way of using this right now, though.
 
Hmm. I'm not sure how to accomplish it, but could we maybe fabricate or cause something that would make them withdraw themselves, without drawing attention to ourselves? Maybe a rumour about something that would be more urgent to their agenda and require their personal attention elsewhere? But we aren't completely sure about what their agenda even is...
 
One method to go about this would be combining two methods: Arrange the match between the Infernal and Polemgaos, and after the match assassinate the two Infernals after the other is (likely) exhausted/injured from fighting one of the top DBs alive. Not sure if we should do this even in the case they would be otherwise leaving, but it might be worth it to weaken our opposition. While suspicious for both the DBs and the Hell, it could be masked as just politics/cheating, depending on how the match goes.

Also, could we send a coded message to Zao and/or Ivory in the case Nilul doesn't leave to carry information to them?
 
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