[Exalted] The Dragon's Spite

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[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.
 
Aleph said:
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.

Get him nice and deeply asleep, make sure he'll stay that way (maybe with a few quiet pressure points), and then figure out what the fuck is going on here, because something is up, and the risk of being caught is considerably less than the potential risk of letting him out of the spellwall without knowing what his deal is.

Rena has spent a century making pacts with fae princes. Rule one of which is: if you don't know all the terms, don't sign the deal. This alliance is dangerously weighted in his favour, and fools who break bread with chaos lords they are ignorant of don't end up lasting very long.
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^^ what Aleph said

Just because Sei wants us to be paranoid and distant from Zed doesn't mean there aren't things to be paranoid about.
I see [Seduction] Yes as pushing back against Sei's attempt to isolate us emotionally and socially and [Betrayal] Yes as just common sense tbh.


EarthScorpion said:
"Thank you for your help," you say, feeling somewhat more conscious than usual that your lower garments are water-stained, that you're dusty and sweaty, and you may also have set fire to his glade. Damn. You really do feel bad about getting off on a wrong footing with this divine being. You really hope it won't ruin your prospects with him. "Who do I have the honour to address?"

"The Gods of the earth and sea sought thro' Nature to find this tree," he says.

"Excuse me?" Another reference to your wood-blood. He must really like you.

"Forgive me; just a joke." He doesn't quite smile at you, but the corners of his mouth and the edge of his painted lips quirk up. "You can call me Zed. A guardian spirit for the Elemi - the last one who stands, still whole in body and mind. A failed warden."
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For what it's worth, the excerpt above where Zed quotes a line from The Human Abstract by Blake does not inspire confidence.
Specifically it's a line which appears to be a deeply cynical take on religion (and how its flaws arise from the minds that behold/conceive of it). In response to 'who are you', I can't think of any way to interpret it that doesn't have deeply disturbing connotations regarding his corruption or worse complicity with the demons here.


 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.
astergremlin said:
^^ what Aleph said

Just because Sei wants us to be paranoid and distant from Zed doesn't mean there aren't things to be paranoid about.
I see [Seduction] Yes as pushing back against Sei's attempt to isolate us emotionally and socially and [Betrayal] Yes as just common sense tbh.





For what it's worth, the excerpt above where Zed quotes a line from The Human Abstract by Blake does not inspire confidence.
Specifically it's a line which appears to be a deeply cynical take on religion (and how its flaws arise from the minds that behold/conceive of it). In response to 'who are you', I can't think of any way to interpret it that doesn't have deeply disturbing connotations regarding his corruption or worse complicity with the demons here.


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I can, but they all involve him being smug enough to believe humans can't comprehend a god such as himself, which isn't much better.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] No - You're going to try to avoid ruining things for yourself by letting paranoia consume you. He's still your only ally in this place, and all this trip will have been for nothing if you push him into breaking your contract. You need him right now. Questions are for later. (Proceed to working on breaking the Earth node of the spellwall)

Betrying Zed here is just too risky.

Later, when we have Blue and others as backup? Maybe then. But not here.

The mission has been a great success so far - We got a lot of loot and fullfilled the main objective (getting a god to power our spells).

Let's not mess it now.
 
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[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.

Look, just because they're a little suspicious is no reason to not want to fuck them.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] No - You're going to try to avoid ruining things for yourself by letting paranoia consume you. He's still your only ally in this place, and all this trip will have been for nothing if you push him into breaking your contract. You need him right now. Questions are for later. (Proceed to working on breaking the Earth node of the spellwall)
 
Broken25 said:
Betrying Zed here is just too risky.

Later, when we have Blue and others as backup? Maybe then. But not here.
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On the other hand, letting him out of the spellwall when he clearly wants very badly to leave and has a bunch of red flags is risky as well. We have no idea what this guy is planning, and as soon as he's loose, we can't put him back in the box and don't know what he'll spring on us. Can Blue take him in a fight? Maybe. But if he bolts as soon as the spellwall comes down, Blue might not get the chance - and at that point we've let the genie out of the bottle with no control over what he'll do to the city we live in. A city, I note, which seems to have been fairly involved in the downfall of the House he served, and which he may bear any number of grudges against. If he does, and he gets drastic about it, we're very much inside the potential splash zone.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.

If we're going to release an evil being sealed in ancient times for power, we better have an idea of what he can do.

Also:
EarthScorpion said:
When you inspect their flower-signatures, all of them have the same gorse-and-heather nature which means they are all servants of the same demon-king.

...

You glance at the walls. There's some signs of violence here, but not much. Zed must have ambushed them when they were asleep, and the violence is more around the dead bodies. The ones he only crippled must have been asleep. When they woke, he found it harder to strike to maim.
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This is super sus! Everything in this temple is corrupted, even the demons, exept Zed isn't. All the gathered demons serve the same king, and there are few traces of violence on them but more on the corpses. I bet that Zed has autority on them, which would explain the ease of their capture. The extra marks on the dead ones were done post-mortem to fool us.
 
A thought.

EarthScorpion said:
The god opens a door in the air upon the altar, and leads you through. The room on the other side is made from the same humble brickwork, but there are touches to it which show it has survived better. There are creature comforts here, and unlike the sanctum in the flooded temple there are not the marks of abandonment. Someone has lived here. But the damage is still clear, with the paintings ruined and slashed just like their counterparts in the outer world, and one of the great doors with no counterpoint in the real world has been chained shut with thick iron locks.

"Do not go in there," he instructs you, following your eyes. "There is a demon lord chained within - not something I could slay or banish, but something I could trick. And I doubt it would fall for that again." He collapses down into a chair, holding his shade tightly, and runs his other hand through his floppy hair.
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Zed has told us that there's a demon lord chained in here. Do we know for sure that he's telling the truth? Rena's tasted his essence and found it divine, without hint of corruption or taint... but there are ways to hide such things, disguise one's nature, wear veils of false seeming to the occult eye. And Rena's essence-sight is good, but not infallible.

Do we have any sure confirmation that Zed is, in fact, a god who sealed a demon lord, and not the other way around?
 
Aleph said:
Do we have any sure confirmation that Zed is, in fact, a god who sealed a demon lord, and not the other way around?
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More like the opposite, I'm very sure its the other way around, the evidence seems to support him being the demon.
The fae touched god Rena killed claimed the demons' master was free. The demon that tried to hypnotize Rena, acted like their master was free. The devotional tapestries Rena saw when she got in, showed a god of vermin, and Zed claimed he sealed a demon lord of vermin. Zed isn't any of the gods on the devotional tapestries.
There are more, but these are the most relevant.
 
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[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.
 
Aleph said:
A thought.


Zed has told us that there's a demon lord chained in here. Do we know for sure that he's telling the truth? Rena's tasted his essence and found it divine, without hint of corruption or taint... but there are ways to hide such things, disguise one's nature, wear veils of false seeming to the occult eye. And Rena's essence-sight is good, but not infallible.

Do we have any sure confirmation that Zed is, in fact, a god who sealed a demon lord, and not the other way around?
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Does it necessarily matter to Rena whether she is dealing with a God or Demon? Her goal was simply to acquire a supernatural patron and Zed seems like he would be a great fit regardless of his ultimate intentions or nature. It is not as if Rena is a particularly strong adherent of the Celestial Order or has displayed any past unwillingness to deal with a great Enemy of Creation. Acquiring a Demon Lord as a patron or ally would represent a break from her past behavior only in that she is dealing with a creature of Malfeas rather than the Wyld. The desires and goals of a Demon Lord arise from a different foundation than those of Prince of Chaos but they are ultimately similar in their divergence from conventional morality. A sorceress with a long history of dealing with the Princes of Chaos should not face any insurmountable obstacles in her dealings with a weakened and friendly Demon Lord who owes her a major favor.

Even if Zed does decide to embark on some kind of belated revenge on the remnants of Cazhador in the name of the fallen Elemi or its own thwarted Pride as a Demon Lord that would not necessarily interfere with Rena's long term goals. Rena doesn't want to start a new life as a member of the Cazhador Nobility or be the hero who saves this fallen land from its ruinous decline. She simply wants to scavenge the remains of a fallen civilization to acquire mystical and financial resources that can be leveraged to create a new life of power and luxury somewhere else. Her plans will have to be altered if Zed becomes a powerful new enemy to the rotting status quo of Cazhador but that will not necessarily be a bad thing. Conflict can provide opportunities and Rena could potentially profit just as much from scavenging the ruins of a recent fallen civilization as an old one.
 
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[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.

Something does not add up.
 
[X] [Betrayal] No - You're going to try to avoid ruining things for yourself by letting paranoia consume you. He's still your only ally in this place, and all this trip will have been for nothing if you push him into breaking your contract. You need him right now. Questions are for later. (Proceed to working on breaking the Earth node of the spellwall)
 
Ct613hulu said:
Does it necessarily matter to Rena whether she is dealing with a God or Demon?
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Yeah Rena isn't nearly as experienced with demons and she even says she doesn't understand their worldview and doesn't care to learn more in a previous update. (When she's reminiscing about the tales of Creations history told by the Fey)

Her contract likely doesn't include safeguards against direct or indirect action against her whenever she considered them unnecessary based on her understanding of their relative strength.
Also, even if we decide to go through with freeing Zed if he turns out to be a demon lord we certainly don't want to do it without knowing that he is one.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.

in gothic literature the brooding dudes with secrets are nnnnnnever to be trusted
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.

Betraying him just seems more in character.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] No - You're going to try to avoid ruining things for yourself by letting paranoia consume you. He's still your only ally in this place, and all this trip will have been for nothing if you push him into breaking your contract. You need him right now. Questions are for later. (Proceed to working on breaking the Earth node of the spellwall)



Rena's alone and her only form of backup is Sei, the risks aren't worth it before a way out of this situation exists.
 
[X] [Seduction] No - You don't trust him fully, so you want to keep your distance. Despite that gorgeous 'brooding poet' style he has.
[X] [Betrayal] No - You're going to try to avoid ruining things for yourself by letting paranoia consume you. He's still your only ally in this place, and all this trip will have been for nothing if you push him into breaking your contract. You need him right now. Questions are for later. (Proceed to working on breaking the Earth node of the spellwall)
.
 
Okay, for all those voting against Betray, I'm going to ask you to address the arguments made by the pro-betray side. Not in the sense of "working with demons is fine, okay", because the fact of the matter is that Rena isn't sure he is a demon yet: she doesn't know. All she knows is that he is lying to her, there are an increasing number of red flags around his general behaviour, and she is therefore proposing to make a pact with and walk into a small army gathered outside by a rival scavenger alongside a spirit who is deliberately and intentionally deceiving her to some unknown purpose for unknown reasons with unclear goals.

This is not a situation Rena should let lie, because it is a situation that gets you killed when you do it with chaos lords.

People talking about the risks are exclusively over-concerned with "what if we get caught" and are entirely dismissing the myriad of ways this set-up should be setting off Bad News Bears. If we find out he is a demon lord, then fine. Sure. Then we can have the discussion about whether Rena cares enough about that to make an issue of it. But "might be a demon" is far from the only issue at the moment; he's far too sane for hundreds of years locked inside an element-blasted estate, he's got something horrible locked in his sanctum that we're pretty sure he's lied to Rena's face about and which may or may not stay in there when the spellwall comes down, he's refusing to even tell Rena his name, he might be a sorcerer himself - these are all things that can fuck us over much worse and in much longer-term ways than him getting snooty about her exercising frankly very reasonable mistrust given how little he's done to reassure her (a fact she can and will use to counter any accusations he throws at her if he wakes up and catches her at it - which is a big if).

Nobody on the "Don't Betray" side has even really tried to counter the voices going "okay, but this guy is clearly pulling some kind of con, has lied to use repeatedly and is using us as a patsy to escape: why are we trusting him?", which I find bizarre given that the last time Rena let her guard down and wasn't paranoid enough she lost her entire everything and almost died.
 
[X] [Seduction] Yes - You don't trust him fully, and so you need another hook into him. And he is handsome in that 'brooding poet' way.
[X] [Betrayal] Yes - Fundamentally you've got too many suspicions to put them aside. He's hiding something from you. He's been here too long, or… or something! Things just don't quite add up.
 
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