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Glory of the Emerald Empire (Legend of the 5 Rings Quest)

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I don't think we need to do more than 'Hai' myself. Trying to talk the goods to the Crane is likely not a great plan

Hai shows that we back him up and we've already established our credentials.

If they want more make them ask so it doesn't feel like we're trying to blunder them into submission plus I really don't trust the dice, but whatever.
 
The leading vote has way, way too many words. If we're lucky, our boss will shut us up. If we're unlucky, the Crane will pick it apart and make us look like a complete fool.

The fact is, outside the context of storytelling- where we were intending to evoke emotion through lengthy speech and it would have been very poor form to interrupt order to nitpick- words are our enemy. We have to use them, obviously, but every sentence we say is built of parts that the Crane might be able to seize upon and pick apart, objecting to tiny bits of what we're saying until the overall point is completely lost in meaningless debated garbage. And if we're particularly unlucky, she'll spin things in a way that will force us to make even more Brash rolls- and we could completely piss away our performance thus far if we fail one of those.

On the other hand, retreating to one-word answers is an obvious total social withdrawal- a safe and conservative play, yes, but also a show of social weakness, in that it implicitly admits that we don't think we can handle further serious conversation. This is undesirable because by referencing us directly our boss has clearly expected us to display competence, and if we nope out we're forcing him to cover for us and making his error in judgement of our capabilities apparent to everyone at the table.

So what we need to do here is catch the verbal ball that Yasuki Goro has passed us, and immediately pass it on to someone on our side who is better able to capitalize on the opportunity without showing weakness- in this case, probably not Yasuki himself as he did send it our way, but the Scorpion should be a safe choice. Of course, to pass it to him we need to give him an opening that he can smoothly respond to, preferably something where he can advance his own goals as well as ours.

So what does the Scorpion want? My best guess is that his interest in this matter is in line with Bayushi Chisata's stated intentions during our post-battle audience with her; she believed that where there was a single Lost there were likely to be more, and wanted the support of the other Clans in searching for and rooting out potential infiltration in their lands, on the assumption that they would have been as vulnerable to corruption as her own. So let's emphasize the Scorpion's competence in their handling of the matter and the ease with which subtle threats can spread, and hope they can take it from there.

[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."


It's not perfect, but it hits a lot of the same points as the more wordy option while leaving more of its points implicit instead of saying them outright, and lightening up on the details. We don't really need to go "this is all part of a huge plot!" or go into the exact appearance of the tainted; we can rely on the highly competent Crab and Scorpion courtiers here to pick up on whatever gaps we leave unsaid points in and fill in whatever of them are more beneficial. In fact, we want those gaps to be there specifically so that they can focus the flow of conversation; if we need to say more, they'll give us a prompt to provide statements on whatever selected facts are needed to back them up.

Basically, we're not the courtier here; let the courtiers take point. At this point we're there to assist them, nothing more.
 
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[x] "Hai"

Goro is good enough to prompt us on if he wants more and after the story we just gave we're allowed to act a little reserved.
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[7] "Hai"
- gman391, Dovahsith, Simonbob, Skybreaker, Joyful_Overkill, Da Boyz, Robotninja

[1] "Give a summary..."
- TheSandman

[10] Plan Sirrocco
- Sirrocco, Dirtnap, Seventeen, a103, Eliar, Archanist, Bastur2, Hydroplatypus, Felius, EtchedSteel,

[5] Plan Darklight140
- Darklight140, bookwyrm, KainDulac, Dromon, The king Chad

Got curious enough about the running numbers to hand-count, figured others might be interested as well. I'd personally rather not go with just "Hai" - Yasuki Goro wouldn't have handed us the ball if he didn't want something out of us - but Darklight140's plan is pretty solid. If it had been there already when I went to vote, I suspected I would have voted for it.
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."

This'll work. I'm leery of the long write-in, especially with little miss Crane watching us like a great cat about to pounce on the slightest weakness. Something needs to be said more than just agreement, but I don't want to just agree y'know?
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."

Dark brought up a good point, in that right now isn't the time for long speeches, and attempting to punt the ball to the scorpion's court seems like a good use of our time. Changing my vote.
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."

lets ee what we will see then.
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."
 
[x] "Yes, I was. It was horrifying that a single Lost could spread his taint so quickly to so many, yet their unnatural prowess could not stand before the discipline of Scorpion bushi. He himself had terrible strength, enough to fling me clear across the room with a single hit, but he faced those who knew their duty. I am simply glad he was located before he could carry out his orders further."

Still kinda wordy but closer to the sweet spot
 
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