Let's go in order:
First, sorry but when I put Crane I wanted to write Crab.
See, that is not what I got. When we went for the investigate action, we asked the question:
"Is this letter a forgery?" That is all. Determining that did not involve us burning it. I suppose we might not find anything new, but is it really that big an ask to make the attempt? It costs us one afternoon and might tell us something usefull.
The problem is that we don't have anything to get from it.
We have one letter that can be used as a base.
And one letter that was coded.
We get from the letter that it was a forgery, and that it was probably the act of an enemy of all.
We can't discover who wrote the letter (not enough information) or when it was written (not enough information) at most, we can get a better feel for the code used in it.
And for that, we can use our resources and let our pet spy brake the code and give the contents and the Cypher to us. No need to use one action on it.
We have minions, let use then.
Also, anything that could be get from the letter will be got from all the Scorpions in all the courts around the empire, as our information goes around.
Unless our meeting with Chen or with Otomo bring us more information, the letter is not something that we should spend actions on.
Kata training is important. It should help with our main mission, make the Matsu happy with us. They praise skill in battle. Taking training seriously will be seen as a plus.
We already got an in with the Magistrates, an embassy and our Lord has an in with the Matsu Lord. If we don't bring shame to our delegation, we already got all we wanted. Anything more is a plus.
On this, we don't need to compete on all tests, we can skip this and the Archery ones and do our best to improve our social skills.
Also Bastur? While we might get along OK with the Local Crane, the Crane and the Scorpion are rivals at court at large. I am not sure how much they would want to trade with us, and the Phenix lands are on the other side of the Lion from us. Not sure what it would be worth to trade with them.
sorry again, as I told I meant to say Crab and not Crane.
What we can get from the least member of their delegation is very little and not worth the effort at this time, as he doesn't have the authority to broker any deals with us in exchange for protection.
Also, where did you get the idea that I was looking for wagers? I was looking for commercial intrests between ourselves and the Crab, our neighbours who we share the biggest border with.
Sorry if I misunderstood, but when I saw the post earlier I could swear that it had something about wages. Sorry. What you put the is what I think it should have.
The Phoenix situation on the other hand, is more because they are in the other side of the Crane and close to the Mantis.
In other words, they are useful for information on the mercantile situation of those two clans.
It is more of a way to strengthen our bounds than of commerce proper.
And that we may be able to cause problems to the Mantis and the Crane is a plus.
We also have to remember that the Mantis is working the Crab (by their siting position on the table) so if we have a second target we may not be blindsided by any agreement between those two clans.
As for participating in the Festival, how about we clear that up with Bayushi? See if she will order us to participate like she did this time? Because as far as I can see, we are likely to end up drawn into the competition one way or another, so we might as well be ready for it.
One thing is ask and, if necessary, spend our resources on it.
Another is let's spend our resources aND then see if we will participate.
I would prefer not to.
And how would you justfy this? We have neither medicine or meditation. Do we suddenly develop an intrest out of the blue?
We needed it and couldn't help ourselves.
More so, we do have knowledge on it, what we lack is practical knowledge. And that is what I was proposing we try to get.
We may even get our little new spy to help us with it.
We also have an story in this game of training helping us to improve without the experience expendure.
On meditation ir was an example if people didn't want to try the other options.
And improving those would be better than training more of our combat skills.
And to finish it off:
Because doing so might help maintain good relations with the Matsu and we are likely to get drawn into it anyway? As we just got a rather crude reminder off, while we might be doing some good with letting Scorpion get more access to Shiro Matsu, we have done little to win over the hearts and minds of the regular Lion. The most we did there was our performance in the Display of Steel. We might want to keep working on that.
What is your justification for ignoring a chance at furthering our mission? That it is risky? Or that you are afraid of failure? How would preforming well, but not wining to anything do make us more famous?
But it would help us better interact with the Lion. Look, the Scorpion who competed honorably. Again. He even lost, but gave a good showing. Are you sure he is a Scorpion?
we don't need to gain their hearts. We are the designated vilan, thee is no way to get all the Lions to like us. What we need is to make the ones with power like us or at least, need us.
And on that we managed already.
We are the courtier of our delegation, we got what our lords wanted. Now is the time to go for the sub options and improve our relation with the other clans.
If we prepare to the race we would, at least, have to spend 5 actions on it.
Those actions can be better used on other matters, like getting to know what is the Mantis and Crab deal or what we can get from the phoenix delegation.
We are in a situation in with we have to avoid to get monofocused on the Lions and if we spend a third of our actions on they, we are not doing it.
You want to try to keep the rapport that we got? Put some actions with our Magistrate friend, some with the son of the Matsu lord, or more with the Ikoma, but we don't need to participate in the tournament for it.
