Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[eaglejarl]

Really though, @eaglejarl, it is really disheartening to see our ideas get used for NPCs. It makes us look unoriginal when we inevitably have to develop them after the NPCs have already been shown using them, and causes us to consider not posting good ideas in case you see them and give them to potential enemies.

Or if this is your way of telling us that these ideas are obvious low-hanging fruit that lots of ninja will think of and develop, then I'm sure you could find a more straightfoward and less saddening way of informing us of this fact that doesn't just make it look like our tech tree is fair game for other ninja to copy from.

Click to shrink...

Right. But the point is that those ninja wouldn't have had those ideas if we hadn't first.

I'm completely on board with other ninja being munchkins, so long as it really is other ninja being munchkins, and not just other ninja riding on our munchkinning.

Click to shrink...

Oh ffs @MadScientist, stop whining about patterns that aren't there. I was careful to NOT use your ideas.

Water cannon via storage seal? I used that in 2YE with portable holes.

Creating a midair platform to jump off of? See any video game from the 80s.

Causing a piece of fabric to stiffen and make it hard for someone to move? I mentioned the possibility in The Change Storms: Induction and there was extensive discussion of the idea in /r/changestorms. For that matter, see Clockblocker from Worm -- he even made stuff invulnerable and immobile, which is better than what I gave Takao!

These are all thoroughly explored public domain ideas, so stop trying to claim ownership.

Mmmm, I read it differently. Uzu, the seal masters of the setting, who are better than anyone, ever, has people thinking managing a double jump (she wasn't walking, she just used the justsu to give her a jumping off point) is impressive (albeit to a genin). Our proposal makes her feat trivially repeatable, and cost next to no chakra, and lets us actually walk on air and take no casting time.

Because she had to use ninjutsu, while we, the non Uzu munchkin, solved the same problem (mostly, we need to sit down and do it) with seals!

Slapping immobilizing seals on people is such an obvious capture method I don't consider all that special. I wonder if you slap that seal on their bare skin if it means they are trapped inside a prison of their own skin?

Just my take... *shrugs*

Click to shrink...

THANK you. (Although I never said this was Uzu.)

 

[OliWhail]

Although I never said this was Uzu

Click to shrink...

I haven't seen you say it's NOT Uzu either

 

[eaglejarl]

@eaglejarl, @Velorien: Are bicycles a thing in the MfD verse? To our knowledge.

Click to shrink...

You've certainly never heard of them. You've also not seen any in Konoha or anywhere else you've ever been.

 

[OliWhail]

• Clock Seal

Click to shrink...

@MadScientist do you recall what this refers to? Like, is it a Clockblocker reference, or does it mean a thing to keep time with?

 

[Twofold]

The cat sighed, pulled a lit pipe from behind its back, took a drag, and blew a long dejected stream of smoke before answering.

Click to shrink...

I like the cat, it seems to know what is what.


I would also like to remind people that we still need a plan. Here are the two most well develop proposals thus far.

[X] Action Plan: Trees Bearing Fruit
This plan assumes the update timeline will start late in the evening of the same day as Ch. 87. The update should not go past going to sleep the night of the following day.

Methods marked with (O) can (in my estimation) more easily occur offscreen than others. If a higher-level point is marked, all sub-points should be treated as marked.

Bold underline bits are activities or information Hazou considers most important to complete or obtain in a timely manner.

Goals

1. Survive.
2. Maintain team sanity and stability.
3. Stay on Jiraiya / Leaf's good side, including our minders.
4. Maintain cover / don't cause any incidents.
5. Get to know more about Leaf / our minders.

Methods

1. Before bed
   1. Ask Kagome how can we make his stay here in Leaf easier
      Spoiler: Details

      1. We know this is a very unpleasant environment for him, and it makes us sad to see him stressed out and unhappy.
      2. Remind him that we can handle ourselves, and that we're all here to watch each others' backs in case anything does go wrong.
      3. Is there any non-ninjacraft related activity or project he would like to pursue? Woodcarving, painting, cooking?
   2. (O) Sound out the team's views on handing our tower-lifting prototype to J, since we have all the pieces sealed in a bag already.
      1. It sounded like he would be willing to give a substantial payment (another favor, when combined with the paralytic?) for it, and it's not like he can't work it out himself given a little bit of time since he's already been given the idea.
   3. (O) Confirm with Noburi that he isn't worried about clan secrets being discernible from him doing repair work, since we assume there are cheating bullshit Hyuuga everywhere.
   4. After meditating upon the day, Hazou comes to conclusions/realization that the doctor was acting funny, and Inoue, Kagome, and Keiko all made valid points in our interactions with him. We should re-examine our interactions -- there might be a bit more to the doctor.
2. Spread throughout the day
   1. (O) Dispel periodically
   2. Continue being nice to Team Asuma. Approach the situation from a perspective of genuinely trying to make friends. Throughout the day, as we build up rapport:
      1. If Hazou gets flak for being nice, maintain that with his apprentice indisposed it falls to him to maintain the group's levels of Youth.
      2. Ask about Leaf life trivialities, be willing to share in return
         Spoiler: Suggested topics of conversation

         1. What are Team Asuma's favorite foods?
         2. Share favorite books, especially those others are unlikely to have read.
         3. What do ninjas do here to relax -- Sarutobi mentioned a theater district?
         4. We heard you guys hosted some crazy chuunin exams earlier this year - are you allowed to tell us about those?
            1. Especially the Fourth Hokage's and Kazekage's sons. How did that fight end up going down?
3. Morning activities
   1. (Suggestion to Inoue-sensei) Can minders or the genin taking care of us pass on to J a request for a location to have sensitive team discussions?
   2. (O)
      Spoiler: Wrap up any unfinished shopping

      1. Buy at least one high quality, durable set of shoes for each of us.
      2. See if we can't find a pack of some kind on our shopping trip to disguise Noburi's barrel without compromising function, which preferrably doesn't sacrifice aesthetics.
         1. Reasoning: the visible barrel marks him as a Wakahisa and a Kiri nin. It makes us easy to recognize and thus, potentially, to track. If the Iron Nerve had easily visible markers, Hazou would be looking for ways to hide those too.
      3. Get Noburi spare barrel material
4. Midday activities
   1. Get some light training and sparring in under minder supervision, inviting them to join if they so choose
      1. "What do you say Akimichi? Loser buys lunch with Jiraiya's money?" (In a joking way, laughing along if anyone implies we're asking him out.)
      2. Confirm whether MEW can be used while airborne, ideally in a way that will produce chakra constructs to avoid permanent modification of the area.
   2. (O) Lunch somewhere - use as opportunity to bring up topics above, esp. favorite books.
   3. (O) Library visit - look over what subjects are available, and see if we can get some light reading material to deliver to / be sent to Akane. Include any of Team Asuma's favorite books from earlier discussion if we think Akane would enjoy them.
   4. Check back in on Akane like we promised, because we promised.
      Spoiler: Details

      1. Get flowers from the Yamanaka shop, confirm Akane isn't allergic to any of them, and set them up in her room
      2. Don't push for a decision about sticking with us, but be willing to discuss it if she brings it up.
         1. It is a big question, and she has plenty of time to make it what with her recuperation.
         2. We won't abandon her either way.
      3. (O) If she asks for something productive to do, ask about getting her some engineering texts. If there are issues with us having insufficient authorization to access such material, see if there is there someone else who could do so and pass it on.
5. Afternoon/evening activities
   1. ((O) maybe possibly?) Go do the sightseeing part of the trip to the places that were brought up at lunch (War memorial, Hokage monument, parks, theater district....) Generally follow itinerary from Team Asuma here.
   2. If Jiraiya gets back to us quicky on a secure discussion opportunity
      Spoiler: Go there and talk aboutDetails

      1. Our desire to arrange our mom's extraction from Mist, and our concerns about how that could impact the rest of the group.
         1. Does Inoue-sensei think this is even a feasible thing to ask with a favor, or stacked favors, given Hana's large motivation to defect to work for J specifically and the additional utility she provides to our team in the form of jounin combat strength and decades of experience?
         2. Ask if there is anyone else we would need to extract at the same, and whether we should avoid doing so at all to avoid putting Inoue-senei's family at risk.
            1. Any Wakahisa or Mori clan members would be more difficult to extract but also less likely to provoke huge reprisals from Yagura.
         3. Mom would be a valuable resource, but also an addition to the team - are others okay with that idea?
      2. Communicate Hazou's feelings to Keiko CCnJ style Spoiler: Details
         1. "It seems clear to me that there have been several instances over the last few days that I insulted you with how I communicated -- in particular, when discussing your plan of action while in the Summon Realm after we apprehended Arikada, when I suggested a stronger social focus in your training, and potentially when I said you should of course rely mainly on your own judgement when choosing what reward to ask for from Jiraiya. In the first and last cases I felt that I was either laying out shared assumptions, though in the second case I do not feel I communicated my reasoning with anything approaching clarity. What advice would you give me for approaching or phrasing such discussions in the future to ensure we can continue to communicate clearly, since this is an experience I value greatly?"
      3. Check Hazou's understanding of the social manipulations performed by Dr. Yakushi against Inoue-sensei's observations.
   3. Game night (Strategic Domination [Hazou should avoid rolling all sixes, giving credence to the lie that Iron Nerve simply involves improved kinesthetics], shogi, go, maybe games that are native to Leaf?)
   4. Say a quiet thank you to Inoue-sensei for taking care of everyone even though we know it's stressful and apologize for jumping the gun at the hospital if it was not already adressed. Accept any resulting hair-ruffles stoically.
   5. (O) Hazou should continue dedicating time to actively de-stressing - meditation, stretching, relaxing in the hot bath - and should encourage others to do so.

Contingencies

1. Don't piss off Leaf
   Spoiler: Details

   1. Be polite to everyone we meet
   2. Listen to our handlers and follow their (reasonable) instructions to the letter
2. Try to minimize Kagome's stress level by not making him talk too much / interact with non-teammates if he doesn't feel like it, keeping close-by, encouraging him to eat any of the nice food we get that have already been checked for poison, esp. sweets and chocolate.
3. Safety and Security Rules
   Spoiler: Details

   1. Don't split up if at all possible
   2. Keep a watch in our room even at night
   3. Make sure we all have whatever the local equivalent of white flags are
   4. When in public, try to stick to areas with a reasonable number of civilians and other ninja
4. Combat contingencies
   Spoiler: Details

   1. White tactics by default
   2. Use any panic buttons Jiraiya has given us (none yet, sounds like)
   3. Try to leave the city or converge on Jiraiya's office to turn ourselves in. Make sure we're doing the equivalent of waving white flags.
   4. If we aren't able to immediately disengage, end the update for combat planning.
5. Assume we are being spied on at pretty much all times by multiple parties
6. If the topic of why Fire isn't a model for what Hazou wants to acheive comes up again, consider drawing from
   Spoiler: Yet another inspiring speech!

   When you asked why Fire wasn't a utopia, I was confused because you had practically just said the answer yourself: none of the major players can trust each other, because each of them consider only their own people to have any moral weight. And that is what you said, that you would sleep well after killing a foreign citizen to save a Leaf one. Not that you would consider it a necessary tragedy to protect the people you care about, and not that you would devote so much as a second of thought toward avoiding having to make that choice again in the future, and you said all your counterparts in other villages feel the same way.
   
   When the whole world does that, then everyone looks like monsters to everyone else. At that point, it's even easier to say all foreigners are morally irrelevant, trapping the entire world in a spiral of indifference and hatred, so we get the current state of the world even from initial conditions where everyone cares about people outside their clan or their village just slightly too little. And at that point, it becomes impossible to trust one another to do things like build utopias, since all that power looks like a threat.
   
   Which gives us the answer to your original question: the reason Fire isn't a utopia is that even though it's strong, it's not as strong as everyone else all at once, and if you withdraw resources from maintaining your current military dominance to focus on things like civilian wellbeing, other nations will see that apparent weakness as an opportunity to help their people by hurting yours, who as we've established they don't care about. Boom, the next shinobi war. And if you did anything with your vast resources that would put you on a clear trajectory to become strong enough to fight them all off at once, like letting civilians live well enough to lead to significant population growth, the entire world will throw everything they had at you, even though they'd be eviscerated afterwards and have an even harder time stalling civilization's collapse.
   
   They'd do it even if you weren't being hostile, like the world did to Whirlpool. It's probably pretty easy to see from the reversed perspective - if Mist suddenly became insanely good at sealcrafting, and started using it to protect their civilians and grow more food and help all their citizens live comfortably, would you be glad your neighbors were growing happy and prosperous? Or would you see the impending population boom as a threat to be sabotaged and undermined? And if you find a low-risk method that sabotages your enemies' future strength without going to war, well, how could you not take it, even if it's morally horrific and accelerating the gradual downfall of the human race.
   
   You can't build up because you would get smacked down. You can't truly work with other nations to break out of the downward spiral because you won't be trusted and won't trust them, since you both know that trust would be exploited. So Leaf ends up having to contribute to the status quo, even if you guys are better about humanizing the enemy than others, according to Akane. But it isn't working, and something has to change, or everything is going to crumble into dust, and everyone is going to die - including Leaf. So, again, will you help us?
   1. Spoiler: What to do about it?

      Part of that is why we need him on board - preventing wars from breaking out while the fixing is happening, and then figuring out a way to change the incentives that result in things like distrust and scorch squads. Make it so that "cooperate" becomes the winning option even in the non-iterated case of this prisoners' dilemma. (Massively improve agriculture per area to allow consolidation of civilian population? Set up a neurtral third party to arbitrate disputes and hand out the uplift tech on the basis of good behavior?) That, or make Leaf so strong so fast that everyone's best option is to give up, but even then people won't actually be reasonable since they're scared and angry and distrustful. Even if there were a jutsu to magically restore everyone's view of each other as people deserving moral consideration, it wouldn't be anything like a permanent solution, because the cycle would start all over again.
   2. Also, compared to slowly dying villages in the wilderness, and to some extent compared even to Kirigakure, Leaf is fairly utopian already.
7. Plan for talking about rewards with Jiraiya

Click to shrink...

[] Action Plan: Ducks in a Row
We're a little lacking in purpose in our actions in Konoha. Let's double down on helping out Jiraiya, encourage our teammates (especailly Akane), go to a library, and continue making nice with Konoha.

Goals

1. Survive
2. Reduce stress on team
3. Make sure we're all on the same page
4. Make an explicit overall plan for our time in Konoha
5. Maintain cover and pleasantries
6. Progress plot lines (Jiraiya, Kabuto, Akane)

Methods

1. Reflect upon the day
   1. We need to be more careful about what we say: we've insulted several people (e.g. Jiraiya, our minders, Keiko, Noburi).
   2. We maybe should be more careful around the doctor: Inoue seemed suspicious of him, and she's good at this sort of thing.
2. Debriefing session
   1. Ask about if we'd like to make a tower prototype with Jiraiya for more rewards/monies/privacy (Hazou's cool with it)
   2. Discuss with Kagome things that'd make him more at ease (e.g. whittling, painting, cooking)
   3. Ask if people have good de-stressing strategies we could use (then use them).
   4. Ask for Inoue's opinion on all our interactions (since she's the best at this).
   5. Determine team policy on bloodline experimentation: we should all be on the same page (Hazou is ok with observations: primary concern is safety)
3. Next day, be nice with Team Asume -- follow up on conversations, do things they enjoy (eating, shopping, strategy games)
4. See about purchasing a pack or something to hide Noburi's barrel
5. Check up on Akane, attempt to encourage her
   1. Remind her of the good times we have
      1. Beach episode
      2. Games
      3. Sparring
   2. Remind her of the times she's done really well
      1. Compliment her construction of the towers that let us find Arikada
      2. Compliment her demolition of the zombies --> she did better than we did
      3. The times she's been positive: she's been a huge encouragement to Hazou
   3. Point out things we have to look forward to
      1. She can see her family and other friends again!
      2. We can work more closely with Leaf now.
      3. We've stopped Arikada from doing more harm in the world!
6. Go to the library for research (link to things to read)
7. Meet up with Jiraiya for rewards discussion
8. Encourage Noburi on his internship (he gets to learn from the best, cool! Still be careful though.)

Contingencies

1. Be polite to everyone
2. Follow handler's instructions to the letter (and spirit)
3. Minimize Kagome's interactions with people, be prepared to stop conflicts
4. Make sure Inoue has a colored jutsu for signaling for help
5. If combat breaks out, end update
6. If talking to Hokage, trust Inoue

Click to shrink...

Both of the plans are rather passive, but I don't really know how to change that. It's not like we have resources or the room to make more active plays on anything. I'm hoping this will change come next update or this Konoha thing will turn into another mess.

The best way to contribute to planning for people who don't want to write their own plans would be to take a look at the individual pieces in Radvic's plan and write out a more detailed approach how to do it. The plans for chapters 84 and 85 should have some usable parts.

 

[MadScientist]

Oh ffs @MadScientist, stop whining about patterns that aren't there.

Click to shrink...

I feel that the tone here is needlessly antagonistic. You could have easily made the same points without it.

Water cannon via storage seal? I used that in 2YE with portable holes.

Click to shrink...

I wasn't actually talking about the water cannons. That was actually something I enjoyed, although I can understand why you thought I was making a blanket statement about the entire chapter given that I didn't explicitly talk about counter-points.

Creating a midair platform to jump off of? See any video game from the 80s.

Causing a piece of fabric to stiffen and make it hard for someone to move? I mentioned the possibility in The Change Storms: Induction and there was extensive discussion of the idea in /r/changestorms. For that matter, see Clockblocker from Worm -- he even made stuff invulnerable and immobile, which is better than what I gave Takao!

These are all thoroughly explored public domain ideas, so stop trying to claim ownership.

Click to shrink...

*sigh*

Looks like I didn't communicate my intentions properly. It's fine that you're annoyed with what you thought I meant, but please don't jump down my throat for it.

I wasn't trying to claim that the players have exclusive rights to the ideas, it just really frustrates me that out of the very few sealmasters we've seen, there's one that uses what appears to be an almost exact copy of the KRS that we've been discussing in detail for weeks now.

I'll admit that I've never read changestorms (and thus never had any reason to visit the sub), and that maybe everyone else who was talking about the KRS was doing so from a position of having already discussed something almost identical in the context of your other work. But I didn't.

I just struggle to believe that we would have seen the same scene play out, with people using not-KRS and using chakra to walk/jump on air if we hadn't been discussing these very ideas in-thread.

If I'm wrong, and you would have used those things regardless of what we'd been discussing, then I apologise.

If this scene was always going to happen and we only got to see it because we'd already discussed those ideas, then I apologise.

But it's like, imagine that you're a kid building a lemonade stand, and your friend sees you building it. The next day he's made a coca cola stand, and set it up across the street. You're selling different drinks and you have no ownership over the idea of selling soft drinks in the first place. Hell, the idea of selling soft drinks is all over the place, and he might have been planning it for weeks and the timing was just a coincidence. But it would still annoy you, even if just a little.

Maybe it's petty, but that's what it feels like.

I'm sorry if I upset you.

 

[MadScientist]

@MadScientist do you recall what this refers to? Like, is it a Clockblocker reference, or does it mean a thing to keep time with?

Click to shrink...

A thing to keep time with.

 

[eaglejarl]

Really though, @eaglejarl, it is really disheartening to see OUR ideas get used for NPCs.

Click to shrink...

Emphasis added.

I wasn't trying to claim that the players have exclusive rights to the ideas,

Click to shrink...

When you claim that these are "our" ideas and complain about how it's not fair that I'm using them then yes, you are explicitly claiming exclusive ownership.

What this second post reads like to me is you doubling down on the assertion that I've stolen from you, even after I pointed out that two of the ideas were in my works two or three years ago and the other one was in video games that were around before some of the people in this quest were born.

it just really frustrates me that out of the very few sealmasters we've seen, there's one that uses what appears to be an almost exact copy of the KRS that we've been discussing in detail for weeks now.

Click to shrink...

Your KRS seals are the "freeze/unfreeze shoes via 5SB derivative so that we can walk on air", right? I can't keep track of all the acronyms sometimes.

Please go back and reread my post, and the chapter. She didn't walk on air, she jumped off a mid-air platform. For Ghu's sake, (a) I didn't even remember your walk-on-air seals while I was writing that, (b) it's not the same thing anyway, and (c) I was making an explicit effort to NOT use ideas from the thread. There were a couple of tactics that I wanted Takao to use but didn't because they were vaguely similar to one of the thread's ideas.

If I'm wrong, and you would have used those things regardless of what we'd been discussing, then I apologise

Click to shrink...

Yes, you're wrong. And if I sound like I'm pissed off, it's because I am. When I make an explicit effort to write around the thread's discussion, then have someone apparently fail their reading comprehension roll and call me out for plagiarism on something that wasn't even there, then ignore my explanation of how that's not what happened and call me out for it again...yes, that pisses me off.

 

[Twofold]

Check up on Akane, attempt to encourage her

1. Remind her of the good times we have
   1. Beach episode
   2. Games
   3. Sparring
2. Remind her of the times she's done really well
   1. Compliment her construction of the towers that let us find Arikada
   2. Compliment her demolition of the zombies --> she did better than we did
   3. The times she's been positive: she's been a huge encouragement to Hazou
3. Point out things we have to look forward to
   1. She can see her family and other friends again!
   2. We can work more closely with Leaf now.
   3. We've stopped Arikada from doing more harm in the world!

Click to shrink...

I think we need a few even less stressful topics than these ones, talking about one of these per visit might be the limit. It will take a good while to Akane to get back on her feet and we need some fluff just for maintenance. Maybe something like:

• Start with low tension topics and gauge whether it's safe to move on to bigger ones
  • Our impressions on Konoha
  • Our impressions on our minders
  • What useless things we've been up to during the day

Ask for Inoue's opinion on all our interactions (since she's the best at this).

Click to shrink...

I think it would be better if we had this discussion with Mari in private. Or do you mean for Mari to give feedback to everyone and not just Hazou?

On rewards:

• Most of these rewards are centered around making us stronger and better assets, so it's against Jiraya's interests to be stingy here

• Check if he is okay with us discussing fairly frankly some admitted longshots first; if not, skip this section.
  1. Kurosawa Hana
     1. Getting her out of Kiri
        1. Jounin taijutsu expert with huge reasons to defect to work for him specifically, and would cause Team Uplift to be stronger, safer, saner, enormously grateful, and probably more stable due to her greater experience and mediating influence.
        2. If this is gonna start the Fourth Jashin-damned Shinobi War, obviously not worth it, and is obviously a huge ask in terms of difficulty and risk, but is this a thing we that is even on the table as far as favors, or even accumulated favors?
     2. If not getting her out, how feasible is an attempt to get a message to her, even just "your son is alive and loves you"? In addition to or barring that, could we get information on what she is up to and what her position is in Mist?
  2. Does any kind of pass to cross Fire borders come packaged with Akane's reinstatement and our continued loyalty?
     1. We recognize that this is unlikely due to the need to maintain deniability, but Akane is much less of a carrot if we can't come to see her (if she does not stick with us) / will need to be able to access Leaf resources and her friends and family if she does stick with us.
     2. If J gets smug / team gives us shit for saying we're loyal to Leaf/J, maintain that since we are loyal to Akane who is presumably loyal to Leaf, we are at least second-order loyal to them, and in any case they appear to represent the best chance at fixing things.
     3. If J asks why we're now uncertain whether she'll stick with us, maintain that we are simply planning for all possibilities and that the choice remains hers.

• Check if he is okay with us discussing some generalities of less-longshot options before asking for a specific thing
  1. Seal designs: are these even on the table? Would he be willing to give us either an array of low-to-medium level utility seals that he thinks would contribute most to our effectiveness, or to do a deeper dive into e.g. storage seals and the extremes of what they can be used for?
     1. Examples of utility seals ordered by preference
        1. Communication range, especially surreptitiously
        2. Night vision or other sensory enhancements
        3. Advanced alarm seals
        4. Sound muffling seals / other stealth enhancements
        5. Self Contained Breathing Apparatus
           1. Something that lets us breath when there is no clean, breathable air around
        6. Eye, ear and environmental protection
           1. Protection against bright lights and noise
           2. Protection against extreme temperatures
           3. Protection against gas or liquid toxicants that only require skin contact
  2. Jutsu: he said he would get us a teacher at the end of our interactions with him in Yuni - if that no longer holds, how much is he willing to teach us now (e.g. # of techniques at particular ranks - describe the jutsu plan quoted below if prompted)
  3. Can we safely assume we will be given / at least have the chance to buy new ninja gear and essentials, what with our old stuff being potentially biosealer-contaminated?
     1. An up-to-date bingo book or comparable intel would also be really nice but we're not about to spend a favor on it.
  4. Technique Hacking: We are curious about it and wonder if we could get a short description of it
     1. Details of how it works in practice
     2. Jiraya's analysis on its usefulness for a team like ours

• Are there missions he has planned for us that he can tell us about before we make our decision?

Click to shrink...

We took teammate rewards out of our reward list earlier, but I feel like we should put Mist Jutsu back in there. It is too big of a combat booster for Nobby to let us ignore it. If Nobby is too busy to learn it, Mari can do it instead.

Actually, it might be better for Mari to ask for that jutsu instead. She might be able to make everyone to believe that the jutsu is actually for her, instead of Nobby. We just need to say something like "Mari sensei, what about that concealing mist jutsu you mentioned long time ago?" and she should be able to take it from there.

There's also a small problem with how we are presenting the results of our jutsu reward vote to Jiraya. If we just give him the full list, he, and anyone listening, will know all our current and future jutsu.

 

[thamuzz]

One thing I'd like to propose adding to the plans:

1. Follow up with Mari about our worries regarding stress/mental health. Ask her opinion of psychological help / getting more info on psychological help options.

2. Approach Kagome with a hypothetical scenario: "One of the team is considering psychological treatment in Leaf. You (Kagome) are in charge of ensuring they don't get kidnapped/brainwashed/implanted with Lupchanz. Convincing them not to is a viable approach, but is not certain and failure modes should be accounted for. Armageddon Initiative is not off the table, but has been deemed highly unlikely to succeed. What would you do?"

I'm aware that the second one might be... less than productive. Food for discussion more than anything else.
I am a bit worried about our avatar's mental health.

 

[bayesclef]

Oh lordy lord, do you mind if I sig "Somewhat fuzzy on the concept of kneecaps"? :lol

Click to shrink...

Go right ahead.

 

[Jello_Raptor]

And can I sig "Where "Tactical" is measured on the Richter Scale or in kilometers per second, depending on distance from the epicenter"??

Click to shrink...

Sounds good to me.

 

[Traiden]

Utility Jutsu, we need more utility jutsu as the training in Mist has been denied to our group due to each of our histories within the political structure of Mist. We have no colored lights or any sort of utility jutsu that Ino-Shika-Cho trio implied they have access to. Simple one EXP cost jutsu that can do a variety of things for negligible cost in chakra.

 

[MadScientist]

Emphasis added.
When you claim that these are "our" ideas and complain about how it's not fair that I'm using them then yes, you are explicitly claiming exclusive ownership.

Click to shrink...

You're right, I shouldn't have worded it that way. I did later say that I'd failed to make my intentions clear.

What this second post reads like to me is you doubling down on the assertion that I've stolen from you, even after I pointed out that two of the ideas were in my works two or three years ago and the other one was in video games that were around before some of the people in this quest were born.

Click to shrink...

That... also wasn't my intention. At all.

I'm not certain how to proceed here, as I seem to have blundered into appearing extremely accusatory and insulting entirely by accident. I guess I'll just try to address what you've said as best I can and hope I don't make things worse in the process.

I think that I need here to distinguish between "This idea belongs to us, using it would be stealing." and "We've recently invested a lot of effort into this idea because we thought that it would be a new unique thing in the setting that would give Hazou a comparative advantage. Seeing other characters use something similar after that discussion makes the idea less special and devalues the effort we put into trying to make it work.". This is the latter scenario, and most definitely not the former.

Your KRS seals are the "freeze/unfreeze shoes via 5SB derivative so that we can walk on air", right? I can't keep track of all the acronyms sometimes.

Click to shrink...

Um, sort of. KRS is a single tag that applies the freeze/unfreeze effect derived from 5SB with none/very little of the durability bonus, but it isn't necessarily applied to shoes. It could also be applied to other things (including an enemies clothes, hence why I thought that the seal the male genin used was almost the same thing).

Please go back and reread my post, and the chapter. She didn't walk on air, she jumped off a mid-air platform.

Click to shrink...

(b) it's not the same thing anyway,

Click to shrink...

I know she didn't walk on air, but what she did superficially looked similar enough that my first thought upon reading it was that similarity.

For either the double jump or the freeze-tag on it's own I probably wouldn't have paid it any mind, it was just the combination of two things showing up in quick succession that caused me to have doubts.

(a) I didn't even remember your walk-on-air seals while I was writing that,

Click to shrink...

Thank you for telling me. That's actually very reassuring.

Yes, you're wrong.

Click to shrink...

Then I do apologise, sincerely.

This really was a very good chapter. You did an excellent job, and I'm glad to be able to fully enjoy it now that you've assuaged my worries. I'm immensely grateful to you for writing something that can make me so invested in it that I sometimes get upset over things like this, even if doing so isn't pleasant.

 

[OliWhail]

@Thread opinions on suggesting to Jiraiya that he house us off-site for a while to do seal research while letting us come see Akane?
"You think making buildings fly was cool, give Kagome and I a month or two and we'll have all your ninja running on air."

 

[Dictator4Hire]

@Thread opinions on suggesting to Jiraiya that he house us off-site for a while to do seal research while letting us come see Akane?
"You think making buildings fly was cool, give Kagome and I a month or two and we'll have all your ninja running on air."

Click to shrink...

This gets us chained up forever in the Sealing R&R basement, or at least Kagome will say so.

It would be far better to just have Kagome request that we should relocate the team's housing to an area of his choosing nearby yet outside of Konoha so that he can make his own defenses to finally relax.

Alternatively (if we can manage it), we could make our team's temporary base on top of one of our "unproven" watchtower seals just to stick it to Jiraiya.

 

[eaglejarl]

This really was a very good chapter. You did an excellent job, and I'm glad to be able to fully enjoy it now that you've assuaged my worries. I'm immensely grateful to you for writing something that can make me so invested in it that I sometimes get upset over things like this, even if doing so isn't pleasant.

Click to shrink...

Thank you, and you're welcome.

 

[Twofold]

@Thread opinions on suggesting to Jiraiya that he house us off-site for a while to do seal research while letting us come see Akane?
"You think making buildings fly was cool, give Kagome and I a month or two and we'll have all your ninja running on air."

Click to shrink...

It would be far better to just have Kagome request that we should relocate the team's housing to an area of his choosing nearby yet outside of Konoha so that he can make his own defenses to finally relax.

Click to shrink...

Both of these are actually more dangerous than our current housing. Security is way higher inside Konoha walls than out, and our defenses are not going to make up the difference.

Our only defense against spying or attacks from Konoha or people playing at that level is hiding. If we commute to Konoha daily, hiding will be out of picture.

Not to mention the penalty to our social and information gathering opportunities.

 

[Jello_Raptor]

@Thread opinions on suggesting to Jiraiya that he house us off-site for a while to do seal research while letting us come see Akane?
"You think making buildings fly was cool, give Kagome and I a month or two and we'll have all your ninja running on air."

Click to shrink...

NO NO NO NO NO NO

Running on air is both a tactical advantage, and an insane strategic advantage. It would fundamentally change the nature of ninja warfare in a way that gives Konoha an absurd boost for quite a while. We should not ever hand this over to them.

Even once we do develop it we should take pains to hide the skill and play it off like a jutsu or something that's not so easily copied as a seal.

 

[OliWhail]

@eaglejarl @Velorien Akane is worried that she is too trusting. Could we potentially have Inoue-sensei train her in specifically lie detection, since she has expressed disdain for being able to lie in the past?

 

[Dictator4Hire]

Both of these are actually more dangerous than our current housing. Security is way higher inside Konoha walls than out, and our defenses are not going to make up the difference.

Our only defense against spying or attacks from Konoha or people playing at that level is hiding. If we commute to Konoha daily, hiding will be out of picture.

Click to shrink...

Kagome made defenses that were able to roll around 50-ish dice against a stampede of tapirs. Unless Konoha is willing to send out a large task force to attack us, we should be fine.

As for commuting daily, we can just arrange with Jiraiya to have a new set of identities made for us for each day. This would give us far more flexibility on where we can go since our current aliases revolve around Mari pretending to be a visiting dignitary.

Not to mention the penalty to our social and information gathering opportunities.

Click to shrink...

I'd consider this a worthwhile trade-off if it helps Kagome relax. It's not like we are doing much at night anyway being all cooped up in our assigned rooms getting spied upon.

 

[Twofold]

Kagome made defenses that were able to roll around 50-ish dice against a stampede of tapirs. Unless Konoha is willing to send out a large task force to attack us, we should be fine.

Click to shrink...

Yes, because their strategy was to run straight into a minefield and hope for the best.

Once we start talking about ANBU level opposition, they will have specialists that ghost through Kagome's traps and we'll be none the wiser. We can't rely on that sort of defenses for actual safety.

Besides, being outside Konoha makes it way easier for third parties to attack us. Konoha doesn't have the manpower to keep all of Fire under scrutiny, and the best assets are concentrated around Konoha. Currently we are under their umbrella, but if we go out somewhere where we can set up traps, pretty much anyone competent enough to fight us in the first place can attack (or spy) us as long as they know where we are.

And they will know where we are, because Konoha has to know where we are and our opsec sucks.

After we leave Konoha, we will need to make long and complicated run through the countryside, hop a sea or two, setup an ambush to wait and see if anyone follows us, and maybe then start rolling dice and see where we should set our next research shop at.

Our cover stories are pretty irrelevant in the big picture, our genin don't have the dice to actually fool anyone competent, so they are mostly useful for fooling people that come later and look at Konoha paperwork to try and spot us.

 

[OliWhail]

After we leave Konoha, we will need to make long and complicated run through the countryside, hop a sea or two, setup an ambush to wait and see if anyone follows us, and maybe then start rolling dice and see where we should set our next research shop at.

Click to shrink...

This is an awesome plan and should be added to our long-range travel SOP.

 

[Dictator4Hire]

Once we start talking about ANBU level opposition, they will have specialists that ghost through Kagome's traps and we'll be none the wiser. We can't rely on that sort of defenses for actual safety.

Besides, being outside Konoha makes it way easier for third parties to attack us. Konoha doesn't have the manpower to keep all of Fire under scrutiny, and the best assets are concentrated around Konoha. Currently we are under their umbrella, but if we go out somewhere where we can set up traps, pretty much anyone competent enough to fight us in the first place can attack (or spy) us as long as they know where we are.

Click to shrink...

We don't explicitly know if ANBU can actually do that. We could ask Kagome what he thinks about the idea; after all, it would be his favor we would be calling in. If our resident in-game security expert thinks that it is a waste of time then I'll be satisfied.

As for the ideal location, I'd assume somewhere within 1 hour of ninja speeds should be enough to give us some modicum of privacy while still having us close enough so that if something bad does happen Konoha can still send help in a timely manner. Of course, they would also be subject to critique by Kagome.

 

[turbinicarpus]

That's probably why you had that tab open.

Click to shrink...

No, I hadn't clicked that link.