Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Voting is open for the next 1 day, 1 hour
Reader mode
Sentient Tree said:
To expand, we've already seen Keiko try to kill us at least twice, for much smaller transgressions. That may have been been entirely for comedic effect, but I would prefer to hear it straight from the QM's mouth(s) before I assume that she isn't going to attempt to at least commit bodily harm to us.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We have two debatable examples of Keiko possibly threatening us with harm because we offended her, and probably half a dozen when she responded by closing in on herself and/or diving into the Frozen Skein. She is probably a much bigger danger to herself than to Hazou at the moment.

Notice, also, that she took the time to give us the scroll and let us read it. This is not a crime of passion.
 
Tua said:
Do people genuinely think Keiko would try to kill us? And that Noburi and the assorted ANBU/guards would just stand by?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Keiko's tried to maim or otherwise inflict bodily harm to Hazou at least twice in the last IC month or so over relatively minor things (knocking and opening her door, something he did in her literal imagination).

Keiko is an extremely unhinged individual when it comes to emotional situations. When Mari was broken down, she did Literally The Most Hazou Thing and marched right up to Hana's door and immediately confronted her about it.

I think its entirely in character for her to flay us alive as long as she's decently worked up, only to realize shortly afterwards thats not actually a thing that helped/she wanted.
 
Alright, if Jiraiya's not available then we need to find a suitable jonin and see if they know where Jiraiya is and if he can be made available. If not, well... we need a plan. I'm almost thinking that the QMs have intentionally made Jiraiya unavailable for this, and Ami timed her message knowing the Hokage would be unavailable. In fact, I would not be surprised if he's in a Kage meeting right now, and Ami is already there.

Regardless, we need to inform both Keiko and Noburi of what's going on. The three of us *must* be on the same page here, because we court disaster otherwise.
 
I don't think Keiko's properly unhinged about these things. I get the feeling that in the times when she was legitimately dangerous towards us (sharpened kunais et al.) she did so knowing that we're good enough to dodge and keep ourselves safe, or that she wasn't actually going to go through with it and just wanted to express intent for a moment or two.

Furthermore, if Keiko reads this letter she'll see Ami talk about 'political value' and 'securing support' which I believe would get Keiko to react with 'this is Jiraiya's decision, I don't like it but I can't gainsay it' and be much more likely to send her into the Frozen Skein than into a murderous rage.
 
Enjou said:
Alright, if Jiraiya's not available then we need to find a suitable jonin and see if they know where Jiraiya is and if he can be made available. If not, well... we need a plan. I'm almost thinking that the QMs have intentionally made Jiraiya unavailable for this, and Ami timed her message knowing the Hokage would be unavailable. In fact, I would not be surprised if he's in a Kage meeting right now, and Ami is already there.

Regardless, we need to inform both Keiko and Noburi of what's going on. The three of us *must* be on the same page here, because we court disaster otherwise.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's possible that the letter was timed to arrive now to make us panic and pull Jiraiya out of important negotiations, in order to give Ren/Ami/other kages an advantage.
 
There is one way that we should do before anything else:
  1. Ask Keiko what the messenger looked like.
  2. If she has any idea why we got such a scroll.
  3. And what she is thinking/why she is seems in such a bad mood.

If I remember correctly, one does not roll socials against party members but once they turn hostile (obvious), want to do you harm (again obvious) or do something against your interests (Kagome planning to explode Minami), these rules are nullified and you do get to have the rolls.

If people really think Keiko is going to flip on us, asking her 3. would let us roll Deceit and figure out whether she is lying to us (presumably she isn't going to say that she wants to kill us). Likewise if she is trying to do something against our interests like trying to rattle us - because as you might remember, she was there yesterday when we rushed back to Jiraiya to debrief him.

This would go beyond a prank and into actively causing mental distress maliciously.

Asking about 1./2. is just useful information to have and there is always a chance we can catch her in a lie.
 
Tua said:
If I remember correctly, one does not roll socials against party members but once they turn hostile (obvious), want to do you harm (again obvious) or do something against your interests (Kagome planning to explode Minami), these rules are nullified and you do get to have the rolls.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We didn't roll against Kagome when he attempted to explode Minami, Hazou just noticed something off and stayed up to be sure about it.
 
I believe we had in the plan to initiate a protocol for sending coded messages. Is this a coded message according to some such scheme?
 
Inferno Vulpix said:
We didn't roll against Kagome when he attempted to explode Minami, Hazou just noticed something off and stayed up to be sure about it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I thought him noticing Kagome acting off was the result of (hidden) Deceit roll? Man, this stuff is hard to tell. Kagome is characterized as someone who can't act if is life depended which is equivalent to a low Deceit score.

So what exactly happens behind the scenes for something like this?
 
Tua said:
Defuse the situation then report to Jiraiya
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
+1 XP for not spiking my blood pressure by saying "diffuse the situation". I've seen that a few times lately (not here) and it annoys me almost as much as decimate/devastate. (Although neither are as bad as the missing Oxford comma, which I've mostly learned to live with after three years of working with Mr. "Oh, It's Optional", aka @Velorien.)
 
The irony of a player with a Zabuza avatar raking in bonus XP to empower us EVEN FURTHER BEYOND is not lost on me.
 
Tua said:
I thought him noticing Kagome acting off was the result of (hidden) Deceit roll? Man, this stuff is hard to tell. Kagome is characterized as someone who can't act if is life depended which is equivalent to a low Deceit score.

So what exactly happens behind the scenes for something like this?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, back in the Kagome situation the QMs were pretty insistent not to end their rule of social rolls between party members, because then Mari could just roll over our psyches and make us into her willing slaves.

That lack-of-social-rolls is why Kagome got away with it the first time around, because he didn't need to roll a Deceit check to deceive us, until among the waves of salt in the aftermath of the first draft people made the argument that Kagome's still a really bad liar and even without rolls there's no way he wouldn't give anything away. The QMs agreed with this and decided that Hazou would've picked up on something being wrong, and the update's path rewrote from there.
 
eaglejarl said:
+1 XP for not spiking my blood pressure by saying "diffuse the situation". I've seen that a few times lately (not here) and it annoys me almost as much as decimate/devastate. (Although neither are as bad as the missing Oxford comma, which I've mostly learned to live with after three years of working with Mr. "Oh, It's Optional", aka @Velorien.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The irony of the englishman, even if not native, decrying the necessity of the Oxford comma is not lost on me.

Also, I feel extremely alarmed at the quantity of bonus XP being handed out. I feel like we're going to need it in the near future.
 
MMKII said:
The irony of a player with a Zabuza avatar raking in bonus XP to empower us EVEN FURTHER BEYOND is not lost on me.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

They never said who was getting the bonus XP.

While all of you were busy playing house with the weird girl, Zabuza has been getting all the bonus XP and getting his weak, organic body parts replaced with Hydra Foundation cybernetics.
 
Tua said:
They never said who was getting the bonus XP.

While all of you were busy playing house with the weird girl, Zabuza has been getting all the bonus XP and getting his weak, organic body parts replaced with Hydra Foundation cybernetics.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I wonder if Ami has any favors from Zabuza.
 
Speaking of XP, I just noticed that I only awarded 1 XP for this update. Dunno what the heck I was thinking, because this was a perfectly good plan and it covered a full day. I probably would have given it 4 if I'd been paying attention, so let's call it 5 for the mistake.
 
eaglejarl said:
Speaking of XP, I just noticed that I only awarded 1 XP for this update. Dunno what the heck I was thinking, because this was a perfectly good plan and it covered a full day. I probably would have given it 4 if I'd been paying attention, so let's call it 5 for the mistake.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Aside: The juxtaposition of this together with the above discussion does not fill me with confidence re: our continued survival.

Thank you for the generosity though!
 
So, Jiraiya's not in so we can't bring this to him now. That means our first priority is calming Keiko and Noburi down enough that we can afford to wait until he comes back. Means we need to be a bit more extensive about our explanations.

We also need to plan for the rest of the day being in this undetermined state, though. We can generally stay indoors most of our time, to avoid trouble or further complications, but there are tournament matches to watch too (specifically Keiko's).

Imagine going to watch Keiko's match only for Ami to show up and congratulate us on getting betrothed to her... in front of all the Leaf-nin. I'm not sure how likely this is but if it does happen then refusing becomes extremely challenging because now everyone knows and Jiraiya gets put on the back foot something fierce.

We should put on a disguise, first of all. This won't keep Ami away from us if she wants to but will make us less recognizable as Goketsu Hazou and thus minimize the fallout of any such event. We should keep Noburi alongside us at all times, with both of us trying to keep an eye out for Ami. If we see her do anything resembling approaching us, excuse ourselves and leave the area. If Ami catches up to us at least we aren't in front of everyone.

I'm not sure if we should sit with the other Leaf-nin or if we should avoid them at all costs, but that's another thing to consider.

Put simply though, we can't afford to just try and take this to Jiraiya, and we can't afford to risk going to the match like normal.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open for the next 1 day, 1 hour
Remove ads
Back
Top