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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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MadScientist said:
[X] Research Hazou: Storing two items in the same seal.
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I meant to respond to this earlier. I'm concerned that the two-items seal is going to be really hard. Otherwise, I don't understand why it's not a thing that's available in the world. For cargo transport especially, the fact that it's harder to get to a specific item doesn't really matter, and a seal master could sell you a seal that's essentially twice (or 5 times, or however many items you can store) as useful for the same amount of time/risk to the seal master, giving more surplus to be turned into profit.
 
Sleeps Furiously said:
I meant to respond to this earlier. I'm concerned that the two-items seal is going to be really hard. Otherwise, I don't understand why it's not a thing that's available in the world. For cargo transport especially, the fact that it's harder to get to a specific item doesn't really matter, and a seal master could sell you a seal that's essentially twice (or 5 times, or however many items you can store) as useful for the same amount of time/risk to the seal master, giving more surplus to be turned into profit.
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Well we won't know until we try it.

And storage scrolls are already absurdly good. Maybe sealsmiths just focus on making seals that can store larger volumes, since they don't see any value in having multiple discrete stores instead (not having PMYF).
 
I think I got everything we've talked about. Let me know if I dropped something, though.

[x] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!

Goals:
  1. Keep our identities secret (/our location secret from those who know who we are)
  2. Start process of contacting Jiraiya
  3. Learn more about the between Jiraiya-missions part of being a missing nin
  4. Learn more about how trade works
Actions:
  • Send a note to Jiraiya through the toads via pangolins that we found the scroll.
    • This should be a secure communication route, but also it will be slow enough that we have time to learn what's happened in the Elemental Nations while we've been gone and it doesn't locate us, leaving us the opportunity to obscure where we got the scroll from.
    • Use the code he gave us and just include that we found it.
    • Don't push for a rush job, but don't delay the delivery either.
  • Go get some missing nin jobs:
    • Hazou, Noburi, and Mari head to the nearest large enough city to look for jobs. Keiko is optional, but Akane and Kagome would need more infiltration training to spend any significant time in the city.
    • Large enough means large enough to be a viable information gathering target, and also large enough to be part of a missing nin network, assuming such a thing exists, through which we can make contacts.
    • Prefer locations further away from Mist.
    • Hide our identities with henge.
    • Look for jobs involving trade preferentially, but don't be so obvious that we refuse other kinds of jobs if none are available.
    • Keep a lookout for any indication of missing medic nin who we might try to hire to teach Noburi, without advertising the need.
    • Listen to news of what's going on in the world, without advertising that we've been isolated for several months.
    • If it's possible timing wise/the job calls for it, collect any of Keiko/Akane/Kagome for any jobs that we take.
    • Offer to buy Keiko a melee weapon if there's a specific type she wants. (Or if she comes with us, she can buy one herself.)
    • Buy anything that Keiko needs for pangolin negotiation one of the times that we're in town.
    • If Mari gives us a practice exercise of suggesting how to go about the infiltration:
        • Nobby and Hazou work as a front man/backup pairing while Mari gives them room to work
          • Front man is talky and guides the conversation
          • Backup listens in the background and is prepared to provide distraction/exit strategy in case things go sideways.
          • Make sure that the front and backup are not connected with each other (come and go separately etc.)
        • If making contact with someone important, go back to team format and have Mari as a background third wheel to save the day if the boys cock things up
  • Meanwhile, at Stately Kurosawa Manor:
    • Akane practices with pangolin jutsu and works on new taijutsu style.
    • Kagome works on defenses, helps Akane with her training, and otherwise works on what he feels would be best.
    • Keiko practices with PMYF and continues visits with pangolins to look for potential contracts.
    • Hazou leaves Kagome a copy of PMYF for him to look at and reverse engineer if he likes, assuming the sensei/student relationship does not automatically give Kagome permission to learn whatever seals the student develops under instruction.
    • Hazou, Noburi, and Mari (and Keiko) spend down-time back at base if the travel time to the city allows it.
    • Everyone gets in as much PMYF practice as they can fit in with their other tasks.
    • If we have time for full team exercises with PMYF, Hazou practices using ankle-high MEW mazes to mess up non-PMYF TacMove.
    • Team keeps mulling in the background over tactics of what, exactly, to tell Jiraiya to keep our promise to Takahashi while making Jiraiya maximally happy/minimally unhappy.
 
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[x] Training Noburi: Social Chameleon
[x] Training Hazou: Transformative Spider

Noburi is also starting from 2 Transformation, so he spends two less than you have him down for to get to 10.
 
Sleeps Furiously said:
I think I got everything we've talked about. Let me know if I dropped something, though.

[x] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!

Goals:
  1. Keep our identities secret (/our location secret from those who know who we are)
  2. Start process of contacting Jiraiya
  3. Learn more about the between Jiraiya-missions part of being a missing nin
  4. Learn more about how trade works
Actions:
  • Send a note to Jiraiya through the toads via pangolins that we found the scroll.
    • Use the code he gave us and just include that we found it.
    • Don't push for a rush job, but don't delay the delivery either.
  • Go get some missing nin jobs:
    • Hazou, Noburi, and Mari head to the nearest large enough city to look for jobs. Keiko is optional, but Akane and Kagome would need more infiltration training to spend any significant time in the city.
    • Hide our identities with henge.
    • Look for jobs involving trade preferentially, but don't be so obvious that we refuse other kinds of jobs if none are available.
    • Keep a lookout for any indication of medic nin who we might try to hire to teach Noburi, without advertising the need.
    • Listen to news of what's going on in the world, without advertising that we've been isolated for several months.
    • If it's possible timing wise/the job calls for it, collect any of Keiko/Akane/Kagome for any jobs that we take.
    • Offer to buy Keiko a melee weapon if there's a specific type she wants. (Or if she comes with us, she can buy one herself.)
  • Meanwhile, at Stately Kurosawa Manor:
    • Akane practices with pangolin jutsu and works on new taijutsu style.
    • Kagome works on defenses, helps Akane with her training, and otherwise works on what he feels would be best.
    • Keiko practices with PMYF and continues visits with pangolins to look for potential contracts.
    • Hazou, Noburi, and Mari (and Keiko) spend down-time back at base if the travel time to the city allows it.
    • Everyone gets in as much PMYF practice as they can fit in with their other tasks.
    • If we have time for full team exercises with PMYF, Hazou practices using ankle-high MEW mazes to mess up non-PMYF TacMove.
    • Team keeps mulling in the background over tactics of what, exactly, to tell Jiraiya to keep our promise to Takahashi while making Jiraiya maximally happy/minimally unhappy.
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Maybe make the note to Kagome that he's welcome to do reverse engineer PMYF seal while we're gone. I mean, no reason to be stingy with it toward him. Also, Keiko should resume her search for ninjutsu tutor summons and everything else we need. She, uh, knows pretty well everything we need from the Pangolin. Make note that we in particular pick up from the city any items in that the Pangolin might want to trade, as described by Keiko.

Also, we should consider a better method of acquiring ants for them. Maybe figure out if the pangolin like honey? We could make little ant traps with honey and make little treats for them!

Otherwise, looks great!
[x] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!
[x] Training Noburi: Social Chameleon
[x] Training Hazou: Transformative Spider
 
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Sleeps Furiously said:
Send a note to Jiraiya through the toads via pangolins that we found the scroll.
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This is probably the slowest and most expensive way to get the info to Jiraya, but it's also pretty hilarious. I can imagine him summoning a toad and receiving a message scroll with " 'Sup! We summoners now!" written on it and a winking Mari caricature drawn on the side.

Here's my suggestion on how Hazou and Nobby should do the information gathering in a copy-pasteable format. Stick it somewhere if you like it. It should give us the chance to see our genin stretch their wings, get some practice and you know, do something.

Hazou's suggestion for information gathering practices:
  • Nobby and Hazou work as a front man/backup pairing while Mari gives them room to work
    • Front man is talky and guides the conversation
    • Backup listens in the background and is prepared to provide distraction/exit strategy in case things go sideways.
    • Make sure that the front and backup are not connected with each other (come and go separately etc.)
  • If making contact with someone important, go back to team format and have Mari as a background third wheel to save the day if the boys cock things up
Sleeps Furiously said:
Noburi is also starting from 2 Transformation, so he spends two less than you have him down for to get to 10.
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Good catch. I was pretty confident that it was only Hazou and Keiko who got the Transfomation 2 in the early quest but I guess Nobby must've picked it up at some point too. Fixed.

Briefvoice said:
We are in a business relationship with this guy. We go investigate as he directs and report on specific items as he requires. There's no reason to expect us to tell him about Mountain any more than Mari was expected to tell him every secret of Mist that she knows or every secret of or clans. Heck, if we had found the summoning scroll in an empty cave we wouldn't tell him about that.
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The problem is the power imbalance and the fact that summoning contracts are Big News. If J actually wants to find out what exactly happened, he has enough leverage to squeeze the info out of us and we can't really do anything about it.

EDIT: Almost forgot.

[-] Training Noburi: Up to Snuff
[-] Training Noburi: Up to No Good

[X] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!

[X] Training Keiko: Nope
[X] Training Akane: Nope
 
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@eaglejarl Did we ever get details on Water Release: Syrup Trap? I know I've asked you a couple of times but I can't seem to find anything relating to chakra cost, attribute requirements, in-game mechanics...
 
[-] Plan Learn How to be a Missing Nin

[-] We want to ultimately find a way into the good graces of one hidden village or another so that we can come in from the cold and not have to live life on the run anymore.

[x] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!
 
On the note of Akane, can I have a link to that MechApt style? She should be able to work on the trap portion of it a little more easily with the Pangolin training technique without hurting herself.
 
Twofold said:
The problem is the power imbalance and the fact that summoning contracts are Big News. If J actually wants to find out what exactly happened, he has enough leverage to squeeze the info out of us and we can't really do anything about it.
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If he does, then he does, and he'll probably force us to talk. But there's no need to pre-squeeze ourselves.
 
Briefvoice said:
If he does, then he does, and he'll probably force us to talk. But there's no need to pre-squeeze ourselves.
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Or we can have faith that he wants to cultivate us as long term assets and accommodate him by revealing something in good faith, while giving him the chance to show trust and faith in our judgement in return. If he has to burn our respect by actually squeezing us, he won't settle for half the picture; he will want the whole story.

...we do kinda go against that trust with our current policy of not revealing the ticking time bomb of VHitM to him, but I'm sure that won't come to bite us in the ass later.
 
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Twofold said:
Or we can have faith that he wants to cultivate us as long term assets and accommodate him by revealing something in good faith, while giving him the chance to show trust and faith in our judgement in return. If he has to burn our respect by actually squeezing, us he won't settle for half the picture; he will want the whole shebang.

...we do kinda go against that trust with our current policy of not revealing the ticking time bomb of VHitM to him, but I'm sure that won't come to bite us in the ass later.
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How can I put this.... Jiraiya has a shtick, which we have already been exposed to. The whole goofy pervert act. I'm sure it serves him many purposes, but one of them is social lubricant. We can have a casual conversation with him because he doesn't insist on groveling. It allows a certain amount of social maneuvering on both sides.

We meet up and he asks us how things went, and Mari winks at him and says we had a great adventure and Keiko signed the summoning contract. And he asks how that went, and she makes a joke about wanting to save up a few stories for a rainy day, hah-hah. So he gets that we don't want to go into details for whatever reason.

We're still having a fun conversation with goofy Jiraiya, so he has the option to let it go or to casually insist that no, he really wants some details. If he presses further, we can go to "we sort of promised the person that we got the scroll from that we wouldn't talk about it". So then he has another opportunity to let it go, or he can continue to insist with still less goofiness. At that point we can give in to the pressure or we can make him descend all the way to direct threats, knowing it damages our relationship. But because we started with "casual conversation" there are plenty of opportunities for both sides to back down before it gets to a battle of wills.

Contrast if we were talking to a Kage, where any request they make you either do or you're announcing an intention to fight.

That's how I see it going.
 
Updated the plan. Additions in orange.
Sleeps Furiously said:
I think I got everything we've talked about. Let me know if I dropped something, though.

[x] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!

Goals:
  1. Keep our identities secret (/our location secret from those who know who we are)
  2. Start process of contacting Jiraiya
  3. Learn more about the between Jiraiya-missions part of being a missing nin
  4. Learn more about how trade works
Actions:
  • Send a note to Jiraiya through the toads via pangolins that we found the scroll.
    • Use the code he gave us and just include that we found it.
    • Don't push for a rush job, but don't delay the delivery either.
  • Go get some missing nin jobs:
    • Hazou, Noburi, and Mari head to the nearest large enough city to look for jobs. Keiko is optional, but Akane and Kagome would need more infiltration training to spend any significant time in the city.
    • Hide our identities with henge.
    • Look for jobs involving trade preferentially, but don't be so obvious that we refuse other kinds of jobs if none are available.
    • Keep a lookout for any indication of medic nin who we might try to hire to teach Noburi, without advertising the need.
    • Listen to news of what's going on in the world, without advertising that we've been isolated for several months.
    • If it's possible timing wise/the job calls for it, collect any of Keiko/Akane/Kagome for any jobs that we take.
    • Offer to buy Keiko a melee weapon if there's a specific type she wants. (Or if she comes with us, she can buy one herself.)
    • Buy anything that Keiko needs for pangolin negotiation one of the times that we're in town.
    • If Mari gives us a practice exercise of suggesting how to go about the infiltration:
        • Nobby and Hazou work as a front man/backup pairing while Mari gives them room to work
          • Front man is talky and guides the conversation
          • Backup listens in the background and is prepared to provide distraction/exit strategy in case things go sideways.
          • Make sure that the front and backup are not connected with each other (come and go separately etc.)
        • If making contact with someone important, go back to team format and have Mari as a background third wheel to save the day if the boys cock things up
  • Meanwhile, at Stately Kurosawa Manor:
    • Akane practices with pangolin jutsu and works on new taijutsu style.
    • Kagome works on defenses, helps Akane with her training, and otherwise works on what he feels would be best.
    • Keiko practices with PMYF and continues visits with pangolins to look for potential contracts.
    • Hazou leaves Kagome a copy of PMYF for him to look at and reverse engineer if he likes.
    • Hazou, Noburi, and Mari (and Keiko) spend down-time back at base if the travel time to the city allows it.
    • Everyone gets in as much PMYF practice as they can fit in with their other tasks.
    • If we have time for full team exercises with PMYF, Hazou practices using ankle-high MEW mazes to mess up non-PMYF TacMove.
    • Team keeps mulling in the background over tactics of what, exactly, to tell Jiraiya to keep our promise to Takahashi while making Jiraiya maximally happy/minimally unhappy.
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I went back and forth a couple of times on whether to add a contingency that we contact Jiraiya with all due alacrity and give him information on how to find us if we get to town and find out that the world is on fire, then eventually left it out. I'm not really expecting anything, since if the ninja world was on fire, I would think things would be more chaotic in the summon realm. But I'll put it back in if people think it would be a good idea.
 
Briefvoice said:
That's how I see it going.
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Okay, but if we don't set a clear goal for our discussion with him, or that goal is too low on your escalation tree for him to be satisfied with it, he might just overcompensate. Also, if we start the discussion from the level we are comfortable with, we show forethought and, once again, trust in J and faith that the discussion is not a cut-throat negotiation.

Also, when I say that he has leverage, I don't mean just threat of force or blackmail. I mean that he is way more socially savvy than even Mari and has spy assets pretty much everywhere. There's a very good chance he can finagle that info out of us without dropping his "nice guy" act in the first place.

Basically, the consensus was that we are basically relying on his good will too keep things from him.

Anyway, I was just paraphrasing our earlier decisions and discussions to you in case you missed them. This is our current stance on things, it's from my post but the most of the stuff in it is from...Oliwhail I think?
Twofold said:
[X] Report Plan: Dead Bodies to Keep

If we meet up with Jiraiya before/instead of obfuscating the location we were in when we got the sealing scroll, then our goal is to keep our promise to Takahashi by not actually telling Jiraiya about the village, while telling him enough of what's going on that he knows that if he does decide to investigate, he should not actually make contact with anyone. All while not lying to him about anything.

If we meet up with his agent(s) instead of Jiraiya, they don't need any details on anything. We should just report that we're going to be here for a few weeks, then take a look at where to go in the Elemental Nations after that. That way if Jiraiya decides its worth his time to come meet with us, he knows where to find us.
  • Report to Jiraiya in person:
    • We got the Pangolin contract.
    • We've promised not to talk about how. Breaking that promise or even the appearance that it has been broken would be a poor repayment to our promisee.
    • If Jiraiya asks, we can promise him truthfully that we are confident nothing we're not telling him will be a threat to the Leaf.
    • Also, not related to the contract, but we were in Rain and detected chakra in the rain there...
    • ...while running away from Rain we ran into a Leaf patrol.
      • They are kinda super dead
      • We didn't want to leave a trail but we also didn't feel good about destroying the bodies so we kept them
      • Here they are, we promise we didn't do any science to them
  • Report to an agent of Jiraiya's:
    • Tell them we'll be here for a few weeks, then we're going to move on.
    • If they ask us explicitly about the summoning contract, then Jiraiya trusts them enough to mention it at all, so tell them yes we have it. Not what it is, though.
    • Mention the magic rain in Rain.
Either way, get gossip about the current state of affairs in the Elemental Nations. If it's Jiraiya, we can explicitly ask about Iron. Anyone else might not already know that we were involved in shenanigans up there recently, so just stick with generic gossip in that case.
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Is there something you would like to change about that? If I've not misunderstood entirely, this aligns pretty well with your current position.
 
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faflec said:
@eaglejarl Did we ever get details on Water Release: Syrup Trap? I know I've asked you a couple of times but I can't seem to find anything relating to chakra cost, attribute requirements, in-game mechanics...
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We've got all of it nailed down except for how to determine if the target is hit with it. As soon as I catch @Velorien we'll figure that out and post it. Thanks for the reminder.
 
faflec said:
@Sleeps Furiously Can you specify that the "large-enough town" to infiltrate should be in a direction away from Mist? I really don't want to have to deal with Zabuza-sempai.
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The problem is that looking on the map, there are only three towns large enough to get a dot, and only one of those managed a name, and they're all on the Mist side of Tea. And I really want to be close enough to the base that we can go back and forth at least a few times during the update. So mostly I'm banking on the fact that we'll all have good social and everyone (but Keiko, if she goes) will have good Transformation.
 
[x] Action Plan: Hey Look! The Outside World Is Still There!
[x] Training Noburi: Social Chameleon
[x] Training Hazou: Transformative Spider

[-] Plan Learn How to be a Missing Nin
 
So I have an idea for another source of free heat and insulation within our bases that we make where we expect to stay long times. A method of collecting feathers from birds hunted by wild animals and blown around by the wind. Locate wild animal hunting grounds and learn the general direction of the wind for that area, find spots where bird feathers seem to collect on the ground within the brush from animal hunts and string up a close knit net of rough rope across a wide expanse of the nearest tree line. Check in on windy days for collections of bird feathers to use as insulation and bedding to improve our quality of life within our camp. This only works for our small group size and would be a luxury item for poorer villages not able to host an aviary for bird related products.
 
Traiden said:
So I have an idea for another source of free heat and insulation within our bases that we make where we expect to stay long times. A method of collecting feathers from birds hunted by wild animals and blown around by the wind. Locate wild animal hunting grounds and learn the general direction of the wind for that area, find spots where bird feathers seem to collect on the ground within the brush from animal hunts and string up a close knit net of rough rope across a wide expanse of the nearest tree line. Check in on windy days for collections of bird feathers to use as insulation and bedding to improve our quality of life within our camp. This only works for our small group size and would be a luxury item for poorer villages not able to host an aviary for bird related products.
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I'd set Kagome to work on that, I bet that'd be a hunting check to figure out the logistics of that, and I don't think any of our genin have that.
 
We literally have ranks in hunting with Hazou.

EDIT: Akane has three ranks Hazou has one rank in hunting.
 
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