Provided that we first discuss it with Mari to make sure it won't effect any of her plans. As well as making sure she thinks Shikamaru wouldn't start his own necromancy project as well. Since the Nara do have a history of stealing our inventions i.e. macerators
Rejoice! It is time for Kagome to graduate from being our student!
Still kinda annoyed that Asuma decided that this was the best way for us to spend our time, but hey, orders are orders. Surprised that after Zoo Rush he didn't want to find out what else Hazou had in store for him...
"Hi!" Cantelabra said, bouncing so that both front legs pogoed. "You must be Kagoo, Hazō's sanshee!"
Hazō cleared his throat, desperately trying not to either laugh or wince. "It's Kagome-sensei," he corrected. "His name is Kagome and he is my sensei, which means 'respected mentor.'"
"Really," Cantelabra said, cocking his head in thought. "I thought it was 'Kagoo, me senshee'?"
Do dogs not have teachers? Or is this just a word that's not translated by their chakra nonsense?
Fortunately, Kagome-sensei looked amused. He squatted down, then sat crosslegged and held a hand out to the tiny Golden Retriever pup. Cantelabra, for his part, cheered while still in midair as he bounded into Kagome-sensei's lap and wiggled frenetically before floomping on his side. Kagome-sensei smiled and petted the pupper slowly.
Aww, Kagome didn't blow him up! I guess Cantelabra is not only very cute, but also has spent a lot of time around the Gouketsu estate.
"Not to be a buzzkill," Mari said, laughter nearly bubbling up to to surface, "but we need to get this show on the road."
"Give it a minute," Noburi said, elbowing her in the side. "How often do we get nice moments these days?"
"Define 'nice'?" Mari said, her wicked smile giving away the subtext. "Because I had a very nice moment last night. Several nice moments, actually, in quick succession. Turns out that—"
"Lalalala!" Noburi said, clapping his hands over his ears. "Can't hear you! Puppies are cute!"
Whether at the adorableness of Cantelabra or Noburi's antics, Akane's smile was peeking out from behind the lines of sadness and care that had worn their way into her face since her mission to capture Shirogane. The sight of it was a concentrated shot of relief running through Hazō's veins. He captured her right hand in his left and stroked his thumb across hers. She glanced over and smiled slightly wider for a moment, squeezing his hand in reassurance.
We need infinite chakra so we can have puppies on hand 24/7. In case of an emergency.
Kagome-sensei scritched Cantelabra behind the ears and then set him firmly back on the grass and stood up. The little pup whined grumpily but plopped his butt down and looked attentively back and forth between his own Summoner and the soon-to-be Arachnid Summoner.
"Do not be concerned, Kagome," Kei said. "Your seal training and organized mind make you well suited for managing the trip between Paths smoothly."
Kagome-sensei seemed unconvinced, but he nodded his thanks. "Let's do this," he said firmly.
We all really hope that the issue was that Rock didn't know how to train summoners, and not that the Scroll itself was fucked up in some fundamental way.
He walked, head up and steps confident, to the granite pillar on which waited the Arachnid Summoning Scroll. The pillar was the same one that Noburi and Hazō had used and was becoming a Gōketsu tradition that Hazō (very silently and never stated aloud for fear of political fallout) fully intended to keep using. Akane had been repeatedly promised a contract, Mari could make amazing use of one, and the rest of the clan deserved their own shot.
So that's at least 3 more required? Squirrel we have a good lead on, Otter we have maybe-divine assistance on, Kraken might be a viable option??
"Remember," Hazō said, "you're going to get an arachnid but it's not completely certain which one. Many of them look scary and they talk strangely from our perspective."
"I know, I know," Kagome-sensei grumbled. "Be polite, don't call them stinkers or ask why they talk weird or threaten them and definitely don't blow them up. And they're going to have to touch me in order to carry me back."
Kagome's better with prep than at random dinner parties, really. Something something prepared sealmaster.
"Right. I've spoken to Kumokōgō and tried to smooth the way as much as possible. This is largely a formality, but it's an important one. She knows that we need your help with the Great Seal and she's not going to refuse you unless something goes catastrophically wrong, but we want you to make a good impression so that she's happy to keep you on as Summoner after the Seal is dealt with."
"I know," Kagome-sensei grumbled again. "Hush up and let me sign this thing so I can go meet the giant spider lady."
Bah, Kagome should understand wanting to prep against the worst case as much as possible, even beyond redundancy.
"Okay, but you might not get a spider as your initial point of contact," Hazō reminded him. "You might get a scorpion, or a mite."
"I might get a mite, I might?" Kagome-sensei said, lips quirked in a smile. "Whatever, let's do it." He slashed a knife across the side of his arm ("Why do you dumbbutts keep cutting your palms? Lots of tendons and stuff in there!"), dipped his fingers in the blood, and signed his name at the bottom of the Arachnid Scroll in the neat and unshaking handwriting of a sealmaster.
A massive pillar of yellow smoke erupted from the ground, blanketing the area. It condensed, whirling and spinning, into a wobbly tornado twice Hazō's height. Sparks leaped out in all directions, arcing to and fro as a whining hiss cranked up through the range of human hearing, growing steadily louder until cutting off with a knife-sharp edge as the tornado exploded outwards into puffs of smoke that rapidly disappeared to reveal—
Wait, is the color of the summon mist the same as the color of the skies above the summon clan? Also I feel like that's a much more dramatic first arrival than we've seen in the past.
An upside-down soup dish with a tail spike.
There was no other way to describe it. It was a soup dish, perhaps a foot across, that someone had turned upside down and stuck a triangular spike on the back of. It was made of a brown chitin with ripples and small spikes on the surface and a few small holes, but that was it.
"Heya!" it piped, its voice surprisingly high-pitched and coming from no visible mouth. "You must be Kugome, Summoner the new, right? I Kumokani am! Contacter the First, Trainee, Twenty-Seventh Cohort of the Ninth Skitter. Honored greatly I am to be your contacter! The Empress told us all to be on the lookout for your call and super exciting to be the one is it. Too tall, not enough legs, but a good name you have. A right thing for the Arachnid Clan to have a Kumo-named human for our Summoner." Its tail flicked back and forth happily, lifting up off the ground in a way that would have been downright menacing if the thing weren't facing away from everyone.
I wonder why the translation jutsu doesn't work on the Arachnids as well as on the others. Also, Kugome doesn't start with Kumo.
Kagome-sensei considered his contact person carefully, clearly thinking through his words before speaking. "Actually, it's 'Kagome'," he said at last. "Sorry."
The tail drooped. "Oh," Kumokani said. "Well...too that good is, suppose I." It hesitated for a moment, then its mental voice brightened again. "To the Empress we should go! Wrong-named or not, super-duper excited am I to be your Contacter the First! Please to touch my shell."
So... the Summoning technique picks from amon a pool of contacters??
Kagome-sensei stepped forward and knelt down, laying the tip of one finger on the young crab's shell. There was a quiet bamf, a brief puff of cyan smoke, and the two disappeared.
And now the smoke is cyan... is that the opposite of yellow? Blue is opposite red and green, and red + green = yellow, I remember.
"Let's go, Cantelabra," Hazō said, holding out his arms for the pup to jump into. "Hold the fort guys," he said to the rest of the clan. "Be back as soon as I can."
The world disappeared in a poof of smoke and Hazō was on the Seventh Path, standing in front of Kumokōgō in her throne room.
Ah, I see why the puppy was there. What excellent coordination! I wonder if Hiruzen did this with his students.
Aside from Cantelabra and the two humans, the room was empty except for the Empress and two massive scorpion guards who hung back and to the sides. They quivered in place, having been instructed to remain still and out of the way but not liking being this far from their protectee.
Kumokōgō was really going out of her way to make this situation as unthreatening as possible.
I wonder if those scorpion guards are even a quarter as threatening as Kumokougou herself.
Kagome-sensei was busy turning in place, looking up at the rounded and far-off ceiling of the Orbularium's enormous throne room. Hopefully he had done as Hazō instructed and bowed the moment he arrived, but wonder at his new surroundings was a very reasonable thing.
Tbh, with how proud the Arachnids have seemed of their art and architecture, this seems like a fine first impression to make. Stroking the egos, so to speak.
The room was a silken sphere fifty yards across, woven so thin that the sunlight glowed faintly through. Glowing lights studded the inner surface, bolstering the light up to that of a bright summer day. The sphere was bisected by a massive spiderweb, the outer third of which consisted of anchor cables as thick as Hazō's wrist and the inner two-thirds a flat plane woven as tight as a doily and as rigid as steel. It didn't give at all under the humans' feet and the gaps in the doily weren't large enough to be dangerous—perhaps two or three fingers wide—but looking down through them revealed more floors below, some at different angles, along with spiders scuttling around the inner surface of the sphere.
I am really curious how they get everything so taut with nothing solid nearby. The rope they're using must have incredible tensile strength -- but I suppose we knew that when we learned that Cannai was unable to tear it apart with his paws.
The inside surface of the throne room was covered in paintings and sculpted ridges that were hard to visually parse for a human with only two eyes and no grounding in Arachnid culture or history. Despite that, that still managed to be beautiful.
Hmm... I would be interested in the fluff update of Hazou and Kagome getting Arachnid history lessons.
Kagome-sensei finished his turn and startled a bit when he finally noticed Kumokōgō.
"Oh, wow!" He blinked and then hurried to bow. "I mean, hello your Imperial Majesty. I am Gōketsu Kagome of the Gōketsu Clan of the Human Path and I ask the privilege of being your Summoner."
Oh no, he forgot to bow first! Is bowing a meaningful gesture to the Arachnids?
"Welcome are you, Kagome of the Gōketsu Clan. Please, approach."
Hazō had spent a solid three hours working with the Empress on how to make this meeting go well. He had explained Kagome-sensei's hair-trigger paranoia caution and willingness to use explosives as a first resort. He had made a point of also talking about Kagome-sensei's kindhearted nature and the unshakable loyalty he showed to anyone whom he considered a friend. He had described, in very vague and OPSEC-friendly ways, some of Kagome-sensei's history that accounted for his temperament. And, of course, he repeatedly emphasized how important it would be to have another senior sealmaster available to work on the Great Seal which might well kill everyone if it couldn't be fixed. But, you know, no pressure.
She also knows there are other sealmasters in Leaf, right? Though training them could take a while...
Kumokōgō was amused at the idea that she was going to have to put herself out to accommodate a Summoner candidate, since things usually went very much the other way. Still, she understood the necessity and seemed sympathetic to Kagome-sensei's history. She also acknowledged, when Hazō carefully and circumspectly explained it, exactly how terrifying her appearance was for humans. The skittering speed that was a spider's regular movement was bound to cause violent reactions from any ninja who wasn't well prepared and strongly self-controlled, but the slow prowl of a creature large enough to crush a horse was not much more reassuring. She had suggested that perhaps the best would be for her to remain still and have Kagome-sensei approach her.
I wonder how much of that explanation was appreciated? Knowing that you're scary can be fun, if Orochimaru is any guidance.
The man in question did so, Hazō leading the way one step ahead and to his left, ready to jump in the way if things went badly.
Fortunately, Kagome-sensei didn't seem frightened so much as fascinated. He walked up to what Hazō would have considered conversational distance with a creature the size of the Empress and then he kept walking until half an arm's length away from her left front leg. It was taller than he was and covered in bristly hairs as long as his thumbs; Hazō's heart skipped a beat when he teacher leaned in close, nose almost in contact with the leg, and craned his neck to look at it from different angles.
Hazō cleared his throat meaningfully and Kagome-sensei jolted upright.
Yep. Really, really low socials on this guy. I, for one, would like to exchange more than 10 words with a stranger before they start examining my leg closely.
"Oh, right!" He blushed in embarrassment and stepped back. "Um...sorry. Uh...I'm supposed to say, um—"
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance it is, Kagome of the Gōketsu," Kumokōgō said, her voice bubbling with arachnid amusement. "See I that concern for your alarm overstated was."
"Hm?" Kagome-sensei said, frowning in confusion. "What? Oh, right! Yeah, I was supposed to be scared, wasn't I? Um...is it rude if I'm not? Hazō explained all this etiquette stuff but it's hard to remember it all. The Path-walking stuff, sure. Extradimensional transposition is easy enough to do in your head if you've only got two endpoints and I did the dance before signing so that the Things wouldn't notice me, but etiquette is hard." He looked down at his shoes, ticking points on his fingers. "Bow when you get there...don't call anyone a stinker...don't look grossed out...don't blow them up." He looked up again, beaming in delight. "Hey, I did it right!"
Surprising that living in the woods didn't make him want to explode everything resembling a chakra beast. Well, and a human to, but I guess that I thought the desire to explode humans that has been trained out of him by Leaf would be separate from the desire to explode beasts, which is still correct.
Kumokōgō burst out in high-pitched chitters of laughter. "Indeed you did, my new Summoner. Accept you I do. Talk let us, and perhaps not a mere temporary formality need this be."
"Aren't I supposed to cuddle you tonight or something?" He studied her. "I hope you don't roll over in your sleep, because I think you'd squish me."
I assume the bed is softer than the floors here that are basically steel wire. He'd just get pressed into the surface, and maybe asphyxiated. Hot.
The hairs on the massive spider's body rippled in an arachnid shudder. "Ew. Regard positively bluntness you do, says Hazō. Therefore shall I say: ew, gross. As disturbing as Hazō finds us, so too do we think of you icky mammals. Yes, sleep in my web you must so that the Seal you may see, but there shall be no"—her mouthparts heaved as though she were swallowing back a bit of vomit—"cuddling. Far, far apart shall we sleep. Through three rooms is my web woven. Also, keep on your pants while in my web you are. Seen Hazō's groin-thing I have, when he spat water from it. Floppy, hairless trunk and those dangly wrinkly things."
"Hey!" Hazō said, blushing beet red.
"Ew, ew, ew," Kumokōgō continued, ignoring him. "Pants keep on, spit not water."
"I'm a grown man, I don't pee the bed," Kagome-sensei said with a huff and folded arms. "Or web, or whatever. Don't be gross."
The implication being that Hazou had an... accident while he was performing the required duties of a spider-husband?
Does Kumokougou have Arachnid consorts, or only human ones? I wonder what they think, or if the Arachnids think she's gross for only taking human consorts...
The Empress gave a tiny nod of her massive head. "Very well. Now, come. Sit. Tell me of yourself." She politely turned her head to make clear to Hazō that she was focused on him. "Hazō, leave you may. I believe past the first obstacle we are and violence unlikely is." (Off to the sides, her scorpion bodyguards rustled their chitinous legs angrily.) "Speak privately with my Summoner I like should. Send him home tomorrow once complete the marriage is."
Kagome-sensei blinked at that, his upcoming cross-species nuptials finally clicking into an immediate reality as opposed to a future assumption.
The older man waved dismissively. "Nah, head on back. I want to talk to my lady here. Do you mind if I walk around you? You've got a fascinating body. Three joints in the legs, huh? I suppose it's kinda like humans if the foot was a lot longer and vertical." He pointed one leg out and stared at his foot as he wiggled it back and forth, bending the knee experimentally. "No, it would have to be turned around the other way. It doesn't look like you have hands, so how do you weave things? Our spiders have their silk come out their rear ends—is it like that for you, or—"
Hazō beat a hasty retreat from the throne room, taking Cantelabra back to the Dog embassy chambers before unsummoning himself.
Well, everything seemed to work out fine. The Arachnids seem pretty blunt and direct and not prone to lying, and Kagome has a good heart. I'm optimistic it'll work out, especially since Kagome's blow-stuff-up instincts seem to be pleasantly missing here.
Good chapter as always. Looking forward to seeing what Kagome has to say about the Great Seal when he gets to see it for real.
By the way, can we visit Hinata to request a mission of one of her Hyuuga clanmates? We want someone to check out a big chakra construct with their special eyes. It's a ways away, but we can supply skywalkers and skytowers. Let's get Neji to the Great Seal and see what he sees. Byakugan on the Dragons could also be revealing, though getting close enough will be hard... at least we have the tunnels?
By the way, can we visit Hinata to request a mission of one of her Hyuuga clanmates? We want someone to check out a big chakra construct with their special eyes. It's a ways away, but we can supply skywalkers and skytowers.
I don't think that we'll have much luck with the same bait-and-switch given that we'd have to request Neji specifically, and I'm not sure that signing a mission contract would cover the surprise reveal of 'oh, yeah, go convince a Summon clan Boss to dispatch one of their subjects (?) to a foreign land'.
Perhaps we could do some good work with leveraging the Arachnid's connection with the Sharks to generate safe passage. Are the Turtles at the Conclave? Letting the Sharks know about the Trade Network could be an idea, although I worry about Kisame showing up unannounced with Feelings about our having done that.
Let's get Neji to the Great Seal and see what he sees. Byakugan on the Dragons could also be revealing, though getting close enough will be hard... at least we have the tunnels?
What's his range? How big is the Great Seal, and how high do Dragons normally fly? I feel like if he's close enough to get a look at a Dragon, it was time to go home already. I don't hate the idea of Hazo and Neji being brother-husbands, though, from a lulz perspective.
[X]* Neji and Noburi catch up on the Seventh Path *yes I know voting is closed but we haven't seen much of Neji recently and I think that's a shame
Because he's the only Summoner they have? If we decide Byakugan eyes must see it, I would rather hope for the Hyūga to get another Summoning Scroll and give it to a sealmaster. Not taking any non-sealmaster's opinion/description/impression on seals has got to be the only sane thing to do. Sealcraft is immensely dangerous, to the point that Keiko had it rather high in her self-unalive paths list. Even if we have to give the Hyūga the extra Scroll to do this, I feel this is the only safe way Byakugan help could actually help. Though looking at the Dragons themselves might be fine. Maybe. They give Hazō Out-seizures, but many things seem to do that. Most of them are cognitohazards, like at least some effects from the Dragons (anomalous size, "beautiful one" etc) or Snuncle's aura, granted.
That said giving the Hyūga a scroll ourselves might not be a bad plan. Akane comes first of course, but... that would go a long way towards "the Hyūga not hating us any more for making the anti-Byakugan seal somewhat public" (they may hate us much more for that if those weren't, you know, apparently hard to make (iirc) but it looks fine-ish? Scoring points with them would help, and Ami might even like us for helping bringing Hinata to the progressive side).
That said giving the Hyūga a scroll ourselves might not be a bad plan. Akane comes first of course, but... that would go a long way towards "the Hyūga not hating us any more for making the anti-Byakugan seal somewhat public" (they may hate us much more for that if those weren't, you know, apparently hard to make (iirc) but it looks fine-ish? Scoring points with them would help, and Ami might even like us for helping bringing Hinata to the progressive side).
You don't give away priceless magical artifacts to score some vague political points. If we where to give up a scroll we need to be compensated appropriately. The going rate for a summoning scroll is all of Jiraiya's sealing notes or getting to found a new clan.
You don't give away priceless magical artifacts to score some vague political points. If we where to give up a scroll we need to be compensated appropriately. The going rate for a summoning scroll is all of Jiraiya's sealing notes or getting to found a new clan.
I think that'd be more than "vague" political points. They'd be in our debt, quite impressively so.
I'm not saying it's what we should do, at any rate. Just that it would not be necessarily super stupid
IMO quite unlikely Asuma would allow this to happen or that Hinata would be on board. Summoners are forward-deployed and sealmasters aren't. That Kagome has a scroll is a point of contention for this reason. It seems unlikely that Asuma will allow it to happen yet again for the same project, or that Hinata has the ability to stand up to that pressure.
I think it's likelier that we could get Neji a crash course in Sealing.
If we where to give up a scroll we need to be compensated appropriately. The going rate for a summoning scroll is all of Jiraiya's sealing notes or getting to found a new clan.
I broadly agree, but I don't think that the clan thing is a good comparison anymore and the actual cost of the notes was everyone getting to read them. We didn't give them up - we still have access.
I might be misremembering, but I think Hinata told us something to the effect of "this means war" after we shared all of Jiraiya's seal notes in the Stakhan-Off, because the Byakugan't seal was in there. So it's not that she hates us, she just has to, politically, be "our enemy". Until they get a sufficient win against us or we pay them with something very good
All in all, her being grossed out is one of the best possible outcomes. She's not gonna eat Hazō, "the giant spider is not turned on" is always a great thing¹, and if it comes to blows at some point Hazō can tag "weirded out by alien dick" for extra psychical damage or something
¹: except, of course, for the speed of implementation to Project: Omnicule
"Goooood morning, Gaku!" Hazō said, bursting through the door with vim and vigor in his step.
Gaku raised an eyebrow. "Good morning, my lord. You seem...happy."
"Happy? I suppose I do." He set a hip on the corner of his desk and rubbed his hands. "Gaku, I have made a decision!"
"Oh?"
"Yes, indeed. Do you know what the Gōketsu Clan is going to do for the next little while? What our number one priority is going to be as a clan?"
"Saving the world from ravening monsters?"
"No, no, no. That's my priority. I'm talking about the clan's."
"Uplifting all civilians everywhere to a lifestyle of comfort and health and respect?"
"No, no—well, yes, but that's a long-term thing and we already have a lot of projects in the works for it. No, I'm talking about the immediate future."
"In that case, I have no idea, sir. I await your pronouncement with bated breath."
"Beautification!"
"Beautification, sir?"
"Indeed! For too long now we've been living in these big granite boxes. It makes us look bad. The Nara have a swooping, elegant building. Well, they did. And they're rebuilding, so they will again. The Hyūga have a...." He groped for a word. "A place of beauty that inspires awe and reverence while also looking like a powerful military building. The Gōketsu, on the other hand, look like poverty-stricken rubes."
"I see. What did you have in mind?"
"Fish canals, to start. Narrow canals that run around the estate and have fish in them."
Gaku studied him carefully. "You're thinking of more Wakahisa koi, aren't you?"
"Eventually, yes. We can build the canals with overhangs where the fish can shelter out of sight and out of reach. Once enough of them are in there, it won't be possible to pull all of them out."
"Will the Wakahisa fish handlers allow that?"
Hazō smiled. "Probably not. Then again, I wasn't actually planning to ask permission. When breeding starts, if a couple of mating pairs somehow jump the wall into the canals...well, how is that our problem?"
"Don't they require very specific breeding and handling?"
Hazō shrugged. "We've seen a lot of what the fish tenders do and I find myself wondering if it's actually as hard as they claim. Regardless, we don't have enough koi for what we need and the Wakahisa aren't going to let us have them. We're allowed to breed up to forty fish, but that's going to take years and it still isn't enough. There's not much point to having a thing that doesn't meet our needs and also puts spies on our land."
"That sounds like a declaration of war between the two clans," Gaku said after a moment.
"Ehhh..." Hazō said. "I doubt it. First they'd have to prove that we did it deliberately. And of course we'll do our absolute best to help them recover all the fish from the canals." He smiled. "Pity it will be completely impractical."
"I see, sir." Gaku considered the words for a moment. "Very well. What should I do?"
"First off, get with Mari and figure out what sort of things would work. We want dramatic but not overstated. We want aesthetics but also quality of life. We want 'beautiful, exotic, unique', but also in line with Leaf's traditional styles. Nothing too similar to Mist architecture, nothing that makes us look like foreigners. Oh, and don't break the budget."
"Yes sir. Did you have any specific suggestions?"
Hazō shrugged. "Ask her, she's moved through a lot more of the city than I have and she's more aware of that sort of thing. Maybe some statues? Heroes of Nagi Island, Jiraiya or his teaching lineage, something like that. Maybe Dog Clan stuff? Their history with Kakashi. Oh, maybe the Toad Clan's history with Jiraiya. Our ties to the Leaf traditional clans? Kei and Shikamaru. Our people who were born here, both ninja and civilian."
Gaku's face became guarded. "Civilians?"
"You know. Granny Mayuka. The docents. You."
"Sir, I do not want to see my face embodied in stone."
"But you'd look so majestic!"
"I do not want to look majestic, sir."
"Think of the Gōketsu children a hundred years from now. They'll be walking past this towering statue—thirty feet high, white marble with gold trim—and they'll say 'Mommy, who was that?' and their mother will say 'that is Gaku, the man who built this clan' and the child will say 'but Mommy, didn't Lord Jiraiya and Lord Hazō build this clan?' and the mother will say 'they founded the clan, but—"
"All right, all right," Gaku said, waving his lord to silence. "With respect, sir, I neither need nor want hagiography. A statue of me, regardless of its height, would be terribly embarrassing."
"It would be a very nice statue."
"I'm sure it would. I do not want it."
"Mm-hm. Well, your objections are noted. In the meantime, talk to Mari and figure it out."
"Sir, I truly do not want a statue."
"Make you a deal," Hazō said with a grin. "You don't protest about the fish canals, I will consider not making a statue of you."
Gaku looked unamused.
"Oh, also, how's the sanitation project coming along?" Hazō asked. "Are we ready to start building an aqueduct and sewer into the compound yet? If so, get with the engineers and make it happen."
"Yes sir. I believe they will be able to start within the week. It will mean a great deal of digging, which may interfere with the beautification project."
Hazō jumped to his feet and started to pace restlessly. "Whatever. We can do both at once. Fix the buildings while the ground is getting torn up, fix the ground once the sewers are in. Oh, and find out about that fertility jutsu. I want the Gōketsu estate to have the greenest, lushest grass in all of Fire Country."
"Yes sir."
"Good. Now, I'm going to go start Earthshaping some of our buildings to be a little nicer."
"Nicer, sir?"
"Yeah. Smooth out the granite, merge in some slate, clay, or some other materials with attractive and not-red colors. Make a mosaic out of it. Don't worry, I'll keep it abstract. Oh, and maybe see if I can get some copper or silver wire made up cheap. Naruto has that stuff in his façade, it looks great."
"I'll contact some of the silversmiths, sir."
"Do that. Also, talk to some landowners with mines. Maybe we can buy the materials directly and make the wire ourselves. Or just break it into flakes and use those."
"You can merge metal into stone, sir?"
"No, it doesn't affect metal directly, but it's easy enough to wrap the stone around it, hold it in place. You can move metal around inside a chunk of ore by shifting the stone around it."
"I see."
Hazō stood up, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Okay, time to get started."
XP AWARD: 3
Brevity XP: 1
"GM had fun" XP: 0
Voting remains closed unless @Velorien opens it. He may want to continue this.
EDIT: Voting is open!
Voting ends on Wednesday,
.
So... That's may had bad plan it kinda happens when we run out of ideas.
This kinda sounds like a good time for a timeskip to be honest. Love the harumitsu kid but he is kinda blocking us for any immediate fun stuff
The impression that I get from this statement is not a positive one. It feels unnecessarily negative and totally unproductive.
I'm not a believer in 'if you can't say anything nice don't say anything' or whatever, but the notion of trying not to say things which are not kind, necessary, and true - or at least two out of three - seems like something to strive for.
So... That's may had bad plan it kinda happens when we run out of ideas.
This kinda sounds like a good time for a timeskip to be honest. Love the harumitsu kid but he is kinda blocking us for any immediate fun stuff
We didn't run out of ideas. There were other plans and people latched onto this one because it seemed fun. It needed more work, but this was a 24-hour-voting cycle. Such is life.
So... That's may had bad plan it kinda happens when we run out of ideas.
This kinda sounds like a good time for a timeskip to be honest. Love the harumitsu kid but he is kinda blocking us for any immediate fun stuff
Fair enough, we should ofscreen the details to mari on the beautification process, maybe next chapter we actually fo some socials? There's so much we have to do on leaf right now.
The only thing I'm leery about is the koi stuff, and there's plenty of time for Mari to plotting it and laying prepwork or tell Hazou to scuttle that part of the plan. I would be surprised if this came back to bite us without any warning.
Aside from that, it's a nice little plan that gets a nice thing done, and that's about all it needs to be.
The only thing I'm leery about is the koi stuff, and there's plenty of time for Mari to plotting it and laying prepwork or tell Hazou to scuttle that part of the plan. I would be surprised if this came back to bite us without any warning.
Aside from that, it's a nice little plan that gets a nice thing done, and that's about all it needs to be.
"Think of the Gōketsu children a hundred years from now. They'll be walking past this towering statue—thirty feet high, white marble with gold trim—and they'll say 'Mommy, who was that?' and their mother will say 'that is Gaku, the man who built this clan' and the child will say 'but Mommy, didn't Lord Jiraiya and Lord Hazō build this clan?' and the mother will say 'they founded the clan, but—"
