Nontrivial plan updates. Pinging voters so you can review: @Inferno Vulpix, @Lord Marshal, @faflec, @RandomOTP, @coldcutconvict. tl;dr changed the Noburi apology section up so the apology is much shorter and we spend time going over the pros and cons of his potential training plans. I tried to do so in a pretty balanced way as opposed to simply

@Shrooms, @Eisenhelm, @ProperAttorney, I think this is probably (more) in line with what you were looking for.

Perhaps useful to note that I always asked Noburi if he wanted advice (at least, at the time you wrote that, I was asking him.) Thank you for the feedback, no worries about sounding clipped etc.
This is a lot better for me, yeah.
[X] Action Plan: Brother, Sister
 
Nontrivial plan updates. Pinging voters so you can review: @Inferno Vulpix, @Lord Marshal, @faflec, @RandomOTP, @coldcutconvict. tl;dr changed the Noburi apology section up so the apology is much shorter and we spend time going over the pros and cons of his potential training plans. I tried to do so in a pretty balanced way as opposed to simply

@Shrooms, @Eisenhelm, @ProperAttorney, I think this is probably (more) in line with what you were looking for.

Perhaps useful to note that I always asked Noburi if he wanted advice (at least, at the time you wrote that, I was asking him.) Thank you for the feedback, no worries about sounding clipped etc.
Question, what is there to sanity check whit Mari ? Everything seems sensible and personal.
She will say we are using her advise as a crutch.
 
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@Eisenhelm, , @ProperAttorney, @kitkatnacho, are there modifications I could make to my plan (quoted below) that would get your vote?

My intention is to put a plan which largely constitutes the two fragments in the second quote forward as soon as this chapter posts: I think that the Harumitsu scene is important/good, but EJ writing it might make more sense from a logistical perspective, and Vel said he'd be happy to write the Noburi apology, which both gets us important information (if Noburi wants to pursue medicine or jutsu we can dump XP into them pretty much now) and might be fun to read because they have a cool dynamic.
I was also concerned about the Noburi apology part, but I'm fine with it after your changes. I also wasn't really feeling it for another talky chapter, while Oneiros' plan at least has us fulfill our responsibility to the Hagoromo. However, your reasoning is sound and it makes sense to clear these details out of the way now instead of later.
[X] Action Plan: Brother, Sister
 
Final updates. Pinging voters. @Inferno Vulpix, @Lord Marshal, @faflec, @RandomOTP, @Eisenhelm, @Shrooms, @kitkatnacho, @coldcutconvict, speak now or forever hold your peace. Or don't! I'm not your mom.
  • Sanity-check w/Mari.
  • Noburi:
    • We were tired. We're sorry. You're our brother. We love you. Are we cool?
    • We see your options as…
      • Earth element - positives: MARI/PEA, reputation w/Toads, negatives: big investment, not unique (Summons/other ninja).
      • Medicine - positives: relatively unique, Uplift-aligned, notes available, negatives: backline work, doesn't increase survivability.
      • Jutsu - positives: survivability, reputation w/Toads, negatives: 'normal' option, limited Water jutsu in Leaf.
      • Resolve - positives: critical for SC, negatives: limited other applications.
      • Something else?
    • We're trying to present a balanced picture - it's all important.
    • We support whatever you choose.
    • Have you decided?
    • Do you want help deciding? (Advice? Proposed builds?)
  • Kei/Snowflake:
    • We'd like to pursue the Squirrel Scroll.
      • Lay out what we know: bloody clothes, rough time/place, anything else.
      • Do the Nara know anything else? Intel on the Eastern Continent meeting? General thoughts?
    • We'd love you to come with us.
      • It's been a while since we've gotten to spend any time beyond planning meetings, damage control, or twisting Shikamaru's arm. That's fun (sometimes) but we miss spending time with you. The mission would be a nice opportunity to relive some of the old days, with less terror.
      • Is there anything we can do to make that possible/attractive?
    • Team composition:
      • Akane - ideally, we want the scroll for her.
      • You - wax eloquently about her brilliance until she makes us stop.
      • Snowflake - do the same thing as above. Come adventuring!
      • Who else - Yuno? Noburi? Haru? Naruto? Ami? Hired chuunin? Others?
  • Misc.:
    • Ask the leader of the Skyslider team if they have a subordinate who could head another research project without crippling Skyslider research.
      • If so, give them a few people from the Skyslider team, hire a few folks, and pursue hot air balloons.
      • Animal oil for fuel? Spider silk (waxed) for balloons?
      • Let Yuno know.

Personal opinion says it still feels a bit condescending; maybe we could say "What can we do to help? (Advice? Space? Proposed builds?)"?
I don't know if you think this represents an improvement or not but with the sanity check we're well past the point of diminishing returns in terms of tweaks.
Question, what is there to sanity check whit Mari ? Everything seems sensible and personal.
She will say we are using her advise as a crutch.
I mean...she can tell us 'you don't need help with this' and then that's that. She might also tell us 'this isn't the sort of thing I'm interested in helping with, it's small potatoes and you're a big boy', which is similar.

I do think that asking for her advice before we go ask Kei about the Squirrel mission is a good idea; for all we know, telling her about this gives the Nara some claim to the scroll, or telling Kei we want it for Akane will put her in a weird position because of KEI coordinator stuff, or or or. We have blind spots and Mari is both aware of them and generally able to help.

Ultimately, it's three words and can't hurt.
I also wasn't really feeling it for another talky chapter, while Oneiros' plan at least has us fulfill our responsibility to the Hagoromo.
Kid Hag is one of my two table-flip characters (if anyone harms a single hair on his head or Honoka's they will suffer a fate that makes Hidan go 'that was probably a bit excessive' and Orochimaru go 'for the love of the sage I'm going to be ill') and it will be a cold, cold day in the warm parts of Nakara before I put forward any plan that hurts either one of them.

I think that the plan I've written is doable and then we can have a fun time with Kid Hag and Kagome.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Velorien on Jun 29, 2022 at 4:48 PM, finished with 93 posts and 11 votes.


Voting is closed.


Lay out what we know: bloody clothes, rough time/place, anything else.
I would be very grateful for a summary of what you know and wish to lay out.
 
I would be very grateful for a summary of what you know and wish to lay out.
- bloody clothes, we have Jiraiya's clothes preserved in a storage seal, and by his notes most of the blood is the other guy's
- I'm not sure we know exactly how long ago it happened but the characters probably do
- location is Neck, near the border of 2 other countries, on an island in a lake, within a forest. The actual Summoner and scroll disappeared into the woods after getting fatally wounded on the island, Jiraiya was unable to locate them. We also know when summoners die in the 7th Path the scroll returns to the human path so it's around there somewhere...
- Jiraiya may have had intel on the local Clans since he was trying to organize them into a village to put pressure on Mist. The Squirrel Summoner butted in and tried to be kage but no one liked him, and the village scheme fell apart after that guy died. We don't have the clan info out of universe though. Same goes for any nearby civilian settlements/cities Jiraiya may have visited

Chapter where Enma first spoke of it:
forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Chapter 322: Summoned for a Briefing "You sent for me, s—" "BOO!" "Gah! Multiple E...oh." Asuma waited until Hazō's combat reflexes had settled down, then smiled and gestured to the cushion across from himself. The Monkey King sitting next to him laughed uproariously at Hazō's panic...

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and wish to lay out.
Mostly I think we just want to see if Kei and snow can/want to go or if they are too busy with the Nara, and run team composition ideas by them, as well as see if now is a good time to go. Ami did say to stockpile Weapons after all.

I think my ideal team is Hazou, Akane, Yuno, Kei but I know some people would want to bring Noburi. Unclear if Asuma would allow it or not
 
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"Question 3: Jiraiya killed the Squirrel Summoner a while back. Kagome-sensei was the one who decoded Jiraiya's notes and I asked him if there had been any details about that. Surprisingly, there were."

Gaku's head came up. "Another Scroll, sir? Lord Jiraiya had details on another Scroll? Or...wait, he didn't have the Scroll itself, did he? With his power, I would assume—" He caught himself gushing and stopped, his face turning red with embarrassment. "My apologies, sir."

Hazō chuckled. "Don't worry about it. No, nothing that exciting. It was a journal entry relating the experience along with a few details we hadn't had. It lets us narrow the location down a bit, but it's still a couple hundred square miles to search. More importantly, it turns out that Jiraiya had a secret weakness."

"A weakness, sir?" Scholarly eyebrows rose. "I was always told that Lord Jiraiya was one of the most powerful ninja in the world."

"Oh, he was. No, this was the same weakness shared by all bachelors: Laundry day, the skipping thereof." He laughed and waggled a slip of paper that was yellowing with age. "This is an old storage seal that we really should get rid of soonish. It contains the clothes that Jiraiya was wearing at the time of the fight. According to the notes on the back he was covered in 'great gushing gobs of Squirrel Boy's blood, and maybe a couple drops of mine.' The Squirrel Summoner escaped into the woods and Jiraiya wanted to hire an Inuzuka tracker to help him track the guy down. Unfortunately, the whole reason that Jiraiya was there in the first place was as part of an initiative to prevent Mist from 'getting too stroppy.' Well, they'd been getting more so and once he got back to Leaf he was too busy for the next couple of years to go after the Scroll. By that point he figured that the trail was cold enough not to bother pursuing. He kept the clothes on his 'todo someday' list but never got around it."
Apparently we have a search radius of a couple hundred miles (bolded above).

The plan, insofar as we have one, is to take the tracker we convinced along with us and see what we can see. If anything.
 
I would figure the expedition will largely be:

1: Get to Neck
2: Figure out where the island where the battle took place is, whether by asking locals or stealing maps or whatever
3: Scour the woods nearby for the Scroll
4: Get back to Leaf with the scroll

Presumably each of these steps will be a bit more complicated than a single line would imply :V
 
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I would figure the expedition will largely be:

1: Get to Neck
2: Figure out where the island where the battle took place is, whether by asking locals or stealing maps or whatever
3: Scour the woods nearby for the Scroll
4: Get back to Leaf with the scroll

Presumably each of these steps will be a bit more complicated than a single line would imply :V
Might be worth checking with the squirrels if they already have a summoner...
 
Might be worth checking with the squirrels if they already have a summoner...
If we do that we should probably talk to the kangaroos about their scroll. Since according to Infernal vulpix the kangaroo border both the arachnids and the squirrels. Plus we know that the kangaroo scroll should be somewhere in River
 
If we do that we should probably talk to the kangaroos about their scroll. Since according to Infernal vulpix the kangaroo border both the arachnids and the squirrels. Plus we know that the kangaroo scroll should be somewhere in River
We can suggest that allied Summon clans to talk to their neighbours about the benefits of the trade network (or just take them to the cleaners with trade and then eventually reveal that the reason they're doing so well/they can get such weird stuff is because their great Summoners made a trade network, oh, well, I guess your Summoner could join, what, you don't have one, well, good thing, I guess that means we can keep fleecing you if you want the good pipeweed).
 
Plus we know that the kangaroo scroll should be somewhere in River
Well, more pedantically, the last time we heard anything about the Kangaroo Summoner was when they were backing up the River kage...
"Anyway, Chizuko went off on a mission and didn't come back. Roll forward to about forty years ago, Zen brought me in for a meeting with the Lord of River Country. The Bouncy Summoner was there; he sat in the background and didn't say a damn thing the whole time. Creepy dude. He was pretty jacked for one of you scrawny little humans, real quiet, had this creepy stare that made me uncomfortable. Never got his name. He liked to stay off the list, too; I asked Zen about him a few times and didn't get much. There were occasional reports of him up until about fifteen years ago, then nothing.
He could've died anywhere... nonetheless the search would probably have to start in River, if the Kangaroos don't know anything
 
How many more scrolls can we collect before Asuma stops letting us keep them?

I believe "As many as we can obtain with our own powers". Asuma cannot go to a Clan and say "Give me your scroll" anymore than he can go to a Clan and say "Give me your clan secrets": meaning he can, technically, but he would need a really really good reason to:
a) Royally piss off the Goketsu
b) Royally piss off the Goketsu allies
c) Make the Clans extremely paranoid about the precedent of "The Hokage can take your Clan Shinies when and how he wishes", meaning they will stop it from happening or simply drag their feet until the Hokage repents

He'll first revoke the Arachnid Scroll(After the Great Seal is resolved) if he really wants to try something, because that's the less damaging (but still damaging) precedent to establish. Personally, if we obtain the Squirrel he'll simply invite us to a tea together and explain the situation, while saying that the tower is open to negotiation, to which we'll answer "I promised my girlfriend the Scroll, can't really make best Akane sad, maybe next time".
 
I believe "As many as we can obtain with our own powers". Asuma cannot go to a Clan and say "Give me your scroll" anymore than he can go to a Clan and say "Give me your clan secrets": meaning he can, technically, but he would need a really really good reason to:
a) Royally piss off the Goketsu
b) Royally piss off the Goketsu allies
c) Make the Clans extremely paranoid about the precedent of "The Hokage can take your Clan Shinies when and how he wishes", meaning they will stop it from happening or simply drag their feet until the Hokage repents

He'll first revoke the Arachnid Scroll(After the Great Seal is resolved) if he really wants to try something, because that's the less damaging (but still damaging) precedent to establish. Personally, if we obtain the Squirrel he'll simply invite us to a tea together and explain the situation, while saying that the tower is open to negotiation, to which we'll answer "I promised my girlfriend the Scroll, can't really make best Akane sad, maybe next time".
How worried would you be about a scenario like Asuma creating a hefty tax on every scroll a clan owns beyond their 3rd? For extra cover, he could grandfather the scrolls we already have to be taxless. Do not think other clans will protest weakening us if they think they will never be targeted by the tax.
 
How worried would you be about a scenario like Asuma creating a hefty tax on every scroll a clan owns beyond their 3rd? For extra cover, he could grandfather the scrolls we already have to be taxless. Do not think other clans will protest weakening us if they think they will never be targeted by the tax.

To be honest, not much.
1) that tax could be used for everything: "Every Clan that has more than 10 Seals" or "Every Clan that has more than X Jounins", also as the Hokage the last thing you want to do is put a brake on the Clans will of improving the power of Leaf, it's how the supremacy of a village dies.
2) that would just convince the Goketsu to stop searching for Scrolls, and that's bad. For Asuma the best situation is having the Scrolls in balance, but the worse situation is not having more Scrolls at all, sticks don't help with that, only carrots.
All this for what? Asuma loses more possible Scrolls, political support from his allies, establishes a dangerous precedent and piss off his golden goose...to make happy other clans whose grievance is basically "Goketsu are too good of a clan and keep obtaining wins for themselves and Leaf".
At the end of the day, even if the other clans are ok with it, we are now important, Noburi, Mari, Hazou,Kei, Yuno and Kagome aren't guests anymore, we are extremely important to Leaf and his institutions(Not vital, but important), he could piss us off for the benefit of other clans that are offering no results, or could not punish the important clan that is bringing results and resources to Leaf.
Now that we think about it, we're basically like Ami in this.
Oh, and we could just pay the tax, if we need to.
 
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How worried would you be about a scenario like Asuma creating a hefty tax on every scroll a clan owns beyond their 3rd? For extra cover, he could grandfather the scrolls we already have to be taxless. Do not think other clans will protest weakening us if they think they will never be targeted by the tax.
I don't think he would do something like that but, if he does we grin and bear it. Then we keep sharpening our knives by continuing to FOOM and research seals. Then once we are strong enough we pull the trigger and take over the world.
 
I don't think he would do something like that but, if he does we grin and bear it. Then we keep sharpening our knives by continuing to FOOM and research seals. Then once we are strong enough we pull the trigger and take over the world.
We should not stop hunting scrolls until Asuma brings the hammer down. Being prepared for a hammer makes us readier to get the most out of the bargain.
To be honest, not much.
1) that tax could be used for everything: "Every Clan that has more than 10 Seals" or "Every Clan that has more than X Jounins", also as the Hokage the last thing you want to do is put a brake on the Clans will of improving the power of Leaf, it's how the supremacy of a village dies.
2) that would just convince the Goketsu to stop searching for Scrolls, and that's bad. For Asuma the best situation is having the Scrolls in balance, but the worse situation is not having more Scrolls at all, sticks don't help with that, only carrots.
All this for what? Asuma loses more possible Scrolls, political support from his allies, establishes a dangerous precedent and piss off his golden goose...to make happy other clans whose grievance is basically "Goketsu are too good of a clan and keep obtaining wins for themselves and Leaf".
At the end of the day, even if the other clans are ok with it, we are now important, Noburi, Mari, Hazou,Kei, Yuno and Kagome aren't guests anymore, we are extremely important to Leaf and his institutions(Not vital, but important), he could piss us off for the benefit of other clans that are offering no results, or could not punish the important clan that is bringing results and resources to Leaf.
Now that we think about it, we're basically like Ami in this.
Oh, and we could just pay the tax, if we need to.
1) Assets should be taxed to make sure they are doing the most for the village. If we are sitting on a scroll and not extracting its full value someone else is more deserving. Newly conquered or settled land may get a tax break, but it must be taxed all the same. And it is an honor to 'serve' the village through a clan's strength.
2) Agreed but other considerations outweigh this on the balance. In the conversation about Minato's notes, Asuma seemed to suggest we already had more strength than he preferred. Implying we are already past the line of permissiveness for an ally.

Asuma looks at us like we look at Ami. We would be worried in a world where we had one scroll and Ami was stacking up on four with more on the way. Soon, we will have enough chakra to summon 4 Bosses on Asuma's porch. Very threatening. No way other clans are not questioning him about it when he already only has loose control of Tsunade and Orochimaru. He may look for Wakahisa interested in immigration to be less dependent on Noburi for Zoo Rushes, then tighten up regulations on the chakra we have been buying.

Awareness of Hokage concerns gives us time to plan appeasement. Minimum, we want something ready to sacrifice for the next two scrolls for Mari and Akane. After that, giving away scrolls does not feel so bad if they go to allies like Ino, Shikamaru or the Akimichi. Does leave Yuno and Haru out to dry.
 
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