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This does leave Keiko with relative "excess" of XP for the moment but it's not like we can't find her some sort of XP sink.

I think Rihaku wanted her initially as a prospective sealmaster, what with the Monomaniacal modifier. We would need to find a Sealmaster for her to apprentice under though and well... i have no idea how we would even begin to find one in our current situation.
 
What Chronic said, with the caveat that she can also train medical skills, which use intellect as well as seals/technique modification.
 
What Chronic said, with the caveat that she can also train medical skills, which use intellect as well as seals/technique modification.

The Monomaniacal part of her Kekkai Genkai forces us to choose one of Medical Skill, Technique Hack or Sealing though. It only reduces the intelligence cap on one skill.

And don't quote me on it, but i think we voted for Sealing...
 
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Oh that's fine then. If she's going to put points in INT it makes sense for her to level the other skills too since she already has INT in the first place. That was my point.
 
5) Will you lot pull a Wildbow and give us mathematician's answers or can we be a bit more colloquial while still getting useful responses? Have fun eagle jarl ;-)
Reduce to problem already solved by@Jackercracks.
Look at me, getting referenced like a source paper. Surely I'll be the face on notes before too long.

More seriously, it's actually a fairly complicated problem. There are a few types of information, most relevant being information that Hazou has access to, and information that we know is true but Hazou does not have access to such as the worldbuilding we've done in some areas of the world (and you are just in for a treat when some of that pops up). Getting you the former without divulging the latter requires a certain amount of mental planning. For example, I can't just say "there's nothing behind the door" for the first three doors I'm asked about then say "I can neither confirm nor deny that there is anything behind the door." for the fourth, because you'll obviously know what's up.

This is further complicated by there being four of us across different time zones, and no-one particularly relishes the idea of deciding things unilaterally in case we're accidentally stepping on someone else's story ideas or plans or something. So we like to take the time to check with each other. On the upside there being four of us makes us much more likely to catch things that would make the setting inconsistent.

There are various game theory strategies that exist to avoid giving excess information away and I'm sure everyone has their own favourite. Obviously revealing which strategy I make use of would defeat the purpose of the whole thing.

So in conclusion, it depends. If I give you facts, then they'll be correct to either my or Hazou's knowledge, depending which I specify. How you then take those facts and build a conclusion based on them, that is up to you.

Edit: I mean, I'll try not to fuck you over when it comes to stuff Hazou should know. Speculative stuff, I try to act like reality when you're doing tests.
 
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Voting is closed. FINAL RESULTS:

[X] Operation Soaked Pork
Twofold, Orisha91, faflec, Radvic, ProperAttorney, Solace, Hmmaster

[X]Operation Porkbait
Traiden


Soaked Pork it is.


@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @Jackercracks : a few questions

1) How much do you lot consider our suggestions when thinking of intelligent actions for other chars? If we suggest "keep food fresh by ..." in the forum, then is there a good chance our jonin will have thought of the idea in story?

I try to keep track of the ideas and incorporate them, but the threads move fast and I might not remember when it comes time to sit down and write.

2) What do we know about the techniques available within our little group? Are we lacking people with any of the primary affinities? (E.g. nobody in the group has any basic fire attacks to use or teach)

GMs need to discuss that. We'll get back to you.

3) Do we believe we can get a non-harmful response to questions like "are we trying to defect to Konoha as a group?", or "what's the long term game plan for this group? The broad strokes we know seem unsustainable because of ..." ? (Harmful responses would have people question our loyalty, decide we're more expandable than they previously thought, or try to kill us. Non-harmful responses include actual responses, lies, or "sorry, that's above your pay grade".)

I probably wouldn't use phrases like "seem unsustainable", but yes, you could ask strategic questions.

4) Do you have a rule on non-exclusive write ins? In order for "Plan A + Modification" to win does "Plan A + Modification" have to have a majority of votes, or is it sufficient to have the votes for "Plan A" constitute a majority, and then votes including a "Modification" constitute a majority of the votes for "Plan A"? If the vote count is as follows, who would win? "Plan A" < "Plan A + Modification" < "Plan B" < "Plan A" + "Plan A + Modification"

We haven't discussed a policy for this. Personally, I'm lazy; whichever one gets the most votes wins.


man, grayven needs to up his chemical weapons game. I mean yeah he's coming up with this under pressure, but we've already figured out a few improvements he could make. Well i'm sure the next time he decides to use chemical warfare he'll do so in a far more efficient manner.

Damnit, SV! Stop pulling in quotes from other threads! Zoat has a big enough growth rate, you don't need to help him!
 
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- No engaging the pig in melee unless nothing else works, the pig is already tired and even then use chakra-boost
- No engaging the pig in melee

This cracked me up.

- Roughly cut what meat we can to take home (does Hunting 1 come with field dressing knowledge?)

Yes it does.

As an aside, @eaglejarl , do you think you could add the latest chapter to the threadmarks?

Done.

Also, does anyone know how to fix the notifications? It's not telling me whenever eaglejarl posts.

I guess you'll just have to obsessively reload the page every 26 seconds like a sensible person.
 
Chapter 7: Distant Thunder

"We've been here two weeks now," Shikigami announced gruffly, standing tall atop the rock formation that allowed him to survey his audience. The entire population of 'The Village Hidden in the Swamp'—barring the three genin on guard duty—watched him raptly.

"We've been lucky so far; most of us are still alive, we've had positive contact with the nearest town, and no one's come looking for us," he said. His smile was more a baring of teeth. "Funny thing about luck: the better you are, the more of it you have. Based on how lucky we've been, I'd say we're seriously godsdamn good."

A quiet chorus of "damn right!", "preach it!", and "oorah!" went around the cave.

"Now, we're settled in," he said. "Living quarters are built. Water is being pumped out so we aren't squatting in puddles. We've got two separate escape tunnels. We've got a smoke room for meat, and a vent system to disperse the smoke. We've got a well-stocked larder so we don't have to eat any more of those stinking trail bars." He snorted. "Don't know about the rest of you, but if I had to have one more bite of the stuff, I would have marched into the swamp and let it bloody well have me."

Quiet laughs answered him. The trail rations were a constant source of griping; bars made of compressed nuts, seeds, and jerky held together with honey, they were delicious the first time you tried them and sickening the thirty-first.

"Take a moment to recognize your accomplishments," Shikigami said seriously. "We have escaped the second most powerful ninja village on Earth. We have passed freely through the territory of the most powerful ninja village on earth. We have taken up residence in a hellhole of a swamp and made that swamp our chewtoy. Those gators that were so impressive on the way in? I went out yesterday, couldn't find a one of them within two miles. Team Kurosawa"—he nodded at the genin in question—"were the first to meet one of those spiderbears. Bigass hairy monsters, lightning fast, Lightning attacks. Bunch of genin folded the thing up like a piece of origami and mailed it home to its mom." Another nod, this time to a team on the other side of the group. "Team Hisakawa met up with that mobile vegetable monster with the toxic spore jets and mind-control tentacles. Turns out, the things are mighty tasty with a bit of salt.

"Time after time, you have shown yourselves to be some of the most badass shinobi it has ever been my pleasure to serve with." He mock-glared at one of the chūnin. "Even if some of you snore like a godsdamned ripsaw and keep me up half the night!"

The chūnin, a blocky man named Takanaki, laughed and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Sorry, sir!" he said with a smile.

Shikigami snorted. "Well, given how you blew the everloving crap out of that nest of fire-breathing ants, and waterproofed my living quarters, I'll let it go. This time, anyway."

His face got serious again. "It's taken a bit of time, but we've got our feet under us. The short-term challenges are dealt with, now it's time to look to the future. There are three main challenges facing us: Mist, Leaf, and growth.

"Mist is simple: Captain Zabuza is hunting us, and he's going to find us eventually. Now, we all know what a murder-boner Yagura has for people like us; he'll have told Captain Zabuza to bring our heads back on a plate."

A nervous sussurance went around the circle. Shikigami patted the air to quiet everyone down.

"Unclench your sphincters," he told them. "He's impressive as hell, but Captain Zabuza is just a man. He still puts his boxers on one leg at a time."

"He doesn't wear boxers!" Inoue shouted with a raunchy grin. "He can't find ones big enough to fit!"

There was a surge of catcalls from around her.

"I will leave that to our resident expert," Shikigami said. "Personally, that's a bit more information about Captain Zabuza's crotch than I would have preferred. Now, if I may continue?" He waited with exaggerated politeness until she nodded.

"Like I said, Captain Zabuza is going to show up," he said. "He's going to do the standard hunter-nin thing: send a water clone in to talk to us, promise to take us back unharmed, give us the chance to plead our case, blah blah blah." He snorted. "He's good at it too; I went on two or three missions with him, back when I was a chūnin. He's as smooth with his words as he is with that damn sword. Over the years he's actually talked half a dozen missing-nin into 'coming in from the cold.' Damn fools.

"Anyway, once he sees that we're not stupid enough to go for the trap, he'll start hanging around the camp, picking off anyone he can. I'm not going to lie, it'll be bad; there's a reason he's called the Demon. He won't risk a frontal assault against four jōnin, a dozen chūnin, and a whole pack of genin who have demonstrated more combat capacity than most chūnin." He paused to glare. "Get those smiles off your faces! What, you think because I say one nice thing you can let your heads swell up?! If I want you feeling happy, I'll damn you tell you to be happy!" He continued mock-glaring furiously until everyone settled down again.

"Over the next few days I'll be coordinating with the other jōnin and the senior chūnin to design traps, sensors, and defenses throughout the swamp. You think this place is a hellhole now? By the time we're done the combined forces of Leaf and Mist together couldn't march through here without getting their gonads blown up into their necks.

"We'll also be looking for strategic assets. In particular, we're going to go out recruiting for a sealmaster, at least one medic, and all the missing-nin we can find who are smart enough to be interesting and good enough to be worth our time. Suggestions are welcome from the peanut gallery as well.

"That takes care of Mist. Next is Leaf. Leaf is a lot easier than Mist; they aren't actively looking for us. Oh, I'm sure they've got some people scouting the area; they saw our tracks on the way in, so they'll want to keep an eye out for a while. They aren't going to be putting a huge force on it, though. Our tracks showed us cutting through Fire on a course for Grass and then disappearing into the swamp. They don't want to come into this swamp; we saw that on the way in. Most likely, they'll figure we're either dead or out of the country. So long as we don't actually wave our bits in their faces and shout 'all Leaves are pansies' at them, they're not going to bother with us. Doesn't mean we don't need to be ready for them, but they are a longer term issue.

"Most important challenge we're facing is growth. We need to recruit more nin. We need a sealmaster. We need a proper medic. We need to find a steady income source. Taking ninja missions per se would fall into the category of insult-shouting and bits-waving that I previously mentioned to be undesirable, but there are plenty of other options.

"The swamp has resources to sell. Hotaru said she might be able to salvage the Lightning Element-generating organs from a spiderbear corpse, if she could get to it fresh. If she can do it, there's all sorts of possibilities there.

"We can present ourselves to various towns as civilian hunters and get paid to exterminate the local wildlife; it's a solid cover because there really are civilians who make a living doing that." He waved over at Team Kurosawa. "That bunch of troublemakers is going to be trying out the 'exterminate' part later today, although someone else will handle the actual bargaining.

"As I mentioned before, we'll be looking to recruit. You can't be a ninja village without at least one sealmaster and one medic; next week Inoue will be leading a team to find one of each and bring them back. It will need to be a complete vanish; no evidence whatsoever, so there's going to be some competition for the job. If you think you're hard enough, leave your name with Inoue and start thinking. You won't know the conditions of the challenge until it starts but the basic parameters will be 'kidnap high-value ninja, return him to village while leaving no trace'. Once he's here, Inoue and a few others will have time to...convince him that he should make his home here from now on.

"Right now we are a tiny village, but I intend for us to grow, and to become strong. All of you are the future leaders of this village; five years from now, every one of you will be a jōnin with the power to stand against your opposite number from any village in the world. Those of you who are jōnin and chūnin: you will be the leaders of this village, the cadre that sets our policies and recruits, trains, and shapes the next generation.

"Lest you are feeling left out: right now you are teenagers at best. You have the experience, the knowledgebase, and the maturity of teenagers—which is to say, not much. This is not your fault; youth is a condition that is cured only by time. How much time it requires is up to you; five years from now—hell, one year from now—you will have the power of jōnin. You will not have the authority of jōnin until you prove you're worthy of that trust. None of you are stupid, and I see a great deal of potential in all of you. If you want to live up to that potential, if you want to be worthy of a place of respect among the adults, then you need to learn to be leaders, not followers. I expect to see you stretching yourselves and growing faster than you think you can. I expect to hear suggestions. I expect to hear intelligent questions. Most challenging of all, I expect to see awareness as to when it's appropriate to ask questions and when it's appropriate to shut your yap and follow orders. Am I clearly understood?!"

"YES, SIR!" bellowed the genin.

"Good!" Shikigami yelled back. "Then get the hell outta my cave and go earn that trust!"

o-o-o-o​

The trip out of the swamp went by faster than ever before, as the genin were too excited to stop talking. The routes in and out were well mapped by this time, and they dealt with the hazards with unthinking ease—Wakahisa whipped several bloodbeaks out of the air without pausing in his enthusiastic babble about spear-lily farming as perimeter defense. A razorsnake leaped at them from under the water; Hazō was too absorbed in brainstorming with Mori to notice that he had grabbed the snake out of the air, twisted its head around, and tossed it aside without even noticing he'd done it.

Even Mori was excited. suggestions for optimizing logistics poured out of her so fast she tripped over her words, her mouth unable to keep up with her brain.

The excitement carried them the full two hours to the town; it was only with some effort that they put it away and focused down on the mission.

The planning had been simple, because the basic plan was simple: find a lone steelback, trap it, drown it. The only awkwardness had happened when Hazō had been thinking about contingencies.

"If it manages to break the whip, I should be able to stab it from in front—it won't have bristles on its nose," Hazō had said.

"I like that plan," Wakahisa had replied. "After you slash your arm to ribbons on the wall'o'knives and it tramples you into the mud, I expect Shikigami will give me my own team." He had turned to his other teammate with a magnanimous wave. "Mori, you can be my second."

Mori hadn't said a word, just studied him for long seconds until Wakahisa's confident body language faded.

"Hm," Mori had said, before looking aside and vanishing back into her own world.

"Incoming!" Hazō said, pelting out of the trees at a speed that would have been a top-speed sprint for a civilian but was only a moderate dash for a ninja. Behind him came eight hundred pounds of furious animal, squealing furiously and gnashing its teeth. Two-foot gleaming-steel bristles stuck out of it in all directions.

"What did you do?! You were supposed to find a small one!" Wakahisa shouted, opening his cask and pouring the water into a ten-foot whip.

"This was the smallest one I could find!" Hazō said, dropping the looped end of his ninja wire behind him and leaping for the giant ash tree they'd determined would be their ambush point. They'd originally intended to use the immense oak twenty yards to the east...until they discovered that the whole thing was coated in tiny ants whose shells exuded acid. Mori had gotten acid burns across much of her forearm; fortunately, Noburi had managed to wash the acid off before it did enough to incapacitate her.

The genin had barely gotten his feet into the tree when the boar's left front leg stepped into the open loop of ninja wire. Hazō hurled himself off the branch, blasting chakra through his feet to fire himself at the ground. The boar outweighed him by six to one; he needed as much speed as he could get in order to yank its foot to the side and make it trip. The pig...

rolz.org said:
Hazō, Weapons:
sum 3 1D100 => 51 ; 14 ; 45 ; total=110

Pig, Being-A-Horrible-Chakra-Monsterness:
sum 3 1D100 => 96 ; 36 ; 33 ; total=165

...swerved, lifting its foot out of the loop just as Hazō yanked it closed. Squonking in fury, it charged at where Hazō had just touched the ground, clearly determined to rip the genin's guts open and dance on them.

An errant beam of sunlight filtered through the trees and gleamed off the loop of Mori's ninja wire as it...

rolz.org said:
Mori, Weapons:
sum 5 1D100 => 85 ; 78 ; 73 ; 62 ; 72 ; total=370

Pig, Being-A-Horrible-Chakra-Monsterness:
sum 3 1D100 => 16 ; 3 ; 39 ; total=58

Result: (370-58) / (5+3)**0.65 = +80

...wrapped with delicate perfection around the hog's head just behind its stubby ears, lacing through the forest of spikes without being diverted. The genin leaped off her tree branch, swinging herself down and around the thick trunk in a descending spiral before latching herself to the bark with the most powerful tree-walking she'd ever attempted. Eight hundred pounds of hog hit the limits of the ninja wire at fifteen miles an hour; the windings around the tree trunk kept the wire from being pulled out of Mori's hands.

The loop pulled tight and the pig nearly decapitated itself; blood fountained everywhere, and the pig dropped, instantly dead.

It took a moment for Noburi and Hazō to finish blinking in shock and cautiously approach the pig carcass. By the time they did, Mori was standing in front of it, hands clasped behind her back as she bent to inspect the bristles.

"Uh...," said Wakahisa.

"I thought you were just supposed to catch its leg," Hazō said in amusement. "Didn't we have this whole cunning plan where you and I were going to each get a loop around one foot and hold the thing immobile while 'hisa drowned it? What happened to the plan?"

"You missed," Mori said absently, before going back to studying the bristles.





The next three hours were spent on cleanup; they very carefully filled in all the damage the boar had done to the ground, replacing as much of the turf as possible, brushing out all the tracks they could manage, and covering up as much as possible of the blood. They couldn't do much to conceal the damage to the treebark and the gashes where the ninja wire had dug in, but those weren't quite so obvious.

By the time they finished, the only signs that there had been a battle were the damage to the trees and the eight-hundred-pound skinned-out carcass. The latter was easily dealt with; they simply poured a trail of blood from the acid-ants tree to the carcass. After a few minutes observation to make sure the ants followed the trail, the team was on their way home. The storage scroll that Shikigami-sensei had loaned them ("If I find so much as one tiny stain, I will make a replacement scroll from your skin!") was stuffed full of hundreds of bristles and several dozen pounds of what was probably going to be delicious meat. The excitement and pride of the hunt buoyed them up on the way back, making the miles fly by effortlessly. Mori blushed when the boys teased her and called her 'Mori the Mighty, Slayer of Pigs!' but she didn't seem all that bothered.

Four o'clock found them most of the way home, skating smoothly across Red Route One, the most direct of the mapped paths leading to the lair from their entry point into the swamp. They were making the southwest turn to avoid the waterskater nest when the distinctive BOOM! of an explosive tag echoed across the swamp from the east.





Vote time!

Do you investigate? The lair is southwest of you, the noise came from the east and relatively close—maybe half a mile or a mile, but not more than a few minutes travel.

- Hell yeah! Charge like badass swamp warriors!

- Hell no! Run like scared swamp rabbits!

- Hell yeah! But could we maybe try being stealthy for once?





XP reward: (3 (survived) + 3 (achieved all objectives on simple mission) + 1 (achieved them with style)) * 2 (moderate risk) = 14 XP
 
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Hell yeah, Keiko! And I really like Shikigami-sensei.

I'm torn between Hell no and Hell yeah+Stealth. First option to just charge in seems like Naruto levels of stupid, and no one wants to emulate that. If we're lucky, it might turn out to be one of our own doing something somewhere. Doesn't have to be hostiles. If it turns out to be one of our own and we traveled stealthfully, then maybe we'll impress someone if we manage to stay hidden.
 
1) Has Noburi leveled his Chakra Drain to above "something living in that general direction" levels? That's our longest-range information-gathering tool by far. Even if the information we get is coarse and brief, since he should probably not do it long enough to provoke a response, it could be worse knowing. Especially in combination with Mori's probabilistic analysis.

2) If we do want to investigate, the safest means would probably be via Noburi's water clones. The most effective way that is still somewhat safe would probably be Hazou alone going in with Stealth, along lines that Mori and Waka can still cover him, preferably with the longest and thinnest water whip Noburi can manage trailing along underwater relatively near us so that he can grab us and go at the nearest sign of trouble.

However, if it's Zabuza, I imagine none of those contingencies will remotely save us. @eaglejarl, can Noburi time his drain to be so brief as to be basically undetectable even for a shinobi? If so, let's do 1) and get some more info before making a decision, as right now we don't have any hard anchors to speculate off.
 
"He doesn't wear boxers!" Inoue shouted with a raunchy grin. "He can't find ones big enough to fit!"
There was a surge of catcalls from around her.
"I will leave that to our resident expert," Shikigami said. "Personally, that's a bit more information about Zabuza-sama's crotch than I would have preferred. Now, if I may continue?" He waited with exaggerated politeness until she nodded.
Someone note this down. It could be plot-critical in the future.

"As I mentioned before, we'll be looking to recruit. You can't be a ninja village without at least one seal master and one medic; next week Inoue will be leading a team to find one of each and bring them back. It will need to be a complete vanish; no evidence whatsoever, so there's going to be some competition for the job. If you think you're hard enough, leave your name with Inoue-sensei and start thinking. You won't know the conditions of the challenge until it starts but the basic parameters will be 'kidnap high-value ninja, return him to village while leaving no trace'. Once he's here, Inoue and a few others will have time to...convince him that he should make his home here from now on.
Oh, that's easy. Assuming canon-ish disposition, I'm pretty sure that both Jiraya (seal-master) and Tsundae (medic-nin) would be outside of Konoha at this point. If Tsundae can't be managed, we can go for Kabuto, though it might be tougher, since he lives in the village. I'm sure it'll all work out just great!
 
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Wow that pig epic failed its second roll. Also, I thought the Water Clone was supposed to be the bait? Oh well we still get it no problemo.

It's ~20min from our position to base, and it takes ~120min from one end of the base to the other (estimates from GM posts). This means it's incredibly unlikely for our mysterious explosion to be caused by random scouts/searchers: this has to be the result of Zabuza, our fellow Swamp-nin, or an explosives-causing monster.

If it's Zabuza we're fucked no matter what happens; he's a skilled enough tracker to follow us to our base no matter what since we're fucking genin. Even if he hasn't noticed us he'll pick up our trail since we're only ~1mile far away...at best. Safest decision here is to bumrush it back home and tell Shikigami and co. that shit is going on somewhere in the swamp. But I'm really questioning the opinion that it is Zabuza: why the hell would he be so competent to be our resident bogeyman, yet so incompetent to allow his victims the chance to set off an explosive tag, or need to set one off himself? So Zabuza is a possibility, but an unlikely one.

Our fellow Swamp-nin are more likely candidates. Either they've found something really fucking dangerous that necessitates breaking cover for -insert sound range of explosive tag here-, or they're setting traps up like Shikigami wanted and set it off because they're dumb. Either way they probably need help.

Explosives-causing monster is going to be fucking hilarious, I can tell.

@eaglejarl @Velorien @AugSphere @Jackercracks Few questions for you all:
1. What is a "waterskater"? Is it those millipede-snake things or something else?
2. What is the effective range of the Water Clone and can its memories be transferred to Noburi?
3. What other teams were sent out with us and which of them could plausibly have explosive tags with them?
4. What's the cover look like between our position and the bomb position?
 
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if nothing changes, send a water clone back to base and check out the disturbance stealthily.
We did tell you that water clone max range was currently somewhere around 150m right? I feel like we did at some point, but it might have slipped through. That and the time limit, which is something like 10 minutes at the moment, less in strenuous combat.
1) Has Noburi leveled his Chakra Drain to above "something living in that general direction" levels?
Not yet: he was too busy learning clones this past while. Testing has indicated that he can in fact absorb the chakra coming from the feet of someone doing water-walking. Not enough to drop them in the water - yet.

As a side note you can do what a normal team mate might do and ask him to set a priority on one direction or other. There is the limitation that Keiko for example probably wouldn't focus on social stuff even if you asked her, because it doesn't really fit her character at all.

Edit:
2. What is the effective range of the Water Clone and can its memories be transferred to Noburi?
For effective range see above. As for memories, afraid not. You'll have to finagle your own super training aids.
 
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@eaglejarl @Velorien @AugSphere @Jackercracks Few questions for you all:
1. What is a "waterskater"? Is it those millipede-snake things or something else?

Yes, the millipede-snake thing.

3. What other teams were sent out with us and which of them could plausibly have explosive tags with them?

Several teams were sent out around the same time you were, but all in different directions. You weren't sure what missions each team was assigned to or how long they were expected to be out.

4. What's the cover look like between our position and the bomb position?

Normal swamp -- reeds, grasses, etc. Stealth is possible, no bonuses or penalties.
 
Oh thank the Sage of Six Paths that the pigs didn't maim us. I was disproportionately worried about that.

I'm kind of confused where the explosion was coming from in relation to the base, is it possible that our base sentries didn't hear it at all? If so they should be informed that something weird is going on post-haste. Sadly the only way to do that is to either not investigate or split the party. If we split the party we are either losing clones or a good chunk of fighting potential, which makes it risky to close in on a potential threat.

Then again if it is something like Zabuza, having one more person with us doesn't really make a difference. Neither will an extra person help with the stealth part.
 
All fights so far have lasted something like 10 seconds. We are, at best, 200 seconds away from the disturbance. If friendlies are fighting monsters, it is going to be over long before we can arrive. If friendlies botched a trap, their teammates are already patching them up or they are all dead. If it's hostile ninja (not Zabuza), they are probably more powerful than us.
In all of these situations, we should hightail it back to base, get reinforcements/orders from Shikigami-sensi and return to investigate.

@eaglejarl, @AugSphere Can our Jonin move much faster than us over long distances?
 
We are, at best, 200 seconds away from the disturbance.
That distance is about 20 seconds at a flat out sprint across water. No sense letting you think one thing when your character knows another.

30 if you wanted to stop a short distance out and go in more slowly.
Can our Jonin move much faster than us over long distances?
Yes (Jounin are paranoid and don't like to advertise their exact capabilities if it can be avoided, lest it get them killed).
 
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