I must have been misremembering then I thought his was on his legs. An amulet or something would work fine then.
No worries!
Anyway I did some jiggery pokery on chain calculations with these assumptions:
-That we won't get Brotherhood favor for completing part one or any of the other parts, until we can trade the knowledge to the Brotherhood.
-That we spend our remaining Brotherhood favor.
-That chain follows an arc of 8, 12, 12, 8 for the first four parts which I think is what the thread has been working with from what I recall. If it doesn't work out like this, the work below can all be tossed right out the window, and such a reveal would be cause in my book to call it infeasible to do before the commission regardless of what else we take.
-That we won't hit Durin's Consternation at any point during this process.
-Chain part 5 costs the same as the primary line's part 5.
-That part 4b can give us some chain.
-That some crisis doesn't need resolution in the mean time between turn 34 and 39.
Turn 34; 3 actions, 5 favor actions, 11 progress. 1b completed, Zufazul completed, 2b at 5/12.
Turn 35; 2 actions, 3 progress. 2b at 8/12, Gimli commission completed.
Turn 36; 4 actions, 8 progress. 2b completed, 3b at 4/12.
Turn 37; 4 actions, 8 progress. 3b completed, 4b at 0/8.
Turn 38; 4 actions, 8 progress. 4b completed, potential chain?
Turn 34; 4 actions, 5 favor actions, 13 progress. 1b completed, 2b at 7/12.
Turn 35; 2 actions, 3 progress. 2b at 10/12, Gimli commission completed.
Turn 36; 4 actions, 8 progress. 2b completed, 3b at 6/12.
Turn 37; 4 actions, 8 progress. 3b completed, 4b at 2/8.
Turn 38; 4 actions, 8 progress. 4b completed, 5b at 2/??.
Turn 34; 4 actions, 5 favor actions, 13 progress. 1b completed, 2b at 7/12.
Turn 35; 4 actions, 8 progress. 2b completed, 3b at 2/12.
Turn 36; 4 actions, 8 progress. 3b at 10/12.
Turn 37; 4 actions, 8 progress. 3b completed, 4b at 6/8.
Turn 38; 4 actions, 8 progress. 4b completed, 5b at 6/12.
Anyway, what this tells me is that so long as part 2b doesn't take 16 actions or something like part 4b costing 10+, or some other issue in that vein, it
is possible to do Gimli commission and the chain up through part 4b. For complete clarity I expect my second assumption to be wrong, and for it to turn out that there is an issue of a major spike in action costs, as the Rune Metal part 1 started with 6 actions but 1b starts with 8.
There are a few conclusions we can draw from here. If it turns out we do get Brotherhood favor as we complete parts of it, then that makes the entire thing much more feasible and gives us more potential flex. If our(?) assumption on the arc of action requirements is valid, we can do Gimli commission, Zufazul and chain but there is absolutely no give whatsoever. Further, the safest/surest way to get chain is to focus down on it entirely. Finally, if we do need part 5b or otherwise it is just not possible at this time to do it before we need to start on the Valayan commission if it has an action cost bigger than 6.
I expect that there are two potential hard stops for us. The least likely one in my view is a variation of Durin's Consternation where some kind of magic is involved, as we mainly have indication that gromril chain is a marker of skill more than anything else. That's how its discussed in the lore and this quest so far.
The more likely one in my estimation is that it turns out we
can't complete part 3b on turn 37 due to higher action counts on either part 2b or 3b itself, especially in the first timeline I posted. The second timeline has a give of 2 actions, and the third has 6. More than 6 extra actions between 2b, 3b, and 4b would pretty firmly nail the coffin shut on the possibility of getting part 4 completed before turn 39 and thus the resolution of our potential assumption.
If it turns out there is a major action spike (more than 2) in part 2b, I'm going to advocate for completing it and then pivoting to the Valaya Basket since that has lesser Valayan related runes and we're going to be using a lot of those on the Simple Commission for the clergy come turn 39 and 40. It should pretty reasonably give us a better grasp and repertoire of lesser Valayan runes, which improves our work overall on her clergy.
