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Rock the Cradle: A cultivation story

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[X] After the arrest

I wonder how Gardenia is going to feel about this? On one hand, we kinda blew up her big break, she probably liked Risshon at least a little, and I suspect she would have been sympathetic to the conspiracy's goals. On the other, staying with him for longer might have implicated her in the conspiracy and made her an enemy of the entire Luxe clan, and the kingdom, and the brightflares.

This probably counts as repaying our favour, though.
 
Already posted my vote by re-reading the chapter: holy shit what's up with this freak? Killed multiple golds instantly without raising any alert, then survived an ambush from a position of strength by a Lord and seriously injured her in the process? They're a monster. I wonder whether their twisted behavior is a result of their path, or if they chose a path to match their twisted mind.
 
LargeEgg said:
[X] After the arrest

I wonder how Gardenia is going to feel about this? On one hand, we kinda blew up her big break, she probably liked Risshon at least a little, and I suspect she would have been sympathetic to the conspiracy's goals. On the other, staying with him for longer might have implicated her in the conspiracy and made her an enemy of the entire Luxe clan, and the kingdom, and the brightflares.

This probably counts as repaying our favour, though.
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Honestly, I heavily suspect that Gardenia's going to vanish soon; either convinced or kidnapped by the conspiracy and brought along with any other assets they'll be able to salvage from their operations in the city (and which may or may not be part of whatever it is Risshon's going to go for in the middle of his escape). Not to mention, if she does end up going willingly, there's at least a degree of buildup that would paint her as a suitably dramatic narrative mirror to Keras if she got fast-tracked through the organization's assassin training and participated in the attempt on the Prince.



Also, just something to note in semi-related news: Finishing the Nightworm Venom's more important to the conspiracy now than ever, and to a certain degree they no longer need to care as much about stealth - they still need to keep from being found, but no longer needing to hide the presence of a conspiracy at all or which specific Venom is being created opens up a lot of options that their previously-passive methods barred. Stealing books from Cheng's library, hitting resource stockpiles or production sites that hopefully don't include our family's orchards, and a whole bunch more besides, is now on the table.
 
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[X] After the arrest

I feel like this has the most interesting character development for Keras specifically.

unObservant said:
Also, just something to note in semi-related news: Finishing the Nightworm Venom's more important to the conspiracy now than ever, and to a certain degree they no longer need to care as much about stealth - they still need to keep from being found, but no longer needing to hide the presence of a conspiracy at all or which specific Venom is being created opens up a lot of options that their previously-passive methods barred.
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You're assuming that the plan isn't irreparably borked.
 
Damn, what a fight. Pretty sure this was the right call. Relying on Lyn definitely wasn't, this guy would've destroyed her. Ju Dao is probably a worse fighter that LotNS and despite the vote saying she'd get there late, seems to have made it there on time. Only possibility I can see is that Ju Dao might've been fast enough to set an ambush, or bring a few other Truegolds to back him up.

[X] When he escapes
I think After Arrest gives us the most info, but I think this is most important. I hope unObservant is wrong and Gardenia isn't in danger. But if she is in danger, I think this option is most likely to result in us stopping that.

Reyemile said:
Already posted my vote by re-reading the chapter: holy shit what's up with this freak? Killed multiple golds instantly without raising any alert, then survived an ambush from a position of strength by a Lord and seriously injured her in the process? They're a monster. I wonder whether their twisted behavior is a result of their path, or if they chose a path to match their twisted mind.
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Dude's really impressive, but he also has basically the best possible path for pure killing.

Ralyx said:
You're assuming that the plan isn't irreparably borked.
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Eh...I don't think it is? This lost them a lot of manpower, and their strongest fighter has been weakened. But as long as they can get an assassin close enough to Kiro, they can still pull it off -- assuming they can get more poison.

The King will be on alert and raise security, but I don't think anybody knows Kiro specifically is a target.
 
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Ralyx said:
You're assuming that the plan isn't irreparably borked.
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I am indeed assuming that, yeah.

The way I see it, the conspiracy attempting to assassinate the Prince is one of those big-ticket, arc-spanning, ever-decreasing "X until Y" Predictions that the Quest's been building up to for months; like our duel with Olerac or the incoming Dreadgod. We can change the circumstances around those events depending on how we vote, certainly - how much we know in advance, who we've befriended and to what degree, whether the antagonist's been given any advantages or disadvantages from their theoretical baseline, and a whole bunch of other stuff - but in some form or another, the event itself will occur.
 
Tylansimov said:
Eh...I don't think it is? This lost them a lot of manpower, and their strongest fighter has been weakened. But as long as they can get an assassin close enough to Kiro, they can still pull it off -- assuming they can get more poison.
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That's the assumption I would seriously question - Risshon was already on a time crunch, and this is a massive if not total setback.
 
Ralyx said:
That's the assumption I would seriously question - Risshon was already on a time crunch, and this is a massive if not total setback.
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That's why people are worried about Gardenia. If you kidnap her, you can put her to work making poison without any need for plausible deniability, which is a lot faster since you don't need to mix in your real requests with innocuous ones.
 
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[X] After the arrest

Hopefully Gardenia comes out of this unaffected. But yeah, she will lose her main source of income, but maybe we can replace that somehow? Maybe Cheng can use her, if we convince him.

Besides, I doubt she is worth kidnapping, if the conspiracy is as big as it seems to be, there should be other refiners that can accomplish the job, albeit it would take them longer.

As for her joining willingly, I also doubt that could happen, she is distrustful of many and would understand that this conspiracy doesn't really have her best interests at heart and is not worth the risk. What she cares for is to support her family.
 
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[X] After the arrest

Changing my vote because I really don't want to get into a fight with him.
 
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AlexScribler said:
Choices, choices, choices. I'm not convinced we want to stop the assassination, so I am inclined to pick something other than when he escapes.
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You know I think we've all been assuming we want to stop it. Obviously Keras would, but do we as the players want to?

Kiro is a pretty nice dude, so just from that aspect I'd like him to survive. And he seems like he'd be a better king than both his father and brother.

But Kiro dying would be a pretty interesting divergence, albeit not a good one, I think. For one thing, I think Dakata will come down a lot harder on any tangential collaborators like Gardenia.
 
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Tylansimov said:
Kiro is a pretty nice dude, so just from that aspect I'd like him to survive. And he seems like he'd be a better king that both his father and brother.

But Kiro dying would be a pretty interesting divergence, albeit not a good one, I think. For one thing, I think Dakata will come down a lot harder on any tangential collaborators like Gardenia.
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In the books, Kiro dies, so I'm not optimistic about his long term survival even if Keras stops the assassination attempt.

On the other-hand, if Kiro dies now, then Kiro and Meira don't almost kill Yerin. If Yerin and Lindon, don't get almost assassinated by the "nice" Underlord Kiro, and instead rampage through the Sheishen empire truegolds either in a counterattack or just fighting defensively, it's possible the Blackflame Empire manages to avoid getting pushed out of the aura rich valley. Which might allow Lindon and Yerin to advance sooner and be stronger than they are in the books.
 
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Tylansimov said:
You know I think we've all been assuming we want to stop it. Obviously Keras would, but do we as the players want to?

Kiro is a pretty nice dude, so just from that aspect I'd like him to survive. And he seems like he'd be a better king that both his father and brother.

But Kiro dying would be a pretty interesting divergence, albeit not a good one, I think. For one thing, I think Dakata will come down a lot harder on any tangential collaborators like Gardenia.
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See, we could discuss that, but I'm not sure that all but daring Meira to reach through the fourth wall and collectively strangle us after a grief fueled mega-ultra-hyper-ascension is the most productive use of our time? /s

More seriously, I mostly agree in that even though his early death could definitely be an interesting point of divergence to 'canon', it'd be hard to really make a failure of that magnitude satisfying to actually read about rather than just theorize about. Preventing that assassination's what we've been building towards for a long time now, and if it's just change for change's sake we already have changed / have been put in position to change a hell of a lot of canon without deliberately trying for it.


... Especially with that incoming Dreadgod Incident that we inadvertently kicked off by existing. That definitely seems like the kind of thing that's already poised to shake up previously-unassailable status quos, yeah?
 
AlexScribler said:
In the books, Kiro dies, so I'm not optimistic about his long term survival even if Keras stops the assassination attempt.
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TBH Kiro's death is pretty easy to butterfly, IMO. Kiro only died because (a) he felt he couldn't surrender, as that might be going against Charity's orders and (b) Kiro happened to be the one fighting Lindon. A change in circumstances (like Harmony not dying) might result in Charity being a bit softer and clarifying Kiro can surrender. Or a swap of who's fighting who might result in Lindon killing Meira or Daji. Or if Lindon advances sooner, he might be able to safely defeat Kiro, instead of shooting him with a big gun.
 
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