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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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Tobtorp said:
Again, they had the prime suspect for bloody mail theft! Nothing else. They didn't suspect anything else.
They would have caught him and Ren shu would have activated the trigger and blown up the whole city.

They didn't know jack about any triggers or what was going on.
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They were tailing him, and wanted to figure out if he was a part of a bigger conspiracy trying something. That was their literal plan. It was a good plan. And they were right. They just did not know just how big it was. So its a success and a failure. Which is not great, but certainly not a pack of incompetents either. Sometimes when you are tailing a conspiracy you stumble into a plot far bigger than you could have possibly expected.

They didnt know it was a bomb plot true, and they probably wouldnt have been able to disable the trigger. But the plan they implemented was good and played a role in LQ being able to disable the trigger, and gaining critical information about a conspiracy of traitors in the Emerald Seas.

Which is again, not a sign of incompetence or even omnicompetence, just them doing a job with a decent plan, but lacking tools and info. Which is something that happens all the time.
 
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I'd also note that however inefficient and slow to move they might be, it's not going to be slower than Ling Qi combing a sewer maze she's never been in before to hunt for shoggoth seeds.

Whereas the Ministry is almost certainly kicking this up high, you need Cyan+ when the shoggoths can definitely hit Cyan once activated.

And fast as Qi is, she's not going to be faster than a Cyan with a map even if they arrive a day later(they won't, this is their house emergency, which is the circumstances you'd see expensive teleportation formations being used)
 
Deadly Snark said:
They were tailing him, and wanted to figure out if he was a part of a bigger conspiracy trying something. That was their literal plan. It was a good plan. And they were right. They just did not know just how big it was. So its a success and a failure. Which is not great, but certainly not a pack of incompetents either.

They didnt know it was a bomb plot true, and they probably wouldnt have been able to disable the trigger. But the plan they implemented was good and played a role in LQ being able to disable the trigger, and gaining critical information about a conspiracy of traitors in the Emerald Seas.

Which is again, not a sign of incompetence or even omnicompetence, just them doing a job with a decent plan, but lacking tools and info. Which is something that happens all the time.
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Ok, let's leave the investigation to the side.

They didn't notice that tons of evil cultivator stuff was deposited in their sewers. They had no idea. These things needed to be bloody watered.
After a literal under empire was revealed they didn't check their sewers.

You see what I'm getting at?
 
Tobtorp said:
Ok, let's leave the investigation to the side.

They didn't notice that tons of evil cultivator stuff was deposited in their sewers. They had no idea. These things needed to be bloody watered.
After a literal under empire was revealed they didn't check their sewers.

You see what I'm getting at?
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We have no idea of the various interests and jurisdiction pissing match going on in the city. Since again this is not a city or region we are familiar with. Again, it happens all the time that one institution wants to do something, but then another cockblocks him. Or cooperation within institutions breaks down due to some feud. They are made up of people. This happens all the time.

The very fact that this the Seat of a Viscount makes such jurisdiction pissing matches all the more likely, especially in peace times.

There will be an investigation about this after the situation is dealt with one way or another. We can save that for when it happens. Right now, what we need to do is to wave our position as someone with influence over Ducal affairs around to beat things into action.
 
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Tobtorp said:
Again, they had the prime suspect for bloody mail theft! Nothing else. They didn't suspect anything else.
They would have caught him and Ren shu would have activated the trigger and blown up the whole city.

They didn't know jack about any triggers or what was going on.
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Do we really care? The effectiveness of the Ministry in this specific case isn't really relevant. They know the sewers, they have a lot more people they can split up into teams to disarm bombs faster, they likely actually know how to disarm bombs, and the whole point of this arc is to make friends with the ministries, not publicly embarrass them.
 
LimitlessMemes said:
Do we really care? The effectiveness of the Ministry in this specific case isn't really relevant. They know the sewers, they have a lot more people they can split up into teams to disarm bombs faster, they likely actually know how to disarm bombs, and the whole point of this arc is to make friends with the ministries, not publicly embarrass them.
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Ok, first of, i don't care what this arc is for. Thinking like that just leads to bad decisions shoehorned in because of "this is the point of the arc." We will make friends anyways because we are helping with a bomb threat either way.

Secondly that squabbling is exactly why I think us going in alone would work better. The ministry will take time to organize, time that i don't think we have. Ren shue is a petty sob and will try to think of a way to activate these "bombs" anyway.
 
I think the bomb metaphor is screwing people up. This isn't a bunch of bombs.

This is a bunch of fires that have just been lit.

It's not about tracking down hidden explosives, it's about stamping out as many small fires as possible while they are still small, before they become real problems. We know the ilith scale in power quickly, and it's a stupid idea to give a momentum-based enemy unchallenged time to ramp up.

These things aren't just going to make a bang when they go off. They are going to rampage and grow in power.

[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
 
Tobtorp said:
Ok, first of, i don't care what this arc is for. Thinking like that just leads to bad decisions shoehorned in because of "this is the point of the arc." We will make friends anyways because we are helping with a bomb threat either way.

Secondly that squabbling is exactly why I think us going in alone would work better. The ministry will take time to organize, time that i don't think we have. Ren shue is a petty sob and will try to think of a way to activate these "bombs" anyway.
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This is literally an enemy action, they will try to activate the whatevers no matter what. And Ren Shue probably has a team working with him, which will make their operation faster. Him being petty has nothing to do with it, this is a military operation.

The only real way to counter that sort of manpower and organization power, especially when we have no idea what's down there is to arm ourselves up with manpower and an organization ourselves.
 
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Deadly Snark said:
This is literally an enemy action, they will try to activate the whatevers no matter what. And Ren Shue probably has a team working with him, which will make their operation faster. Him being petty has nothing to do with it, this is a military operation.

The only real way to counter that sort of manpower and organization power, especially when we have no idea what's down there is to arm ourselves up with manpower and an organization ourselves.
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Ok, if that's your thinking the answer me this, what is better. Fighting half as many "bombs" with a slightly less prepared ministry or fighting them all with a fully prepared one. Because that is pretty much the question.
 
Get to them while it is still yellows vs a green, and there's likely to be a lot less collateral damage.

I guess the question is whether that wins us more political favor than bringing people into the loop early and having the fight be cyan v cyan.
 
Glau said:
I think the bomb metaphor is screwing people up. This isn't a bunch of bombs.

This is a bunch of fires that have just been lit.

It's not about tracking down hidden explosives, it's about stamping out as many small fires as possible while they are still small, before they become real problems. We know the ilith scale in power quickly, and it's a stupid idea to give a momentum-based enemy unchallenged time to ramp up.

These things aren't just going to make a bang when they go off. They are going to rampage and grow in power.
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Incorrect. They are bombs.

The primary detonator has been disabled and literally thrown to the Moon.
We don't know about secondary detonators, but there is a high likelihood of triggering one of them when attempting to find them, because it is a reasonable contingency that if the bombs are discovered, better that they go off immediately than to allow an organized search.

The only circumstances where going in immediately makes sense is that Yan Renshu somehow has a second expensive, long distance communication formation to activate them with.
 
Tobtorp said:
Ok, first of, i don't care what this arc is for. Thinking like that just leads to bad decisions shoehorned in because of "this is the point of the arc." We will make friends anyways because we are helping with a bomb threat either way.

Secondly that squabbling is exactly why I think us going in alone would work better. The ministry will take time to organize, time that i don't think we have. Ren shue is a petty sob and will try to think of a way to activate these "bombs" anyway.
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Why don't we have time? Why is it a bad decision? Mortals will probably die either way, which is suboptimal, but it isn't as important as handling relations with the Ministries.
 
Glau said:
I think the bomb metaphor is screwing people up. This isn't a bunch of bombs.

This is a bunch of fires that have just been lit.

It's not about tracking down hidden explosives, it's about stamping out as many small fires as possible while they are still small, before they become real problems. We know the ilith scale in power quickly, and it's a stupid idea to give a momentum-based enemy unchallenged time to ramp up.

These things aren't just going to make a bang when they go off. They are going to rampage and grow in power.

[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
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This argument makes no sense. Because you dont go lone wolf and trying to stop more than dozens of small fires all across a city by yourself. You get the city's entire firefighting reserves active and get them organized to put out fires in teams across the city.

Tobtorp said:
Ok, if that's your thinking the answer me this, what is better. Fighting half as many "bombs" with a slightly less prepared ministry or fighting them all with a fully prepared one. Because that is pretty much the question.
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You have no way of proving the wild claim that LQ can deal with over half of the threat scattered across a city's sewer system by herself. Which is a drastic blowing up of your previous claim of a quarter.
 
[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.
 
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yrsillar said:
[ ] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.

[ ] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.
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This is a false dilemma: act quickly, or act with backup. The thing is - we are fast, and any cultivators at higher ranks are also likely to be able to move quickly.

Since the safe option is already winning, I'm going to propose a write-in:
[X]Throw the prisoner at the Ministry, then break into the Xu manor and demand the viscount (indigo), clan head (high cyan), and other cyans help right now.

This seems just the right amount of Ling-Qi-ness to use in this situation.
 
[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.

I'm feeling Grinning this turn.
 
Tobtorp said:
Ok, let's leave the investigation to the side.

They didn't notice that tons of evil cultivator stuff was deposited in their sewers. They had no idea. These things needed to be bloody watered.
After a literal under empire was revealed they didn't check their sewers.

You see what I'm getting at?
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I see that the talent and ressources flow to the army, the sects or the great clans, and that a minor city's administration is going to be lucky if they have a couple of fourth rank cultivators available. From Ling Qi's reading of the situation (including with her spiritual senses), apathy and complacency are starting to become problems, but they haven't infected the system with corruption and incompetence like in Tonghou. We can't expect them to solve the problem by themselves now that its size has been revealed, but that doesn't mean they will be useless.

So, picking either option will prevent or at least mitigate whatever attrocity Yenshu and the enemy shishigui are trying to commit. Rushing in now would allow us to act faster, but getting help first would allow us to act better, which is why I'm going with:

[X] Withdraw, seek cooperation with the Ministry and the ruling family, go down as a group.
 
yrsillar said:
"A child's grudge, you dare…"

"Found you."

He spluttered, Ling Qi smiled softly. She hadn't of course. He was speaking through a communication array that she couldn't even parse. She had no technique which could track someone like that, and while she could maybe conceive of tracking someone down via impression in the dream, her current skills didn't go so far
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I was somewhat wondering why he reacted so quickly to that barb but...
yrsillar said:
As she waded into the mist, Ling Qi finally caught glimpse of her opponent, a thin shadow in the mist. She dived, her distorted senses warping as she entered his shadow and grimaced at the oily feeling it left on her 'skin'. Undeterred, she drew back her bow as the violet mist struck at Meizhen attempting to engulf her, hidden entirely within her foes own shadow.

In that instant before she loosed though, she understood what had been wrong. The mist cloaked figure above her was too tall and too thin. Whip thin, with a handsome face and green eyes, this was not the hunched and ugly figure that had confronted her in Yan Renshu's previous lair.

Her arrow, one of those stolen from Sun Liling, still flew from her bow, with the power of a falling star behind it. Her target had no chance to dodge as it struck him in the shoulder with the force of a thunderbolt.

At the same moment, as Ling Qi rematerialized she found her voice. "Meizhen, that isn't Yan Renshu!"

She caught a single incredulous look from her friend before she focused her attention back on the false Renshu.

"So you did see me," the thing said. The upper left quarter of its clothing was shredded by her arrow, and the flesh around where the arrow had struck was burned and flaking away, not like true skin, but like clay left in the kiln for too long, it bled dusty black loam, and under the layer of earth she could see the gleam of metallic bone. Even trapped, stiff and upright in the net her arrow had bound him in he glared at her as he strained against the entrapment.
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Yan Renshu may be under the impression that Ling Qi is a master schemer rather than a chaosball...
 
[X] Descend down into the sewers yourself and seek to put an end to any continuing operations while the city awakens.

it has been a very long time since we descended into a basement to hunt worms, and it's doubtful anyone else has the level of personal experience with this. Also its cool.
 
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