(Skyseas of Gensokyo) Nazrin Quest (Part 4)

[DracoOmega]

>"Everything might have been fine, if you'd listened to me. But now? Guess we'll see. You say you wish I'd never come? I wish I don't have to come back."
>"But do us all at least one favor. Something good for your spiders and you. Tell them not to attack me anymore on my way out. I don't really want to hurt them, either."
>On the other hand, if conflict is truly and utterly inevitable, then every one we kill here is one less to menace our home later. Maybe we SHOULD have destroyed those hatcheries. Not that she needs to know that.

>"You won't," she says.
>She stares at you for a moment, her expression oddly hard to read. "It won't matter."
>At the very least, you know that almost no one in Easthaven could have walked away from that first ambush. If any of those little ones can grow up to be that big... it may only be a matter of time before someone gets killed.

[Oldmansour]

Well, at least we tried. I'm not exactly thrilled about having to walk away like this, but we tried. And we didn't have to hurt her anymore.
Maybe, just maybe, we've planted a seed for the future, though. She had to know that we could have killed her at any time. With that sword, it wouldn't have been that hard, once we broke her pin. But we didn't. If we can get out of here without having to kill anymore, we might at least leave her thinking about just why we didn't kill her, and if surfacers are as bad as she thinks.
That said, however, if anyone else has any other ideas how to end this diplomatically, Kilga, Hanzo, anyone else, then feel free to jump in and give it a bash. Neither Purvis nor I seem to have had much success.

>"Well, if it doesn't matter, how about you giving me back those weapons you've got a hold of? Or maybe pointing me in the right direction out of here?"

[Kilgamayan]

I'll give you fair warning that if this gets passed over to me, I may end up saying and doing things neither of you like or think is a good idea. No guarantees either way, because I haven't really properly read the entire conversation yet, but it's certainly possible based on the general gist I can recall off the top of my head and the various general plans I've brainstormed throughout the process.

Given that, and what I said earlier about my preferences regarding the interruption of tense conversation, I'm going to wait until I get a go-ahead from both of you before I do anything. If either of you would prefer not to risk me doing something you think is a bad idea, then I will continue to sit out of the conversation entirely.

[DracoOmega]

>"Well, if it doesn't matter, how about you giving me back those weapons you've got a hold of? Or maybe pointing me in the right direction out of here?"

>She looks at you a moment and narrows her eyes. "How about you throw that one away first?"

[Hello Purvis]

I'll get back to it in awhile. I'm not quite out of ideas yet. Just I've been distracted, and now kinda sick.

[Oldmansour]

Kilga: Well, I appreciate your honesty. Now let me be as honest with you. If I read what you said right, the choices you'd give Purvis and I would be either: Stay out of my way and let me do my thing, whether you two like it or not, or I do nothing at all. I can't say I'm espcially fond of those options.
That said, however, I am curious as to what those ideas of yours are. What sort of general ideas have you got?

[Kilgamayan]

I'm just putting it out there because cases like this are ones where I expect the process of making things better to be lengthy, and interruptions risk ruining progress and that's annoying. And like I said earlier, I've been offering that respect for this conversation, and I appreciate it being offered to me in return.

Grand plans? Off the top of my head and given her request, putting the sword away sounds like something I'd do, though I say this expecting I would have put it away about 60 posts ago. Other ideas would have to wait until I'm not really tired. Should've been in bed two hours ago, really.

EDIT: As can be seen from how frank the entire tone of this post is. :V Please don't take offense, this is just me being matter-of-fact.

[Hello Purvis]

Imma muse some more about what I want to do. But putting the sword away may not be a bad step if she's not being threatening. In easy reach, but put away.

I think the trick here is going to be to illustrate there's no future in what she wants to do. The main way I can think of to do it, here and now, is to press her on what exactly she'd do to defend against a real assault. More or less for her to acknowledge she doesn't have a real plan, and that not having one is just going to be more dead spiders until she figures out what to do. If needs be, cross-reference it with her prior inactivity resulting in more spiders coming at us than necessary.  We have to push her out of "I'll think of something", then point out consequences when it happens. In short, the only way to break her mindset is to show the futility of it. We've been stepping around it, I think we need to go in for the metaphorical kill.

[Oldmansour]

Didn't you pretty much try that already, Purvis?
Kilga, now that it's not past either one of our respective bed times. Other than putting down the sword, what've you got?

[Hello Purvis]

Not really, no. We've let her get away with "I'll stop them." We need to press on how, and dismantle it bit by bit. When she says I'll think of something, we point out she doesn't have time to think of something, spiders are dying and her home is on fire. We've not really tried to nail her down yet. Hammer down that the price of absolute freedom is death at the hands of the strongest.

[Oldmansour]

Yeah, except she's convinced she and her spiders are the strongest, and Cirno isn't around to set her straight.
But seriously. Even if it was possible to convince her that her cause is already doomed, and I'm not convinced that's even possible, we're not the ones to do it. The fact remains, we walked into her home, and murdered nearly a dozen of her friends. It's a miracle she's talked to us as much as she has, and we'll never get her to admit we're right, about much of anything. Let alone that her course is futile.
Plus there's the fact that the longer we stand her and debate with her, the more time the gas has to affect us, and the more strength we lose to our injuries. We're already in danger of passing out, that's been parser posted. We're on the clock, and we don't have the time to waste on an approach that hasn't worked before.

Now with all that said, I've had a thought. We aren't the ones that can try to help her, to civilize her, to show her that surface life is okay. But Ichirin might be. That's what she does: help feral youkai acclamate to life among people, and even if our enemy here isn't truly feral, she certainly hates surfacers. Ichirin could help her see that we're okay, could turn her from this bitter, angry misfit living in a cave, to someone that we could walk down the street with in broad daylight and take to a show. Ichirin might even be able to convince her to forgive us. I realize that's a lot to burden Ichirin with, but that's what she does.
That's my plan once we get out of her; convince Ichirin to take her in, and help tame her. Although on that front, I do have a quandry for our parser here.

>Does Ichirin have any way of keeping the spider youkai from doing harm to anyone around her? Like, what powers does she have, if any, or does she know anyone that we think would be stronger than the spider youkai that would be willing to help?

And as for how to get our enemy to Ichirin, because it's obvious we can't convince her to go there, I've thought of that, too. Marisa. We could ask Marisa to bring her to Ichirin. Marisa's leagues beyond us, sword or no, she'd be able to handle our enemy easily.
That's my plan, anyway. If you've got something better, Kilga, I'd love to hear it. But SOMETHING is going to be done before this night is out.

[Kilgamayan]

Having not yet had the chance to properly review the last several pages, I have no major ideas other than "be empathetic".

[Hello Purvis]

Ichirin is one of the reasons I was kind of trying to bait her toward town. And, I would suggest a good part of the reason she's convinced she's the strongest is because we really haven't nailed her down on why a heroic last stand isn't going to work is because we've kept letting her slide away on the issue rather than nailing her down on it.

[DracoOmega]

>Does Ichirin have any way of keeping the spider youkai from doing harm to anyone around her? Like, what powers does she have, if any, or does she know anyone that we think would be stronger than the spider youkai that would be willing to help?

>You don't know that she has any way to outright prevent this from happening, but she might well have the capability to subdue her, should she catch her attempting to do so. While Ichirin herself possess no appreciable combat abilities, she has a close bond with a nyuudou named Unzan. While Unzan spends much of his time wandering the open skies beyond the island, their bond grants Ichirin some capacity to quickly summon him in times of trouble. You've never seen him engaged in a serious fight, but you know that he is significantly physically powerful and you suspect the nature of his form would be make him immune to this youkai's webbing. You're fairly confident he could handle her. In fact, you feel more than a little irked when you consider that he probably could have handled her way more easily than you just did. Can clouds even get beat up? In any case, aside from Unzan, you don't think there's much of anyone in Easthaven who'd stand a chance.

[Oldmansour]

>From what we know of Unzan, would he be willing to be more vigilant than normal, if Ichirin was housing someone known to be violent? Best to have him close, than run the risk.

[DracoOmega]

>From what we know of Unzan, would he be willing to be more vigilant than normal, if Ichirin was housing someone known to be violent? Best to have him close, than run the risk.

>You imagine he might, at least if Ichirin thought it necessary. They seem to see eye-to-eye on a lot of things.

[Oldmansour]

>This would be a lot to ask of Ichirin. Do we think she'd really do it?

[DracoOmega]

>This would be a lot to ask of Ichirin. Do we think she'd really do it?

>Ichirin can be fiercely protective of her charges when need arises, and you imagine of Easthaven in general, had that been an issue before now; you doubt she will take kindly to what has already happened, nor what may be yet to come. However, you likewise imagine that she would gladly take on the task of brokering peace and attempting to habituate this youkai to society if it is at all possible. This spider would not be the first youkai who was... less than peaceable when she first encountered them, though she may well be most dangerous of these. That would be the sticking point, certainly. Aside from the risk her presence among the villagers might pose, you're certain Ichirin would be willing to invest however much time it took. She is a very patient and enduring person, and this is what she has chosen to devote herself to.

[Oldmansour]

>Then let's hope Marisa is amicable enough to do this for us, as well.
>"I'll be leaving, now. I know you won't believe me, but I really am sorry it turned out this way. If we meet again, I hope things will be better."
>Hold our breath and head back down the tunnel we came from. Don't swing the sword or raise it, but keep both ears open, in case she tries anything.

[Hello Purvis]

>Then let's hope Marisa is amicable enough to do this for us, as well.
>"I'll be leaving, now. I know you won't believe me, but I really am sorry it turned out this way. If we meet again, I hope things will be better."
>Hold our breath and head back down the tunnel we came from. Don't swing the sword or raise it, but keep both ears open, in case she tries anything.

>Don't do this.


Kilga wished to put in some inputs, which I am waiting on, and I'm not done with her as I noted.

[Oldmansour]

>Then let's hope Marisa is amicable enough to do this for us, as well.
>"I'll be leaving, now. I know you won't believe me, but I really am sorry it turned out this way. If we meet again, I hope things will be better."
>Hold our breath and head back down the tunnel we came from. Don't swing the sword or raise it, but keep both ears open, in case she tries anything.

>Do this.

My apologies to Kilga, but I said something was going to happen before the end of the night. And I AM done with her, and I'm not prepared to waste any more time arguing with someone who won't listen to someone that murdered her friends and invaded her home.

[Hello Purvis]

>Do not do this.

You're not the only player, I should note. We're not under any time obligation, we can hold off a bit. If you're not prepared to deal with her, that's fine, sit back and let us do it. If Kilga doesn't speak up...let's say by tomorrow, I'll handle it.

[Oldmansour]

>Then let's hope Marisa is amicable enough to do this for us, as well.
>"I'll be leaving, now. I know you won't believe me, but I really am sorry it turned out this way. If we meet again, I hope things will be better."
>Hold our breath and head back down the tunnel we came from. Don't swing the sword or raise it, but keep both ears open, in case she tries anything.

>Do this.

How about the obligation of 'moving the plot along'? Of 'Let's see what's next'? We've been bogged down here for too long as it is. I should think you'd appreciate that. And have you even noticed that Kilga said he was waiting on you to tell him to say something before he said anything? And now you say you're waiting on him?
I told the both of you hours ago, that if something didn't happen, I was moving along. I waiting for hours, and nothing happened.

[Hello Purvis]

>Not yet.

Because we can still resolve the situation, players still want to, we have no IC reason not to. It would be OOC to walk away and allow the situation the escalate more without trying all the options available. And again, you're not the only player. As far as time ultimatums go, not everyone can be here all the time. I spent a good deal of yesterday in bed with a splitting headache, for instance. A bit more time is not going to hurt anything if we can end this now and not drag out events past this. Just cool your heels, the game's not going to suddenly vanish if we wait a bit.

But if you want, I can press on with my ideas. I would prefer to wait for Kilga's insights, since he's approaching this from a different angle than we are and may have valuable things to offer, but if you must insist on something, I'll carry on now.

Edit: Seems Draco went to bed, anyways, so there's nothing to be gained by rushing at this point anyways.

[Hanzo K.]

Man, it's been a while since I posted in this.
Anyhow, I've read over just about everything that's happened so far.

It's still possible to get 'er on our side, I'd like to know what the plans that Purvis has are though.
And Kilga might have some good ones too, so I say we get all the plans on the table, and then we can go from there and figure out how to go about all this.
I know someone this stubborn, so I think we can come up with a plan to get her to see reason. Might be fiddly business, but it's doable.

[Kilgamayan]

> Is our pack large enough to hold the sword inside?

I'll go back and read through this entire conversation to see what approaches may be taken. I will admit the presence of an atmospheric time limit does hamper what I can do, however, since I tend to take a "feel it out as I go along" approach to empathizing.

[Hello Purvis]

I am thinking, at this point, more empathizing may be doable. We've kinda worn out our fury a bit. A path may exist in emphasizing we were once at the bottom of the food chain, and look at us now. But this relies on whether or not she used to be at the bottom. I get the feeling she never was, though. There may also be possibilities in the "why are you asking your friends to die?" kind of route, insomuch as if they are friends, she should value their lives more. When she makes the inevitable "yeah and you killed them", we can counter that it's because she hid away rather than coming out after us.

[Hanzo K.]

Yeah, for once I totally agree with you Purvis.
That would work, it's just a matter of getting her to listen to us on that.
I had an idea of something to say, but I can't think of the right words. But it did work off the whole "Once an average animal, but is now a Youkai." thing.

[Hello Purvis]

That's part of where I was going with "You have a voice" earlier. But I kinda never really got to fulfill it. I imagine one of the things probably stressed to Nazrin when she's being civilized was that she can talk to people to get things, rather than skulk, stealth, or pitch beatings. Which would be significant for someone who just moved from the bottom of the food chain to near the top.

[Hanzo K.]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
But you know the old saying, "You can take the youkai out of the wild, but you can never completely take the wild out of the youkai."
That holds true in the fact that we, as Nazrin, still utilize many, if not all of the abilities we retained.

I'm thinking that if we can ever get her to see logic and sense, she'd make a fine tailor, or a weaver, what with her ability to produce rather sturdy thread and all.
And having been a spider in the past, that would help her in the whole weaving thing, since it actually takes quite a fair deal of skill to make those webs do what you need 'em to.
Hell, given her climbing ability, she'd make a rather nice Seeker herself.