No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy
Sep. 17th, 2005 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothHad a session of Lazar's Shadake game last night. Java was present, but didn't want to join in. Instead, he played half-life 2 the whole time, distracting us. Well, distracting me, since I was the only one who could see the screen...
After getting themselves together after the party, the party had several things to decide. First, what to do with the machines they'd demonstrated. This was decided for them as the judge of the city decreed that since people had 'agreed' to pay for them, they might as well take possession now while the 'slaves' went back to their master and arranged for him to accept the money. Whether he'd actually decree that they had to pay him when they did that... they weren't quite sure.
The second was what to do with Chochang, Jardin's new wife. She didn't have anywhere else to stay, and her family didn't want her (which is why she'd been given up as a prize). They decided to take her with them to the boat, and on the way interrogate her to decide whether she would be an ally (they could use someone who could, for instance, read the local script) or a prisoner.
Her feelings towards her family and town were rather vocally hostile, and while she of course had no reason to trust the party, they felt that they could at least bring her with them. Of course, the *plan* had been to keep part of the truth secret -- say that their airship had been built by some other centaur lord who wanted to keep things a secret etc., but Jardin had already blurted out that they were from off the island and seeing the ship made her a believer, so they went ahead and told her pretty much everything.
C: "So everywhere you've gone, people have tried to kill you."
Wayne: "Noe *everywhere*. Really only the pirates. And the slaves here, although of course the centaurs would if they knew everything."
C: "And you still want to be peaceful?"
W: "There's no reason the world can't be at peace -- we know it's possible because it happened before. If we can establish trade, and communications..."
C: "Before, the world was at peace because it was ruled by the mages... I suppose the things you're building here are close enough."
W: "But that's -- we're not --"
Jardin had duties as a messenger -- he was supposed to deliver a bunch of messages to far-flung regions of the island, where no messenger had ever managed to return from alive. Chochang posited that this was because (a) the cities he was being sent to were hostile with Irine (the city near where the airship was docked) if not openly at war, and (b) the countryside was absolutely infested with escaped slaves who'd kill any centaur on sight.
So the prognosis was that if Jardin went off and never returned, no one would be very surprised, so there was no reason not to just let Chochang read all the messages (although they forgot to ask her what they said).
The next step (the third thing, if you will) was finding someone to act as their shill, to accept payment on their behalf. Chochang recommended against cooperating with the big-spending centaur who'd wanted to hire Wayne and buy Perrel -- he was very ambitious, and not likely to be willing to let anyone else share his power, and in addition already had *one* Cytherian trapped in a cage like a songbird... so he might just be going for the set. Instead, she knew of an old, senile centaur, who probably wouldn't even remember differently if they told him he'd been working with them all along...
So they headed that way, with some skymantas. Chochang and Jardin stayed behind to guard the mantas while the others headed in to 'report' to the old centaur... but his estate was in shambles, having just been attacked, and his servants were cagier and more loyal (or at least less apathetic) than expected -- the one in charge of finances caught on right away that the party had probably been meaning to take advantage of him. But instead, they offered to take advantage of the situation (having just had his estates burned, the old centaur was badly in need of money) to their mutual advantage, and the accountant agreed.
However, out in the forest, some escaped slaves had happened upon the newlyweds 'guarding' the skymantas, and when they were most distracted, moved in to attack!
last week | next week
After getting themselves together after the party, the party had several things to decide. First, what to do with the machines they'd demonstrated. This was decided for them as the judge of the city decreed that since people had 'agreed' to pay for them, they might as well take possession now while the 'slaves' went back to their master and arranged for him to accept the money. Whether he'd actually decree that they had to pay him when they did that... they weren't quite sure.
The second was what to do with Chochang, Jardin's new wife. She didn't have anywhere else to stay, and her family didn't want her (which is why she'd been given up as a prize). They decided to take her with them to the boat, and on the way interrogate her to decide whether she would be an ally (they could use someone who could, for instance, read the local script) or a prisoner.
Her feelings towards her family and town were rather vocally hostile, and while she of course had no reason to trust the party, they felt that they could at least bring her with them. Of course, the *plan* had been to keep part of the truth secret -- say that their airship had been built by some other centaur lord who wanted to keep things a secret etc., but Jardin had already blurted out that they were from off the island and seeing the ship made her a believer, so they went ahead and told her pretty much everything.
C: "So everywhere you've gone, people have tried to kill you."
Wayne: "Noe *everywhere*. Really only the pirates. And the slaves here, although of course the centaurs would if they knew everything."
C: "And you still want to be peaceful?"
W: "There's no reason the world can't be at peace -- we know it's possible because it happened before. If we can establish trade, and communications..."
C: "Before, the world was at peace because it was ruled by the mages... I suppose the things you're building here are close enough."
W: "But that's -- we're not --"
Jardin had duties as a messenger -- he was supposed to deliver a bunch of messages to far-flung regions of the island, where no messenger had ever managed to return from alive. Chochang posited that this was because (a) the cities he was being sent to were hostile with Irine (the city near where the airship was docked) if not openly at war, and (b) the countryside was absolutely infested with escaped slaves who'd kill any centaur on sight.
So the prognosis was that if Jardin went off and never returned, no one would be very surprised, so there was no reason not to just let Chochang read all the messages (although they forgot to ask her what they said).
The next step (the third thing, if you will) was finding someone to act as their shill, to accept payment on their behalf. Chochang recommended against cooperating with the big-spending centaur who'd wanted to hire Wayne and buy Perrel -- he was very ambitious, and not likely to be willing to let anyone else share his power, and in addition already had *one* Cytherian trapped in a cage like a songbird... so he might just be going for the set. Instead, she knew of an old, senile centaur, who probably wouldn't even remember differently if they told him he'd been working with them all along...
So they headed that way, with some skymantas. Chochang and Jardin stayed behind to guard the mantas while the others headed in to 'report' to the old centaur... but his estate was in shambles, having just been attacked, and his servants were cagier and more loyal (or at least less apathetic) than expected -- the one in charge of finances caught on right away that the party had probably been meaning to take advantage of him. But instead, they offered to take advantage of the situation (having just had his estates burned, the old centaur was badly in need of money) to their mutual advantage, and the accountant agreed.
However, out in the forest, some escaped slaves had happened upon the newlyweds 'guarding' the skymantas, and when they were most distracted, moved in to attack!
last week | next week
