>>24806977
Well, I believe the plan we talked about in the skype group was to convince a certain down-on-his-luck investor that a certain new and skilled blacksmith would be a wise endeavor.

Let's inform Mari and locate this fellow, let her do the talking since she's proved pretty good at it.

>>24807049
Care to explain to me, not being in said skype group, how this works towards the goal of getting the guild off of Grist? Wouldn't it be simpler to just mentally violate Vern?

>>24807279
Investor = More money for Grist to potentially upgrade his shop and establish a better storefront (Harder to call someone a dirty criminal if they have a legit backer), plus it gives us a little more example of our support if Grist sees people becoming interested in seeing his business grow.

>>24807325
Well, I suppose it CAN work, but we'll still have to find an investor and convince him to put money into a business that is doing poorly, and do so based on the advice of two young girls. A delusion can do the trick, but who knows how long we'd have to sustain it to make sure he doesn't back right the fuck out again?

>>24807462
We've already found one, TM told us of the three people that weren't doing too well in this city one was an investor who made some poor investment decisions. If we can convince him to invest in something that actually has potential we could definitely profit from it.

Congratulations TwirledMustache, you just got yourself another player who just finished catching up in the archives.

I suggest in addition to the stated plan to help out Grist (somehow), we start looking for an excellent shipwright. Even if we don't have immediate need of their services, having a ship custom built ship for exceptional speed, distance, and stealth will be *incredibly* useful down the line. And I expect once we're 'done' with the three kings, we'll have more than enough resources/power to get it done.

>>24807462
>>24807535
Oh I should also mention TM said he had to take care of something real quick, so he'll be back shortly.

As I said right at the end of the last thread you anons are welcome to join the Skype group if you want to (though it isn't required, it's just useful for getting quick clarifications and planning), and welcome to the quest newcomer! Good to see some fresh blood.

>>24807515
Well, I suppose it won't hurt to try this. I also don't think it'd hurt to discredit Vern by messing with his mind. I don't think we've broken any minds in a while now, you know?

>>24807535
That's not a bad idea. By principle I'm not much for trying to acquire property or large numbers of minions since that doesn't really sit with the nature of our business. Plus that's more a thing for Dominion. Still, if we could acquire a ship that could be manned by a small crew and such, it could be helpful

>>24807679
Yeah there's definitely some merit in the ship plan, not sure if we should do that before the Vern/Investor shenanigans though.

I do agree that messing with Vern will be key, some suggestions from the skype group were to either discredit his image or finances. Potentially deluding him into being a drunken hooligan at the bar with some sailors (Ill befitting for a man of his caliber especially if some "accidental damages" occur as a result) or something similar.

Another rather complex plan was to check if the mercenary guards in the city had a central armory or some such. I doubt the city would supply arms and armor to them for free, so making a conspiracy and either destroying or stealing their equipment and setting up Vern as the perpetrator (To extort them into buying more equipment from him), could shake up his relationship with that guard captain.

>>24807588
I don't use skype or twitter unfortunately. I could set up an IRC channel if people in the skype group are open to that.

>>24807679
Yeah, I'm thinking just for personal use and physically outmaneuvering the Golgoths. Making the seas no longer an obstacle to us.
Plus getting Mari some sailing experience will be good.

>>24807880
Tm mentioned something a while back about wanting to set up an IRC channel so I'm sure he'd be open to that. He'll have to talk to you about that though.

>>24807804
Of course, we could also try to ruin him financially via bad "advice", or we could try to literally break his mind with something like "there are thousands of maggot eggs buried under your skin that will soon hatch". I also think I recall that delusions blatantly contradicting reality or each other could also slowly drive a subject properly insane.

>>24808012
This is very true, though it does limit us in our ability to react to things to keep delusions going for the amount of time needed to do that. Will need to clarify how long on average we could expect that to do the trick.

>>24807880

I'd be fine with migrating the Skype conversation over to an IRC. It's main purpose is just for there to be a place to discuss things when I'm not around, and I just use it as a "special features and deleted scenes" kind of thing. Although the nice thing about Skype is that if people make comments while my computer is shut down, I can still read them.

Regardless, what is the current plan? There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of consensus.

>>24808321
First step is to try to get Grift some support, as suggested by >>24807049

>>24808427
Yeah, find the investor.

>>24807049

The investor's has an office just off the main square. It's spacious and full of grand-looking mahogany furniture that's clearly seen better days. Looks like his awesome office is one of this guy's poor investment choices.

Mari steps through the door and the investor glances upward. "I'm sorry, do you have an appointment?" he asks.

"I have an offer. Do you think you could clear your schedule?" Mari says, sarcasm tinging her last sentence. Everyone knows this guy hardly sees anyone since his last investment got him pitiful returns. Apparently some new breed of horse that turned out to be less effective than the breeder claimed.

"Fine," the investor says, "be quick."

"There's a blacksmith named Grist. His products are excellent. At least as good as Golgothan goods," Mari says.

"I know of him, he's a criminal. Dealing with him would ruin my reputation," the investor says.

"Bullshit," Mari says, "we both know what's really going on with Grist. The guild wants him to give up his trade secrets for pocket change so they're spreading rumors to justify ruining all his customers until he gives in."

The investor rolls his eyes. "You should learn to hold your tongue, girl, before the guild puts you on their blacklist. It doesn't make a difference. That man will never sell a thing in this city and helping him will ruin me."

"I can promise you that the guild will leave you alone if you invest in this blacksmith," Mari says.

"Ha!" the investor laughs, "you? How?"

"Trade secret," Mari says, "but I can't prove that I can stop the guild from doing something until they try it."

"You can't prove you can stop the guild at all," the investor says, "get out of my office. I've got no time to play games with little girls."

>wat do?

Set up an IRC; #Rabaddon @Rizon

>>24808728
Delusion time?
"This offer is the only chance to save your business from falling apart." Then wait a few seconds for the delusion to settle before plainly stating (that is, not a delusion): "You have nothing better, do you?"

>>24808728
Delusion: "This girl is secretly nobility, and has the power to do what she says."
Then have Mari say, "You do realize how much significantly more rich and powerful I could make you, right?"

>>24809061
>>24809328

Alright, let's just roll for which of these to take to keep things moving. d100, highest wins.

Rolled 12

>>24809482

>>24809328

Oh, worth noting for this one that you can't really have Mari say anything. You don't have any kind of telepathic link with her and no way of communicating without the investor noticing. There's nothing stopping you from just saying it yourself and letting Mari pick up afterwards, though.

Rolled 73

>>24809498
derp, meant to link to >>24809328

Rolled 29

>>24809061
Rolling.

Rolled 24

>>24809061

>>24809528

Looks like this is our winner, since >>24809512 was actually the second roll.

---

You fire off your delusion, wait a moment for it to settle, and then ask "you don't have anything better do you?"

The investor looks a bit irritated, glances about himself for a few seconds, and then says "I'll think about it."

>>24809643

Oh, yes, and >wat do?

Rolled 74

>>24809731
What we do every night Pinky, take over the world!

Or rather, tell him to have an answer by morning. Then it's off to locate Vern and see what he's up to in terms of orders being fulfilled and obligations. Bonus points if we can find out when the mercs get their contract renewal.

>>24809831

Vern's workshops supply the towns forged goods in general, so a lot of his stuff is just pots, pans, the heads for axes and hoes and pitchforks, and the like. His arms and armor department primarily sells to traders who swing by to go and sell to soldiers in need of a replacement or an upgrade out nearer the frontlines, and they also pay a chunk of the mercenaries salary in arms and armor repairs and replacement.

Rolled 16

>>24810012
How many blacksmiths does he have in his employment and who is his best?

>>24810268

Depends on how you define "blacksmith." Actual people who know how to make decent stuff, about three dozen. Counting apprentices and journeymen and other people who're basically interns, close to two hundred.

Perhaps we could go about convincing the guild that Grist is too stubborn, that he'd rather go out of business and be driven out of town than given in, and that the only way they'll get the secret to western steel is with a better offer?

>>24810895
Maybe, and we could set up Vern as being wholly unreasonable to deal with at the same time over the issue. Once he fucks up enough they might even be desperate enough to replace him.

>>24810895
>>24810992

I like the idea of making Vern believe that some of his smiths are secretly collaborating with Grist, so that perhaps he will lash out against them in the same way he's doing to Grist but for seemingly no reason. If he's cracking down on smiths left and right everyone will want him gone.

Okay, so let's do >>24810992 first.

We go make Vern paranoid as shit about his other smiths, make him think they're trying to undermind his authority and cut deals with Grist. Make him look unhinged to everyone else. Make the people under his authority very, very discontent.

Then once he's lost a good bit of authority, we can go with >>24810895, convince the rest of the guild that Vern has lost it, that he doesn't really know what he's doing, and that cutting a far more reasonable deal with Grist would be advantageous. Or at the very least, that everyone involved would stand to make more money if they just let him get some work in.

From there we can continue to make Grist look awesome and Vern look like a complete cunt.

>>24811510

>
We go make Vern paranoid as shit about his other smiths, make him think they're trying to undermind his authority and cut deals with Grist. Make him look unhinged to everyone else. Make the people under his authority very, very discontent.

Okay. How?

>>24811510
Supporting this.

>>24811558

Goddammit quote fail. You know what I mean.

>>24811510
For inducing paranoia specifically, we should look up a handful of the smiths for their names, then delusion him that "<these smiths> are secretly collaborating with Grist to gain his secrets for themselves and undermine you".

>>24811606
I agree but we should wait until our investor has given his word so we dont strain ourselves with delusions.

>>24811647
Right. It might actually take some time for >>24811606 to work, since he's unlikely to take action immediately on what is essentially "just a hunch". Which is unfortunate since we ARE burning time that we don't even know how much we have available of.

>>24811606

It only takes a few hours before the investor decides to officially go about investing his dwindling resources before it's too late (he is in rather desperate straits after all).

Meanwhile you lay some delusions on Vern. Soon after he issues a confidential order to the mercenaries to have their houses searched. At least, you assume it's him. The order is confidential and technically it could be any of the guild lords, but it would make sense, seeing as you've made him all suspicious. In any case, they fail to find any superior western steel, but being mercenaries they do confiscate a few "suspicious" items that also happen to be very valuable and easily portable.

Also I need to go in like twenty minutes, so.

>wat do?

>>24812023
Have a sweet rave party while the mustache twirling Master of the Universe puts everything on pause?

>>24812023
We keep the delusion turned on and see what he does. The irrational fear eating away at him will eventually make him step up his paranoia fueled actions. Also check to see what backlash there's gonna be from the smiths that got searched.

>>24812023
I'd love to have some more smiths get hit, but I think it would be best to do so next day, to give the sense that this guy isn't going to stop his madness. For now, find one of the blacksmiths that wasn't hit, delusion him that "all the blacksmiths would profit greatly from Grists work if Vern would stop trying to drive him out of business." Hopefully at some point during the day he'll actually have conversations with some of his colleagues and have the balls to bring up his opinion of this.

>>24812230
Since my >>24812219 is basically just assumed with all this going on, I can get behind this. Find one of the smiths that is respected and target him with this delusion. If he doesn't take the bait within two or three hours though drop it, we cant afford to strain ourselves too much.

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44 KB JPG

>>24812230

You can only maintain a second delusion for a few hours while simultaneously maintaining the paranoia delusion on Vern. And with that clarification out of the way, I am off.

>>24812284
>>24812487
Don't need the delusion on him for now. He already made a move against the smiths and I'd much rather turn him against some new ones next day. As I mentioned, this should help give the impression that the guy is just getting worse and worse.

>>24812487
Bumping for OP since he said he'd be coming back.

>>24814861

Well, sort of. Irresponsible friends led to me waiting around doing nothing for two hours, so thread is done for tonight. Will be around for tomorrow, though. Follow @MCJohnnyQuest on Twitter for updates on when quest is on. There's an RSS feed for that somewhere but I don't know how RSS feeds work.