Clearly I journey to Laskell on the Viridavan to talk with Mumpot and obtain the services of the P'feller of Jan-sheek.

Fucking fantasy name syndrome.

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>>24787204
My fellow anon seemed to have intentions of offering help to merchants in trouble, seemingly to make friends for later use. I suppose such a thing could be useful, but I don't really think it's worth our time. I think what we need to be doing is move on from this place and get to the juicy bits of Margell, starting with Shorefall. Hopefully there we can get a better idea of these rival kings and detail out a plan on how to unify them against Golgoth.

>>24787237

So, what, you'd rather I call the port city Philadelphia in the wartorn region of Texas?

>>24787355
To expand on my thought on the larger plan so far: From what we've been told, Ommos is the most powerful of the three. Golgoth apparently decided to strike there first, possibly aided (or at least not hindered) by the Kestis and Gigan rivals. What we don't know is how heavy an impact Golgoth has made. Has Ommos fallen entirely, still fighting, or perhaps even kicked Golgoth back out entirely? More detailed news can hopefully be acquired on the mainland.

Some notes: Margell is apparently separated from the rest of the continent by a mountain range, guarded by the fortress city of Menteraki. If they are turned against Golgoth the only remaining routes will be the poor coastline road and the sea. Kestis probably has a somewhat decent navy, which could help further limit Golgothan movements. So even if we cannot unify the kingdoms, simply making them believe Golgoth is moving against them could provide a strategic advantage.

With regard to actually unifying the kingdoms, the most obvious move is to simply assassinate two of the three, fixing the entire succession issue. If the people are actually more loyal to their current king or kingdom, they might simply keep fighting under some other relative.
Another solution would be to introduce a fourth heir while undermining the claims of the three others. We'd have to do a really good job at said undermining however, since that game has probably been played for a long time already.

>>24787478
>You've arrived at Philadelphia, the port city, with the intention of uniting the three warring kings of Pennsylvania against the Empire of Texas, which you hate because they are the puppets of your arch-nemeses, Pecos Bill and the Big Owl Witch. Joining you in your quest is the stone rhino-esque John Henry, the oddly colored nature demon Jackalope, and the young mortal(?) girl Mary, who somehow has demon abilities.
>Lately you've done a lot of investigation but haven't really made a move in Philadelphia (or anywhere else in Pennsylvania) yet.

...I'm going to say this would have made it more interesting to me, yeah.

>>24787626
So yea, what I think we need to be doing is get to Shorefall. Most obvious ways to do so: Sneak our way onto a ship, buy our way onto a ship, or charm/intimidate our way onto a ship. Since we're dealing with merchant cities, money is probably the best bet if we actually have any. I think Mari had some left from looting, but how much?

Late to the start because ice cream.

I stand by making friends with the local merchants and messing with the guild. I suggest we go corporeal and investigate the blacksmith's place. Mari is already pretty good at fast-talking, so we'll quickly explain our plan to her; find out the Blacksmith's troubles & offer to help him deal with them in exchange for a partnership, then let Mari do the negotiations. We'll take over if things aren't going her way.

>>24787932
What are you hoping to achieve by gaining the favor of some small time merchant, anon?

>>24787667

So this has nothing to do with names and you just don't like original settings. Okay, whatever.

>>24787751
>>24787932

Everyone seems to have their own plan. I'll give it a few more minutes for discussion, but for now let's roll d100 in case we don't find a consensus. Will save time later on if I decide we need to just go with dice.

>>24788123
>So this has nothing to do with names and you just don't like original settings. Okay, whatever.
Not...exactly? I didn't even think about that until you said Philadelphia, but when you asked I am kind of obliged to answer that yes, some kind of weird monarchistic-fantastical American folklore fuckup would be an appealing (and original) setting, more so than this (to me).

>>24788026
He's apparently enough of a deal that one of the guild lords is afraid he'll break the monopoly. We can back him into a position to break that monopoly, then have the blacksmith challenge the current guild leader for his position. Do this successfully and we have a guild leader who owes us more than a few favours, which is the sort of friend that gives us bargaining power when negotiating with kings.

If we can lure out their patron trade daemon and convert/disable him, all the better.

>>24788223
Hm. I hadn't considered the angle of luring out any local daemon. For that, I'll actually agree to this move. Besides, it could also help get a ship anyway, so that's cool.

But let's not spend too long here, and we should also consider if we need Girdin for this. If not, it might be better to send him towards the mainland, perhaps to try to find more Daemons?

>>24788193
I kinda like the weird fantasy names. I especially like when I can make jokes with them. I'm kind of annoyed that I can't figure out what jokes I could make about Lark, considering that character specifically requested to be free of jokes about his name. Am I missing something obvious?

>>24788300
Not just yet. Most of the daemons here are dominion, as the other courts have just gone "fuck it, let them have the place". In fact for that reason especially we'll probably want Girdin around in case we do pick out their trade daemon; he's our party tank and it may devolve into a fight. We might consider sending our shade on scouting missions to the mainland, if we're willing to give up his usefulness here.

>>24788470
We should do that. We really need good intel before we end up undermining our own efforts by supporting the wrong players.

>>24788193

Yeah, but that's not what I said. What I said is if you would prefer it if we had the exact same setting with the exact same characters, but we called the port we're in Philadelphia and the region it's located in Texas. If you don't like fantasy settings then I don't know why you walked into a quest located in one, and the idea of having an original setting but then not having original names leads to incoherency like stealing existent names and applying them at random to totally new locations.

>>24788404

Lark is an actual word already.

>>24788470
>>24788300

So, plan here is to bring Girdin into town, have Mari chat up the blacksmith while you lurk around for support, and if a local daemon pops out to say "GET OUTTA MAH CITY BITCH" Girdin smashes his face in? If so, what exactly are you going to tell Mari to do when talking to this blacksmith? As in, what's she trying to get him to agree to, exactly?

>>24788567
We're going to leave Girdin outside town for the moment. We don't specifically NEED anything right now, so Mari can ask the blacksmith for anything she wants in particular as long as it's fair. We're making him a small starting offer; whatever is bothering him at the moment (nobody will agree to make deals with him, someone's threatening him, someone's damaging his business somehow) we'll take care of in exchange for whatever Mari decides she wants. Then once we've proven we can get shit done for him we'll make a bigger offer, to help boost his business, then to remove the guild leader trying to press down on him and/or earn him a place as a guild leader himself. The last one comes with the stipulation that he'll support us when we come and ask him for it.

>>24788690
To explain for the other anon, we leave Girdin outside because we won't attract the daemons attention until after we've started fucking with the guild, and having a lumbering stone monster follow us through town will attract more attention than we need. We're only going to reveal our daemon status to the blacksmith if we need to, or later when he knows we're on his side.

>>24788690
>>24788746
I agree. If we're doing this, we should give the impression that we simply solve problems using "secrets of the trade".

>>24788746
>>24788796

Mari heads into the blacksmith's rundown shop. His tools are masterfully made but showing signs of wear, and his shop is ill-kept. But Mari's from Dorrik, so blacksmiths being rundown is kind of the norm for her to begin with. "Hey," Mari says as she walks in.

"Hello, what can I do for you, little girl?" the blacksmith asks. His accent betrays his foreign lineage, which would explain perhaps why he's decided to try and strike out on his own rather than submit to the local guilds.

"Well..Word on the street is, you don't get a lot of business," Mari says.

"If you're just here to mock me, then get out before I smash your head between hammer and anvil," the blacksmith says, glowering. So customer service isn't this guy's strong point.

"I'm here to make you an offer," Mari says, "apparently you're good at this and the guilds are going out of their way to make sure you fail anyway."

"Ach," the blacksmith says, spitting to the side and returning to his work, hammering at a hot blade, "they say they will offer me a job in their workshops if I give them trade secrets. Secrets of western steel. Small job for great secrets, bad deal, you see?"

"Right," Mari says, "so, what're they doing about it? I mean, it's not like they can just snap their fingers and make your swords suck, so how're they driving off your customers?"

"Smithing, real smithing, of weapons, armor, important things, it's big work," the blacksmith says, "only wealthy men can afford it. Not necessarily guild lord wealthy, but still, well-known, easy to keep track of. You understand where I'm going with this?"

"They're killing your customers?" Mari asks.

>cont.

"No!" the blacksmith says, "it is not that barbaric even this far east. But the guild lords find some excuse to blacklist my customers, refusing to sell them anything, and when they control so much commerce, it means these wealthy men are left with a pile of gold they cannot spend. And soon they starve and must seek restitution, paying their wealth to guilds. So you see, I ask for a reasonable fee of, say, fifty goldmarks for a fine shirt of mail. But then guilds demand horrible restitution under threat of starvation from my customer, and they must pay several hundred more, so actual price of my work must always be unreasonably high." The smith sighs. "So now, my talents are wasted. On pots, pans, horseshoes."

"Okay..." Mari says, thinking for a bit. "I can find you a customer."

"How?" the smith asks, incredulous.

"Trade secret," Mari says with a smile, "but I can find you one. And I can promise he'll make a sizeable order. But I'll need something in exchange."

"I hope you want weapons and armor, then," the smith says, "because I cannot make anything else and have no money to spare."

"Weapons and armor sounds good to me," Mari says, and her eyes wander around the sparsely populated racks nearby, filled with demonstrations of the smith's work for potential customers (and those in need of an immediate purchase). "Like that," she says, pointing to a dagger with a curved grip and an elegant blade.

"Your taste is good," the smith says, "looks good, yes? Also stabs good. Can cut straight through bone without dulling if you're strong enough to push it through. But," he says, turning to look at her, "I will give it to you after you bring me a customer and I have been paid for my work, deal? Otherwise you will just get some stooge to order something and then never come to pick up the weapon. Or pay for it. I know how this works."

"Yeah, sure," Mari says, "it's a deal. I find you a customer, he pays you, and then you pay me."

>wat do?

>>24789599
Well now, if we can simply find some rich dude looking to purchase arms and armor, either one with need of it or one looking to sell it elsewhere, we should be able to "convince" him that this guy (send Mari back to ask for his goddamn name, and introduce her own name while she's at it, nobody teach you basic manners child?) does work that is far superior to anything else in the region and easily worth many times that of other smiths. Hopefully that alone should do the trick.

>>24789813

>send Mari back to ask for his goddamn name, and introduce her own name while she's at it, nobody teach you basic manners child?

Well, first off, no. Where she's from, the only people you need to be introduced to are people from other villages and infants. Second off, when I need to cut things to try and keep the number of posts down, things like introductions are an easy way to save a hundred odd characters without losing much to the narrative.

>>24789813
Yeah. If we can head to the port and find a trader, that would be ideal. Someone who isn't planning to stick around Arn is not someone who the guild's threats will be massively effective on. Plus, a trader may well buy multiple items. We can lead one to the store and delude them with "This blacksmith's wares are more than worth the money". Hell, that precise delusion we can use in front of people and nobody will sense anything out of the ordinary (our delusions, presumably, do not have any residual effects that people would notice right?).

>>24789907

Is this the actual plan, then?

>>24789907
Yea, exactly. Just walking around the port for a while should find us more than a few candidates and even with our form being what it is, we should be able to find some who'd be willing to talk to us.

>>24790009
Yes, that's the plan.

>>24790063
We shouldn't be too out of the ordinary as long as we don't go incorporeal. Although we should mention to Mari as an aside that, if anyone asks, we're sisters from Dorrik but and our dad sent us to Arn on a boat after our mother was killed, so we would be safe from the war. Just so we have a story and we're not caught off-guard by someone who thinks we're suspicious.

>>24790230
That seems a decent story. News of the destruction of Westercoast should still be somewhat fresh here so any kind of prying could probably be deflected with a few tears. Don't know how good an actor Mari is, but we should be good at it.

>>24789907
>>24790063

The only thing that makes something obviously a delusion is that the target can't hear it but everyone else can. So if someone should ask the trader why he decided to listen to some random street urchin he'll be all "what are you talking about, it was my idea, I never talked to any street urchin."

---

It doesn't take long to wander into the port, find someone with money, and delude them into heading to the blacksmith's to make an order. Unfortunately it will take over a week to fill, but with his head filled with a certainty of this man's godlike talent, the trader's willing to wait.

The only trouble is that the guilds are guaranteed to catch wind of it and try to persuade this trader otherwise. The blacksmith's wares might be "more than worth the money" but that doesn't mean they can't make him a more convincing offer.

>wat do?

>>24790391
Well we'll need to keep track of the trader for the next week or so, make sure our Blacksmith gets paid. Did we catch his name yet, by the way?

In the mean time for the rest of the day or so, see if we can bring one or two more people in to make a more immediate purchase, just to show the Blacksmith is wasn't a one-off thing. couple of sailors in the port who'll be shipping off in a few hours would be ideal, but I have no idea how easy it'd be to find someone like that. We'll also want to scout out any other smiths (preferably without being spotted; maybe duck out of sight and go incorporeal to investigate for a few minutes and see what they're offering) and keep an eye out for anyone associated with the guild. Our plan will be to get a guild lord to make a good purchase, so keep an eye out someone who looks wealthy and important. We won't approach them yet; just tail them in shadow form while not luring in more customers.

>>24790631
If we're looking for small purchases, simply checking the market for people browsing other blacksmiths would probably net results. That's where people looking to buy for themselves should be, right?

>>24790631
If we haven't dispatched our shade to the mainland yet (we pitched the idea, but TM didn't mention it happening so I'm assuming we didn't do it), we'll have our shade follow the trader we brought in.

>>24790681
Yes, but we don't want to be seen by the other smiths, because sooner or later someone's going to bring up the two littel orphan girls who were advertising for Bumfuck's Blacksmithery. Ideally we don't want to directly steal competition from the guild until we've put the blacksmith in a better position to deal with them.

>>24790712
If our shade hasn't been dispatched, surely we should do so now. Finding out what's going on in Margell is high priority.

>>24790780
That's a valid concern, hadn't really considered that.

>>24790935
Bearing in mind our shade can't talk, and so can't ask for information, we may do better using it to keep tabs on the trader. We'll ask around Arn for information on the mainland as time allows. Might spend a day or two doing so.

>>24791182
It can't talk, but listening and watching can yield lots of information, especially if it can sneak its way into the seat of government. Other than that, Whisper City is just annoyingly interesting. Anything could be there. I want to know!

>>24790631

You shadow the trader. After a few days an emissary of the guilds requests a meeting with him in one of the large guild halls. The offices on the second floor are reasonably soundproofed against the cacophonous carpentry workshop below. "I'm recently told you made an order from the blacksmith Grist," the guild representative begins.

"Yes, his craftsmanship is excellent," the trader says, "what of it?"

"Well," the representative responds, "we've known him to deal with counterfeiters in the past. Gilded coins of lead rather than genuine gold. I hope you understand that anyone who trades with him must necessarily come under suspicion."

"I hadn't heard anything about him," the trader says.

"We don't like to flaunt it when someone has a criminal past in our city, it might attract others of the same kind," the representative says, "in any case it would be best for your reputation if you ordered from a more respectable blacksmith. No money has changed hands between yourself an Grist yet, am I correct? So there's no reason to suspect you if you should change your order."

"I've already waited several days," the trader says, "my business in town is nearly concluded. I haven't time to start over."

"I understand your trouble," the representative says, "and in the interest of allowing an honest tradesman to clear his name without harming his business, we at the guild are prepared to give you a discount on our readymade arms. Just this once, of course, but we can promise superior quality and secure your reputation and deliver the pre-made arms to you immediately for the price of a standard order. If you should turn down this generous offer we should obviously have reason to search your vessel for anything suspicious. It is so odd that an honest trader would be so set on doing business with someone suspected of crime, after all."

"Well, I suppose so, yes," the trader says, now uncertain.

>wat do?

>>24791316
If we place a single delusion on both, neither should hear it, right? So "the profits from selling Grist's wares far exceeds anything the guild could provide" on both of them and then immediately lifted from the guild rep to conserve energy should do the trick and keep his loyalty, I think.

>>24791597
I was thinking along the same lines; the person who is deluded does not remember hearing it so we can delude both so long as they are alone. If they are, we'll sneak up behind each one in turn and whisper. Delude the trader with "Grist's wares are far superior to anything the guild can offer you." Approach the representative and delude him with "The lowest price you can offer is (price)", with the price being the same amount that the trader is paying Grist. This should guarantee that he won't take the deal.

>>24791597

A single delusion can only affect a single person.

>>24791738
Well fuck. Can we whisper delusions, as >>24791734 suggests?

>>24791846
>>24791734

Yeah, that'll work.

---

You whisper-delude both men. Each one looks around for the source of your voice during the other's delusion in that "I'm sure I heard something" sort of way, but they soon shrug it off as being a trick of the...Well, not light, but whatever.

Regardless, the representative offers ends up offering the same price as Grist has, but the trader accepts anyway. Apparently he's not super keen on having his ship searched and possibly chunks of his cargo confiscated under flimsy premises.

>wat do?

>>24792094
Well fuck. Best I can think of is deluding the trader that "if he leaves quickly after making the exchange with Grist, guild won't be able to stop him" and "the quality of Grists products will net him a profit large enough to buy the entire guild when he returns". Hopefully then he'll feign that he's going to break off the deal with Grist and take theirs, only to betray that the moment Grist finishes.

>>24792435
If the negotiations aren't over yet, then we can delude the rep with "The trader is suspicious and should have his cargo searched anyway." The trader should object to this, especially since he's not getting his goods any cheaper through the guild.

>>24792674
Also might work. Wouldn't be doing the blacksmith much of a favor though, if this guy gets searched just for thinking about making buying from him.

>>24792781
The first step is just making sure the order gets made. Once we've done that, we'll tell the guy about seeing the meeting (he obviously knows what's happening but it's to let him know we can get that kind of access), and offer to use our "trade secrets" to get the guild off his back.

>>24792862

The order has already been made. The guild is trying to convince the trader to cancel it.

>>24792873
Small misunderstanding in terminology. I mean our first step is to make sure the order is completed.

Are we able to use that delusion I suggested, or has the negotiation ended and the trader left?

>>24793005

No, they're both still in the office. And since no one seems to be disagreeing, we'll go ahead with that. You whisper the delusion into the representative's ear (presumably lifting one of the others). There is no immediate response.

>>24793237
Well if he's going to search the trader's ship anyway then he's not dumb enough to announce it. Should expect that from the guild though; underhanded machinations seems to be their thing. We'll need to try a delusion on the trader that will make him change his mind, and fast. I'm a bit short on ideas though.

>>24793420
How about this?
"The guild will search your ship the moment you've purchased their wares. The only way to recover from the loss is to buy Grift's superior wares."

>>24793655
Could simplify it. "The guild is trying to bully you into making a loss." Possibly with adding "Their supplies are worthless and they are trying to offload them on to you."

>>24793962
He's shown to be mostly concerned with being searched, though. Undermining their implied promise of NOT searching his ship would seem to be the key.

>>24793655

I see no other plans besides this one, so we'll go with it.

---

The trader agrees to purchase the guild's wares and spends some time at several guild-approved blacksmiths. He makes no orders immediately but says he'll have a final decision at some other point in the immediate future.

Of course, throughout all this you're maintaining two delusions at once and the exhaustion is really starting to get to you by the time that night falls and it becomes apparent that the guild representative isn't going to be searching that ship. Presumably he doesn't actually have the authority and he just passed the suggestion along to his superiors, who promptly ignored it. Being that it isn't accomplishing much, you lift the delusion on him. You already feel bad from the exhaustion, though.

The trader, meanwhile, has sent a message to Grist telling him he's cancelled the order, followed by another, secret message saying to ignore the last one and that they'll have to make the exchange in secret due to guild politics. He offers a modest bonus for the inconvenience.

Grist is sick of this "masterwork bastard sort" bullshit that's going on in the arms trade right now. Western steel deserves better than that. Much, much better than that. So he wastes no more time with memes and forges some awesome weapons and armor for sale on the front lines where the prices are dearest.

In the meantime the trader continues stalling for time selecting the wares from the guild's smiths. Finally, after over a week of skullduggery, Grist slips out to the beach where you're camped, meets up with the trader, who sails out of port under cover of night, sends a dinghy to go and buy the wares from Grist, and then the dinghy meets up with the vessel again, where they promptly sail out of Arn City.

The guild is not amused.

>wat do?

>>24794103
If we didn't get any sleep over that week, we should get the hour we need now. Then we'll go speak to Grist. Tell him about the meeting (he already knows about the guild's dirty tactics but we're dropping the hint that we can spy on them, "trade secrets" if he asks how we know) and say we're appalled at these underhanded tactics. Then remind him he owes Mari a blade.

>>24794103
Stay near him in shadow form for the rest of the night, just in case the guild decides to escalate the conflict violently. Don't contact him until past noon, to see if the guild makes some early move against him. If not, meet with him with same details as >>24794244
Rest can wait until after the meeting, our project here could be in actual physical danger already.

>>24794323
Fair point. Keep an eye on him and hope we got our rest in during the week.

Also we're going corporeal and bringing Mari with us when we meet with Grist (let her talk again, as she's pretty damn good at it). I'm sure this would be assumed, but I'm stating it anyway.

>>24794436
Well, if when TM says we feel bad he is following the same semi-arbitrary health levels from the primer (which is sadly absent from the OP of this thread), we're not going to drop dead anytime soon, and could probably still fend off a fair number of mortals. Fighting a daemon or an army would be hard, though.

>>24794514

You don't really have any Talents that give you a direct edge in combat and you aren't THAT much better than a mortal as it is. A single mortal would, in fact, be reasonably likely to beat you. Assuming they were actually good at killing things, at least.

>>24794633
And if they can see us.From my interpretation, feeling bad is of course bad but doesn't mean we can't still use our talents effectively, just that we need to be extra mindful of not pushing ourselves over the increasingly close edge. So we could still blind them or ambush from out of nowhere using shadow form. That last one might even be able to pass off as just being a very sneaky individual, but if we have to reveal our nature to protect him, that's probably not devastating to our plans.
Plus if our shade is still around (we just don't know anymore) it can throw additional blinds without draining our own energy.

>>24794514
>>24794436

Evidently the notice that you are kind of vulnerable isn't enough to change the situation, so sure, going corporeal and letting Mari take the lead.

---

"Oh, you again," Grist says when the two of you walk in. The guild's had plenty of chance to respond but it seems they've decided against anything overt. "What do you want?"

"Well, do you think your first customer just fell out of the sky?" Mari asks, "I'm here for my dagger."

"Of course," Grist says, and gestures to its place on the wall, "take it. Though hopefully my next customer won't require me to trade crates on the beach under cover of night. And if anybody asks I didn't meet anyone outside of town."

"Of course," Mari says, "while we were arranging the deal, though, we happened across the guild trying to bully the trader out of doing business with you."

"It's how they work," Grist says.

"Look, these guys are obviously going to stop at nothing to get those secrets out of you, they must be valuable," Mari says, "I think we can get rid the guild off your back permanently. But only if you can promise that the secrets of western steel are on our side."

"Why?" Grist asks, "why go through so much trouble to get rid of the guild? I don't know what you're doing, but it must be risky."

"Because we want to unite the Margellian kings and then use them as the foundation for an alliance of insurgents and enemy nations against Golgoth with which we shall burn their heartlands, raze their cities, and destroy their gods as terrible vengeance for the injustices done against us!" Mari says, her tone growing slowly more unhinged as she goes on. Grist stares. Mari rolls her eyes and says "because we want money, same reason anyone does anything in this town." Grist continues staring.

>cont.

>>24795082

"Look, right now you've got no cash and only a few blades which, no matter how well they're forged, couldn't keep me fed for longer than a year or two even if I weren't here and all the buyers weren't off on the mainland. We can get the guild off your back and once they are, you'll have plenty of wealth and power to throw around. Do you see the problem? You need us right now, in the longrun we need you. I'm just saying we need to know your gratitude won't run out after we've done our part. Okay?"

"Of course," Grist says, "you want favors, I can give you favors. You get the guild out of my way, I will make your life easier for as long as you are still alive."

"Sounds good to me," Mari says.

"I'm not promising you endless wealth, of course," Grist says, "my generosity has limits."

"Sure, we're reasonable," Mari says, "anyway, we've got work to do. Guild won't change its mind about you without some, ah, persuasion, after all."

>wat do?

>>24795316
Well, we'd have to look around inside the guild, find out who's ordering the bullying against Grift and either try to persuade him otherwise or to take him down.

First though, I do believe now is the time for resting. I think I will do the same as well, so the rest of tonight is your hands, fellow anon.

>>24795316
Ask Grist who's in charge of the guild, particularly their head blacksmith. He'll be the one we'll want to deal with. If he doesn't know, that's fine, we'll just do >>24795464 Also compliment Mari on the slightly unhinged performance. Mortals aren't usually that interesting, and she is making our job massively easier.

>>24795464
I'll do what I can. Will harder without someone to bounce ideas off, though.

>>24795548

There is no one leader of the guild, instead the guild is run by a council of twelve guild lords who collectively run the city, and have an enormously complicated distribution of responsibilities between them. The number of guild lords isn't even fixed. Each of them, however, holds the keys to a monopoly on a certain trade. One controls all the ports, another all the food, and a third all the blacksmiths, and so on. That last one is Guild Lord Vern.

Also, heads up, I'll be leaving in about thirty minutes. I wasn't even going to stay this late but some other plans I had for the night fell through so we got another hour or so for quest.

>>24795910
So ideally we'll disgrace Vern and get him kicked out of the guild. Failing that we'll sit Girdin outside Vern's house, and tell him if he tries to screw with Grist again the statue will come alive and politely bulldoze everything in sight.

Or not. We need to track down Vern and see what he's up to first, obviously. Also see if we can work out his main associates and aside from being in the guild, what else does he have at his disposal.

>>24796239
I agree, let's rest up for an hour then track down Vern using our Quantum Shade (We really do have no idea where the fuck that thing is) or failing that ourselves.

>>24796239

Vern's not hard to find. He keeps office hours. Not very many, but still, he keeps them. It's more difficult to find out who his closest associates are. That said, because he keeps them supplied, he is known to be have political ties to Captain Krell, head of the town's guard. They're technically mercenaries, but they're paid an annual retainer by the guild lords and thus are really more of a town watch who have official prices for bribing them into taking care of stuff that the guild lords can't be bothered with sending them to clean up. Plus he's got over a hundred people who work directly for him, who are big and burly and good with hammers and who may or may not be willing to cave in a skull for Vern's sake should he get desperate.

Also, I forgot to mention, but your Shade is now totally on that ship with the trader, and that's going to hit the mainland sooner or later. You don't know if he's stopping at Vin first or not, but either way he'll be in the mainland within a week or two. Maybe less.

>wat do?

>>24796742

And by wat do I mean see you tomorrow, because I actually have to go now.

>see you then

>>24796750

Oh, and I should mention, if there's anyone here who doesn't know, I have a twitter (@MCJohnnyQuest) which you can follow, I tweet it whenever the quest is up. Hypothetically the quest starts at 12:00 server time, in practice it's usually closer to 13:00.

>>24796777
We also have a Skype group for the quest if you have some questions or just want to talk and strategize between threads. We also have rap battles and pun competitions.

Just leave your skype name here (Or in any thread) and TM will add you and pull you into the group chat, or one of us. Whichever comes first.