>>25289860
What you are wearing is something between a floor-length yukata and a dress. The top portion is a short black yukata, about hip-length, tied with an obi sash so deep a pink that it's almost red; the bottom portion is a floor-length black skirt, faintly patterned near the hem with the deep pink silhouettes of stylized sakura petals. Small gold details at the edges of the sleeves and in the tie of the obi add an air of elegance to the garment, while a small pink bow at the collar reminds that while this is a serious, refined garment, it is still for a child- or at least, someone who wishes to be seen as a child.

It's perfect. The only flaw you can see is that it's rather difficult to move in.

You'll wear it to the airship yard. Why not? This was built to make an impression on all your lessers. The sooner you can test it, the better.

The livery for your servants is also ready, so you make arrangements for some of your servants to have it transported back to the castle.

Now, off to the airship yard to awe the workers. Unless, of course, you wished to order something else while you were here.

> You are now wearing the unique garment "Wisdom of the Cherry Blossoms."
> This garment grants +10 Acumen, +10 Masquerade, and +10 Discipline.
> In exchange, you take a -10 penalty to Ferocity and Celerity.
> The new livery for your servants will grant an additional +5 Acumen and Masquerade whenever you are receiving guests in the presence of your servants.
> To the airship yard?

>>25289870
> To the airship yard?
Seems as good a place to head as any.

Hmmm... didn't recognize the pic at first.

Yes, to the shipyard.

>>25289870
You are Isabella Katarina Markova, twelfth of the line of Carmilla, thirteen generations from Dracula, the First. This places you with enough blood and power to make you a minor noble in Shadescast, the city of vampires, and possess your own castle- which does not necessarily have normal geometry, and which is not always in the same place. Though your physical appearance is that of a young girl, you are actually three and a half centuries old.

You spend your time responding to requests from other vampires for lore, and holding tea parties and other social events, both with humans and vampires. On occasion, you indulge in adding one or two of them to your collection of porcelain dolls...

Recently, you were attacked by a human vampire hunter who managed to temporarily kill you. Upon rising from death, you turned him into your faithful hound... but first he managed to majorly deface your castle and burn a portion of your library, including some hard-to-replace texts. Signs point to him having been hired by a rival vampire... one who was here, and took one of your dolls. Your current suspect is a blockheaded bat named Nalus.

You have turned the Mayor of Mark into your soft, gooey servant. This is useful to you due to your airship yard there, which you got for a song off of a fellow vampiric noble by the name of Blackford. The deal took a little screaming at the foreman, but once it was sorted out, you returned to your castle…

Which was when you found that one of your servants had disappeared. Fortunately, Scarlet, one of your Dolls' creations, dragged her back to the Castle for you. In return, Scarlet was given the girl as her servant.

Five minutes later, you almost ate Scarlet after taking backlash from a failed scrying attempt.

Since then, your head maid has attempted to assassinate you with cutlery and is being held as an experiment, and you started to organize a trap for Nalus with the help of an Ulvenwald native.

>>25290129
It's getting harder and harder to fit the story-so-far into 2,000 characters. So here's the archive of past threads:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Vampire+Doll+Quest

The first thread can be found here:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/24964444/

Isabella's Character sheet:
http://pastebin.com/Dz7QgMM0

>>25289860
Almost missed this in the catalog, it would help if you use the same picture everytime so it's easily identifiable.

That said, I still can't figure out why Nalus is at the bottom of our checklist, shouldn't handling a criminal be at the top of a list of things to do? I know vampires don't work the same as human, but that just seems silly. Especially if Nalus is working with someone else interested in deducing something from our exemplary fleshcrafting technique. It's how we make a living, giving away our secrets because we were more concerned with building a fancy ship and picking up dresses is just nonsensical.

If everyone else is deadset on building an airship though, I can't do anything about it and suggest that our airship be the bulk transport variety. More goods transported = more profit in less trips. We are starting a merchant fleet with the permit we got from the mayor. Perhaps we can look into getting favored client tax breaks for people using our local services instead of using the services of other foreign transporters.

>>25290297
I doubt Nalus would do anything within the next few days, vampires probably execute plans slowly.

Can we roll acumen to determine what would be the more exact nature of our growth in all likelihood were we to eat Nalus?

>>25290396
I doubt he is going to do anything in the next few days either, but what does that have to do with protecting ourselves?

My roommate in college once sliced her leg on a truck bumper during a roadtrip, she got us to put a bandage on it, but she obviously needed stitches, she said it will be fine for a few days till we get home. It didn't really seem like an issue and it didn't get infected, she got stiches, and was ok. She could have gotten infected though, it was stupid, she was just lucky. I don't see how this is any different.

>>25290297
He's at the bottom because you're currently in the process of making preparations. It's logistics, not priority.

>>25289860
>Based Wergelt.
Ugh thank god such a shitty week. Finally something decent is happening.

> Check Airship Yard
How we doin on cash money? Could we start airship production?

>>25290489
Stepping back into your carriage, the journey disappears as you arrive at the shipyard. Though it's now into the night, the workers are as busy as during the day; they'll either love you or hate you for showing up on the graveyard shift. You consider that it's probably best to choose the former.

As the stars are coming out and the sun is well-set, you leave your umbrella in the carriage as you enter the bunkhouse and climb to the foreman's office.

"Evening, foreman."

You never did get his name. An oversight, that. But it appears to be for the best- as the foreman turns, he reveals that he's not the same individual from last week. Of course! He must be the night foreman.

"Evening, milady. What are you here for tonight so late?"

You nod at him.

"Just checking the finances as usual. Any new news?"

The foreman nods.

"All the orders from last week have been completed and sent out, some weeks ahead of schedule. Some of our clients don't have anywhere to house the ships yet, so we're holding on to them for the moment as a courtesy. Still, with the remaining space we're turning a tidy profit- we can only hope demand can keep up once we clear the remaining berths. Also, that tax break you got us is turning a tidy profit all its own. I guess you're more cunning than you look under that rosy smile, eh? Or maybe the mayor just can't resist those puppy-dog eyes. "

> The airship yard is currently generating 4 Holdings per week, which may increase with time.
> If you wish to commission an airship for your personal use, now would be a good time to do so.
> Blueprints are on hand for civilian craft. Other ships will require specialist design, meaning additional time and money spent. Do you wish to view the blueprints now?

>>25290510
I was under the impression we had everything in place, we had Hunter, and all we had to do was write a letter, guess I missed something.

I'm still for the big merchant airship, that seems the most profittable venture, it doesn't have to be fancy, so we can cut costs on decoration and style and do something obviously meant for big business.

>>25290578
You sent birds to scout his castle, remember? They won't be back until the end of the day.

>>25290550
>Maybe the mayor can't resist those puppy-dog eyes.
If only he knew.

Look over the blueprints, see if there's an easily produced heavy lifter.

>>25290550
How the hell did a night foreman learn about our political maneuvering? That's waaaay too public.

>>25290629
Yea let's get some trade going. We don't need it running tomorrow, but it's good to start early so we don't hog all the floor space.

>>25290678
I suspect there was paperwork and liasing involved with the taxbreak and if this guy is a foreman, he likely had to deal with something, or at least be informed.
Why shouldn't it be public that the mayor favors us? We're like Bruce Wayne at this point, recluse, but people are beginning to take an interest in our interests, this could be good. It could also be bad, but if it's bad, good news, we can still eat them.

captcha
>poratom 1846
No captcha, I like to toast with a jeffery vintage from the 1100's.

>>25290678
Of course he knows about the tax break, he processes the forms for it. And the mayor is the person who gave the tax break. The connection isn't hard to make.

>>25290747
Essentailly this.

>>25290747
>We're like Bruce Wayne at this point
>We're like batman
>We're a vampire
I see what you did there, I like it.

>>25290747
The blueprints available are varied.
There's a pleasure craft hull that's easily produced but not much good for anything (what the workers call a "junker").
The Sword-class frigate: Fast, well-balanced craft designed to protect trading convoys and do light raiding.
The Galleon-class trader: Massive and slow, but carries tonnes of cargo.
The Shard-class runner: Extremely fast, difficult to pilot, used for smuggling. Carries no guns to save on weight.
The Tower-class sentinel: Turns quickly, heavily armed, but very slow to actually go anywhere. Used for air defense of ground holdings.
The Bunker-class armored transport: Carries a pair of light carronades, heavily armored, but smaller than the Galleon. Intended for individual traders who can't afford escorts for a larger ship. Maneuvers like a pig.

> Details for all are available by request

Can we look into hiring privateers? Is that a thing?

>>25290835
vampire loli crime fighting ass kicking night stalking caped crusader of darkness?
I would pat and hug her like a freighttrain entering a tunnel.

>>25290879
>Vampire sky piracy quest.

Only if we can fleshcraft a mutant parrot, maybe we can put the maid's brain in it.

>The Galleon-class trader:
I'm for this.

>>25290550
The Bunker-class armored transport sounds good.

I'd hate to build a larger cargo ship only to have pirates get it on day 1.

>>25290849
Alright, I figure the Galleon isn't that useful for personal use, and the Shard doesn't really fit with what we want from it. Tower is basically just a second castle, and our castle is available everywhere anyway, so not that useful IMO. Sword or Bunker seems ideal from my POV, depending on if we want it for dangerous excursions or general traveling.

>>25290879
Yes, that is a thing. Privateer's writs are not particularly difficult to acquire for a noble, but all of them are issued by the Crown and have some level of background check associated.

>>25290849
The Galleon, we own an airship yard, certainly we can aquire some escorts.

>>25290927
Well it really depends how much piracy there is, and where it's going.

>>25290959
Yea, I thought we were amassing a fleet.

>>25290956
Then we could have the mayor acquire them if we really wanted to be sneaky.

Eccentric old mayor wants to get into a spot of piracy! And we work it from the background.

>>25290956
Also, these are all civilian designs that you are perusing. Military designs of Grand Victoria's air fleet are orders of magnitude more dangerous than anything these blueprints contain.

>>25291020
Military patterns may be given to you by holy writ from the Empress (by which they mean a government official in charge of the military) or obtained off the black market at a rather large expense (which causes its own problems.)

>>25290930
but we need a ship to kickstart our trading operation, if we take the armored one, our start will be that much slower. we can simply hire some privateers at a small cost of what the goods we transport are. Filling the sky with bigass flying targets will draw out pirates, and privateers alike, pirates to prey on us, privateers to prey on the pirates, sure we'll lose a couple of course, but the profits will be immense and we won't even have to pay the privateers at a certain point. the Crown will be issuing the warrants on our behalf because if the venture is successful, the Crown will have a vested interest in keeping our fleet afloat.

Unfortunately, I have work in 7 hours, so I'm calling it a night.

Crossing my fingers for no bad decisions.

>>25291080
You can assume any involvement with the crown will involve a background check of greater or lesser intensity at /some/ point.
Grand Victoria is very much into shared guilt and family dishonor, so you had better not have any stain in your family tree if you hope for the Crown to give you the time of day.

>>25291139
I imagine it would cause quite a controversy if they looked into our family past and found that our parents had died some centuries ago.

>>25291139
Well with our sire the chance of no stains being found is practically zero, sadly.

>>25291139
Our family tree is one giant 404 error, best avoid this. We'll build a few big freighters and transports then run our own trade routes.

>>25291185
That would be grounds for them to proceed with BURNING THE WITCH.

Known vampires are not welcome in Grand Victoria.

>>25291200
You can, of course, fake it. Court officials can be bribed and often are, by people with much less to hide than you.

>>25290849
For a personal craft I'd go for a Sword-class, it's not a cargo hauler, but it's more useful for person travelling.

If we choose to start a merchant fleet later we can get a Galleon along with other stuff made at the same time, but a personal vessel should be a Sword, or perhaps Bunker.

Random note, you're on page 7, presumably due to a permasage, so you'll want to start a new thread soonish.

>>25291289
The order is not of particular interest to me. Trade operations would only start when the whole fleet is done anyway. So sure, sword first. Though I don't know where'd we take it. Our castle teleports after all.

>>25290959
The Galleon costs 10 holdings, but the Sword or Bunker will only cost 5.

You have 14 + 6 virtual holdings to spend.

You can build up to three ships currently. If you build more than one it'll cut into your profits for this week as well as costing you money to build.

>>25291335
We can use it to attack other castles!

Not that I anticipate doing that anytime soon.

>>25291360
Let's start with a Sword, and since we run this place and us and our people control the books we should use it to launder our virtual cash, it should be easier than somewhere we don't run the books at.

>>25291335
Your castle has moods. Currently it's helpful to you because you've been being nice to it, but who knows what it thinks? It's not even human-shaped, to say nothing of its weird geometry.

As for what you'd do with it for those places you already have doors to, there are some things you just can't fit through a door.

As for where you'd go... The Republic of Mori, perhaps, or Grand Victoria's colonies to the south of it? Or even further to the south, to the warring kingdoms of the Hassari? Or beyond Mori to the west, Lupinia, ancient seat of civilization? Perhaps even the scattered islands of Neptunia might open up to you.

> I've been doing worldbuilding in my spare time, in case you couldn't tell.

>>25291491
Oh yes, this sounds delicious. I'm for sword then, decently fast and can fight fine.

>>25291316
Wat.

>>25291594
The thread is permasaging, it started out in autosage for some unknown reason, either a random filter or passing Janitor, thus it is not bumping.

>>25291594
Okay, permasage confirmed it would appear.
> Archiving, new thread will happen.

>Archived thread
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25289860/

> Vote here yadda yadda
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?searchall=Vampire+Doll+Quest

> As always follow me on twitter @Wergeldt (It's part of the closing spiel so I'll do it here anyway.)

I'll post a link to the new thread as soon as it's up.

>>25291717
Continued here >>25292176