Nue Quest Alter Code 6: A Z-Machine Adventure

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"No, you miss the point. And of more than one thing, incidentally. I simply want proof of your motives. And I must say, it's quite interesting that you haven't actually given me an answer. Let's stop playing around and just have a straight yes-or-no answer, shall we?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"No, you miss the point. And of more than one thing, incidentally. I simply want proof of your motives. And I must say, it's quite interesting that you haven't actually given me an answer. Let's stop playing around and just have a straight yes-or-no answer, shall we?"

>"It's quite interesting that you've not given me an answer," says Rinnosuke. "How do you propose to pay for this thing you ask for? It's really quite critical to the whole question and you keep avoiding it. Let's stop playing around just have a straight offer, shall we?"

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"Whatever. Fine, than. How's this: in exchange for your ability to benefit from this change, I don't let you freeze to death."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Whatever. Fine, than. How's this: in exchange for your ability to benefit from this change, I don't let you freeze to death."

>"I decline," he says.

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"Interesting. So you're not willing to risk your own benefit for your 'ideal'. And in addition, you hide behind this protection of yours. How strong can your resolve be if you are not even willing to fight for your goals?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"Interesting. So you're not willing to risk your own benefit for your 'ideal'. And in addition, you hide behind this protection of yours. How strong can your resolve be if you are not even willing to fight for your goals?"

>"Interesting," says Rinnosuke. "So you conflate a rejecting a deal offered in bad faith with lack of conviction. And in addition, you seem to measure one's ideals with one's desire to shed blood. One wonders, how strong can your resolve be when you balk at the one chance you have to try and enact it?"

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"I'm taking action right now. Or haven't you noticed the whole freezing thing?"
>"And as for what I've been saying, well, your failure to actually give an answer tells me what I need to know. So I ask you this not for me, but for you. I don't want you to just give me an answer, either; I want you to ask yourself this question, which is: are you truly doing this solely for the benefit of others?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"I'm taking action right now. Or haven't you noticed the whole freezing thing?"
>"And as for what I've been saying, well, your failure to actually give an answer tells me what I need to know. So I ask you this not for me, but for you. I don't want you to just give me an answer, either; I want you to ask yourself this question, which is: are you truly doing this solely for the benefit of others?"

>"You have been listening poorly," says Rinnosuke. "When one betters the world, all are uplifted."

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"You know full well what I'm getting at, so let's cut the bullshit, okay? Stop deliberately misinterpreting what I say and ask yourself the damn question already."

[Hello Purvis]

>"You know full well what I'm getting at, so let's cut the bullshit, okay? Stop deliberately misinterpreting what I say and ask yourself the damn question already."

>"Perhaps you should consider your demands in light of your own words?" says Rinnosuke. "Or shall we consider this an instance of 'Do as I say, not as I do?'"

>_

[GuyYouMetOnline]

>"Fine, be that way. I'll be here if you decide you'd rather not freeze to death."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Fine, be that way. I'll be here if you decide you'd rather not freeze to death."

>"Shall I consider my own offer rebuffed, then?" he says.

>_

[UncertainJakutten]

>Don't confirm that offer rebuffed. We need to think about this.

[Solais]

You know, it's been bugging me that he tries to guilt you with things like "Perhaps you would take a bird's feathers, next?" (when you wanted to trade for his ability to gather sparks), when he wants to make that not only possible, but sees the beauty of it, as he already told us. Not to mention he asking for the ability to create danmaku. That's like asking the teeth of a wolf there.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

Then go with that.

[Hello Purvis]

>Don't confirm that offer rebuffed. We need to think about this.

>You pause to think. What will you be pondering?

>_

[UncertainJakutten]

>Hrm, well, so far our thoughts seem to be about whether taking his offer is the best way to treat the entire situation rather than just band aiding it. We also are considering he might be mistaken about this not ending with his death. Though, something else to consider is if he dies, the money will have to be returned manually. Defeating him with faith makes it more likely the entire spell gets reversed.

 I'm sure others can contribute thoughts, right?

[Hello Purvis]

>Hrm, well, so far our thoughts seem to be about whether taking his offer is the best way to treat the entire situation rather than just band aiding it. We also are considering he might be mistaken about this not ending with his death. Though, something else to consider is if he dies, the money will have to be returned manually. Defeating him with faith makes it more likely the entire spell gets reversed.

>It really would be best to fully treat this. You recall Patchouli's first words on that topic, which would be to treat his madness. That, you imagine, would take quite a bit of time. You aren't sure what killing him would actually achieve, or if he feels his life is in danger or not. And yes, returning all this money would be a pain, you're certain few people bother to keep strict accounts; you only keep fairly loose ones yourself. You imagine fully breaking whatever miracle or curse he wove would be more likely to make that unnecessary.

>_

[Rin Kagamine]

UK: my thoughts as posted on the other page:

1. Prove, not proove.
2. Honestly I could care less about trying to do anything with Rinnosuke right now and would be fully content to leave him to freeze to death under the assumption that one of two things happens: he either actually freezes to death and we are now free to solve the incident at our leisure or he values his own life highly enough that he stops his current conversion and goes upstairs to warm up during which time he'd be captured and likely incapacitated by Byakuren and Mokou.
3. I propose leaving him now because we'll never be able to reason with him ever, so our only options are either action by accepting his deal or inaction on our part by waiting for the cold to affect him.  If we're just going to wait, I'd rather leave entirely and head back to Tewi and get an absolutely full confession out of her starting at his first contact with Rinnosuke right up until she lost our cards.
4. Because Tewi kept referring to the debtkeeper in the plural as opposed to the singular, so there is a chance that Rinnosuke is not acting alone in all this.  A slim chance of course, but I'm entertaining all possibilities.  I can't see him as being roped into this though, so he'd have to be an equal partner if there are any others.

Then again, considering that the deal was presented at all is pretty much proof that we should take it.  So uh, w/e

[Kilgamayan]

Then again, considering that the deal was presented at all is pretty much proof that we should take it.  So uh, w/e

The problem with this metagame line of thought is that I'm not yet convinced it wasn't proposed to us as a means of speeding the game along due to an extremely long combination of fuck-ups and wheel-spinning. I believe it is a great chance for us to treat the disease, but I can also easily see our current choices of freezing him out vs. taking the offer choosing between failure and victory at a huge price, since a normal victory has long since passed our sight barring someone displaying an incredible amount of wit and ingenuity.

I still think it is our best course of action, but because of what we could do with it versus what we're (not) doing right now, not simply because it was offered to us. Be careful making assumptions like these.

Also, the thing Solais pointed out occurred to me the instant I saw it as well, but I have yet to produce a line of conversation that I think could maximize its potential, and even then I'm not seeing him suddenly SEEING THE LIGHT no matter what we do with it.

EDIT: For the record, Draco is thoroughly convinced the proper course of action is finding and highlighting some internal ideology error. I'm not at all convinced this is even possible - it didn't work on Yorihime, it didn't work on Renko, it didn't work on Koishi, it didn't work on Shuuei, and it might've worked on 'Nakko and 'Wakko but only if we had done a good deal more proper research beforehand as well as thrown ourselves at a fighter jet prior to meeting them - but my idea is near-universally unpopular so I'm not about to stop him pursuing whatever he can find.

[Rin Kagamine]

I think the problem is that every one of us has a completely different idea of how to proceed from here.  Currently I am unconvinced that we will ever get Rinnosuke to see the error of his ways using only logic.  I'm also unconvinced we'll be able to expose a flaw in his logic since he seems to be making no attempt to try and see or think about anything from a different viewpoint.  Even if he did entertain us, I think he would adapt his world to accept that theoretical instead of shattering his world.  We might be able to change his worldview with a physical demonstration instead of a theoretical one though.

However, I think it would be safe to leave him alone as well.  Considering how much effort and power he has put into changing the world and how much the change will benefit him personally, I highly doubt he will allow himself to freeze to death.  At some point he will have to warm up somehow, either by disrupting his spell and warming himself through magic or by leaving the basement and heading upstairs or outside.  If he leaves the basement, I think the tag-team of Mokou and Byakuren would be able to capture him, especially considering he has no danmaku ability.  However, if he remains downstairs and warms up via magic I doubt anyone upstairs will notice.

Here's why I want to talk to Tewi.  Obviously she was using Rinnosuke as a fence for many of the things she stole and ever if she never told him where any of it came from, some things are incredibly obvious.  But even if she was trading in mountains of stolen goods, it was never a secret from anyone in Gensokyo.  Given that it's hardly a secret at all, how could Rinnosuke possibly hold it over her head as a way of destroying her?  Furthermore, we've been talking to him for so long and he just seems like a crazy man without any sorts of direct attack powers.  I don't believe that he acted alone in threatening Tewi, I believe thought not only does she have a much darker secret, but it's something that a different person has knowledge of.

I don't believe Rinnosuke is acting alone, I believe he's working either with or for someone extremely powerful.  I could easily see Rinnosuke's current ideas of a new world as a dilusion or as the result of an intense brainwashing session.  There's no doubt he currently holds a great deal of power, but can't shared be transferred in this universe?

I don't think Tewi will give us all the answers but she'll probably be able to tell us a little more.  Even still, she helped us last night by talking to us at all, so she might have been beaten or taken away since then.

[Kilgamayan]

Did Tewi ever actually refer to an organization or group of some kind, or did she just use pronouns like "they" and "them"? If the latter it may been because using gender specific pronouns would have greatly narrowed the suspect pool.

The problem I have with leaving is that we don't know how long we have. If we take off and he finishes while we're gone, then, well. I also don't think he is going to come close to biological damage brought on by the cold unless he spends at least several more hours down there-  notice how his voice hasn't lost any notable gumption yet despite his face and hands being exposed the entire time. If Cirno were still plugging away then I'd buy into it, but I'd say that plan failed the instant she stopped.

[Kilgamayan]

welp

> Did Tewi ever reference any sort of organization as being behind her actions?

[Hello Purvis]

> Did Tewi ever reference any sort of organization as being behind her actions?

>You don't think she did specifically, but she was using some very general terms. The feeling you got was that she was avoiding saying "he" and also not saying a misleading "she". At least that's what you would do in that kind of situation.

>_

[Rin Kagamine]

Feh, I still say we let him freeze to death :<

gonna reread that section in a bit

[Kilgamayan]

Wait a minute...

> Mentally recap what we know and have learned about the status of and circumstances surrounding our spellcards, from the time Tewi "lost" them in the human village to the time Rinnosuke used them to do whatever voodoo hoodoo he did to get Gensokyo's money.

[Hello Purvis]

> Mentally recap what we know and have learned about the status of and circumstances surrounding our spellcards, from the time Tewi "lost" them in the human village to the time Rinnosuke used them to do whatever voodoo hoodoo he did to get Gensokyo's money.

>You know that Tewi stole them at some point while you were asleep. It's not confirmed, but you don't think it was too terribly long before you woke up. You know she then went to the human village to spend some time at the pub before delivering them. While in town, Tewi lost them in some fashion, you're not certain if they were truly lost or if they were stolen, but you suspect the latter. During this general time, Gensokyo's money was gathered here. Tewi realized the cards were missing, and seems to had understood what was going on in regards to the money, and fled to the far reaches of the forest. You do not know what became of your cards, but apparently someone came this morning to sell them to Rinnosuke. He seems to have expected this to happen, if you recall what he said correctly; something about them being introduced into the market. You are not certain exactly how he is using your spellcards as a catalyst, only that he is.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Frown, then shake out head a bit.
> "...No, not yet. There's still some other stuff I want to think about."

[Hello Purvis]

> Frown, then shake out head a bit.
> "...No, not yet. There's still some other stuff I want to think about."

>You frown, then decline.
>"What is there to think about?" he asks.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "A few things. For instance, for someone that despises what currency stands for, I'm curious as to how you got so good with the market values of so many precious stones."