Nue Quest 4th Ignition: A Z-Machine Adventure

[Kilgamayan]

> "Who said anything about fighting? I only asked if Reimu knew how to get to your home or not. Does she?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Who said anything about fighting? I only asked if Reimu knew how to get to your home or not. Does she?"

>"No idea," says Tewi. "Not like she came on her own."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Let's just assume she does, then. Why didn't you point out that she could just enter your library, see it's in fine condition and know you're not the culprit?"

[Hello Purvis]

> "Let's just assume she does, then. Why didn't you point out that she could just enter your library, see it's in fine condition and know you're not the culprit?"

>"I'm not sure what that has to do with anything?" says Tewi. "And it's not my call to make, anyways."

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "It has everything to do with anything. Did you already forget what I said about the amount of books needed to make those gems? If your library is in normal condition, you couldn't be the culprit."

[GuyYouMetOnline]

Tewi doesn't think that Satori will help, but who says she's right? And I'm pretty sure Satori will help, since this incident affects her, too. But whatever.

>Okay, she's not talking. Time for a new approach.
>Lean out the door. Without taking our eyes off of Tewi, of course.
>"Hey, Mystia! Violence is looking necessary!"
>How hard would it be to make ourselves male? Physically, not biologically.

[Rin Kagamine]

Tewi doesn't think that Satori will help, but who says she's right?

Purvis did, several times.  Let it go man

[UncertainJakutten]

>Don't do that
>Question these strange impulses

...why would you even need to make us male anyway?

[Kilgamayan]

My first thought was post-violence rape, which was kinda uh.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

The idea would be to make her think we're going to do that, not to actually do it. Although we're probably need to get close to the actual action in order to convince Tewi to start talking.

Also, Rin, precicely which command were you saying not to do? Because even if we don't go with it, I'd still like to know how long it would take Nue to go male, and as for the rest, just asking questions isn't working, so I think it's time we try adding violence to convince her to talk. And we did promise Mystia that we'd let her do any necessary hitting.

[UncertainJakutten]

...do you really think rape is such a light thing that it's all fun and games to even threaten, seriously?

EDIT: Even ignoring the moral issues (which I shudder to think anyone would), threatening such a thing would ruin Nue's reputation. Mystia would never go along with it. Further, Tewi could easily cry out and get the others down, who would be EYEWITNESSES to what you plan to do. Say goodbye to Nue EVER being respectable again. So, no, AWFUL IDEA.

[Shadoweh]

This is a bad idea and you should feel bad for even suggesting it.

> Do we owe anyone a favor, to our knowledge?
> Can we think of anyone who might have helped us in Gensokyo that hasn't asked us for anything in return?
> Is there a mafia in Gensokyo?

[GuyYouMetOnline]

Well, if we're taking the Satori option off the table, then we need to get Tewi to talk, and to do that, we we need something serious to threaten her with. Death doesn't work, since if she calls us on that, well, we're screwed, but we need something serious to threaten her with. She needs to think that she'll be worse off if she doesn't talk than if she does, and I don't think just hitting her will be enough (although it's certainly worth a try).

Anyways, let's at least call Mystia in to start the hitting, since that's independant of the other thing.

[UncertainJakutten]

I think you're considering too narrow a band of options. While it would be NICE to get Tewi to talk, is it completely necessary? That needs to be examined in detail.

[Kilgamayan]

What alternatives do you propose?

Honest question.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

That'd be my question, too. Tewi's our only concrete lead right now. Why would we just want to let that go? Sure, we might find something else eventually, but why do that when we already have an information source? I do like the idea of gathering an ass-kicking force, but we'd still need a target, and right now, tewi's the only one who knows what that target might be.

>Do we know about the winter youkai (like what Letty is)? If so: "You say that fighting whoever this is would be like fighting the wind, or the rain, or winter."

[UncertainJakutten]

Well, I'm not entirely certain yet. Here's one thing I do know. Beating it out of her is unlikely to work. And once you do it, she's pretty much forever burned as an information source to Nue. I'd suggest a spellcard duel but :V no spellcards. I guess the main thing to remember is that we're a trickster. Brute force is not the usual resort of tricksters. I'll also note that we have time to think things through. We don't need to rush into this.

[Sophilia]

While there may or may not be an immense shadowy conspiracy, I'm pretty sure Tewi still has our spellcards.  This is a separate matter, and deserves a separate resolution.  As for the greater interrogation, I will say that we are Nue, and historically, terror is what we do best.  We just need to be creative about it and not crude.  A Youkai Sage being paranoid and jumping at shadows is already in our wheelhouse, so to speak, we just need to find how to leverage it.

[UncertainJakutten]

OK. Well, I'm not sure how much it will help, but my instinct says to apologize. Back off. Tell her we've made some hasty assumptions, and it's been a long, irritating day. We do not have to mean this. If she accepts that much, then ask her if she'd be willing to work with us from the start of these events, to address the assumptions we've made, with regards to her. Bear in mind she might lie to us. There's no need to make it obvious we think this if it comes up. Anyway, it's pretty clear she's not going to go against whoever's watching her. There are a couple ways to handle that. One is forget about it. I'm not sure we need to know at this point, but we probably will eventually. Two is to try to get her to give us "harmless" stuff that could serve as clues. If she's more favorable to us, this is more likely to happen. But, really, what I'd like to do is ascertain how we can get our spellcards back, and I think THAT is an area we can get her to give on.

Cut by Sophilia: I am liking the way you think very very much.

[Kilgamayan]

This is a separate matter, and deserves a separate resolution.

I will put out that I am very much not convinced of this.

[Hello Purvis]

> "It has everything to do with anything. Did you already forget what I said about the amount of books needed to make those gems? If your library is in normal condition, you couldn't be the culprit."

>"Weren't you the one talking about several libraries I am supposed to have access to?" says Tewi, as she resumes combing her hair.

> Do we owe anyone a favor, to our knowledge?
> Can we think of anyone who might have helped us in Gensokyo that hasn't asked us for anything in return?
> Is there a mafia in Gensokyo?

>The closest thing you can think of is Nazrin and the rest of the people at the Myourin Temple, given that they have done a lot of help you today, and you suppose there is the whole messing with bringing back Byakuren thing. Aside from Nazrin saying she was taking a percentage, none of them has really demanded you for much of anything. The worst was kind of hinting you could offer some donations to help build the temple, and you exceeded their expectations in that.
>As far as organized crime goes, the closest you know about are the Devas. And you suppose as far as the oni themselves are concerned, that's not really crime. You don't think they've shown in interest in expanding their influence outside of the Ancient City.

>Do we know about the winter youkai (like what Letty is)? If so: "You say that fighting whoever this is would be like fighting the wind, or the rain, or winter."

>You do know of Letty Whiterock, via stories Ichirin told you a couple winters ago.
>"The tides, gravity, time, you name it," says Tewi.

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"But people have fought time and won, haven't they? And don't we kinda tell gravity that it can mind its own business whenever we fly somewhere. Hell, wouldn't be surprised if some youkai stopped the tide at some point."
>"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're gonna say 'this is different' and 'you don't understand what you're talking about' and... you're right: because you won't tell me. But y'see... whatever this is, if it's out there, it's out there. Sticking my head in the sand isn't going to make it go away. And I'm sure that goes for you, too. You'll already on the run from them. If this really is some force of nature hunting you, does it really get bored and go away? Does time get bored? You could be living like this a very long time, couldn't you? Or, well, at least as long as it takes them to find you. That's not really much of a choice, is it?"

[Hello Purvis]

>"But people have fought time and won, haven't they? And don't we kinda tell gravity that it can mind its own business whenever we fly somewhere. Hell, wouldn't be surprised if some youkai stopped the tide at some point."
>"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're gonna say 'this is different' and 'you don't understand what you're talking about' and... you're right: because you won't tell me. But y'see... whatever this is, if it's out there, it's out there. Sticking my head in the sand isn't going to make it go away. And I'm sure that goes for you, too. You'll already on the run from them. If this really is some force of nature hunting you, does it really get bored and go away? Does time get bored? You could be living like this a very long time, couldn't you? Or, well, at least as long as it takes them to find you. That's not really much of a choice, is it?"

>Tewi frowns, ceasing to comb her hair. "Maybe so. But, what're you going to do about it? I mean, we both know what Reimu would do, and that won't solve anything."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"I don't mean to just charge in and beat the crap out of anyone in my way, if that's what you mean. I'm quite capable of a lot more subtlety than that. Ok, maybe it doesn't look that way after tonight, but I didn't get my reputation for nothing. I can sneak places other people can't, investigate things no one else could get access to. Everything's got some sort of weakness or loophole. Even without know what you're up against, I'm willing to bet they do, too. Whatever they've got that's keeping everyone in their pocket... there's gotta be some way to nullify that."

[Hello Purvis]

>"I don't mean to just charge in and beat the crap out of anyone in my way, if that's what you mean. I'm quite capable of a lot more subtlety than that. Ok, maybe it doesn't look that way after tonight, but I didn't get my reputation for nothing. I can sneak places other people can't, investigate things no one else could get access to. Everything's got some sort of weakness or loophole. Even without know what you're up against, I'm willing to bet they do, too. Whatever they've got that's keeping everyone in their pocket... there's gotta be some way to nullify that."

>"Maybe," says Tewi. "But you know that they're aware of you, right?"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>"Just because someone knows what I can do doesn't mean they'll know who they're talking to if I'm wearing someone else's face."

[Hello Purvis]

>"Just because someone knows what I can do doesn't mean they'll know who they're talking to if I'm wearing someone else's face."

>"They might," says Tewi. She sighs. "Look, I'll level with you about something, alright. But I want your promise you're not going to go nuts and do something stupid, okay? And that includes saying anything to the people back home."

>_

[DracoOmega]

>Nod
>"You got it."

[Hello Purvis]

>Nod
>"You got it."

>Tewi is quiet for a few moments. Then she says, "I was asked to take 'em, alright? It's not like it was something I'd just do, you know?"

>_

[DracoOmega]

>Nod
>"Do you still have them somewhere, then? Or did they actually want you to bring them to them?"