Nue Quest: A Z-Machine Adventure

[Sect]

Except that's a very temporary solution, and will only result in a pissed off crowd of oni that will come back and cause even more trouble at K's place (assuming that they even fall for it in the first place, which you should hope they do otherwise we will be waking up in the Myouren clinic). These oni are here because they want an explanation and a solution, so having K's cohort do something that says "Yes, we know the situation, we're trying to take care of it, and we will do something for you personally" will go a long way in mollifying the crowd.

[GuyYouMetOnline]

How would they know we were lying? When they got there and found nothing, the obvious assumption would be that she moved on (we can even add in that she looked like she was headed somewhere). And by the time they give up looking, the immediate rage should've tapered out. Yeah, they'll still want answers, but they won't be an angry mob any more.

[Kilgamayan]

News to me, but will be taken under consideration.

Yeah, it's actually a fairly useful character trait if you happen to need one for some reason. Oni dialogue may not always be the cleverest or most civil you'll ever have, but you're guaranteed it'll be the most honest. Their hatred for lying also makes lying in their presence a really dumb idea because they have no problems introducing their fists to a liar's face (centuries of being tricked out of things by weak and scrawny humans will do that to an inherently truthful species), so they can serve as lie detectors if you have one in your party and are speaking with a particularly shifty individual.

[Kilgamayan]

Anyway!

- The money taken appears to be roughly the value of the gems left behind, if our jewelery skills are worth anything.
- Therefore, whoever is responsible very likely has some idea of the exchange rate between currency and jewelry.
- Many oni were victims of this same action.
- Therefore, whoever is responsible must have gems out the ass.
- It is not a good idea to anger oni.
- Therefore, whoever is responsible is either supremely confident they weren't going to get caught, supremely confident they can handle enraged oni, or somehow dumb as a brick despite coming into possession of a large number of gems and knowing enough about them to know the proper monetary exchange rates.
- The pink-dressed rabbit visited our house in between the last time we saw our money and the first time we saw the gems.
- The pink-dressed rabbit did not appear to be carrying our gems.
- The pink-dressed rabbit talked to the streetear.

Position #1: This incident is not malicious in nature.

I believe this to be the case largely because of the roughly equivalent exchange and partly because I cannot imagine an intelligent being with a malevolent thought process would decide it a good idea to rob a large group of oni. I suspect this is a misunderstanding instead of grand larceny. My first thoughts actually jerked toward Shuuei because she'd be naive enough about oni to do something like this (and would be able to sneak around unnoticed) but I don't know where she would have accrued this many gems, even in her line of work.

Position #2: While the pink-dressed rabbit may have useful information, they are not directly responsible for what happened.

Clearly the rabbit wouldn't have been able to take everything from all the houses and businesses herself, and surely someone would have noticed if a swarm of rabbits came by and looted the city. This suddenly makes the entrance folks important people; we should ask Parsee and Yamame (and Kisume if she doesn't mug us) if they saw anything on our way up to the surface, because anyone that came by would have had to go by their residences, and if one of them was awake at the time, well. This doesn't mean they are not indirectly responsible for what happened, but we needn't go chasing after them while swinging our purse like a mace.

Also, if we can just go ahead and assume this is an Eientei rabbit, they wouldn't be so bold as to make themselves incredibly visible by talking to a streetear before committing a crime. Tewi might be greedy but neither she nor the rest of Eientei aren't stupid. Such a crime would not have been worth being seen to commit.

[Sect]

To be honest, I doubt Tewi or whoever the rabbit is was the one responsible: my suggestion was to intentionally use her as a scapegoat, since it would let us talk to K (or at least give K enough of a reason to look for us when she and her lackey can hook up).

Talking to Parsee is a good idea for multiple reasons: aside from her possibly seeing either the rabbit or the culprit arriving or departing, she might also know if Yuugi's having the same problems as K is. Going to see Satori's a possibility, but probably not something Nue as a character wants to do: Satori's mind reading isn't really something that somone like Nue wants to deal with, and Nue has no dealings with any of the folks there, anyways, aside from knowing to not serve Utsuho alcohol. If we absolutely need to find out something from there, we can just see if Parsee or Maribel could be a go between for us.

Also, a side note: did we forget to grab our spellcards again?

EDIT: Also, my number one suspect: Shou.

[Kilgamayan]

I would think Shou would have said hello to us if she came down here, though.

But it does occur to me that the clinic should be worth visiting before we head topside.

[Fightest]

Either way, we need to talk to K. Getting the Oni mob out of here would facilitate that greatly. We have deniability.

[Hello Purvis]

> Better idea.
> Shout at nobody in particular:
> "I think I saw her downtown, like, two minutes ago!"
> Watch mob mentality do the rest.

>You decide to try the faster route, and shout into the crowd.
>This doesn't seem to be achieve a lot; no one's really paying any attention to you, and are busy trying to drown each other out. You're pretty sure no one heard you. You'll probably have to gather their attention somehow, or be overwhelmingly loud.

> Do we really want to be lying to oni? The consequences of doing so last time didn't seem very pleasant.

>While individual tolerances for it vary, oni in general take deception pretty poorly.

> No idea what you're talking about. What last time?
> Regardless, we have deniability, even if our voice is easily identified, and that's a big if in a mob. Plus, I don't think we'll be around in one place for very long, there are a lot of things to be done.

> This last time.

>When they oni originally came, you tried some of your old standby tricks of taking various forms, making deals, then running with the money, as well as various confidence scams. Eventually you got found out, and spent the next several months on the run before you could make an arrangement with the Devas that didn't involve having most of your bones broken.
>Deniability is nice, though.

> How good are we at seeing through other's lies?
> How far away is the Earth Palace from here, and how long would it take to travel there?

>You'd like to think you're pretty hard to con.
>It's probably a good ten minutes away by air to the north.

> Has an oni ever lied to us?
> Do we think oni are capable of lying?

>You've never had an oni lie or be insincere with you that you know of. There's some rumor that Suika left precisely because of that, though. You suspect, if they really really wanted to, they could do it, but it'd be akin to an average farmer with no mental issues taking up a knife and stabbing someone randomly in a marketplace. You really don't think an oni could lie with a straight face, at least.
>But. They are perfectly alright with not saying what they don't want you to know. You're well aware if you ask an oni something and they don't answer, either they really don't care, they don't know the answer and don't want to embarrass themselves, or they have something to hide. While oni don't engage in most kinds of skullduggery, they can still make little secret plans and such. There's been a fair number of fights started over the words: "None of your business".

>_

[Kasu]

> Look around.  Is the crowd starting to get more rowdy or less rowdy?

[Hello Purvis]

> Look around.  Is the crowd starting to get more rowdy or less rowdy?

>It doesn't seem to be getting rowdier, but it does seem to be getting larger, which suggests it's more likely to get bad.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Could we wiggle our way to the front of the back, next to Kay's bodyguard?
> Debate flashing the crowd to get them to shut up. It's not like they're normal now anyway!

[Hello Purvis]

> Could we wiggle our way to the front of the back, next to Kay's bodyguard?
> Debate flashing the crowd to get them to shut up. It's not like they're normal now anyway!

>You could go around the crowd, which is probably easier than going through it.
>You'd probably get their attention. And hopefully it's not taken as an insulting gesture. You are aware you'd never ever live it down, and while you are a free-spirited type, you do like to be taken seriously as opposed to being "that girl".

>_

[Kasu]

> Go around and get closer to K's bodyguard.
> Keep an ear out for any useful info.

[Mr. Sacchi]

> Also, how long exactly does it take to make a spellcard? Because whoever did this really deserves a real bullet shit storm

[Hello Purvis]

> Go around and get closer to K's bodyguard.
> Keep an ear out for any useful info.

>You work your way around the edge of the the crowd, and get closer to the oni guarding the door. You can tell she's ready for someone to try to take a swing at her, or hurl something.
>You don't hear anything useful, it's hard to pick out specifics things from the shouting, but you do hear several mentions of shiny rocks and the like.

> Also, how long exactly does it take to make a spellcard? Because whoever did this really deserves a real bullet shit storm

>That depends. You'd need to get a blank card, first, or make your own. And those take some time. Afterward, it depends on what you're making, how complex it is, whether it's something completely new or based other things you did, whether you have a similiar card to work from, and so on. You like to think you're quite the master with spellcards, things that really test your limits can take days or weeks to make if you're working from scratch.

>_

[Mr. Sacchi]

> Days or weeks!? Even if it's just Bow of Yorimasa Genzami on steroids?

[Hello Purvis]

> Days or weeks!? Even if it's just Bow of Yorimasa Genzami on steroids?

>Those would be general terms. Enhancing "The Bow of Genzanmi Yorimasa" would probably take anywhere from several hours to a day in optimal circumstances, but it would likely be a very draining card to use.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Do we know where Yuugi resides? Wonder if she's having the same problems.
> Is the underling within reasonable earshot? If not, keep getting closer, keeping outside the main crowd.

[Hello Purvis]

> Do we know where Yuugi resides? Wonder if she's having the same problems.
> Is the underling within reasonable earshot? If not, keep getting closer, keeping outside the main crowd.

>You have a general idea, but you've never been there.
>You think so, but there's a good chance she's not going to pay much attention to you, given the situation. Or at least not the kind of attention you'd like.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Raise our voice to stance a chance of her hearing us over the din. Cup our hands around our mouth if we need to.
> "I got a lead on this!"

[Hello Purvis]

> Raise our voice to stance a chance of her hearing us over the din. Cup our hands around our mouth if we need to.
> "I got a lead on this!"

>Your words don't seem to really reach the guard, or at least she doesn't seem to react to you.
>"Here now," says one of the oni near you, a mid-sized one will well-defined arms, "What's this lead, then?"

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> Turn to the speaker.
> "Heard some rabbit visited my place last night. Claimed she was my friend to get in. You get a visit like that too?"

[Hello Purvis]

> Turn to the speaker.
> "Heard some rabbit visited my place last night. Claimed she was my friend to get in. You get a visit like that too?"

>"Didn't hear about no rabbits," says the oni, frowning.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Guess I'm just lucky. Need to check it out, though. Pretty sure she didn't hit everyone, but I don't have many rabbit friends."
> Recall known information about Reisen Udongein Inaba. Specifically consider any underground visits.

[Hello Purvis]

> "Guess I'm just lucky. Need to check it out, though. Pretty sure she didn't hit everyone, but I don't have many rabbit friends."
> Recall known information about Reisen Udongein Inaba. Specifically consider any underground visits.

>"Alls I know is someone took all my money and left a bunch shiny rocks!" says the oni.
>You remember Reisen. She helped you figure out some useful information on one of your main competitors, and also managed to figure out the Oni Eater's identity and defeat it; which let you finally get around to mapping it's former lair. Aside from that, you don't think she comes underground often. She was the first rabbit you ever saw in your pub, for certain.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> How do the oni refer to Reisen?

[Hello Purvis]

> How do the oni refer to Reisen?

>She really doesn't have any official title, but you suspect "The Moon Rabbit" or "That rabbit what did in the Oni Eater" would be recognized.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Those rocks are worth stuff, 'specially topside. Wonder if its worth talking to the moon rabbit about this."

[Hello Purvis]

> "Those rocks are worth stuff, 'specially topside. Wonder if its worth talking to the moon rabbit about this."

>"Just look like a couple black rocks to me," says the oni. She fishes something from her pocket and shows you. "See?"
>In her hand are a couple of polished onyxes. You estimate you could get about  40☼ for them.
>"You think the moon rabbit's in on this?" the oni says with a frown.
>"Here, what's this about the moon rabbit?" says one of the oni, turning around to face you.
>"Rabbits might be behind the whole rocks thing," says the first one.
>"Don't like the sound of that," says the second.

>_

[Kilgamayan]

> "Wasn't her what did it, the rabbit that came down here was dressed wrong. She might who that rabbit is, though."