Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

[des-pair-2]

You thank Baldomare, lighting up the horn and opening the scroll so you can see its content. You don't really want to touch it with your hoofs, given how dirty they are. And also because… well, you always feel like Baldomare is judging you, whenever you hoof-read something when she is nearby.

You know she isn't really judging you. Or at least you are pretty sure about it. But still, you can't help but feel like a filly who is struggling to read the alphabet, whenever you do that under her gaze.

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Perhaps we should learn to read light better? It certainly would make us stop feeling like a filly when we hoof-read something near her.

JK we don't have enough actions.

 

[DelightedOne]

So now that we have two months of non-suspicious rituals, Biedde is definitely on the table right? Next turn, maybe?

 

[Greymere]

So now that we have two months of non-suspicious rituals, Biedde is definitely on the table right? Next turn, maybe?

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It'll probably depend on how Luna's awakening pans out, but it would be nice to squeeze Biedde's summoning in alongside DoA. But even if we can't, we'll still have T20 for nonsuspicious summonings

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Even in that case it is plainly better to get Filthy Rich to the confidant status immediately to get his action, and work on Spoiled Rich in the later turns. Then if we decide to go for Moth Sacrament we will have a choice if we want to keep Filthy Rich and spend actions on Spoiled or if we can stand to say goodbye to Filthy. Possibly depending on what actions he offers and how useful he will prove himself in the in between turns.

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Valid.

-snip

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Fine. What do you think we should do instead?

 

[DelightedOne]

but it would be nice to squeeze Biedde's summoning in alongside DoA.

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And then Comet Feet freaks out even more when he realizes Velvet has 4 Names at her beck and call. It will be awesome.

 

[Greymere]

Fine. What do you think we should do instead?

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Directly undermine her ability to actually hurt us? I.e. sabotage.

Off of the top of my head, some potential targets:

• Cult in general, sow discord/dissent against Copper. Keep her busy running damage control on her own people instead of going after us. Maybe cause even further cult fracturing, which would mean Copper is suddenly fighting on multiple fronts. Mareinette would probably be really good at this actually, all she has to do is her best impression of the Vagabond
• Kill the cadre; removes her biggest advantage over us in terms of summoning and makes summoning Windigos (and other spirits) significantly harder for her. And I don't believe she has a way to easily replace them, considering that only Jade and Baldomare could train the ritual cadre when Manehattan infrastructure first came up.
• Steal shit. Bits, reagents, artifacts, books, sacrifices (well, free the sacrifices, not steal them). Can't summon Mansus spirits to kill us if you have no bits to summon them with. And if there are living prisoners/sacrifices that could be freed, that would probably draw Manehattan guard attention to Copper's cult, which would help distract her.
• Or, just separately, set Mareinette on getting the Manehattan guard and/or other gangs to focus on the Wildhoof Club. Last time Bird mentioned that "anonymous tips" wouldn't really do much bcuz Grail and all that, but Mareinette is much, much more convincing than Copper or her minions. And wouldn't need to be anonymous.

 

[Alan975]

Steal shit. Bits, reagents, artifacts, books, sacrifices

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You forgot the most important resource
Daughters

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Cult in general, sow discord/dissent against Copper. Keep her busy running damage control on her own people instead of going after us. Maybe cause even further cult fracturing, which would mean Copper is suddenly fighting on multiple fronts. Mareinette would probably be really good at this actually, all she has to do is her best impression of the Vagabond

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Would require a scry and probably multiple actions.

Kill the cadre; removes her biggest advantage over us in terms of summoning and makes summoning Windigos (and other spirits) significantly harder for her. And I don't believe she has a way to easily replace them, considering that only Jade and Baldomare could train the ritual cadre when Manehattan infrastructure first came up.

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Would again require a scry and is inefficient, if we're going to do this we may as well kill her and destroy any evidence/insurance she has squirreled away

Steal shit. Bits, reagents, artifacts, books, sacrifices (well, free the sacrifices, not steal them). Can't summon Mansus spirits to kill us if you have no bits to summon them with. And if there are living prisoners/sacrifices that could be freed, that would probably draw Manehattan guard attention to Copper's cult, which would help distract her.

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Again scry, probably multiple and also probably multiple actions. And again the evidence.

Or, just separately, set Mareinette on getting the Manehattan guard and/or other gangs to focus on the Wildhoof Club. Last time Bird mentioned that "anonymous tips" wouldn't really do much bcuz Grail and all that, but Mareinette is much, much more convincing than Copper or her minions. And wouldn't need to be anonymous.

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This I believe is workable but only after we get rid of evidence no?

Nevermort pointed out that she may have stuff ready to send to Celestia but that's a worry in any option we take. So what do we scry for that first?

 

[DelightedOne]

Before destabilizing Copper's cult can we make sure she doesn't have our manuscripts or take them back without risking a repeat of what happened(a splinter running off with them) if she does?

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

Excellent now Jade can reasonably summon a Maid in the Light. And once we have even 1 it becomes much easier to get more.

 

[Greymere]

Would require a scry and probably multiple actions.

Would again require a scry and is inefficient, if we're going to do this we may as well kill her and destroy any evidence/insurance she has squirreled away

Again scry, probably multiple and also probably multiple actions. And again the evidence.

This I believe is workable but only after we get rid of evidence no?

Nevermort pointed out that she may have stuff ready to send to Celestia but that's a worry in any option we take. So what do we scry for that first?

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You keep saying "scry" as though that's a point against it, considering your plan of trying to get a ceasefire would also require a scry, because we don't know where Copper is. And I don't know why you think that all of these would require multiple actions? There's an HQ, somewhere. Why would it take multiple actions to, say, order Mareinette or Biedde to just loot the whole place? Why would we have to steal things one at a time?

Also re: killing the cadre is inefficient vs. just killing Copper; sure, why not? That's also an option.

As for finding and getting rid of the evidence... wow! It's almost like that's something I've been pushing for??? Because we need to make sure that Copper loses any physical evidence she has on us before she gets it into her head to try and land us in hot water.

Before destabilizing Copper's cult can we make sure she doesn't have our manuscripts or take them back without risking a repeat of what happened(a splinter running off with them) if she does?

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Yes, I would like to do this.

Edit: Also, something to point out regarding how we deal w/ Copper's cult, I do want some remnant of them to remain, just not necessarily under Copper's leadership or completely intact. Because if we get several separate mini-cults springing up from Copper's fracturing apart, we suddenly have targets for potential Bureau apprehension and getting physical evidence of the Lores into the Crown's hooves that can't trace back to Velvet, but also shouldn't have enough resources or Lore skill to actually be a threat to us personally. We might end up not needing this, but I think it's something to consider for now.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

You keep saying "scry" as though that's a point against it, considering your plan of trying to get a ceasefire would also require a scry, because we don't know where Copper is. And I don't know why you think that all of these would require multiple actions? There's an HQ, somewhere. Why would it take multiple actions to, say, order Mareinette to just loot the whole place? Why would we have to steal things one at a time?

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I personally don't see why it would require a scry for Marinette to get in contact with the cult and then set up talks, exact locations are required for expeditions. The actions you propose need us to target specific people or locations with the exception of the first and the fourth so I suppose this logic would apply to those too.

As for multiple actions for the first I'm basing that off of us needing multiple actions to distance the image of Velvet and the Loremaster.

The multiple scrys and actions for the third is based on the assumption that she doesn't have everything squared away in one convenient location. Last time the sacrifices were in an off site location and while it's probably been moved I don't think she grouped things up. The bits might be in bank accounts, the artefacts gifted and reagents stored away from the books.

As for finding and getting rid of the evidence... wow! It's almost like that's something I've been pushing for??? Because we need to make sure that Copper loses any physical evidence she has on us before she gets it into her head to try and land us in hot water.

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I have supported the manuscript action for a while now too yes but the idea of broader evidence was just brought up. Unless of course you mentally combined the two things but then didn't mention it in the thread.

And if we are going after the evidence then we're on a time limit before Copper does something stupid, if we want to this then we need to line up our ducks in a row and then shoot.

 

[Pittauro]

"The problem we're having, boss, is that this just isn't the kind of case we can tackle in a way that we are used to."

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that's kind of a fair point. It's not exactly easy to investigate for Changelings.

It would be outright impossible if they still had the "lie to the world" effect. Unless I suppose you're allowed to suspect them IF you never meet them, and basically have the ones who call the shot never meet those changelings directly?

"Yes, we don't know any of that. But there's also no way to find out either," Iron Button says. And if it wasn't the professionalism in his tone, you would have thought he was just arguing with Reproach about some theory he disagreed with. "Because Canterlot went up in flames! We have a record of cutie marks of the ponies who were found dead, but we don't know anything else. Of the hundreds of missing ponies, we can't even tell who was abducted during the Catastrophe, and who had already been swapped months before."

"But that doesn't mean the shapeshifters worked alone," Reproach fires back at Iron. And now you start to feel like you are witnessing a discussion, rather than hearing a report. "This happened all around Equestria. In every major city, and most of the small ones. An operation this big can't happen without help from the inside. And we can't discard the possibility the false Luna recruited the help of some nobles either!"

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all good points, really.

"Make this a kidnapping ring that we can dismantle. Let us focus on the smugglers or crooks that aided the shapeshifters. We don't know where to look for the monsters because they can take over the life of a completely innocent pony. So, let's start by looking at the actual ponies who are guilty to begin with."

You nod at him, but then you make a point of facing Iron Button before you continue.

"And Iron Button? What's your take on all of this?"

"My take is that…" he looks are Reproach one last time before he continues. "Respectfully, Commissioner, that list is all guesswork. I think we need more time, and I think we need to continue focusing on searching for the shapeshifters than for unknown co-conspirators. And more importantly, so far our investigation has been done on the down-low. If we start bringing ponies in and make this more overt, this might tip the shapeshifters that we are looking for them."

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so, quite investigation with the same (currently unsuccessful) methods, or try to find a pony conspirator to actually give us a REAL starting point, but make this more overt in the process.

...I'm leaning towards Reproach's approach, but to be fair no option is objectively better. There's trade-offs.

That said... Maybe we could help with a scrying ritual? if we found out someone or something worth pointing the detectives towards, we can then come up with some kind of excuse to have the detectives look at them. It's easier to come up with a justification for why you did something when you already know the right answer, even if you can't say the real reason why you know.

And also because… well, you always feel like Baldomare is judging you, whenever you hoof-read something when she is nearby.

You know she isn't really judging you. Or at least you are pretty sure about it. But still, you can't help but feel like a filly who is struggling to read the alphabet, whenever you do that under her gaze.

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Using a lantern realization power in the presence of THE Lantern Name... yeah, I get it.

It would be like a kid showing off... I don't know, a model ship to an actual naval engineer.

like a kid unicorn being proud of their good telekinesis in front of STARSWHIRL.

"That is why I put the dates, dear," she says, as if she was stating the most obvious thing in the world. "Because yes, I marked the town hall. But do you see that date? That's the night before the place is completely renovated. So it can fit more ponies during the town meetings, given how much Ponyville is growing. And as long as you don't leave blood stains on the floor, the working crews won't notice a thing as they tear the place down."

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...that is NOT what I expected.

She basically gave us a map of ponyville, and told us "on day x this place is safe, on day y this one is safe" and so on!

It is more than just a little uncomfortable, to realize you have a map of all the places in your town where you can literally commit a murder for the next two months, and go completely unnoticed. But still, this is what you asked her to do, and she definitely delivered.

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oh, so it's good for two months...

good. Also the fact they're good for "murders"... it implies we could potentially do the lantern or grail sacraments in those too, In theory, if we got an acceptable sacrifice for those.

Well, we can safely do summonings for the next two turns. Axe, Biedde... should we consider some Mares-in-the-Light? we can afford lower % of success with them, so we don't even need to go crazy with reagents.

Your servants succeeded in fixing Jade Whistle's house. It has been painted, repaired, and is generally a lot more pleasant to visit. However, they also completely failed to understand the specifications of your request. Jade Whistle's house is not yet suitable to safely store items. (This action has failed).

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well, it wasn't THAT important all things considered, at least for now. We can have them retry next turn maybe.

I wonder... is the house different enough that Jade would be fine visiting it @OurLadyOfWires ?

(the Pony of Shadows is in the old castle, right? or am I misremembering?)

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Nah, if I remember right he's sealed in Limbo, and to free him you basically need to gather special items from the original Pillars of Equestria (Starwhirl and company) and bring them to the place he was sealed from... Stonehenge Ponhenge.

yeah, really.

IIRC the Tantabus was in the Old Castle

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what? the Tantabus is a creation of Luna. presumably it doesn't exist yet, and it would live in the Dream-realm, not the real world.

mh... I wonder, could such a creation be infected by the Worms in the Dream-realm...

 

[Iustus Vitea]

...I'm leaning towards Reproach's approach, but to be fair no option is objectively better. There's trade-offs.

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We're probably gonna need the constables to do the AP freeing action next turn so by default it's Iron who we're supporting.

 

[Greymere]

I personally don't see why it would require a scry for Marinette to get in contact with the cult and then set up talks, exact locations are required for expeditions. The actions you propose need us to target specific people or locations with the exception of the first and the fourth so I suppose this logic would apply to those too.

As for multiple actions for the first I'm basing that off of us needing multiple actions to distance the image of Velvet and the Loremaster.

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If Mareinette can find the cult members, she should be able to find the cult HQ. Seeing as that's where said cult members should be congregating. So then then 2 & 3 wouldn't need a scry action either, by your logic.

And the main reason that distancing Velvet from "The Loremaster" took multiple actions is because... well, we had a Grail 1 regular pony (Rarity) on the job. It was more-or-less stated that Rarity did good for the knowledge she had, but that knowledge was still just that of a regular Grail 1 adept. Not a Grail 6 Name.

I have supported the manuscript action for a while now too yes but the idea of broader evidence was just brought up. Unless of course you mentally combined the two things but then didn't mention it in the thread.

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I assumed you were referring to the manuscripts when you were talking about evidence, since as far as I'm aware, that's the only physical incriminating trace? Though it is possible that Copper wrote some stuff down or something regarding us. I wouldn't be opposed to changing a manuscript scry action to a more general "evidence linking Velvet to the cult/Lores" scry.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Though it is possible that Copper wrote some stuff down or something regarding us. I wouldn't be opposed to changing a manuscript scry action to a more general "evidence linking Velvet to the cult/Lores" scry.

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That is what I assume Nevermort meant, beyond just the manuscripts there may be other evidence that Copper cobbled together.

Personally I feel any action we take against Copper and her cult is going to invite retaliation but the evidence destroying one would, in Copper's mind, back her into a corner. There would be no choice left to her but to attack. So if we go through with that we would need to get everything we want done in one expedition. The reason I support the ceasefire is to give us time, either to actually make peace or get our ducks in a row.

I suppose we could send Marinette in, with strict rules on what she can do, to get us info on Copper and her cult like she would've gotten us information had we chosen her for the servant spying action.

 

[Greymere]

I suppose we could send Marinette in, with strict rules on what she can do, to get us info on Copper and her cult like she would've gotten us information had we chosen her for the servant spying action.

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I do like that idea actually. Especially since if there's a Grail Name walking around Manehattan, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the cultists assume that she's bound to Copper instead of us

 

[Talon Tiger Dino]

Screw putzing about with a ceasefire. Focus on Sacraments, Names, and if AP allows, Confidants. Specifically Filthy Rich because oh boy, expeditions, rituals, and books all cost money.

 

[Greymere]

...I just had a thought.

So, Mareinette can basically pretend to be us, right? I wonder if she can do that for other people.

I wonder if she can pretend to be Copper.

Because then, if we want to bring heat down on Copper via the guard or just Official Attention in general, we wouldn't need Copper herself to do something suspicious or leave a trail. Mareinette could just 'act' as Copper and do it herself, then lead the guard to the trail/evidence that she herself made

 

[DelightedOne]

Screw putzing about with a ceasefire. Focus on Sacraments, Names, and if AP allows, Confidants. Specifically Filthy Rich because oh boy, expeditions, rituals, and books all cost money.

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About the Sacraments, are we going all in on SH already or is it gonna be the slow way?

The other options that are viable are Winter and Knock(when I say viable I mean those that can be done with relative ease).
Winter just requires 30 bits, costing 90 bits in total for all 3 actions and lets us access the Winter Barrier in the Blank Plains.

Knock can be started easily if we choose Velvet's personal option, but Bird said he doesn't feel too motivated to write it. DoA's could be taken after a lesson or if we have luck to get a Scrap.

Lantern will take like 3 turns at best, 1 where we get A Splendor from Baldomare, 1 where we look for the 2 remaining scraps, then another to actually take the action.

Edge is unknown, we need Biedde to see if it is worth it. The rest are too complicated for now.

 

[Greymere]

Screw putzing about with a ceasefire. Focus on Sacraments, Names, and if AP allows, Confidants. Specifically Filthy Rich because oh boy, expeditions, rituals, and books all cost money.

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Tbf, if we want to Confidant Filthy Rich (and not just for Moth Sacrament purposes), we can do that w/ our free social action, so it doesn't exactly use AP. If we do it next turn, we can get him up to Good Friend and Leash him into Confidant to see what benefits he could give us. If it's useful (e.g. getting more bits) we can put in the effort to get him to Confidant properly. If not, he can be Moth Sacrament fodder for later.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Alright so with the discussion I believe this is the new prospective plan:

AotL: No clue
Forge free action to create a reagent for scry
Knock free action to explore path up to the White Door
Detectives to search for changelings
Constables to do Paperwork
Commissioner action used to further Bureau loyalty
Free social to raise SL with Filthy
1 AP to summon DoA
Comet AP
Call down Influence
SH sacrament action
Fleeting Opportunity
Jade to scry for Lore related evidence against Velvet or do further memory research
Fluttershy to support Comet AP
Rarity to take a commission
Steepes action: No clue
Servants to repeat previous action
Leash on Filthy
Baldomare to scry for Frangiclave
Marinette to either raise SL with Spoiled or sent to infiltrate Copper's cult with strict rules of conduct if Jade's scry is successful
DoA to Canterlot expedition

Did I miss anything? Oh and it goes without saying things are subject to change depending on what happens with Luna.

 

[spiderhellian]

The Reagent has been added to your inventory, and 45 bits have been taken away from it.

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@OurLadyOfWires Were we not able to use one of the Gifts to fund the reagent for DoA for some reason? Or did that idea just get dropped amidst all the time it has been? (Is it feasible to retcon?) Because it would have been really useful, damn.

We don't know where she is. And you kind of need to know where someone is before you can sit down and have a conversation with them.

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Would again require a scry and is inefficient, if we're going to do this we may as well kill her and destroy any evidence/insurance she has squirreled away

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You keep saying "scry" as though that's a point against it, considering your plan of trying to get a ceasefire would also require a scry, because we don't know where Copper is

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Man y'all need to give the Names some credit. Bird explained that if we have a location suspect, and send a Name to attack, they'll spend some time locating the target and then carry out our orders. I assume the same is true for making a truce (even though I don't really want to). You don't think Mareinette could smell out the premier Grail practitioner of this era?

Just because we have a magical tool to find out information doesn't mean it's the only way to approach that task!

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Man y'all need to give the Names some credit. Bird explained that if we have a location suspect, and send a Name to attack, they'll spend some time locating the target and then carry out our orders. I assume the same is true for making a truce (even though I don't really want to). You don't think Mareinette could smell out the premier Grail practitioner of this era?

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Thing is we don't know if only knowing the city is enough and I am assuming knowing the city is enough for a ceasefire and for the indirect attack via guards but not everything else.

 

[Greymere]

@OurLadyOfWires Were we not able to use one of the Gifts to fund the reagent for DoA for some reason? Or did that idea just get dropped amidst all the time it has been? (Is it feasible to retcon?) Because it would have been really useful, damn.

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Iirc Bird said that the gifts are only available for use starting from T19?

 

[spiderhellian]

Thing is we don't know if only knowing the city is enough

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Yes, we do? We would have been able to attack Copper last turn, if we wanted? That's where the explanation Bird gave about the Name spending time identifying the target and then processing comes from!

Marinette to either raise SL with Spoiled

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So, so, confused by investing any energy in her at all. We don't even know she exists IC! If we want a Confidant to moth, we should invest in Filthy and see if he's useful, if not sacrifice. Or if we want to go for sacrifice from the start… probably Cherrilee fits (poor Cherrilee).

 

[Greymere]

So, so, confused by investing any energy in her at all. We don't even know she exists IC! If we want a Confidant to moth, we should invest in Filthy and see if he's useful, if not sacrifice. Or if we want to go for sacrifice from the start… probably Cherrilee fits (poor Cherrilee).

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I mean, technically we do, just only in the abstract as "Filthy Rich's wife"

But yes, I agree that I'd prefer to go for Cherilee if we're picking a Moth Sacrament sacrifice if Filthy Rich is useful.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Yes, we do? We would have been able to attack Copper last turn, if we wanted? That's where the explanation Bird gave about the Name spending time identifying the target and then processing comes from!

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It's been a while I honestly didn't remember.

So, so, confused by investing any energy in her at all. We don't even know she exists IC! If we want a Confidant to moth, we should invest in Filthy and see if he's useful, if not sacrifice. Or if we want to go for sacrifice from the start… probably Cherrilee fits (poor Cherrilee).

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Greymere pointed out we could use the free social to raise Filthy and if nothing else comes up we can use it there leaving the Marinette action free to either raise another SL or be sent to deal with the Copper problem in some fashion. Also, I don't have any attachment to using Spoiled as our Sacrament target I just thought people in the thread didn't want to use Cherrlie, last time it was brought up there was discontent and when there is another target that requires equal effort available why not go for it?

To further clarify I don't want to use Marinette to raise SLs at all but there are people in thread who want to do it either for the sacrament or confidant actions.

The ors in the plan aren't things I want but rather accounting for thread opinion.

 

[Greymere]

Also, I don't have any attachment to using Spoiled as our Sacrament target I just thought people in the thread didn't want to use Cherrlie, last time it was brought up there was discontent and when there is another target that requires equal effort available why not go for it?

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Technically it's not equal effort, actually since we'd need 1 action to get her on to the Acquaintances list, then another to get her to Friend, and one more to get her to Good Friend (and within Confidant-with-Leash range), where Cherilee would only need 1 action to raise her to Good Friend to get her within Confidant-with-Leash range.

 

[Iustus Vitea]

Technically it's not equal effort, actually since we'd need 1 action to get her on to the Acquaintances list, then another to get her to Friend, and one more to get her to Good Friend (and within Confidant-with-Leash range), where Cherilee would only need 1 action to raise her to Good Friend to get her within Confidant-with-Leash range.

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...wasn't Marinette able to brute force her way through multiple levels? Coulda sworn she could...

If she can't then yeah Cherrlie is on the chopping block if Filthy turns out to be actually useful.