All right, finally back to the keyboard. Boy, do smartphones suck for trying to get the point across.
We are a great power that is in their backyard. Once they see what we are and what we can do, they will want to either control us or destroy us.
Yes, we are. And unlike Berzam or Galbaldy, I think they might be able to actually destroy... if not us, then our powerbase.
This is what the original point I was responding to was:
Yes, we are in Methussian territory, but they don't know that. And what they don't know won't hurt us.
What I am saying is that with every action we reveal more information about ourselves. Maintaining secrecy is becoming more and more compex and tedious task by the minute. We have even considered wiping out the the attackers, the defenders and the whole village just to keep their mouths shut. And even then if anyone stumbled across the ruins, they would wonder WTF happened here to bring such destruction.
Wiping out the party that went to the ruins might have brought someone's attention to the place. Kidnapping the prince near Erise will draw everyone's attention to this village. It's like in the first UFO game - the aliens send their retaliatory crafts not at your base (since they don't know where it is), but to the places where you intercept and shoot down their vessels. And sooner or later, it works out for them.
Staying hidden is a noble cause, but it is also the one that we are going to lose. While I appreciate not showing our hand to everyone, I also would not want it to turn it into Legend's "we can't show our techniques to anyone, ever", or "we can't let anyone know we are Zhang Jue's disciple, ever".
And if we are found, we'd better be sure that we have allies. For now, having allies among the Methussians sounds like a better idea because neither Berzam nor Galbaldy can reach us without invading their neighbour.
No one from the Bazram side will survive without our intervention, how will they pin this in us? The world doesn't even suspect our existence yet.
You probably meant Methuss.
Also, the world does suspect our existence or at least an existence of some powerful force in the ruins. The Ion Cannon, the mighty artefact that can alter the fate of the world - most local powers are aware of it to some degree, and all of this stuff is related to us.
I think we are bound to get involved here, no matter what we do. We have already intervened in the actions of others, causing the Barzam expedition to disappear. As for Methussians never knowing what happened here - remember that someone has lured the prince into this trap. It is possible that there are agents of Barzam infiltrating Methuss, so it is never clear which of the powers knows what about what. Since Barzam can't send any more forces here, it might be possible for them to organize another search in the ruiins from within Methuss. We have no idea what plots are currently running behind the scenes, and most of our assumtions about the current state of affairs turned out false. It does not help that the little information we
are getting from torture and whatnot can also be incorrect, like we've just seen with a hundred strong force lying in ambush instead of mere 70 men we expected to find.
There is a myriad of ways for everything to go wrong or right with any of the choices, and it all depends on the consequent ones anyway. In A, we can form an alliance with Methuss, or we can strike a private agreement with the Prince and become a secret resourse only he would know of, or just take our reward and walk away, hoping that he would be too busy with his own affairs to investigate us further. In D, we can wait until he is dead and then kill everyone, I suppose? - if we just wanted to go home, we'd choose C, - and hope that no one will wonder how a nuke happened upon the place. Or we leave the villagers alive because we chose not to be too far gone with the children, and now there are rumors of a mysterious mage running around the countriside. Don't know what B would result in, since I find the wording ridiculous - "I don't really know what I want from that, but I'd do it for lulz". And C7 was described as a gamble already.
Whatever we do, I don't think we would be able to stay away from the shitstorm for long.
Probably the most safe course of action is to take the twins and get out. They will find the Prince's corpse, there will be no search, Galbaldy will be framed, and maybe nobody will have time for us in the ensuing chaos. But even that is not certain.
As for the gobbos, who cares? They're goblins.
They are
felines.
Seriously, I was saying the same thing about Kyle and I got treated like I was being a butthurt psycho.
That might have more to do with you sounding like a... never mind.
The Codex immediately thinks of cunning plans, and then we miss out on the simplest, most obvious solution, which is just to tell this guy what we know.
