Nevill
Arcane
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2009
- Messages
- 11,211
I gave it a bit of a thought. How would that fare as a justification:I have no idea what the actual procedure would include, but Thais needs to come up with an excuse for us to cast a spell as a part of it. I don't know how to go about it, though. A darkness spell that would conceal the involved parties once the cultists confirm they have the spearhead - to make the combat impossible after everyone gets what they want? Or some other bullshit 'safeguard' like that?
Jan clearly does not want to come out and trust the cultists with his life. What would be there to prevent them from killing him and taking the artefact with no strings attached? So what if the trading procedure looked like this?
When the sides agree to each other's demands, we pick two people that would represent the groups (not the leaders, though - we want Rand's clone to continue holding Thais), 'disarm' them, and send them to Jan's hideout. While they approach it, we prepare a spell that would shroud Jan's location. The reasoning, of course, is that he is so afraid of their potential betrayal (we might want to put some words in Jan's mouth here), he might destroy the artefact unless his safety through the transaction is guaranteed. Therefore, a 'safeguard' spell is necessary, and we offer our services, since clearly Jan wouldn't trust the cultists with his safety.
That is also the excuse to send our people unarmed - the official reason would be so that they would not spook Jan into doing something stupid.
It does not change anything for the cultists - they still have leverage over us if we betray them, and if Jan decides to destroy the artefact, there is nothing they can do about it other than retaliate. They might take the offer if we present it as their only chance to get what they want. Thais should be the one to suggest that, since they are more likely to believe the one who has her life on the line, and she is a born liar.
While the location is shrouded, Jan is supposed to relocate to another hiding place, leaving the artefact behind to be picked up by our representatives. The observer team is supposed to confirm that they got the artefact and signal the cultists so they would be able to honor their part of the deal and free the hostage.
Naturally, this will never happen, as the spell we will be casting has nothing to do with our 'agreement'.
So... how plausible is it? Yay or nay?
archaen, zerozero, Kz3r0 and other DISCUSS-bros, any insights?
The benefits of the plan (if it works):
- Most of the social interactions are done by Thais, who is much better at it than we are.
- We try to ensure Jan doesn't snap and make things worse.
- We try to get Jan to cooperate with us. There is a possibility he will chime in on our side in battle.
- We try to get the cultists relaxed as things mostly go their way right until the moment they don't.
- We get an excuse and thus a much needed time to cast our opening spell.
- We get a surpise alpha stike off, as they would not be expecting us to use heavy artillery with Thais in their midst. Hopefully, this will also get rid of their leader as well, since he is the one holding Thais. Without a leader they might attempt to run if things start going badly for them.
- We get to split the cultist forces. There are seven of them against the five of us, so any extra kill would make our lives progressively easier.
I hope people would point out the drawbacks as well.
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