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[crazyabe]

>Tell the Inquisitor that we have been Doing Business with "an Inbred Lowlife Calling himself Damian Skorn" and that "He Showed up out of nowhere and Demanded we Give Him Blessings at a 1:2 Rate" Before Stating that "We Would be Willing to Assist with Killing him, Because he Hasn't Been Very Polite to Us."

[Ardent Debater]

>Tell the Inquisitor that we have been Doing Business with "an Inbred Lowlife Calling himself Damian Skorn" and that "He Showed up out of nowhere and Demanded we Give Him Blessings at a 1:2 Rate" Before Stating that "We Would be Willing to Assist with Killing him, Because he Hasn't Been Very Polite to Us."

+1

Let's name the Imp, Pim. Let's also get Pim to spy on our Neighbors.

[VoidSlayer]

Ask the inquisitor why they are interested in a minor noble, if they need our help and why they would attack a perfectly harmless demon like our master.  Try and do it in a polite conversational tone that is not denying the request just curious.  Then explain Skorn never asked for our relationship to be secret and was quite rude, but if an inquisitor who practices dark magic was interested in doing some business we could keep such a thing private.

Keep Pim with us for now, I want to see if we can send him to warn Skorn.

[ATHATH]

Ask the inquisitor why they are interested in a minor noble, if they need our help and why they would attack a perfectly harmless demon like our master.  Try and do it in a polite conversational tone that is not denying the request just curious.  Then explain Skorn never asked for our relationship to be secret and was quite rude, but if an inquisitor who practices dark magic was interested in doing some business we could keep such a thing private.

Keep Pim with us for now, I want to see if we can send him to warn Skorn.

+1. Also, ask the inquisitor if he would like us to pull up a conversational portal (basically the video chat-ish thing that we've been using to speak with our customers, which only allows sound and light to pass through it) to Skorn, so that they can talk this out. If he agrees to it, send Pim to tell Skorn to contact us, which should mean that all four of us (Pim, Skorn, the inquisitor, and ourself) will be able to talk with each other.

Has anyone here considered that Pim might have been ordered to intentionally get caught so that he could spy on us better?

[ATHATH]

>Tell the Inquisitor that we have been Doing Business with "an Inbred Lowlife Calling himself Damian Skorn" and that "He Showed up out of nowhere and Demanded we Give Him Blessings at a 1:2 Rate" Before Stating that "We Would be Willing to Assist with Killing him, Because he Hasn't Been Very Polite to Us."

+1

Let's name the Imp, Pim. Let's also get Pim to spy on our Neighbors.

-1, except for the naming part, unless Pim wants to choose his own name. Naming our minions shows that we care about them.

[DreamerGhost]

Ask the inquisitor why they are interested in a minor noble, if they need our help and why they would attack a perfectly harmless demon like our master.  Try and do it in a polite conversational tone that is not denying the request just curious.  Then explain Skorn never asked for our relationship to be secret and was quite rude, but if an inquisitor who practices dark magic was interested in doing some business we could keep such a thing private.

Keep Pim with us for now, I want to see if we can send him to warn Skorn.

+1

[Tomcost]

Negotiation phase:

Not really sure about how to handle the situation, curiosity beats your inner sense of self-preservation and you dare ask the Inquisitor why does he want to know something about a minor noble, and why did he attack your former master. You say that you can even help him to do what he wants to do. The Inquisitor, a man on his forties, realizes that you don't really know anything about what is happening, and chuckles. Now smiling, he says that he has something to discuss with you, and asks you to wait for him to get dressed for the occasion. Without you being able to ask about it, it cuts the communication.

You stare at Penelope, hoping that she will be able to provide some advice. Her face is now back to her usual emotionless state, and she simply says that we are doomed. Not knowing what to do, you prepare for the worst: another inquisitorial attack.

"Hello!" You hear the voice of the Inquisitor saying from behind you. Your gaseous form jumps back and loses its humanoid shape for a brief instant until you can overcome your fear and stare at the human, who is wearing an organic membrane over most of his body: Fiend's Lung. That explains how they survived the raid to fight your master. The Inquisitor simply politely stands there while you process all this, and then introduces himself. He is Yaugus Skorn, Head of the Inquisition, and leader of the loyalist faction of the Skorn family. He tells you to not attempt anything stupid, because he could very easily kill you with the flick of a wrist, and then asks the same of your Sorrow's daughter, who is staring at the Inquisitor with apparent disbelief.

Not totally sure about how to proceed, you introduce yourself, and ask again why did he attack previously. He explains that most of the Skorn family betrayed the Kingdom and sided with the goblins, and he is beating them back into submission by murdering all their demonic vassals until they give up, and that the Balrog you served was particularly deep into the business of the Skorn.

Penelope then dares to speak, and claims that it is the perfect combination what Yaugus has acquired: he knows of the dealing of his family, and so he knows where to find its demonic servants. But he also is an Inquisitor, the High Inquisitor himself, and so he can easily deal with the demons, and the knowledge of the Dark Arts allow him to summon himself to other realms to directly attack them. It was the perfect storm for your master.

Yaugus grins with self-pride, and takes a brief time to admire the results of his work, materialized in the various piles of scrap around. He admits that that was an exceptionally good raid that day, but that generally just by killing the greater demons any demonic organization is considered to be destroyed. He then walks closer to you, pats Penelope's head, claiming that she would be a cute little girl, hadn't she been a being designed to chew and dismember the souls of compassionate people (which seems to really piss her off, although she is quite good at hiding it), and then proposes you a deal: you help him contact and ambush as many of the traitorous Skorn as you can find, and he will leave you alive. Hell, he may even be willing to show up at some point to beat one of your competitors. But you will have to play it smart, so that no Skorn realizes that you are snitch.

He extends his hand, knowing that it will just go through you, but just as a gesture of his intention to shake your hand.

How do you answer to him?

[ATHATH]

"I will comply, under three more conditions:"
"First, some of the Skorn traitors are my clients. I and my employees will not harm them for you nor lead you to them unless they are warned by me at least one week before I do so and are allowed to make at least one counter-offer each. I will tell you what each counter-offer is and allow you to make counter-offers to those counter-offers, which I will allow my Skorn traitor clients to know of and submit counter-offers against, etc."
"Second, I will not use meetings as bait, for killing people as soon as they contact me is the way of petty, untrustworthy lemures. I am open to just performing standard assassinations on them, however."
"Third, I must be allowed to leave a Mark of Rybalt* at the scene of each killing, along with my call sign and a message that states that I am open to being peacefully contacted to discuss the killings."
"Fourth, I want to explicitly define my reward. I want my reward to be an official, written declaration by the Inquisition that they will not harm me nor the employees of my company due to their races, alignments, views, associates and/or their dealings with their associates."

*A Mark of Rybalt is a symbol that is commonly left at the scene of a crime as a message that the crime was committed by a paid mercenary. Its name comes from its most famous user, the infamous assassin known as Rybalt Kane.

[VoidSlayer]

Nah, if we are helping take down traitor Skorn we take em all down.

Here is what I would propose.

The inquisitor leaves us and the current Skorn guy we have alone for now.  We become more powerful, get introduced to more of the traitor family then we can take them all out in one big act coordinated through circles and on the ground attacks.

Ask if prisoners that the inquisition have can be marked with our curse to make us stronger as payment for our help.  Us becoming more powerful is useful for him as we can get more influence and offer more services to his enemies before we turn on them.  If they want blessings we could provide say 3 to 1.

Also ask what humans use souls for and if they do not need the souls of the dead Skorn we could always take them and maybe prep them.  After all a ghoul with all the knowledge of his enemies might be useful to him.

I do agree with the not using meetings for assassination though, that just leaves a bad reputation.

[DolosusDoleus]

Uh guys? This is the head of the Inquisition. He is probably perfectly capable of instantly destroying us by waving his pinky finger at us.

The best course of action is to do whatever he says so that he doesn't kill us.

[VoidSlayer]

Uh guys? This is the head of the Inquisition. He is probably perfectly capable of instantly destroying us by waving his pinky finger at us.

The best course of action is to do whatever he says so that he doesn't kill us.

Thus my proposing a long con to take down his whole family and asking for resources to help him with it.

[Tomcost]

Negotiation phase:

You follow Yaugus' movements as you pretend to shake the human's hand. Immediately afterwards, you get down to business. You propose various things to him: a 3:1 CtB ratio, that you can prepare and sell him the souls of dead Skorn so that he can use their knowledge, and that you would rather not kill your clients yourself, as that is bad reputation for your business.

He thinks for a moment, and then agrees to all your terms. But he tells you that he'd rather use your poisonous gas to kill important Skorn members so that he can reanimate the intact bodies as ghouls. He claims that he can perfectly curse the rest of the Skorn he doesn’t want so that their souls go to you, and that it could be a good payment for the souls of those he does want to reanimate.

You try to press a little bit about if he could give you some free curses from prisoners, and he answers by grinning, and stating that he will see what can he do. Most of the prisoners of the Inquisition are Dark Mages or people that have some connections with them, so keeping the curses on them would be difficult, as the victim could find a way to easily unweave the hex. On the other hand, there are some illegal priests of either the orc gods or the Deep Pantheon who could use a curse of yours to diminish their potential to use their divine magics in case they don't desist with their practices and they are not worth the execution.

Having negotiated these terms, he takes his leave, and summons himself away. You feel like the sword that had been put against your neck, had you a physical one, has been lifted. Penelope breathes deeply, and barely manages to compliment you for keeping a cold head and managing the situation. A part of you tells you that he was just on a good mood today, and that you were lucky, but it doesn't matter right now, as you have survived, that is the most important outcome right now.

You decide to name the imp Pim, and, thinking about it, you look for him, and find him hiding inside a destroyed soul vault. The little demon heard everything, and is scared beyond reason. You leave him to be for now, and tell Penelope to take care of him. If the other demons know of the deal you have stuck with the head of the Inquisition, they will surely want you dead so that you don't sell them to the demon hunters. This brings problems. If one of your minions is captured or interrogated, there could be dire consequences. But now there are other things to do, there are customers to attend to:

A) Chieftain Hill calls and offers a deep apology. Apparently he didn't got the mercenary job he desired, and so he resorted to killing that prostitute to offer you at least some payment. The Tentacle Demon is summoned back to you, and he welcomes you by playing around the scrap. When he finds Pim, he embraces the imp with his front tentacles and brings him to you, depositing the ugly demon on the floor like a stick you had told him to fetch. Pim curls into a ball and asks you to never allow it to happen again, before Penelope comes and pulls him out of the Projection Stage. Chieftain Hill watched with curiosity as this scene happened, and it seems to have brightened his mood. He claims that he will try to get a proper mercenary job before asking for the Tentacle beast again. With that he says goodbye, and cuts the communication.

The Tentacle Demon is back.

B) You are contacted by a young Frost Elementalist who claims to be under the tutelage of a Nature Mage's guild near the Kingdom's frontiers. He tries to negotiate for a CtB ratio. He would likely bless himself and other mages with your domain of magic, but you are unsure about if he would be able to do so without exposing his dark magic. A more favorable CtB ratio would make him expose himself less, but also net you less curses.

C) Kathy contacts you back, and you let Penelope handle the situation again, and so you take your turn to watch over Pim. As you pat his tiny shoulder with some concentrated air force, Penelope manages to sell the Fire elementalist soul for eight souls, but not the smith wight. This week Kathy didn't get as much prisoners as before, but she is gaining some nice cash after renting those two wights as bodyguards for the goblins. She then says that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find whole bodies, as the Sisters of Battle, a religious order of warrior and healing maidens, has sent a delegation to the human Kingdom's forces. This means that there are fewer prisoners right now, but that she still manages to find assorted bodyparts. She asks Penelope if you have any Chimeric Abomination souls, because she'd rather like to make some imposing monstrosities from all the assorted body bits that plague the battlefield. The Sorrow's Daughter answers on the negative, and when Kathy presses on asking when they are going to be available, she claims to not know and says that she has to speak to her master in person for that. And, with that unfortunate situation, you are back again in front of the Projection Stage, thinking what to say to this dark mage who thinks you are far more successful that you are, and fearing that telling her that you don't even know how to make a pretty basic type of undead would make you seem quite weak.

Gained:
3 Goblin lasher souls.
1 Human warrior soul.
4 goblin slave souls.

One of the goblin slave souls didn't fit the soul vault, and so will remain in the open, where it can easily stolen.

How do you answer to the second and third customer?

Spoiler: Yxcransprunrtolmsxrcilp "Yxcran" (click to show/hide)

Health: Healthy
Vigor Level: 2 [4/15] curses to advance to the next level.
Available action points: 30
Skills:
Elementalism level 2. [13/25] to next level.
Demonic assets:
-1 goblin slave soul floating around. Can be easily stolen.
-Minor soul vault: [30/30] souls:
Unprocessed:
3 goblin lasher souls.
1 human warrior soul.
12 goblin slave souls.
4 human conscript souls.
5 miscelaneous commoner souls.
1 orc potioncrafter soul.
1 human prostitute soul.
Processed:
2 scrap souls
1 Human smith Wight soul.
-Spinescorcher: your former master's flaming axe. You can't even wield it, being immaterial and all that.
Demonic minions:
-A tentacle demon. Maybe you should name him.
-Penelope the Sorrow's Daughter
-Pim the ugly imp.

[crazyabe]

Ask #2 How Experienced he is at Cursing, Whether he would be willing to Send us A Soul to Prod us to a better Deal, Other things of that Sort.

Tell #3 that we Don't have any In stock but that we could Refer them to a more powerful demon that Would... for a Price.

[VoidSlayer]

Instead of souls as an extra cost for a good rate, what if we ask for earthly goods, like metals, we can trade to a smith demon.

[High tyrol]

Instead of souls as an extra cost for a good rate, what if we ask for earthly goods, like metals, we can trade to a smith demon.

Ask #2 How Experienced he is at Cursing, Whether he would be willing to Send us A Soul to Prod us to a better Deal, Other things of that Sort.

Tell #3 that we Don't have any In stock but that we could Refer them to a more powerful demon that Would... for a Price.

1+ crazy able with voids layers change