[Game Thread] The League Advances

[prometheous100]

"My associates take no actions of their own accord, but the one who keeps the contracts is not always forthcoming. Someone has contracted us to escalate a certain situation beyond what would naturally have happened, I do not believe the contract should have been penned in the first place."

Looking at Amiir:
"The solution is to find out who the customer is and encourage him void the contract. The alternative is less than pleasant to contemplate."

[KevinFipps]

Mathias stands to his full height and stretches. It is worth noting that despite his tremendous size, the move is smooth and without apparent effort. If you had not figured it out before, the ease of his movements clearly marks him as a member of the Blooming Lotus. My own guild is currently locked in an internal power struggle. That is why I have not made contact with them of late. The varying factions have escalated the petty infighting to a breaking point. Tipping the balance of power to one side or another would shape the organization, but only if accomplished delicately.

He looks at the gathered individuals. I will offer my services in the pursuit of your goals, if in exchange you will promise to aid in mine.

[KZ61]

"Dela is also dissatisfied with her guilds council as they have become far to corrupt to stay with the living. A more permanent solution to her guild Dela thinks would be best for all who are within the guild." Dela says as she puts her head down on the table.

"Dela and the group await your opinions and ideas Szayel " she says with a eager look.

[Xbow]

Leo listens to the politics of the other guilds and just seemingly seems to believe that it is just politics. He replies a little more obviously, Mine has turned to slaughter, they are killing innocent people whom are not even under scrutiny. They don't discriminate, for this, those who committed these offenses, they deserve the same punishment they have delivered. Please inform the others. Then Leo leans up against the wall with his sword sheathed and in his hand.

[OneDarkness]

"its a safe best our host here contacted us because he knew of our current lackluster relations within our respective guilds, my own guild is slowly turning away from promoting based on merit and talent to a more unfavorable its who you know type of philosophy, needless to say its alienating those not in favor and things are building towards a slow simmering rebellion if I had to guess. Each guild may be different in some regards but ultimately I am hearing many of the same type of stories from each of you which makes me wonder how things got to the point they are at." Amiir pauses and then looks questionably at their host.

"Did you have a proposal to make to us or were you merely facilitating the introductions for a cut of the outcome?"

[Night Shade]

ooc All I can say right now is I am truly a fan of this group at the moment. I've been without a computer & unable to check in for a while now & yet you guys are breathing life into this, this is a large portion of how D&D should be. Now, I am still without a computer & my posts will be irregular, but I will be active as much as possible. With that said... Also, I could have sworn I posted it before, but I guess it never hit. Szayel translates everything Ghost signs. No need of other translators or pen & paper.

[Night Shade]

Having listened to everyone for a while, Szayel speaks up

Szayel There are numerous methods to go about this, & what I am proposing is simple, a unification of all 7 guilds with us 6 at the head. We all come from different walks of life with different approaches & ideologies. As such with this diversity to help each other stay in check I believe we can eliminate this cancerous problems & done properly we can ensure that there's enough remaining to continue extensive personal profits for us all. Now each of you know your individual guilds & are the best to speak on them.   ooc The overall running of the guild you came from, you can make up as you see fit. The hierarchy, top 3 levels of the guild, are strictly within my domain. You all know the general workings, up into some of the major workings. The guild leader, his immediate council & their immediate lackeys are mine to setup. I won't contradict anything you set in motion. & at best you have met a handful of the 3rd tier members, for any that would like an actual number on this, [dice=Hierarchy Known]1d6[/dice You may know rumors of the council & guild leader, you may make up some as you please. What I will say definitively is none of them are weak. Your rumors may prove to be true, they may prove to be no more than rumors, use as you please. One approach would simply be to be the fan to the flame of unrest within the guild, for any that have gone severely corrupt, to the point that you believe it to be nearly impossible to redeem, this would be the easiest route. Takes only the right words in the right ears on enough occasions & a guild can be crippled with nearly no effort on our part. But as I said, it will be CRIPPLED if executed properly. For this route our friends from The Inquisition & Raven's Maw have the advantage, getting information & applying it to the right ears. There's the direct approach, very difficult to execute & extremely risky. But most beneficial with a guild that is mostly intact & needs only a change in hierarchy. Each guild has 1 thing in common with their codes, the right for a guild member to challenge their leader for authority. These are always fights to the death & remember the old saying, there's no honor amongst thieves. The challenge is intended to be 1-1, I have witnessed numerous & cannot tell you what to expect. I have witnessed these challenges unfold honorably, true 1-1 match unto the death. They have also opened with the leader having his lackeys come out of nowhere beat down the competitor. One thing I can say is universally true, 1-1 anything goes, nobody has any concerns along those lines. But in EVERY challenge I have witnessed where the competitor brought aid & the leader did not, the guild assassinated the competitor & all of his help before they landed another blow. We can work out a method of inciting problems between guilds to get them to weaken each other. Or work on methods of severely cutting into their income. Or I'm certain you each have ideas of your own. What say you all?

[KZ61]

With a smile Dela answers "Dela believes this reasonable and would be willing to share some knowledge of her guild."

[KevinFipps]

Mathias looks grim. A direct confrontation with any of the elite members of the Blooming Lotus would be absolute suicide. However, weakening any guild undermines its external influence as well, so we would have to tread a very fine line to keep it from collapsing altogether.

[prometheous100]

"I do not fully agree with the plan you have set out Szayel, but for now it does seem the best option."

Looking too Dela, the Illumian says: "I will share some of my knowledge of my associates and our organization as well."

 

I don't want to steal your initiative killer, so I'll give you some time if you want to post yours first. I'm going to make some notes here for how my guild operates.

[Night Shade]

Szayel I have set no plans as I do not know the inner workings of your guilds. I have merely presented options for everyone to weigh out with what you know of your guild

[Xbow]

Leo Leo had guessed as much that Szayel was going to present something vague, what surprised him was the simple fact that he did not know all of our guilds inside and out. Quickly Leo signed, The hardest part of bringing down my guild is that we do not know all of our locations at any given time. Only a select few know of the locations of perhaps one of our elites. I dont even know the location of anyone in the second tier, plus I only know the last known location of a contact who is in the third tier, from there they bring me to him; after which he moves locations.

ooc dont wanna steal dela's thunder any further ><.

[prometheous100]

Turul reaches into his pack and withdraws a sheet of parchment, and a quill, while with the other hand he selects a vial of ink from a hidden pouch in his belt. Dropping to his knees without moving from the center of the room, he begins drawing on the paper. scriiiiitch... scriiiitch... Long lines appear on the paper as the nib of the quill drags on the paper. scrit, scrit, scrit, scrit, scrit, scrit. Tiny letters appear quickly forming words in several languages, and occasionally with a symbol taken from merchants or their account keepers.

Under each foreign name is a word or set of words in the common tongue wrapped in parenthesis. These are the literal translations of names.

"This will take some time to populate, I have only ever met one member of our association, and there are several others whose handwriting I will recognize on sight." Pointing to the center of the sheet, where there was enough space for a single name, Turul continued "That is where the Keeper of the Contracts is in the association. There may be others above him or her, they may already be on the list, but to my knowledge EVERY person in our group knows him or her. I believe that Vertrag is an elderly female based on their script style, and I have never seen any deviation from that style to indicate a forgery."

"I suspect that several of these nom de plumes are the same person, but I can not verify it through their script."

Turul continues this while listening to the others speak, the paper is quickly becoming filled with a complicated webwork of names and connections.

 

I'm going to be using the various colors for language. I'll set up a table with my color coding scheme, for right now it's going to be:
Draconic <= [color=red]Draconic[/color]
Infernal <= [color=fuchsia]Infernal[/color]

If anyone has color preferences for certain languages, let me know and I'll add them to a table somewhere so that we can all be on the same reference. Otherwise I'll make it up when I have some time. I have several languages I need to figure out colors for. (Also, I use the shadow [imageless] skin, so what looks good to me may look horrible to everyone else. Just let me know.)

[Night Shade]

Szayel, deciding to do something more beneficial long term, reaches into his backpack & pulls out a small inkwell & dips a brush into it after removing the top. He goes around the room & writes a symbol on everyone's forehead except Leo.

Szayel There, done. Sorry, but 1-1 has never been an issue with Ghost here, but constantly translating for him is annoying. Now you all understand his sign language permanently. If you're going to work together, communication is key.

With that he restops the jar & puts his equipment back in his backpack

[OneDarkness]

Amiir chuckles at Szayel's forthright comment but when he is approached waves him off and signs I am more than fluent in Ghost's language and magic is not required, then waits for an opportune moment to fill in on his own guild a bit to give them an idea of what they are up against. "The reality of most guilds will be that we are intimately familiar with those we work with, joined with, or trained under, I know some details of those above me but most are in passing or gathered from others who have had dealings with them and I know of nobody who has met our guildmaster. The influence he wields and his connections are almost beyond comparison for he is not the type, and I use he loosely as that is but a guess, to dirty his own hands when he can call in one of a multitude of favors to have it handled without him being involved. He is so connected its almost as if all the connections are a mask for his true purpose, his lieutenants though are not as masterful as he and do not wield his influence so they can be dealt with though the taking down of one or two would surely alert the guildmaster that something is up and either force him into action or into hiding either way it could be problematic."