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

[Sveta08]

I think we want her to social Spoiled so we can prep for Moth Sacrament?

Though I'm not sure if we need her to, as opposed to doing it ourselves.

I guess we should actually figure out what we want our relationship to be. Are we doing the Sacrament or not? Are we investing anything in her?

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Hmm.
That's still doable. If memory serves thanks to the work of Marinette Spoiled will slowly fall to Velvet one way or another.


So! An idea. A question. A potential that I imagine a great many people will either hate or love.
Now that we can see the Moods of Marinette, the obvious opportunity/problem exists. If we signal to her we are still interested in friendship, but do nothing, she will be slighted. Sending her to Cadence, the poor alicorn unprepared as she is... I'm sure we can agree would be trouble.
However, we don't want to eat someone. So what to do?

I have an idea. A terrible, beautiful, horrible idea. One that will keep Marinette focus still on Velvet to help Cadence, and requires eating no children! Might even be helpful in unexpected ways.
But, it requires checking something.



@OurLadyOfWires
I understand some options were removed because we never picked them, or functionally didn't. But I have to ask.
Can we still have someone accompany Velvet?

-[] Accompany you, and lend her hoof. (Pick HALF of your own personal actions, rounded DOWN, and Rarity will accompany you while you perform them, giving narrative advantages or mechanical buffs as needed)

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After all, it is best to spend time with friends, no?

 

[OurLadyOfWires]

@OurLadyOfWires would you mind elaborating on this bit?


As in, does this mean Mareinette will be expecting us to follow her Sacrament? Is it just indicating we want to continue w/ the current status quo of giving her something every three months w/ increasing cost? Some third thing?

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I still gotta catch up to the thread as a whole, but not a problem to answer this since I'm passing by and happened upon it.

Now that we finally did DoA's Sacrament, it is no longer a secret that accepting a Sacrament, on some occasions, will incidentally result in a Name being befriended. So, given all the hints we had about Mareinette so far, I realize there has been some discussion about parallels in that direction.

Regardless, to answer your question. "She will hold you to that" means that if you decide to communicate that you ARE interested in a continuing your relationship with her, then she will believe you like the good guest she is. But also that her patience will drain more quickly if you give her that signal and fail to act upon it.
The decrease of her patience can happen in several different ways. I don't need to comment on that because I can be inventive, she is a Name, and you all have your own imaginations.

I hope that answers your question? Please let me know if you would like me to elaborate more.



Also, I don't know if this adds to the answer or if you would consider this unrelated. But the fact remains Mareinette is the Name of Grail (and Heart) for this quest. So, she knows quite a bit about desire, and she is not a fool herself.

That being said, I'll remind you all that there is a difference between "playing hard to get" while enjoying the dance of courtship and acceptance, and "stringing someone along" without any intention of ever following through.

That, I think, is one of the factors Mareinette has her eyes on.



Anyways, gotta skaddle. See you all later.

 

[OurLadyOfWires]

Oh, this appeared after I posted my last. Probably while I was typing.

@OurLadyOfWires
I understand some options were removed because we never picked them, or functionally didn't. But I have to ask.
Can we still have someone accompany Velvet?

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I am amenable to having Velvet spend actions/time "following" Mareinette around, especially if you pick the "Go with Cadance" option. I didn't think it was worth mentioning right now, since we aren't voting on this right now. Still, that was something I had in mind, yes.

 

[Greymere]

I hope that answers your question? Please let me know if you would like me to elaborate more.

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Ehh, sort of? I'm more wondering about what Mareinette considers "acting upon it" (or failing to). Like, I assume that Grail Sacrament would obviously count, but is that the only/main thing and we should read this as "Mareinette will expect us to pursue her Sacrament"?

 

[ses]

Ehh, sort of? I'm more wondering about what Mareinette considers "acting upon it" (or failing to). Like, I assume that Grail Sacrament would obviously count, but is that the only thing and we should read this as "Mareinette will expect us to pursue her Sacrament" or as something more general.

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I assume it means "Don't expect the Third Rebinding to be affordable if you take this and don't plan on doing an invitation to dinner. Mareinette can take the temperature of thread discussion as well when deciding her rebinding prices"

Although I hope that taking that option wont screw us over on the Second Rebinding since we're nowhere near ready to tie the knot and we only just had this come up. I don't think it will though. I'm pretty sure it's just referring to doing the third rebinding, which we can expect to be something we can afford to do if we take the Cadance option and plan on running out the clock to All In.

Regardless, to answer your question. "She will hold you to that" means that if you decide to communicate that you ARE interested in a continuing your relationship with her, then she will believe you like the good guest she is. But also that her patience will drain more quickly if you give her that signal and fail to act upon it.

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When you say "fail to act upon it", does that just mean generalized shorter clock to take the Grail sacrament, or something more nuanced like "She'll notice if we spend a follower action building a prison and take that into account on if her patience should drain or not". Especially as regards her rebinding next turn since we are hella not ready to do it next turn. Also while you said you are inventive and she's a Name, I assume her patience will mostly manifest in her rebind request and there's not a lot of granularity there between "she makes it impossible" and "she lets us run out the clock" unless the thread is highly misreading how much time we have left until All In is basically forced.

Especially since you've told us before we can't take social actions for Names directly. Like a lot of thread discussion around this choice was to dip our toes into trusting Mareinette and seeing if good things happen when we do. How hard are we committing ourselves if we take 'she will hold you to that'? As a pro-girldinner voter I was hoping we'd have a little time for me to point at good things coming out of Cadance/Mareinette friendship and Cadance genuinely benefitting from it to convince others which might be hard if we're forced into voting on a mostly locked path next turn plan.

 

[spiderhellian]

And really friendship? If a dangerous cannibal attacked you, told you to call her back when you ran away and when you do she breaks into your home and is drooling in your youngest daughter's room while she is asleep while your adopted daughter is shaking trying to protect her and you have to force the monster to go away and never come back inside your home(and she finds a loophole by staying on the OUTSIDE WALLS) then she tells you that every 3 months you either give her something good or she will go away(and you know what she is going to do) and that she will only stay permanently if you commit cannibalism and dedicate a piece of your soul to her vision of pleasure WOULD YOU STILL CALL THAT A FRIENDSHIP.

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This feels misguided as a perspective on Mareinette.

Fundamentally, it's missing that we summoned her.

We invited her to the Wake.

She isn't holding blackmail over our heads. She wants the bare minimum to know that we actually care about her in any respect, beyond as a peon to scrounge actions and influences from.

If we don't give even a scrap of honour to the Honoured Guest — why on earth should she deign to be remain our guest?

I also think if you want to hate her or reject her, you really need to grapple with the consequences. What does that entail? Are we paying her prices and hoping we can go All In (sans issues) before they get too high? Are we stopping paying those prices, and… then what?

 

[Nevermort]

So what you're saying is "We don't know her and even if we did we can't do anything about it so let's focus on winning and leave this to Epilogue Velvet" with a hint of "Mareinette can be saved by us if we get some more knowledge and power"... You know what I agree with the second one, let's dive into Harmony and devise a redemption ritual.

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Basically yes. Although with Harmony our best bet was repairing Friendship laser and we don't have any replacement for Twilight at the moment. So Glory still seems more doable.

 

[Greymere]

Fundamentally, it's missing that we summoned her.

We invited her to the Wake.

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Because we had to. We summoned her because she was blocking the way through the Church and to Glory. Not because we wanted to be her friend or have a genuine relationship.

 

[DelightedOne]

Fundamentally, it's missing that we summoned her.

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Umm no I mentioned it right here

told you to call her back when you ran away and when you do

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And as Greymere said, she was summoned to keep climbing the Mansus and to avoid anyone else using her against us.

Basically yes. Although with Harmony our best bet was repairing Friendship laser and we don't have any replacement for Twilight at the moment. So Glory still seems more doable.

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Buuuut we already know Harmonic rituals exist(we did one!) so it is possible if we grasp some of it we could take away some of Mareinette's power-wooops, I meant help her.

 

[Nevermort]

I still gotta catch up to the thread as a whole, but not a problem to answer this since I'm passing by and happened upon it.

Now that we finally did DoA's Sacrament, it is no longer a secret that accepting a Sacrament, on some occasions, will incidentally result in a Name being befriended. So, given all the hints we had about Mareinette so far, I realize there has been some discussion about parallels in that direction.

Regardless, to answer your question. "She will hold you to that" means that if you decide to communicate that you ARE interested in a continuing your relationship with her, then she will believe you like the good guest she is. But also that her patience will drain more quickly if you give her that signal and fail to act upon it.
The decrease of her patience can happen in several different ways. I don't need to comment on that because I can be inventive, she is a Name, and you all have your own imaginations.

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So consequence of the vote is Mareinette clock ticking faster if we don't give her access to Cadance? A bit unexpected but still managable.

We know that Mareinette offers eating ponies after fourth level of Grail. I still think that Cadance would be able to refuse, and we can interfere at any time, but regardless it gives us some more time.
At least four turns if Cadance is left alone with Mareinette, likely more as I imagine convincing Cadance to take some actions would take more than one turn. I think we are pretty safe on this front. We also can follow Mareinette on some turns to delay her more. Or maybe Rarity can follow her instead, as we know even for Mareineete spreading her influence between multiple ponies slows her progress like with Spoiled.
I think we very well may have delayed Mareinette clock, or at least got more options to affect it. So, progress I guess?

Buuuut we already know Harmonic rituals exist(we did one!) so it is possible if we grasp some of it we could take away some of Mareinette's power-wooops, I meant help her.

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I mean yes. But we also know that Harmony laser is strongest redemption weapon in the setting. Everything else would be just lesser versions.

 

[Shaper47]

Oh, right, she is married.

Wait, you both are married.

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"Oh, don't worry Cadance," you say, still trying to either nurse or ignore your headache. "You aren't the first alicorn I slept with."

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"Wonderful!" you say. "Now, why don't we go take a shower and-"

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...

For some reason I get the feeling that Selene's going to give Cadence the talk.

 

[Sveta08]

I am amenable to having Velvet spend actions/time "following" Mareinette around, especially if you pick the "Go with Cadance" option. I didn't think it was worth mentioning right now, since we aren't voting on this right now. Still, that was something I had in mind, yes.

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Hmm. While that is good to know that Velvet could choose to keep tabs, wasn't quite what I meant.

The previous use was that was for the ally to accompany Velvet. Given the... relative complexity that turns have taken though, I can see why that might no longer be realistically possible at a voting stage.


But, yes. I... Gagh. I see. Second warning and all.
Very well.
I'd call it, two, three turns at most before we likely need that Grail Sacrament then.

 

[ses]

Hmm. While that is good to know that Velvet could choose to keep tabs, wasn't quite what I meant.

The previous use was that was for the ally to accompany Velvet. Given the... relative complexity that turns have taken though, I can see why that might no longer be realistically possible at a voting stage.


But, yes. I... Gagh. I see. Second warning and all.
Very well.
I'd call it, two, three turns at most before we likely need that Grail Sacrament then.

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It would be four exactly would it not? I don't think that Mareinette's impatience will result in her demanding Sacrament mid-binding. We know that her Invitation to Dinner is a rebinding option that will never increase in price from the last rebinding.

I'm also noting the implicit QM belief that we will not be doing All In in four turns. Which is good to know for some of the more fearful in the audience.

Also, outside of Mareinette at all, I do also note that I reread the Rarity Canterlot turn recently and it was very cool with varied and cool narrative effects from bringing Rarity and I had been meaning to bring up that exact subject myself next turn vote to ask if that mechanic was deprecated. Though with our current focus on Sacramentapalooza it's not as relevant as it could have been since that's taking up most of our actions for the next few turns.

 

[Arrkhon]

I wonder, couldn't we have Mareinnette take care of our other selves when we are doing our personal SH sacrament? She would make for a great tour guide and lower the chances of them doing something we wouldn't like

 

[spiderhellian]

Because we had to. We summoned her because she was blocking the way through the Church and to Glory. Not because we wanted to be her friend or have a genuine relationship.

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Umm no I mentioned it right here

And as Greymere said, she was summoned to keep climbing the Mansus and to avoid anyone else using her against us.

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Right. These are valid points. We as players, and Velvet as a character, have not demonstrated interest in befriending Mareinette. Perhaps until the last vote.

But that's on us. You can't then say She is a terrible friend for demanding things of us, and thus not worthy of our friendship.

---

And yeah, I remain curious what the alternative is. All In within 4 turns and hope there's no consequence to leaving her behind?

 

[spiderhellian]

Oh, this appeared after I posted my last. Probably while I was typing.

I am amenable to having Velvet spend actions/time "following" Mareinette around, especially if you pick the "Go with Cadance" option. I didn't think it was worth mentioning right now, since we aren't voting on this right now. Still, that was something I had in mind, yes.

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@OurLadyOfWires Sveta was asking about the follower action of "Have this Follower follow and assist Velvet". Like we used with Rarity back in the day.

Was it intentional that you answered it as the opposite — ie that action is the only one available to Velvet?

Or are we able to use a Mareinette action to have her spend time with and assist Velvet?

 

[Sveta08]

It would be four exactly would it not? I don't think that Mareinette's impatience will result in her demanding Sacrament mid-binding. We know that her Invitation to Dinner is a rebinding option that will never increase in price from the last rebinding

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Hmm. It does do that. Doesn't it?
Still, I am not content to let things simply wait as they are for this. Rebinding with the sacrament requires a Minion. Which, isn't strictly true. It requires a confidant and a leash. But given the list of whom we know, I very much doubt anyone is fond of devouring any of them.

So someone met and gathered, raised up like a pig prime for slaughter. Considering the Moth Sacrament locks some's friendship to acquaintance, we can't quite double up. So someone different.

... Hmm.
Anyone particularly attached to this Berry Punch?

 

[Arrkhon]

Considering the Moth Sacrament locks some's friendship to acquaintance, we can't quite double up. So someone different.

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Who's to say that we can't? She's on confidant level, just invite her to a nice dinner in rarely visited spot, close the doors and meet her for the first time, then have a nice dinner
Frankly the combo works extremely well on narrative level

 

[ses]

Hmm. It does do that. Doesn't it?
Still, I am not content to let things simply wait as they are for this. Rebinding with the sacrament requires a Minion. Which, isn't strictly true. It requires a confidant and a leash. But given the list of whom we know, I very much doubt anyone is fond of devouring any of them.

So someone met and gathered, raised up like a pig prime for slaughter. Considering the Moth Sacrament locks some's friendship to acquaintance, we can't quite double up. So someone different.

... Hmm.
Anyone particularly attached to this Berry Punch?

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Minion OR prisoner. Our path to this is literally just "follower action on build a prison, Biedde action on obtaining a prisoner, then the munchies" as modified by however much more complicated we WANT to make it. I'm pretty sure Biedde has the Edge and Moth levels to follow any reasonable specifications we give if we want to be picky.

Honestly the biggest barrier to just having Biedde knock on Spoiled's door is that her name is literally Spoiled Milk and that's gross. Bad Signamancy for a meal. Honestly I'd rather just ask Biedde to pick a suitably luckless stranger with no connection to Velvet.

Or hey, Soft Sweeps wants to help us out next turn. Maybe she can ask her cult for a volunteer. She's a lot better than Velvet is at gathering Minion level followers.

 

[Pittauro]

And people wonder why I think getting Velvet to Glory is not a good idea.

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look, the best person to get UNLIMITED power is "nobody". (which I suppose could be seen as endorsement of Harmony, considering the concept is about cooperation between multiple beings?)

Second best is and always will be "myself".

not that I believe even reaching the glory is QUITE Omnipotence... but it's the closest any being can probably reach in this setting.

You already know what I'm gonna say, but the Wolf Sacrament is by and far too good of a deal to pass up for a singular RA,

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and as many others, I'll heavily disagree.

I'll take Mareinette's Sacrament over the Wolf. I'll take ANY other Sacrament over the Wolf's.

The RAs are, to me, the panic nuclear button we keep for the TRUE emergencies, and I'm still not 100% sure it was necessary to use the last two times.

...Actually I'm lying. the first time (by which I mean the Tribal Door) it was DEFINITELY not necessary and in hindsight a bad idea. We should have just killed two ponies, either with EiB ritual or potentially by having the cult get us prisoners, or asking Comet for a favour, or using someone in the cult itself (like we find out there's some very evil cultist in there, and we "summon" them for some special and risky assignment, and then just tell everyone they died during an expedition/errand) or something else like that.

I'm TENTATIVELY considering the use against the Master to be justified though.

(While wanting this Sacrament is partly a biased take, I genuinely believe it's a better deal than we'll get with having to be more under Biedde's sights and unknowning goals, when he specifically warned us about the things we don't know hurting us the most, or even killing us. Or with Winter, we'll have to kill somepony, not even knowing who, considering we took out our main rival. It'll just give another chance for us to have a foul mark against us that could be found by a particularly driven investigator.

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If Biedde wanted us dead, we'd be dead. So at least for now he doesn't want us dead, and a sacrament from his is still power we can use... and also knowledge of what HIS sacrament power is too.

as for Winter... it's about killing 3 random people with 3 EiB rituals, basically. How would anyone ever find out it was us unless we told them? And WHY would we ever tell them, unless there was a very good reason AND we trusted the other pony implicitly?

Cool mindset, still murder and cannibalism tho

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true. Though really I'm more worried about the long term consequences than the single instance of cannibalism, considering we could DEFINITELY find plenty of "evil" targets that wouldn't weight that much on our conscience.

The problem is that we've been EXPLICITLY told by Axe that a Sacrament is a change, a sacrifice, a shaping of your soul by removing something from it, and that you can't take it back. And I'm just worried at what either of the Grail Sacraments available will do to Velvet as a person in a way that no other sacrament (except the Wolf's) worries me like.

The hell are you talking about? She's doing it so Silky and her other daughters will be safe and happy, if burning Glory to ashes would achieve it she would happily do that instead

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Two things can be true at the same time.

Velvet is trying to reach Glory to... sort of save the world.

She also REALLY REALLY wants the power, because she's a cultist attracted to Glory like a moth to fire, and the fact she could pass through the Branding Door says as much.

You don't have to stop caring about people to wish for Glory.

I wouldn't say Glory is her top priority though. I think the truth is that she's split between both of her wishes, to keep her family close and happy (but especially close and alive!), AND reaching for Glory, and even she won't truly know which wish is stronger until such a time as she's forced to choose between them, if that ever happens.

Like in that omake where Baldomare went "Silky has her cutie mark. you could go to her, or we could move on towards Glory".

Not having sold twilight as a recruit and mentioning that we had already started teaching her the Lores was frankly the most unforced error in the entire quest, more than the RAs, skipping Neighnia, losing Baldomare, and failing to find any generic summons except windigos to give to the cult.

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I so wish I could deny this...

---

...Bird, were you keeping this update ready in case your favourite Name won?!

"Hear ye! Hear ye! A Princess comes before you!"

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...I somehow doubt that!

However, there is something else going on today. There is something else, something new, that follows you into the throne room. Something that nopony here has ever felt before.

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...oh god. We introduced Mareinette to what's effectively the Near Supreme Leader of the country!

She's probably REALLY happy with us... hopefully we won't regret this...

These things, this new presence that surrounds you as you sit on the throne, is a tiny secret that you hold. A hushed whisper, that you can now use to guide these little ponies.

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...uh. maybe this is just Cadance's new lore affinities, and not Mareinette accompanying her? (or replacing her)

"Y-yes my Princess, but of course," she says, finally reading from the scroll she had been pretending to look at this whole time, while she was busy stealing glances at you. "The first order of business is from a representative of Tall Tale. They wish to express their concerns about certain occurrences that are happening in their city."

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about the changelings, or about our agents investigating the place...

"[GRAIL]!"​

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I FUCKING KNEW IT!

I imagine Cadance is drunk in bed and Mareinette just was so nice to take care of her business for her!

...Damn, we just made her Princess for a day XD.

I wonder if it made her happy.

"V-Velvet?!" she says, as if expecting somepony else entirely to be where you are right now.

Oh, right, she is married.

Wait, you both are married.

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look, there's a non zero chance they might be into it!

Because what else could you have possibly done?

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...weeeeeell....

Hard to remember that despite being a Princess, she never really had a noble upbringing.

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funny. apparently getting drunk is a part of noble upbringing

"Oh, don't worry Cadance," you say, still trying to either nurse or ignore your headache. "You aren't the first alicorn I slept with."

That… probably didn't come out exactly how you intended.

But in all honesty, your head hurts too much for you to care. Or for you to realize how embarrassed and blushing Cadance is right now. Or the fact that her wings are-

"W-wait, do you meant to tell me that you… and Princess Luna…?!" Cadance says, and you swear she is taking a half-step back for some reason.

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She's getting scaroused!

"I mean, there was this time Selene got sick. I didn't leave her side for several days, until she got better, so of course she slept on my bed," you say, waving an impatient hoof at her.

And you think you hear a relieved sigh… probably… maybe… you don't really care.

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and maybe a tiny bit of disappointment too

You think you also detect a hint of shame in her expression, whenever she glances towards you. But you have no idea why.

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I unironically wonder if Shining's major complain would be that he didn't get to watch.

I could see it go either way between that and "how could you", really.

Also, your mind doesn't even stop to think about what you just said right now. You do not feel any sense of urgency, or surprise, or dear Mansus what were you thinking when you introduced an Alicorn to a NAME. None at all! After all, Mareinette is now Cadance's friend, and she can do no wrong.

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...fuck it, she got to us too!

This is a POTENTIAL disaster... but it MIGHT also work out fairly well.

For all that we're worried about her, it's a FACT that Mareinette is well disposed towards us.

It's a bit like being friends with Discord. 50/50 of it helping or ruining you.

"A-ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Cadance yells over you. And the only reason it doesn't hurt your ears is because her words are strangely honeyed and pleasant.

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naughty naughty mare! She's learning!

Shining will be much happier once he spends the next night with her I think

You have spent the rest of your day catching Cadance up to speed. You did not tell her everything (there was not enough time), nor did you tell her about your Regrets. Still, Cadance is now Level 0 on all her Lores. Although she does not yet know about Rituals, summons, or details about the Mansus other than of their existence.

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well, she knows of the lores, ALL 9 OF THEM, so that's nice.

We might want to explain Mareinette better at some point though...

Also NOT EVEN LUNA HAS ALL LORES! she only has the 4!

I wonder if Cadance can raise them all...

You have introduced Cadance, the Princess of Love, to Mareinette, Our Lady Of Wires. Given your relationship with each individual party, the fact that you were the one introducing them made them immediately like each other.

Mareinette is now interested, and has access to, Cadance.

You will now have the option to vote on "The Moods of Mareinette" during your voting period.

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...well, let's see if this is a good or bad thing.

It is no secret that Mareinette is interested in you, but it also stands to reason that she expects you to reciprocate her interest, and that she will not wait forever. These options will reflect your actions for the turn, and will educate both yourself and Mareinette on how you wish your relationship to evolve.

Your options for the Turn 22 voting phase will be as follows:

[] Mareinette is her own mare, and Cadance could use some company. Don't do anything, and see how things turn out.
-You will not take any particular action this turn.
-From what you hear, Mareinette will be more absent from your home than usual. Something about spending more time in Canterlot.
-This is a free action, and will not interfere in Mareinette's ability to serve you.


[] You introduced her to Cadance, yes, but you are still very interested in her endeavors.
-You will signal to Mareinette that you are still interested in your ongoing relationship. She will hold you for that.
-From what you hear, Mareinette will continue to mostly lounge in your estate and wander around Ponyville. To the delight of the farmhoofs that adore her.
-This is a free action, and will not interfere in Mareinette's ability to serve you.

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I... have no idea what to go with.

On the one hand, Cadance was really stressed, and Mareinette would be REALLY good at keeping her mood up.

And I don't even mean anything lewd by it!

...on the other it's Mareinette.

When we get Juicer (for squeezing Discord blood) we can allow Cadence to borrow it. I bet it is very high level Forge artifact. Perhaps even highest level one.

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that's assuming it's an artifact and not a Mansus location.

Ok, looking at the moods thing, why are we/have we not bothering trying to actually friendship The Fair Lady? Like, reciprocating her friendship? I get the whole "you should be eating people" thing, but compared to what we've done it really isn't that big of a deal? I honestly feel we should invest more in her, and that this vote was a good first step to doing that.

And if we decide to send The Lady to be with Cadance more, well, might I point to the fact that in CS canon the Ligeians set up a "charity" to help with "burying" the dead? They don't exactly have the grandest of ambitions when it comes to their tastes.

I honestly feel we may be a little too scared of The Lady, and that we need to get over ourselves a bit.

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slippery slope, give an inch she'll take a mile, and so on.

Problem is, IF we want to befriend her for real (and possibly reform her, if it's possible?) we'll have to compromise.

in canon discord became mostly good, but he still causes troubles at time (remember when he gathered three dangerous villains and empowered them by accident?!)

Mareinette is in some ways like that. Except instead of empowering villains and causing widespread chaos, she might eat a few ponies every now and then.

I will be frank, I think you really overestimate our position compared to her, it's not a "some creep enjoys playing with you", it's "a being that can easily bulldoze everything we have and consume us, a tasty looking snack, decided to not eat us on the spot and even offered us her friendship while adhering to our house rules despite being quite rude to her". She's about as close to eldritch god as something from this world can get and we weren't even polite enough to say thank you until now, the friendship offer is genuine on basis of us not being worth the effort to deceive alone

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The offer of friendship is DEFINITELY genuine, as is her interest in Velvet, and probably some gratitude for us.

OF COURSE this doesn't change her true nature. If we ever became an active threat, gratitude wouldn't stop her. but it IS possible to have a positive relationship with her, if we find the costs palatable enough.

Regardless, to answer your question. "She will hold you to that" means that if you decide to communicate that you ARE interested in a continuing your relationship with her, then she will believe you like the good guest she is. But also that her patience will drain more quickly if you give her that signal and fail to act upon it.
The decrease of her patience can happen in several different ways. I don't need to comment on that because I can be inventive, she is a Name, and you all have your own imaginations.

I hope that answers your question? Please let me know if you would like me to elaborate more.

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just to be sure, can you give us a few examples of things that Mareinette would appreciate from us in terms of interest OTHER than pursuing her sacrament?

would grail lessons work? have her assist us with interesting actions? give her interesting tasks? do we need to do write-ins about her?

 

[ses]

well, she knows of the lores, ALL 9 OF THEM, so that's nice.

We might want to explain Mareinette better at some point though...

Also NOT EVEN LUNA HAS ALL LORES! she only has the 4!

I wonder if Cadance can raise them all...

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She's Winter/Heart/Grail 0. It's on her section of our Contacts list and everything.

Not long ago, you introduced her to none other than Mareinette. The two of them bonded immediately over what Mareinette described as "shared interests".

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Note that Mareinette has bonded with Cadance over "their shared interests", NOT Mareinette wanting to change Cadance to Mareinette's interests. They already have interests in common and that's what she's interested in. That says to me that yes, the Magic of Love does in fact mean a lot to Mareinette in ways other than just the munchies. Compare that to Bugbutt who despite also being a love-munchies monster irrationally hated Cadance despite her Grail-thirst she was cursed with eras ago. That distinction is probably intentional! It's probably a sign of something deeper!

"That monster wants a dead alicorn? Well, it will have a dead alicorn. But not the one it was hoping for. And you wouldn't have it any other way. You have felt a deep hatred for the pink alicorn ever since the first time you laid your eyes on her. You had other plans for her, but death will have to do. Although the task will be difficult, and you will have to concentrate all your efforts in it."

Click to shrink...

 

[Pittauro]

She's Winter/Heart/Grail 0. It's on her section of our Contacts list and everything.

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Yeah, I only noticed it later. reading "all lores" confused me.

 

[Sveta08]

Like in that omake where Baldomare went "Silky has her cutie mark. you could go to her, or we could move on towards Glory".

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Aww. Someone remembered! Don't I feel all warm and fuzzy then.

Ahem

Minion OR prisoner.

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This though, did catch my eye. I forgot it could be a prisoner! There could be something there.

... Tall Tale Mountains will be raided shortly after all. And Velvet has a history with changelings.
Needing a prisoner or a few is simple enough. The Bureau has the cells too.
Getting a "private investigation" of one would be easy as could be for the Commissioner. And no one would really question if it attacked. If she did what she would have to.

That's a possibility. A very simple possibility too.

 

[Rafuki22]

I don't bow to monsters. End of story.

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Ironic, considering certain...instances, that have happened in the quest.

 

[Pittauro]

Aww. Someone remembered! Don't I feel all warm and fuzzy then.

Ahem



This though, did catch my eye. I forgot it could be a prisoner! There could be something there.

... Tall Tale Mountains will be raided shortly after all. And Velvet has a history with changelings.
Needing a prisoner or a few is simple enough. The Bureau has the cells too.
Getting a "private investigation" of one would be easy as could be for the Commissioner. And no one would really question if it attacked. If she did what she would have to.

That's a possibility. A very simple possibility too.

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has to be a pony, not a changeling. Just to be clear.

Our sacraments are mostly kinda racist, you see.

and yeah, it was a cute omake. I admit I forgot it was yours specifically though.

 

[ses]

has to be a pony, not a changeling. Just to be clear.

Our sacraments are mostly kinda racist, you see.

and yeah, it was a cute omake. I admit I forgot it was yours specifically though.

Click to shrink...

EDIT: never mind No, changelings are allowed. Only summons are disallowed. If it's good enough for the [Murderer] trait to trigger it's good enough for sacraments. That's literally the distinction. But yeah Grail sacrament is literally objectively only a third as many murders as Personal Winter Sacrament is. We just have to actually look them in the eye rather than Personal Winter. And we get much bigger rewards for doing so.

3 murders for just a Winter levelup is honestly kinda weaksauce compared to just having a summon carry an extra Winter artifact to All In. Compare to an entire extra and powerful Name added.

Sacraments in general are the least efficient way of gathering All In power, but they're important for Mansus Expeditions and overworld actions in general. I'm assuming we have time before All In for sacraments to pay for themselves in power gain via artifacts and minions.

Unless of course Sacrament perks are awesome. So far I'm unimpressed by the Knock sacrament giving a mystery box labeled with "Your perks are in another castle!" but maybe that's wrong.

 

[Sveta08]

Our sacraments are mostly kinda racist, you see.

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No, changelings are allowed. Only summons are disallowed.

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Well. I know what I would like to be true, but if people dunno... uh...
This isn't something I can try to intuit through.


@OurLadyOfWires
Afternoon. Pardon for two clarifications in a day.
Do our Sacraments allow us o use Changelings (or theoretically other species like dragons or griffins) as targets?

 

[Alan975]

...How could people still be confused?

Kiss or kill, those were the options that I've talked up during her stay.

She knows what Velvet wants, she sees how we weigh the options, stalling was a doomed strat.



Anyway, this outcome is incredibly gratifying.
Now we will have to deal with her, and I know that you all will not push it off it it risks Cadanse! If you know what's good for you!


Also, a question.

How literal is the "of Wires"?
Because at first I thought that she had pulled an Enerd/Sleeping city there

 

[ses]

The problem is that we've been EXPLICITLY told by Axe that a Sacrament is a change, a sacrifice, a shaping of your soul by removing something from it, and that you can't take it back. And I'm just worried at what either of the Grail Sacraments available will do to Velvet as a person in a way that no other sacrament (except the Wolf's) worries me like.

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We already know the change of body. It's in the Sacrament description.

Mareinette's Invitation: "[Grail]!" (There are bounties and resources available in the bodies of every pony. But first, one must develop the appropriate organs to harvest them. She will teach you.)

The change is "developing the appropriate soul-organ to harvest the Blood-as-sacrifice-stuff". We've already had the ability to spend the currency of the world whenever we do a ritual and we've only used that ability exactly once, so I'm not too worked up that gaining the ability to do so in a different fashion for a different payoff (heal wounds maybe? or free Influence?) will particularly change our habits

 

[Nevermort]

Anyway, this outcome is incredibly gratifying.
Now we will have to deal with her, and I know that you all will not push it off it it risks Cadanse! If you know what's good for you!

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So I had a thought. We can't befriend Mareinette via Heart sacrament due to to our low Heart. But Cadance can. She is both Grail and Heart after all. She have more potential ways to befriend Mareinette than us.

The change is "developing the appropriate soul-organ to harvest the Blood-as-sacrifice-stuff".

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Is this citation from somewhere? Because Sacrament option itself only mentions developing appropriate organ. Literally organ. Like tentacles that Mareinette apparently have. So is this soul-organ or actual organ?