Dr. Giger's Report 1 - Spring Festival

[Note: all references to other documents and figures are IC available, not OOC as far as I'm aware]

Mission: Discuss opening trade routes with village in the mountains, in order to increase food supply.

Mission status: Successful in the main part, though actions on the part of some members of the diplomatic party led to increased strain and a less favourable deal. IMPORTANT: Before interacting with the people of this village, make sure you are familiar with the terms of our agreement with them! Relations are positive but greatly strained, do NOT do anything to jeopardise this trading route!

Detailed summary: Myself, Troieux, Fester Busch, and Lara "looseskin" were tasked by the Chef to go and negotiate a deal with the village. We took some of the cars from the motor pool and headed up. Upon our arrival, they were starting their harvest festival; while a bit stand-offish, they cautiously welcomed us to their festival. Their leaders requested that we wait until the end of the festival to make overtures of negotiation with them, to which we agreed.

I ventured away from the village with Lara to examine a strange forest on the borders of their farmland (SEE FIGURE 1). Closer inspection of this forest revealed it to be the result of magical mutation, with the 'forest' being supernaturally large versions of the general crops grown by the village. Inspection also revealed that there were plants capable of movement in the jungle (SEE FIGURE 2). Discussions with the villagers revealed that they thought of the 'jungle' as dangerous (Note: further discussion of the 'jungle' is attached to the agreement document; as per the agreement we will be involved with the removal of the 'jungle' in due time).

At the village, Troieux and Fester were helping set up the festival, a task that myself and Lara joined in on upon our return. The festival itself involved a section of dancing, followed by a banquet, followed by a ritual (all members present took part in this to try to foster good will), followed by more dancing. In this second dancing period, Fester became enthralled with the villages radio antennae building. As stated in the agreement documents, upon asking about the building he was not explicitly told to not go there, and so, his curiosity raised, he headed to the building. I, noticing that Fester was leaving the party, followed him, as did Lara. Myself and Fester ventured into the building, where we came across further evidence of the village being some form of plant-worshipping cult, but we were careful to leave everything in its place. Lara, shifting into her Kobold form, climbed the antenna.

The exact nature of the following events are unclear to me, but the version of events that was agreed upon in our agreement with the village was that Troieux came to find us, and we went to leave. At the door of the building we were met by the village elders, who were angered that we had entered their building. We explained that it was a misunderstanding, as, when our team member had asked a villager if he could enter, he was told that it might not be a good idea, but was categorically not told that it wasn't acceptable. The village elders 'strongly requested' that we go back down to the village and wait for them to be ready to talk to us. Lara, in Kobold form and so with much lower intelligence than normal, was angered by their tone of voice and so decided to play a trick on them; running around inside the building and, ultimately, stealing a book before running down to where we were. Meanwhile, myself, Troieux, and Fester were attempting to rebuild some of the trust we had lost with the village. Troieux talked to the villagers, while Fester fixed the broken toys of the children, and I attended to the medical needs of one of the villagers (see the discussion of the medical needs of the village attached to the agreement document). Lara then appeared (having left kobold form for her normal form), and gave the book to Troieux. The elders then arrived, and Troieux gave them the book. They were very angry at the actions of Lara, and stated that they wished us to leave immediately. Luckily, due to the collective sweet-talking skills of myself and Troieux, we were able to convince them otherwise. We sent Lara back to the car with Fester to make sure she behaved, and then got down to brass tacks.

Simply put, we were lucky to get anything out of this adventure, and a considerable deal of thanks should be given to Troieux for her hard bargaining deals, even in the face of adversity. I believe that she proved herself a capable asset for diplomatic missions. Further, although Fester did cause an unfortunate misunderstanding, I believe that he has learned from this experience, and would be a good choice in future diplomatic situations as he demonstrates a knack at getting children on our side, which helps calm down the population significantly, and is also a good example of the technical knowledge at the gangs disposal. Lara was not appropriate for this mission, but I say that with two caveats; the first is that, when we left the Fort, we were expecting a brief interaction where we set up the terms of the agreement and decided whether it was acceptable to both sides, with the deal primarily involving us lending them our might when need be. They feel that they generally are too safe for 'might' to be a good primary driver of a deal, and were in the middle of a festival that pushed our timeframe out dramatically. Secondly, if the village HAD wanted to use our might, Lara was a great choice as she has that aura of danger; unfortunately, in this instance, the same aura set the villagers on edge from the start. In future, I would recommend that, if Lara is involved in diplomatic missions, they be ones that might is required for.

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