princess maker - Heart Soldier Senshi

[idolpro]

[ When you insert the key and open the door, you'll find yourself in a humble cottage, in what seems to be the living room specifically. There are several doors, but a specific one catches your eye: simple in its decoration, the door has a cute little wooden plaque with flowers carved into it. Though the door is closed, you can see through it—as if it's somewhat transparent.

A wooden cradle sits in the room beyond, which is otherwise plain. Inside, a baby sleeps peacefully. When she stirs, calling for her parent, you are there to cradle her back to sleep. ]

-

[ Slowly, the scene changes, fading in and out with various silent scenes—the baby coos pleasantly, giggling jovially when you (presumably) make faces at her; she tries to pick herself up and falls over, but she does not cry; a disagreement between you and her lead to a thoughtful discussion; the young girl carries a large laundry basket to do chores; she buys a pet bird, looking so proud for having earned the money all by herself; then the wall becomes opaque. ]

[ In the middle of the open doorway, a young girl the age of 10 stands, smiling at you. A bird with beautiful plumage rests on her shoulder.

This is your daughter. You tried your best to rear her, and she's been good to you. You know she is capable of anything if she puts her mind to it - even becoming a princess. But you also know it's not easy to become a princess - she'll have to work hard, and she's capable of it but you'll have to guide her hand, most certainly. Better she become a princess than go off to war, though; you could not stand to see your baby girl die on the battlefield. Whether she actually becomes a princess or not . . . well, that's up to fate, isn't it? All you can do is try your best. ]

Comments

ROUND 3 MORAL DILEMMA

[idolpro]

7

[idolpro]

Alright now what's the plan. What do we do now.

DECISION

[idolpro]

Re: DECISION

[dragonheartedgirl]

Joy?

[ coming to sit beside her wherever she is. ]

We want to talk with you about what we want to do--and what you want to do, even more importantly.

Re: DECISION

[spiteforthecamera]

Your daughter waves from where she is, playing with your host's cat.

"What is it?"

Re: DECISION

[dragonheartedgirl]

[ do not be distracted by the cute catte, i am not and don't remember algira ]

Well, your mommy and daddies are all trying to decide what do next. And we have some ideas. But before we can do that... we need to know. Do you still want to marry the prince and become a princess?

Re: DECISION

[spiteforthecamera]

Hm. This is . . . . a tough thing to decide.

". . . Well. . . I don't really know. If he's this kind of person, who doesn't want to help people . . . then I don't know if I want to marry him, you know?"

She frowns, thinking.

"But I want to have power. I want to be able to help everyone. If marrying him is what it takes, then I'll do it."

Re: DECISION

[dragonheartedgirl]

Well, we don't really know what the Prince wants. He's young, and we haven't been able to speak with him. As the Prince... it's probable he's never been outside the castle town his whole life. Someone like you, who's seen the suffering his people are living through and has a lot of love in her heart and good sense, would be able to teach him a lot--about his people, and the kind of ruler that would benefit everyone. I think--we all do, I think--that if you marry him, and he turns out to be a person with an open heart, you could do a lot of good in that position. For him, and for everyone else too.

So, if you want to meet him, and become the Princess--then we're going to do everything in our power to help you do that. But if you end up not wanting to marry him in the end--we'll support that, too.

[ reaching out to brush her bangs out of her face. ]

Because you're our daughter, and we love you.

Re: DECISION

[crossmyheartandhope]

[ We are attempting to pose as prospective buyers for Plague Bearer pets, with the goal of finding and TAKING OUT the smuggling ring in a very public way that will shine a spotlight on the problem. We want to be quiet and stealthy going in, but loud and showy going out, letting the people of the country who didn't know how cruel everyone was to Plague Bearers know in no uncertain terms what's been going on. Also, we would like to do the medieval fantasy equivalent of doxxing any nobles we find involved.

We're also relying on our connections in the military to find out what they can about the council. How are they elected? Are any of them pro Plague Bearers? Are any of them rumored to be involved in the trafficking schemes? Is there any way to replace them with council members who might be more supportive of the King's efforts? ]

Re: DECISION

[spiteforthecamera]

You pose as prospective Plague Bearer buyers - well, you have to pretend to be nobles, so that's a little difficult. But this is an undercover mission that takes you . . .

All the way to the border of the oasis country, meaning you're going to be roughing it in the sands for a while. But you do manage to find, at least quite a few nobles who invest in this sort of hobby - and you doxx them. Which is to say you humiliate them publicly and terribly, and then they in turn either flee to the countryside or they try to take some form of vengeance.

You probably don't have to worry about that though.

Your connections find this: the Coucils are all the wealthiest families in the nation, those who would contribute the greatest to the monarchy. They're considered the most loyal, having been with the King for generations - they're all old blood. It's not possible to join the Council - not even if you tried.

You do discover that there are some connections with the human trafficking - nothing with the Council specifically, but something with the families of the Council. Still, can you even depose them? How would you do that?

More than that, the Summer Festival is right around the corner, and you spent all of your time terrorizing the nobles on your way to the border . . . At the very least though, by the end of it, you manage to stop this trafficking scheme - at the border are the military, after all, and you manage to catch the traffickers redhanded.

They are sent to the Capital to answer for their crimes. Summarily, they are beheaded.

DISCUSSION

[idolpro]

Re: DISCUSSION

[dragonheartedgirl]

[ Okay so that didn't work out at all. But at least we spent some good quality time with our daughter to make up for the horrible experience that three week period was.

Now it's back to business I guess. ]

It seems we're on our own if we want to catch the human traffickers and change the peoples' hearts.

[ S O B E I T ]

I have two separate thoughts for what we can do next, but I doubt that we can accomplish both at the same time.

Re: DISCUSSION

[crossmyheartandhope]

What're you thinking?

[dragonheartedgirl]

[ MY BAD, THERE ARE THREE OPTIONS. ]

My first thought is we can make a public campaign in the areas outside of the capital to try to change peoples' thoughts about Plague Bringers--similar to how we used good deeds and charity to improve Joy's image in town, we could try to win the hearts of the people by claiming to all be Plague Bearers, and working with Joy to do so.

Our second option is to go undercover and attempt to lure them out by posing as potential buyers--nobles from another city or another country, even--and seeking them in the cities beyond.

They're both risky options. For the first, there may be people who would like to hurt us, the way they'd like to hurt those Plague Bearers behind the wall--they might even try to turn us over to the authorities to ship us off to the border. With our abilities they'd only be able to torture us, not kill us--but that in itself would still be an unideal outcome. As for the second, well. That presents its own obvious danger and sliminess.

Our third option, and perhaps the most dangerous, is to join the military--all of us together--to try to raise an insurrection from within the ranks of the army. If we have the support of the military and the plague bearers alike, then even if the nobles didn't like it, we could do as we please. [ pause ] Undoubtedly, though, this option would require the most bloodshed.

[ she. she doesn't seem too bothered by that, though..... ]

[ferociousfuckingnerd]

[...Ohhhh boy.]

For option one, the problem with that is how very anti-plague the people of the capital can be. They're not above violence, we've already see that. We can do it, but we should be prepared for, er... getting stoned.

The third option, we probably couldn't bring Joy to the military. The consistent response we've got from the military is that our friends are willing to help us, but there's only so far they can go. We only have three weeks, we'd need a lot more time to convince everyone.

Option 2... I think we could pull that off.

[crossmyheartandhope]

...I think we ought to try the first one.

Even if we take out the slave trade, that's not gonna help the people living in the Capital, behind the barrier. If we even want a shot at everyone coming out of this better off, we need to try and get at the root of the problem.

And who knows? If we're showy enough, we're bound to get soe attention from the wrong kind of people, right? Maybe we'll lure them out just by doing our thing out in public.

Re: DISCUSSION

[ferociousfuckingnerd]

What are the plans? We gained a number of allies that were willing to help our cause when we were looking for you, we could still use their help if we need more manpower.

Re: DISCUSSION

[dragonheartedgirl]

[ okay lemme just link because it's a lot to retype ]

Re: DISCUSSION

[inspiteful]

Okay, so uh.

I kinda want to take stock of what we know about the political situation here, before we make any decisions. 'Cause whatever we do next may either end up ineffectual or cause complete upheaval.

Re: DISCUSSION

[ferociousfuckingnerd]

The king is controlled by the council, we know. He wants to do more to fight the discrimination that's rampant in the people, but he won't fight against the council that pushes for tradition. We need to do something about them.

Re: DISCUSSION

[dragonheartedgirl]

[ we could MURDER THEM!!!!!!!!!

no that's like 80% a joke ]

I wonder how much overlap there is between the council people an those who deal in the trafficking of humans. We're running out of time, though--if we intend to investigate the Council, we'll need to do that either before or at the same time that we do whatever else we're doing.

Re: DISCUSSION

[ferociousfuckingnerd]

We could use our connections. We put together a small army of people that were willing to help us find you, they wanted to fight back. We could ask them to help us investigate the council too.

Re: DISCUSSION

[inspiteful]

The other thing I'm worried about is it doesn't seem like the King has political allies who support his views, or at least ones who are in a position of influence. Even if we get rid of them, if they're replaced with people who are also prejudiced nothing will change.

Also, apparently the legitimacy of his rule and previous monarchs is...built on this discrimination. Like, from what we've heard. The barrier seems to be him trying to push some sort of reform while still toeing tradition, but I doubt trying to protect them in this way is viable in the long term.

Re: DISCUSSION

[ferociousfuckingnerd]

...No, it definitely won't last. What do you think we can do about getting him more political allies? What nobility could we influence?

Re: DISCUSSION

[crossmyheartandhope]

The king's doing his best, but his best isn't doing a whole lot.