dendroculi | [homophonic] catchall for shu

Yes, but I don't mind that. It puts us in a stronger position if that ability is needed by the other teams for any other reason - they'll have no choice but to negotiate with us.

And I'm not worried about negotiating with other people if they have abilities we need. I'm sure I'll be able to make a deal with them.

[who can refuse a small child, after all? :) ]

Hoarding resources. That’s a pretty good plan. We can make fire, find water, generate a spark and find a way to manipulate wind ourselves if we need to. Light and darkness would be a bit trickier.

[ nahida: well it won’t hurt for negotiations!
shu: hoard the resources, got it. ]

Healing’s probably going to get the most use those. Especially if things are going to turn violent.

Yes.

[she crosses her arms.]

There is a wide spread of healers, so it's possible that the other teams may not need us to help with that. However, there's an equally likely chance that multiple healers may end up on the same team, like Kaveh and I did. And in that case, there would be teams that simply woudn't have a healer at all. If we move quickly to offer our help them, they'll also be more inclined to help us out if we need their skills in the future.

So, you want to play to their sense of fairness. Make them feel like they owe you a favour and cash that in when you need it.

[ nothing accusatory here. ]

Yes.

[matter-of-fact.]

Of course, I do genuinely want to help them. But if they feel like they owe us a favor because of our help, I won't stop them from paying us back.

[ wipes a tear from my eye. good girl. ]

The dislike of owing someone is usually more powerful than the willingness to return a favour. The first one’s more likely to make your skin crawl.

I haven't felt that way myself, but... I can believe that. I'm closely acquainted with someone who seems to feel that way quite often.

[hehe. hat guy.]

It doesn’t feel great, knowing you owe someone and not knowing when they’re going to demand collection.

[ don sombrero… he gets you. ]

I guess it wouldn't...

Depends on who you owe the favour to as well.

[ owing a favour to, say, kaveh could be lethal because it’d be like kicking a puppy not paying him back. but also you might not care about puppies, so… ]