The next few hours are a blur as Ohanzee is lost in internal thoughts, barely registering the fading of the sunlight. It isn't until Chino breaks the silence to announce that he is turning off the headlamps that the dwarf returns to the world. Both Chino and Katsina had suggested the possibility of breaking the artifact into two. He had been thinking of it as a single item for so long he had forgotten that it was actually a mundane stand holding a magical item of immense power. The base would solve their money problems and then some. It could be melted down into parts that could not be traced back to the item, and would therefore be easy to offload, piecemeal and over time. The destruction of some 4th world mundane craftsmanship would be a tragedy but nothing compared to the loss of the magical portion. Jäger, or whoever that was, could take her million ¥ and shove it - the metals alone would net much more than that, and they would still have an artifact worth ten times her asking price at least. It was risky - Katsina had cautioned that it could result in the destruction of the obelisk, perhaps violently - and the loss of such a rare piece of history was a travesty, but it so neatly solved their problems and they could take extensive pictures and measurements so that perhaps the actual archaeological loss would be mitigated.
How to destroy it? A spirit? That would probably be the easiest route. A blunt instrument to be sure, but effective. Ohanzee didn't know how the nanites in their system worked - or how any nanites worked, for that matter - but he knew that some nanites could build and teardown entire buildings made of plascrete. Surely some precious metals on a much smaller scale would pose little problem. Could their nanites be tasked to disassemble the mundane portion with precision, eliminating or significantly reducing the risk of destruction? He shared his thoughts with Doc as the last few kilometers of dirt road - more like a trail - brought them to camp.
The others were waiting when they arrived, and the mood was somber. The failure of the negotiations had a morale sapping effect on the team, but they were problem solvers, and they wheels were already turning. Katsina announces dinner and the team tears into it. The repast is uplifting - for a group of fugitives living off meager provisions, they tended to eat like kings. Armies may march on a stomach, but good food lifts spirits. Ohanzee is busy reading the faces around the camp as they eat, trying to judge their thoughts, when Katsina breaks the proverbial silence - proverbial in the sense that the meal is messy, so in addition to the usual clink of silverware there is considerable slurping and finger licking, making the atmosphere decidedly noisy. But other than the occasional sounds of culinary contentment, there were no voices heard before Katsina speaks up.
She asks about next steps and briefly summarizes some of the options before asking about the negotiations.
"I didn't suspect she was a fake until Doc mentioned that she was likely a technomancer, though her behavior during the negotiations was..." he paused, looking for the word. Odd? Well, yes, but that was vague. Combatative? Sort of. "...Disingenuous." he finished, deciding that that was about as good as he was going to do trying to describe what he had felt during the negotiations. "I stuck to the initial offer because I wasn't going to budge until she countered with a legitimate offer - she was trying to get me to move my price down without giving up anything. If she had started with the ¥1 million, the negotiations might have proceeded better, but she continued to present offers that could not be taken seriously, as if she was trying to sabotage the proceedings. That made me suspicious that perhaps she was stalling, but I didn't suspect an imposter yet."
He hazards a breath and a bite of his pasta, hoping that no-one chooses to jump in before he can complete his account. Thankfully, they are all too busy eating or interested in his description to interrupt. "By the time the reasonable offer came, I had already threatened to leave if she didn't stop lowballing. Since the ¥1m offer was at least serious, I could have continued negotiating, but the comments - threats, really - that accompanied it cast a stain on the offer that I could not ignore. Such a tone does not precede productive negotiations - there was too much risk that any offer she made after that, and including that, she did not intend to keep."
He makes a point to lock eyes with each of the others in turn, making sure that they are focused on what he was saying as what came next was the best reason he could give for why the negotiations failed. "We are in a precarious situation. Trust is paramount - it is the reason that we chose her organization to begin with. We felt that they would be more trustworthy and less trigger happy than the others. She did not support that impression."
He went back to his meal, giving the others time to comment on what he had said, or at least process it, answering questions as they came up. When the discussion began to turn toward what to do next, he says his piece.
"I'm with Chino - I think that we should separate the base from the artifact, melt it down, and sell it piecemeal. It is untraceable, can be sold in manageable chunks so we don't have to deal with corporations - any pawn shop or fixer could manage - and it doesn't glow like the sun on the astral. It will give us way more than a million ¥ in operating funds that we can use to evade capture and investigate the nanites infecting us - or whatever we wish to do going forward. At that point, what we do with the artifact itself hardly matters. Bury it, throw it into Mount Doom, sell it on Jackpoint - heck, we could wait for the heat to die down and then try to sell it again if we really want to put this thing into the right hands. Or donate it like 'Jäger' suggested."
"Whatever we decide, she wasn't wrong about our circumstances. The weather won't be doing us any favors and we've already encountered some of the things that go bump in the night out here. And whether she was who she claimed to be or not, she has either notified the other potential bidders through channels that are almost certainly monitored if she is, or informed whatever group the imposter works for if she isn't, so it is safe to assume that a large audience is now gunning for obelisk - and us. I suggest we start by setting up Sam's boobytrap." He looks to Sam, briefly wondering if Doc gave him back the burner phone they had used, "If we decide to part the thing out, how much time would it take you to adjust your little insurance policy to fit the new form-factor?"
