Introduction

After Nathaniel saved Kōhaku from the danger of the Red-Gloved Man, Kōhaku was finally convinced of the boxer’s value to the team. Meanwhile, Minh and Lily’s contributions could not be ignored, as they also helped in making the team’s adventure in London a success. The Eye of Ravens being in Kōhaku’s possession was an undeniable sign of positive things to come. Perhaps the investigation into the Holy Ancestor would be more fruitful than expected. Kōhaku laid out a map of the world in front of his allies, and together they laid out a plan of what to do next…

Deck Updates

In the last scenario we got 5 XP, and we are going to go ahead and spend all of it for everyone. Now, I really, really wish I had 6 instead of 5 because that would allow me to do things like buy two copies of level 3 cards. This is going to be very slightly awkward, but I won’t bother saving here and I’ll spend freely. I am optimistic that this team will be earning plenty of XP in the long run, so it should all work out in the end!

First, Kōhaku does the following changes:

-1 Alyssa Graham, +1 Ikiaq, 2 XP to unlock Eldritch Ink (Willpower) on Living Ink

Originally, I really wanted Gabriel Carillo. There are multiple reasons for why Gabriel would be very good in this deck, but ultimately, I decided Ikiaq would be the way to go. Ikiaq helps me build up my Willpower, not just my Intellect. In addition, she’s slightly cheaper, which does matter, and she has better soak than Gabriel. But the most important point of all is that Ikiaq can prevent Nathaniel’s Unspeakable Oath from disrupting his XP gain or Kōhaku’s own Amnesia from wiping his hand. To me, preventing those worst case scenarios is definitely worth it. In the long run, Kōhaku will be buying Charisma so he can have some combination of Gabriel, Alyssa, and Ikiaq in play.

Meanwhile, Living Ink is just perfect for the Statball playstyle, and I plan to put a bunch of XP into this card. Hopefully it does not get hollowed out of existence but that’s the risk I’m willing to take. For now, it’ll increase my Willpower and Intellect. If I get Ikiaq, St. Hubert’s Key, and Living Ink in play all at the same time, I’ll have 7 Willpower and 7 Intellect – which promises to be very exciting!

Second, Nathaniel does the following changes:

One Boxing Gloves level 0 to level 3, -2 Monster Slayer, +2 Sweeping Kick

The upgrade to the Boxing Gloves is pretty much standard Nathaniel play. I always try to upgrade to level 3 of this card as soon as I reasonably can. I wanted to get Radiant Smite very badly, but I opted to get Sweeping Kick first. Sweeping Kick is better than Monster Slayer in essentially every way, the only downside being that it is not free to play. But the biggest reason here is Sweeping Kick gives me an opportunity to evade an enemy. This means Nathaniel has a way of exhausting an enemy which can then lead to him dealing with his RBW. And Sweeping Kick is an excellent Nathaniel card anyway, so this doesn’t totally warp his damage output. Hopefully, the Radiant Smites come soon though, as that card was the one I was most excited about!

Third, Minh does the following changes:

Both Mariner’s Compass level 0 to level 2, -1 Unexpected Courage, +1 Esoteric Method

I figured since Mariner’s Compass is one of the cards that Minh’s deck is named after, it’d be wise to upgrade it right away. That left me with one XP left, and I figured why not Esoteric Method? Minh can’t go wrong with a 4 Wild skill card, and the fact that it adds curses is actually a good thing since Kōhaku enjoys eating curses on his turns.

Finally, Lily does the following changes:

One copy of Enchanted Blade 0 to Enchanted Blade 3, one copy of Blessed Blade 0 to Blessed Blade 4

Lily’s Rabbit Hole shenanigans get to start now, and I prioritize upgrading her weapons. This is the case where I wished I had 6 XP the most because then I could just upgrade both Blessed Blades right now. But that is okay, I’ll take the weapon upgrades that I can have for now and hopefully complete upgrading the other copies in the near future.

Embarking

With all the upgrades done, it’s time to review our travel plans. The key thing to remember is that as part of the Blessings of Asia challenge, we are required to visit 7 out of the 10 Asian locations on the map. Beyond that, we can do whatever we want. This raises some important considerations because 7 locations is actually a lot of our travel time already spoken for. In addition, outside of Tunguska which we are forced to do, only 2 of those locations are scenarios. So, we have to travel beyond Asia if we want to trigger some scenarios — which we do, because we have a Rabbit Hole build in our party. More scenarios means more card upgrades! So how are we going to do this? There are a whole bunch of scenarios near London — we could line them up and do them all ending in Constantinople, which gives us a direct line towards Asia. I think that’s a valid plan. But I know that if we want to do Shades of Suffering, there’s a timer that we must wait out before we can even trigger it because we told the truth to Taylor early on. I don’t want to miss out on doing it because we didn’t start that chain off soon enough. So, I have settled on kind of a bizarre travel itinerary for the outset of this campaign. But I think it will work out.

First, we go to Stockholm. We note that the cell appreciated the architecture, and we are now at 3 time. One of the reasons I’m going here is because I know we are going to go to Bombay later, so picking up the 2 XP off of visiting both of those locations is easy enough to do.

Next, we go to Moscow, and this is where we are going to do kind of a wacky strategy. We are going to take the Expedited Ticket from Moscow, and we are going to go to Shanghai immediately. Considering the travel to Moscow, plus the use of our Expedited Ticket, we are now at Shanghai with 5 time marked.

Now in Shanghai, we record that “Flint is working solo”, and we mark the Psi symbol on the 11th time box on our campaign log. We now have to wait until Time #11 to be able to continue pursuing Flint’s mini-quest. However, it’s also worth noting that we have visited 1 out of the 7 Asian locations needed. Six to go!

Now, we will travel to San Francisco. We do not stop in Tokyo – I’ll explain why shortly. With two more spaces moved over, we are now in San Francisco on Time #7. In San Francisco, we pick up another Expedited Ticket. Also, Time #7 means that the Alpha time marker triggers, and we add one Cultist token to the chaos bag. Alas, there is nothing we can do about it, but having only one is not so bad.

Rewinding slightly, the reason we don’t stop in Tokyo is because all stopping there would do is add a weakness to everyone’s deck and an additional time on our log. This would only be worthwhile if we planned to stop in Lagos, which we do not plan to do. With everything else that needs to happen, I don’t see a trip to Lagos to drop off the Foundation intel happening. So even though Tokyo would be a location we could visit for the challenge, I’m just going to strategically skip over it.

Finally, we move up to Anchorage. We are now in Anchorage, ready to trigger the scenario On Thin Ice on Time #8. The plan here is that we will do On Thin Ice, do awesome (hopefully), and add 3 more time on the resolution. This would move us to Time #11, which triggers Psi, and then we use our Expedited Ticket from San Francisco to immediately go back to Hong Kong and continue pursuing that chain of events.

This means the next two scenarios will be On Thin Ice in Anchorage and Shades of Suffering in Kuala Lumpur.

Conclusion

Well, this is classic The Scarlet Keys gameplay, as we got a whole article written and we did zero scenarios! But, I will say, I did have a lot of fun going through all the route options before settling on one that took me all the way to Anchorage as my second scenario of the campaign. I was definitely not anticipating this being the route I settled on, but after reviewing everything, this seemed like the best way. And furthermore, if Anchorage goes well, the Key you get there is incredible! I’m really looking forward to giving On Thin Ice a go, and I’ll see you all next time.