Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon
I'd be tempted to roll for Self Control, and on a success she gets a roughly accurate estimate (based on how well she does on relevant "knowledge" rolls) of how likely the ritual is to succeed, how likely it is to suffer a terminal failure (that is, a failure that will make her unable to ever attempt again, say by cheerfully painting Indianola with her entrails), and how likely it is that opting to wait will prevent her from ever being able to attempt the ritual (say, due to being arrested, assassinated, or effectively barred from entering the US and any extradition country ever again). If she fails on the Self Control roll, she'll still get to make her knowledge rolls, but she will markedly overestimate the chance of success, underestimate the chance of a terminal failure, and overestimate the chance that waiting will prevent her from making another attempt.
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Her odds of success are roughly 0.05% and if she cancels, her odds of being linked to a criminal act by legal authorities are about 5%. However, the odds of someone with access to a wide range of information combined with a lack of Mundane Background and high Intelligence Analysis managing to suspect that one or more people with connections to her are involved in occult shenanigans are maybe 40%.
Sister Marķa can accurately estimate the odds of the first
if she can manage to look at the situation rationally and objectively. Lack of formal Criminology skill and Cultural Familiarity for the US makes her underestimate the second, down to about 1-2%.
However, her imperfect and erraneous information about the nature and capabilities of Kessler's people cause her to be more or less guessing about that, ranging from 'they could already know about me' down to 'there is absolutely no way'. She'll probably guess that there is a 20% chance that
someone will come to suspect her or someone she cares about and be able to do anything about it, increasing by about 5-10% per year she'd have to wait.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon
She could also save face (and justify things to herself) by stating that, while she was indeed correct that now is the absolute best time for the ritual, the fact they have no access to important aspects of it (Galveston Killing Fields, appropriate sacrifices, the Girl with the Kaleidoscope Eyes, etc) mean they will be forced to try at a less-optimal time. Going with the 100% chance she thought they had with everything in place, perhaps the second-best time (but with everything again in place) has a 90% chance. She wasn't wrong, but events beyond her control changed things enough that her initial assessment could not longer apply. It's like if someone asks you how much volume of water is in a glass, and then after you answer someone takes a gulp of it before it gets measured - your initial estimate may well be correct, but by the time you got a chance to test it some of the water was gone.
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Indeed she could.
The main weakness of that plan is the wild card of what the Girl with the Kaleidoscope Eyes would do if she were simply left behind. Would she tell somebody all her secrets, which would be quite a bit of cult secrets?