Narrator: There is a strategy meeting in progress aboard the Mercenary Warship Touch-And-Go.
Captain Tagon: I like it, Elf, but your lightning-strike smash-and-grab fails on objective four.
Elf: And I'm arguing that objective four is stupid. We have to take the long view.
Captain Tagon: Elf, did you just call your commanding officer stupid?
Elf: Only if he can't wrap his head around the point of diminishing returns in the risk-reward analysis.
Captain Tagon: I know what all those words mean, but in a line they just make me angry.
Elf: Cool! That business course I crammed actually works!
Ennesby: Captain, as your adjutant I believe that a measure of responsibility for facilitating communication here should fall to me.
Elf: It means he's offering to translate.
Captain Tagon: I knew that.
Ennesby: Reviewing our objectives: One, we steal the body and survive. Two, we deliver it to Breya and get paid. Three, we deliver it to Petey and get paid. Four, we get paid for securing the body we actually stole.

Elf is trying to say that no matter how we succeed in accomplishing objectives one through three, Prelate Apnon Souf is unlikely to pay us for security.

Thus, a smash-and-grab early in the game offers less risk for the probable reward than any of the prolonged campaigns of subterfuge.
Elf: Exactly.
Captain Tagon: But. . . I want to get paid three times.
Elf: Have you heard the one about the dog and his reflected bone in the river?
Captain Tagon: I hate that story. The river is too sneaky.