Edmango 2021/03/30(Tue)01:05 No. 993797 ID: afe7de
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The pasta Willamina’s made you was good. Damn good. The garlic bread was even better, it felt like you went into heaven as it slowly melted down your throat. You both kind of just stared at eachother during the whole meal, chuckling and gorging yourself. You shared a little bit about eachother too.

You learned that Willamina actually is an amateur chef, she learned how to cook from Nicky. She’s just lazy and doesen’t like to cook unless she’s got company over. And you shared how you got into a fight with Cannie earlier and won. Willamina was very impressed by that considering she’s sparred with Cannie a few times over the years and has never won once.

Edmango 2021/03/30(Tue)01:07 No. 993799 ID: afe7de
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This was when you broke out the Wine bottle and poured some for the two of you.

Willamina: Ahhh, WINE always tastes good paired with PASTA.

You: Damn straight, I haven’t had Italian food this good since I was a kid.

Do you:

A. Look around the room and talk about the stuff in her place.
B. Talk about your powers.
C. Talk about Isabella.
D. Other. (Describe what you say)

>>993799
A or C, lets discuss the powers after at least a little bit of revelry.

Isabella might be a sore subject to bring up. It's date time! it should be all about you, and Willamina. Lets avoid C for now.

I'm good with either A, or B

A if we want to find a good place to lead into B by looking around the room, like the pictures she has hanging on the wire, or the picture on the wall (might be her family). We might be able to talk about Cat and Willamina's past first before leading into talking about our powers, just to build a little bit more connection between the two characters first.

B if we want to get our secret off our chest asap. But I think if we go with B now, we should ask her about the Libarby book you let her read as a good place to lead into talking about your powers.

I'm leaning towards A more

A and then after, B

Ask if you can look over at the pictures. If that is her family photo on the wall, maybe you can show her your family photo that you keep in your wallet afterwards.

A
D) Tell her that you have received a Skill Book, and you may have access to new skill books and powers very soon.

Use A to segue into B.
It's also a good excuse to walk around and check for spying bugs.

We can trust Willamina, but our secrets are heavy and dangerous. It's like we live in another world from her. It's frankly amazing were taking it all so we'll.

Before we just blab on about ourselves she deserves to know the gravity of the situation.

Also ping roach about his location.

Do A, but let it segue into B. Once you've gotten to know her a little bit more, just stop prevaricating and get started. Open up by mentioning that you've, uh, kept something from her. To be fair, you've also kept it from pretty much everyone, and for good reason.

First things first: you Awakened less than a week ago.

You got something significant, too. You moved to Lyst so you could get a handle on it in private, but the nature of the power means you need certain people to use it on - people to trust. And, well, for other reasons you'll get into, you think you need to start using your power sooner rather than later, as there's an opportunity cost if you just sit on it like a dummy.

If she's willing to hear you out and promise to keep the secret, you'll let her in on the details. Like, as the first one to get to know all of this stuff - at least intentionally! Miss Iraphena clued in that you had a power and cornered you into revealing so - Cannie and Isabella were also there at the time, oops - but you mislead them as to the exact nature of what you can do.

She willing to bend an ear? Or if not, she can bail from this topic and just know for now that you've Awakened into some tricky Deal With It shit. You know she's got some past traumas and you'll totally respect it if she'd want to stay entirely outta Awakening shenanigans for the nonce. That goes even after the deets-reveal, though you hope she'd keep your secret regardless.

A (I'm curious about the polaroid streamer), to segue into B.

A and

D
Particularly talk about photography, you don't know much, but you enjoy hearing someone's whose into it talk about it.

A

A. Summon more of the room into being with your beholding gaze!

Edmango 2021/03/31(Wed)01:09 No. 993979 ID: afe7de
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> Look around the room and talk about the stuff in her place.
You decide to look around the room a bit while chatting with Willamina about various topics. The first thing to draw your eyes are the pictures hanging from a wire running along the entire room. There’s a LOT of them. You turn around and look at the ones closest to you and see some photos of Cannie sitting on a log, Cannie sleeping near that tree from the park, and a nice selfie of her outside some sort of gathering. There are also various photos of different places in town, some photos of different citizens. And one photo of Bobby Slurps passed out on the sidewalk covered in like 3 different SLUSHEES .

You: Uhm… I like these photos you’ve taken. And it looks like you and Cannie get along pretty well.

Willamina: Yeah, we’re really CLOSE, have been since we were kids really. If you can get past her thick-HEADED-ness over certain things she’s actually pretty cool.

You: You mean like her desire to fight people all the time?

Willamina: That’s one thing yeah. Plus she’s FAMILY, I wanna make sure I have photos of her in case something BAD happens again.

Edmango 2021/03/31(Wed)01:09 No. 993980 ID: afe7de
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You point to the photo directly behind Willamina

You: Speaking of family, is that them over there?

Willamina: Yeah, it’s FUNNY, we ordered that painting a few months before the fire but there was a delay and it only ACTUALLY got here like 2 months after the fire. So it’s actually one of the ONLY remaining pictures I have of them.

You pull your family photo out of your wallet and hand it over to Willamina.

You: This is the only photo I have left of my family too. Everything else was destroyed, if I didn't always keep it in my wallet I wouldn’t even have this left.

Willamina: It’s AMAZING how one thing can happen and just flip your life UPSIDE down.

The two of you continue talking about the various photos in the room and Will’s love of photography. It’s nice to hear her enthusiasm about the different photos. Maybe you can take some more time looking through the rest of them later. By the time this conversation has started dying down you’ve run out of wine. You’re feeling a little BUZZED, it makes you feel a little nicer and relaxed.

Edmango 2021/03/31(Wed)01:10 No. 993981 ID: afe7de
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Willamina: Aw DAMN, hold on I have more in the fridge.

Cat: Oh, I’ll get it. Wanted to use the Bathroom anyway.

You head up to the restroom and do your business, washing your hands and heading to the fridge. After closing the fridge you notice another photo, this one is a selfie of Willamina and someone you don’t recognize. There’s a big old lipstick smooch on it though and that gets your attention. You head back to the table and pour some for the both of you.

Cat: Here it is, whose that on the fridge?

Willamina: That’s ZARAH! We met like a little less than a month ago at the Romance FESTIVAL. She’s blind but we hit it off pretty much INSTANTLY. She’s got cool scars like me too.

Cat: She looks kinda badass.

Willamina: I’ll INTRODUCE you to her the next time she comes to down. She’s got like dark mutilation superpowers, so maybe you can talk shop.

Edmango 2021/03/31(Wed)01:10 No. 993982 ID: afe7de
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You took a look around the place while you were up and didn’t really notice anything out of the ordinary when you were examining things. Even the picture frame which you thought was dubious turned out to just be a picture frame. Willamina’s house is nice. It’s full of memories, and gives you a little bit of a sad feeling that she’s also lost so much. But you also feel a sense of camaraderie from it too.

Willamina: You know, Me, Cannie, Isabella, and Max used to talk about one day Awakening and becoming heroes and conquering dungeons. But only Max ever Awakened.

Willamina: I forgot about it until I read that book you lent me this morning.

This is it, it’s time for the BIG DECISION Do you tell her? If so, how do you do it?

>>993982
Tell her. Tell her Iraphena extorted the fact that you have a power out of you, but she only knows that you can sense the powers of others. You can do more. Tell Willamina if she wants to awaken, you can awaken her.

Oh also fill her in on the fact the world is ending, Isabella has insane fire powers, Iraphena considered having you killed, and someone in the woods has been watching you at night. Probably do that after you awaken her though, so you don't sound like you've gone insane.

>>993982
yes, and I suggest the sledgehammer approach. For the funnies, you see.

"So, good segue point actually. See, I can _awaken_ people. Was kinda just waiting to get a good read on you before I told you though, since it's uh... kind of one of those "get abducted by the government" superpowers. So uh, please keep it on the down low."

"Also, yes, that's an offer. Let's talk shop."

Welp, you are being observed by the local wildlife again. Maybe keep it down till we figure out what that is about? Be nice if they are just friends of that badger, but we do also know about one animal-based information network.

Hmm. Stray cat and a roach watching through the window?
Close those curtains. Close ALL the curtains.

Willamina, I trust you, so I'm about to share a huge secret with you. It'll get out eventually, but if it happens too quickly it'll put me and even the town at large in danger. Once you're confident the place is secure lower your voice to a whisper and get close. I can awaken- and strengthen superpowers. What kind of future do you want to live? I'll Make it possible.

>>993986
I think that is actually roach and mint out the window. Well, they can't hear you from outside. Best to close the curtains for a little privacy anyway,

Since this is a big moment, ask if you and she can sit down for a moment somewhere after closing the curtains. On the topic of awakening, there's a very heavy weight that has been burdening you since before you arrived at Lyst that you wanted to get off your chest to someone you fully trust and talk to about and help ease your burden.

Then pretty much tell her that you awoke less than a week ago before coming here, and it is a power that if people knew about, especially government officials, they would try to keep you for themselves,

your power is that you can awaken others, and upgrade their existing powers. It's something you feel you can greatly help people with, but also something that people can take advantage over you with, and that thought scares you deeply, especially the stress you have been feeling from certain people in town with their suspicions of your power over you. You wanted to tell Willamina about it before your secret is found out through more sinister means.

Then apologize for not telling her sooner.

>Oh also fill her in on the fact the world is ending, Isabella has insane fire powers, Iraphena considered having you killed, and someone in the woods has been watching you at night. Probably do that after you awaken her though, so you don't sound like you've gone insane.

(I wouldn't tell her about the apocalypse, or Isabella's fire powers, and murder attempts, at least not tonight, Isabella did put her trust not to tell anyone after all, and she could potentially tell our secret to others if we do that. I feel this is too much to unload in one night. Telling her about our power is a huge enough bombshell as it is)

If Willamina shows any worries about you... give her headpats to ease those worries like Cannie told you.

Hold on, let’s deal with our watcher before we talk shop. For all we know, that could be overmind watching through the window. Just shoo them off or something and close the blinds.

Close curtains, take the conversation to another room, discuss your powers and ask if she wants to be awakened.

>>993982
>Roach (?) and cat silhouette in the background
...Did roach come by Mint? Eh, if it's them it's them. They're probably waiting on your date to finish.

>Only Max ever got powers, segue
Anyway, let's go for it. It's a poor opening considering her trauma, but at least it's been years and she's the one who brought the topic up.

>Tell her?
Yes. Take a deep breath, close your eyes and say there's something you haven't been entirely forthright about. And that you apologize for the absolute head-whammy you're about to inflict on her - you have a hard time wanting to spoil this rather nice date with the conversation - but... well, you've got a lot on your chest and she's been nice enough to warrant trust.

>How much?
Share the fact you Awakened recently. The doozy that is the nature of your power (can give 1 power of variable strength and influence its exact nature | can upgrade others' powers, and thus sense if others have powers | which is limited to only so many / so strong a day), explaining why you'd want that secret kept.

Share the fact Miss Iraphena bullied you into revealing you were Awakened, but you somehow managed to mislead her (and Cannie and Isabella who were there) as to the exact nature of it - they think it's a detection-based power. That you got Favors and Questions in exchange for letting that flawed knowledge go to someone else - probably some bigwig in Nunitus - a thing you'd hoped to avoid, really, by coming to a small town like Lyst. You just wanted to explore the nature and limits of your Arcane Catalyst in relative peace without becoming, like, something for nations and guilds to fight over.

So... well, straight talk, if she wants to cut ties from here on to stay the hell outta alla this business, that's an option on her end. But you can offer her something she's wanted, and far more control and input over what it could be than pretty much anyone's had. At least to your knowledge.

Honestly, you also planned to move more slowly - Lyst seems like a nice town to live in, and you wanted to empower people you got to know well and could hopefully trust - but then something cropped up and it turns out not making good use of your power could incur... an opportunity cost, you might say?

Go on to talk about the 27th demon auction dream, showcase the coiling ring as one of the things you bid on, mention the fucked-upness of, well, owning a slave now apparently??? Seriously. Share the fact these demons are gonna have a throwdown over who's to be the next demon king eventually - soon-ish - is the curveball that more than anything has you spilling your gut to someone you think you can trust. Mention the Achievement aspect of the System, how you got points to UPGRADE your already broken power.

>Don't tell
Do not (yet) mention anything involving your investigations into the mansion fire.
Do not (yet) mention Miss Iraphena was at the auction.
Do not (yet) reveal what you know about Isabella's powers.
Do not (yet) reveal anything about Roach (or Mint's secret ability to turn into a Cat).

Some of that is meddling with privacy, some of it is knowledge that might become a danger to her (and you) if shared and the last is aces up your sleeve.

>>993993
Mainly this, though the demon auction might be a bit much for Willamina to take in. I'd say demon auction can probably be a discussion for another day

>>993993
Ping roach. See if it is.

>>993982
Oh hey is that Mint out there with Roach? Maybe you can invite them inside.

Tell Willamina you haven't been completely honest with her, but you trust her enough to tell her your secret. You said you didn't have a power, but you do. You have two of them. The power to Upgrade powers, which also lets you see someone's powers without upgrading anything, and... the power to Awaken. But you don't get to pick what the target gets.
Now, before you Awaken her you need to get her to promise she won't immediately start throwing around whatever power she gets. She should keep it secret until it's needed, since... well, that seems to be the norm around here, and it'll look suspicious if she suddenly shows off her powers after you arrived in town. You also want her help, because you have good reason to believe Nunitus is secretly an evil organization, and Iraphena's already onto you. Iraphena can't use her precognition on you which helps, and means she won't know Willamina has powers until she uses them since that was a direct action on your part, but Iraphena's boss will send supers to capture you if things go bad.

Yeah, if that's not Roach, you'll want to close the curtains before having this conversation.

But you will have this conversation, yeah. You need at least one confidant that you're not terrified of and lying to, at any rate.

I dont think roach can be contacted if he is that far away, and through the window.

Lets ask to move to another room as theres something you wanna tell her.

Tell her about your day.

Explain first and foremost that you've been lying to everyone because you feel like a bloated golden goose stuffed with eggs up to your chest. You suspect that the Incident ensured you'd be chosen, but it took eight years for the full clusterfrack to bloom.

When she asks what you're talking about, show her your Lightning skill book, then talk about the Demon King and his half-assed revelations. Explain that you received the right to acquire multiple high-tier dungeon items, powers included. You're allowed to go back to the Dream Auction three times and then -

The reason why metahumans got powers is so they'd be interesting in the metapocalypse.

Lastly, you found a heap of loose evidence pointing at Isabella, but you also found loose evidence that suggests she wasn't fully in control of her actions. But you need to know here and now if you can trust Willamina.

The book is a gift, but it isn't the only skill book you can acquire. If Willamina wants to confront Isabella now, you'll support her. But you'll walk away for good if she attacks first.

>>993993
Mostly for this. Just changes to general tone and one yes/no on what to discuss.

Yes on awakened recently, were not honest on meeting because it’s new to you even. Yes on: General who knows you have a power in its not-complete capacity. No on discussing the demon auction for now in addition to the other no’s here except for Roach.

I think it should be added that you have tested it, and indeed made a new roach friend which is how you discovered your powers. Definitely focus on the she can opt-out, but that honestly, you have been waiting since you had this power emerge to try it on someone. However, you are extremely aware of the risk of awakening someone who might do something bad with it and have been paranoid. You know that it's something she’s wanted, you are convinced she is a good person, and you would like to help her realize one of her possible dreams if she’s still interested. If not, then just ask she doesn’t tell anyone, make a cheesy overdramatic bow, and promise you’ll continue excellent deliveries.

Tell her about your power, but see how she handles it before you drop any other bombshells (the number of which has been increasing at an alarming rate). We don't want to overwhelm her all at once.

Edmango 2021/04/01(Thu)00:59 No. 994109 ID: afe7de
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> Close the curtains
> Offer to move to another room
You turn around just in time to see a cat and a small bundle of bugs walking away into a nearby alley. Huh, weird. You close the curtains just to be safe. Then you turn around and point to the couch, you considered moving to another room, but the couch is probably a better place. The two of you head there and sit on the couch, you get kind of close to each other and Willamina pokes a button next to her causing some mood lighting and lo-fi hip hop starts playing.

Willamina: You look like you have SOMETHING on your mind… Whats up?

> Tell her
You: So uh, about that book. I actually got it because I was researching how traditional Awakenings happen. To be blunt this might get a little heavy… But I wanted to talk to someone I could trust and well. I sense a decent bond between us because we’ve both gone through some pretty rough shit.

Willamina: Go ahead, no judgment. I’ll LISTEN.

You give a weak smile to that and for a moment are really grateful for her response.

You: So I Awakened the night before I came to town. And well, Miss Iraphena knew that I did and coerced me into revealing what I can do. I didn’t lie, but I omitted what I could fully do because I wasn’t really fond of how aggressive she and Isabella were being. And the reason she knew that I was one is that I’m a blind spot in her Powers. She’s one too, with what seems to be a pretty powerful precognition ability.

Willamina takes a sip from her wine glass and continues looking at you, making a rotating gesture with her free hand.

Willamina: Go ON, So far this doesent SEEM that heavy, JUST really shitty and manipulative.

You: Well, here’s the heavy part. My Power is that I can Awaken people and upgrade their Awakened powers.

Edmango 2021/04/01(Thu)01:00 No. 994110 ID: afe7de
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You see Willamina’s pupils dilate a bit as she tries to remain calm, she takes another steadying sip of wine.

Willamina: BULLSHIT. There’s no way that’s a REAL thing. Do you know how many people would KILL or worse to get a hold of a power or even that power?!?

You: That’s why I left the big city before anyone had a chance to try to capture me and make me their power slave. It’s limited in scope of how much I can do in a specific day, but refreshes at midnight. And, well, I know this is unbelievable, so here, watch this.

You start pulling out random objects from your ring, eventually settling on the Lightning God technique book. You can tell Willamina is interested because she stops drinking and is leaning more towards you in awe.

You: Because of this, something happened and I was able to get a hold of some artifacts, this. Is a skill book, and I know what power will come out of it too.

Willamina grips a hold of your arm roughly and you drop the wine glass you were just holding, but she doesn’t seem to care.

Willamina: You better NOT be fucking with me right now. Did you come to me, KNOWING that the ONE condition to getting my inheritance back is for me to be an AWAKENED, the power doesn’t matter, but they took EVERYTHING. Don’t lie to me Cat.

Edmango 2021/04/01(Thu)01:00 No. 994111 ID: afe7de
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Tears start falling from her cheeks as she gets close to you, she’s upset and angry, but the glint in her eyes shows that there’s some hope too.

Willamina: I KNOW you’ve been snooping around in my business, about the FIRE, I’m not an IDIOT.

You: I uh… No, I didn’t know that. But I… I have been snooping. It’s just… something’s not right about the whole situation. And I just… I wanted to know if you’d be trustworthy enough for me to share this with.

You’re on the verge of tears too, and they start coming, you’re both shaking.

You: I… Ever since the INCIDENT, the dungeon break, I lost everything, friends, family, connections. Do you know how hard it is to make a genuine connection with anyone in the big city? They’re all Ice cold, standoffish, and elitist. I made ONE or TWO good friends, but work and life separated me from them. They only care about what you can do for them. I… I was sick of it and just wanted to move away. And then I was told that you weren’t good people but then I meet you and you’re actually pretty fucking cool and we’ve both lost so much and actually get along and can share these things.

Willamina embraces you as the both of you weep, you return the embrace, sobbing and coughing. She’s warm and smells lightly of a fruity perfume, PINK flavor you think? After ten minutes or so the sobbing and shaking subsides and you feel a little better, like a lot of the weight and stress you’ve been carrying around the last few days has left your shoulders. Willamina grabs a box of tissues and hands you some, the both of you blow your noses and clear the snot.

You: I… If this is too much we can stop. This never happened and I just go back to being a courier.

You start to move to get up but Willamina puts a hand on your leg to stop you.

Willamina: I want to AWAKEN. If you do this for me I will FOREVER be in your debt. We can use the inheritance to help PROTECT ourselves. Though uh, having some actual muscle like CANNIE would be a good idea, I… sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Edmango 2021/04/01(Thu)01:02 No. 994115 ID: afe7de
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She takes a deep breath, gets up and bows at the waist to you.

Willamina: PLEASE Awaken me.

Do you Awaken her? If you do, what Power does she awaken to? OR Do you use the Skill book?
You have 6 ENERGY to spend, you can also suggest more than one power, the cost will be determined by the complexity and strength of the power. If a power is too strong but is very popular then restrictions will be placed on it to reduce the cost. In short, Have fun and give her a power you think is neat!

Willamina and Cat are pretty similar to each other in many ways. Maybe Willamina’s power can be something similar to Cat’s power as well:

Enigmatic Inhibitor


-Can spend energy to erase an AWAKENED Target’s power permanently.
-can spend energy to decrease a power’s level by 1 to a minimum of 1
-cannot be used on yourself
-targets effected by Enigmatic Inhibitor can still be awakened on their own with either a new power, or their old power through normal means, including through Arcane Catalyst.

This power I feel will be very useful when the Apocalypse happens. If the apocalypse is anything like THE INCIDENT, we may need Willamina for damage control when multiple people awaken and cause mayhem. Plus if we make a mistake and give someone a power that they abuse or we don’t like, Willamina can get rid of it, and Cat can give them a new power

Get Roach to scan her thoughts right now. If she even considers stabbing Isabella in the face, you need to discuss that now.

> I will be in your debt forever.
"Can I get that in writing?
Whatever happens... here. The skill book is yours. It's a gift. You don't owe me if you use this only."

>Power Type
Empath - Can absorb or project physical and mental sensations from others. At higher levels, allows the user to briefly copy the powers of others, Awakened or Non-Awakened, but with an inefficient energy cost.

Awaken her, give her the power to summon capybara minions

>>994115
"I'm going to be real, I came here expecting to awaken you, so that's what I'm going to do."

Power:
A Mile In My Shoes!

Willamina gains the ability to hijack the sense of other people, or project her senses into their minds. For example she can force someone to feel any physical sensations she is feeling (pain, temperature, etc.) or allow them to see through her eyes.

Similarly, by focusing on a person she can piggyback on their senses undetected, feeling what they feel and seeing through their eyes.

To use the ability she has to know the approximate position of the person she is targeting when she begins using the power but doesn't require line of sight.

Some reasonable drawbacks to balance this out if its too OP are:

Willamina loses access to her corresponding senses while piggybacking on someone else's senses or projecting her sensations onto someone else; so she can't see through her own eyes while seeing through someone else's.

Maybe stick like a 20 meter range limit on that too, or give the ability a limited runtime like 4 hours of shared/projected senses per day.

Use your power rather than the skill book.
But before that, ask her to promise you she won't rush anywhere headfirst, because that's a sure-fire way to get oneself killed.

Save the book, awaken normally.

True Flame Manipulation: Can Extinguish, enhance, sustain, and manipulate fire within a radius, innate immunity to fire and heat.

At higher levels, radius increases and more arcane uses become availiable, fire minions, plasma control, heat rays, ect..

I’m just gonna list a couple ideas I have because I can’t decide on just one. If one or more get picked then that’s pretty cool.

Power nullification: can prevent or cancel the use of powers within range.
Bastion: a protective aura around the user that provides damage resistance and a weak soothing effect to any in range while active.
Blizzard: combination of ice and wind powers since she mentioned wanting either at the bar that one time.

May as well aim high.

Meta Icon: Can copy, store, and use others' powers. Maybe just one at a time to start.

>>994123
This one seems the most useful

Use the power, use all 6 points; we know enough now that Level 5 (even if 6 points is enough to boost it that far) is nowhere near the upper limits of this world.

Er, but do warn her that we (Cat) can't control what power she gets (even if we (the suggestors) can).

White Album: Can drop the temperature in a radius around her really far really fast, even freezing stuff solid after a few moments, and can form ice crystals on the surface of stuff to varying degrees (based on the humidity). (There's definitely a cold-resistance/-immunity "necessary secondary power," or else the aura simply doesn't touch her body.) Unknown whether 6 points is enough to include an "ice armor" sub-power (and we're almost certainly a ways off from getting the "Gently Weeps" frozen air crystal field add-on).

HOLD ON TO YOUR HORSES

As in, hold on and think things through. Nobody with a heart would've denied Willemina an Awakening after all of that, but you've still got all the recent complicating factors of your life to consider. So let's.

Point 1: DELAY THE AWAKENED REVEAL

Get Will's promise she won't showcase her new power to anyone, or call on her inheritance immediately (gosh, you really had no idea about that). It'll probably be a good idea for her to get a handle on her new power first anyway, plus Miss Iraphena will see changes coming and will likely be informed by Will's change in (future) fortunes once that is set in stone. This is to delay, deflect or at least mitigate suspicions that Cat caused her awakening.

Case in point, if Willemina shows up with a cool new power IMMEDIATELY after the two of you had a date that's SUPER suspicious instead of it just being VERY suspicious. You don't know how spy-ish Miss Iraphena's power is, but she'll probably catch on to Will's change in fortunes sooner rather than later.

In short, YOUR BENEFACTOR WANTS TO BE AN ANONYMOUS PRICK, DAME DINGUS - at least for now!

So no overt gratitude or protections. If she could build up a decent base of operations here in Lyst where you might feel safer exercising your power more openly that's a start - but you don't think someone new to the scene really COULD protect you if it got out exactly what kind of power you have. Keeping things secret for a while until you build up enough friends - and newly Awakened - to become more than just an inconvenience to grab feels like your best bet.

Point 1.1: Using the Skill book you have is a SUPER good way of deflecting from the above concerns - you can just say you bid on it and gave it to Will when Iraphena reacts. Whether it's a skillset Will would want is another matter, and it does have the downside of probably taking time to skill up. Which leads me on to...

Point 2: GIVE HER THE PICK, PRICK

By all means, come up with ideas for her, but she should have some influence on the final pick, no?

Point 2.1: Based on your intel, the SKILLBOOK will probably give her a stronger skill than anything you can grant or upgrade at the moment. The strongest skill you could grant would be like, yea in the region of a little more than half as strong. If she wants to become STRONG in one thing, the book can be hers (or does she think Cannie would love it rather - it's definitely a martial arts thing).

Point 3: THE DEMON INVASION & IRAPHENA'S CRYPTIC 'NOT THE DEMONS YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT'

Straight fightin', defense and utility powers may be VERY useful considering what's to come, but also meta-aware powers like power nullification, demon exorcism, power changing powers, UNIQUE STUFF THAT CAN GRANT US ACHIVEMENT POINTS, etc. This is where it would've been useful to reveal to her the full monty of your problems so a more informed decision about her choice of power could be made, but... ah well. One thing at a time.

If Will takes our advice, we should lean towards suggesting she take something that might be useful in the coming months and years.

Point 4: MORE SUGGESTIONS

Will-of-Wings:
A will to fly made manifest. Trainable - increases in strength of imagination and willpower can increase effect of power. May be able to grant flight to others - or force it on them (although this shall, obviously, be harder the harder something wants NOT to fly).

Method and comfort of flight is limited to user's imagination and the current effort of will tied into the power (i.e. can conjure wings, but also planes, helicopters, surfboards, just levitate, whatever comes to mind).

---

Will's Power:
A will to defend made manifest. Grants an aura of resistance to effects of magics and powers around user - aura can be adjusted in size (and thus strength). Super effective against mind-influencing powers! Exposure to a power over time can harden user's will against it.

If user has other Powers that can be affected by feats of will, this power passively increases them.

---

Catalytic Convergence:
A skill like few others. User can combine the effects of multiple nearby Power-users' powers to produce unique combo effects. This effect is easier to pull off if the power has been affected by an Arcane Catalyst (i.e. made or upgraded by Cat).

---

Lastly, note also the absolute whatchawhawhoWHAT of her being ABLE to get her family's fortunes back simply by Awakening - that sounds like something that comes with serious caveats! And attention! You should ask her for details on this. Sounds like her family's got some pretty deep roots in the Heroes' league and this could be their way of forcing recruitment on her should she actually be lucky enough to Awaken, which there is a certain? Which... eeh, if she wanna get tied up with 'em, please please keep you out of the details. You're not super fond of the way they do things - and neither, it sounds, should she be.

What was Max's power, by the way?

>>994141
Just a headsup: Cat definitely knows they can influence the nature of the power - they did so with Hazel the Badger, after all!

Also re: Will-of-Wings, I meant "grant temporary flight to others". They won't get their own flight power and are just borrowing an aspect of the W-o-W.

>>994115
so what, we're not going to give her something to let her cope with the pain of existing here?

like I'm all for a clever superpower, but uh, maybe lets tie that into her whole "long-suffering burn victim" issue at least a little bit, maybe some kind of healing factor or pain-o-mancy like that one guy suggested

>>994152
Well, yeah, but it's also a big decision and something tells me healing powers ain't the most... attractive option of all to her. Even if not being in pain would help her everyday life, she's A) somewhat used to it by now and B) has access to Gruk.

Whom we could empower, too. He already has relevant healing powers, occupies that niche in town and seems like a pretty good guy besides! We could alternatively give someone else a more specific healer-ish power that can help with, y'know, burn scars and nerve damage. Which might be needed. There was that Awakening book - it mentioned a body's self-image was tied to healing.

>Some awakenings have even been known to cure diseases and heal life-long scars, but if the scars have too much of a mental footprint in the person’s life, they may remain, stuff like lost eyes are less likely to come back as well.
So not all self-regenerative powers or quick-fix healing-power paths may actually help. Pain-o-mancy sounds like something that might do it, though... and also be somewhat cruel and/or terrifying to use on others in an offensive manner. Or, uh, be something that pulls on a body's pain to perform feats of magic.

... might want to specify how the power would work.

>>994152
Ed said in the dicksword that any power will remove her constant pain but not heal her scars.

Willamina has expressed interest in three types powers:

CRYOKINESIS for the purpose of FIGHTING FIRES - Definitely due to her trauma

WIND MANIPULATION for the purposes of FLIGHT - Probably just because it's cool

"SOMETHING THAT COULD NULLIFY THE PAIN" so TOUGHNESS or REGENERATION - Because pain

I am of the opinion that we should grant a WIND, COLD, FLIGHT, or any power that can be used to FIGHT FIRES to Willamina. We can then work to get GRUK in on this so we can UPGRADE his power to end Willamina's pain.


I see suggestions for EXTRASENSORY, POWER LEECH, and POWER DISRUPTIVE here. Those seem rather... Meta? It would make more sense to put those on an ANIMAL or SLAVE.

Whatever powers you give her, do so by giving her headpats, Cannie says Will really loves that... and it turns her on. It may lead into sex if we're lucky. This moment would be extra special if we awaken her during sex, and it felt like that was what she thought you were planning to do initially when she turned on the lofi and mood lighting

>>994115
Hell yes. Awaken her, don't use the book. That book is ridiculously powerful, so something we'd want to put on someone who literally cannot betray us (Mint) and it's not really of a type she expressed interest in anyway.

Hailstorm/blizzard.
Control and creation of wind and/or ice. Flight via wind power! Extinguish fire with ice! Use wind to launch hailstones at your enemies!

Alternatively, we could do something weird with the cold/wind concept:
Entropic Exchange
The ability to control the transfer of thermal energy from one place to another.
Can make things hot or cold at will, but something else has to get cold or hot at the same time. Much easier to equalize temperature between two objects, though-- this makes it good at extinguishing fires or melting ice. Also, can fairly easily prevent an object's temperature from changing, which means one could spend time to build up heat or cold in an object to be dumped later in a combat situation. Like charging batteries. Limitation: The power does not work very well when targeting people directly- much easier to target objects they're carrying/wearing. Though it's not too difficult to bring someone's temperature closer to "normal", or insulate them. Alternate/additional limitation: power manifests as two beams of energy, one from each hand.

or,
Cryokinesis
The ability to control, but not create, ice. Better get that freezer running.
Ice controlled in this manner can absorb far more heat before melting, and retains this quality for some time after the user stops manipulating it.

>>994191
We can do that, make sure she consents to it as we do it, take things slow and look for any signs that she may be comfortable, or uncomfortable with you two getting laid.

But yeah, headpats to awaken her even if it doesn't lead anywhere regardless.

>>994145
I don't think Willamina can agree to secrecy though, nor should we want her too, now.

She is heir to a fortune upon awakening, and will likely become our benefactor.

We can keep other people we awaken silent for a time, but not Willamina.

>>994273
Clarification: I did not mean secrecy for her - at least not in the long term! Just not to immediately march out there - right after the date - and say she got a power, and to come up with alternative circumstances under which she got them.

People CAN put two and two together, y'know, and we're already on Isabella and Iraphena's radar.

>>994276
She'll probably wait till tomorrow anyway. It's well into the evening.

Even is she did suddenly run into the street though, no one has been awakened by us before, nor is this a common power.

What I'm saying is one person awakening around us isn't a big deal, so long as it's not explicitly told to be us who did it.

A single instance does not a pattern make.

I agree that we should come up with a cover story together.

A twofold power: turn flesh to stone (and back), and stoneshaping. Stone won’t burn.

>>994276
actually that might be the exact BEST way for her to make the reveal, given how important that is to her

like, straight up, how ELSE do you respond to suddenly getting a superpower? It would make it easy to build a story for it too, like THE POWER OF LOVE or something goofy but emotional to that effect.

Plus, we're banking on people with _precognitive powers_ not having the wherewithal to tell when someone has a power. That's a bad bet.

The only reason we had not to awaken her was secrecy. Since we've shared our secret, of course we're going to awaken her. However, I was of the impression we didn't get to choose her powers?

>>994300
Cat doesn't get to choose exactly what power it is. Suggesters can decide on something that Cat doesn't really want or wasn't planning on.

Best argument for book: LIGHTNING GOD WILLAMINA! I mean, thats just really cool.

Unfortunately, what she wanted was ice, wind, or flying. I like ice the most, and so I propose ICE BARRIERS: The ability to conjure sheets of (mostly protective) ice on herself, the environment, or others [less temperature manipulation than sheer creation, but it is still ice]. Ice can be shaped to protect certain parts (e.g. arm bracer or a shield shape). Improvements over time can include distance to create, size, and density. Although not directly offensive (e.g. its not spikey) Other uses could include trapping people in ice, making barriers, or surrounding someone in ice to either protect them or keep them in a space.

You dont want Willamina to see you all that differently now that she knows about you.

Affirm this by playfully saying "You know, a simple 'HEY, give me a power, you PRICK!' would have sufficed', then awaken her by applying headpats.

I'm going to go with something a little wacky as a multi-part power that hopefully feels cohesive, references her history and plays into her look.

SCAR ISSUE: Willamina can absorb energy (e.g. fire, electricity, lasers, sunlight), storing it in something that resembles her scar tissue. She can manipulate this matter, moving it around her body, even making extra limbs and such if she builds up a lot. She can use the stored energy as fuel to giver herself a physical boost or shoot lasers.

As a side effect of the energy absorption, it can be used to put out fires!

>>994363
I mean the scar angle is not an angle I would be excited about, but I was thinking something like that. Absorb incoming energy, (heat, lasers, powers) store it in some sort of internal battery, release it in the same form. Sorta similar to >>994136 only less likely to be too powerful for us to pull off.

Failing that, I'd absolutely suggest giving her a second power of fire resistance along with whatever else she gets, and seeing if we can play the angle that she actually awakened years ago, but was too traumatized by the fire to actually prove she was awakened for the inheritance.

Edmango 2021/04/02(Fri)01:35 No. 994391 ID: afe7de
File 161735251983.png - (17.79KB , 500x500 , C2_011.png )

> Come up with a cover story
You think briefly about this but realize it would be pointless, heck it would probably be a bigger problem if you tried to help her come up with a reason she awakened. You remember a line from Awakenings and their impact on Metahumans

Awakenings are unpredictable, sometimes they can be induced by trauma, sometimes they’re complete lotteries, other times they are artificially induced using artifacts, but we believe them to be the next step in the evolution of metahumanity.

It’s probably best if she just says she just randomly Awakened or it happened in her sleep.

> Awaken Her
You don’t want Willamina to treat you all that differently now that she knows this. You give her a headpat as you respond:

You: You know, a simple “HEY, give me a power, you PRICK!” would have sufficed.

She looks up at you and smiles, you use your power. A blue glow begins to suffuse Willamina, radiating out from her head is a rather large halo. Her status window appears.

Name: Willamina Hadlee III
Age: 24
Powers:
ICE (1) - Upgrade? [2]
The user has some resistance towards the cold.
The user can freeze liquids including ambient moisture in the air and manipulate it to a minor extent.

STORM (2)- Upgrade? [2]
The user has some resistance to wind.
The user can generate winds of varying intensities and shapes from their body

You hear Willamina breathe heavily as you rub her scalp and the halo begins to dissipate.

You: Uh, feel anything different.

Willamina: I UH. Was that a vision? I swear that looked like my great grandma… Yeah. Um. Thanks, Great Awakener. GOD, did you pick that name? It’s awful.

You: I really didnt. I wish there was a way to get rid of that or maybe change what it told you.

Edmango 2021/04/02(Fri)01:35 No. 994392 ID: afe7de
File 161735252825.png - (8.86KB , 500x500 , C2_012.png )

Willamina: Wait a second.

Willamina gets up and starts moving around, she hops in place, twirls around, bends over, flexes her arms, massages her face and scars, and sits back down next to you.

Willamina: I… I can’t feel any PAIN. I… THERE’S NO MORE PAIN!!! Nothing HURTS Anymore!?!?!?!

Edmango 2021/04/02(Fri)01:35 No. 994393 ID: afe7de
File 161735253470.png - (7.86KB , 500x500 , C2_013.png )

She begins laughing and bouncing about in her seat and suddenly embraces you, giving you a huge smooch and shoving her tongue way into your unsuspecting mouth. She tastes of PINK flavor too. And her smell is very appealing at this moment. You’re flailing about in confusion a little bit before you put your arm around her and enjoy the kiss.

Edmango 2021/04/02(Fri)01:35 No. 994394 ID: afe7de
File 161735254852.png - (7.25KB , 500x500 , C2_014.png )

She pulls you close and scratches your head with one of her hands before releasing, a line of saliva trailing from her mouth to yours.

Willamina: You… You didn’t LIE. Thank you.

You hiccup from the surprise and give a small giggle.

You: Ha ha, um yeah. I uh, meant what I said.

Ask her for a demonstration of her powers. see if she can freeze her wine at all.

So, what’s the plan for tonight now?
Go out and show off your cool new powers to whoever’s at the bar right now? Maybe dress up like some kinda nondescript movie ice princess too?
Come on, how do you plan to celebrate?

>the ONE condition to getting my inheritance back is for me to be an AWAKENED, the power doesn’t matter, but they took EVERYTHING.
That smells like motive. Who is "they"?

...Can we just enjoy the moment with her for a bit? Kiss, hug, be pleasant.

>>994403
It was stated before by Aeglos >the entire inheritance to the Hadlee Clan was actually slated to go to the Heroes Guild upon death of their major members.

The guild is who Willamina was referring to.

>>994399
We could see about having makouts with Willamina, lightly pull her on us on the couch and see if she'll accept? This is a special occasion after all (If she does, we should remember to wear a condom if it escalates further)

Also tell her she should still visit Gruk despite being healed, he'd appreciate the company.

Before you forget...
If you have energy left expend it to upgrade her powers, it's late anyway.

Anyway, was that the only kiss you had or do you have a stash of them hidden somewhere?

>Pork Time?
Back away for now. You don't want her to offer sex for favors or as some form of gratitude unless you're absolutely sure she wants it. You've seen enough couples in the city break down because they over-depended on each other.
But I guess you're in a relationship now.

>Enhance Powers
Not yet. Give her time to accustom to her powers. Besides, if the auditor has a power analysis ability, they'll notice the suspiciously high levels.
However, Roach has had some time to practice. Give him a level or two, and give his other roach bodies some levels to see what happens.

>>994404
Yeah, this.

Yeah, I'm voting to back off on the sexy stuff; you're both too emotionally vulnerable for that right now. (Actually, does it count as "taking advantage" if it's going both ways?)

"I uh... do have some other stuff I'd like to talk about unless you think this is enough for tonight."

If she presses you: "So, you're not wrong about my investigating the estate fire, but you were mistaken about my goal in doing so. It was honestly just morbid curiosity - a local whodunnit plopped in my lap, so to speak.

"You know how most powers have 'necessary sub-powers' that aren't very apparent unless you stop to think about it? Like how most speedsters also have super resilience that allows them to withstand their own G-forces. Well... I have a necessary sub-power that tells me what powers I can upgrade or if they're eligible for an awakening by having no prior powers. I, uh... was using that to snoop out the park arsonist's identity."

"I can't stress enough that I only have a likely suspect for the estate fire, and I'm not comfortable telling you until I've dispelled all room for doubt. They have fire powers - ones that imply evil influence at that. After talking with someone close to them, I also know they have a plausible motive and that their alibi (at least as far as she tells it) sucks, though I'll need to try verifying it anyway. They referred this character witness to an organization associated with at least one of the kinds of eyes you drew for Aeglos Wood, the reporter, shortly after the incident. However, there are still a few details that need clearing up; what power their close relative might be hiding (since theirs is implied to be hereditary); your rescuer's strange desire for anonymity at the time, even though it wound up being an open secret; the fact that the supposed starting spots for the fires suggested a premeditated assault rather than an in-the-moment outcome to a botched confrontation; and finally, the question of whether you remember such a confrontation taking place if the suspect did this for the reasons I think they did."

>>994421
I think it might be fine with it, it felt like she was setting the mood up for it by turning on the mood lighting, and music when we asked to sit on the couch before we told her anyway, and I think she may be fine with us doing it considering how she was open to it in the romance fest.

But i agree on not upgrading for now

>>994394
Did you use all 6 energy on that? Doesn't seem like a great result... oh well, we can dump more energy into her tomorrow I guess. Or use it immediately if you held back for some reason.

Also maybe you should make out some more.

>It’s probably best if she just says she just randomly Awakened or it happened in her sleep.
Exactly the cover story I wanted, with a delay, making it not have happened after direct interaction with Cat. 's all.

>No pain
Wow, huh... how'd her pain completely disappear? Nothing in her powers states that's a passive ffect. Do Awakened in general have a higher tolerance? Or maybe there's an unknown passive to her power. Does the Demon Eye Amulet work on Awakened people and give more details than your upgrade interface?

>Great Awakener
Huh, so there IS a vision thing going on. Halo over the head, seeing her grandmother... weird, getting' 'holy' vibes here, but the demons who pulled you into their auction suggest this was their shindig. Maybe they weren't so alone about setting up alla this Awakening stuff...

Anyway, I GUESS this moment is too pure to ruin with further questions and whatnot. Ask her what she'd like to do now.

>Willamina: I… I can’t feel any PAIN. I… THERE’S NO MORE PAIN!!! Nothing HURTS Anymore!?!?!?!
Tell her she should somehow make sure she's still capable of feeling pain, at least in the un-scarred areas, because if not, she may be in for some nasty surprises. This is the kind of gotcha one would rather know of in advance.

Make out more, afterwards, ask to see a demonstration of her powers

>>994431

As far as asking about the fire goes, I wouldn't tell her our progress of what we uncovered like about finding a likely suspect, and what we uncovered from Aeglos, would spoil the moment right now. but we should try to fish for more information once we are done celebrating

I think though, if we want to get information on her past, the most important thing to do right now is apologize for looking into her past without her permission, and then ask for permission to continue looking into the estate fire before you continue the investigation! it was kind of shitty weve been nosey about her behind her back. just let her know you want to give her closure as what happened to her was unfair, and are beginning to connect some of the dots with what you found in your search but you still have ways to go and need more info.

Maybe from there she will be willing to give her testimony on what happened.

But before we ask of her past, lets just enjoy ourselves for this moment. She hasnt been this happy in a very long time after all.

>>994484
We were vetting her to see if we could trust her with our greatest secret. We then shared that in turn. There is nothing to apologize for.

More making out and power demonstrations seem like a good way to go.

>>994489
We probably dont need to apologize, but we should still ask permission to continue our investigation, it is only fair for her.

>>994394
So, uh... Ice Storm? Hail? Blizzard? What's a good super name?
Also, wanna bang?

Bang Willamena

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)01:28 No. 994589 ID: afe7de
File 161743849609.png - (8.92KB , 500x500 , C2_015.png )

> Guess you’re in a relationship now.
You don't think that’s how relationships work, you gotta have a talk about it, you don’t like to jump to conclusions. Plus you and most other people aren’t really monogamous. This is only your second date after all.

> Energy check
You used up all of your energy to do that, it looks like you spent 4 Energy getting STORM to Level 2 and 2 Energy getting Ice to level 1.

> Enjoy the moment with Willamina. Kiss, hug, be pleasant
You kind of just want to enjoy the moment with Willamina for a bit, she seems genuinely happy and this is a nice moment. You can save talking about power testing and the apocalypse for later. Willamina leans into you, one hand on your lap, rubbing it sensually as she leans into you and rubs her cheek against yours.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)01:28 No. 994590 ID: afe7de
File 161743850729.png - (11.63KB , 500x500 , C2_016.png )

You give her head and cheeks a few smooches as she pushes you down passionately and mounts you. She bends down and the two of you begin to make out again. This time is a bit slower and less forceful than before. Willamina’s hands explore your hair and entwine with your free hand. She’s griding against you and it feels pleasant.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)01:28 No. 994591 ID: afe7de
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You reach down and grab her ass, she gives a light squeak and then bites down on your neck. You’re expecting a soft supple rump but instead it feels like a sack of clammy sand, you’re not sure how to feel about this but your hormones are making you feel so good so it doesn't bother you that much. You continue to grope and caress her, even giving Willamina a smack to the ass or two. And now you’ve gotten a few hickeys on your neck.

The heat’s starting to die down and you look in each-others eyes, Willamina rubs her head against you, nuzzling you. She seems really calm now. You’re still a bit HORNY, but some of the voices in your head are telling you not to try to have sex right now, so you don’t push further.

You: Wanna go to the bar and show off your new powers?

Willamina: HELL. YES.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)01:28 No. 994592 ID: afe7de
File 161743853843.png - (13.43KB , 500x500 , C2_018.png )

Willamina: HEY MOTHERFUCKERS, GUESS WHO JUST AWAKENED!?!?

The crowd goes silent and turns to face her. Willamina then raises a hand and makes snowflakes in the air, scattering them around the room.

Willamina: I got Ice powers BITCHES!!!

About half of the bar goes back to drinking and the other half hoots and hollers. The rest of the night goes by pretty quickly and eventually it’s nearing midnight and you decide to split from Willamina and head to bed, she does the same, waving you off as you head upstairs.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)01:29 No. 994593 ID: afe7de
File 161743855007.png - (8.30KB , 500x500 , C2_019.png )

You head into your room and see a cat sitting on the windowsil right next to your roach encampment. It appears they’re talking to each-other.

Sitting Cat: I get what you’re saying, but we still have to wait for Catherine.

Sitting Cat: Sorry, “Cat,” Yes I know but we shouldn’t ruin their date. It could be he’s making an ally.

You head over to the counter and they seem to finally notice you.

You: Umm. Hello?

Sitting Cat: Hello Master, This lowly one is named Mint. You can confirm this in your status window by looking up the contracts window.

You do so and using the demon eyes you focus on the contract and can notice a line connecting the two of you if you focus REALLY HARD on the notification.

Roach: NOW THAT THAT IS CONFIRMED I AM A BIT MORE AT EASE. A LOT HAS TRANSPIRED CAT.

Mint: And I suppose you’ll be wanting a rundown of what I can do and have questions. What do you want to know?

>>994593
Oh, I want to know everything!

But I also want you to know something, I know you're a "slave" and all but I want to make it clear, I have on intention of forcing you to do anything. I want equals and allies, not meat-shields and servants.

Looks like you got a new slave pet... ask her to please not call herself lowly... Wait, that was an order, sorry, your still questioning your morals about owning a slave. Ask her to please not call herself lowly only if she wants to

Tell Mint you were told she can transform into a cat, but if she is going to show you her humanoid form... um... she should borrow some of your clothes first before transforming... if she wants

Lay on bed, grab your COMM and look at texts while you talk to roach. "I think I saw you two outside the window. Sorry I couldn't talk then. Hope you like the gifts I got you, roach. I take it you have some bad news? I assume involving Isabella?"

Might want to warn Mint, roach, roach, roach, and roach, that there are animals getting burned in the park, and you recommend they be careful especially at night.

Maybe ask Mint if she wants to be petted... in her cat form of course!

Also, Check if you got new achievements for awakening Willamina!

Hello Mint! It is good to meet you. I'm glad to have another friend to weather the coming storm with.
I must know though, HOW did you manage to get auctioned off at the demon auction?

After that, ROACH: Your Report, please.

Also, I suggest using the skill book on mint tonight or tomorrow.

Having a non-awakened slave may have advantages we're not aware of. Ultimately, you should leave it up to Mint to decide if she wants a power, a skill book, or wants to be left alone for now.

... Well, maybe not the last one. Ask if you can pet the kitty.

>>994602
>>994595

I don't get y'all's idea of consent with a slave. We can be 'nice', we can treat her with dignity, but she is our slave. Aside from "Your contract it's hereby null and void, you are now free." No course of action we take with her is 'Good' or 'Moral'. Merely keeping her here is exploitation, no choice we give her is freedom, only a cruel illusion of it.

We all know why we took a slave. So we'd have someone we could entrust with awesome power, for our own benefit.

Don't delude yourselves into thinking you can do the right thing here without being willing to make a sacrifice.

I for one do not believe it wise to waste our resources before the coming apocalypse, and therefore think we should continue to retain her contract, even if doing so is evil.

>Goes straight to the bar with Cat
Really wanted the power reveal to have no direct connection to Cat, but ah well, youthful exuberance, etc. Guess the first one's a freebie anyway, it's any AFTER this one that're gonna start becoming increasingly susp.

>Making an ally
More like making a friend - or more! You haven't exactly shared everything with her yet, though. It felt a bit much for a first date. That includes the existence of the two of them - which works out, since you'd like to have a few aces up your sleeve, at least for now.

>lowly one
>she will be willing to DIE for you

Feel fucking uncomfortable for a moment, then resolve to be nice to this individual over whom you have the implicit power of life and death. Greet her, say well met. Tell her you're new to the idea of being a slave master and the self-denigrating attitude sounds sorta crummy. She can refer to herself - and you - freely, and preferably informally. Ideally, you'd like to do something about her enslaved state, but you recognize there's a few serious obstacles to that becoming the case. Still, your stance is that you'd like her to find whatever freedoms and pleasures she can while being in your service. Basically, you'd like to treat her more like a... valued employee? She's definitely gonna get SOMETHING out of this. You'll work on exactly what later - and she's free to offer input as to what she'd like.

>implanted backstory
Anyway, you're very curious as to your supposed relationship now. You guess in public her humanoid form should be treated according to the backstory the demons came up with, as they APPARENTLY ADJUSTED REALITY OR EVERYONE'S PERCEPTION OF IT to pigeonhole her into your past. So, with that in mind... who is 'Mint', the backstory?

>slew of other questions
And who is Mint, the slave - what's her real backstory, how'd she end up a slave? What can she do and what does she know? More specifically, what can she tell you concerning the auction she was procured from, the beings behind it and this whole 'demon king contest' thing? How does her transformation powers work? (Do you have to buy clothes for her?)

>watdo with Mint?
... and what are you gonna do with her, plan-wise? You haven't exactly got a high-paying job at the moment, though there are cash favors you could snag from Miss Iraphena, or you could even sell one of your artifacts for massive moolah, though you'd prefer to keep as many of those as you can given what's coming. To conserve on those you're tempted to put her to work in town somewhere (maybe the Lyst-y-Mart?) so the two of you can combine your pay-power to move to a two-bedroom apartment, though you're not sure what the Mart job is paying.

Other than getting a job, she could do some more sleuthin' about town for you in either of her forms, though she'd be a bit more obvious than Detective Roach over here and both Miss Iraphena and CROW might be on the lookout for Cat-Mint. Not so much Iraphena if you just tell her, you guess.

>Detective Roach
Thank Roach for the day's sleuthin'. You got them some of the stuff they wanted, still looking for a nice plant, but if they've any additional requests they're free to lay 'em on you. It sounded like they'd had an eventful day? If it's anything important or time-sensitive they'd like to share, please go ahead.

By the way, how'd they find Mint - or the reverse?

Also, share with both of them how your day went.

>Achievements
Oh yes! And you need to check your achievements at some point. Maybe after all of the talking is over.

>Idea: hatching the Lucky Egg
Thought. Could we put Cat-Mint on egg-warming duty if we've got nothing better for her to do?

>>994605
The demon auctioneer also implied that freeing her is actually pretty dang hard, and we don't even know where to start on that front. It almost certainly isn't as simple as waving your arms and going: "I command you to be free."

... Do check to see if the Lightning God book is still there (and functional). I'm not sure what benefit there is to withholding powers from someone who literally can't disobey us (no matter how uncomfortable we are with that whole situation).

Do get each other up to speed before you actually follow through with anything, though.

>>994605
>We all know why we took her as a slave.

>>/questarch/991228
>and... you are now in the emancipation business, for a plenitude of reasons
E M A N C I P A T I O N

Look it up, then let's get into those reasons.

For one, the demons might've worked a confidentiality clause into their slave binding magics, such as preventing her from revealing anything (or to lie about anything) she knows about the demons, what with having lived as their slave for who knows how long. We can't trust anything she says completely unless we're sure we're not running up against that, and that means freeing her in order to verify. As far as getting true intel on the demons go, there's a potential for a freed Mint to be an asset.

For two, a slave may not display a whole lotta initiative and might not have a whole lot of stake in a fight. It depends on the nature of her instilled slavishness and what sort of will she is able to muster. We'll see on that end, but I have a sneaking suspicion she'll be hella - pun intended - interested in not going back to being a slave if she's actually freed - and the demons ARE still coming to punk this world, so interests will hopefully align and we'd still have an empowered and capable individual to aid us.

For three, it seems likely that the demons keep slaves (well, they certainly have them on offer) and if they attack, their slaves will likely be part of that attack too. Figuring out if we can Awaken powers that can free these slaves actually seems like a beneficial tactical advantage to have.

For four, it's the right thing to do.

For five, it's the RIGHT thing to do.

Anyway, I see where you're coming from but I don't wholly buy into the idea that there is no way to be a good person here and that we should lean into hardening Cat's heart. Demons gonna demon don't mean we gotta be like a demon too (even if we might literally end up there thanks to the Ring of the Phoenix). It surely is possible to treat Mint right - or better, at least - and part of that involves exploring emancipation options and part of it involves turning this master-slave relationship into something healthier and more reciprocal.

Tell Roach you awoke Willamina and she said she will protect you in return.

Ask when you first awakened Roach if he had a vision. Willamina saw a vision of her great grandmother and you're interested in knowing if he saw something.

>>994605
We know that.
But the deed is done and our conscience, while heavy, is still existent. We don't have the strength to free her right off the bat, but we can offer her small freedoms and trust, and try to build it up until we feel safe breaking our contract to give her a real life.
Maybe we'll fail to appeal to better nature. Maybe Cat cannot release the bond, or releasing the bond will have dire consequences. But we have to try, while we still can.

>>994605
This is me

>>994607
We could in that case command her to determine her own fate with as little regard to us as possible unless we command otherwise, and then never command otherwise.

>>994609
1- That's a reach. Even if they had reason to do such a thing, there is no reason that it couldn't be it's own unrelated curse.

2-I concur that any reciprocation they offer would indeed probably be spirited, but they need not lend us their sword, nor give us anything at all. Emancipation means we are owed NOTHING, not even a thank you.

3- Might be worth exploring, but the ability to break powerful magical contracts will surely either:
Come with a steep cost.
-or-
Or attract the attention of forces far beyond our means to deal with.

4/5 - I agree. But the only thing separating a victim and a survivor in an apocalypse is power. Nothing quite concentrates power into one person like slaves.
High-Minded though you may be, I find your idea of emancipation naïve at best. Foolhardy otherwise.

>or better, at least
Modify the relationship from one of a slave to that of an indentured servant perhaps?
We could guarantee some rights, perhaps guarantee release after the threat of apocalypse has passed... Though I question the value of promises that mature AFTER the apocalypse.

>>994593
Alright so, ask how exactly the contract works. What happens if she doesn't want to do something you tell her to do? Or if she thinks it's a bad idea? Is she allowed to hesitate or object? Are orders followed literally, or based on intent?
What counts as an order? Is it possible to accidentally give her one?

Does she have any idea how it might be possible to free her?

Lastly, how does she feel about becoming a THUNDER CAT?

Maybe we can wait a bit on the skill book? I've been considering giving that book to Cannie once we become better friends with her.

Well, first of all: How are you? Then tell us about yourself, yes.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:13 No. 994724 ID: afe7de
File 161750602402.png - (7.43KB , 500x500 , C2_019b.png )

> Achievements?
You pop open your achievement window and are greeted by a new notification:

Achievement “Awaken 3 different species of creatures” has been unlocked. +10
Achievement “Granted 2 Powers to a creature” has been unlocked. +5

And there’s a new hint available too:
Awaken 10 total creatures. 3/10

Your new achievement total is 30/140

You also double check the contents of your ring, you made sure to snag everything you pulled out earlier and it’s all there.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:13 No. 994725 ID: afe7de
File 161750603631.png - (6.56KB , 500x500 , C2_020.png )

> Your feelings on slavery
You’re pretty conflicted about this. A cage is a cage is a cage after all. And attempting to promise something like freedom even if you don’t know its possible could be getting her hopes up a bit too high. You’re also in a precarious situation where you need allies you can 100% trust to not stab you in the back. You definitely WANT to free her if you can, but other parts of you are definitely making you think this is a bad idea and that you should keep the contract even if its questionable right now for the sake of the long term.

> Ask Mint some questions
You decide to start by asking Mint some questions. You’re guessing that Roach has something urgent to tell you, but want to get formalities out of the way with your new slave. Thinking about it that way still makes you uncomfortable, but this is the unfortunate reality that you live in.

You: So uh before we begin, is there any limitations on what you can talk about? Can you give opinions, object or hesitate, will you be forced to follow what I say literally or the intent of what I say, etc?

Mint: I only have the limitations you place on me Master. As this is a soul binding contract I can’t hide anything from you even if I wanted to.

Mint: I’ll be following your orders as you define them at the limits that you express, so if you want me to be literal I’ll be literal, but um, I’m only a kin, so don’t expect perfection. I’m no automaton.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:14 No. 994727 ID: afe7de
File 161750605273.png - (8.61KB , 500x500 , C2_021.png )

You: Uh, this might be a weird question but do you want to be pet?

Mint: Yes, I like being scratched behind the ears and at the base of my tail.

Mint heads over to you and sits on your lap as you begin to stroke her. She purrs relaxingly as she continues to talk.

You: So slavery, how does this work? Can it be undone, are the limitations lax? What happens if I die, etc.

Mint: Slave contracts are managed by some demon, some say it’s the actual demon king himself, others say it’s one of the 72 demon lords, I don’t actually know. So if a slave breaks their contract or inflicts lethal harm to their master their soul is forfeit to the contract and is eradicated, resulting in instant death.

Mint: Upon your true death my contract becomes forfeit and the next assigned owner that you decide will control me. If no new owner has been decided by then then I will be in a flux state where if I do not return to the demons I will be killed in a similar manner after a certain period of time.

You: Fuck, alright. I guess if we can find and eliminate this demon lord then maybe the contract will be nullified?

Mint: Its… A possibility, but I don’t know. I was told some demon out there could nullify contracts but I wasn’t given the specifics, I think it was false hope given to the newly captured.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:14 No. 994728 ID: afe7de
File 161750606391.png - (8.88KB , 500x500 , C2_022.png )

> Transforming?
You: Transforming, how does that work? Do you need clothes? What happens to the stuff you’re holding?

Mint gets up from your lap and transforms in front of you becoming a short woman, probably about 1.3 meters in height. At her hip is some sort of box, but you can’t really tell what it is from this angle. She turns back to normal and gets back into your lap, urging you to continue petting her.

Mint: As you can tell, I keep my clothing, they even let me keep my tools so there’s a saving grace in that. I don’t need new clothes, they’re held in some sort of extra dimensional space when I’m transformed. I just like being this size. Also getting fucked at this size feels hecking good.

You: Uh what was that?

Mint: Don’t worry about it.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:14 No. 994729 ID: afe7de
File 161750607508.png - (7.42KB , 500x500 , C2_023.png )

> Implanted Backstory?
You: So what’s your cover story? I was told reality would adjust for your presence but I don't know much about this.

Mint: We’re former college friends, I moved out to Lyst similarly to you. If someone asks I just say I live on the outskirts of town at a motel until we figure out what’s going to happen. In truth I’m under your care.

> Actual Backstory?
You: So uh, What’s your story, how’d you become a slave and what can you do?

Mint: I’m from another world, one that was ravaged by demons and angels and monsters. My clan was a group of tinkers that made and sold magitech that we researched. I worked as a maid for a time and as an amateur inventor in my spare time. According to your world’s standards I would be considered a [RANK 3] Tinker Generalist. But my main job was in administration.

Mint: All of my clan can beast shape, turning from a more humanoid form to a more bestial form. It’s our [INNATE SKILL]. I can also turn into a larger, ridable cat form.

Mint: I became a slave when an army of fallen angels came and subjugated my people. We weren’t strong enough. The world had already ended and more than 70% of the land was flooded with monsters. We were only able to stay around for so long due to our magitech. Well it was either consent to slavery or be wiped out and I chose the former.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:14 No. 994730 ID: afe7de
File 161750608898.png - (6.10KB , 500x500 , C2_024.png )

You: Phew, okay, thats a lot. Um… Please give me some time to process that. I’ll be up front about this. I’m not really comfortable with the slave owning business, so my current plan is to treat you like an indentured servant that has rights and an allowance. It’s not the best compromise, but I want to also at least treat you nicely.

Mint gets up and sits across from you, giving you a glare

Mint: I’m going to be a little blunt here, but that’s not the best attitude to take in this situation. Your world will end soon, regardless of how you treat me. While I am technically a person I lost my rights as one and became a tool. Use me to further your own goals and ensure you and yours do not get enslaved or killed in the same matter as my home planet.

Mint: That kind of attitude can only come from someone who has been spoiled and that hasnt lived with the harsh realities of a world under constant strife. I would even encourage you to get MORE slaves that can protect your livelihood.

Mint: You can of course say I’m effectively free and send me on my way, we’ll still have the slave contract and I won’t be able to go against you. But I will literally just go on dungeon runs and gain power so I can fight against the demons, angels, and monsters that will descend on this planet.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:14 No. 994731 ID: afe7de
File 161750609713.png - (5.47KB , 500x500 , C2_025.png )

You’re not sure how to respond to that and the room goes silent for a moment. You look to roach and he tilts his head at you.

You: So Roach, what happened with you?

Roach: I LOST MY PRIMARY BODY, IT SHALL BE MISSED. IF I HAD NOT GATHERED SOME SPARE ROACHES I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE DIED THEN AND THERE. THOUGH IT’S A SHAME, I LIKED THE WINGS ON MY BODY.

You: Uh, how?

Roach: I’LL GET INTO THAT NEAR THE END. I FOLLOWED ISABELLA AROUND THE WHOLE DAY, THE IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE ARE THAT SHE HAS A SHRINE IN HER ROOM TO SOMEONE WITH SPIKY HAIR THAT LOOKS SIMILAR TO WILLAMINA. SHE SPENT A LOT OF HER TIME TODAY JUST LAUGHING WHEN NO ONE ELSE WAS HOME. THERE’S A DART BOARD IN HER ROOM WITH WILLAMINA’S FACE ON IT SHE THROWS DARTS AT.

Edmango 2021/04/03(Sat)20:15 No. 994732 ID: afe7de
File 161750610932.png - (8.48KB , 500x500 , C2_026.png )

Roach: SHE ALSO MUTTERED TO HERSELF ABOUT HOW SOON MAX WILL BE HERS ALONE, WHATEVER THAT MEANS. SHE THEN HAD A PHONE CALL WHERE SHE REPLIED “YES MY LOVE” AND “YES SENPAI” NUMEROUS TIMES. AND “NO CHANGES, SHE’S STILL UNAWAKENED” AND “THERE’S A NEWCOMER LOOKING INTO IT BUT THEY’LL REACH THE DEAD END OF IT SOON ENOUGH. IRAPHENA WANTS ME TO BE HANDS OFF BUT FRANKLY I COULD GIVE A RATS ASS WHAT SHE THINKS, I’M HER SUPERIOR AFTER ALL.”

Roach: THEN SHE LOOKED INTO THE AIR RIGHT NEXT TO HER, AND BACK TO THE WINDOW AND SAID “YOU DEAL WITH IT” IT SUDDENLY BECAME VERY HOT AND I WAS CAUGHT ABLAZE, I HAD A ROACH HIDDEN UNDER THE HOUSE SO I TRANSFERRED MY CONSCIOUSNESS AND THEN HID.

Roach: I WAS TOO SCARED TO CONTINUE OBSERVING HER SO I WENT AROUND TOWN GATHERING MORE ROACHES, THEN I SAW THIS CAT WANDERING AROUND WATCHING YOU, SO I FOLLOWED HER AND EVENTUALLY TALKED TO HER AND FOUND OUT SHE WAS YOUR SLAVE AND WE AGREED TO HEAD BACK HERE TO WAIT FOR YOU. I WANTED TO TELL YOU SOONER BUT SOMEBODY THOUGHT WE SHOULD JUST WAIT FOR YOU.

cat

>Also getting fucked at this size feels hecking good.
A cat is fine too.

Oh dear, it sounds like Isabella has gone off the deep end for a while now. Still, probably be best to call it a night

Rideable cat form? Like a tiger? Please show me. That's even more cat to pet... Also, is there any tinkering you can do with magical items?
So that's how Isabella's demon power works, she's got an imaginary friend. The shrine could be a caricature of Willamina herself or a demon that happens to resemble her.
Also Roach has a good point, we should get more wings for the hive. We could add a few flies in the short term, they should last at least a week or two.
We should probably sleep then.

>>994732
...Wow okay.
So Isabella is 100% cracked, she has a demon on her side, she's Iraphena's superior, and she's aware she's being observed. Not good.
But she's unaware that Willamina is Awakened, she doesn't know the full extent of our powers, she doesn't know that we're on to her, and she's making a lot of mistakes. Very good.
Thank Roach as much as possible, and prepare for some shuteye.

>>994732
Also, calling the other person on the other side of the call as "my love" imply she's taking orders from Max? Is max behind all this? Just using Isabella and Iraphena to get back at Willamina for scorning him

That's messed up.

Keep in mind I could be wrong, but from what it sounds like, Isabella is probably referring to us as the newcomer, and I think she somehow knows we're investigating the estate fire. It seems like also Iraphena doesn't want Isabella stopping us investigating the estate fire. Could she be protecting us?

She is probably keeping an eye on Willamina to make sure she doesn't awaken, and report to whoever is on the phone if she ever does (could be Max back from the grave, a new lover, he faked his death, or his ghost.) (It probably was a bad idea to have Willamina announce her powers at the bar, but what's done is done.)

and it looks like her power Demonic Flame Spirit is a separate entity that burned roach, and has been burning other animals. (My guess is that the reason why Isabella has been burning animals is because she is dealing with the overmind's animals spying on her or something.)

Are cockroaches face supposed to look like that? anyway, Lets look at our texts for now before bed, we've missed a lot. But we will need to have a serious discussion with Willamina tomorrow, first thing in the morning. We'll probably need to introduce her to roach in order to get her to understand the situation better as proof.

>>994727
Hmm, well, Iraphena's lawyer contacts might have some ideas.

>>994732
WELP sounds like the demonic fire spirit ability is a separate entity she can talk to. I'm guessing she sent it to burn the estate, so she'd have an alibi.
Also, Max is still alive??? ...that would explain some of the weird things about the event. The Hero's Guild could have taken the chance to fake his death, maybe also the deaths of the other people there.
If that's who Isabella is talking to on the phone, then... the Hero's Guild is working with Nunitus? I guess that wouldn't be too unreasonable since Nunitus is pretty secretive. We can no longer be sure Isabella killed anyone that day. Willamina getting burned might've been on purpose. ...oh hell, what if Max knew about the inheritance clause for the death of all major members, and decided his family needed to die so that the Hero's Guild could get ALL the money instead of just partial support?
Well, there's another possible sequence of events. Maybe Max faked his death using the fires then split with the Hero's Guild for some reason, and Isabella used Nunitus to track him down since she didn't confirm his death; or maybe she asked Iraphena if there was a way to bring Max back to life only to find out that Max was still alive. Max took the opportunity to... start using Isabella as a tool? Is Max a villain? Or does he think Isabella is a good person? That direction of potential events just makes things more complicated...
Also haha this is fucked, Iraphena isn't Isabella's boss at all? It's the other way around. That means... Iraphena was going over Isabella's head when she called Overmind? Or the command structure is very loose in Nunitus. Or... Isabella was lying to Max on the phone about being Iraphena's boss?

Well, shit's all fucked up. We can't fight Isabella's fire spirit if we can't see it. Mint would basically have to take Isabella out before the fire spirit can attack. Also I have no idea if Willamina is in more danger now, or less. ...well, there's one small mercy, we know the fire spirit isn't that strong. It's burning animals but they don't always die? Fighting it would suck but wouldn't be instantly lethal.

Give Mint the lightning god book right now. See how much energy it would take to upgrade her, and how much it takes to upgrade Roach right now. Maybe we should give Roach a real name?

Hell, if possible I'd like to go into the forest right now instead of sleeping, and try to contact the forest lady. She can help, and we really need help.

It's also time for Cat to strongly reconsider his vow of silence considering Isabella's powers. We didn't actually promise anything to anyone! So far we've been doing it out of politeness, but now we know for sure she's up to no good. She's about to get "hands-on".
I want to warn Willamina somehow but I don't know what to say. "Watch out some invisible thing might throw fire at you"? "Isabella's fucking nuts wait you knew that already"? "Max might be alive and hates you"? The options aren't good!

hmm,
>LAUGHING WHEN NO ONE ELSE WAS HOME
Was she watching TV? Or videos on her phone? It's that or the fire spirit but that seems kindof strange for an interaction with the fire spirit.

>IRAPHENA WANTS ME TO BE HANDS OFF BUT FRANKLY I COULD GIVE A RATS ASS WHAT SHE THINKS, I’M HER SUPERIOR AFTER ALL.
...That's scary if true. I do believe we have our first bad guy. Somebody should tell Will that she's at risk. Maybe set a trap, before Will gets hit.

>SO I TRANSFERRED MY CONSCIOUSNESS
Roach is tough to kill. Would that work with other creatures? Would that work with PEOPLE? Would that work with creatures you give powers? Would that work with people with powers? Roach with more upgrades could prove to be very powerful. Without upgrades... it could still lead a swarm. You officially have motive to raise/breed roaches.

I wonder if we should hand Mint the book, and have her pose as Willamina's adopted pet to protect her from Isabella...

Real talk. We need to start building our allies up and getting some contingencies in place for an inevitable conflict. I'm talking counter-surveillance, so we know when we're being targeted for a move. I'm talking small armies of Roach-likes. I'm talking people who know about the stakes at play, and willing to defend us should it come down to it.

Cat is sober enough about all this that she should take the lead on planning.

>>994748
Cat needs protection too! We only have one bodyguard to go around... and we might be better off in the long run sending Mint to a dungeon run, Upgrading Willamina as much as possible, and getting some stronger gadgets and magic items for self-defense against Isabella.

...I wonder if we can use a Favor from Iraphena to get her to protect Cat and Willamina from Isabella? Like, she should be able to precog Isabella going out to kill Willamina and warn her, and possibly be able to tell if Isabella is going to get in a fight with someone she can't predict (Cat). In the end the method of her helping us is up to her though. Maybe she could pull some strings and get Isabella out of town earlier than planned? Iraphena might wonder why we're concerned about it, and we can truthfully say that the story we got from Cannie makes us think Isabella is a psycho.

Alternatively we can get a 5k favor, buy that property, and turn it into a fortress that Isabella would have to assault to get to us. Willamina could stay there too.

Wakeup REAL early tomorrow and go talk to willamina about this stuff as soon as possible. If Isabella finds out she sounds liable to just snap and straight up murder someone and/or multiple people.

Also new crack pot theory:
Max survived the fire, faking his own death somehow. He orchestrated the whole ordeal and intentionally spared willamina by manipulating isabella into doing his dirty work by promising her his affection. In reality he probably still has eyes for his sister alone and plans to use isabella to get whatever he wants then dispose of her or "save" willamina from her to win back her affection. Iraphena probably works for her under some kind of duress, or whoever they both work for has some kind of semi-workable plan to save the world and iraphena has decided the ends justify the means. Or she's just a greedy bastard and is on the side that benefits her the most materially.

We need to inform Willamina NOW.
Check if she's still in the bar. If so, pull her aside. Otherwise, call her and meet Mint and Roach + a couple bodies outside and BOOK IT to Willamina's place.

It is also worth asking Mint if she knows how much time it takes to use a skill book. We may need to use ours very soon.

We have concrete evidence that Isabella is a threat; even if she isn't responsible for the fire and the burnings and all the other murders, she's mentally ill and has a psychotic separate entity that loves to burn others to death. I was hesitant about telling Willamina because she might impulsively attack Isabella without a full investigation, but now it would be self-defense.

>Mint wants to grind
"Okay.
Your orders are to do whatever you want until the next demon auction.
Your designated master is Willamina Haydee. If I die, make sure she knows everything."

>Roach
"Please don't make that face, Snopes."

Maybe we should text Willamina and tell her we need to talk about this tomorrow morning?

Thank Roach for its literal sacrifice and apologize you got their main body killed - Isabella was more messed-up than you anticipated - then have a quick think.

This is indeed a lot at once. So, put all slave and world-ending related topics aside to focus on the matter approaching critical mass - Isabella, Willamina and the truth of the Hadlee mansion fire. Thanks to Roach's selfless sleuthing we've assembled enough pieces to have an initial go at putting the puzzle together.

>THE HORRIBLE HADLEE THEORY
>Disclaimer: variants and other possibilities certainly exist
The burning of the mansion and its aftermath, whether accidental or premeditated, required the cooperation of two individuals: Maximillian and Isabella.

We still don't know what power Max was sitting on, but he may have Awakened to one that was MENTAL in nature. He may have gotten SMARTER and more MANIPULATIVE as a result of it. Based on Cannie's story, his attitude grew distant and cold shortly after confessing to (and being rebuffed by) Willamina, a shift which both that event and his recent Awakening into a different mindset could explain. A mental awakening might certainly have made him stop acting like the youth he was and begin to lay plans of his own. Especially if he - much as Cat did - discovered the truth of the upcoming demonic invasion and preparing for that began to take priority. Possibly his family was an obstacle both to his incestuous love and to those preparations.

Thus, he could have leveraged Isabella's obsession with him (and own Awakening) into an advantage by getting her to burn down the Hadlee Mansion and getting her to continue to work with him (dangling the carrot of his love in front of her all the while). He either knew about or faked the Hadlees' will to give him another lever with which to monitor Willamina's status - possibly he got the Heroes' League help to set it all up! After all, his family was already a financial backer of the Walpoles (founders of the Heroes' League, I believe) and the League stood to benefit somewhat by absorbing those resources.

He could even have lied that he wanted to pretend to be dead to 'protect' what was left of his family from whatever VILLAIN burned the place down - they'd CLEARLY been after HIM, after all! And not letting Willamina have a hint of access to any of those resources until she Awakened meant she'd be protected from further villainous interests.

Then he proceeded to both work with the Heroes' League and Nunitus, playing a long game. The main link to Max-Nunitus involvement is Isabella becoming a Nunitus player - able to get her non-Awakened sister an in - and setting herself up as the superior of Iraphena (a public Nunitus member), as well as EYES being a very big component of Willamina's trauma back during the mansion fire, while also being Nunitus' main motif. That could admittedly be a red herring... though it also feels weird that all the Nunitus leads back after the mansion fire just up and vanished.

Like someone knew ahead of time which leads Aeglos was investigating - which could point to Iraphena's involvement in the cover-up.

Whaddye think? If any of this is true, we're dangerously close to knocking a conspiracy cabal over, with the attendant attention that'll bring. Speaking of which...

>CAT IS ON THINNER ICE DISCOVERY-WISE
Roach's spying - we keep a terrarium of roaches, figuring out who sent a roach to spy on Isabella won't exactly be rocket science - and our recent publicly revealed presence at Will's Awakening are both things that could trigger Isabella/Max/Nunitus to spy on and confront Cat. With Miss Iraphena tracking Willamina's potential awakening status they could straight up know Cat is the likely 'trigger' here (even if that doesn't reveal the Arcane Catalyst power) since he is the only new element Iraphena can't keep track of.

>WHAT DO WE DO
It's relatively simple. Do we ACT NOW or WAIT AND SEE?

Waiting may be safe as houses, ish. Sure, it could put Will at risk of being targeted or manipulated (we have NO idea how Isabella will react to her sudden Awakening, but I suspect it won't be a positive reaction) - and Cat might find themselves under increased surveillance by Nunitus... but neither of those are like 100% given. As long as we keep cool and don't reveal that Cat knows Isabella is messed up and talking to 'Max' on the phone we should be... pretty safe in their mind still, if an annoyance to deal with and clearly someone to bully into cooperativeness.

BUT... I do not like the idea of giving Isabella - or her 'love' - the initiative here. We should be ABLE to stop Isabella, The Incarnation of Flame, and her demonic flame spirit, if need be, and we should ensure Willamina doesn't get manipulated or abused further. To do that we need to first AWAKEN MINT.

>AWAKEN MINT
SPEND 30 POINTS TO RAISE YOUR POWER CAP to 3/9 BEFORE MIDNIGHT AND IMMEDIATELY AWAKEN MINT WITH THE BONUS 3 POINTS! After midnight we can spend another 9 points - your whole wad for the day - to UPGRADE MINT'S POWER - or however much you can manage (spending any leftovers on upgrading Roach's powers as thanks for their selfless service).

The Awakening should definitely be put towards protecting you and yours and give Mint something to work with for dungeon runs. The exact nature should be suggested on by all as normal, though the one I'd like to propose is one that would at least allow Mint to sense and fight (seal / banish / exorcise) spiritual and otherworldly entities. A shrine-maiden 'Miko' power, for example, allowing her to fight back against Isabella AND the type of entities who fucked over her world.

>GET AID
For aid, you could leverage what you know of the town's residents. Dr. Trey and Gruk are both Awakened who'd probably come to your side if you intimate Will's under threat (although you don't know their loyalties as far as the situation with Max / Nunitus / League is concerned). You've got Trey's number at least - and he might also be in the bar still, and thus approachable, if drunk.

Toni the Illusionist might be, if not trustworthy or at all approached so far, someone we can call in as a 'dude, I'll owe you a big favor it you help me out here' last minute wildcard.

Cannie could get called in to shout at her sister for being a dummy - but I don't have much hope she'll be able, as a non-awakened, to DO much other than lean on her the slightest bit.

>GET BACK TO WILLAMINA TONIGHT
Either she or you could be in danger. An Awakened Mint can only protect you both if you're together - and if this situation is to come to a head soon, you might as well kick the cabal fully over and get her to help play the cards that end up on YOUR side.

Edmango 2021/04/04(Sun)22:25 No. 994878 ID: afe7de
File 161760032202.png - (10.24KB , 500x500 , C2_027.png )

> Get some rest
You think about awakening mint and the implications of all the info you just learned and suddenly get just so extremely tired. It looks like that Stamina Liquor is wearing off right about now and your adrenaline is dying off. It’s probably better that you figure out what you’re going to do about this whole situation after a night of rest so you don’t make any rash decisions. You’re not used to this kind of high intensity stuff. You strip and head to bed, Mint joins you, snuggling up on your pillow beside your head.

You: I think I’m going to rest for now, this is just a lot to take in. Just… We’ll talk in the morning.

Edmango 2021/04/04(Sun)22:27 No. 994881 ID: afe7de
File 161760044335.png - (24.47KB , 500x500 , C2_028.png )

> Check your Texts
You cover yourself with the sheets and pull out your comm, deciding to take a look at all the messages you’ve been ignoring for the past few hours.

Cannie: Good fight, you beat me fair and square. LMK when you wanna go again.

Nipha: Yeah Kazu really broke out of his shell.
Nipha: Rudy’s made these cool little spider robots that do all our housework for us and he uses to make gadgets, they’re pretty cool.
Nipha: You’ll get to see one of them when we head over.
Nipha: Oh and my new hoverboots.
Nipha: I’ll shoot you a text when I get there MONDAY.

Willamina: 🧊💕🧊

SPAM LIKELY: Ratiolatry isn’t as scary as you might think, come down to Lyst’s Ratiolatry group meeting this sunday at 9AM at the Community center!
SPAM LIKELY: Tired of your old penis? We at Beast-Kin’s Phallus emporium can offer you a brand new cock of any species you like, increase the virility and potency of your seed or even make it prehensile, all at a low low cost of $99 a month, [CLICK HERE] for more details!

God these dumb spam texts are back again, guess moving to a new area has gotten your number put on a few lists. At least they aren’t calling you and leaving voice-mails.

Edmango 2021/04/04(Sun)22:27 No. 994882 ID: afe7de
File 161760045258.png - (25.81KB , 500x500 , C2_029.png )

> Warn Willamina
Hearing this information has got you on edge even more and you feel that you should at least say something to Willamina.

To Willamina you reply: I might just be paranoid but be careful tonight okay? Talk to you in the morning.

You then put your phone on the charger and curl up into a ball, letting the sweet, dark embrace of sleep consume you. You don’t dream, but you feel a soul-crushing weight pressing down on your stomach the whole night. Your left leg constantly cramps and your right shoulder is in pain. Not to mention your back is killing you. It might be a good idea to buy some painkillers. You wake up the next morning and look at your COMM. It’s SATURDAY MORNING at 9:30AM. You feel more TIRED than usual. You’ll probably be fine in an hour or so. But you’re most likely still in pain from the fight yesterday. You sluggishly drag yourself through the shower and bathroom, lazily performing your morning routine before dressing, and popping back in the room. You grab your COMM, no new messages, but you hear the telltale sounds of a stomach growling coming from Mint.

Get some Cat food, and food for the cat too.
Is the libarby open to return your book?

>>994882
Talk to mint about awakening. Ask her what kind of power she'd like most if she awakened. Then text Cannie to ask her what kind of powers she'd want most.

Get some food for Mint. What does she want from the bar?

Use a favor to get 5k, with the intent to buy that property. Also tell Iraphena you heard from Cannie about how fucked up Isabella is and you're kindof worried now; can she protect you? Would she even be able to predict Isabella attacking you? Oh she should be able to protect Willamina at least, could she do that for a favor?
Oh right today is when we check out potential item trades, too.

Do we have to work today?

Time to begin Operation: Delegation. Bring Mint up to speed on who is important to you, who can be trusted, and if she feels comfy about helping plan defenses.

Things are going to start moving very quickly today. We need to go to Willamina's place straight after breakfast to better inform her. Over breakfast though we should discuss with mint if she feels better suited to the Lightning god power, or if she believes it might be a better idea to awaken her normally.

I find it kind of eerie that we didn't get new texts. Lets eat... food for us will be free, but we may need to pay for Mint's food.

We are taking roach with us today. We might need him to help us talk to Willamina.

Too bad our days off isnt on saturday. At least we got sun and mon off. Potential plans after work: talk to Willamina about her inheritage (she mentioned she can use it to protect you and her), we can also talk to Iraphena and look into artifacts she has after work, but also, we could consider going to the remains of the hadlee estate after work.

During breakfast, talk to Oriel, mention about being happy for Willamina, and ask about Trey on how it felt like he's been making efforts to avoid you even though you've never introduced yourself to him and ask if he is like that to everyone. Also look into your phone about Ratiolatry.

As far as options for food goes, you'll have breakfast at Oriel's, but I'm wondering if it isn't smarter to just hand Mint some money and have her buy some herself. She could join you in-person at Oriel's and you can do the 'official' meet-n-greet in public, or she can sneak off to the Lyst-y-Mart and buy whatever she needs for herself.

Both Roach and Mint will need marching orders for the day. We might want Mint to hang around for protection - as an Awakened! - for the time being, especially if we're gonna dump some more shattering revelations on Will or if we encounter Isabella.

Roach could... spy on someone less dangerous? I'm wondering if we shouldn't just give Roach some time off to shake off the loss of their primary body. He should be careful as well around town now, especially since Isabella's flame spirit might be on guard against spy bugs, or might even actively seek them out for extermination. Basically, they should be careful not to go anywhere 'alone' - and maybe not even be all collected in the terrarium either.

And here's an idea: if you could keep a roach with you - in safe, air-permeable bag or something - Roach would only need to transfer their consciousness over to you in order to talk. If the range of the hive mind is wider than the range of the telepathy that might be an easier way to get in touch. Might not be comfortable for the bug in question - though roaches are pretty durable!

I still feel like we should spend our achievement points on enabling a more powerful awakening for Mint.

Then again, saving up for checking the power use history of Awakened might still be smart and could give us more information. We'd get a lot more context on how their powers work, for one. Imagine looking at Iraphena's uses - it'd be like looking through someone's browser search history for clues.

Anyway, deal with breakfast, deal with Awakening Mint, then consider whether going to Will before the job begins.

Im thinking we bring roach along to introduce to Willamina at work,

Mint should consider working at the friendly bean, or Ruffled haunch. She might be able to get more info and get money through there.

One thing to consider is giving Willamina your phoenix ring in case Isabella attempts murder

We should check to see if Gadgetry already counts as Mint being "Awakened" before attempting anything with her. If it doesn't count, then we should definitely talk to her about whether we should use our power or the lightning god book - her preference. Being a practicality-minded catgirl, she'd likely recommend that we use the book on her and save the points for upgrading Willamena.

Whatever we end up deciding on, it'd be best to do it now rather than later; we want to have more power on our side by the time Isabella decides to spring her attack.

Hmm, it occurs to me we should probably find out how law enforcement handles capturing supers. Do they have magic shackles or something that neutralize powers?

Edmango 2021/04/05(Mon)23:58 No. 995011 ID: afe7de
File 161769232307.png - (10.31KB , 500x500 , C2_030b.png )

> Return book
You haven't finished it yet! Though you guess you could go to the Libarby later to check out a different book.

> How does law enforcement handle Supes
You remember them using these strange foam guns on supes to contain them, but in most cases they send another supe after them if they cant be contained or controlled. You’re not actually sure what happens after they’re captured. You guess they’re jailed or something.

> Look up Radiolatry
That spam message is on your mind so you do a quick PAWNGLE search Radiolatry. They're a religion that started out as a cult around 50 years ago, they generally believe that we live in a machine or are in a simulation of some sort, with the advent of the internet you could see people sprouting up with theories but this only really came to prominance when the first individuals started awakening. When people could start seeing their status windows and collect artifacts that granted powers they took this as evidence of their theory and began worshipping what they called [THE SYSTEM] that managed our universe.

Then you've found some news articles of individuals going out into crowds, shouting "LOG OUT" and using teleportation based powers to incite mass hysteria, these events were apparently caused by extremists of the group. A few of them were caught due to security camera footage but were let off on minor sentences due to the nature of their "pranks."

There's a seperate group that spun off from Radiolatrists that believes in something called [THE BOX] theory, but the articles on it are sparse, something about what lies outside of [THE SYSTEM]. Apparently accidents keep happening to worshippers of this specific theory so not much else is known about it.

Edmango 2021/04/05(Mon)23:58 No. 995012 ID: afe7de
File 161769233437.png - (12.23KB , 500x500 , C2_031.png )

> Have breakfast with Mint
You look up from your phone and realize you're at a table with a now kin form Mint, food freshly placed in front of you. Huh, you must've gotten too focused on that news article and didn't realize what you were doing. Oriel is staring at you expectantly, it looks like she asked you a question.

You: Huh, uh, could you repeat that?

Oriel: Sure shugah, I asked if you were gonna introduce me to yer friend?

You: Oh, yeah. This is Mint. She's an old friend from my early College days.

Oriel: Hi, I’m Oriel Walpole, you know, like the famous Marth Walpole, one of the founders of the Heroes League?

Mint: I'm uh, I don't know much about the Heroes guild sorry.

Oriel sighs and is about to step away when you speak up.

You: Cool how Willamina awakened huh?

Oriel: Oh yeah! It's stellar. Kind of jealous if I'm being honest. I'm in my 30s and haven't awakened yet. SIGH Maybe one day...

You: Hey, if it can happen to her it can happen to any of us. Anywho, just one more question. Did I uh... offend Trey or something? I get the feeling he's avoiding me.

Oriel: Oh that, nah, well its not YOU per se. More like he just avoids City folk. Anyone from the big city and he just avoids them like the plague for some reason. I'm sure you could have an actual conversation with him if you scheduled a checkup though.

Now that she mentions it, you havent really gotten a good look at his face, just profile shots and looks from his back. Maybe he's someone who used to be important in the city? You speculate a little bit as you bite into the toast prepared before you. Mint on the other hand has nearly finished her meal in record time. It looks like she was starving. You give her half of your meal, you’re not that hungry anyway and she gets back to eating.

You: Thanks, do I owe you for the breakfast?

Oriel: Nah, the room comes with food enough for two visitors so it's alright.

Oriel heads off back into the kitchen and it's just you and Mint. You feel something in your pocket though and when you poke your hand in there you get a resounding "HEY, WATCH IT." Looks like you took Roach with you too.

Edmango 2021/04/05(Mon)23:59 No. 995013 ID: afe7de
File 161769236186.png - (7.92KB , 500x500 , C2_032.png )

You start going over the situation with Mint, and then take a moment to check to see if mint has a Power, when you mention that you're about to do that she instead mentions you could just look at her status window, confused you do just that.

Mint Bubastis
Age: 39
Powers:
NONE
Innate Skill:
BEAST SHAPE
This creature can morph their body into bestial forms related to their race and back at will.

Turns out because you OWN her you can see her relevant information and her Innate Skill, Neat! You then quietly explain your power to her through roach and she gives you an incredulous look.

Mint: Alright, no, with a power like that, hmm. Okay, a lot more might be possible then I was thinking. Maybe you won't be a good for nothing master.

You give her an eyeroll and suggest awakening her through your power or through the book and she stops you.

Mint: If I had to pick I'd go with using your power, maybe spend your Achievement points to give yourself a larger pool only because then I'd potentially get a power more suited to me and my style. Lightning sounds great and all, but I'd prefer to hope for a potential stealth power or an actual specialization in Tinkering or something. I’d actually caution against that one you’ve been eying, the history one. In all likelihood it’s probably there to waste your points and would just tell you the date and times of the power use and not what it was used for, at least it seemed to function that way in my world.

Mint: I'll caution you though. ANGELS have a vendetta against awakened without the light attribute, they'll leave civilians alone, but 9 times out of 10 when a conflict arose with ANGELS, DEMONS, KIN and I guess HUMANS, they would almost always indiscriminately slaughter the awakened as well.

You ponder this, right now pure fighting power is kind of needed, you might encounter angels at some point, but with your power you can probably have the numbers to support you if this happens. Though now that you're thinking of logistics the most important thing to deal with right now has popped up. Money.

Edmango 2021/04/05(Mon)23:59 No. 995014 ID: afe7de
File 161769237498.png - (10.84KB , 500x500 , C2_033.png )

You: So now we get to the meat of the problem. I'm broke. So that means you'll probably need to get a job Mint, that way we can afford an apartment or something. There's openings at the Lyst-Y-Mart and the Ruffled Haunch, or you could go to the city hall and figure it out.

Mint: That would put us behind schedule. Couldn't you just sell one of your more useless artifacts so we could gain the capital needed. I might not know a lot about this world but I'm sure there's some guild or auctionhouse or something that would be willing to trade for the item. Or maybe wait for Willamina to get her inheritance and use that as starting funds?

Roach: THERE'S ALSO THE FAVORS FROM MISS IRAPHENA FOR A QUICK INFLUX OF BUX. AND I DO REMEMBER THE ABANDONED PAPER MILL BEING ON SALE AS A POTENTIAL BASE OF OPERATIONS.

Mint: What would be great is if we could find a dungeon in this town.

You: Arent... Aren't dungeons crazy huge and run by Demons and Fairies?

Mint: That's not the only kind of dungeon out there. There are some naturally formed hidden dungeons, and if you get a dungeon core you can even MAKE ones. If I had time and BUX I could make a device that could measure the ambient mana in the region and use that to track down a hidden site. I'm SURE there's at least one somewhere in a 10 kilometer radius of us, especially if this is an Auction site.

Mint: But you don't look like a fighter so it would probably be hard for you. Though if we could get you to experience a GROWTH that might change, I wouldn’t be surprised if you never experienced a GROWTH by the looks of you.

Mint, I've been awakened for almost a week.
So no, I haven't. Please, enlighten me.

Ask what artifact your holding would be the easiest for mint to recreate it you had the resources.

Also consider that bux probably won't be a problem if you successfully Navigate Willamina through the coming fire and she receives her inheritance. Though in that case you should use your favors on bux to get started.

Well, besides growth, there's gadgets. How much do those cost? Somebody's probably made power armor, but that also probably costs a lot, if they sell it at all. Though if they do, it might be worth it to lose 1 artifact for the survivability it offers.

hmm, if we sell an artifact, we could probably sell the Coiling Ring and use our backpack again to carry stuff. We should grab our backpack before work in that case. But I also vote waiting on Willamina's inheritance.

How much does the paper mill cost? does Oriel know?

Also ask for a good idea on what Mint can do while you are at work. You were thinking you could introduce her and roach to Willamina and help explain the situation with, or maybe have her pose as her house cat to protect Willamina if we do awaken Mint with a power to protect her, or having her get a job regardless if only to listen in on people. But she's been having really good ideas so far, that I'd like to hear what she would do during your time at work.

But I think for now, we should awaken Mint. I was thinking of awakening her to the power I wanted to give Willamina, Enigmatic Inhibitor >>994121 though stealth or tinkering sounds important too.

You should probably trade one of those favors for bux outright. It’s simply a necessity at this point and will let mint begin work on a dungeon finder ASAP.

Huh. I had forgotten that Oriel was a Walpole. Descendant of Marth Walpole, master energy swordsman and Heroes League founder.

>ANGELS WILL MURDER EVERY AWAKENED WHO IS NOT LIGHT-ASPECTED
Note to self: see about awakening someone who can give other Awakened a light aspect. Or banish angels for the crime of being alignment pricks. Secondary note: anyone you Awaken will have a bullseye painted on their back if/when angels show up. Tertiary note: Mint was a demon slave, so this could be straight up bull or some skewed perspective stuff.

>Upgrade your basic power so you can make more powerful Awakened
Agreed - slot those 30 points into your awakening capacity. Re: the 'power history use' expense trap... aw man, that is disappoint. Still POTENTIALLY useful, mind. Just not as handy as hoped.

>Spend a Favor on cash
Probably the wise move and we really should've done it yesterday. You can do it later today as you have the artifact trade lined up after work. Mint could come along for that, couldn't she? Her opinion or advice on what kind of artifacts might be valuable could be useful - and it's not like Iraphena won't see her about town soon enough anyway and she can put two and two together when she discovers you're hanging together.

Give Mint the overview of how the auction went, what you snagged and what Iraphena wanted. Mention the utility of the Demon Eye Amulet and the Ring of the Phoenix and how you want to keep those two in particular. The skill book, lucky egg and coiling ring are 'sort of want to have' but also expendables. Note that Roach could also keep you two in mental touch, allowing you to converse between yourself silently.

Mint herself is not for trade.

>Dungeon
... sounds like a mid to long-term plan, honestly. A dungeon of your own would give your group more than a fucking leg up, that's for sure, and given your timeline you'll probably need it. If it's a useful place to train newbie Awakened that's a real score, too.

>GET TO WILLAMINA'S PLACE / TO WORK
Still got them obligations.

>>995025
Aeglos told us the place cost a song and a dance - at 4000.

>>995011
>Radiolatry
Well, they're not complete crackpots, the nature of the status screens would imply you live in a Meta-RPG of some kind.
They might get more followers if they re-branded though. Radio comes from another age entirely.
>[The Box] Radio-theorists have accidents
Other than the typical silencing, cult theorists are expected to have a high fatality rate from their experiments. It's kind of a pity, science of any kind should be both supported and regulated, even from cultists.
>Supes disappear to 'jail'
Yeah this just screams metahuman experimentation. How else are they going to keep a world of supervillains in check 24-7?

>>995013
So it appears that having a higher energy pool when awakening someone increases the potential array of superpowers, with more useful powers like clairvoyance requiring a higher energy pool. Well dang, maybe we should have waited before giving Willamina her power.
>Angels will kill anyone not aligned with the Light and in their way
Racists.
>Wants a tinkering power
"I'll see what I can do. You'll need to wait until I increase my max energy, how long are you willing to wait?"
>>>995014
>Sell an artifact
"No, every artifact we show off or sell garners heat from our potential rivals. If we suddenly gain wealth from someone other than our rivals, just after heiress Willamina awakened (with something other than what they know we have) and received her family's 8-year standing fortune, they're going to connect the dots. We have an advantage by keeping my power obscure."
>Why complicate this? Just use a favor.
"I don't know if your world was chaotic or orderly, but here things are a semi-oppressive mess. Right now, everyone powerful thinks we deserve to be poor, and they'll start staring at us if we aren't. We have to earn wealth in a way they'll never understand. It was never fair or reasonable, it's just what kind of scum has naturally thrived."
>What do
"I'll keep building a network and finding influential/skilled people we can trust, trading power for wealth. Roach continues spying, you start researching. When the time comes to fight, we need half the town informed, and prepared, and on our side."

Slam 30 points into max energy. We should have done that before awakening Willamina.
Use a 5k Favor, buy the property. This won't be suspicious, you can say you and Mint pooled your funds.

Hmm, when Nipha gets here you'll definitely want a space for her. Is she awakened?

Text Cannie and ask her what kind of power she'd want most if she Awakened. She's the next best target for the book right now. ...maybe the Mayor would work? Since she's been helping Willamina and we can give the book to her without revealing Cat's power? Plus she seems to be amused by the shock gadget. Unless of course she was helping Willamina on Max's behest, and isn't actually loyal to her. I think we need to ask Willamina about what people in town we can trust.

I don't think we should get in touch with the Mayor this weekend. Maybe on monday? Would probably need to talk to her to get the permission to buy the paper mill anyway. We can try to present Mint as a tinker from the Big City who wants a place to set up a workshop and the paper mill place sounds like a potential fixer-upper. Should also probably LOOK at the place before we buy it.

One more thing - can Mint explain this 'light-aspect' angel thing a little better?

We'll introduce Willamina to Mint and Roach today before work.

Im wondering if we should save that favor for something else if we are patient about Willamina's inheritance.

Whatever the case, the papermill does sound good for privacy but we'll be further from town if we lived there in case emergencies happen that needs us there asap, and it is suspiciously cheap. Meanwhile living in the apartments will give us people to hang out with, and bring us closer to town, but the privacy might be bad, and living space might be smaller...

Id say we need to check both places before making a final decision

Additional issue with that paper mill outside of town, it sounds like a pretty flammable place for you to be holing up in, and you're dealing with a fanatic who's clearly displayed their willingness to burn things down.

Oh, and let's try not to speak secrets out loud too much in case Aeglos is listening. We don't know how he'd react to finding out about Cat's power.

>>995074
That's something we can easily fix, if it's even true. It's not made out of paper, you know. It's likely a concrete building.

>>995074
Clearly we just need to do a controlled burn to get rid of all the flammable residue.

>>995091
That could work but it'd damage all the wiring and a bunch of other shit we'd have to replace. Probably better to just rent a pressure washer and hose down all the walls. And make sure it's got a fire extinguishing system.

Edmango 2021/04/07(Wed)00:44 No. 995141 ID: afe7de
File 161778147893.png - (7.30KB , 500x500 , C2_034.png )

> Growth?
You: What’s this “GROWTH” thing you’re talking about?

Mint: You mean you don’t know? Uh, how to explain it. It’s like… most kin where I came from had it around twice in their lives. The sensation is like of opening your eyes and seeing a beautiful landscape for the first time. Your body improves dramatically and you feel a qualitative change in it, like being reborn? Its like… something about the accumulation of life experience. Kin usually experience it more often when fighting monsters. Like, how can you not know about something so basic, you have dungeons and monsters and stuff here, do your kin not share information or something?

You: This is just the first I'm hearing of it. I guess that’s another motivation to go on dungeon runs, does it affect awakened powers too?

Mint: It varies from kin to kin but usually it has some effect on it, it’s one of the easier ways to get stronger after all.

Edmango 2021/04/07(Wed)00:44 No. 995142 ID: afe7de
File 161778148934.png - (7.58KB , 500x500 , C2_035.png )

> Light aspect thing?
You: Can you explain what you mean by this ‘light aspect’ angel thing a bit more.

Mint: So everyone’s got a base element affinity, mine has been neutral for the longest while with a slight leaning towards DARK. It’s not something you’d find in your status window because it only really is important for mages and tinkers to an extent. Basically your elemental affinity indicates what aspect of magic you’d be good at casting. Some people speculate it also is a representation of your temperament but that’s a philosophical debate in itself. Anyway, awakening kind of supercharges your aspect, making it easier to do stuff in that domain, like if someone awakened to a wind power, they’d be YELLOW aligned, Ice or water would be BLUE, etc. You can have more than one aspect, and there are 6, well TECHNICALLY 8 aspects.

Mint: Anyway, back to your question. Angels can see your aspect, well, they can see mana and if you’re awakened you kind of glow to them, so if you aren’t of the right element they just see you as a demon. Or so our research has shown.

Edmango 2021/04/07(Wed)00:45 No. 995144 ID: afe7de
File 161778152288.png - (43.45KB , 500x500 , C2_036.png )

Mint: Oh, and because you probably definitely don’t know this. You don’t need a specific power to cast magic, it’s just WAY EASIER if you have one. For example.

Mint creates some harmless sparks around her paws and they dissipate relatively quickly.

You: Woah could you teach me some magic!?!?!?

Mint: Um, yes Master. Of course. But maybe you should get ready for work, that is if you still want to do that. And umm, if your aptitude isnt good and you’re INTELLIGENCE is too low you won’t be able to learn any. I’m not calling you stupid master, I’d never do that, but um. If you can’t learn it then you just might be…

She gives you a smirk and you take that as a personal challenge to take up later.

> Upgrade your base power
You decide to pump your Achievement points into upgrading your ENERGY TOTAL. It increases to 9 and you’re left with an empty Achievement point bank. Your energy total is sitting at a nice 9/9 so you finish up your meal and head back up to your room with Mint. You close the blinds and pick up your backpack, moving roach to it.

> Awaken Mint
You’ve been thinking about this for a little bit but there’s very few downsides to Awakening her right here and now and she might prove to be a very important asset.

Do you Awaken Mint? If so, what power does she get? Feel free to use the Book instead if you prefer. You can always put this off till later.

so like... Tinker is a POWER but it is also a skill set about building stuff, so some people can do it at a basic level even without being awoken? She said she'd like a specialization in tinker, and I am not sure if that is a thing that we can DO or if it's like, something else.

Awaken her to either Enigmatic Inhibitor >>994121 (hopefully dungeons will have monsters we can delete abilities from in dungeons to level it up)

or for stealth:

Out of Body Experience

- Anytime you sleep, instead of having a dream, you can choose to have the dream version of yourself have an out of body experience in the real world to travel within a 5(maybe 10 mile) radius from your body. (or maybe the amount of miles it takes to travel through half of the town of Lyst at least)
- Can travel into other people's dreams by entering their mind
- The dream version of yourself can only be seen by other people who are dreaming (unless someone who is awake has an artifact that lets them see them)
- Warning: going too far from your body can make you lose connection to your dream version, making you unable to dream or have an out of body experience again until you are close enough your dream version of yourself again.
- Warning: any pain you receive when visiting another person's dream can cause temporary pain to your physical body when you awaken.

or

Invisibility

-Can spend energy to cast invisibility on your body
-cannot be used with an innate skill (like transforming into a cat and being invisible at the same time)
-items and equipment cannot be invisible as well

or for tinkering:

Mental Craft

-Any object you can imagine that you want to craft, you get a list of materials in your mind needed to craft, or repair said object, and where exactly to get the materials needed to build it nearby.
-Once you get the materials needed, instead of needing to build it, your mind merges the materials you gather together, and forms it into the object you want to craft instantly
-the more complex the object you want to make, the more energy it takes

I also want to introduce Mint and Roach to Willamina at work. Roach can even talk to her a little bit and we can explain the situation. Though should we introduce Mint in her cat form, or humanoid form?

I'm thinking introduce Willamina to Mint in her cat form for now if Willamina is going to help deliver the mail with us today, just so that Mint can follow her around at a safe distance to make sure nothing bad happens, like if Isabella starts harassing Willamina for example, Mint can become humanoid and ask Willamina to follow her to the post office as she is looking for Cat and get her out of there since Isabella won't do anything to Willamina with a witness nearby.

I say tinker, and also a low key stealth power like:

Cloak of Static - By an act of will about as difficult as holding a fist, the cat can cause surveilance equipment pointed at her to glitch out in a plausible but not necessarily subtle way, and also render herself similarly undetectable to unusual enhanced or power-based senses. Normal mundane vision, hearing, etc remain unaffected, so it becomes a fair game of hide and seek.

>>995148
Forgot to mention for out of body experience ability, you can phase through walls, and levitate to some extent.

>>995145
We've already seen one Tinker power - Rupert, the goat fellow in the Libarby has the "Tinker: Stabilization" power. If we take a leaf out of that, we can probably offer her any amount of interesting Tinker specialties (should tell Mint about Rupert and the tinkerin' club, by the way, she might be interested in using it for fun / new world socialization practice).

>Magic can be cast without powers
Doesn't surprise me, actually. Powers seem like, well, shortcuts to do amazing things, but don't necessarily confer SKILL, GROWTH or CREATIVITY with the power (as evidenced by the fact that if you have a power you can get 'stuck' with it).

>Job, still want to do that
For now, yes, you want to use the job as your cover. It's a good excuse to get out, socialize and get to know the townsfolk, too.

>Awaken Mint
Assuming it can be done privately, then yes (due to the whole glowing thing and whatnot). I'd maintain her getting a power that can be useful in facing off against Isabella if need be, as well as going on dungeon runs.

As such, and given her tinker experience and suggestion she is an INTELLIGENT woman, I suggest giving her the Tinker: Substitution ability. Let Mint be able to cobble together anything from anything. Missing the Unicorn Horn core for your magitech rainbow-lasergun? Fuck, duct tape on a candy cane instead, it'll be fine. It's practically cheating.

>>995153
Also, pump in the whole 9 yards / points - or however much you can! If there are leftovers (i.e. you can't increase a particular power strength partially) can go to giving Roach a li'l boost.

>>995154
I have a feeling we might need to use any leftover points we have to awaken another person, just in case. If we can't find anybody, we'll wait until tonight to upgrade roach, or maybe give his buddies a power.

Dump 5 points into >>995153's idea, save the remaining 4 for upgrading Willamena's Ice aspect as soon as we get to work; we want her as jacked as possible in the event that Isabella targets her.

>Growth is like leveling up, but once or twice
You'll need to grow like nine times if you want to survive an apoocalypse.

>>995144
You definitely need to learn magic. If you can focus on one specific spell, you'll have a cover for your power in case Isabella decides to out your ability or something. Try learning magic dedicated to scanning power signatures - and how to disrupt them.

>Awaken Mint?
Awaken her when she finds a dungeon and gets the appropriate gear and authorization. For now, upgrade Roach and awaken animals in the wilderness to earn the druid's trust.

With her affinity for dark element, perhaps a power to refract light around herself would fit. This can be extended to refracting all sorts of EM energy around oneself - yep, force fields.

I want to see more of mints abilities in action before awakening her.
Put it off till later.

We need to trick out Willamina's ice powers so we have some method of defence against her fire power, though even so her demon power will be rough to deal with.

Rudy's coming on Monday with Nipha. He's a Tinker, so making Mint a Tinker will be redundant. Unless multiple Tinkers can work on the same project to pool their "powers" and make something more powerful than they could make on their own? Then it'd be good. I'd argue we should make her a MagiTech tinker in that case.

Anyway, Mint wants some kinda stealth power, so how about we make her a Ninja?
Agility boost plus an observation-nullifying ability that works best when someone doesn't know where you are. As in, you just hide normally and people overlook you far more than they should. At high levels, can hide in plain sight and also move slowly without attracting attention. Its one weakness is that you have to break line of sight with someone before it starts working, so the 360 degree vision spear would be a counter to it. Magical detection items/abilities are harder to nullify, as well, but not impossible.

Granting powers specifically to counter Isabella is a bit narrow sighted but even a generalist power should her into consideration. I propose she gets:
-NINE LIVES: Precognitive teleports out of danger when she's about to take a felling blow or critical hit. She'll know when her luck's run out, but it will recharge with time.
-CAT'S EYES: some sort of otherworldly vision that will let her perceive Isabella's imaginary friend, and perhaps sense other things of demonic origin - like magic items.
Soon she'll be abusing every one of her powers and running wild, and that's good for both of us!

If we give her a tinker power, give her your shitty multitool, maybe she can make it better

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)00:56 No. 995295 ID: afe7de
File 161786859143.png - (17.51KB , 500x500 , C2_037.png )

> Awaken Her
You: Let’s awaken you and see how it goes.

You reach over and give her a headpat/scratch and a familiar blue glow beings to suffuse Mint’s body, eventually radiating out from her head as a large halo. You feel the loss of 6 ENERGY as a small notification appears before being replaced with her Status Window.

… PROCESSING … CONDITIONS MET … PRE-EXISTING KNOWLEDGE HAS BEEN CONSOLIDATED …

Name: Mint Bubastis
Age: 39
Powers:
TINKER: SUBSTITUTION (4) - UPGRADE? [4]
The user can fabricate or alter existing devices beyond normal means.
Specialty [SUBSTITUTION]
This allows the user to jury-rig their devices using similar, lower quality, resources at hand at the cost of having the devices be more likely to break down. This can be offset by reducing the effectiveness of the device.

ASSIMILATION (1) - Upgrade [4]
The user can passively assimilate with things including their surroundings, higher levels allow for deeper levels of assimilation.

Innate Skill:
BEAST SHAPE
This creature can morph their body into bestial forms related to their race and back at will.

You: Huh, it looks like your skills as a Tinker were… Consolidated? It jumped to 4 in one go.

Mint: UGH hold on, headache. UGh, Great Awakener. Master I hope you didn’t pick that name, a little egotistical if you ask me.

You: UGHHHH I get the feeling literally everyone is going to be saying that. I hope I can unlock an upgrade that lets me change that shit eventually.

Another notification also appears in front of you:

Achievement: “Consolodated Upgrade” Has been unlocked. +15 Achievement Points.

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)00:56 No. 995296 ID: afe7de
File 161786860646.png - (11.00KB , 500x500 , C2_038.png )

You get the feeling that you’ll probably be running out of these easy to get achievements soon, but it’s nice to see your pool get replenished a bit.

Mint: Okay, I’m better now. Huh, I got two powers. Neat. It’s weird, it’s like I got information crammed into my brain I didn't have before and I can actualize some of my projects a bit better now. Too bad we’re still broke.

You: Hopefully we can fix that with Will’s inheritance. Oh, and two more things. We’ve got another tinker coming to town this MONDAY I think, so that’ll be a good time to talk shop.

Mint: And the second thing?

You: There’s a tinker in town, Rupert. He’s in the Libarby and has a focus on “Stabilization” whatever that means, I uh, I havent mentioned this yet but keep my power secret obviously, and he doesn't know that I know. But maybe after we figure out what we’re doing today you might want to chat with him. You suddenly flash back to the other morning when you met him.

> Rupert: Well there isn't really a club per say, more like I have a workshop that I live out of and encourage any aspiring tinkers to come by and swap ideas and make cool gadgets. I have a small budget set aside for anyone who's too broke but can come up with a good blueprint.

Hmmm, that might be a good use of Mint’s time today actually, maybe you should get her to work on that mana detecting device if he can spare the budget for Mint. You ready yourself to head to work, deciding to introduce Mint and Roach to Willamina and then figure out what she’s going to do for the rest of the day.

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)00:56 No. 995297 ID: afe7de
File 161786861810.png - (9.36KB , 500x500 , C2_039.png )

You head over to the post office, this time making TRIPLE SURE you don’t bump into that pole and enter the building. It’s 10AM and she’s already at the desk sorting mail. She looks exhausted but filled with energy at the same time.

You: Uhh, you okay Will?

Willamina: WHAT? Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just, I was too excited to sleep last night. Like, POWERS, you know, so crazy! I called the Heroes league last night, they’re sending a REPRESENTATIVE sometime today, probably in the late afternoon to confirm my powers. They say if I’m telling the truth they’ll have the situation with my INHERITANCE squared away by this evening, so It was kind of hard to sleep for that reason too. But the STRANGEST thing happened last night. My phone overheated while I was browsing the net and like the battery melted. I even tried using my ice to cool it down but it still happened, SUPER WEIRD. So I’m probably gonna stop by the Lyst-Y-Mart and pick up a new phone TODAY.

You can tell that even though she’s fatigued, she’s mentally full of so much energy she’s nearly bouncing around. She continues to talk and eventually looks right behind you, being surprised

Willamina: Anyway, today’s gonna be different PRICK, you’ll be manning the counter and I’ll be making DELIVERIES once we sort this mail. UHH, HUH? Whose your FRIEND, I didn't see her there?

Hand Will your second stamina liquor and resolve to thank and repay Andrea later on - they really came in handy during a rough patch.

Consider the unpleasant prospect of the demonic flame spirit hanging around, invisibly, spying on Will, even now.

>Who's your friend
Introduce Mint. Officially she's a college buddy, fellow wannabe tinkerer and overall cool lady.

Unofficially? She's here to help you SAVE THE WORLD or some shit. She's also property.

Like, yes, you did say both of those right. Shit got weird fast after you Awakened. Like, real hell-bound handbasket express stuff. Anyway, it turns out having your kind of power MAY come with some caveats! Who knew?

Or having Awakened to powers at all really, except not everyone gets to know that? Look, you will discuss it in more detail later, you really want to let her in on things as you understand them, but she sounds real tuckered out, you both have jobs to do and there's no RUSH on anything yet. 's just... she should be aware things will get messy in the future. And that she should be careful. Don't let anyone or anything get under her skin today, m'kay? You don't think her COMM getting messed up was a coincidence.

Oh! You have one other buddy, too. (Nudge Roach to introduce themselves.) Maybe you'll have them stick with her today, they could help fill her in on some things while she does the rounds.

(Mentally tell Roach to not reveal the Isabella-Max stuff to her yet - it'll ruin her day for sure - but to keep an eye out for trouble on Will's behalf. And if she gets like, kidnapped or something, to try to track where they take her and to get back to you, although holy shit if something like that goes down. Don't risk their own life! Worst case you'll approach someone else and give them tracking powers.)

Anyway, she shouldn't worry too much about YOUR shit now - cuz' today's her day, alright? Just focus on getting her power proved and approved!

Also
>at the cost of having the devices be more likely to break down
certainly sounds like something it'd be useful to have someone with a Tinkerer: Stabilization specialty around for, so that's a neat potential synergy to look into. Might mean we'd want to recruit Rupert, which means investigating HIS background and relative trustworthiness.

>>995299
The only concern is that he might have close connections with Iraphena since she helps budgets for his workshop.

What do? We got a lot of things we need Mint and Roach to do, so sorry if this is too much:

First, give Willamina your last Stamina Liqour.

Then, introduce Willamina to Mint, then Roach (before you show her roach, tell her that you have a cockroach that you awakened to speak to people telepathically in your bag so she doesnt freak out.)

I'm kind of worried for Willamina. Maybe we can ask if she can give Mint a tour of the town today while she is delivering mail, and Mint can fill her in on what is happening. that way if they run across Isabella, she would be less likely to try anything if there is a witness.

But if Willamina refuses to have Mint follow her today, Mint should use her cat form to follow Willamina in a safe distance, and if Willamina runs across Isabella and she starts harassing Willamina, Mint can go to her humanoid form and intervene by asking Willamina to take her to the post office, that way Isabella will be less likely to do something.

We can also ask if roach can hide in her hat and tell her that roach can telepathically tell her everything we know so far. We might need to have roach tell her about Isablella and what we found out about her when he spied on her, but make it clear to Willamina to keep it a secret that she now knows of her fire abilities. It might be most important that she knows this sooner rather than later. If she doesnt let Roach come with her, roach can let her know about Isabella right now.

Also, if Willamina allows Mint to tour with her today, ask if Mint can also speak to Rupert briefly about his workshop if they come across him.

> Phone overheating ends in a small defeat.
We need to make Willamena’s ice powers stronger, clearly. If you saved any power energy from awakening Mint, use it on that now.

Do explain that the other people in the room are in the know to begin with, of course - you’ve awakened them, too.

>>995304
I considered having Mint follow Will too, but the thing here is that if something actually serious happens, Mint isn't really gonna be able to help on her own - she needs time and resources first to create devices that can help - and spending her time with Rupert first things first seems like a good way for some of that to take place (and getting a bead on any nearby dungeon seems important too).

I'd ixnay on the 'can awaken others'-ay as much as possible while there's a potential for Isabella's demonic flame spirit to be hanging about - Isabella's supposed to be keeping an eye on Will, which is why I consider that an elevated risk particularly now that she's been Awakened.

That's the reason why I expressed things so vaguely in the above suggestion and why I suggested Roach do some of the filling-in - telepathy should be harder to listen in on (could be wrong here, but it's a safer bet).

At any rate, the two things I think can help Will in a Serious Situation is A) if we empower her more or B) if we get other people to help her (by empowering them or warning them Will's in trouble) - otherwise you and Mint are pretty vanilla mortal still (Although Mint has a battle cat form! Then again, that's still not much protection from, say, being lit on fire.).

And if it's not a serious situation, well... Will's an adult and she's got powers now, so she'll hopefully be fine? Unless taking out her phone was tactical rather than petty, I think Isabella's mostly gonna stick to trying to jinx and sabotage her harder at worst. Maybe light some of her mail on fire, stuff like that.

You can be sure the phone exploded *before* Will could read our text. She needs to be warned that she's potentially in danger.

>>995306
Good points, if it is true a demon spirit has been spying on Willamina and still is, then a worrying thought is that it would mean Isabella now knows about our real power to awaken people if that demon spirit saw us awaken Willamina during their spying.

And since Roach was caught spying on isabella by her, that would mean that if we show Willamina Roach now, the demon spirit will alert Isabella and she will be able to connect the dots and realize Cat was the one spying on her through Roach yesterday!

Hopefully the phone burning incident was just Isabella running to Willamina's house to burn her phone after somebody at the bar called her about it and not a demon spirit that is spying on Willamina 24/7,
but if a spirit is spying on Willamina constantly is true, my strategy now will be to have to hold off on showing Willamina Roach but instead still ask Willamina to give Mint a tour of the town while she works and asking if they can make a pitstop to talk to Rupert about joining his club of course. Next give Mint your backpack which contains Roach and have him from inside the backpack pretend to be Mint communicating telepathically with Willamina, telling her it is Mint's awakened power to not suprise her too much, and let her know secretly what is going on and tell her to stay silent, and eventually reveal to her it isnt actually Mint communicating with her, but Roach instead. Isabella I feel wont do anything if there is a witness like Mint near Willamina if she plans to do anything serious.

We might need to really consider seeing if one of the artifacts miss Iraphena has can see invisible demon spirits that we can trade for...

>>995297
"Willa, I have more secrets that are even more disturbing and you need to know them, but I'm afraid you'll have a meltdown if I spill them all at once.
So pick one of the following creepypasta punchlines:
- Her Love is More Than a 'Splosion
- How to Min-Max Your Relationships
- It's The End of the World As We Know It and I (Don't) Feel Fine"

I really wonder if her fatigue is really excitement, or if it is actually stress from trauma due to her phone burning. Regardless, give her your stamina drink.

Lets see about upgrading Willamina's power a bit just for safety

Mint here is someone I trust.

There's a lot I need to explain to you, too much to go into now.

I have reason to believe however, that your phone was no coincidence. You may be in danger. I'd go to the police but my source though reliable, wouldn't exactly hold up in court.
I know it's weird ask, but would you let my friend here escort you on your route today? Put her in a uniform. Say she's a new Trainee.
It'd make me feel a lot better.

Upgrade our Max Power to 10 right quick, and Upgrade Willamina's Ice power 2 Levels if possible, otherwise upgrade them 1-1

Give Mint our gun. Tell her she can do whatever she needs to with it.

>>995297
Isabella broke her phone. Petty bitch. Oh well at least we know Isabella's not gonna kill her over this. We're pretty sure at this point that the fire spirit can be used to spy, though, and... well, it's probably hanging around Willamina and will be tormenting her, so we can't talk about any big secrets with her until we've dealt with Isabella or at least have some way of confirming if the fire spirit is around.
Introduce Mint using her cover story. That should keep Willamina from talking about any big secrets in front of Mint.
Ask her if Max had an ice-type power too.

See if you can Upgrade her ice power. We've got some spare points and obviously it can't counter Isabella's spirit yet. The phone melting thing might have been an attempt to gauge Isabella's power, even. Thankfully doing this in front of Mint will keep her from talking about it and potentially blowing your cover to the spirit.

Send Cannie a text asking her what kind of powers she'd want if she was Awakened.
Get a 5k favor. Yes, I am going to suggest this every update until we have money.
Wasn't Iraphena supposed to send us a list of trade items?

>>995314
Spirit probably isn't out spying 24/7. We know for a fact it at some point hung around with Isabella at the house long enough to detect and burn Roach 1.0. It was also in the park, burning animals, some time BEFORE Will and you arrived there that evening.

We're not even 100 % sure that its range can take it far away from Isabella (though odds are the range of a semi-autonomous entity is at least somewhat better than our measly 1 meter).

The main fear is whether surveillance was stepped up due to Will's Awakening. It certainly must've gotten close enough yesterday to overheat her COMM.

The implicit threat of invisible spirit was actually why I was interested in Awakening a miko-like spiritual strength / spirit binding ability in Mint earlier, before she made it clear it might be better to lean into her tinker side.

Speaking of which, if we do manage to get a mana detection device out of Mint's tinkering in Rupert's workshop today, perhaps it could be made to detect spirits as well?

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)22:54 No. 995401 ID: afe7de
File 161794765036.png - (15.00KB , 500x500 , C2_040.png )

> Give Willamina the Stamina Liquor
You pop your remaining Stamina Liquor out of your ring and hand it to Willamina, thinking she could use it more than you at this point. She takes it gladly and CHUGS the thing.

Willamina: THANKS, I should at least have some energy for the rest of the day now.

> Introduce Mint but use her cover story
You: This is Mint, I knew her from college and she had a similar idea as me, moving out to Lyst to get away from the city. There's UH, a bit more backstory to it than that but we should REALLY save that for when we're able to take a breather and stress out over other stuff. Let’s just say she’s a VERY trustworthy kin.

Mint: It's a pleasure to meet you Mistress Willamina.

Willamina: Aw HELLS yeah, I can dig being called Mistress. And Let me guess, you have 3 other REALLY big important things to discuss.

You: Uhh, approximately yeah. Some of them bleed into the other but yeah, wait, how'd you know.

Willamina: LUCKY guess?

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)22:54 No. 995402 ID: afe7de
File 161794766006.png - (30.01KB , 500x500 , C2_041.png )

> Upgrade Willamina
You: Would you mind if we uh, went somewhere private for a moment.

Willamina: WOW, you HORN DOG you, wanting some HANKY PANKY this early in the morning. Can't get enough of these burnt HAMS over here?

You immediately flush and flail your arms around in a gesture of denial, a chuckle escapes Mint's mouth in the process.

You: N-n-n-n-not what I m-m-m-meant, I uh was uh referring to uh. Doing more of uh, what we did yesterday uh.

Willamina: WHAT, that's what I said, while I'd LOVE to grind and smooch some more, we got to sort this MAIL and deliver it, there's a lot today.

Mint: Wow Master, you had me in bed all night after you got naughty with her, and you want MORE? How salacious.

Willamina: And I thought I was the HORNY one of us two.

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)22:54 No. 995403 ID: afe7de
File 161794767872.png - (108.98KB , 500x500 , C2_042.png )

Willamina and Mint both burst into a fit of laughter at that as you feel yourself shrink into a ball from ebarrasment. Well at least they're getting along well enough. You're not comfortable upgrading Willamina in this room with the open windows and potential spirit floating around, and you don't want to bring up Upgrading specifically for the same reason, so you hold back on it for now.

> Text Cannie
You instead pull out your COMM and shoot a quick text to Cannie in the hopes to distract yourself.

You: Hey Cannie, just a weird, totally out there question, but if you could Awaken to any power you wanted, what would it be? I'll tell you mine first, I'd wanna be a Tinker! I wanted to go to college for it but they basically kicked me out because I didnt awaken.

Looks like you also have a message from Miss Iraphena.

Miss Iraphena: Managed to scrounge together 5 items instead of 3, rather not send pics rn, come by after work if you're interested. REALLY want that ring you're wearing, so I might offer 2 for it.

You pocket your phone and get back up, looks like the two were chatting while you were wallowing.

Mint: Is Mistress some kind of famed warrior? Those burns must be from an epic battle. Or maybe you have flame powers?

Willamina: Ice actually, the SCARS are from an accident like 10 years ago. Is our resident FLIRT back in action?

You: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s get to sorting already.

Mint goes to sit in a corner while the two of you get to work sorting mail, you finish a little while later and Willamina packs up her gear, getting ready to head out. You put on your postal worker outfit and sit at the front desk.

You: Oh, Mint. I forgot you were there…

Willamina: WHAT? Phew holy shit you scared the goddess out of me.

Mint: I uh just sat here the whole time.

Looks like Mint was practicing her power, you didn't even notice her there, maybe she revealed her presence as she saw you were finishing up. Seems like a convenient power.

Edmango 2021/04/08(Thu)22:54 No. 995404 ID: afe7de
File 161794768625.png - (12.80KB , 500x500 , C2_043.png )

> Mint should meet with Rupert
You: Yeah, uh, I’ve got work, so I guess you should go do whatever for the day. Maybe stop by the Libarby and talk to Rupert about working on that device we were talking about. And if you get a chance maybe look into the Apartments, see how good they are and the abandoned paper mill, see if it’s actually worth it. Try to be back by uhh… 4 or 5? Ugh, this would be easier if you had a COMM.

Mint: I will do as the lecherous Master wishes.

Willamina: Well look at Mr. BOSSY over here, how about she tags along with me, I can show her to the PLACES and point her towards the mill.

You: Good idea, do that. Maybe catch her up to speed on the more important things using our buddy here, please introduce him at some point. Just uh, please don’t talk about my theories on the fire starter, that’s a conversation I’d rather have with Will myself.

Willamina: You’re friends with a BACKPACK? Well who am I to judge, I used to be the same way about my DOLLS. Bye.

Mint gives you a bow and heads out of the place. It’s 12PM right now, you’ve got a few hours of work ahead of you. Who walks into the Post Office first?

A. Isabella
B. Trey
C. Someone you haven’t met yet
D. Other Pick whoever you want!

>>995404
Trey

B. Trey is the first person. However, he walks in, takes one glance at you, then he leaves immediately before you or he says anything.

It would be very scary if Isabella came in later. Just for the creepiness factor, lets have her walk in later today.

but we should also vote to have a new person walk in later

Also sure hope Andrea doesn't walk in looking for action today *TEMPTING FATE*

>>995404
A. Let's get this over with.

If she kills us, we can immediately go to the cops. Murder is still murder, even if the victim comes back to life.

A. If we gotta come across Isabella, might as well be now when Willamina and Mint is already gone a fair distance. Whatever messed up shit she tells you, just jokingly say "ma'am, this is a post office" But tell her you didnt reveal anything about her power to her if she confronts you, so you dont know what the big deal is.

Also take some time to sneak some reads into your book, we gotta finish it. Maybe also text some people, like Toni. Ask if he wanted to talk to you the other day, he was giving you looks during the group dinner... send him a silly shitpost pic of yourself also, like a picture of you about to eat your COMM with the phrase: POV: You're delicious! We could use some cheering up from him to prepare for whats to come.

Trey

... what's up, Doc?

>>995404
C

The auditor is early today

Trey, we really should've talked to him more but that bonus was too great a risk.

...Maybe Toni later, though it probably wouldn't go well.

Isabella. Such a nice girl.

Bobby Slurps

If Isabella shows up anytime today, get your water ready to calm your nerves (and to stay cool if she heats anything up). Most importantly: Secretly Set your COMM to record the conversation you'll have with her, and hide it in your pocket (assuming the COMM has an app to record audio)

Try to steer conversations to things unrelated to Willamina to keep yourself from revealing anything and to help play dumb, like talking about winning against her sister in a fight.

Isabella visiting now might be bad for us personally... but it might also mean she's not out there assaulting Will.

... No, that's a false dichotomy; she has all day to do one followed by the other.

B: Trey

Edmango 2021/04/09(Fri)23:58 No. 995510 ID: afe7de
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> Trey
Around 30 minutes of you doodling in your CAT NOTE later the door chimes as someone enters the room. It’s Trey! You look up and lock eyes with the man, you know, actually looking at him straight up for the first time gives you the strange impression that you’ve met or seen him before. But you’re not sure where. You get up to try to greet him, and maybe check his power while you’re at it.

Edmango 2021/04/09(Fri)23:58 No. 995511 ID: afe7de
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Before you make it a few steps he drops what he was holding and backs out of the door. You’re confused so head over to the front door and pick up what he dropped. It’s a small box for prepaid post delivery. Guess he was dropping off a package to be delivered. You read the shipping label and it appears to be addressed to one Inspector McFair in the Big City. You put the box in your pile of outgoing mail and get back to chilling. Looking under the desk you find a book of SUDOKU puzzles. You’re bored so you pick a HARD difficulty one, this’ll probably keep you preoccupied throughout the day.

Edmango 2021/04/09(Fri)23:58 No. 995512 ID: afe7de
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You keep yourself distracted and occasionally look up finding no one entering the store. Eventually you see Isabella walk by, not entering. But a few moments later you see a blurry form phase through the wall. You focus and your demon eye amulet gives you a better idea of what you’re looking at. It’s some kind of… Angel? You can see its lips move but no words come out. It’s scanning the room and hasn’t locked it’s eyes on you yet.

>>995512
"Aren't you a bit early?"

DEMON EYE AMULET

Is that Isabella's Demonic Flame Spirit? but then why would it label it as an angel? and also, Roach wasn't able to see it, so how can you?

Try not to make eye contact and pretend you don't see it. If it notices that you can see it, it might alert Isabella.

but try this: quickly turn on your audio recording on your phone. Maybe someday, you might be able to find someone who can hear spirits and you can play it to them to see what that spirit is saying.

While you're recording audio, send
Toni a shitpost as >>995411 mentioned earlier to make it look like you don't notice it, and maybe get your water bottle out under the counter from your ring, just in case.

Don't look at her! If she knows you can see her, there goes the element of surprise. Focus very hard on the card rack.

>>995517
This, trying not to provoke it sounds good.

Idea to get the flame spirit out:
Text Andrea, tell her 'Willamina is away and Im bored, could use a show right about now. Bring potions!' That should get her here quick enough to scare the spirit away before it does something.

...though it might make more problems arise with Andrea trying to fuck us and scare away customers. (I'm not committed to this suggestion, it was more of a joke. Only use this at your own risk!)

Just put away your cat book for now so it doesnt burn and keep your eyes off the spooky ghost. At least now we'll know if we're being spied on by Isabella or not. Im assuming the amulet is letting us see Isabella's spirit. (We may need to consider giving Willamina the amulet if thats the case, despite how helpful it is to us.

Isabella is Iraphena's boss, so she PROBABLY knows you were at the auction. If she does not, she knows if your "detector" power, as you told it. Seeing the demon isn't a huge stretch.
If say straight up greet it in a friendly, non-chalant way

Care to do a test?

Take off the amulet.
Re-equip it.

I suspect it'll disappear while the amulet is removed.

Pretend you don't notice it but don't let it out of your sight.

Try not to crack up at how goofy Isabella's flame spirit looks.

Text Iraphena: "Hey, did you give Isabella the OK to be a gigantic creep around me? I don't feel safe." "Seriously, one of my sources literally overheard her expressing a desire to go behind your back vise-a-vise hurting us." "If you let her escalate, and shit goes south, you can kiss that trade session goodbye."

It's entirely possible we could still salvage our relationship with Iraphena even if things escalate with Isabella because I kind of doubt they're necessarily 100% buddies here.

> Trey avoiding us, a city folk.
> Stays anonymous in the papers even when it's not a secret locally.
It's confirmed; Trey, perhaps unrelated to the incident, had a history in the big city - one that means he doesn't want anyone from the city to find him and point it out.
> Investigators in the Hadlee estate incident.
He was either fortunate when the investigators came into town, or he already has an understanding with the Heroes' Association. If it's the latter, then it's most likely that he's in a super version of witness protection. Do you know if "Dr. Trey" brings up any memory of outed supers? The fact that he withheld his name from the papers means it isn't entirely a fake name. (We'd probably need to research this.)

Alternatively...

> Isabella standing over Willamena can't kill her for some reason.
> Trey carried Willamena out, never mentions seeing Isabella (or anyone else for that matter).
> Max(?) still in contact with Isabella.
Did... Did Max pull a switcharoo with Dr. Trey? Is the real Dr. Trey buried with the Hadlees as Max? Add the Hadlee portrait to your list of revisiting research... and we might need to grill Willamena on what happened that night now more than ever.

>>995545

>I kind of doubt they're necessarily 100% buddies here.

Agreed, one possibility I suspect could be that Iraphena is a slave to Isabella just like Mint is a slave to us.

I'd personally hold off on texting Iraphena though personally, Isabella isn't directly being a creep towards us and is doing it indirectly using her flame spirit, probably thinking we cant see it. Texting Iraphena to tell Isabella to stop may reveal to Isabella we saw her flame spirit and find us suspicious. and we probably dont want to reveal we've been spying on Isabella without getting a full story between their relationship, even if we assume their relationship isnt all 100% good. Best to keep our cards close to our chest for now until we get more info on their relationship.

>It's confirmed; Trey, perhaps unrelated to the incident, had a history in the big city - one that means he doesn't want anyone from the city to find him and point it out.

That makes sense. We should probably look into who he really is and try to remember where we may have seen him before.

Idea: Maybe Kazu knows who Trey was if we text him and tell him Trey looks familiar, then ask if Trey was a big shot in the city or something since Kazu was from the city like us.

>angel?
Mint said the remnants of her world was overcome by a buncha fallen angels and she was sold at a demon auction. There might be a distinction between demonic spirits, fallen angels, actual angels and straight up demons, but it seems fairly obvious they've gotta be related in some way.

>Lips moving, can't hear anything
I'm betting she can talk to Isabella and that Isabella can hear her regardless of distance. Maybe that's why Isabella was laughing to herself when Roach was spying on her? Sounds like they have a good relationship in that case. Isabella showing up nearby may also indicate the spirit's range isn't SUPER good, though. Hard to say for sure, as the spirit might've just been with her coincidentally and split off to spy when she saw Cat was in the post office by themselves.

Anyway, do not reveal you know she's there. Likely she's been around you before and you've previously shown no indication you noticed! Revealing that you can see her now might verify that we bought the Demon Eye Amulet, too (if Iraphena and Isabella suspects its actual use case), although we could definitely pretend it's because you upgraded your power's utility with achievement points.

Anyway, pretending to stay ignorant of her presence A) gives us an opportunity to potentially feed misinformation to Isabella and whoever she is with and B) an opportunity to see what the spirit DOES around people.

>Tips for spying casually back on her
'Bored' poker face it up, gaze idly at things around inside, walk and stretch your legs from time to time, check out the postcards, occupy your hands with the Sudoku or your notebook.

>Tips for feeding misinformation
Doodle misleading things into your notebook! Like, spread in art and keywords that Isabella already knows about or will soon verify to be true - such as you know being Mint's Master, or the demon auction items you plan on trading - with basic misinformation about your own power and what you actually know, such as you still needing to touch people and only getting a sense of number of powers and (possibly) their relative strength.

You could try combining any number of doodles and surrounding commentary, like so:

[doodle of grabby hands] - Detect-touching. Strong. Strength is relative? Knowledge = power? Workshop better-sounding name... (implied to be you, emphasizes that your power is detection based and you need to touch things for it to work)

[doodle of eyes] - TWO! Sees futures??? No clue! Strong + mid. (refers to Iraphena)

[doodle of hand about to poke a panic-wide eye] - Hands beat future sight? ...why? (refers to Iraphena's powers not working on you - suggesting that it's a mystery to you as well as to why might relax them)

[doodle of dat-ass] - TWO! No clue! No clue! Both strong! (refers to Isabella and strokes her / the spirit's ego)

[doodle of glasses] - THREE!! Minor healing? Pain reduction? Unnatural masseuse expertise??? Mid-to-weak. Ask for appointment when less cash-strapped. (refers to Gruk)

[doodle of postman's cap] - TWO! Ice! No pain! Both weak-ish? Cool awakening, though! (Refers to Will, and misleads on the nature of her second and stronger power - and lets us learn what the spirit thinks of terrible puns)

[doodle of stethoscope] - To do: order appointment, shake hands. Last lead on old mystery fire... (Refers to Trey, the doctor, and suggests you're nearing the end of your rope on the mansion fire investigation)

[doodle of Randolph with a crown] - KING of the AUCTION - and more! Way to throw a guy in at the deep end, dude! (refers to the auction and the things you were told)

[doodle of a book, a ring and a stylized cat face] - Sell or keep? Should have bought more stuff. (refers to your auction purchases and misleads as to how many you actually got)

----

>Engaging with the spirit
I don't advice it, but if we DO end up engaging with the spirit, I strongly suggest we play into what Isabella already believes to have revealed about our powers... and that we don't obviously tie her to Isabella.

If the spirit gets close enough - say while we're doodling in the notebook, to check on what we're doodling - just suddenly yawn and stretch and accidentally TOUCH her - at which point you go all "Whuh? Was someone there?" and stare myopically in the spirit's direction, acting confused. Acting no further on it will probably make the spirit more cautious about coming close to you, which'll make it easier to avoid being spied on in the future!

Or you can pretend you can now suddenly see her fully (from the power of your DETECT-TOUCHING) and engage by being like "...an angel? First demons, now fucking flaming angels? ...I mean. Hello?" This plays into pretending to not know the exact nature of Isabella's powers, which is arguably something she doesn't want revealed.

... also, if we do engage, try figure out where the fire extinguisher in this room is before-hand. Y'know. Just in case.

>>995550
If we decide to give the spirit false information on our notebook, There could be a chance that Iraphena might be secretly protecting us from Isabella and did not tell her we were at an auction, so maybe we can leave out the last two on the list (randolph, and our artifacts)

>>995553
Hey, that's intel as well! If the spirit seems particularly surprised at the mention of either of those, we know Iraphena's keeping info from Isabella. I doubt she's THAT secretive, though, especially if Isabella being her boss is fo' reals true.

Honestly if Lyst is an 'auction site' as Mint called it, then I suspect some Awakened could be hanging about town hoping to become a part of the next one (like Iraphena and CROW). And there could be more empowered items around here than elsewhere.

Remember that the awakenings have been going on for like 50 years now. Two of the families involved in the founding of the Heroes' League (Hadlee and Walpole) apparently hails from here. There's HISTORY in Lyst, sounds like.

Wait, wait, wait.

Is it possible Isabella believes that Will was supposed to be here?
Might this be a quiet attempt to kill?
If so... uh, I hope you have some type of fire suppressor close by.

Oh! just got an idea maybe:

If we are going to throw them false information on our notembook, and if Isabella is going to try to sabotage Willamina's chance at getting her inheritance back, why don't we trick Isabella and her spirit by making them think Willamina isn't going to get her inheritance despite being awakened.

Write something like: 'Willamina not getting her inheritance despite being awakened? Maybe the hero's league spent it all? investigate this later.' on the cat notebook. should keep Isabella from pulling tricks to ruin Willamina's inheritance for awhile.