"Something else entirely," I smile through my mask. "Not Elven or Leprechaun, either." Ha ha. "Although Z and I have become acquainted since my arrival. Call me Silence." I set the glass down on the table, and take a seat, still on my guard with that panoramic awareness going.
"I suppose you're just a trio of guys unwinding after your boring workdays, hmm? Just what is it you gentlemen do for money? Something interesting, I hope."
Let's try mind reading on one of the younger two.
You reach his mind. He's thinking that any moment the boss is going to give the signal for them to toss you out on your ear, but that he should wait for it and not rush things.
The boss has a German immigrant accent. "So, you're just trying to figure out what you want to be if you grow up? Asking adults what they do? I own this restaurant. These men work for me--my driver, what the French call, what is it, a chauffer, and my bodyguard."
--M. J. Young
Ah, let's try for German, then. That should be up there with my general language training from not so long ago in the grand scheme of things.
"You mock me. I already know what I'd like to be when I grow up: unthreatened by the likes of you. I've taken great pains to assure that I will be." I nonchalantly move my stick to indicate the fact that I'm armed but uninterested in the fact.
"Your dogs are eager to bite me. I'd see to it they stay leashed, if I were you; it can be very difficult to find good help, and I'm not likely to let them live long enough to find out whether they've had their vaccinations."
He answers in German.
"I think you threaten me, or you mean to do so. If my employees feel that someone is a threat, it is good that they would want to protect me, yes? They have done nothing to threaten you, unless you feel threatened by the fact that my bodyguard stands ready to act if necessary.
"I think you should leave. But stay if you like; the chocolate cake is very good, if you like cocoanut, and I can have them serve it with a glass of milk."
--M. J. Young
"I'm wounded." I don't sound like it, though. "I'm not sure what I've done to make you all feel threatened. All I want to do is get to know you a bit. I've been keeping to myself a lot since I got to town, and I haven't decided where my allegiance lies yet, so I'm trying to meet the major players and figure out who interests me the most.
"I'm not here for the cake, but I'm not yet ready to leave. Perhaps you have some place more private where we can talk business?"
"So," he says, still eyeing you suspiciously, "you would be a merc then, working for the highest bidder?"
--M. J. Young
"A mercenary, in a certain sense of the word," I answer thoughtfully, "Though money isn't important to me. I'm more interested in less concrete things. Call them ambitions, dreams, ideals, whatever you will, those are what attracts my attention; my services are generally forthcoming where my attention wanders.
"On that note, what desires drive your goals? Money? Power? Women? Or are you after something more interesting than the usual?"
"Pah. Dreams. What are they? One day you awaken, and all you have is a faded memory. The mundane appeals to me quite well enough. Wealth and power mean that I am feared; being feared means that I am safe. I have lived long already, and will live yet a while longer."
--M. J. Young
"Perhaps that may be the case for you; as for myself, the situation is much different. Immortality makes mundane nearly intolerable. Still, what you say about fear has gotten my attention; why do you think people fear you? Here I sit across the table from you, and all I see is an blind man with his seeing eye dogs.
"Please don't misunderstand. I don't mean any offense; it's just that I've seen many more threatening opponents during my short stay here, and I'm curious as to what it is I'm missing here."
"You see what you are intended to see. I am an ordinary businessman, doing my ordinary perfectly legitimate business. Anyone who says otherwise is making a mistake. On the other hand, for some reason, people fear me--as if it would be a mistake to try to hurt me, let's say, it would bring bad luck to you and your loved ones."
--M. J. Young
I'm intrigued, mostly for the implications this could hold for me, and I ask, "I guess that you're a high ranking figure in a respectable organization. Did you build the organization yourself, or did you struggle your way to the top, or was your position yours simply by right of birth? How do you maintain loyalty in your... employees?
"I have seen many worlds, and I can see how your particular position can expand staying power considerably, which is why I'm so interested in how you've become so accomplished."
Once I hear his answer, I continue, "My acquaintance at the bar would like nothing more than to catch you in an illegal act; I, on the other hand, prefer my work to have more meaning. Perhaps you've heard it said before, discretion is the better part of valor? I would like to come to a mutually beneficial agreement. A man of your calibur doesn't get to be where he stands without making industry rivals, and certainly you know some of the details of certain events to come involving their business; large sales, perhaps, or shipments to arrive. Thus, my suggestion is simple: you give me the information, and in return I will crush your rivals. Their clientelle will then be looking for a new supplier, and do you think would stand to benefit from such an affair?
"You stand much to gain from such an arrangement; you keep your resources safe from the situation, and your involvement will be unknown to your rivals as you capitalize on their failures in all the right places with your inside knowledge. If we should fail, we will be dead; the knowledge of your involvement will die with me, and my acquaintance at the bar will surely not be missed by the likes of you.
"As I said. I don't seek money as payment. The tips your drop toward bringing down your enemies will be more than adequate."
"Ah--a 'high ranking figure in a respectable organization'. I like that. It describes me well, wouldn't you boys agree?"
They do, with a bit of a laugh.
"Let's say that it's a complicated process, both earning the position and maintaining it. Certainly part of it is who my father was, and part of it is what I did in the past, and part of it is my capability in the present."
You make your offer. He hesitate. "I vill have to think about this. After all, vhat is to prevent others from making a similar deal, and so hurting my business? Or indeed, vhat is to prevent them from making the same deal with you? I need to discuss it with a few colleagues. Come back in a few days."
--M. J. Young
"First of all, the thing that will prevent them from making a similar deal with someone else is your assets. If they had a way to do such a thing in a way that couldn't be traced back to them, you're fooling yourself if you think they wouldn't have tried it already.
"Secondly, the thing preventing others from making the same deal with me is our mutually beneficial business relationship. You give me information, I bring down your rivals. You give me more information, I bring down more of your rivals. I'm thinking of something more long-term than this single excursion.
"However, and this last is certainly not the least; if you and your colleagues decide against choosing my services, then I may bring Solace to another well-established business here in the city, and they may not be as thoughtful of your business as you have been of theirs.
"I will return here in one week around the same time, perhaps with a cohort, perhaps alone. Either way, I caution you against trying to spring a trap on me; as much as I like you, I'd never let that stop me from cutting you into bite-size pieces and force-feeding you to your grandchildren."
(Saturday night/Sunday morning currently)
I stand up. I try to read the elder's mind again.
Then I walk back over to Icarus. Back to English. "Did you try the cake? I hear it's to die for."
He's thinking that he has to have you followed, find out who you really are, whether someone else sent you. It could be a trap, of course. It is still an interesting offer, and he might talk to his associates about whether there's a safe way to make use of it.
Icarus offers to stand you for a slice of the cake and have one himself, if you like.
--M. J. Young
"No, thanks. One of us has to drive, remember."
When we leave, I'll keep a panoramic eye for my tail, and insist on walking for a few blocks, instructing Icarus to go ahead and take to the sky, but to keep out of sight; I want to gain some ground on the tail, turn down an alley or a blind corner leading to a quiet, dark commercial or industrial avenue which has shut down for the night, and try to find a place to hide to lie in wait for him, since I expect he'll follow in the hopes that he'll find where I am.
Are you explaining any of this to Icarus? (His actions would be different depending on whether he thinks you're luring the guy into a trap or being cornered by someone unaware.)
--M. J. Young
My explanation to Icarus will be short, sweet, quiet, and friendly looking.
"Looks like we've acquired a guest; I'd be a poor host if I didn't take the time to greet him properly." I hope it's a him, at least; if it's a her, I might have an issue, since the only women I've ever had reason to kill were the funny scorpion lady and the lady with the whip, both of whom intended me real harm. I'm not sure I'm as comfortable slaughtering one in cold blood as I am doing the same to a man. Well, we'll deal with that if it comes up.
"You go ahead and say goodbye to me and take to the air; keep out of sight." I motion to him with my hand in a half-hearted wave.
Icarus goes skyward. You round a corner into what proves to be a blind alley, but it contains a couple dumpsters along the way, and fire escapes down the walls of the buildings on either side. You've got about forty seconds before he will reach the same corner, based on your awareness of where he was and how he was moving.
--M. J. Young
Stand behind a dumpster; hopefully, he thinks that I've already reached the other end of the alley and follows. I'll get in Gazuntite while I wait for him to catch up, my stick in my hand.
I'm ready to quick draw the P99 as soon as I see the tail -- preferrably to his back, but if he sees me than I have no choice. If I do get his back, I'll cock it to let him know someone is behind him with a gun; either way, hopefully before he's got a weapon in his hand, I'll tell him, "Don't move." I will not fire if he does as I say; if he tries to run or pull his weapon, I'm going to end his life -- I might be an amateur, but point blank with a 2@7 RSV 2@3 BRA and 11@ ABL with an RF10 weapon in an RF2 style isn't hurting my chances any.
(If I'm in the wrong about the RF10 x RF2 for style with the pistol, let me know. I presume it's alright, as I'm still limited by the magazine size (16), even though I could shoot 40 times (10 x 2 x 2). (hmm, maybe if I had another pistol in my other hand..?))
It also brings up the question, do I need to drop my stick to do this? If not, could I have the lajatang in one hand and the stick in the other? I mean, I would think that (for instance) if I can attack 8 times with the lajatang or 4 with the stick, I could attack 4 times with the lajatang and twice with the stick, or six lajatang one stick. The question is, I know you can use any MA weapon in any weapon allowed MA style, but can you also hold a weapon in each hand and use each individually, provided you activate the weapons on seperate rolls? It also addresses the question of whether or not I could use two pistols at once; does the roll for the weapon automatically presume that I am not using another weapon offensively simultaneously?
As far as the question of either of the weapons being two-handed goes, it has been suggested for color before that since Gazuntite is a grappling style, I have been using the stick one-handed. It still raises the good question about whether, if I were using two weapons, I would be able to still use basic style attacks.
You take position behind the second dumpster and hear him come around the corner--and stop.
There's a metallic click, and then slowly advancing footsteps. There is a sudden movement, and then a change in breathing, as if he had leapt into a position ready to fight and then relaxed. The footsteps are now getting closer, slowly, to your location.
*****
The weapon repeat factor and the style multiplier are separate. The weapon repeat factor (with the SAL for the weapon and strike value as multipliers) gives you the number of attacks you can make with that weapon; the style multiplier (again with the SAL of the style and MSV) gives you the maximum number of attacks you can have in the style. If the weapon attacks exceed the style attacks, you get the style bonuses for the weapon attacks to their maximum number but get no other attacks; if you use a style attack you lose weapon attacks to do so. If the style attacks exceed the weapon attacks, you can use the weapon to its full number of attacks and make up the difference with style attacks.
You can hold the gun in one hand and another weapon in the other, but you cannot use the gun and hold anything else in the same hand. And you can activate weapons for each hand, and use them to their maximum number of attacks.
--M. J. Young
Yeah. I've got to quick draw on him when he rounds the corner and hope for relative success.
2@10 Disarm with Weapon is what I intend to do regardless of who has the better relative success presuming it actually works for me. If it doesn't work, I've already got out my stick, which is my preferred weapon for close combat to begin with.
I should mention my -12 Cover Value for the Bullet Proof Vest worn under my shirt and that if I can use Missile Escape concurrently than I will.
I am uncertain what weapons you are holding in which hands. To facilitate matters, though, I'll give you some idea of what you are about to see. He is holding a switchblade (what you heard click) in his right hand, and he intends to leap around the dumpster in a combat-ready position to see whether you are hiding there. (Missile escape will be irrelevant.)
--M. J. Young
In Gazuntite, stick in one hand, pistol quick drawn to the other, use the stolen initiative to disarm with weapon. Bag on the ground behind me at my feet and next to the dumpster.
If this works and his knife goes down, as I keep my pistol trained on him (my ability with it apparent to be better than it really is, since I'm much better at disarming than I am at killing with the gun), I exclaim to him, "What kind of idiot brings a knife to a gunfight?!"
If it doesn't work -- well, we'll see where we go from there, since I'm not nearly as concerned about a guy with a knife as I am about a guy with a gun. Unless it's Silverblade, come for his revenge. (Snicker.)
The man--well, boy, maybe, certainly not yet twenty--leaps around the corner trying to surprise you, but you, already in stance with your stick in hand, draw your pistol from behind your back faster than he can strike, and shoot the blade out of his hand. (That's what you meant, right? I was going to do it with the stick, but reading between the lines it sounds like you mean to "disarm with weapon--pistol".)
He stares for a moment, then dashes for the cover of the dumpster and keeps running.
--M. J. Young
(Well, I'd go for the stick, but I don't think it's fair to use the "steal initiative" element of the fast-draw skill to do something without using the gun -- so, my interpretation would be the gun, yes.)
I wish to create a new 7@7 Incapacitation attack. I wish it to require a 5' run, on failure fall for annoying damage, and incapacitate a leg for RS minutes; my Leaping scissor kick. Baseline annoying is good, baseline no damage is better. (Naturally, you're my referee, and you can take my description below and determine the mechanics of such a thing yourself. This is just what I'm hoping for.)
I can't kill him - to do so would make an enemy of his boss. I can't let him getm
away - to do so would make his boss think I am incompetent. I must humiliate him and send him back as a message. So, I run after him, and consider using the Leaping kick -- too dangerous in Gazuntite, I might kill the boy. Instead, I come up with a variation by which I will turn sideways, making it more like a front kick, and kick later than I normally would for a kick aimed at the torso, simultaneous axe kicking the front of one of his legs (in this case, as his back is to me) and front kicking the back of it, also twisting off in the motion to land in a crouching position as to easily rise to my feet to face my (currently nonexistant) remaining adversaries. My hope is that this will temporarily disable the use of one of his legs such that he cannot stand on it, much less run with it.
If I am seeing this aright, you are going to run at least five feet and then jump, in such a way that your body is spinning sideways, that is, your shoulder heads toward the ground and your feet come up. You then scissor the target's legs between your feet, one kicking forward and the other back, in an effort to disable it, perhaps by dislocating or spraining a knee or ankle. You also use the strike to redirect your spin so you can land on your feet.
That part I'm not visualizing. What I can see is that if your top foot is forward and your bottom foot is down you can use the force to spin your body on its normally vertical axis so that your face goes toward the ground toward which your shoulder has been headed, and then you can tuck and roll and come to your feet on the other side, although your back will be to your target. You want base annoying damage, which should be in your favor. I'm inclined to think, based on my vision of this, that failure would mean you hit the ground for damaging damage (and you might be able to mitigate that with your fall impact avoidance skill if it's successful, although I might require some kind of check to see whether you manage to use it in that situation, possibly intuition or a threshhold relative success against the failed roll).
If what you envision, particular in regard to how you manage to land on your feet, is significantly different from this, feel free to clarify it.
--M. J. Young
"... although your back will be to your target."
Yeah, that's how I envisioned it -- to be able to simultaneously turn around and face someone else. Of course, I might say that at some -SM I could spin the other way to begin with, back first such that I can't see my target in order to end up facing him afterwards, but I've got an acrobatic bod-heavy endgame in mind that will incorporate several positional tactics including rolls and flips but not excluding those which affect my opponent's position (7@2) with my already nod-worthy martial arts prowess, so that's not really the direction I want to take this anyway.
Damaging on failure sounds good, but I would say that in a combat situation even if fall impact avoidance is successful I'll need to use my 4@4 instant stand to get up faster than the usual :18 - :60 seconds.
My thought for how I would end up on my feet again involved the idea that once I had hit his legs I wouldn't immediately let go and would instead push of in an *upward* motion such that my legs would go *down* and I could then land, crouching, on my feet. If the envisioning involves hitting leg (as opposed to targetted attack only against knee, as it could involve hip or muscle pain against thigh), my small size (4'6") might make it easier to do such a thing; one might either leave it up to relative success or note it as a possibility for the professional or expert.
***
I'd like to fall on success for annoying damage. I've got the positional combat training and instant stand should more than make me comfortable. The fall on failure should be damaging. it might be easier (thus either mitigating some penalty I don't yet know about, or providing some bonus for departing from the baseline, or providing some bonus elsewhere in the skill -- not damage, perhaps duration if the question applies) to simply go down with him and worry about the instant stand.
As to the classification of the skill itself, I would probably classify it as Kick, but also Grapple (it is something of a grab, and I might eventually take advantage of that factor), and definitely what we call Poke (because it's clearly the kind of ability that requires humanoid anatomy -- while I could use it against, for instance, a centaur, I'd be penalized, I probably wouldn't knock him down, and then he'd probably trample me; it's a really bad idea).
You leap into this sideways spin, scissor his right leg (which puts you on the outside toward the center of the alley rather than between him and the dumpster, where you have room to maneuver) twisting your body forward. You hear him cry out as you tuck your head into a forward roll, and as you are landing on your feet you hear him collapsing on the ground behind you.
You are very happy with how well that worked.
--M. J. Young
I'll going to frisk him for any other weapons. My feeling is that he probably only had that switchblade, which is why he ran, but I'd still rather not be caught by suprise. Panoramic awareness, I don't want another hero coming up thinking I'm up to no good or any accomplice of the boy approaching. Then I'm going to start using pain attacks on him; probably about ten minutes unless Icarus requests that I stop to spare his own moral obligations.
I'll go for German again, and ask the boy if he speaks it. If not, I'll go ahead with English; if so, the message in German will do. "Were you followed?" I'll read his mind, since I know he'll say no.
"Tell your boss that this is only a small taste of my power."
He flinches when you reach out to frisk him, but he's not really in any condition to fight. As you suspected, he has no other weapon.
His German is atrocious. He's obviously third generation--his grandparents learned English as a second language, his parents learned German as a second language, and he only knows enough German to know when his grandfather is cursing at him.
You can hit him with pain attacks twice a minute, although there is some possibility that he will black out from the pain after a couple of these, particularly as he's already in pain from the attack on his leg.
All he's thinking about is the pain, in fact, when you read his mind. Well, that, and wondering whether it's going to be worse when his grandfather finds out that he was ambushed. However, no one else shows us. Are you hitting this kid with twenty such pain attacks, or cutting it to something less? (Icarus might interrupt before twenty, but it wouldn't be fair for me to say that he does interrupt you before some number of attacks which is greater than you would have done.)
--M. J. Young
I need to send the message that I am ruthless and unforgiving, so I will deliver twenty pain attacks -- ten minutes of pain, hopefully enough to convince him that this is worse than the unknown he'll later face; possibly even bad enough that they decide to spare him later, but I doubt that.
I tell him once I read his mind (before I'm through), "Make sure you let your grandfather know that I have spared your life out of respect for his family; if anyone deserves the right to kill you, it's him."
If he loses consciousness, I'll leave, my message sufficiently delivered. If not, I'll say as I said I would before walking away.
To Icarus once we're travelling again, "If this contact works out as I've planned it, next Saturday night I'll either have information regarding criminal activity of a profile worth our attention or they'll try to attack me, which is grounds to drag them to jail over. I don't enjoy torture, but there's an image I need to present to their organization; that image does not treat these small transgressions kindly."
After maybe six or seven minutes Icarus appears down the alley where you can see him and your victim cannot. He waits patiently as you finish, keeping out of sight of the victim.
The victim is conscious but unable to walk when you are done. Icarus rises out of the alley and joins you out on the street. He asks what that was about, and gets your answer. He nods. "I think I understand. I don't know that I would have done that--something about whether it is ever good to be evil. Maybe you're right, though."
He looks back over his shoulder.
"Should we call an ambulance?"
--M. J. Young
My answer: "We picked up a tail while we were leaving. I didn't want him to follow me home."
"Kid'll be fine in a couple hours; a bit shaken up and still feeling it, but if he survives taking the message of his failure back to his family then he should be fully recovered in a couple weeks. Besides, if I put him in the hospital his family might be out for blood; as it is, they'll probably be more angry at him for getting caught than at me for preventing him from finishing his mission. Pride can be a funny thing, but I expect they'll take it as proof that I'm as good as I say.
"You might be right, but you're also wrong. What I did was less than I might have done; the boy is a criminal. If he hasn't murdered before, they're going to have him kill one day. It's the way groups like that operate. Uf I'd killed him, I'd be preventing him from killing in the future. The reason why I didn't is because if this works out the way I hope, we'll be bringing down a lot more than one. Don't worry; the greater good is somewhere in mind.
"I'd say that, for most, killing is the greater evil over the mild sort of torture I put him through, and that in certain situations, a person who could be stopped somehow should be stopped by any means available; likewise, an organization which kills people should be brought to its knees as soon as possible. If we can bring down more than one group of killers, we serve the greater good by cooperating with one group of killers, just as if we can bring down one group of murderers we're justified in cooperating with one killer."
Icarus nods thoughtfully.
"Of course, there is the aspect that the Germans are going to attempt to manipulate you to weaken their enemies, and in the process attempt to strengthen their own operations. Eventually you're going to need an endgame. Have you given any thought to that?"
--M. J. Young
He nods.
"Well, it's getting late; probably we should both get some rest if we're going to pretend to be normal people tomorrow. Are we done for the night, then?"
--M. J. Young
"Yeah, I guess it's kind of funny. I mean, everyone knows that Icarus is Daedalus' son, and everyone knows that Daedalus is the head of Daedalus industries. But they don't really know what either of us look like. I usually only appear in public in costume, and if he appears at all it's usually as an illusory projection."
So it's home again, and back to the routine, school on Monday.
--M. J. Young
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