A/N: Alright, last time I tried this, I was a n00b GM and made a bunch of n00b mistakes. I have located the papered-over cracks in my GMing style and torn them down to the studs and rebuilt. I think I can avoid making a hash of things this time.
For those of you who followed my last quest, yes, there is a reboot option. Kinda. Just vote for the SM crossover again.
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You are Shirou Emiya and you:
[ ] - Wake. Your eyes open to a sky you've seen before. For a long moment, you are disappointed. How often have you had this dream? How many years have you sought to meet her here? You sit up, long grass all around you, hoping to catch even a glimpse of her form in the distance, but you know that- She stands in the distance, her hair down and a flower before her face. It is only then that you remember. After all the long years of seeking ...
You rise to your feet and begin to run toward her, feeling as if your feet barely touch the ground.
(New Game+ mode.)
Perk: ??? (The faeries are up to something.)
Flaw: ??? (Merlin is a troll.)
[ ] - Linger. In your few coherent moments, you can recall saving Sakura and something about Ilyasviel arriving at the eleventh hour, but those moments are few and far between. You regret, in a vague sort of way, that you won't be able to watch the cherry blossoms fall with Sakura. After all, saving you as you are now would take a miracle.
(Post Heaven's Feel, but not one of the main routes. Crossover with Highschool DxD. Easy mode. You don't start very strong, but you have allies and a while to build up.)
Perk: All Better Now! (Physically you're fine. In fact you're better than fine. One might even say this new body of yours is bullshit. Atrophy of your magic circuit? What atrophy?)
Flaw: Not All There (You've never been accused of sanity, but you’ve really been insane for most of the last year. Suffering from transplant rejection of the Soul does that to a person. As a result you aren't in real good headspace. Temporary (probably) - to all rolls)
[ ] - Fight. It has been years since the Fifth Holy Grail War, but you have never put down your swords for long. Trained by the King of Knights you have done battle on a hundred fields, it was simply your misfortune to have ended up on this one. Who knew Dead Apostle Ancestors had ways of bitch-slapping you clear out of creation when you refused to lay down and die?
(Post UBW good route. Wheel of Time crossover. Not-so-easy mode. Expect fights from pretty soon to immediately after you arrive. On the other hand, you're pretty much a pro at this whole fighting thing.)
Perk: Best of What's Left (You might not be the best warrior of the age, but you were trained by her. Your years belie your combat ability. You have pushed Reinforcement magecraft to the limit and beyond and in the process taken your first step into the realm of Legends. Start with the Prana Burst ability.)
Flaw: Idealistic (Your experience belies your naivety. No seriously you are that bad. A notable (-) to any attempt at intrigue and to resisting manipulation.)
[ ] - Seek. You've lived an unfortunate amount of your life in the night, wandering from battlefield to battlefield, championing hopeless causes. Even having seen the end result of this choice was not enough to dissuade you. It was said that two miracles were required. You know she will wait and so you will seek, remembering always the dawn where you left your heart.
(Post Fate route. Sailor Moon crossover(yes, this is the reboot option. Ish. We’ve already saved the Silver Millennium. Not doing that again.). Also not-so-easy mode. Expect fights against things that eat solar systems. Allies are questionable but you've been fighting for decades and you've got a fully realized reality marble. What could possibly go wrong?)
Perk: That Ever-Distant Utopia (You carry within you the greatest of defensive Noble Phantasms, Avalon. You may not be able to use it to its full power, but Excalibur's sheathe is still a formidable defense)
Flaw: I Walk Alone (You have spent decades fighting. Much of that time without friends or allies at your side. Papa Emiya may not have raised a fool, but he did raise an Anti-Social bastard with a sarcastic streak. You don't play well with others. Turning this up to 11 for the reboot. It should not have been so easy to get rid of.)
[ ] - Ache. The last thing you remember was Shinji screaming at the core of the Greater Grail. You ... fell? As your head begins to clear, you hear ... something in the distance that sounds almost like the clatter of swords.
(Immediate post-UBW start. Unknown start. This is the shiny, shiny mystery box option.)
Perk: Malleable (Shirou has just started his career as a Magus, his options for growth are wide open. And you just Mine!’ed the entire contents of the Gate of Babylon. The sky’s the limit!)
Flaw: F.U.N. (The sky indeed, everything’s looking up when you’re at rock-bottom. You might have beat Gilgamesh, but Rin’s power isn’t boosting you any more and you hurt right down to your bones. Doesn’t sound like resting is an option, though.)
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Vote will remain open for 48 hours or until a clear supermajority appears. Will aim for weekly updates after the prologue here. You know the drill, please wait to post until I’ve given permission to post.
The incredulity had passed. You could not tell how long it had been. Avalon, it seemed, was like that. The sun was still high in the sky even though it must have been hours. Tears had been shed and laughter had been shared. Your reunion had been everything you’d never dared to hope for. Even now, Arturia’s face was pressed into your chest, your arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders while hers were wrapped tightly around your waist, neither of you yet willing to let go for fear that the other would vanish without a tr-
“Well, it’s good of you to finally show up, Shirou Emiya,” a voice said behind you and suddenly Arturia’s grip went from merely tight to painful.
“Merlin,” she said coldly while you had a bit of a BSOD moment, then continued in a voice as warm as liquid helium, “I have been waiting for this for centuries. Don’t you dare ruin it for me.”
She had ducked down and out of your grip to glare behind you, peering backwards from under your arm. You turned to get a look as well, your greater mass triumphing over even Arturia’s strength. You-
How the hell did the forest get there?
Somehow, the woods, which had been barely a hint of color in the distance off to your right had managed to sneak up on you. They were a bare dozen feet away, dancing with fey lights, a single tower peeking out over the tops of the trees, and in front of them … That’s Merlin?
The guy looked like a goofball. Pale and silver-haired, he was wearing a blue scarf with gold tassels and an embroidered white robe with a belt tied like an ankh over black pants. Then his grin vanished, and the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end.
"Did you really think this was the end, Little Arthur? You’d be bored to tears inside a week here. Besides, Avalon was never meant for mortal habitation,” just like that, the grin was back and despite yourself your instincts relaxed.
“And you have no ulterior motives?” Arturia accused pointedly, shifting to glare over your arm rather than under it. “I remember what happened the last time you tried to be ‘helpful.’ It was a disaster. Sir Gawain ended up hanging from the rafters by his bootstraps! And poor Agravain spent nearly a month convincing the servants to come out of hiding!”
That sounded like a story you would really enjoy hearing, given some of the shenanigans Venus had gotten up to. Unfortunately, before you could ask for details, Merlin interjected.
“If you’ll recall, I promised you a chance at ‘happiness,’ my King, not just ‘contentment’, so I found a little place a few universes away where the rules are different. Much lighter cosmology than you’re used to, and none of the Solar parasites or Sector-destroying threats Guardian Emiya had to face.”
That got both yours and Arturia’s attention and you finally managed to get a word in edgewise. “Uh, how can we just go live in some other universe? Aren’t we dead?” you inquired.
Merlin just shot you a disappointed look, like a teacher preparing to chastise a particularly dull student. “Of course not. Avalon exists within the realm of the fey. There is no [Death] here, so of course you aren’t dead.”
Both you and Arturia freeze as you hear something outrageous. “You mean-”
Merlin, nodding, interrupts, “Indeed, for your afterlife, you get a new life in a new world where you,” he pointed at Arturia, “don’t have to be King, and you,” the finger swung your way, “can play superhero to your heart’s content,” he pronounced as though he hadn’t just said something else outrageous.
With a wave of his hand, a portal sprang open beside you.
“Now, since your boy-toy just had to go and outdo you by becoming a hero to a vast interstellar civilization, you’ve eaten through almost all of the grace-period I’d built into the plan, so you have to go now or you’ll be late. So go ahead and get reacquainted, have some fun.”
Arturia was glaring again. “And what’s in this for you, Merlin,” she demanded suspiciously.
“The satisfaction of a job well done?”
Yeah, not even I believe that one.
“Okay, you got me, I just can’t wait to see Little Arturia as a Girl Scout leader and attending PTA meetings at your kids’ school.”
Her hand already in the air, accusatory finger extended, Saber froze and her face went decidedly pink and shifted to look up at you.
Perhaps that’s why she didn’t see the portal surge forward to engulf you both.
“Aw, you two are so cute together! Have fun with the genocidal abomination!” the silver-haired bastard called before the portal curved and he vanished out of sight.
“Merlin, you diiiiiiiiiick!” Arturia yelled just before the portal spat you both out. As you looked around, the first thing you saw was -
[ ] - a newspaper showing a guy in a costume on the front page. What the hell is a ‘Vikare’? (Earliest start and thus most potential impact on canon. Biggest chance of fucking up canon.)
[ ] - a naked woman with a strange skin condition about to tear into a figure in futuristic-looking armor. (Siberian versus Hero. Chance to intervene. Extremely high chance of butterflies.)
[ ] - a crystalline angel twice the size of Ilya’s Berserker surrounded by a cloud of debris. (Canberra. Close to canon, but large chance of complications from being at Ground Zero of a Ziz fight.)
XXXXX
So, everyone that thought this was Arthurian Britain, you had a good thought, but no. Welcome to Worm, where modern humanity is about to get introduced to Age of the Gods level heroes.
[X] - a newspaper showing a guy in a costume on the front page. What the hell is a ‘Vikare’? (Earliest start and thus most potential impact on canon. Biggest chance of fucking up canon.)
A Brave New World
You took a step forward to catch yourself as the portal vanished and gravity returned. You felt as Arturia, who had spun in midair to yell at Merlin, took a step backward for much the same reason. Immediately, your senses were on alert searching for a threat or even an observer, but …
Nothing. You were in a normal alleyway on a low-tech world. You took a deep breath, and a wave of nostalgia hit. The smell of the Thames. Grease. Warm beer. Exhaust from thousands upon thousands of engines. The only thing that kept it from smelling like your own London was the absence of the concentrated prana of the Clock Tower. Then your eyes fell upon a discarded newspaper. Even from twenty feet away, you could make out the headline.
The Times said:
American ‘Superhero’ Vikare evacuates burning building!”
That was so unbelievable you nearly missed the date. May 3rd, 1983. You let out a hiss of air in reaction. That was …
Arturia’s shoulder brushed against your side as she moved to guard your back, trusting you to guard hers. Even after all your time apart, you still moved in sync. “Shirou?” she asked, tense but not worried. There was nothing her way either, you knew, but awareness was a good habit to maintain.
“I can’t smell the Mage’s Association, but this is definitely London,” you informed her concisely, then hesitated before just deciding to blurt it out. “I’m looking at a Times front-page with a picture of a superhero evacuating a burning apartment building on it.”
Her head whipped around to look up at you. Then seeing the direction you were indicating with your eyes, she turned to take in the newspaper as well. “You can read that from here?” she asked, walking closer. You followed, watching as she bent over to pick up the discarded paper to confirm what you’d se-
You turned away. Now that the initial rush of adrenaline was passing, you finally noticed the light blue summer dress that Arturia was wearing. And the curves that were filling it out. “Ah, you look a bit older than you did in Avalon,” you say and immediately have to suppress the urge to bite your tongue. Why the hell was communicating so hard?
Saber shot you a look over her shoulder, then blushed as she read you like a book and realized what you’d been thinking. She stood up and ran her hands over her skirt before looking down with a startled expression. She still had that ageless quality to her face that made her look old enough to drink even when her body had been stuck in her early teens. It was just that her body had gone and started to catch up. Her bust and hips were both more pronounced than they had been and during the portal trip she seemed to have gained about three inches of height.
She cleared her throat and thankfully changed the subject. “While we’re on the subject, your hair is red again and the tan isn’t as noticeable,” she noted clinically before beginning to peruse the paper.
You ran a hand through your hair, but it didn’t feel any different that it usually did. The back of your hand, however, did have a rather paler skin tone than you were used to. Of course, looking down at yourself let you see the outfit you were dressed in. The red and black outfit. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Merlin!” you exclaimed in disgust. Even though the shirt and pants looked nothing like it, they still managed to evoke Archer’s combat outfit.
“That’s relatively tame for him,” Arturia noted less than sympathetically, “At least it looks good on you.”
You opened your mouth to comment, then closed it, deciding to quit while you were ahead. Abruptly another consideration occurred to you, and you started searching your pockets. Thankfully, your right rear pocket contained a wallet. Less fortunately …
Official government ID, a hundred Pounds Sterling, a letter, the loopy writing made you certain somehow that it was from Merlin. A quick check of your pockets revealed nothing else. That was a problem. It had been a while since you’d had to go anywhere without an expense account, but even in the 80’s this was London. A hundred Pounds wasn’t going to get you very far.
“Uh, problem,” you said, “I don’t suppose you’ve got anywhere in that dress for ID. Maybe some keys?”
ASTtM
Arturia had been less than pleased to find a key tucked away in her bra, but at least it meant you had some breathing room. That had left the letter, which …
Merlin’s Letter said:
Congratulations! You’ve won a trip for two to Arturia’s old stomping grounds! London in 1983 is a fantastic place with scenic smog banks and ongoing road and metro construction, so I hope you enjoy the sights.
By now you’ve likely noticed that this world is a bit different than the one you’re familiar with. Though the supernatural denizens of this universe wiped themselves out in the early 7th century, superheroes have recently made their debut. Unfortunately, not all of them are so helpful as the flying rescue-worker from Michigan. On January 28th of this year, escaped prisoner David Martin became the first British parahuman when he developed superhuman abilities when police tried to arrest him. He won’t be the last.
With Britain’s economy in a slump, you’ll have to balance the mundane concerns of keeping yourselves fed with dressing up in costume to hunt down superpowered fugitives like the inimitable Mister Martin.
Maybe along the way, you’ll even find time to give Uncle Merlin some nieces and nephews to spoil!
He was lucky he’d left off there. You’d been able to rescue the letter from an enraged Arturia before she could tear it to bits. If nothing else, you wanted to have Martin’s name around for reference, but the address of your apartment, paid for the rest of the month, was also on it, so letting Arturia shred it wasn’t in the cards.
Which was another thing. Arturia’s ID, also fished out of her bra, didn’t have ‘Pendragon’ on it. Arturia Emiya had a very nice ring to it, and the sight had put an adorable blush on her face that still hadn’t quite departed entirely. Your fingers entwined with hers, you couldn’t help but smile as you walked up to the building that matched the address on Merlin’s letter.
The key, helpfully labeled ‘201’ fit in the lock, and you stepped inside your apartment for the first time. The … compact studio apartment. With a single bed.
Beside you, Arturia growled.
Shirou rolls Perception+Awareness 10d10+3=14 successes … So we’re starting with this again, then?
Arturia rolls Perception+Awareness 10d10. She gets 2 Successes. There’s the Urist we all know and loathe!
Shirou rolls Charisma+Socialize 1d10=2 0 successes. At least it wasn’t a botch.
Arturia rolls Perception+Investigate 8d10=6 successes. She understands what Shirou was getting at with a look. Flustered Arturia gooooooo!
It is Tuesday, May 3rd, 1983. You have an apartment, paid through the end of the month and stocked with the basics. You have a hundred Pounds to your name, 3 daytime AP, and 3 evening AP. What do?
Day actions:
[ ] - Find a job. Good thing Arturia kept that newspaper you found. In an age before the internet, the Classifieds are as good a method to find employment as any. Cost: 1 daytime AP. Results: 3 luck rolls for available jobs. (All rolls are at -10 because the British economy in 1983 sucks and the recently lowered taxes haven’t had time to turn things around yet.)May be taken multiple times.
[ ] - Accustom yourself to current technology. The CD is brand new. You’re already missing your personal AI and smartphone. When do the Americans get around to inventing the internet again? Cost: 1 daytime AP. Results: You get with the times. Skill roll to identify a need that you can invent or ‘invent’ something to fill. May be taken multiple times.
[ ] - Research. Merlin gave you have a name for what appears to be a supervillain. Head to a public library and look through past newspapers to try and get more details. Cost: 1 daytime AP. Results: skill roll to determine what information you’re able to suss out of the record. Better odds of tracking down David Martin. May be taken multiple times.
[ ] - Explore the Neighborhood. You knew your London almost as well as the back of your hand. This one? Not so much. Better to have an idea what’s going on immediately outside your base of operations. Cost: 1 daytime AP. Results: Some local intel. Knowing if there are any gangs or football hooligans in the local area.
[ ] - Write in. Subject to QM approval.
Evening/Night Actions:
[ ] - Socialize with Arturia. The Holy Grail War was a fast-paced even frantic conflict and it was centuries ago. It was still the last time you got to spend any real time with your wife. Cost: 1 evening AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
[ ] - Experiment with your abilities. Just a cursory flaring of your Magic Circuits tells you things have changed. Your magic feels odd and doesn’t always do what you think it should. Cost: 1 evening AP. Results: IC knowledge of character sheets. Shirou swears a lot.
[ ] - Meet the Neighbors. You live in an apartment building. Make yourself part of the community. Just try to keep your mouth shut and let Arturia do the talking. Cost: 1 evening AP. Results: Get to know the neighbors. ???
[ ] - Search around for crime to stop. Clearly, as an Ally of Justice, you should be patrolling the neighborhood looking for wrongs to right. Cost: 1 evening AP. Results: Crimes thwarted? Justice upheld? Maybe just an annoyed Arturia.
[ ] - Search for David Martin. Thanks to Merlin’s note, you know he exists. You’ve tracked down a half-dozen cultists among a world populated with billions of people. How hard can it be to find one man in a city of a few million? Cost: 1 evening AP. Results: Try to find a villain to fight.
[ ] - Write in. Subject to QM approval.
Voting will be by plan. Also, please try to stunt options with a short (One or two sentences) description of what specific actions Shirou takes. This will make luck rolls luckier and skill actions more skillful. Bribe those Pattern Spiders. A short guide to stunts has appeared in the Thread rules Threadmark.
Edit: No moratorium on votes unless it becomes clear that one is necessary. Please attempt to conduct yourselves as adults. Or else.
--[x] People always need something or another fixed, and you were a 'Fake Janitor' before you were ever a superhero. A little Structural Analysis and offer to fix clearly-damaged hardware should be a good start on a flexible, part-time job.
-[X] - Accustom yourself to current technology.
--[x] You're already going to be going out to repair some of it, so that should help get an idea for where common manufacturing is now, to help you figure out what tech that you understand could be readily produced if you take out a convenient patent or two. Perhaps a well-engineered early Walkman?
-[X] - Explore the Neighborhood.
--[X] Knowledge of your surroundings is vital. Identifying problem areas like places frequented by gangs, busy roads near bars, or old flammable buildings should help you respond to situations that warrant a Hero of Justice sooner. Besides, any excuse to take a walk with Saber is a good one.
-[X] - Socialize with Arturia. The Holy Grail War was a fast-paced even frantic conflict and it was centuries ago. It was still the last time you got to spend any real time with your wife. Cost: 1 evening AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
--[x]You have literally been waiting your whole life for this, and it was not a short life. This is not optional.
-[X] - Experiment with your abilities.
--[x]Merlin sent you somewhere where magecraft practitioners all died out more than a millennium ago. Your circuits feeling weird is... concerning.
-[X] - Meet the Neighbors.
--[X]You should probably at least make an effort to meet the people you'll be living with for the foreseeable future. After all, reclusive shut-ins who just seem to pop out of the aether one day seem suspicious. Plus, you wouldn't be able to forgive yourself if the people here were in genuine need of assistance and you ignored it out of ignorance.
---[X] Maybe try cooking or baking something to hand out? You've seen how food can be used to bridge divides between people.
The first project on your list was gainful employment. You were a little out of practice on that front; it had been a long time since you worked part-time at … what the hell had the name of the place been? Started with a C …
After spending five minutes wracking your brain for the name, you gave up and went back to looking through the paper’s Classified ads.
Thanks to the economy, there really wasn’t a lot available. There were a couple of places hiring delivery people, and a company that maintained boilers looking for a repairman.
Either of those was within your abilities, though you’d be profoundly underutilized doing either. You were letting individual pages slip through your fingers as you prepared to refold the paper when you saw it.
An article in the society section mentioned that the Ritz Hotel had been forced to dismiss their second Executive Chef in less than a month and rumors were all over the place.
Well, well well well. That seemed right up your alley.
Huh, Copenhagen. Why did words like that finally come to you when you stopped trying to remember them. You finished folding the paper for Arturia to peruse if she wanted.
You were going to make dinner. You needed to be on top of your game if you were going to get that job. The restaurant at the Ritz in your time had been the sort of place where you needed to make a reservation three months ahead of time in order to get a seat. It would be fun to get to make it that way yourself.
Which job do you decide to apply for?
[ ] - Special Delivery! (Gain one dot’s worth of Resources in income(lower class). Inconvenient mix of day and evening AP lost to job on an unpredictable schedule.)
[ ] - Real Repairman (Gain two dots worth of Resources in income(lower-middle class). Lose mostly daytime AP, but since you’re the low man on the totem pole, you may get called for an evening or weekend emergency. Potential for ???.)
[ ] - Executive Chef (Gain three dots worth of Resources in income(welcome to the middle-class). Lose mostly evening AP. Potential for ???. Possible ???.)
[Selected option will resolve in a short event]
ASTtM
As you bent over to pull the glass pie plate out of the oven, you couldn’t help but feel that a hungry lion was behind you, preparing to pounce.
Arturia’s hungry eyes tracked the dish as you set it on the stovetop to rest. With it out of the oven, you reset the rack to the uppermost position and turned on the broiler.
You would have preferred to let a steak and kidney pie marinate overnight, but organ meat was always the first thing to go bad, and it wasn’t worth risking Merlin being a troll. Besides, it was a good, filling meal, though a heavy one.
That was why you’d selected the accompaniment for it that you had. Potatoes would have been very British, but would have only tended to weigh down the meal more.
Instead, you had picked Brussels sprouts. Split in half, then drizzled in olive oil, salt, and fresh-cracked pepper, they were far lighter than potatoes, and quickly roasting them under high heat would keep them from releasing the sulfur compound that made children everywhere turn their noses up at the little cabbages.
With the rack in place and the broiler on, you slid the tray of vegetables into position, leaving the oven door cracked open just slightly.
Then you waved a hand in front of Arturia’s fixed, staring eyes.
Blinking in surprise, she leaned back on the stool she was seated on. The kitchen took up a rather large amount of the studio apartment, and the dining situation paid the price. Instead of a table, you had only a pair of stools drawn up on the far side of the counter that faced the room.
Even a western table would have been a vast improvement. Probably the first thing to do once you had a job would be to find an actual house to rent. If nothing else, you’d have space for a workroom. Possibly also a couch-bed to sleep on since Arturia was still too embarrassed to share the actual bed with you just yet.
Seeing the light of reason back in her eyes, you informed her, “Five minutes until dinner.”
“Ah, thank you,” She said, then a moment later continued, “Should I get plates and silverware ready?”
You snorted, then pointed at the countertop. Arturia looked down and blushed at the carefully constructed place settings. You thought she’d been too quiet for simple daydreaming when you’d gotten them ready a few minutes ago.
Instead of saying anything and risking making it worse, you just put the remaining half-bottle of red wine that hadn’t gone into the pie filling on the counter along with a pair of glasses.
“The side dish should be done about the time you’re done pouring,” you suggested, then tested the pie’s temperature.
Hmmm, still a bit warm for a plastic countertop, you decided. A woven rattan trivet solved that problem and the pie dish followed the wine bottle onto the counter. You had just enough time to pick up the serving bowl you’d set aside before the Brussels sprouts were done, the very edges browned by the heat and the stems cooked through.
You carefully slid the vegetables into the serving bowl, then stepped around the counter and shed your cooking apron. Grabbing the serving spoon, you dished a serving of the little cabbages onto Arturia’s plate beside the quarter of the meat pie that had mysteriously appeared there in the few moments you weren’t observing her.
Dishing up your own food, you announced, “Itadakimasu,” and speared a forkful of the pie, noting critically that the crust didn’t flake quite the way that you’d intended. It tasted fine, but the visual wasn’t as spectacular as it could be. “I think I’ll have to add more oil to the crust next time I make this; maybe it’s the humidity?”
You turn to ask Arturia what she thinks, but she’s sitting beside you with tears running down her cheeks.
Well. It’s nice to have an appreciative audience.
ASTtM
After the last of the dishes were cleaned up and the leftover half of the pie was put away for breakfast tomorrow, you found yourself curled up on the couch beside Arturia. Your apartment had a television, but you didn’t turn it on. You sat there, an arm around her shoulder and simply exulted in her presence.
You wanted to talk, to tell her about your search for her, but you didn’t know what to say. You could tell she wanted to speak as well, but perhaps it wasn’t time for that yet. In the end, both of you simply sat and drank in the others presence: a shared salve for old, unhealed wounds.
ASTtM
The next morning found you waking rested if not entirely comfortable. It was nice to be young again, but that couch really wasn’t meant for someone your height. On the other hand, a single glance at the apartment’s bed last night had turned Arturia into a blushing, stuttering mess. Much as you wanted it, much as you could tell Arturia wanted it, she wasn’t ready for that yet.
For all your star-crossed romance and legendary love story, you didn’t really know each other for very long, and you’d been separated for a very long time.
So you could wait as long as she needed. Until she was comfortable. You slid the leftovers into the oven to warm up before heading for the shower. By the time you were out and dressed, Arturia had managed to struggle into something approximating wakefulness.
Her mussed bedhead was adorable. “You’ve got time for a shower before breakfast is ready if you hurry,” you told her. You weren’t sure if the brilliant smile was for you, or for the promise of food, but you chose to assume the former.
After finishing off the last of the pie, you and Arturia went your separate ways. Today it was her turn to go job-seeking while you sought out the library and its stacks of old copies of Popular Science. You’d tried to finagle a hint out of her, but hadn’t had any luck.
You were thankful that it was the early 80s. The £100 was lasting longer than you’d initially suspected. Part of it had gone to Arturia for an emergency or for lunch out if an interview ran long. Most of the rest was with you.
A quick stop on the way gained you a pad of grid-paper at an absurdly low price. If the thought ruminating in the back of your mind turned out to be correct, you were going to need it before the end of the day.
As you walked along the sidewalk and took in the first true Western city you’d ever seen you couldn’t help but compare it to the London you’d known. You found it … lacking.
Part of that was the air quality. Supposedly that had improved some, but smog was still very much in existence. There were still a lot of cars on the road without catalytic converters, for instance, and other standards you took for granted hadn’t been implemented yet. That was tolerable, though.
What you found intolerable was the mood of the city. England was in the throes of a recession that just kept dragging on and, as Merlin had stated in his letter, the tax cuts that had finally helped end it had only recently been passed. It would take time for the economy to accelerate again, and in the meantime there were far too many people with stressed expressions and tense muscles, worried about how to provide for themselves or their families.
That, you had an inkling of an idea about how to change. It would, however, only work if what you thought you remembered about portable CD players was correct.
Mulling over your plans and thoughts carried you the rest of the way to the public library. Once there, it was a simple matter to find old editions of Popular Science and get to reading.
You didn’t have to read long to get to what you were looking for. As you had recalled, the CD had only been invented last year. Looking over the details in the magazine also revealed that any attempt to scale down the current players to make a portable or automobile-mounted version would be doomed to failure, with skipping of the tracks being a serious problem. It was even possible damage to the discs might occur on particularly hard jolts.
Setting the magazine aside, you brought out your grid paper and started to sketch. Creating proper engineering diagrams for your concept was not a fast process, even if thanks to your experience it wasn’t as hard as most would have found it. Once you were done with your initial draft, you went back over it with an eye towards simplification of the device.
The tech you were trying to work into it was probably a decade more advanced than the current cutting-edge. Making it prohibitively expensive to manufacture would be a sure and certain way to kill any attempt to produce is. Rather than edit your current sketches, you instead created a new one, adjusting slightly away from the circular design you’d wanted due to the lack of miniaturization.
Finally, around three in the afternoon, you concluded that you weren’t going to be able to get the ‘repeat’ feature to work economically due to the restrictions with currently producible circuit boards and finalized your second design.
You looked the drawings over again and couldn’t help but be satisfied. You’d made something that would do the job you wanted and at the same time push the limits on current technology, encouraging others to explore other options for the new technology you’d ‘invented.’
It would also be easy to convert to a mounting that would fit in a vehicle without performance issues, and just to add another bird to the ones killed with one blow, setting this up to be manufactured in England would help accelerate the economic recovery just starting to get underway.
You flipped you book closed and headed for the exit. Most importantly, you'd finished with plenty of time to get started on dinner preparations.
ASTtM
Arturia’s announcement that she’d been hired for a position in the financing department of a motorcycle dealership almost made you choke on your bite of fried fish. It was somehow both so off the wall and yet so her at the same time that you couldn’t help but laugh.
“Somehow, that seems very you.” You explained your laughter with a smile.
Saber blushed a bit at your response. Playing with a last bite of fish, done more Tempura-style than the usual, greasy pub Fish and Chips, she responded, “I wanted a position in sales, but they didn’t have one available.”
Your grin just got wider. “You’ll end up there,” you stated with total faith in your prediction, “Once they see that you know what you’re about? They won’t be able to transfer you fast enough.”
Proving once again that she was weak to honest praise, Arturia’s blush deepened. She made the last couple bites of dinner disappear, then prompted, “Did you not want to spend some time this evening trying to determine what the effects this world had on our abilities?”
As methods of changing the subject went, that one was rather blunt; still you were willing to let her get away with it. Finishing your own last bite of tempura-battered french fry, you began gathering up the dishes so that you could use the breakfast bar in your experiments.
What followed was a great deal of quiet swearing, mostly from you, and elbows hitting ribs(entirely yours). What you discovered by the end was that an armory of hundreds of Noble Phantasms had been reduced to a handful of usable examples in a sea of tracings that just failed when attempted in a way that hadn’t happened to you in more than three centuries.
That Arturia couldn’t even get so much as a response from Excalibur was the sort of consolation that wasn’t.
“Well, at least we know,” you said with a sigh.
You and Arturia sat on the couch, huddled together against a world of unknown dangers, well into the night.
ASTtM
The next morning, you both slept in a bit after your discoveries the night before. You still made a full English breakfast. Well, brunch anyway. Seeing Arturia happy helped.
You still both found that you wanted to be around each other as much as you could manage for the day. Since you also wanted to check out the local area …
You took a walk. It was enlightening in the way that discovering that you’d accidentally set up camp on top of a nest of Venusian Glitter Wasps was.
You learned that you never wanted to make that particular mistake again.
As soon as you got away from the main thoroughfare, the quality of your surroundings dropped from the lesser fringes of lower-middle class straight into an open sewer.
You didn’t know much about early to mid 80s gang culture in London, but you suspected you were going to learn. At least there was only one tag on the buildings. That meant you probably weren’t in a border area where you’d have to worry about the walls suddenly developing bullet holes.
In even less pleasant, though perhaps more useful news you’re pretty sure you’ve identified either a drug house, a brothel, or both in amongst the sprawl of urban decay and firetraps. You’ve also picked out three separate dealers loitering on cracked stoops or leaning against walls. Each has at least a knife on their person and one appeared to have at least one guy with a firearm around as backup.
You also mentally noted the location of the worst of the firetraps, just in case.
Arturia draws some whistles and you draw some glares, which you choose to take as compliments. For a few seconds you wonder if you’re about to have an issue when Arturia reads one particularly offensive whistler his pedigree, but the critique is so well done and on point that she actually seems to get through to the young man. Maybe he’ll turn his life around.
For the rest, you’re tall, well built, and don’t walk like an easy mark, so even in the worst of the territory around your apartment no one seriously hassles you.
As you step back inside your apartment, Arturia finally breaks her silence, “It seems Merlin picked a wonderful place for us.”
You couldn’t quite contain a snort at her utterly biting sarcasm.
When you turned and smiled at her, you could already see her mind working over ways to improve things in the area. “I want to help too, just remember, you don’t have to be a king anymore.”
She met your eyes and smiled back, but before she could speak, a knock came at your recently closed door.
Your mind immediately jumped into combat mode. You didn’t think you’d been followed, but you’d been wrong about that before. A quick glance through the door’s peephole, however, made you sheepishly drop out of your combat mindset.
“Ah, one moment!” you called out, and opened the door up. Arturia stepped to where she could get a good view just as the young woman on the other side spoke.
“Oh, I thought I saw someone coming in here! Welcome to the building!” The young woman was probably in her mid-thirties and had the sort of outgoing disposition that could get just about anyone to open up eventually. Despite having black hair and a rail-thin figure, she reminded you a little bit of Venus.
Keeping your manners in mind, you replied, “Thank you for the welcome. I’m Shirou Emiya, and this is my wife Arturia,” even if it felt vaguely like a lie, all your paperwork agreed, “we just moved in earlier this week. Would you like to come in?”
The woman smiled at the two of you, but deferred, “And I’m Mrs Potts. Oh, I won’t take that much of your time. I just wanted to invite you to a little get-together tonight. Whenever someone new moves in we always try to have a little party to welcome them to the building. When old Mrs Anderson passed I took over doing the inviting, you see.”
You shot a look back at Arturia who seemed positively inclined towards the idea. “Very well, that sounds like fun,” you replied as you turned back to the woman, “What time were you thinking?”
“We usually hold them round about seven o’clock,” she explained, “Gives the other tennants time to get home and get something whipped up to share. At least we can save you the cost of a meal,” sh concluded with a smile.
Well, that simply wouldn’t do, “Alright then, what can I bring?” you inquired.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” she tried to wave off your offer, but you were determined.
“Please, I insist. We’d be poor guests not to contribute.”
“Indeed, we don’t want to make a poor first impression by arriving empty-handed,” Arturia said, stepping up beside you.
As usual, Arturia casually won Mrs Potts over instantly, or maybe she just thought that it was Arturia that would be doing the cooking. “Well, if you want to make a desert, I doubt anyone would turn it away.”
Instantly, Arturia’s eyes sought yours. Your mind went over what you had in the cupboards and your right hand went to your chin while your left hand supported your right elbow. “Well, I’ve already made a savory pie this week. I suppose a sweet one only makes sense.”
At Mrs Potts baffled look, you chuckled, “I love my Arturia dearly, but if you ever see her in the kitchen, drop whatever you’re doing and flee for your life.”
You only flinched a little when a blushing Arturia pinched your ribs.
ASTtM
A few hours later, peach pie in hand, you arrived at the community room in the building’s basement. If the numbers you’d seen on the doors were accurate, then you were the last to arrive, given that five other family groups seemed to already be present.
As soon as you step foot in the door, Mrs Potts is there to welcome you, “Oh, Mister and Missus Emiya! So good of you to come! And is that a peach pie? It does smell wonderful, doesn’t it? Follow me and I’ll introduce you around.”
What follows is a veritable bolley of names, occupations, and anecdotes as the incredibly enthusiastic woman introduces you around the room. You manage to fix the first in mind but even with the help of the little stories to fix things in your brain, you only remember a fraction of who does what.
Thankfully you manage to hold up your end of the conversations you get into. You briefly discuss fruit that you enjoy which is easy enough, then the economy.
You predict an upswing, but most of the rest of the room is more pessimistic even with your citation of the recent tax cuts as evidence. You’re fortunate that Arturia rescues you before things can get heated. It seems that she’s effortlessly assumed leadership of the group of wives in your brief period of distraction.
Even Mrs Potts waits on her to indicate that it would be a good time to start filling plates.
When desert rolls around, Arturia gets several compliments on the pie before passing credit to you. That seems to disperse any remaining awkwardness in the room. Mr. Potts makes a joke about understanding why she married you, to which you reply drolly that an affair between you would never work.
Half the room only barely manages to stay in their seats, they laugh so hard.
3d100-10+5(one dice stunt)=94,72,30. So this is going to be A Thing again, huh?
Dexterity+Craft(Cooking) 14d10(1 bonus die for stunt, though that barely qualifies)=9, 2, 6, 7, 3, 8, 2, 5, 4, 7, 10, 8, 2, 1. 7 successes.
Intelligence+Craft(Magitech) 10d10(+2 for 2 dice stunt. Nearly the first 3 dice stunt of the quest)=10, 8, 2, 4, 7, 5, 7, 2, 3, 10. 7 successes on a difficulty 3 check. Damnit Shirou.
Taking a walk. Luck check: 1d100=32+5=37 Well at least Urist is equal opportunity.
Charisma+Socialize roll: 3d10(+2 dice from stunt): [2, 7, 2] 1 success. You come across as taciturn, but not rude. Arturia scores 8 successes, charms everyone there, and gets plugged in to the local rumor mill.
After the needs of your new job(whatever that ends up being) you have 2 weekend AP. What do?
[ ] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
[ ] - Search around for crime to stop. Clearly, as an Ally of Justice, you should be patrolling the neighborhood looking for wrongs to right. Now that you’ve scouted the area out you’ve even got some idea of where to start. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Crimes thwarted? Justice upheld? Maybe just an annoyed Arturia.
[ ] - Search for David Martin. Thanks to Merlin’s note, you know he exists. You’ve tracked down a half-dozen cultists among a world populated with billions of people. How hard can it be to find one man in a city of a few million? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Try to find a villain to fight.
[ ] - Plan for the future. Collaborate with Arturia and decide what you want to do with your finances in the upcoming month or two. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Budget, better understanding of resources and how to best use them.
Uber JJK earned 3 exp for putting together the Armory post from the last thread and ordering it by Noble Phantasm Rank. He has chosen to use those three exp to purchase a dot of Socialize.
[x] - Executive Chef (Gain three dots worth of Resources in income(welcome to the middle-class). Lose mostly evening AP. Potential for ???. Possible ???.)
-[x] Isn't it tradition for masked superheroes to move amongst high society and the wealthy in their mild-mannered alter-egos?
[x] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
-[x] The theatre is a cultural institution that has been around since long before Arturia's time, and you're sure you can find a period play that speaks to the idealized Knight and King somewhere in London.
[x] - Search for David Martin. Thanks to Merlin’s note, you know he exists. You’ve tracked down a half-dozen cultists among a world populated with billions of people. How hard can it be to find one man in a city of a few million? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Try to find a villain to fight.
-[x] You have a key edge on local law enforcement, in that you've not just tracked supernaturally-empowered beings before, but newly empowered beings. You know what sort of things to look for. Given the limitations of conventional law enforcement, it'd probably be best if someone with a few extra abilities tried to take the man down. Besides, Merlin is unlikely to have mentioned Martin in particular without reason.
As you’re preparing to head out for the day, you make a point of memorizing the details of the culinary school diploma Merlin provided you with. You’re glad for that, since trying to apply without one would be an absolute disaster. You might be able to get a job as a line cook somewhere without it, though probably not unless you could convince someone to taste your cooking before an interview.
Before you left, you also traced a small carrying bag with your favorite set of knives. Assuming you managed to make it to an interview, they would almost certainly want you to demonstrate your skills. Even if that didn’t end up being part of the process, it was better to be overprepared than under.
The Ritz was far enough away from where you lived that you needed to take a bus to get there in a timely manner. During the ride, you reminded yourself that you needed to be professional and tried to come up with polite responses to some of the more common questions you thought might be asked.
It seemed to pay off. When you arrived to inquire about the job opening for executive chef, you were greeted and invited to fill out an application. Once that was done, you shook hands with the Human Resources representative.
You didn’t think he had very high expectations of you, given your lack of documented experience, but he was treating you as a professional at least.
“I note that your application reveals that you’re rather light on work experience, listing only a job during your secondary schooling and an internship during culinary school. What makes you think you’re qualified to take on the burden of administering and operating a kitchen and staff on this scale?”
That was one of the questions you’d expected. “Well, I’ve been making and following a budget from the time I was about twelve years old,” you said. At your interviewer’s surprised look you elaborated, “My adoptive father died when I was quite young. I had a guardian, but the relationship was distant. I was left to either sink or swim on my own merits. I’m familiar with the needs of budgeting, how unforeseen problems can affect a budget, and how to adjust to compensate. Handling the kitchen’s budget will be a matter of a difference in scale, not degree.
“As for the organization part of the job, that’s what my internship was mostly focused on, since my technical skills were considered unimpeachable. A claim I will be happy to back up in the kitchen,” you declared with a smile.
There were several more questions after that, but your answer to the first one had set the tone. You presented yourself as confident but professional and in the end the interviewer seemed pleased.
With a quick look at his watch, he asked, “Do you have time for a practical demonstration then?”
You smiled. “I’m at your disposal for the afternoon, Sir,” you replied.
As he lead you into the kitchen, he explained your task, “One of our more popular appetizers in the restaurant is beef tartare. You are to prepare two portions of your interpretation of the dish.”
You entered the kitchen and were shown to an area off to the side. “This will be your workstation,” the man declared, then stepped back to observe.
Throwing you into the deep end, huh?
You took the time to unpack your knives and do some simple preparation of your workstation before you got started. Getting it out of the way now would save you time later. A quick look around the kitchen identified where equipment and ingredients you needed were located.
Then you burst into action.
You were looking for round steak for the meat, but it seemed that the Ritz preferred tenderloin. You were disappointed. Not only was that an increased expense, but the flavor of top round worked better, in your opinion.
Still, harvesting enough for two portions was easy. You quickly moved the meat into the freezer to firm up a touch more, then began to make your dressing. They at least had good quality olive oil, which was essential. Mustard, vinegar, salt, pepper, and a couple other spices joined the olive oil, and the dressing came together rapidly.
A shallot seemed to just fall to pieces on your cutting board, followed by a tablespoon of capers.
Judging that the meat was ready, you removed it from the freezer and cubed it so finely that it almost appeared to be ground. Then you mixed everything together, adding an egg yolk for binding. Slicing a baguette on the bias, you grilled the croutons for look and texture then portioned the meat mixture on top of the bread before drizzling on some more of the dressing, portioning the final amount into a small bowl so that more could be added to taste. You gave the product a critical look. It wouldn’t quite be at its best with tenderloin instead of top round, but for rush work it wasn’t bad.
You stepped back from your station and realized that not only was your interviewer staring, but so were most of the line chefs.
Then the swarm descended, each trying a bite and asking questions. You answered them concisely: yes you used just a touch of garlic. Any more and it would be overpowering. No, you don’t use Worcestershire sauce, because that is overpowering, and you can get a better effect with your methods.
If it were the chefs doing the hiring, you’d be offered the job on the spot, but even though you can see that the HR employee is practically salivating (especially after tasting your cooking) he still managed to stay on script.
“If you would follow me, I’d like to show you our bookkeeping system and a few other details. Now-”
ASTtM
Looking at the books for the restaurant you narrowed it down to two options. “So, incompetence or embezzlement?” you asked.
“What?”
“Your last Executive Chef. Incompetence or embezzlement?” you clarified.
Clearly surprised, the man responded, “Embezzlement. How could you tell?”
You point to three items in the records, “Either he was spending three times what he should have been at the butcher, he was allowing a criminal amount of waste compared to the receipts for sold items, or he was skimming. Blatantly. I’m not surprised that you found him out so quickly.” You shook your head and made a mental note to double check that the butcher wasn’t also overcharging as well if you got the job.
“Well then, that neatly sets aside the last of my concerns about your fitness for the job,” the man said and extended a hand. You shook it reflexively as he continued. “Mr. Emiya, it has been an unexpected pleasure. I have interviews scheduled for the next two days, but you have set a very high bar. I think that I will be able to contact you Friday by the close of normal business hours about our decision, and I thank you very much for your application and interest.”
“It was a pleasure to have the opportunity. The Ritz is a grand old lady. I’d love to be part of helping remind people of that.”
With that you parted ways feeling like you were going to have good news come Friday.
Bearing and comportment: professional, adequate for the position.
Cooking skills: legend in the making. Michelin stars practically guaranteed.
Administrative skills: could be a professional accountant.
Overall grade: A++
Gain 1 exp for completing an objective and 1 exp for going all-in and succeeding with flying colors.
ASTtM
When you went looking for an idea for a date with Arturia, you ran headlong into a brick wall.
You went through the … extensive list of dates Minako had gone on and just …
You could not picture Arturia doing any of them, much less enjoying doing any of them, and that was before realizing that you’d have to cut the list by about sixty percent since those activities hadn’t even been invented yet.
Ami never went on dates, married to her work as she was, and Makoto and her husband were about as boring as it got. They worked, took care of their kids, and occasionally went to a restaurant to eat.
You were on your way home from your first shift on Saturday when an opportunity all but dropped in your lap.
The raised voice was the first thing that caught your attention. Raised voices weren’t precisely uncommon in urban London, but you could only hear one side of the conversation, which was. As you rounded the corner of the building, you saw a well-dressed man shouting into a payphone receiver. “And I’m telling you the tickets are wrong. The date doesn’t match up with the date I ordered! I have my damn receipt! All I want to do is bring them back and exchange them for … Yes, I know you’re sold out! I’m one of the ones who bought tickets ahead of time for tomorrow! Not tonight! No, I will not hold! I-”
He pulled the handset away from his head and stared at it, then slammed it back down on the receiver.
Your stride had brought you almost even with the man, and now your interest was piqued. “Can I help you, Sir?” you asked.
He jumped a bit and turned toward you, but caught himself before he snapped at you. “Not unless you’re looking to buy tickets to Robin Hood at the National Theater tonight,” he said grumpily.
You opened your mouth to defer, then actually thought about it for a moment. “Actually, my wife would probably love that,” you admitted. The tale of a corrupt official, a noble rogue, and a just King returning to lay down the law? Arturia ought to love it. The only problem was that you only had…
“Uh, I’ve only got twenty pounds on me, though,” you admitted.
Surprisingly, instead of turning up his nose at you, the man smiled and even chuckled a little. “Just married aren’t you?” he asked then looked down at the envelope in his hand for a moment.
“Oh, why not? Better that they get used. My wife won’t get back until tomorrow and I’m going to be at the office until late. Sold, young man, and I hope you and your wife enjoy the play.”
You handed over the twenty pound note, he handed over the tickets, and you were off. As you walked, you double checked the date and time just to make sure y-
You almost dropped the tickets. Back when you’d first come to London, this pair of tickets would have cost you £300. Even today these tickets must be worth ten times what you paid for them. You turned back to look for the man you’d bought them from, but he’d already left your sight, and you didn’t have all that long to get ready.
You guess you’d just have to pay it forward.
ASTtM
Your seats were literally some of the best in the house. If you and Arturia were just a touch underdressed, no one commented. And it was only a touch. Merlin had included some fairly formal outfits for the both of you.
The show was surprisingly good considering that you’d never heard of a Robin Hood stage production in your own world. The acting was good and it stayed true to the story while still fitting into the new format.
Mostly, though, you were happy because Arturia loved it. She scowled at the Sheriff, nodded approvingly at Robin Hood, and positively smirked when the King showed up at the end of the play to lay down the law.
As you walked the last stretch of the way back to your apartment, Arturia was all but bouncing beside you, “and the look on his face when the King had him arrested!”
She giggled. Actually giggled, and for the first time since you met her, she actually seemed to be only as old as she looked. You hesitated for a moment, leaned down …
And chickened out. Pressing a kiss to her cheek. Arturia looked startled for just a moment, but then quickly shifted to amusement. “That was hardly appropriate, Shirou,” she said, then grabbed the front of your shirt and dragged you down for a real kiss. “That is how you kiss your s-spouse.”
Her performance would have been more convincing without the stutter, and she seemed to realize it too if the blush was anything to go by.
The rest of the walk was conducted with your arm wrapped around her shoulder and her tucked into your side. That night, as you prepared to head for the couch, Arturia stopped you. You met her eyes and nodded. She still wasn’t ready, but ...
That night you held your wife in your arms as you drifted off to sleep.
ASTtM
Arturia was a grabby sleeper. Extricating yourself in the morning meant letting her have the shirt you’d slept in, because there was no way you were getting it away from her.
You had an early shift again today, getting settled in to your duties and helping deal with the weekend Brunch. You’d made a couple of small changes to the food and more to get away from dreadful 80’s plating choices. So far they had been well-received, but you needed to talk to suppliers before you could start making any more.
Still, rumors of a new Executive Chef had been spread, probably deliberately. As a result, the curious had already started to show up. As word began to spread, no doubt more would be coming as well. You expected that next weekend would start to see the restaurant busy at more than just peak hours.
You whipped up a light breakfast which nonetheless attracted a hungry Saber like a moth to flame before heading out.
ASTtM
When you dragged yourself back home that afternoon, you were much more tired mentally than physically. You’d spent the day wrestling with schedules, ordering forms, and dealing with the other minutiae of the job. Your subordinates hadn’t even needed to bother you when the restaurant got busy with the after-church rush. You really wanted to do something to blow off some …
Hmm.
Well, it would take some time before you could really go out to start searching, but that just left you time to pick up the Sunday paper and do some research.
ASTtM
A good keyword to search for when investigating a supernatural crime was ‘baffled.’ As in ‘Police Baffled,’ the last two words of a small headline back on the eleventh page of the paper. The story described a series of expert robberies performed with no signs of breaking and entering. Nothing had been damaged by the thief or thieves entrance and the doors had still been locked when the residents returned and found their belongings rifled through.
The crimes had all been in a certain geographic area as well, though most of them had been during the day. The exception was the robbery of businesses that were closed at night, of which there had been two, both in a geographically similar area.
Well, you knew where you were setting up shop tonight.
ASTtM
Even in May the nights got cold in London. You’d picked an abandoned building near the center of the geographical area described in the paper. Now you were waiting, your ears Reinforced to listen for out of place noises in the night while you tried to keep warm. You were at once distressed by how much improving your Perception cost and impressed by just how much of an effect it had.
You were seriously considering starting a roof-hopping patrol just to keep warm when a brief flash of bright white light caught your attention. With additional scrutiny drawn to that area, you realize that the footsteps you’ve been hearing from there now sound … odd. Almost as if-
The footsteps stopped and you heard the sound of wood sliding. A moment later, the light blinked out.
Well that was odd. That light was about right for an LED flashlight, but no such creature existed in the 80s, and that sound had been odd. Definitely worth investigating. Standing up, you traced your old armor with the addition of a helmet to protect your identity, then Reinforced your muscles a touch to jump from rooftop to rooftop.
It took long moments for you to make your way towards where the light had come from, but as you closed in, you started hearing more and more sounds from an otherwise silent building. Since you hadn’t heard a door, the odds that you’d stumbled across a crime in process were definitely increasing. The only question in your mind was whether or not you’d stumbled across the right criminal.
As you circled the building and found no obvious entrance on the ground floor, that likelihood increased in your mind. Then you got to the far side of the building from where you started, and immediately noted a second-story window open. Had the sound of wood sliding been that window opening? If so, then how?
You were so absorbed in trying to figure out how the thief had managed to get the window open that you almost missed him returning to the window. You threw yourself down, only barely managing not to hit your helmet on the opposite roof.
You don’t think the guy saw you, but suddenly the white light came back. You popped back to your feet, expecting to have to dodge, only to find the man jogged down the wall with a canvas bag in hand. That was …
You shook your head, and watched as he stopped dead for a long moment at the base of the wall. You noticed that the light didn’t actually go out for about three seconds after he stopped. Then the man turned and began to casually stroll away.
You decided to-
[ ] Trace the Yew Bow and hit him with a sedative.
[ ] Trace the Trap of Argalia as a sword and attack.
[ ] Demand his surrender.
Charisma+Presence roll. 3d10(+1 from stunt)= [7, 2, 9] 2 successes.
-[X] Some thieves fight when challenged, but many others retreat or fold. None of those reactions would be new, even across worlds.
“Put your hands up, a-”
White light blazed in the alley, and you prepared to defend yourself, but instead of fighting, the criminal took off in a dead sprint that most Olympians would be envious of. At that speed, he was out of sight around a corner before you could even consider tracing the Yew Bow.
It appeared that it was going to be one of those nights.
You leapt across the alley, cutting the corner on the man only to see him taking the next corner at a dead sprint, changing direction on a dime without losing any speed. That was going to make this harder.
Over the next minute, the fugitive attempted to lose you several times through his combination of speed and cornering ability.
Most pursuers would have been left in the dust by a man sprinting as fast as he was. Those who could manage to stay caught up in the short term would have been exhausted by maintaining a sprint for longer than the human body was designed to manage.
Shirou Emiya, however, was not most people. You were not merely staying in sight, you were actually catching up.
If the man you were pursuing could be described as having peak human speed and superhuman endurance, then you had supernatural speed and inhuman endurance.
Finally, it became clear to the thief that he wasn’t going to be able to outrun his pursuit. Like a rat backed into a corner, he turned and attacked.
You weren’t sure what form that attack would take, so you were already tumbling aside in a dodge as the beam of white light swept through the space you’d just occupied, only just clipping the edge of the roof, but blasting an antenna behind you to smithereens.
In return, you threw yourself into motion again, the Trap of Argalia flashed into being in your hand, altered into the shape of a blunted longsword. The golden weapon swept out at your opponent, your power flowing through it.
You had expected him to be as quick in a dodge as he had been on his feet. You was disappointed. The man clearly knew very little about how to defend himself from a physical blow.
At the last moment, you held back and turned to hit his foe with the flat of your sword. Saber would have yelled at you for failing to swing through the target, but you wanted to capture the man, not break half of his ribs. Your blow still blasted the air from David’s lungs even as the man’s legs went out from under him.
As he collapsed to the ground, his left hand came up, but you were inside his range. A tap to his wrist deflected the burst of energy harmlessly into the air. Then you pounced.
It took you less than ten seconds to have Mister Martin pressed face down into the asphalt with his hands in rapidly traced manacles, and not much longer for another traced set of manacles to hobble his legs, just in case the Trap’s touch wore off unexpectedly. With your prisoner thus secured …
“Mr David Martin, you are subject to a Citizen’s Arrest for your unlawful entry into a place of business and your theft of items from that business,” you informed him, thereby complying with the one major requirement that English law had in cases where someone who wasn’t a policeman made an arrest.
You reflexively reached for a phone you didn’t have because smartphones hadn’t been invented yet, and bit back a sigh. “Now I need to find a telephone box,” you muttered as the glow around Mister Martin finally died.
As you picked the man up, taking care not to add any further injury to what had to be some seriously sore ribs, you considered that last bit. The glow had persisted for quite a long time after he stopped running from you, whereas before it had vanished very quickly. Additionally, the beam attack he used had been the same color as the light that surrounded him. For that matter, the light had not vanished when he stopped resisting, but had persisted for several moments afterward, nor had he continued to flee while attacking you.
That, in turn, seemed to indicate that he wasn’t able to do so, nor was he in control of how long he could use the light beams. Was it a function of how long he’d been running? Did he somehow store up energy while running that he could then weaponize when he stopped?
It was a curious and seemingly contradictory power, one that would let him run but not hide or fight, but only for a short time, and not while running.
Abruptly, you realized that you’d made it to a main road while dissecting Mr. Martin’s abilities. Your perception, still Reinforced, allowed you to easily spot what you’d been looking for down the sidewalk barely twenty yards.
Slipping a coin into the machine, you dialed the local police office from memory. When a harrassed-sounding officer answered, you reported, “Yes I’d like to report a Citizen’s Arrest of David Martin …”
14 Damage Dice(No dice added for Strength. Shirou pulled this one.) 10 after soak. rolled 10d10: 5 successes [10, 5, 4, 6, 8, 3, 10, 10, 7, 4] Mr. Martin is down to his -4 health levels and his legs don’t work. He’s done.
The Bobbies are on their way, and if you don’t hang around to make a statement there’s at least some chance he could get off on this charge at least. In the end you decide to-
[ ] - Stay and give a statement, maybe talk to the press. Point out what you’ve gathered about how David Martin’s powers work. Maximum helpfulness.
[ ] - Stay and give a statement. Avoid the press like they’re Venus. Helpful but skittish.
[ ] - You’ve done the hard part, the police can figure out the rest. Depart the scene unceremoniously.
Assuming you stick around, what do you call yourself?
[X] - Stay and give a statement. Avoid the press like they’re Venus. Helpful but skittish.
[X] Guardian
In less than three minutes, a pair of Area Cars, only one of them the distinctive white with orange stripe, pulled up, lights flashing.
When he saw them, your captive just started muttering more loudly. His words, however, were entirely indistinguishable. Once he’d gotten his breath back, he’d started in with progressively more foul language until you’d simply traced a roll of duct tape and made good use of it.
The four Bobbies that piled out of the cars eyed your armor and blue overcoat suspiciously for a moment, but were far more concerned with your prisoner.
“Is that him?” one of them asked. You looked down and saw that Mr. Martin had his head tilted down.
Rolling your eyes, you grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him to his feet, where he couldn’t hide his face.
“He certainly is, caught him coming out of a store’s second floor window with a full bag,” you explained as one officer shined a flashlight, a torch in British parlance, in Martin’s face to confirm his identity.
“When I called on him to surrender, he took off,” you stated. You debated a verbal detour to explain bits of how the man’s power worked, but decided against it.
“I was able to keep up with him when he rabbited, and even close the distance. When he noticed, he stopped and fired a white beam of energy at me,” you continued. “I was able to dodge, but someone’s antenna caught at least part of the blast.
“With him stopped, I was able to close to melee range and subdue him. He tried to use another of those energy blasts, but he doesn’t really know how to fight up close, so it was pretty easy to deflect it into the air.
“After that, I was finally able to inform him that I was performing a citizen’s arrest. Had to carry him out here from that alley,” you waved in the right direction, “and put in the call for you.”
Two of the officers had pads out to take notes, but only one of them was still writing. The other was staring at you like the time Mercury had enchanted the speech bubble to follow you around.
“Thank you for the concise report,” the officer that had managed to remain professional said, “and we’re glad to finally have the man who murdered four policemen off the streets, but I do have some questions for you, if you don’t mind?”
You’d expected the questions, but the revelation that Mr. Martin had killed that many people as part of his escape? You were even more glad to have taken the man down before he could hurt any more people.
“Certainly,” you responded.
“Alright, first, you said you called on him to surrender. How’d you even manage to find him in the first place? He’s been invisible ever since he-”
ASTtM
“-and that’s why I slapped the manacles on him. Based on the duration of the glow after he stopped running, I think he stores some sort of power while he’s running and can then utilize that stored power in the form of white energy beams. Keep his feet hobbled, and you should be able to keep him from hurting anyone else.”
The cop nodded and you hoped against hope that that was his last question. It must have been a slow news day. Either that or David Martin was a much bigger deal than you’d thought, because every paper and news outlet in a hundred miles seemed to have sent a reporter if not sound and cameramen as well when the announcement of David Martin’s arrest had gone out over the police radio.
Three more cars had needed to be called in to help keep the press, and the curious citizens they’d awakened, back.
“One last question,” the Bobby said as he finished writing. You closed your eyes behind your helmet and took a deep breath to help you maintain some patience.
“I take it by the face-concealing helmet that asking for your name wouldn’t do much good, but what do you want to be called, for that matter, I know there’s a reward for information leading to his arrest. I don’t think we can rightly give it to you without your real name.”
There was really only one answer that felt right to give for either of those questions.
“You can call me Guardian,” you answered, “as for the money, I would request that it be distributed to the families of the policemen David Martin murdered.” That had the twin benefits of being the right thing to do and also earning you some goodwill with Law Enforcement.
With police manacles now on the prisoner’s feet and his hands cuffed both together and to the bars in the area car, you let the ones you’d Traced dissolve into briefly sparkling dust. Mutters and camera flashes immediately broke out from the direction of the media.
“Hopefully things will stay quiet and I won’t have to see you again anytime soon, Officer,” you said. Then, since your strength reinforcement was still active, you jumped up to the roof behind you, drawing gasps, shouts, and a great number of strobes from camera flashes from the press.
You took the opportunity to vanish. The last thing you wanted to do was talk to those bloodsucking vampires. If they were even half as bad as the Silver Millennium’s Newsies, they’d be more trouble than any dozen Dead Apostles.
Morning was going to arrive all too soon, and with it, a hungry Arturia. At least you were off today, Mondays being a slow day in the restaurant industry. Still your plan for the week was a bit busy. You intended to-
What mood are the cops in? 1d100=74 very good mood.
Charisma+Presence roll. 2d10 rolled. 1 success [7, 4]with that luck roll? Good enough. Though I’m starting to think that Urist is trolling me.
Gain 2 exp for solving the situation with David Martin relatively peacefully and helping ensure that he is unable to escape from custody.
Current Exp total: 4
It is a new week. It is, in fact, your first full week in your new Universe. Since your job hours will be somewhat flexible and mostly in the afternoon and evening, Arturia will be taking an afternoon shift at her job as well and I can simplify the AP system. You’ll have plenty of time to hit government offices in the mornings before work. As such, after the needs of your job, you have 10 weekday AP. What do?
[X] - Hold down your job. You need to get paid, so this is sort of a requirement. Cost: 4 AP. Results: You do the minimum required to get paid. Your bosses won’t love you, but barring something both unexpected and awful happening the restaurant will slowly keep improving.
[ ] - Supply Solutions. Some of the suppliers for the restaurant aren’t giving you the combination of price and quality you want. Hunt around for better bargains. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Better quality, better price, or both. Either way, your bosses and the customers will notice.
[ ] - Pleasing the Eye. Plating matters, and the 80s is a plating wasteland. You made a couple changes already, but to have any additional improvement, you’re going to need new hardware. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Scout out a supplier for new dishes that will let you take the next step in presenting portions that are pleasing to the eye.
[ ] - Train your staff. Instruct your Chefs so that they can come closer to what you can manage in the kitchen. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Increased competence of staff which will lead to improved reputation of the restaurant. Happier bosses.
[ ] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
[ ] - Search around for crime to stop. Clearly, as an Ally of Justice, you should be patrolling the neighborhood looking for wrongs to right. Now that you’ve scouted the area out you’ve even got some idea of where to start. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Crimes thwarted? Justice upheld? Maybe just an annoyed Arturia.
[ ] - Plan for the future. Collaborate with Arturia and decide what you want to do with your finances in the upcoming month or two. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Budget, better understanding of resources and how to best use them.
[ ] - A patentable project. Work out how to patent your invention and then what to do with it afterward. You could certainly sell the rights and have it produced by another company, or you could try to attract investors and start your own manufacturing firm. Cost: 2 AP. Results: Options for introducing the automobile and portable CD player.
[ ] - Home Hunting. The apartment Merlin set you up with is … well, it’s an apartment. It’s small and cramped and has you living in proximity to other people a lot. You miss your suite in the Palace. You don’t exactly have a budget yet, but you can at least get an idea of what’s out there and how much it will cost. Cost: 1 AP. Results: A list of homes for sale.
[ ] - Gym Hunting. It’s been a while since you were able to work with Arturia. Her Instinct might help you fake working as a team, but you’d rather not depend on that. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Find a place where you can spar with Arturia, or at least exercise together.
The Troubles Turn Hot: Recently, IRA activity has spiked in both Northern Ireland and England itself, including a few attacks that have the police baffled. The Army has yet to respond, but a new crackdown is expected.
Something even had the security staff around the PM’s residence in an uproar recently, and the timing seems suspicious. Hopes are that a few arrests and increased presence of troops will help calm the situation down again.
Helmeted Hero Arrests Cop-Killer: Escapee David Martin has finally been apprehended! That would be worthy of discussion by itself, since he killed the bobbies while making his escape and was known to be a gun aficionado. What has everyone in England talking is that a real-life superhero is the one who brought him in. Police have identified him only as ‘Guardian.’
Coming out of the Woodwork: Perhaps in response to Guardian’s appearance, a new masked vigilante has been spotted in Cornwall. Details are scarce, but all accounts agree that the new costumed crime-fighter stopped a mugging before vanishing into the darkness.
-[x] It's important to establish what the new minimum standards are. And those standards are 'to the best of your ability within the limitations of the circumstances.' You can be gracious in helping the rest of the staff to learn these standards, but these are the standards they will start working towards now.
[X] - Supply Solutions.
-[x] This is a top-flight restaurant, which requires top-flight supplies. There's prestige (and money) in being your supplier. Challenge local suppliers to bring their best, and see what you can make of it.
[X] - Pleasing the Eye.
-[x] High speed, high-skill production can be a form of art to behold in and of itself. Who says that western cooking cannot entertain by the manner of its preparation as well? Not just how it is on the plate, but how it is put on the plate...
[X] - Socialize with Arturia.
-[x] A walk through the Notting Hill market, looking for interesting antiques, and possibly swords and similar with interesting histories for you to learn and share with Arturia sounds like fun.
[X] - Plan for the future.
-[x] "So Arturia, how many children do you want to have?"
[X] - A patentable project.
-[x] During this time in the 80's, it might be reasonably possible to sign distribution deals with different manufacturers in different countries. If you can do this right, you will be in excellent negotiating position for the next money-making idea you want to sign a deal with a manufacturer on.
Later that morning, you had the distinct displeasure of finding yourself a lawyer. Thankfully, those that worked with patents were less odious than some of the other members of that profession. Still, it wasn’t the way you would have preferred to spend your morning.
That said, if you were going to be working with a lawyer, you wanted a good one. Your minimum standard was someone trustworthy that wouldn’t try to wield legal technicalities like a weapon against you.
You were able to do rather better than that, even without the internet. Or maybe because the internet wasn’t around. Patent attorneys were far from the most common solicitors, and it turned out that their reputation needed to be very good indeed to thrive in a city such as London.
The man you found had a sterling reputation, and actually meeting him the next day let you put your few remaining concerns to rest.
Charles Benson was dark enough of skin that without his very British accent you would have thought him a first generation immigrant from Africa. He was also straightforward and about as polar opposite as it got from the yakuza lawyers you’d dealt with back in Japan. Just walking into a room with them made you feel vaguely unclean, greasy even.
Mr. Benson looked over your drawings, comparing them to the existing CD player patent on the books, and determined that your modifications represented a substantial and thus patentable difference in function. He then handled the essential paperwork for a new patent in the time allotted for your appointment. He was even understanding about you needing to make payments for his services.
ASTtM
“Very well, Mister Emiya, I will have these filed later today. You may have to deal with a challenge against the original patent, but even though I’m not familiar with the device itself, I can say with confidence that you’ve made enough changes to the function of the original that any such attempt would be … remarkably difficult for the original patent holder,” your solicitor stated and extended a hand. You took it and gave a firm shake.
“I’ll leave the first payment with your secretary,” you replied, “and I’ll bring the balance by once I’ve deposited my first check.”
“If you’re as good a chef as you are at making drawings, I will have to stop by the Ritz for dinner,” Benson said, then gave you one last bit of advice, “With a patent pending, you may want to contact Sony about licensing your designs to them. I’ve heard music played from these new compact disks, and the quality is simply first rate. If, as you declare, this design makes it practical for them to be installed in automobiles, I suspect they will be very popular indeed.”
“Thank you, sir. I shall take it under advisement,” you responded before departing. If that was his advice, you’d be well served to consider it.
ASTtM
Your patents are now pending, and your lawyer is good enough that you don’t have to worry about shenanigans. His advice is to license your patents to Sony for production, which would be simple and easy for you. The downside is that it would almost certainly happen outside England, which wouldn’t help the British economy.
ASTtM
That afternoon found you up to your eyebrows in calculations. There was no doubt in your mind; the restaurant wasn’t getting the quality of food it was paying for.
For that matter, the last couple Executive Chefs had been trying to make up for their own inferior ability with superior ingredients. What they’d ended up doing instead was overpaying for mediocre examples of things like tenderloin when the previous Executive Chef had been getting a fair deal on top quality cuts of round steak for the beef tartare or paying for truffles when a dish would be much better served with shitake mushrooms.
You’d spent much of your shift today making a list of the items that needed changing and the places that were overcharging you for inferior product. Or, as it turned out, place. You had one problem supplier on your hands. Part of you wanted to move away from their services on principle, but you were willing to at least give them a chance to meet your standards. It might be that they didn’t realize that people down the chain were taking advantage of the situation to offload poor quality product or perhaps the last two Executive Chefs had just been awful bargainers.
What you discovered when you went down to discuss the issues with the quality you were seeing with the company supplying your kitchen, was that the guy was just flat out good. He knew the contract backwards and forwards and was able to quote it at you whenever you raised an objection. Everything that was delivered to you was within the letter of the contract, even if the mediocre quality violated the spirit of it.
That was fine. You had the checkbook with you, so you looked over your copy of the contract and wrote out a check for the comparatively small amount to get out of the contract.
That, it seemed, the man hadn’t expected and he followed you all the way to the main office trying to get you to reconsider.
You departed the premises with a receipt and the satisfaction of hearing the smarmy annoyance getting an earful from his boss.
That did leave you with the problem of finding a new supplier on short notice.
There, at least, you caught a break. It seemed that the economy was starting to accelerate out of the slump it had been in. As you were walking back to the Ritz, you happened upon a building just as a sign was being hung in front of it. “Bronson Whole Foods,” the sign proclaimed.
You almost walked past it. Your luck had been far from the best in your last life, but after a moment’s thought you reconsidered. Perhaps a start up would have the energy to hunt down the sort of quality you wanted. At the very least, you could be certain you were their biggest, most important client, and thus liable to get prompt and reliable service.
When you stepped through the front doors, you immediately liked what you saw. The produce was all fresh, of good quality, and being treated appropriately to maintain both. Some additional poking revealed that their meat case was well stocked and their Butcher knew what he was about. All in all, a well supplied and well stocked shop.
“Ah, hello, sir, is there anything I can assist you with today?” a man asked as he stepped up next to you.
“I certainly hope so. I’m Shirou Emiya, the new Executive Chef at the Ritz. I see you have a skilled Butcher. If you’re able to fill custom orders, I would like to place an order for whole tenderloin as well as round steak. Additionally, I noted that you stock whole shitake mushrooms, and-”
ASTtM
You pay a small fee to get out of an old contract, then stumble upon a new supplier that has both better prices and better quality. Since your patronage instantly increases the startup’s prestige, this forms an excellent foundation for a good long term business relationship.
Restaurant quality and profitability improve. Your bosses notice that you’re getting results.
ASTtM
The next day you broke out pens and notepads and started working through your household budget for the upcoming months. Frankly, you’re in a very solid position. Your expenses at your current apartment are very low, a reflection on the neighborhood as well as the cramped living space, and your food budget is reasonable thanks to Arturia no longer being a bottomless pit.
Doing the math reveals that with both of you working, you’ll need to open up a bank account or perhaps two. Carrying around that many pounds being an invitation to a mugging, severely injured muggers, and awkward questions from the Bobbies.
With Arturia offering occasional comments, you drew up a budget for the situation as it currently existed, then a couple of possibilities assuming that you could find a home within a couple of guesstimated price-ranges. What you found was encouraging, especially with the way your work had been going and the general upturn in the economy offering a promise of stability. That left one detail to plan for.
“So, Arturia, how many children do you want to have?” you ask. The question is serious, but you’re hoping for a reaction as much as an answer.
Arturia’s eyes come up to meet yours, but her usual composed expression is entirely absent. Wide-eyed and with a rising blush, she gapes at you for a long moment.
“I-I,” she stumbled over her words looking rather like a blonde-haired tomato before looking away and fidgeting.
“Several?” she asked more than stated, hovering right around terminally embarrassed.
You decided to lay off a bit, “I’m certainly not opposed, so it’s a good thing that we’ve got solid finances and good prospects. Children are expensive.”
That was enough to help Arturia recover somewhat. Her eyes left the floor and her shoulders relaxed.
Finally you gave in to the urge to pull her into a hug.
“I love you,” you told her, even as your ribs creaked.
“I love you too.”
ASTtM
Shirou and Saber each have 3 dots of Income each month. Untouched, this would turn into three dots of Resources each in one year’s time. Again, that assumes that every cent would be going into the bank or other investments. What really happens is that expenses happen.
Shirou owes 1 dot of income to his patent lawyer, the apartment consumes another dot of income, and keeping Shirou and Arturia in meals, clothes, and other miscellaneous expenses costs a dot of income each.
Two single dot expenses equals a two-dot expense. Two dual dot expenses equals a three dot expense, and so on. For the month, they will be banking 3 dots of income, and using the rest for basic expenses. Their simplified budget looks like this:
Gross Income: ****
Shirou: ***
Arturia: ***
Expenses: ***
Lawyer: *
Rent:*
Food, bus fare, taxes, and date nights: **
Balance of Income: ***
ASTtM
That night at work, you had a thought. With a chunk of your budget having been spent on getting out from under an awful contract, you really didn’t have enough anymore to secure new dishware. That didn’t mean that there was nothing you could do on the subject of improving the presentation of your food.
Hmmm, open lines of sight into at least part of the kitchen with at least a few chefs trained to make a production of what they were doing …
Maybe not full-up hibachi-style cooking, but something a touch more subdued to fit the atmosphere of the Ritz. It would take some renovations eventually, but you were going to need to have some work done in the dining room eventually anyway.
First you needed to get a few chefs trained to an acceptable standard for that sort of production.
That ends up being slow going, partially because you’re conducting the class during business hours, and partially because you just aren’t an exceptional teacher. Still, you’ve identified a couple chefs who seem to have both the coordination for the job and the interest. At this point it will simply be a matter of putting in the time each week giving them tips and demonstrations while you let your changes in quality of cooking, ingredients, and plating percolate.
Once you have the capital with your bosses, you can plan out the physical needs for the restaurant’s facelift.
Besides, in the meantime, you get to watch chefs flub showy flips and fast cuts. At least you’ve taught them enough that they aren’t wasting food or cutting themselves.
Training action locked in until Performance Chefs are ready for deployment. Follow-up action to unlock in the future.
ASTtM
The next morning found you in an excellent mood as you moved about the kitchen, finishing the preparations for a full English breakfast. You had a plan for the morning, and a hearty meal was just the thing before a stroll.
Arturia managed to arrive at her seat just as you were dishing up the mushrooms in brown butter and the tomatoes.
Showing great restraint, she waited for you to sit beside her before digging in with an “Itadakimasu.”
Once you’d both mostly polished off your meals, you confirmed that she didn’t need to be at work until the afternoon. That drew a raised eyebrow.
“That’s correct,” Arturia acknowledged, “Should I take this to mean that you have a plan for the morning, then?”
“I wondered if you might care to take a walk. The markets in Notting Hill will be opening in an hour or so. They’re supposed to have a nice selection of antiques, curios...” you trailed off, uncertain, but a glance at Arturia’s face seemed to indicate that she was interested.
“That sounds entirely acceptable,” she said, and a weight came off your shoulders. “Just let me grab my purse.”
ASTtM
The Portobello Markets at Notting Hill were busy as soon as they opened on a Friday when you visited them the first time with Rin, and they held to their custom. The place was a veritable riot of scents and colors with everything from clothing to food to paintings and vases on sale.
Despite your large breakfast, the first thing that drew Arturia’s attention was a stall selling an assortment of middle-eastern dishes.
Once her stomach had been placated with an offering of something that reminded you of baklava, you were able to actually explore some. You looked at some carpets that were only a little overpriced and several ‘antiques’ that were really reproductions.
Arturia’s eye for detecting such was almost as good as yours despite the fact that you were cheating with Structural Grasping in your usual reflexive manner. When you praised her for it, she blushed and admitted that she wasn’t watching the merchandise so much as she was the merchants.
“When I was king, I’d have had to have about half of them arrested for corruption or grave robbing,” she admitted.
“That bad?” the figure surprised you. You hadn’t thought that there were that many people fleecing the tourists.
“Well, mostly in that age it would have been peddling false religious relics,” she said with a shake of her head that spoike eloquently of disgust.
“There are always a few fools willing to dig up a corpse to sell ‘saint’s fingers’ or some other such nonsense to credulous pilgrims. It’s just that the precise wares have changed since then.”
You couldn’t help but snort.
“The more things change, ne?” you asked.
“Hmmm, but the important things endure as well,” Arturia said, taking your hand.
You smiled down at her and wrapped your right arm around her shoulders, pulling her into your side. She smiled up at you, a shorter distance than it used to be, and everything was right in the world.
Then an idiot that was too stupid to live tried to steal her purse.
ASTtM
“-much energy to worthwhile pursuits, you would doubtless have gainful employment thus benefiting both yourself and society instead of stealing from honest citizens to support yourself. I could understand if you were a dullard or crippled and thus lacked prospects, but you seem a capable enough young man. I shall expect to hear that you have turned your attention to more respectable pursuits,” Arturia concluded her lecture precisely as the police arrived.
To their visible surprise, the man tearfully allowed himself to be cuffed without protest, even confessing to a string of purse-snatchings and petty thefts in the Markets that had seemingly been unsolved.
Beside you, Arturia nodded, satisfied that her duty was done and allowed you to lead her off into the stalls again. Noting the bounce in her step, you found yourself curious.
“You seem quite satisfied with yourself,” you noted, “Not that it wasn’t an outstanding performance, but …” you trailed off. For a moment Arturia was quiet.
“By the time I was King, I did not have time to handle situations like that. Or I allowed myself to be told I had no time for them. I wondered sometimes, during my vigil, if things might have ended differently if I had made the time to deal with small matters such as that,” she said and looked up at you, face serene.
“My words reached that young man,” she declared, “He would rather starve in a gutter than steal again, and the world now is not what it was the last time I walked these lands. He will be able to make something of himself instead of dying in a ditch or on a soldier’s blade.”
You weren’t taken aback by her words, the way many, perhaps even most, would have been. After all, you knew what it was like to save someone. You who had been saved as a boy, then spent centuries saving others. And in the process carved a legend into that universe such that your name would be remembered so long as humans drew breath.
How long had Arturia forced herself to be the perfect King, when in her heart, however hidden, she longed to be that young wandering knight again? Able to take direct, simple action and solve a problem, instead of being forced to react to circumstances and only ever delay a problem to a later date?
Your arm wrapped back around her shoulders.
“A good morning’s work, Sir Knight. Now, what do you want for lunch before we have to head in to toil the afternoon away in thankless drudgery?”
“Curry,” she pronounced, and so it was.
Perception+Bureaucracy: 4 successes. Average on an 8 dice pool, still means Shirou is almost inhumanly good at sorting gold from dross. Very good lawyer found.
Perception+Lore: 10d10 dice=6 successes. Shirou has figured out where the previous chefs were overpaying and has settled on what actually fair prices would be.
Opposed Charisma+Presence rolls 7d10(includes 2 dice stunt, 2 dice circumstances advantage and 1 dice for being pretty)=3 successes versus 6 successes.
1 legend spent for a reroll= still 3 successes. Shirou can’t talk the guy around.
How willing is someone else to pick up the Ritz as a customer? 1d100=98 very willing. Shirou finds a startup that is willing to give him a good deal in exchange for the prestige and ongoing business.
Teaching roll [Charisma+Performance]: 4d10= 1 success. It will take a while.
Arturia’s lecture roll ]Charisma+Presence]: 11d10= 6 successes.
Current Exp total: 4
After the needs of your job and your current commitments, you have 5 AP. What do?
[X] - Hold down your job. You need to get paid, so this is sort of a requirement. Cost: 4 AP. Results: You do the minimum required to get paid. Your bosses won’t love you, but barring something both unexpected and awful happening the restaurant will slowly keep improving.
[ ] - Innovative Cuisine. Now that you’ve got access to the proper grade and scope of ingredients, you can turn your attention to the fine details of tweaking the Ritz’s current recipes. As they are, they’re solid, but uninspired. Of such fine details are the differences between the Great and the merely good made. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Improved dishes, increased revenue, happy bosses.
[X] - Pleasing the Eye. Your original plans about plating went in an entirely unexpected direction, but if you want to have chefs other than yourself capable of the sort of casual excellence you envision, you’re going to need to put in the hours to train them up. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Chefs trained to cook well and look good doing it. Eventual synergy with restaurant update.
[ ] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
[ ] - Search around for crime to stop. Clearly, as an Ally of Justice, you should be patrolling the neighborhood looking for wrongs to right. Now that you’ve scouted the area out you’ve even got some idea of where to start. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Crimes thwarted? Justice upheld? Maybe just an annoyed Arturia.
[ ] - Investigate the disturbance. Rumor has it that something happened at the PM’s residence. Maybe the bobbies would appreciate some assistance?Cost: 1 AP. Results: ???
[ ] - A patent pending. Your patent lawyer recommended that you contact Sony to license your patents to them. In order to do that, you’re going to need to demonstrate that they work. That means building examples, which means time and money. Cost: 2 AP. A 2-dot expense. Results: Working examples of your inventions. Probably annoyed neighbors, given your current living arrangements. You may want to find a home with a workshop first.
[ ] - Home Hunting. The apartment Merlin set you up with is … well, it’s an apartment. It’s small and cramped and has you living in proximity to other people a lot. You miss your suite in the Palace. With your new budget, you can find something better than what you’ve got without overstretching your means. Cost: 1 AP. Results: A list of homes for sal or rent. .
[ ] - Gym Hunting. It’s been a while since you were able to work with Arturia. Her Instinct might help you fake working as a team, but you’d rather not depend on that. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Find a place where you can spar with Arturia, or at least exercise together.
[X] plan: I’ll think of one now+more Arturia.
[X] - Hold down your job. You need to get paid, so this is sort of a requirement. Cost: 4 AP. Results: You do the minimum required to get paid. Your bosses won’t love you, but barring something both unexpected and awful happening the restaurant will slowly keep improving.
[X] - Pleasing the Eye. Your original plans about plating went in an entirely unexpected direction, but if you want to have chefs other than yourself capable of the sort of casual excellence you envision, you’re going to need to put in the hours to train them up. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Chefs trained to cook well and look good doing it. Eventual synergy with restaurant update.
-[X] continue your previous efforts and also look at the aesthetic side of the restaurant now think how people feel when they eat in her and look to improve it still in keeping with the ritz high class reputation.
[X] - Investigate the disturbance. Rumor has it that something happened at the PM’s residence. Maybe the bobbies would appreciate some assistance?Cost: 1 AP. Results: ???
-[X] Gather what information you can on the disturbance before approaching the police see of you can get in contact with someone high up in police or govt as quietly as possible to arrange to coordinate with the Police and the security service and if possible get more information to work with. From there base your response and load out based on the analysis of the threat vector. Ask Arturia for help with getting in contact with the right people and with what ever social and protection stuff comes up.
[X] - Home Hunting. The apartment Merlin set you up with is … well, it’s an apartment. It’s small and cramped and has you living in proximity to other people a lot. You miss your suite in the Palace. With your new budget, you can find something better than what you’ve got without overstretching your means. Cost: 1 AP. Results: A list of homes for sal or rent
-[X] Try to find a place with a shed or workspace in it so you can tinker and with room to expand your family in along with a decent kitchen. Also look at it an eye towards setting up some hidden defences against intrusion and attack.
[X] - Innovative Cuisine. Now that you’ve got access to the proper grade and scope of ingredients, you can turn your attention to the fine details of tweaking the Ritz’s current recipes. As they are, they’re solid, but uninspired. Of such fine details are the differences between the Great and the merely good made. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Improved dishes, increased revenue, happy bosses.
-[X] progress has been made with the show cooks but improvements still need to be made look how you can blend eastern cooking with western so it will be palatable to the current clientele. Also look at developing new dishes that can be added to the menu have Arturia taste test and the staff to get their opinions and modify them. Make it so there is a good mix of simple and advanced dishes.
[X] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
-[X] Do something simple, go visit the landmarks of London, like the Buckingham palace and Big Ben, she may be interested in learning what her country became.
[X] - Gym Hunting. It’s been a while since you were able to work with Arturia. Her Instinct might help you fake working as a team, but you’d rather not depend on that. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Find a place where you can spar with Arturia, or at least exercise together.
[x] Two pronged approach look for an official well equipped gym with a decent amount of equipment and attached hall. Also for power training see if you can find an abandoned factory or warehouse to use.
A Brave New World 7
Your eyes came open with the dawn due to long-established custom. A glance down at the weight on your chest revealed Arturia’s head pillowed there. That would make sneaking out of bed to start breakfast at least twenty-five percent more complicated, but it still put a silly grin on your face.
Making sure your Saber ended up with a pillow under her head as well as one to hold on to was as much of a hassle as you expected, but you had breakfast to make. You wanted to get an early start. After a long weekend of work for both of you, you had a day off. And you were going to look at houses.
One of which you might choose to live in.
With your wife.
Just the thought had been enough to keep you smiling even through the worst of the weekend rush at the restaurant, and it produced a satisfied smile now as well.
While you’d prefer somewhere close to the Ritz for a shorter commute, prices in Mayfair were actively obscene, and the location wouldn’t be ideal for Arturia’s job.
You were planning to hit up Camden in Westminster. The travel by tube would be roughly the same for both of you, and the prices were much more reasonable. More importantly, you’d done a little research, and while most of the offerings were flats or maisonettes, there were three townhouses on the market.
Better yet, because the economy had been so poor recently, they were reasonably priced and still not selling, so you should have a week or two to consider your purchase without risking another buyer snapping up a good deal before you could make an offer.
Speaking of snapping … you only barely avoided a small splash of grease from the bacon you were frying, and turned the heat down a touch. The pan was getting too hot if it was popping like that. Probably better to focus on not burning anything.
ASTtM
The first house you were supposed to see was a smoldering pile of debris.
“I’m so sorry. I hadn’t heard what had happened here early enough to contact you before you left,” the realtor who was showing you the first two properties today apologized profusely.
“It was not your fault,” Arturia reassured him. No doubt to an outside observer she would look perfectly composed, but you could see her concern. “Have they determined how the fire started?” she inquired.
“And did the owners get out alright?” you added.
“They’re investigating it as suspicious,” the brown-haired man said, reaching up to adjust his glasses, “and the property wasn’t occupied. I don’t know anything more than that.”
Arturia nodded and you realized she was taking in the surrounding structures. The home had actually been linked to the surrounding townhouses on one side, and while there was some damage, the second home hadn’t burned entirely.
“It seems the firefighters here are to be commended,” she said, obviously making a mental note of it.
“Well, if you’ll follow me, I’ll drive us to the second property I was planning to show you today. It’s a bit out of the way, but the street it’s on is quiet and-”
ASTtM
The second townhouse had a bit of an odd look to it. It had a small courtyard out front that was walled off from the road and was tremendously overgrown. The exterior siding was badly sun damaged and looked like it should have been replaced two decades ago.
Frankly, you were almost ready to turn around and leave before stepping one foot inside.
“I know the exterior needs a good deal of work, but the interior has been kept up better. The former occupant was homebound, you see,” it seemed that the realtor had a good sense for his customers.
“Well, I suppose we can at least take a look,” you allowed. The drive hadn’t taken that long, and you had quite a bit of time before your afternoon appointment with another realtor to see the last townhouse on your list.
“Thank you very much,” the man said and let you in through the slightly rusty cast iron gate.
As your guide advanced towards the front door, you slowed down and took a look around the courtyard. Honestly, the space wasn’t bad. Semi-private thanks to the gate installed, but it had some decent potential, and with how quiet the street was, it could be a good place to entertain. Maybe even set up a grill. It was also larger than you’d expected. It was the sort of thing a much higher-end home might have had, and you worried that it was eating into what was probably a small lot. That probably meant quite a small house.
As you inspected the courtyard, Arturia had begun grilling the realtor.
“You mentioned that the former resident was homebound. That means the estate is being sold off?”
“Oh, most of it. It seems the man and his son weren’t on speaking terms. Everything in England is being let go.”
“Everything?” Arturia inquired, brow raised. “So they were a wealthy family? Why could they then not afford a gardener?”
“‘Were’ would be the operative word, Ma’am. All that was left was the home here, a car, and a small boating property that’s already sold.”
Arturia hmmed in response and let the subject drop before inspecting the front of the buil-
You finally noticed how odd the front of the townhouse looked. The entrance was on the left side, but there was no corresponding entrance on the right, so this wasn’t a duplex, and the right side featured a turret of all things, sticking out from the rest of the front wall. You could see why Arturia was curious.
Just to confirm, you looked up and down the row of houses on the street, but none shared any similar features. This townhouse was quite out of place. The style was definitely older than the rest.
Keeping your peace, you followed your wife and the guide inside, expecting the rooms to mostly branch off to the right.
Instead, the house was narrow and deep with nothing on the right half of the building. The first floor was an unspectacular living area with a fair-sized eat-in kitchen. The second floor had a bedroom and a family room, and the top floor had a second bedroom. Each floor had a WC, and the top floor had a rather nice, if dated, master bathroom.
You made the appropriate noises throughout the tour, but you were mostly scratching your head.
There was no basement access and no sign that the other half of the house even existed.
You dropped some commentary on the size of the courtyard and the Master, then shook the realtor’s hand and departed.
You had time, and you wanted a look at the property records.
ASTtM
You did the math in your head and things didn’t add up. Maybe someone had intended to make the property a duplex at one point and run out of money? It didn’t seem likely, but it was the only thought that occurred to you for why half the townhouse appeared to have been walled off from the rest of the building and abandoned. On the other hand, whoever had set the price didn’t seem to realize they were only charging for half of the town house’s real, or perhaps potential given that you had no idea what was actually there, square footage.
Still, that was a question for later. You had one more property to see this afternoon.
Ducking out of the courthouse, you found Arturia finishing off the last of her lunch.
“It’s still one property, but someone somewhere along the line seems to have bricked up the doorways to half of it and simply forgotten them.”
“Perhaps it was used for illicit activity in the past? Smuggling?” Arturia wondered aloud. That wasn’t something you’d considered, but it was also a possibility.
“I doubt we’ll know unless we purchase the place and start working on it,” you replied. “On the one hand, it’s at the lower end of the budget. On the other hand, to take full advantage of the size of the house, we’ll have to do some serious renovation work on it, which means dealing with headaches like permits and living in a construction zone.”
“But in the end, it would almost certainly be a larger home than we could otherwise acquire with our current earnings,” Arturia pointed out. “Additionally, the building is solidly constructed and the lower levels could make an ideal workshop for you.”
“True,” you acknowledged, “but we’d better hurry if we’re going to make our final appointment for the day.”
ASTtM
The last townhouse really was a beauty. Fully decorated and furnished, it was move-in ready with a large kitchen and an attic that could be turned into a workshop with very little effort. Thanks to the market being what it was, it was in your price range, if only just.
That said, it had no significant outside space, and the street it was on was both busy and loud. You had a feeling that Arturia wouldn’t appreciate the noise, and the construction didn’t seem to be as sturdy as the older townhouse you’d viewed earlier in the day. Thanking the second realtor, you departed to talk with Arturia about your options.
ASTtM
Your options are …
A smoldering pile of debris: This was a critical failure roll, but averted somewhat by the +10 from your stunt. Without that, this house would have seemed like an extraordinarily good buy. Right up until it burned down on you after you signed the papers.
The run-down townhouse: Will require some TLC, but this was a critical success, again thanks to the stunt. With the renovations it needs, it will cost the same as option three, and an ongoing action besides for the construction(time may vary depending on successes), but when you pay off the mortgage, you’ll end up with a four resource dot home instead of a three resource dot home.
The move in ready townhouse: Room for a workshop, but much less well defended than the other option. Two bedroom home with no real ability to expand that.
Either option will mean a 20 year mortgage costing two dots of income more than your current rent. (Effectively two and a half dots of income, or one dot of income and two dots of income. This would reduce free income from *** to **)
ASTtM
That evening, you fixed Arturia the first experimental run of your newest dish for the restaurant. You’d steamed two langoustines for each of you in a foil pouch with butter, seasonings, and asparagus spears then paired that with a Japanese-inspired coleslaw with pickled vegetables. Arturia wasn’t much help from a technical standpoint, not having the background for giving you critical feedback, but she was an appreciative audience and could give you a ‘woman on the street’s’ opinion.
“The asparagus and the shellfish went well together,” she told you when you asked, “and the coleslaw was a very sharp contrast.”
Basically, she had determined that it was better than boiled meat, and was thus satisfied.
Still, you thanked her for the help, even as you kept mulling the question over in your head. The langoustines hadn’t been bland, but the seasonings you’d tried hadn’t worked out as well as you wanted.
Hmmm, they are closely related to crabs. Maybe something closer to Old Bay seasoning?
That idea had promise. You ended up working with small quantities of spices for the next two hours, until Arturia called you to bed, but you thought the end result would be worth it.
ASTtM
The next day at the Ritz, you prepared a half-dozen of the langoustines as well as servings of the two side dishes to universal acclaim from your chefs. It didn’t hurt that the preparation was relatively simple either, so you were able to walk your staff through the process quickly and easily. Calling your new supplier to add to your order also went smoothly, as did adding the new dish to the menu as a Chef’s Special.
By Wednesday, the first orders of it would start to trickle, then fly out of the kitchen. It might not be the best thing you’d ever made, but the combination of price point and novelty seemed to be attracting a following.
You also made a great deal of progress in training the chefs you’d selected for display preparation. It turned out that they both learned better after hearing the theory, then seeing it put into practice than by seeing alone. Given their relatively high manual dexterity, all it was taking was some polish. They still weren’t ready, but they had both made notable progress.
ASTtM
Performance chefs have gained a dot in performance, and a performance specialty in cooking. One additional performance dot and two more dots in the specialty needed to complete the action.
ASTtM
It doesn’t take long for you to start connecting dots, even with what little information is publicly available. Less than a day after the latest incidents of violence in Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister’s residence turns briefly into a kicked-over beehive.
The odds of those two events being unrelated were very, very small.
Unfortunately, that’s where you ran into a roadblock. It was the 80’s and there was no social media to trawl through, collating rumors. People weren’t walking around, each carrying a pocket computer that was also a phone and a decently-capable camera.
You had the official press release, and one set of photographs that were taken and had already been widely circulated. There wasn’t even any film to watch, just still images.
With no progress being made, you finally had to admit defeat. If you were going to obtain any useful information, you were going to need to contact the police. Since you were going to be talking to policemen instead of scientists, that meant getting Arturia involved.
That meant a late night and short sleep, though at least you didn’t have to worry about designing a costume. Arturia’s battle dress could be supplemented with a helmet that left only her eyes, chin, and mouth exposed. Even the blue enamelwork matched her aesthetic.
Once dark fell, you and your wife left your apartment, outwardly just another couple out for a walk after their shifts. Once you were a few blocks away, however, you and your wife ducked into an alleyway. A few moments later, Guardian and Saber appeared on the roofs, leaping towards the police precinct that you’d contacted about arresting David Martin.
You had hoped to find the officers that you had spoken to previously, but by the time you arrived, the overnight shift had started and their schedule had them working afternoons.
You discovered that thanks to Arturia being her usual enchanting self. You were fairly certain that you could be juggling chainsaws at the moment and not attract a single glance from any of the policemen in the station. Even the criminals were being well-behaved instead of belligerent. Unfortunately …
“-really wish I could do more to help, but I just don’t have any information,” the Lieutenant your wife was taking to said.
“I see,” Arturia responded, “I suppose it’s no surprise. Regardless, if there was some sort of attack and investigative help is needed, or if there is an attack in the future, please inform them that they may rely on Guardian and myself for assistance. One of us will check in with police at least once a week to see if there is any information that you feel we need or if there are any fugitives with … inexplicable abilities that need to be captured.”
That … probably wasn’t what you would have chosen to do in her place, but Arturia was clearly fired up about the situation.
“All right, Saber,” the policeman said, “thank you again for stopping by.”
With those words said, you would have been clear to depart. It took Arturia nearly an hour to extract herself from the station. It seemed that every policeman and dispatcher stopped her on the way out of the building to shake her hand and say a few words. It seemed like the police had been more concerned than they had been letting on about the sudden appearance of superhumans, especially in the wake of David Martin who had killed three policemen while dodging bullets.
Having two such people on their side seemed to be a real comfort to them. Now if only you only had a damn cell phone so they could pass you messages discreetly. You resolved to buy a police band radio so that you could at least listen in on their transmissions.
ASTtM
Early Friday morning found you and Arturia looking into the possibilities of the gyms in Camden. None of the names that you were familiar with for the big franchise gyms were around yet, so that left only a small handful of local names.
Well, and the YMCA, but you figured you could throw that one out without bothering to visit.
The first place you stopped was called The Armoury. It wasn’t bad for what it was. There were weight machines, benches, and free weights, but you could probably max all the machines even without employing Reinforcement, and there were cameras all over the place. Even with shitty CCTV technology, they’d get enough detail to cause comment about your abilities, much less Saber.
There really weren’t many machines far enough away from the cameras to limit the detail to the point where you could get a good workout without revealing that a woman of 5’3” and barely a hundred pounds could juggle the biggest free weights they had and max out every machine.
Meeting Arturia’s eyes, you shrugged and told the manager that you’d keep them in mind. It would be better than nothing, you were sure, but you didn’t think you’d get much out of it.
ASTtM
You walked past the second gym the first time before backtracking to find it. The place was poorly marked, with only a sign advertising Coke with the name Jimmy’s on it. Frankly, you’d thought it was a diner when you passed by the first time.
Stepping inside revealed a small lobby with an empty receptionist’s booth. You could hear some noise from the back of the shop, and you were about to ring the bell on the counter when you heard the explosion.
Reflexively, you rolled up beside the door deeper into the building and looked across to meet Arturia’s eyes as she summoned her armor. You could hear a raised voice deeper inside, but the door was surprisingly sturdy and you couldn’t hear any sort of detail.
What do?
[ ] - Write In.
House hunting luck roll 3d100=2, 91, 71
Lots of perception, social, and bureaucracy rolls. Generally quite good.
Recipe creation roll. Intelligence+Craft(cooking). 13d10=5 successes.
Teaching the recipe. [Charisma+Performance]: 4d10=3 successes
Teaching fancy cooking [Charisma+Performance]: 4d10=5 successes. Major breakthrough.
Investigating the disturbance, preliminary: Intelligence+Investigate+stunt=8d10 dice=4 successes.
Saber gonna Saber. Charisma+Performance+Stunt=13 successes. As far as the local precincts are concerned, Guardian and Saber are Good People. Reputation with the police is now trusted.
Gym hunting. [Redacted]
Current Exp total: 4
There’s one scene that isn’t posted because it comes chronologically after the gym hunting event. All the rolls for this update were interesting in their own ways.
[X] Don your armor!
-[X] Armor up, then peek inside.
--[X] Depending on if it's an attack or someone trying out "odd" abilities should decide any further action.
---[X] If it is an attack, disable the attacker as quickly as possible with the help of Arturia.
---[X] If it's not an attack pull back and stop using the armor then knock once Arturia looks normal.
A Brave New World 8
With a bare moment’s focus, you Traced your own armor and helmet, blue and black contrasting with Saber’s blue and white.
You inched the door open a touch, wary of a bell or other noisemaker on it.
“-tch! That should have worked! Did I calculate the tension wrong? Maybe-”
Not that it would have mattered. The man on the far side sounded thoroughly distracted, so you opened the door a touch more. He was standing in front of a machine tha-
Your instinctive Structural Analysis made your eyes all but cross in your head. How the hell had he managed to create that memory alloy with a welding torch and a hand hammer? That made no sense at all! The Silver Millennium had used stelar forges in zero gravity to prevent crystallization, and somehow this guy had made half a kilogram of it with hand tools inside a gravity well.
You inched the door back shut and turned back to your wife.
“Apparently people are now using superpowers to invent better exercise machines, though that one seems to be a work in progress,” you said, releasing your traced equipment. Once Arturia released her own armor, you opened the door.
“Everyone all right in here? I thought I heard an explosion,” you said as you stepped through into the gym proper, Arturia right behind you.
Immediately, the man spun around to stare at you, a mix of surprise and embarrassment on his face.
“Ah, uh, yes, everything’s fine,” he said, then seemed to realize he was still holding the broken memory metal resistance arm and tucked it behind his back. “I’m working on an invention, building a better mousetrap as it were. I thought I had all the bugs worked out, but …” he trailed off.
“As good a thing as any to keep you busy when things are slow,” you agreed casually. A look around revealed more or less what you’d been expecting. The machines were in better shape than the building, and the owner hadn’t spent the money to have cameras installed.
The place gave you the feeling that it didn’t see much use. If business was poor, that might also explain why the owner was trying to invent more sophisticated exercise equipment, though what mattered for the moment was that here you could afford to max out the machines without being recorded.
The downside was, of course, that the owner must have had some sort of superpowered bullshit to be making sophisticated memory metals, however flawed, with such basic tools. Did you want to risk going to a gym where the owner might wake up one day and decide to put on a costume and start robbing banks or abducting people in order to force them to get fit?
On the other hand, he might be able to design something that would let you and Arturia really push your limits, though there were certainly risks to that approach as well.
ASTtM
Your search for a gym with attached dojo fails. It seems like you’re looking for a Unicorn there. If you want one, you’re going to have to build it yourself. Since the first gym was effectively unusable, you’re stuck with two options. You can either:
[ ] - Become a member of the second gym.
[ ] - Approach the owner in costume with a request that he build some exercise machines to your specifications.
[ ] - Something else. (Write-in. Subject to GM approval)
ASTtM
Before the weekend rush hit and swallowed you whole, you had wanted to take Arturia out on another date. You remembered touring Buckingham Palace with Rin when you’d first come to London, but in this instance, your memory had betrayed you.
“I can’t believe I forgot,” you muttered to yourself as the two of you walked past the building. “It must have been in ‘93 that they opened it up for tours, not ‘83.”
Saber, though, didn’t seem to mind. It was an uncommonly cold, blustery day for the fifth month, and she simply leaned into you for a bit of extra warmth, even bundled up as she was in a coat.
“It’s fine,” she said, taking in the architecture. “Not at all what I expected,” she admitted after an intense study, “but beautiful nonetheless.”
“Very different from Camelot?” you asked, half curious and half amused. For all that you’d lived the Dream Cycle during the war, you didn’t know that you’d ever seen Arturia’s castle.
“Very,” she agreed. For a long moment, she was quiet. Just before you were ready to prompt her, she continued.
“Camelot was the … I suppose the prototype for the concept of a ‘castle,’” she explained. “Up until that point, the Britons’ most impressive fortifications had been hill forts, but I wanted something grander. A symbol to rally the people around and a structure that could see off the most ferocious foes. I looked to the ruins of the Roman forts along the Wall and had Agravain, Merlin, and my other advisors ... scale them up a bit.”
That made you blink and turn to look down at the top of your wife’s head.
“Wait, you built the first castle? Ever?”
She nodded.
“The first of what could be considered true castles, meant to see off armies of other humans, rather than both humans and Phantasmal Beasts,” she agreed. “Can you imagine trying to build something like that with gryphons or wyverns around? They’d move in to claim the new ‘mountain’ in weeks. It would have been nothing but trouble in the Age of the Gods.”
You just looked at her for a long moment. She seemed to feel your eyes on her, and turned to look up at you, meeting your eyes.
“What?” she asked, a cute, confused expression on her face.
“Every time I think I know how amazing you are, you find some way to surprise me,” you said.
She blushed and leaned back into you. Your arm wrapped around her shoulder as you left Buckingham behind.
It was definitely hot chocolate weather, and you’d expected to be spending an hour or two on a tour that didn’t exist yet. With nowhere pressing to be, you decided to keep your eyes open for a likely looking cafe.
ASTtM
By the end of the week, word is starting to spread about a hot new dish on the menu at the Ritz, and the phrase ‘fusion cuisine’ has appeared in the nation’s vernacular. For the first time in years, The Ritz Restaurant is booked for the dinner service each day before the doors open. Your bosses have taken notice and are pleased with the upturn in business.
Didn’t even bother to roll the Perception test. You’d probably have been able to hear what was going on through the door with Reinforcement, but that isn’t what won the vote.
You have options on two townhouses. You and Arturia choose to-
[ ] - Purchase the Run-Down Townhouse, accepting the warts for the increased living space.
[ ] - Purchase the Move-In-Ready Townhouse. Convenience now is worth the risk of needing to move again later.
[ ] - Buy neither. They aren’t quite what you’re looking for.
There is also the gym vote, as above.
So, I never expected this to be on hiatus for so long. I really do apologize, but my limited free time last semester ended up being devoured by the second arc of Welcome to the Jungle. The up side is that I am now finished with my second degree and will be down to just working full time instead of working full time and taking 12-15 credit hours of classes as well. I plan to leave this vote open for about six days so that people have a chance to get discover that it has updated again, and remember what the hell was going on. I will attempt to keep to an 'every Sunday' update schedule and churn out some content now that I've got the free time.
Bribes to my muse in the form of omakes are always appreciated, and active discussion makes me happy. Thanks to Seraviel for beta work.
[x] - Approach the owner in costume with a request that he build some exercise machines to your specifications.
[x] - Purchase the Run-Down Townhouse, accepting the warts for the increased living space.
A Brave New World 9
The meeting with the bank was more nerve wracking than expected. You’d been expecting Arturia to be able to carry most of the load, but she appeared to have forgotten most of what little applicable knowledge the Grail had supplied her with. Instead, you’d had to work together to convince the manager that you talked to that you were a good credit risk.
It seemed to come down to the fact that you’d done your homework on the history of the property and knew how to use the right jargon. When you were able to point out to the representative that the bank stood to make a profit even in the case of a repossession due to the larger than average size of the property, you finally started getting some positive reactions to your proposal.
You left the bank with a real sense of accomplishment at navigating your way through the financial bureaucracy. By the end of the week, you’d have taken possession of your new home! You could hardly wait.
ASTtM
You secure a mortgage to the Run-Down Townhouse. Barely. Despite having very little credit history and Arturia’s rolls being literal shit. Gain 1 exp for pulling out a clutch save.
ASTtM
After beginning the process of moving out of your current apartment and into your new home, working a long shift at your job, and making dinner for you and your spouse, most people would be happy to fall into bed and consider the day’s work done.
Instead, you went for a late walk, stepped into an alley, and then Guardian appeared, running the rooftops back to the unimaginatively named Jimmy’s Gym.
You’d been expecting to leave a letter for Jimmy with a message for him to meet you at a later time. Instead, when you arrived, you found that the lights in the gym were still on. Trying the front door, you found that it was unlocked.
As you stepped inside, you only barely remembered to reach up and grab the bell above the front door before it started to ring. A quick glance through the inner doors revealed the owner of the establishment once again absorbed with working on an advanced version of a weight machine.
You stepped through the door and nearly tripped over a discarded welding torch.
Maybe you should have done this when you were more fresh, after all?
You shook the impulse off. You were here now; better to just do it and be done.
So you walked up behind the man and cleared your throat.
“Jesus Christ!” the startled inventor yelped and surged to his feet, then nearly tripped over them. Possibly from a cramp. He appeared to have been working bent over for quite some time.
“Apologies for startling you,” you said, hands remaining casually at your sides. Or apparently casually, anyway. From that position, you could either trace a weapon and move to attack or defend yourself with ease, though you didn’t seem to need to.
“This is an interesting alloy you’ve developed,” you remarked instead. “I’m surprised you were able to create it inside a gravity well. Crystallization would normally be a serious barrier to terrestrial construction. I don’t suppose you could explain how you managed to bypass the issue?” you asked.
For a long moment, ‘Jimmy’ just stood there dumbly before his brain managed to switch gears.
“Uh, I just ran it through several cycles of heating and cooling and eventually it … felt right?” he explained without explaining. “Uh, how did you get in here?”
“You left the front door unlocked,” you said calmly, and the man flinched. “I was planning on simply leaving a letter for you, but I wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“Ah, yeah, I’m fine, just got caught up working on this. I swear I got up to close the door at one point …” he trailed off, noticing the welder abandoned over by the entrance. “Oh, I guess I never made it out front to lock up.”
You chuckled.
“I’ve had friends like that before. Keeping one of them from maiming anyone who messed with her coffee was very nearly a full-time job.” Ami always had been particular about that espresso machine. You shook the thought aside.
“In any case, I’m known as Guardian, and I’m here to inquire about your prici-” you began.
“Wait, you’re the guy that caught David Martin?” Jimmy interrupted, “I … that is … can I shake your hand?” he asked.
You chuckled a bit and raised a hand, as requested, and got the sort of firm handshake you’d expected from someone with Jimmy’s muscles in return.
“Glad to have a murderer like that off the streets,” he said, “but what can I do for you?” he inquired.
“I still need to exercise to build and maintain my strength,” you explained, laying out the problem, “and a regular gym simply isn’t going to suffice.
“On the other hand, this metal seems to indicate that you’ve got the ability to create things far ahead of their time. Could you make a machine or machines capable of giving me a serious workout?”
ASTtM
The short answer was yes. The longer answer was that it was complicated. Also, Jimmy or James Port had been up for twenty hours working on his invention without the benefit of a superhuman physique. As soon as the adrenaline rush started to fade, he started to fall asleep standing up.
You made sure he made it to a cot in the back room and locked his doors for him. In return, you got his private number and a promise to meet you whenever it was convenient for a detailed work-up, so that he could build custom machines for your specific needs. You also got the impression that he was deeply relieved to have a potential source of income forthcoming.
ASTtM
Positive contact made with James Port, Tinker of unknown specialty, but capable of working with advanced metallurgy. Follow-up action unlocked.
Intelligence+Bureaucracy=4d10. 3 successes
Saber’s Intelligence+Bureaucracy=8d10. Still 3 successes. Rerolls twice, getting 2 successes and then 1 success. Apparently she really can’t into mortgages. Maybe this is why she had to tear a village down for supplies every time she went off to war …
Wits+Linguistics=9d10. 6 successes. Shirou manages to Fast Talk his way out of the mess.
Dexterity+Stealth=8d10. 2 successes. Good thing he’s only trying to sneak up on a tinkering Tinker.
Charisma+Socialize+Appearance bonus: 6d10=2 successes. That’s enough to avoid panic long enough for you to introduce yourself.
???+???=???. ??? ???.
Finally, I’m adjusting things a bit and moving towards monthly turns instead of weekly. As such, this vote will represent what you do for the remainder of May.
After the needs of your job and your current commitments, you have 3 AP. What do?
[X] - Hold down your job. You need to get paid, so this is sort of a requirement. Cost: 4 AP. Results: You do the minimum required to get paid. Your bosses are happy with the improvement you’ve made in the restaurant for the moment, so you could afford to cut back a touch. Continued improvement likely, but not guaranteed.
[ ] - Innovative Cuisine. Now that you’ve got access to the proper grade and scope of ingredients, you can turn your attention to the fine details of tweaking the Ritz’s current recipes. As they are, they’re solid, but uninspired, with one notable exception. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Continued development of Fusion Cuisine.
[X] - Pleasing the Eye. Your original plans about plating went in an entirely unexpected direction, but if you want to have chefs other than yourself capable of the sort of casual excellence you envision, you’re going to need to put in the hours to train them up. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Chefs trained to cook well and look good doing it. Eventual synergy with restaurant update.
[ ] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
[ ] - Search around for crime to stop. Clearly, as an Ally of Justice, you should be patrolling the neighborhood looking for wrongs to right. That drug den/brothel is wearing away at your conscience. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Crimes thwarted? Justice upheld? Maybe just an annoyed Arturia.
[ ] - Investigate the disturbance. Rumor has it that something happened at the PM’s residence. You’ll definitely have to move on to contacting the government directly if you want to help.Cost: 1 AP. Results: ???
[ ] - A patent pending. Your patent lawyer recommended that you contact Sony to license your patents to them. In order to do that, you’re going to need to demonstrate that they work. That means building examples, which means time and money. Cost: 2 AP. A 2-dot expense. Results: Working examples of your inventions. Probably annoyed neighbors, given your current living arrangements. You may want to find a home with a workshop first.
[X] - Home Improvement. (Locked in due to purchase of the Run-Down Townhouse) You own a home now, or the bank owns it and you’re paying them interest for the pleasure of living in it, anyway. The problem is that it’s going to need to be a construction site for a while as you reopen the closed half of the house and reconfigure everything for your needs. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Access to and renovations and furnishing for the full floorplan of your new house. Home Equity.
[ ] - Gym Building. You’ve made contact with the super-inventor that runs a failing local gym. Now you just need to decide how much you’re willing to spend to have a home gym that will allow you and Arturia to get some exercise and training in. Cost: 1 AP. Variable amounts of money. Results: Gain a home gym/practice area in your basement. Training time for physical skills and attributes accumulates. Coordination penalties mitigated.
[ ] - Write in. Subject to QM approval.
You have 5 exp. Do you spend any?
[ ] - Write in.
Short update again, but I'm getting back into the swing of writing this. Vote will again be open until sometime Friday evening.
Monday began with a bout of researching to help get Saber up to date on the realities of modern building codes. After hours of only that, you desperately wanted to do something, anything else. With a light first course offering already added to the dinner menu, you felt inspired to continue in the same vein. Turbot was a popular whitefish, but the preparation currently in use at the Ritz was underwhelming, in your opinion.
So you set out to fix it. Taking inspiration from traditional japanese methods, you combined sake, mirin, shoyu, and sugar along with just a couple drops of Worcestershire sauce into a braising liquid.
Taking a filet of Turbot, you trimmed it down into serving-sized pieces, then prepared them for braising by slowly pouring boiling water over them, then draining them to do some initial cooking and also remove the last bits of fishy-tasting debris.
Placing the pieces of fish, you arranged them in the braising liquid and improvised a Japanese-style drop lid. By that time, you were ready to begin slowly steaming some mixed cauliflower and broccoli florets.
Saber, attracted by the smell, was already waiting for you at the counter in your apartment by the time you turned away from the stove to prepare place settings.
“Another new dish?” she inquired.
You nodded as you set out the silverware and prepped the individual dishes you’d be using for the fish.
“It seemed appropriate to strike while the iron was hot,” you explained. “This way, if we get busy with other things, I have a store of goodwill built up with my bosses.”
“Well, it smells quite good. What is it this time?” she asked.
“A different preparation for turbot. I think it will respond well to the method, other white fish certainly do,” you responded. Checking the dish, you nodded and added the ginger and some tamari soy sauce to help thicken the braising liquid into a sauce.
“Five more minutes, I think,” you said as you reached for a bottle of white wine and the cork remover.
Arturia accepted a glass and sipped, and the conversation fell into a pleasant lull.
“So are you looking forward to working on the kitchen at the townhouse?” she asked as you were plating up the portions.
“Yes,” you declared firmly, “this isn’t bad, especially for the size, but I’m looking forward to eating at a real table,” you admitted as you slid a dish in front of your wife. The piece of turbot in the bottom with some of the thickened braising liquid pooled around it and the vegetables, just barely cooked through, piled on top for a splash of color.
Arturia was as appreciative of good food as always, but you thought you’d need to add something else to the vegetable mix for a bit more color. Maybe some butternut squash?
ASTtM
Your initial efforts to teach the recipe to the chefs at the Ritz were something of a flop. The ginger was added either too early or too late, and tended to be cut either too fine or too thick.
Worse, the need to pick up the new recipe distracted your performance chefs, and it seemed like whenever they were keyed in to learn, you were distracted with obtaining a supply of tamari or the other accounting elements of the job. The progress there was less than impressive. You just had to shrug it off, though. There was no point in getting frustrated, and the books were still well in the black. Though you hadn’t done much to change the breakfast or afternoon tea offerings, even those services were being booked in increasing numbers.
Lunch and dinner services, in contrast, were already entirely booked for the weekend by noon on Wednesday.
ASTtM
When you got home from dealing with all that, you at least arrived to good news. The permits were dealt with. All of them.
Arturia, it seemed, had pulled out all the stops after the debacle with the bank and launched an all-out charm assault that had taken the bureaucrats at City Hall by storm.
Her characterization of the property as one desperately in need of repairs and remodeling after the previous owner had let it become run down had ensured the bureaucrats that wanted to see older areas of the city gentrified were onside. Meanwhile, her descriptions of the way the building had been modified and the plans to reverse that had those concerned with the protection and restoration of historical buildings practically chomping at the bit to clear obstructions from her path.
You just wish you’d been able to see it in person instead of hearing about it after the fact. It does mean that so long as you meet code with your renovations that the bureaucracy of the job is out of the way.
For that alone, you’re happy to spoil her with a home-cooked meal complete with brownies à la mode for desert.
ASTtM
Going out for food is the sort of date that most people would be familiar with. You, on the other hand, didn’t tend to go out to eat at restaurants. Back in Japan, either you or Sakura would have done the cooking, and once you ended up as one of Serenity’s troubleshooters, going out for a quick bite to eat had a tendency to turn into a three-ring media circus.
On the other hand, there were just some things that you could not cook adequately in an apartment’s kitchen. Neapolitan-style pizza was one of those things.
Arturia bit down on a slice with a crunch, a string of fresh mozzarella cheese connecting her to the pizza momentarily before a second bite severed it. She glanced at you, embarrassed for some reason; you pretended not to have noticed, and finished off your own slice, the aromatic fresh basil and acidic taste of the tomatoes a sharp contrast to the cheese.
“Pizza from a wood-fired oven like this really is a treat,” you said. And even though you really enjoyed cooking, you also appreciated an evening off in the middle of the week.
“I agree,” Saber stated elegantly before diving back in for another bite.
“Maybe we should plan to have one in the front courtyard?” you teased, then paused for a moment as Arturia seemed to seriously consider the idea.
“No,” she said regretfully after a long moment’s thought, “If we had a rear or side courtyard we could set it up as an outdoor extension of the kitchen for parties or just for use during good weather, but having the kitchen share part of the foyer …” she trailed off with a shake of her head.
“Good,” you replied, “because I don’t think we could afford one. They are expensive, even if they are worth it for a place like this.”
You scooped up a second slice and settled in to people-watch a bit from your position in one of the restaurant’s corner booths. Beside you, Arturia finished her own slice then rested her head on your shoulder.
“This is nice,” she said after a few moments.
“I was so tired of the quiet on Avalon,” she continued. “When I first arrived there … it was a relief to just wait and rest. The end of my rule was so chaotic that Avalon was wonderful in comparison, but by the end of my time there the silence felt more like that of a tomb. Everything there had become as much of a strain as the battle at Camlann.”
You just reached up and wrapped your arm around her shoulders. Your own time had been its own sort of difficult, but at least you’d had friends and companions to live and fight alongside for most of it. You tried to find something to say, but Arturia spoke again before you could.
“I could spend another thousand years of peaceful days like this and not grow weary of them with you at my side.”
ASTtM
After several days with no response from the government, you were surprised when the call you put in to the police department just after noon on Thursday was met with a request for an appearance.
“Sorry it took so long to hear back from anyone, but, uh, they don’t seem to have believed us initially. Took a while to filter up to someone that did.”
“Not a problem,” you assured the police Sergeant, “I’ve been in that situation before. Anything in particular that I need to bring or any time in particular?”
“Nothing on the former, but they’d like you here just as soon as you can arrive,” the policeman explained.
That was inconvenient. Arturia had a shift starting in another couple of hours. You, on the other hand, had spent plenty of time at the restaurant over the last couple days. No one would comment if you didn’t come in until later today, and if you called to let them know not to expect you, you could get away with taking the day off entirely.
“If that ‘you’ was plural,” you began, “I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. Saber will be busy today, but I can be at the precinct in fifteen minutes if I hurry.”
“SO-1 was hoping for both of you, but as stressed as the bloke I talked to sounded, I think they’ll be glad for any help you can give them. I’ll put a call in to let them know you’ll be here soon,” the Sergeant said and hung up. You likewise let the out-of-the-way payphone drop back down on its cradle
The name of the organization made you think for a moment. Wasn’t SO1 the branch that had been in charge of protecting government officials back when you and Rin had first arrived in London? Seemed like your hunch about the situation with the PM’s residence was correct.
Parkour along London’s rooftops was still faster than running along the sidewalk or trying to find public transportation, especially near noon, and you made decent time. When you arrived at the station, you were ushered inside and shown to a small briefing room. It was only about another ten minutes before two men in suits joined you.
You stood as they entered.
“You’d be Guardian, then?” the first man, fairly tall and with brown hair asked as he extended his hand. “I’m Officer Perry with SO1. This,” he indicated his partner, a redhead like you, but shorter by several centimeters, “is Officer James.”
“Nice to meet you,” you replied as you shook hands with them. Both of them had firm grips and the callouses of men who were well practiced with firearms.
“I’ll cut right to the chase,” Officer Perry continued, “we’d like you to come down to number ten and take a look around. We could use a consultation from someone who seems to have some sort of clue of what the hell’s going on with this comic book lunacy.”
“Oh?” you asked mildly as Officer James rolled the television and VCR over.
“We heard about the recommendations you made for containing Mister Martin,” Perry explained. “They’ve been followed religiously, and we haven’t had so much as a spot of trouble out of him since the arrest.
“We’re hoping you can help us secure the PM’s residence against someone else with some sort of weird ability.”
“I take it you have a video of them in action?” you asked as James got the TV turned on and hit play on the VCR.
“Yes, I’ll let you watch and I can answer questions after,” he replied.
So you sat back and watched. The camera quality wasn’t great, but it was better than anything you’d seen when you were looking on your own. The shot showed a side view of what appeared to be an exterior door with nothing notable happening. Then, just as you were completing the thought, spots on the ground started appearing as one of London’s frequent rain showers kicked off.
A few seconds later, there was a shower of sparks, and a man, clad all in black, appeared kneeling in front of the door, something extended from his hand toward the lock. Lockpicks, maybe? The man then flinched clearly as he realized he was visible. He jerked himself away from the door and fled.
You sat down and leaned back as James paused the video.
“Need to see it again?” he inquired, but you waved him off.
“That wasn’t the same thing as David Martin could do,” you declared immediately. “Did you see that shower of sparks? It came from the figure’s lower back. That’s telling. The front part of his body was protected from the rain by the overhang of the roof and the door jamb, but the back part of his body wasn’t.
“So, when he got hit by a raindrop, whatever device he had that was maintaining that invisibility field shorted out, and the field collapsed,” you declared.
“Invisibility field?” Perry demanded with the sort of tone that meant he really wished he wasn’t hearing what he was hearing.
“Device?” Jones asked, practically on top of his partner’s question.
“Yes,” you confirmed for both. “Unfortunately, without a sample of the technology, there’s not much I can tell you about limitations or possible countermeasures. What I can tell you, is that he probably won’t be back until he’s fixed whatever caused the short. Again, I can’t guess when that might be, but he’s already had close to two weeks. Depending on his resources, he might be close to a fix, or he might be months away. I just can’t tell you.
“The second piece of advice I can give you is that when he comes back, expect him to have a plan for if his invisibility fails like that again,” you warned the officers.
“Anything else?” Perry inquired. His tone added the demand, ‘anything we can use?’
You stood up and moved toward the VCR.
“May I?” you asked, and Officer James waved his hand.
“Be my guest.”
It took you a couple of tries to get it right, but eventually you were able to stop the recording with a shape on the right side of the man’s body highlighted just right against a lighter background.
“What does that look like to you?” you asked. With the relatively poor quality of the video, neither officer seemed to be able to differentiate the shape, black against the black of the stealth suit the man was wearing, until you traced it out for them.
“Shit,” Perry said at the unmistakable shape of a silenced pistol.
“Is there anything else you can give us? Any help at all?” James asked. “With the way this coincided with an uptick in the violence in Northern Ireland … I can’t help thinking that the only reason the press wasn’t reporting the assassination of the PM last week is a freak rainstorm.”
Both of them were definitely rattled, and you hadn’t been able to give them any easy answers. While Specialist Protection was good at their jobs under normal circumstances, people that could fire lasers or turn invisible were hardly normal.
“Not without physically poking around Number Ten to see what countermeasures could be put in place,” you admitted.
“Do you have time now?” Perry asked. That took you aback. They must really be shaken up if they were letting someone with no confirmed ID into the PM’s residence in just the hope that he’d be able to help.
“Yes, I can come with you,” you agreed.
ASTtM
The drive only seemed to take forever. Perry had stayed behind at the police station to handle the details of clearing you through the Prime Minister’s security, which left James as your escort when you arrived. A quick walk around the perimeter of the building was enough to draw a wince from you. With the threat potential of an invisible attacker, the physical security situation was … poor.
You wanted defense in depth for this sort of scenario, and there simply wasn’t a lot of room for that in the middle of London. If, for instance, the man was able to build an invisible bomb, he was all but guaranteed to be able to gain entry into the residence.
Entering the residence, you were actually a little bit relieved. Staircases and entryways were fairly tight without lots of room to move around. That meant things like continuous guard patrols, though low-tech and manpower intensive, could be a worthwhile precaution to suggest. Difficulties, however, included some quite large windows and the sheer size of the building. It would be all too easy to lose track of a single entrance for a moment, and once an infiltrator was inside, catching him would be rendered very difficult.
Thankfully, increased manpower was one thing that seemed to be present in spades around the residence. You had a suspicion why, but weren’t sure until a pair of heavily armed guards ushered you into the Prime Minister’s office.
There you found Margaret Hilda Thatcher, The Iron Lady herself, behind the desk.
“Madame Prime Minister,” you said as you drew yourself up and bowed formally and reflexively as you would have when visiting a foreign head of state in Serenity’s service.
“Good afternoon, young man,” she responded, giving you a level look for a long moment before continuing. “I would like to thank you for assisting the police with the matter of David Martin. He was difficult enough for them to capture the first time. After his breakout and the subsequent development of his unusual abilities, he was much more dangerous to pursue. You undoubtedly saved lives with your actions.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” you said when she paused.
“I am told that you believe that the man discovered attempting to break into the residence here was a different case than Mister Martin. How so?”
“Supposition,” you answered, “but he appeared to be using technology rather than whatever allowed David Martin to run up walls and fire beams of light. I suppose the technology could have been created by use of a similar power,” you admitted, “but there was no evidence of that on the recording.”
Baroness Thatcher opened her mouth to speak again, but you were distracted by a thud from outside the doors behind you followed by a second softer thump, and a muttered curse and … dripping? You drew in a breath as you turned, and caught an iron tang to the air, the scent of spilled blood.
You know without having to see it that the guards outside the room are dead. You have only a moment or two before whoever is out there opens the doors. You decide to -
[ ] - Attack. You trace a half-dozen protophantasms and fire them through the door blind.
[ ] - Defend. Defensive Noble Phantasms are currently out of your reach, but you can layer enough mundane shields between Prime Minister Thatcher and any attack to keep her safe.
[ ] - Something else. Write in. (Will need GM approval.)
You rolled a 90 on your luck check. Without that, the assassin would have had a very solid chance of killing the PM before you had a chance to intervene. Event roll for England in March was a 3.
Thanks to Seraviel for beta work. Vote will again be open until Friday. Going to go with a two hour voting moratorium. Remember, Stunts Are Encouraged.
[X] - Defend. Defensive Noble Phantasms are currently out of your reach, but you can layer enough mundane shields between Prime Minister Thatcher and any attack to keep her safe.
-[X] Place yourself between the door and the prime minister on top of that, to shield her from bullets, and use reinforcement on yourself to make you sure you don’t die.
-[X] Tell the Prime minister to hide behind the desk.
-[X] Look for an opportunity to counter attack, with the aim being capture if possible, you need to knows if it is an isolated lone wolf attempt, or if there is more behind this attack, according to your own estimate he would have needed some serious resources in order to pull this off again so soon.
A Brave New World 11
You likely only had a bare few moments before whoever was on the far side of the door attacked, so you went with your first instinct: protect.
“Get down!” you warned Baroness Thatcher, trying to keep your voice down as you prepared to Trace. Your reserves of power were strangely unchanged by the shields popping into existence, their defensive ability enhanced by a thin coating of the Silver Millennium’s collapsed matter on their faces. Reserves that then plummeted when you Reinforced your muscles, enhancing your ability to deflect whatever weapon your enemy might choose to utilize.
“Wha-”
You were ready to parry anything that came at you when the door opened, which was why you were unprepared for the flashbang that landed just inside a moment before the door slammed back shut.
The explosion startled a brief exclamation from the Prime Minister. If she wasn’t aware that Number Ten had been invaded before, she was now. She was also probably suffering from some hearing damage and would likely need a minute or two to recover her vision.
You, on the other hand, were barely affected by the sound, though the flash of light forced you to blink watering eyes.
Then something ricocheted off the armor on your shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but it was harder than you expected out of a thrown weapon, but you didn’t hear a sling wind up or a gunshot.
Actually, you didn’t hear much of anything to give you a hint as to where your target was, but you did have a bearing to return fire along based on where your shoulder was hit.
A half-dozen Traced Protophantasms, their edges blunted by your will, flew through the air, but to no effect. Either you’d misjudged or there was something more than just invisibility at play here.
Then you noticed a silent spark of flame. Though there was no sound, there was only one thing that it could be, and with inhuman dexterity and precision the Protophantasm in your hand cut your enemy’s bullet out of the air.
An invisible enemy and a soundless gun. Explains how he dealt with the guards so quickly and quietly, a part of your mind noted even as your next round of tracing completed. This time, you fired only a single blunted Protophantasm, but guided by your insight into where the enemy had to be after firing, you were much more confident in your ability to hit.
The blunted blade flew forth and struck something invisible, presumably your target, with a loud cracking sound.
At first you thought it might be the sound of a bone breaking, but it didn’t sound quite right for that. Had you damaged armor? A piece of his equipment? You couldn’t be sure. It was like fighting an Assassin that didn’t need to drop Presence Concealment in order to attack!
You strained your ears, but your effort to locate or identify what your target was up to via echolocation was thwarted when the guards’ radios finally came to life as the alarm sounded.
Then another grenade appeared, midair as it left the cloaking field hiding your opponent from view.
Reflexively, you parried it aside, aiming to knock it out of the room by the doorway. Instead it hit the door frame and dropped back inside the office.
“Grenade!” you called, but instead of exploding into fragments, the normal-looking pineapple grenade burst into a roiling cloud of smoke. Immediately, you adjusted your weight and positioning, ready to cover Baroness Thatcher from a renewed assault, only to hear footsteps retreating at a run.
You’re ready to launch into a pursuit, but hesitate. Could this be a ploy? Pretending to retreat from you in the face of the alarms could create an opening for a second target to take a shot at the Prime Minister without opposition if you chose to pursue the first target now that her close protection detail were dead. On the other hand, your target might have decided to cut and run in the face of stronger than expected resistance and the sure and certain knowledge that backup was on the way.
Ultimately, you decided to-
[ ] Pursue the Invisible Man.
[ ] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.
ASTtM
Does the enemy notice something is off? 5 successes. Yes, he does indeed!
Does Shirou notice the enemy noticing? Perception+Awareness: 11d10=1 3 successes vs 6 successes. Nope!
Resisting disorientation, Endurance+Resistance: 12d10-3=4 successes. Only disoriented for one turn.
Terrorist rolls ???, Dexterity+???: ???=1 success. Armor hardness is a thing. No-sell.
Figuring out what just happened, Wits+Investigation: 8d10=2 successes. Not enough.
Locating the enemy, Perception+Awareness: 11d10=2 successes versus 6. The Tsun-Dice are strong today.
Blind fire tracing, Dexterity+Archery: 16d10=5-5=0 successes.
[X] Guard the Prime Minister until backup arrives.
A Brave New World 12
You considered chasing after the attacker for a moment, but in the end you grit your teeth, and remained where you were. You listened carefully, but the only sound was the blaring of the alarms. Even the perpetrator’s rapid steps had been lost to the cacophony within a couple seconds.
“Good heavens, that was …” Mrs Thatcher began to speak as she stood, then she saw the remains of her two guards, collapsed outside the doorway and her expression hardened.
“What happened?” she demanded as reinforcements finally began to arrive.
You sighed and opened your mouth to explain ...
ASTtM
“... and so I had to choose between leaving Prime Minister Thatcher exposed to any potential collaborators and letting the attacker retreat. Without knowing what else was going on or if there were other attackers elsewhere in the building, I felt I needed to remain,” you finally concluded more than an hour later, in a room down the hall. It was the third time you’d told the story, and the repetition hadn’t improved the tale or your mood.
“And you can’t tell us anything about the attacker?” one of several suit-clad men who’d been introduced too rapidly for you to recall a name demanded.
Even before he finished speaking, you were shaking your head.
“No. His invisibility field never fell during the attack. Frankly, if he hadn’t rushed back before he was ready, this attack would have been even worse,” you said, then registered the baffled looks you were getting.
“Young man, this was quite bad enough! We’ve got two dead men from Baroness Thatcher’s protection detail and nothing at all to show for it!” another suit said. He had a color name. Black? Brown? Something like that.
“He clearly wasn’t truly prepared for this attack,” you argued. “If he had been, he would have included whatever silencing system he used on his gun to either reduce or eliminate the sound his footsteps made. If he’d done that, it would have been almost impossible for me to track him. I wouldn’t have even been able to be sure that he’d left.”
That drew everyone to a halt. Several faces in the room paled and someone gave voice to a truly vile curse. Had they really not realized the implication of an entirely silent weapon? Compared to eliminating the sound of a gunshot, eliminating the sound of a footstep should have been simple. How could supposed professionals-
You took a deep breath and stomped all over your irritation. This wasn’t Serenity’s court where enemy mages and esoteric technology were both well-known and expected threats. If a new Age of Heroes was just starting here, even experts could be forgiven for not realizing the expanded nature of the threats they were likely to face.
“If he can build a truly silent handgun -not Hollywood silencer quiet, but truly noiseless; no sound at all when fired- then there’s no reason he can’t build some device to silence his footsteps, or even the area around himself,” you explained and were preparing to continue when the first suit spoke up again.
“One moment, you seem certain that this man was the one who built these devices. What makes you so sure of that?” he asked.
That … was a good question. You were sure of it, but as to what had led you to that conclusion …
“He wasn’t actually very good with his gun,” you said as the answer came to you. “He knew the basics,” you continued, “but I was a stationary target, anchored between Prime Minister Thatcher and him, and his accuracy was just atrocious. If whoever was responsible for this couldn’t find a better gunman than that, they certainly shouldn’t have been able to afford to build such advanced technology either.”
“So we’re probably looking for someone with a very personal vendetta. A pathological need to get revenge perhaps?” another one of the suits, darker complected than most -Mr Rapani? Something like that anyway- said. “Now, that we can use to start narrowing down a list of suspects.”
All around the room, men in suits perked up at the chance that they could do something instead of sitting around without any leads. Rampani’s -yes, that was it!- eyes turned back to you.
“Any other insights? Anything at all that you picked up about the attacker?” he asked.
You thought about it for a long moment, but began shaking your head.
“Without being able to see him, I can’t really say anything else conclusively,” you paused for a moment before a thought occurred to you. “At least not about him as a person. His technology, on the other hand, I think I can comment on.”
The suits who had started to slump a bit when nothing else had appeared to be forthcoming were now all focused again.
“I think the next time he appears, our mysterious assassin will have taken even more steps to improve their gear. Since I was able to track him this time by sound, I fully expect his next outing will include a silenced suit, not just a silent gun. Maybe also stealthed demolition charges, or some sort of improved grenades.”
That sobered everyone in the room even more if that was possible.
“On the other hand,” you continued, “you’ve got some relatively low-tech options that should make infiltration harder. The first is to find the thickest, fluffiest, high pile carpeting you can source, install it everywhere, and train your protective detail to watch it like a hawk for footprints appearing in it where there shouldn’t be any.”
That managed to break through British stoicism to draw looks of disbelief before brains kicked in and you could see them actually thinking over the plan on its merits.
“Another thing you could do would be to create mantraps at every entrance that measure the weight of incoming persons and packages. If you know what they should weigh, and you’re seeing something off by more than a kilogram or two …” you trailed off. Lock the mantrap down, fill it with an irritant, and wait for it to incapacitate whoever was inside. That implication was clearly picked up by the rest of the room. After a moment, you proceeded.
“The last, well, let me introduce you to an old Japanese invention called Nightingale Floors ... ”
ASTtM
Assassination of Margaret Thatcher averted. Even though the perpetrator escaped to fight another day, this has had a major effect on how parahumans in England will be treated. Rather than hearing about David Martin and then an unknown parahuman that murdered the British Prime Minister, the English press have already started running stories about a mysterious Guardian who captured a murderer and foiled an assassination plot.
Shirou has also managed to provide simple, low-tech security measures to help foil further Stranger infiltration attempts in the future. Gain 3exp for making a major impact.
Listening for other enemies, Perception+Awareness: 10d10=5 successes
Power analysis, Intelligence+Occult: 8d10=4 successes.
Recalling factoids, Intelligence+Investigation: 6d10=1 still 1 success, even with the reroll.
Next update will be the end of the month complete with voting for next month’s activities and the rumor mill post to follow. I wanted to get to that with this update, but my motivation this week has been low. Do recall that Shirou is up to 7 exp, and this can be spent 4*current rating to raise Attributes, 2*current rating to raise mundane skills, and 3 per dot in a specialty. Legend and Supernatural skills are special cases and can not currently be bought, but grow narratively.
A return to more or less everyday life for the rest of May felt odd to you after thwarting an assassination attempt and advising out-of-their-depth government agents about how to handle literal superpowers. It had been a lot like being Serenity’s troubleshooter again. Still, you had a restaurant to run and, unfortunately, an irate Arturia to hide from.
Honestly, though, you were just glad that your teaching went a lot more smoothly the second time around. With a better idea of where your chefs were going wrong, you were able to give them a bit more advice, and the problems with overcooked or undercooked ginger vanished in the next attempts, replaced by satisfyingly uniform cuts and even doneness. Your dish was ready to debut as a chef’s special on Monday.
Turbot had been a staple of British cuisine for years, but the new spin on an old favorite definitely caught attention. Served with the visually appealing combination of vegetables and with a savory sauce, it was an instant hit. Between it and the Langostino Lobsters, suddenly seafood was pulling ahead of the more traditional red meat and potatoes dishes that the Ritz had depended on for years.
On Tuesday, columns were being run in the society section of the papers again about the new Fusion Cuisine sensation kicking off at the Ritz, and the free advertising had already caused a jump in reservations. Since the hotel also helped accommodate those staying there for meals, it was also resulting in increased overnight bookings.
Perhaps it was the positive atmosphere throughout the hotel, or maybe it was your own increased familiarity with teaching, but your work with the performance chefs really took off. You all hit your stride and your students made tremendous progress. By your best guess, a month or so of work should be sufficient to have a trained cadre ready and able to serve as a showpiece for the Ritz’s restaurant.
Now all you needed to do was secure a large enough budget from your bosses to get the aging layout and decor of the space remodeled and refurbished.
ASTtM
The Ritz restaurant is not only reserved out until mid-June for lunch and dinner services, but is drawing in more customers for the hotel itself, since management is willing to help those staying at the hotel get reservations or access to the restaurant via room service.
Performance chefs have finished training their Performance(Cooking) specialty. They need to train one more dot in Performance, and they will be ready to go. Success above and beyond this total will result in additional trained chefs to help provide a cushion against poor random event rolls.
ASTtM
The Thatcher government was able to sit on news of the attempted assassination for most of a week.
They used the time well, by your reckoning, laying the groundwork for the press release by gaining control of the sudden flare up of the Troubles in Ireland and arresting more than a dozen IRA members and fundraisers in London itself.
So when the news came out, they were able to say with a straight face that even though the assassin had escaped after murdering two members of Prime Minister Thatcher’s protection detail, the Prime Minister herself was never even in a position to see the attacker, and that significant parts of the support network the attack had relied upon had already been removed with the arrests made earlier in the week.
Afterward, Baroness Thatcher herself took the podium and made a short speech, thanking Guardian for being willing to consult with the government on measures that could be taken to help prevent further attacks, and thanking you for ‘efforts taken during the attempted assassination that prevented the loss of further lives and assisted in driving off the perpetrator.’
She then presented a request to any British subject who discovered that they possessed abilities beyond the current understanding of science to step forward so that such abilities could be studied that “the frontiers of the unknown might be pushed back even further,” before openly offering training and credentials for work with emergency services. The most popular pull quote had been, “If one man who chooses to be a habitual criminal can use beams of energy to cut down police, might not another man who chooses to be a paramedic use those same beams to cut injured motorists out of a crashed lorry? Might not a man like the American, Vikare, who can fly, not reach the scene of an accident more quickly and approach more closely than officers in helicopters? Such men or women, if treated with fear or distrust might very well conclude that crime is their only option. Instead, let us treat them with Christain charity and goodwill and instead have such abilities used to benefit the public good.”
The media ate it up, and you couldn’t help but be impressed with the position Thatcher had adopted and the stance she had struck. Two criminals with superpowers had already appeared in the UK. With one already behind bars, and a second labeled a failure in the press, defeated and forced to retreat by a hero and police with their support network arrested, the offer of guaranteed employment during tough economic times would be a strong lure. More than that, people liked to be on the winning side, and Margaret Thatcher had not only staked out the moral high ground, but also secured a perception that her government was both determined and effective in preventing the criminal use of powers.
You only knew of a single person with powers who hadn’t jumped straight into murder and mayhem, but the public, so far, knew that Guardian had twice defeated criminals with strange, more-than-human abilities. That there was at least one more hero, Saber, out there, and that the government seemed to have a handle on the situation.
It would take time to secure that perception, but it would also take time to change it. If the Thatcher government could continue to gain momentum, they could very well turn the current trend of people gaining powers and jumping straight into committing crimes around. In the end, that would likely save more lives then you could even if you spent all night, every night wandering the streets looking for crimes to stop.
No matter what, it was a good start.
ASTtM
+5 to ??? and ??? rolls for next month. ???.
ASTtM
With the initial round of inspections out of the way and permits obtained, it was finally time to start work on your new home. Demolition went quickly; knowing precisely where structural elements and power or water lines were made it far easier to get the tear-down done than most would find it. Thankfully, the half of the house that had been locked away for so many years was in surprisingly good condition. It appeared that whoever had done the exterior maintenance on the townhouse had done enough to keep water from getting in. Despite at least a century of being locked away and forgotten, there was little in the way of structural problems that would need to be fixed. One beam was starting to succumb to dry rot, but between you, Arturia, and a couple ladders, it could be -and was- replaced without much bother. Making a composite beam was easy, and turning the second floor into an open-concept living space was worth the effort.
Mostly it was a matter or pulling up old sun-damaged hardwood flooring and pulling down moth-eaten draperies. The old water closet would need some new fixtures, but the claw-foot bathing tub would have cost you a fortune if you’d had to buy it new: it was an antique in absolutely perfect condition. Better yet, the basement and foundations were sound and not in need of repair. Some genius appeared to have made the structure out of teak, which had contemptuously ignored the damp from the connection to the sewers you found. Smuggling seemed to be confirmed.
Within just a couple days you had everything opened up, and were hip deep in fixing the old knob and tube wiring.
Fire hazards were the enemy.
That was the last you were able to get done before the month was over. Well, aside from moving house before your rental agreement for the apartment expired at the end of the month.
ASTtM
Moving day had finally arrived.
Well, okay, that was a little bit overdramatic. You’d been steadily moving things as you could, carrying things over when you stopped in to do some work after your job or before your job, or on a day off to hide from Arturia, or …
You’d spent a lot of time tinkering away with the electrical box in the house. It had taken you quite a while to be comfortable working on such a primitive setup again. That it allowed you to duck into the sewers and flee if Arturia showed up intent on expressing her displeasure at you for allowing yourself to be shot at was a fringe benefit. Thankfully, her temper had cooled after she made you sleep on the couch for a couple of nights.
Not least because moving things like the bed frame and mattress would have been immensely awkward with only you to haul them around. Not that the weight was too much, but the size was a bit much.
“Is it going to fit this time?” you asked Arturia as you held the disassembled section of bed frame away from you at a difficult angle to avoid damaging the crown molding.
“A moment,” she responded, “Ah, yes! Sorry, a gust of air had blown the door shut,” she explained.
“No problem, this really isn’t that heavy,” you said as you straightened from your half crouched position, “they’re just a pain in the ass thanks to their size.”
If pressed, you would admit that the large bed was nice. Even when you’d worked for a literal Empress, you’d slept on a twin-sized bed most of the time. You hadn’t needed more room than that, and it felt like a waste to your Japanese sensibilities.
You popped up the stairs, carefully placing the last bit of the bed frame on the floor.
“Alright, let me get this assembled, and all we have left is the mattress!” The moving truck you’d rented had long-since been returned, everything unloaded into the lower floors of the house, to make sure you didn’t have to pay for a second day if something threw off your schedule. The couch and other large bits of furniture had been placed in their temporary homes and mostly under dust cloths to keep the ongoing construction from damaging them.
The exception to the rule was the kitchen supplies, which did not at all fit into the rather lacking kitchen. Instead, they were stacked nearby for use at need. Or had been.
As you came down the final flight of stairs, you immediately noticed the sound of popping oil and the smell of frying food. You entered the kitchen cautiously and had to stare a little. Saber stood in front of the stove, armored in a cooking apron and bearing a pair of tongs as her weapon as she did battle with what appeared to be batter-fried fish and chips.
She immediately noticed you looking and flushed bright red. It was amazing how the look and the slightly hunched shoulders made her look so much like she had during the Grail War rather than the more adult form you’d gotten used to over the last month..
“I-I decided it wasn’t fair that you do all the cooking. If you’ll s-sit and wait, dinner will be ready shortly,” she said with great dignity, then flinched as the oil popped again.
You bit back on your instinctive desire to tell her to cut the heat a touch and instead took your place at the table. Even if it was a raised, Western version instead of the style you had grown up with, it was a vast improvement over the breakfast bar you’d been using at the apartment. Saber had already put out place settings for the both of you, and had a bottle of white wine on the table in a bucket of ice.
It quickly became evident to you that Arturia had been paying attention while you cooked for the last month. She gathered the last of the fish from the oil and set it on a rack on paper towels to wick away the excess liquid even as she moved the fish that had been there into the oven to keep warm. Then she carefully added the chips to the hot oil to fry. By the renewed snapping, you could tell that she hadn’t precooked them at all, so they likely wouldn’t have the crispness many people liked, but again you kept down your desire to be a backseat driver.
You could tell that for some reason, this was very important to Arturia, so you remained quiet and observed as she set the meal, displayed on plates covered in newspaper, on the table along with vinegar and salt. She set aside the apron, dimpled with splashed oil, and joined you.
She opened her mouth to speak, but eventually blushed, unable to find the words she wanted for once. Instead of pressing her, you simply announced, “Itadakimasu,” and seasoned your meal lightly with the offered vinegar in traditional British fashion.
You blinked as you tasted it. While the flavors lacked the complexity you usually preferred, the fish was cooked to perfection and had rested properly. The chips lacked a crisp texture, but the flavor was excellent, and she’d clearly soaked them in a saltwater brine before cooking, because the salt content was perfect.
In short, it was a simple meal, prepared extremely well. Especially for a novice.
Arturia, who’d been searching your expression, slumped in relief at your clear enjoyment before taking a bite herself, and nearly dropping her fork in surprise.
“It’s … good?” she said.
“It really is,” you agreed. You’d spare her a full culinary critique, but she needed to hear a bit more than just that. “An ambitious choice. Iconic dishes can be surprisingly difficult to get right,” you said as you met her eyes across the table, “I suppose I should have expected no less, though, given the source.”
Once again, Arturia’s eyes dropped, but this time there was a happy smile on her lips and a pleased blush on her cheeks.
After the meal was eaten and the dishes were washed, you teamed up one last time to cart the mattress for your bed up the stairs to the third floor where you’d set up your bedroom. You left Arturia the use of the master bathroom while you descended to the first floor to use the bathroom there. Honestly, it would probably end up being replaced by a simple toilet as a guest bathroom, since you didn’t need a true bathroom on the main floor like the previous owner had. Both existing second floor bathrooms had been gutted and would be reconsolidated, maybe even moved up a floor by the time everything was said and done. There was certainly enough room on the top floor to have the bedrooms concentrated there, but maybe a guest room on the second floor wouldn’t be a bad idea?
Thoughts about the eventual floorplan carried you through your shower. You dropped your clothes, sweaty and dirty after a day of hard work, beside the first floor laundry, again wondering if you should plan to move those to the second floor or all the way to the top before heading upstairs. You’d half expected Arturia to be dead to the world when you entered, so the light being on was a surprise.
But not as much of a surprise as your wife waiting for you in what was definitely lingerie. Your eyes hungrily traced curves that were definitely more generous than they had been the last time you’d seen them, long years ago. But then, this Arturia wasn’t stuck forever as a ‘holy youth.’
“Husband,” she said, and your eyes jumped back up to her face. Her cheeks were red, but she definitely looked pleased with your reaction, “it’s time to come to bed.”
Pleasing the eye: Second roll: 5 successes. Yes, you read that right.
Home Improvement, Dexterity+Craft: 10d10=6/??? successes.
Arturia attempts to Wife, Dexterity+Craft(Cooking): 6d10=4 successes. Arturia Wife’s very successfully.
???: DC???=???
After the needs of your job and your current commitments, you have 3 AP for the month. What do?
[X] - Hold down your job. You need to get paid, so this is sort of a requirement. Cost: 4 AP. Results: You do the minimum required to get paid. Your bosses are happy with the improvement you’ve made in the restaurant for the moment, so you could afford to cut back a touch. Continued improvement likely, but not guaranteed.
[ ] - Innovative Cuisine. Now that you’ve got access to the proper grade and scope of ingredients, you can turn your attention to the fine details of tweaking the Ritz’s current recipes. As they are, they’re solid, but uninspired, with one notable exception. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Continued development of Fusion Cuisine. (Suggested stunts include what menu item to work on. Please consider combining traditional British and Japanese cooking.)
[X] - Pleasing the Eye. Your original plans about plating went in an entirely unexpected direction, but if you want to have chefs other than yourself capable of the sort of casual excellence you envision, you’re going to need to put in the hours to train them up. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Chefs trained to cook well and look good doing it. Eventual synergy with restaurant update.
[ ] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.
[ ] - Search around for crime to stop. Clearly, as an Ally of Justice, you should be patrolling the neighborhood looking for wrongs to right. That drug den/brothel is wearing away at your conscience. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Crimes thwarted? Justice upheld? Maybe just an annoyed Arturia.
[ ] - Keep in contact. The police or even the government may have questions to ask or concerns to raise. Make time to keep in contact with them, just in case. Cost: 1 AP. Results: ???.
[ ] - A patent pending. Your patent lawyer recommended that you contact Sony to license your patents to them. In order to do that, you’re going to need to demonstrate that they work. That means building examples, which means time and money. Cost: 2 AP. A 2-dot expense. Results: Working examples of your inventions. Probably annoyed neighbors, given your current living arrangements. You may want to find a home with a workshop first.
[X] - Home Improvement. (Locked in due to purchase of the Run-Down Townhouse) You own a home now, or the bank owns it and you’re paying them interest for the pleasure of living in it, anyway. The problem is that it’s going to need to be a construction site for a while as you reopen the closed half of the house and reconfigure everything for your needs. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Access to and renovations and furnishing for the full floorplan of your new house. Home Equity. (Suggested stunts would include a finalized floorplan with what is on what level. Relevant details are in ABNW7. You may assume double the original described footprint, plus the turret room on each level. Fine details subject to QM approval.)
[ ] - Gym Building. You’ve made contact with the super-inventor that runs a failing local gym. Now you just need to decide how much you’re willing to spend to have a home gym that will allow you and Arturia to get some exercise and training in. Cost: 1 AP. Variable amounts of money. Results: Gain a home gym/practice area in your basement. Training time for physical skills and attributes accumulates. Coordination penalties mitigated.
[ ] - Write in. Subject to QM approval.
You have 2 exp. Do you spend any?
[ ] - Write in.
ASTtM
Thanks to Seraviel for beta reading. Sorry this was late, but the WAFF did not want to flow. Hope it was worth it. Let’s have a 2 hour moratorium on voting to allow for some discussion, and remember that stunts help you win.
-[X] - Hold down your job. You need to get paid, so this is sort of a requirement. Cost: 4 AP. Results: You do the minimum required to get paid. Your bosses are happy with the improvement you’ve made in the restaurant for the moment, so you could afford to cut back a touch. Continued improvement likely, but not guaranteed.- Now that you've improved the lunch and dinner menus perhaps it's time to start improving the brunch and tea options on the menu.
-[X] - Pleasing the Eye. Your original plans about plating went in an entirely unexpected direction, but if you want to have chefs other than yourself capable of the sort of casual excellence you envision, you’re going to need to put in the hours to train them up. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Chefs trained to cook well and look good doing it. Eventual synergy with restaurant update.
-Show your cooks downright unreal level of cooking using the peak of your skills, from the millimetres precision of your cut on ingredients, not only helped by your structural grasping telling you where to best do the cut, but also by your blade skills, honed finely by thousands of hours of training and battle and the knowledge and experiences of countless blade wielders recorded in your soul, to your cooking skills, using your endless experiences and supernatural grasp of the ingredients internal states at all time as they cook to achieve perfection beyond compare, and finishing by your presentation skills, developed through years and years of serving royalty and nobility in the Silver millennium and the studying of art throughout history for years on end. Hopefully, it will motivate your cook, even if they may never reach such a level.
[X] - Home Improvement. (Locked in due to purchase of the Run-Down Townhouse) You own a home now, or the bank owns it and you’re paying them interest for the pleasure of living in it, anyway. The problem is that it’s going to need to be a construction site for a while as you reopen the closed half of the house and reconfigure everything for your needs. Cost: 1 AP. Results: Access to and renovations and furnishing for the full floorplan of your new house. Home Equity. (Suggested stunts would include a finalized floorplan with what is on what level. Relevant details are in ABNW7. You may assume double the original described footprint, plus the turret room on each level. Fine details subject to QM approval.)
-Basement, workshop and gym, storage space if available. If we can a outside entrance to the storage or gym rooms… and escape to the sewers path
Ground floor, expand and update kitchen (1 room, should have storage), more of a divider between kitchen and dining area (so kitchen and dining as two rooms), living room (third room), maybe small laundry room, and for the turret a tea room so small table and few chairs just to look at the garden.
First/second depending on naming conventions, 2 office rooms… I feel these can actually be smaller than two full rooms, maybe expand the WC to include a shower, two bedrooms, not sure about turret, maybe a bit of a game room. edit: replace a bedroom for small library room
Top floor master bedroom, big bathroom, one more bedroom… and maybe additional storage room. Perhaps keep the turret as connected to the master bedroom
-[x] - Socialize with Arturia. Weekends are for dates, right? Cost: 1 AP. Results: Fluff, WAFF, happy Arturia.- You've been itching to take Arturia to the movies recently for a date perhaps go and see if Monty Python and the holy grail is available to watch it would be a good laugh for the both of you.
-[x] - Keep in contact. The police or even the government may have questions to ask or concerns to raise. Make time to keep in contact with them, just in case. Cost: 1 AP. Results: ???.
-Progress has been made with working with the police now it's time for you and saber to stay in contact to cement your reputation and help bolster the governments stance on these super-human powers, and since you’ve decided to help, you might as well go with some interesting things for your news partners, training regimen for normal people based to deal with the supernatural based on your personal experiences from both worlds you’ve lived in and the way you witnessed some normal people pull truly incredible feat in the Silver millennium (this one is for you Paul), it should be as exhaustive as possible even if somewhat basic due to time constraint, from spotting invisible enemies, to protecting themselves from people with the ability to beguile the mind, be it from direct control or simple misdirection, to add on to that would be physical training, basic know how in superpower security and how to use teamwork when fighting the supernatural, if they are interested, perhaps you can collaborate further on this.
-[x] - Gym Building. You’ve made contact with the super-inventor that runs a failing local gym. Now you just need to decide how much you’re willing to spend to have a home gym that will allow you and Arturia to get some exercise and training in. Cost: 1 AP. Variable amounts of money. Results: Gain a home gym/practice area in your basement. Training time for physical skills and attributes accumulates. Coordination penalties mitigated.- You have a home and a man willing to build your equipment sit down with Saber and find out what you need/want exactly for your home gym so you two can finally start training together.
You have 2 exp. Do you spend any?
-[x] - Spend it on Socialize
A Brave New World 14
As the month of June kicked off, it was difficult for you to keep a spring out of your step. There was a certain level of decorum you expected out of yourself. Moreover, you had been raised in Japan, where people extended a certain degree of … deliberate social ignorance. England wasn’t like that at all, and it was no one’s business but your own and Arturia’s.
You hadn’t realized how much not having a space that was truly hers had been wearing on Arturia until the pressure was relieved. Even though the Townhouse was very definitely still a construction zone with all that implied, it was yours in a way the apartment hadn’t been.
The walls were also thick enough that she didn’t feel worried about privacy anymore.
Your efforts at work mostly focused on training your performance chefs. With the first crew finally getting up to speed about midway through the month, you were able to show off a little. The speed and precision you could achieve along with the casual air you utilized with your knife work was just the motivation they needed to take the last steps up to the level you wanted them to achieve.
That done, you could devote the remainder of the time to ensuring that you had enough people able to do one section of a complete performance to rotate in and out to fill in if one of your main crew was sick, injured, or quit. Better yet, you were able to demonstrate their skills to HR and secure them a raise.
Once that went around the kitchen, you discovered that several other chefs were practicing as they cooked. It looked like, in the future, the financial incentive would eliminate the need for you to spend your own time training replacements.
Not that there was a lot of free time or slow days in the Ritz’s kitchen. Even without any more new recipes, the improvement in the quality of the food had been noted, and the new style of cooking featuring traditional English meals with a twist continued to bring in the crowds. By the time June was winding to a close, July was booked and inroads were being made into August.
ASTtM
Course of action completed with distinction. Follow-up action unlocked. Restaurant continues to be an attraction for the Ritz.
ASTtM
The first phone call you made to the police to pitch your plan gets immediately derailed. They’ve already had a woman come forward about what’s already being called the Thatcher Initiative. There’s just one problem.
Her power matched up uncannily well with a recent mysterious death. A man was found electrocuted to death in an alley, and now a woman with the power to produce an electric shock on touch has stepped forward. You get the feeling that the police aren’t being fully transparent, but maybe they’re just sparing the details over the phone.
Either way, they’re asking for your assistance. You assure them that you’re happy to help, and hang up. Reaching down, you swap the small Mystic Code you’d made to conceal your new home phone from any attempts to trace your call when suddenly you break into a cold sweat.
“Shirou,” Arturia spoke from behind you. Instinctively, you froze, your lizard hindbrain and Eye of the Mind operating in concert to inform you that incredible danger surrounded you. “You weren’t about to go out and get shot at again without so much as a word, were you?”
“Of course not!” you tried to assure her. “The police just have a complicated situation that they wanted some advice about.” It seemed to be working. Saber’s expression had gone from thunderous to merely attentive.
“Oh?” she inquired leadingly.
“A woman who can produce an electric shock from her hands showed up in response to Prime Minister Thatcher’s speech,” you explained, “but her power seems to match up to a recent mysterious death in the area.”
“Shirou,” that dangerous feeling was back again, and Saber’s hand seemed to have formed a fist when you weren’t looking. “That’s worse than getting shot at.”
You were pretty sure she was overreacting, but you weren’t sure how to say that without setting off an eruption from Mount Arturia.
“I’m coming with you,” she declared. “It’s the only way to keep you out of trouble.”
You didn’t think that was precisely fair. On the other hand, more time with your wife. In the end, you decided to go with the response of men everywhere.
“Yes, dear.”
Happy wife. Happy life.
ASTtM
The situation had been more complicated that the police had wanted to get into over the phone. The woman was being held, but not technically placed under arrest because the man had been found with his pants around his ankles. While the site could have been staged after the fact, the woman would have needed to be one hell of an actress.
The situation had been so unstable because any time officers had tried to question the woman, she broke down in tears. Even the rape councilor they’d brought in hadn’t been able to get the woman to speak.
“And then?” Saber asked kindly, one gauntleted hand resting gently overtop where the woman, a brunette in her early twenties, had her fingers interlaced to keep her own hands from shaking.
“That’s w-when he s-started to … to pull his p-pants d-down,” the woman said, stumbling over her words and on the verge of tears. She was also suffering from full-body shakes that she was only barely keeping under control. Definitely a PTSD reaction.
You’d had to help clean up the messes left behind after everything from African warlords to space pirate raids. Different women reacted differently, so there were a lot of possible reactions to rape, but this was one of the worst you’d seen where the woman was still coherent at all.
“I-I must have fainted when he … when he started. All I remember is coming to and that he was … he was-”
You winced as she did break down into tears and sobs this time, shaking even as Saber pulled her into a hug. It was a bit more than five minutes before she was in a fit state to resume her story, and the observation room was an awkward place with a half-dozen deeply uncomfortable people in it by the time she did.
“I just … I just w-wanted him to stop! And then I just knew that if I touched him, I could stop him.” She stopped for a deep breath before continuing, “So I did, and I picked up my knickers and ran. I didn’t mean to kill him, I didn’t even know he was dead! I just …”
Once again, Arturia managed to calm her with a few words before departing to enter the observation room. I turned my back to give her at least the illusion of privacy. When Saber entered the observation room with yet another detective, I met her eyes through the visor of her helmet and gave her a slight smile.
“She appears to be telling the truth. At least, as she recalls it,” Saber announced.
“Agreed. It’s possible that she didn’t, in fact, pass out. She may have just repressed that bit of the event due to trauma,” you agreed, adding your own assessment to your wife’s.
“Surely you aren’t serious?” one of the suited men said. “It’s like something out of a bloody comic book! Something bad happens to her and she’s suddenly got just the thing to stop it? We’re supposed to believe that?”
“Eye motions, what I could see of them given her state, seem to back up her claims. Her body language also indicated truthfulness,” a second man, one of those in a nicer suit, said.
That seemed to lend the last bit of credence needed to what Arturia and you had said. Must be an expert that they’d worked with before.
“Shit, what a mess. The optics on this are gonna be …”
The guy trailed off, and you realized it was because Saber was giving him the Look of Royal Contempt from behind her helmet. Before she decided to eviscerate him, verbally or otherwise, you stepped in as peacemaker.
“Not really. It’s a pretty clear case of self defense, and if you let it be known that she came forward and sought assistance with her powers after accidentally killing her rapist with abilities gained as a response to a traumatic event…” you trailed off, hands spread.
There was silence for a moment before the political-types started nodding.
“That could work if we-”
“Maybe emphasize that the government is-”
Half the room’s occupants abruptly become very busy. The other half closed in a bit around you and Saber.
“You said ‘abilities,’ not ‘ability.’ That deliberate?” one of them inquired.
“Yes,” you stated, “She has at least two. Considering the rapist was, well,” you gestured uncomfortably, then moved on quickly, “in contact with her when she shocked him, she is at the least highly resistant to electricity. Otherwise, she would have been injured or killed by the shock as well. Much more likely, she’s immune to electricity entirely. If that’s the case, training her as a first responder to help deal with the aftermath of accidents where electrical lines are involved would make sense. Depending on precisely how her power works, she may be able to divert current or store it as well. Besides, with training she ought to be able to decrease the amperage of her shocks enough to merely incapacitate with a touch, rather than kill.”
Two of the men were taking notes by the time you finished speaking.
“Can you make yourselves available to help us figure out what she can do and how safe it will be for her to use her powers?” one of the others asked.
You turned and met Saber’s eyes. When she nodded, you answered.
“Certainly, we shall be at your disposal.”
ASTtM
You shook the inspector’s hand one final time as he departed and made a mental checkmark on your list. The electrical work was inspected and very much approved of. To the tune of I-wish-code-was-this-stringent. It was nice to have your hard work recognized.
Still, the seemingly unavoidable delay between scheduling the inspection and actually having it completed had cost you most of the week. Just as well that you’d been busy in the interim, even if you’d ended up being something of a third wheel.
Samantha Jasper, the tactile electrokinetic, had ended up really bonding with Arturia. Given the sheer Charisma your wife possessed, you could understand why. It had only taken her a few hours to rebuild the woman’s shattered confidence. It turned out that Samantha could indeed increase and decrease both the voltage and the amperage of her generated electrical shocks.
She was also a highly motivated student, and with Arturia providing encouragement and a multimeter to provide feedback on how ‘hot’ each shock was, she was able to dial down the current until she could generate a shock roughly equivalent to a stun gun consistently after only about four hours of trial and error.
That seemed to boost her confidence, and by the time she was too exhausted to continue, Saber had helped her lock down the appropriate voltage and amperage to act as a walking cardiac defibrillator.
With concrete evidence that her powers could be useful for saving lives rather than just ending them, both Samantha and the government officials had been considerably happier.
Just like you hoped to be once you were done getting the plumbing up to code. You were all set to begin when the telephone connected to your newest Mystic Code rang. Scrambling over to the receiver, you answered it.
“This is Guardian,” you said.
“Sir, we’ve got what looks like a reappearance of the stealth specialist that attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister-”
ASTtM
You and Saber had both come down to the government offices in London for a briefing after hearing about what had happened.
“As most of you have heard, the IRA terrorist who recently attacked the PM has taken responsibility for the attack.”
“How bad is it?” A man in uniform, a General if you were remembering correctly, interrupted the briefing almost before it could begin.
“Bad,” the presenter responded with pursed lips. “There was no Guardian to halt the attack this time, and the terrorist, who’s calling himself Tírghráthóir, Patriot when translated, managed to smuggle explosive devices into a petrol storage area and a maintenance depot in Northern Ireland. We’ve dozens dead or injured, a week’s worth of petrol burning, and a score of tanks destroyed.”
You didn’t know your British history as well as some, but it was probably the worst terrorist attack to ever hit the British Army. Once the specifics of the briefing concluded, you and Saber were drawn aside and a request was presented to you.
“Analysts think there’s a possibility of a follow-up attack. There’s also the chance that some of the technology this bastard uses could be recovered in the wreckage. Would you be willing to help?”
With a grimace hidden behind your helmet, you looked at Saber, then …
[ ] You agreed to assist. (You’ll be gone at least two days.)
-[ ] Try to recover technology.
-[ ] Stand by in case of another attack.
-[ ] Split up and do both.
[ ] Apologize, but defer. You can’t just disappear for two days with no notice.
Teaching the performance chefs, Charisma+Performance+stunt: 6d10*4=14 total successes. Action complete. Primary crew of performance chefs trained for dinner service with alternates able to fill in as needed.
Subtle interrogation. Saber tests Charisma+Socialize+stunt: 11d10=3 6 successes. She gets a cape to talk about their Trigger Event without creating more trauma or bad feelings.
Shirou as powers analyst, Int+Occult: 9d10=Double Botch 3 successes. No. Bad Rin, bad!
Shirou as Spin Doctor, Wits+Lore(Local Customs): 8d10=2 4 successes.
Home Improvement, Dex+Craft+stunt: 12d10*4=15 successes, fully half of them in week three. My that was a lot of ones. Good thing we’re playing by mostly Exalted rules instead of WoD. Shirou would have flooded the basement.
Arturia and improvised therapy, Charisma+Integrity: 12d10=6 Successes.
Thanks to Seraviel for beta reading. Sorry this is late, got home and fell asleep before posting.
[X] You agreed to assist. (You’ll be gone at least two days.)
-[X]Call in sick at work
-[X] Split up and do both.
-- [X] While you would prefer to work together with Saber here that isn't possible your far greater technical knowledge from the Silver Millennium will be far more useful in searching and analyzing the terrorist's tech in conjunction with the government personal that will be on site. And while this is happening Saber can be on standby to stop this terrorist once and for all capturing him if possible and killing him if not he has proven himself with this bombing to be a dangerous threat and must be treated as such. Before you and Saber go your separate ways for this mission make sure you inform her of the enemy all current know ability's/tech and anything else that may be of use for her. Also wish her luck and to be safe and your'll do the same of course.
A Brave New World 15
You turned and looked at Arturia. Even through the visor of her helmet, you could tell how she felt about simply letting this go.
“We’re in,” you said simply.
Of course, it wasn’t as easy as that. You had to make your way back home to call yourself and Arturia out sick. Bad case of the Flu. Awful. You didn’t think either of you would be fit to come in tomorrow either.
You were glad you’d upgraded the mystic code you were using to obfuscate your phone number. The original would be coming north with you, just in case you needed to call in sick for a third day.
While you’d been doing that, Arturia had been packing travel bags for the both of you. Less than two hours after the briefing concluded, you were on a military transport plane bound for Northern Ireland.
ASTtM
The first thing you did after the flight was over was to head to the maintenance depot that was bombed. With the fires from the fuel dump still not entirely extinguished, you didn’t doubt that any technology that survived the explosion would have been destroyed by the resulting inferno. The maintenance area, however, was another story.
When you arrived, you found investigators chomping at the bit to get inside, but being stalled by survey teams trying to determine if the building was safe to enter. There wasn’t only concern about the whole place falling down, but also some worry that there might be other explosive devices intended to take out responders or even people trying to get back to work.
It took you about five minutes to determine that none of the structural supports of the building were damaged badly enough to risk a collapse. Determining that there weren’t any more explosives inside was a bit more tedious, but you accomplished that by sweeping likely areas with a Traced barge pole. Then it was a matter of documenting the scene, which you were happy to let the professionals handle, and determining what bits of debris were once parts of the bomb.
That you were particularly well suited to dealing with. What slowed you down the most was waiting for people to photograph the individual pieces of the device before you picked them up. The team that had expected to spend several days just identifying what might be pieces of the device watched, astounded, as you first identified then reassembled the individual remnants in the space of an hour and a half.
Once it was complete you discovered something interesting.
“This whole thing was built from repurposed technology. Look here, this capacitor system looks like it was stripped out of a couple dozen computers, then linked together. Then there’s this field projector. I recognize the guts from a stereo system, and the blower looks like it’s from an air conditioner. Our terrorist isn’t making his own parts, he’s had someone buying high-end electronics, then he breaks them down and cannibalizes what he needs.”
It certainly explained how he was able to make things with such a short turnaround time.
“Then we’ve got a way of tracking him. We look for distributors and ask about odd purchases. Can you identify what objects went into these invisibility casings?” one of the investigators asked.
You smiled.
“I can do you one better than that,” you said, and began rattling off brand names and model numbers you were able to gain from the history of the various bits and pieces.
After finishing his note taking, the agent looked up at you.
“Do you think you can be of any more help here, or would you prefer to come with us? Maybe see if you spot anything that stands out while we’re asking some questions?”
“Agent, I think that would be a very productive use of my time.”
ASTtM
You’ve only got enough time to hit one of the local distributors before they close for the day, but your luck seems to be in. As soon as you mention odd purchases, the owner’s eyes light up.
“Yes, indeed!” he says in a thick accent as he waves you back towards his office. “Just a few days ago, I had a man in here who bought six air conditioners. That would be strange enough, but when I offered him the manufacturer’s complementary one-year warranty, he wasn’t interested.”
That did, indeed, seem to be abnormal.
“He tried to pay in cash, but I don’t accept large denomination notes,” the man explained. “Been a problem with counterfeiting for a couple years now. In any case, he had to pay with a personal check. Here we go! His name was Jason Byrne, and his address is here too,” the man said and read off the man’s home address.
You and the agent you were accompanying took the time to divert to the local police precinct to make a call, then headed to what you fondly assumed would be a planning session.
You forgot to take Arturia into account.
ASTtM
“Tonight, the British Army raided a meeting of the IRA cell responsible for yesterday’s attack on a fuel dump and maintenance depot. Initial reports are that twenty-nine members of the IRA have been captured thanks, in large part, to the helmeted heroine, Saber.”
Somehow the BBC had managed to get their hands on a security camera’s footage. You can clearly see Arturia cutting an RPG out of the air with a single sweep of Excalibur’s invisible blade before blasting into the air with her Mana Burst and slamming through the side of the building and into the room from which the rocket-propelled grenade had been fired.
“Despite the terrorist cell being heavily armed, no injuries were reported by any of the troops on the mission.”
You turn away from your hotel room’s television to look at your wife. Then you slowly raise your left eyebrow.
Arturia at least has the grace to blush.
What was left to find? Maintenance depot device 2d50+5=103. Welp.
Fuel dump device 2d50-10=27. Nothing significant.
Finding the remnants: autopass due to Structural Analysis.
Does the distributor know anything? 1d100+5=84 So that would be a yes.
Arturia gonna Arturia: Various and sundry social rolls. Arturia ends up charming the officers, impressing the Sergeants, and becoming an idol for the enlisted.
Sloth is the Enemy, Charisma+War: 12d10+4=9 successes.
Terrorists are the enemy, Wits+War: 10d10= 8 successes.
Is the Tinker there for the raid? 1d100+5=50. Nope!
Combat, Why would I even roll this? Mooks plus Arturia can only end one way: Autopass!
You and Saber didn’t watch or assist with the interrogations. It was rapidly judged that you’d be best utilized guarding against any attempt at a rescue, so you spent the early part of the second day of your trip to Northern Ireland on watch.
Fortunately, no attempt at arranging an escape was made, because while your Eye of the Mind was impressive, it wasn’t up to the standards of Arturia’s Instinct when it came to avoiding unexpected blows.
Or explosions, which is why she won the right to enter first on the raid to the terrorist’s Workshop. Assuming it might be as well-defended as the average Magus’ Workshop just made sense. Even if, or perhaps especially if the owner was away.
When it was clear just how much the government had the upper hand, one of the terrorists cracked, and cracked hard. Rather than risk spending the rest of his life in prison, he gratefully turned state’s evidence after barely twenty minutes of questioning. The man had been willing to spill everything he knew in an attempt to buy immunity. That just so happened to include where the stealth specialist had made his Workshop, if not the man’s identity.
Which, of course, led to a raid, with you and Saber as the tip of the spear.
For the good of your peace of mind, there wasn’t an explosion or even a trap as the door disintegrated under her kick. Unfortunately, this was because there wasn’t much left in the workshop either. A few hand tools and an arc welder that had been abandoned. Likewise the remains of air conditioners, music players, and other bits and bobs of electronics. Nothing that looked like an intact example of his research, however.
It was disappointing, but not a surprise in the end. Still, you’d done good for two days’ work. A dangerous terrorist cell corralled, funding for the super-builder cut off, and intelligence gathered. That wasn’t even taking into account the very visible and rapid response to the terrorist attack. You and Saber got back on the military aircraft for the flight back to London, content that you’d accomplished what you could.
ASTtM
That evening, after the plane touched down, you were informed that Prime Minister Thatcher would like a word. You’d thought perhaps she wanted your opinions on something or maybe a first hand report. You hadn’t expected her first words to be, well …
“I would like to make you an offer of employment,” she began, and things only got more surreal from there. “I will admit that when the police first reported the situation with David Martin, I thought for sure they must have been suffering from a mass hallucination. I certainly gave no credence to the stories of Vikare out of America.
“Even when they brought me the video of that man, Tírghráthóir, trying to sneak his way into Number Ten, I still couldn’t quite believe it,” she continued.
“Then you, young man, conjured up a wall of shields out of thin air and fought off an assassin I hadn’t entirely believed existed,” again she paused for a moment.
“I thank you for that. Not simply for my own life, but for the chaos you’ve saved all of Britain from in the process. With the Troubles heating up again and someone to blame, I can see things spiraling out of control all too easily. More than that, I am well aware that the current public perception of the situation being under control is owed almost entirely to the two of you.
“As such, I feel that it is critically important that we formalize the current situation.”
You shot Arturia a look. In a display of synchronicity, she likewise turned to meet your eyes. Even with years apart, you could tell the both of you were following the same train of thought. What Baroness Thatcher hadn’t said was as important as what she had spoken aloud.
The world was changing. Had changed, really, and everyone was scrambling to catch up. Out of every nation on the globe, right now Great Britain was leading the way, as evidenced by the arrest of one high-profile criminal, the defeat of another, and the implementation of the Thatcher Initiative.
Except that wasn’t really the case. Those criminals hadn’t been thwarted by the British government. In fact, the only reason Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was even still alive to suggest her Initiative was due to the actions of an independent.
Not part of the government, not bound by the chain of command, and not subject to oaths, Guardian and Saber might vanish tomorrow and no one would know until they couldn’t contact you the next time a disaster cropped up.
There was no stability to the current situation.
You could definitely understand where the PM was coming from. That said, you really didn’t want to just drop your job at the Ritz. On the other hand, certainly Arturia deserved to be able to …
You could see in your wife’s eyes that you’d miscalculated. Then you remembered what she’d had to say about Avalon after her long wait. Her eyes seemed to ask you to understand.
You simply smiled behind your helmet. You should’ve known that Arturia would not have been content simply working in a motorcycle dealership’s financing department. Racing them, maybe. Perhaps even selling them, but not working as a glorified calculator.
You nodded your head. Even without seeing her expression, you could tell that Arturia was smiling back at you.
“The current situation is rather complex. What exactly would the duties of this position entail?” she inquired.
“Two parts: one advisory, and the second practical,” the PM said, only the tension leaving her shoulders giving a hint of her relief at the answer.
“The first, is under the working title of Minister of State for Parahuman Affairs.” You and Arturia must have emoted confusion, because she clarified, “Parahuman is what the Public Relations men have come up with for men and women with powers. It at least avoids any hint of Nietzschen Übermensch.”
“Also draws a parallel people can easily understand even if it isn’t technically correct. Humans with paranormal abilities. Parahuman,” you interjected.
“A concern indeed given the state that education is in,” Thatcher admitted before returning to the main thrust of the discussion. “I had considered making the position subordinate to an existing Ministry, but I want you to have a clear path directly to me. Already, you have each identified and solved a Parahuman-related problem while my other advisors were still dithering over what the root cause of the issue was. A direct consequence of this, however, is that you will be unavoidably placed in the public eye. The Government does not often add new Ministries.
“The second part of the job, as I said, would be more practical. Parahumans have proven to be incredible force multipliers. That raid you convinced the Army to launch ought to have resulted in a dozen or more casualties.
“Instead, you drew so much of the IRA’s firepower that the worst any of the soldiers suffered was bruises. Likewise, one madman strolled through security and killed or maimed dozens in the worst terrorist attack on the British military in centuries.” The PM stopped to pick up a sheaf of papers from her desk.
“And that doesn’t include a half-dozen cases that might well be parahumans using their abilities to commit petty crimes,” she said as she set the pile down again, “when the only Parahuman directly associated with the government is a traumatized young woman only half-recovered from being raped. The British government needs to catch up with events and it needs to do so quickly. We need both to have Parahumans involved with policing, in order to help protect the average citizen from Parahuman criminals and also with the military to counteract hostile organizations such as the IRA or, God forbid, parahumans associated with the KGB or the East Germans.”
For a moment you imagined what a stealth specialist that actually chose to remain stealthy could have accomplished simply by sneaking into Number Ten and stealing state secrets. The thought drew a grimace. Again you met Saber’s eyes, and again an understanding passed between you.
In tandem, you both reached up and removed your helmets.
“Very well, then,” Arturia said, “if we shall be working together, then introductions would seem necessary. My name is Arturia Emiya.”
“And I’m her husband, Shirou Emiya,” you added.
“A pleasure to meet you both,” she replied. “It’s good to put faces to the people whose actions have already impacted so many lives.”
The Prime Minister took another deep breath, then negotiations over the particulars began.
ASTtM
Sea-green eyes met bright blue as the ancient King of the Britons held the Iron Lady’s gaze, waiting for a reply. After several long moments, Maggie, as she had invited them to address her in private, closed her eyes and reached up to massage the bridge of her nose.
“This business of secret identities seems … juvenile. Why do you feel so strongly about it?” She asked after another few seconds.
Arturia did not immediately reply, likewise taking a moment to gather her thoughts.
“My husband and I are both formidable combatants,” she began, taking a different approach than her last attempt at making the point, “we are difficult to surprise and even harder to defeat in open battle. Our children, when we have them, will be less so.”
The truly British understatement there managed to hit home where previous attempts had failed, and Maggie visibly, if subtly, winced.
“Moreover, the traditional means of ensuring the protection of important personnel have already proven insufficient,” your wife continued. “This may be addressable in time, but then it may not be as well. In either case, could the government afford to provide such protection for every Parahuman on their payroll?”
For a moment she let the question hand in the air, but everyone present knew the answer. Not unless Parahumans ended up being far rarer than initial trends suggested they were going to be.
“If direct protection is impractical, then indirect protection becomes even more desirable. Maintaining absolute anonymity with both genders and multiple body types is, again, impractical. However, maintaining a separate ‘heroic’ identity both gives the public something to identify with and allows a parahuman to go off the clock. To have a private life without the massive expense of full-time security, or requiring them to live on military bases or otherwise open the doors for accusations of either favoritism or segregation.”
“Oh, the Opposition would delight in that, wouldn’t they?” Maggie said with a grimace, “No matter the intent, it would only take them days to start accusing us of creating concentration camps. Very well, I cede the point. Heroic pseudonyms only for use in public. Real names to be protected under the Official Secrets Act, which is likely to open an entirely new can of worms. The head of a Ministry whose identity is protected? The press will lose their minds.”
Maggie checked her own list, then looked across the desk at Arturia who likewise appeared to have finished her own perusal.
“Anything else?”
“I cannot think of anything at the moment,” Saber responded. Both then turned to you. Being the only other person in the room, you’d been pressed into service as unofficial secretary for the meeting.
“If you would summarize, Shirou?” Maggie asked.
“Certainly. First item: division of government-associated Parahumans into two groups. One for policing and first responders, the other for special actions or military response. Second: Saber’s list of duties and responsibilities,” you flipped through two pages of notes. Eventually Maggie had realized she needed to be negotiating that list down rather than up, but Arturia had gotten something of a lead on her before that point.
“The list is extensive. Administrative assistants will be required unless you’ve managed to develop some form of paperwork-related Sorcery while I wasn’t looking?” The question made Arturia blush and Maggie hide a chuckle. “Seriously, though, overwork is the enemy. If I have to drop by Number Ten with dinner every night, you’ll be sleeping on the couch,” you teased, reversing the traditional gender roles. Arturia’s blush deepened and Maggie laughed openly.
“Third is notional pay scales for parahuman employees. Chains of command as well as possible force structures for both civilian and military sides of this organization. Finally, the just-concluded discussion on secret identities and their protection under the Official Secrets Act.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said with a nod before turning back to face Saber. “Well, does it still sound like something you want to attach yourself to?”
Without hesitation, Saber nodded.
“Very well, then. Welcome to the-”
[ ] - Write In. What’s the name of the British organization for Parahumans going to be? (Canonically was the Kingsmen. I think the thread can do better.)
Secondly, what is Shirou’s role going to be? Warning, this vote will be weighted.
[ ] No formal role. Shirou keeps working at the Ritz but remains available to help with emergencies. (1.5)
[ ] Associate Member. Locks in one action a month. May choose between multiple actions. (1.25)
[ ] Full Member. Quit job at the Ritz to join up. (1.0)
[ ] Joint Commander. As above, but sharing command of the organization with Saber. (1.0)
Bunch of rolls for interrogations. Government has the strong hand here, and they know it. Quickly flip one of the terrorists who actually knows the location of the Tinker’s workshop. Tinker hasn’t stuck around, though.
Some rolls for figuring out the politics of the situation. Passed with distinction.
Many thanks to Seraviel for beta reading this mess and helping fix some issues. Also LordsFire to make sure I hadn’t done a dumb and Kelgar for Britishisms.
[X] Associate Member. Locks in one action a month. May choose between multiple actions. (1.25)
-[x] With the understanding that Shirou would transition to Joint Commander once he finished dealing with certain issues in his civilian identity.
A Brave New World 17
“Welcome to the Baker Street Irregulars,” Maggie said and smiled at you. “I really do like that name.”
“I’m fond of it myself,” you admitted. “It evokes volunteer spirit and youthful fervor while still implying that a responsible authority is overseeing everything to prevent mischief or excesses of enthusiasm,” you detailed the symbolism behind the name with a smile. You might not like politics, but that didn’t mean that you couldn’t play the PR game at need.
“Personally, I like the nod to the Great Detective. There are far worse images for an organization that will assist with police work to invoke,” Arturia responded.
“Quite true,” Maggie said before switching gears. “Now, I’ll need the rest of the month to push everything through parliament. Even then, the Opposition will be running to the press complaining that due consideration hasn’t been allowed by the rushed schedule. Can you be available for an interview or two, Arturia?”
“Certainly,” your wife responded, “though later in the month would be easier. I committed to working out two weeks’ notice when I accepted the job.”
Maggie seemed stuck somewhere between amusement and incredulity there. She’d learn.
“I have a bit more restrictive agreement on my end. I can spare some time to help out, but it will be at least a month before I’m available full-time, and may be as much as three months.”
Arturia turned and stared, surprised.
“Shirou-” she began, but you interrupted her.
“I’ve had fun working as a chef, but if you think I’m going to miss out on a chance to work side-by-side with you …” you trailed off meaningfully and Saber smiled happily.
Maggie had the expression of a woman trying to piece together sections of a puzzle that had looked like they fit, only to discover a tab out of place when she had tried to slot them together.
“It will be good to have you onboard as well,” Maggie admitted. “If you mean to work together in the position, what do you intend the primary division of duties to be?”
“Well, Arturia is much better with people than me. Paperwork too, for that matter. On the other hand, I communicate well with geeks and I’m good with my hands. As combatants, I’d say I’m actually a little more durable and versatile, but she has the edge on me in most oth-”
ASTtM
Returning to work after taking your unexpected trip to Ireland was a bit surreal. You had a little bit of paperwork to catch up on, but the restaurant was running smoothly, so once you’d caught up with the most important bits, you dropped by HR to speak with the department head. It was easy enough to get a few moments of the man’s time, so you started in on the cover story you and Arturia had come up with for why you needed to depart from your job.
“Hey, sorry to do this to you,” you began, “but I have to put my notice in,” you managed, fighting the urge to look away in embarrassment.
That was why you had a front-row seat to John, the head of the hotel’s Human Resources department turning almost grey.
Before you could draw in a breath to ask if he was okay, the man practically fell forward onto his desk, scrambling to grab your hand..
“No, no, no, please! You can’t leave! You can’t!” he cried, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. “Not when we’re finally turning things around!”
“Uh,” you began, but he spoke right overtop of you.
“Whatever they’ve offered to pay you, we’ll match it! No, we’ll double it! Please tell me you’ll reconsider!” the overweight man begged pathetically as he clasped your hand in both of his. The poor guy was literally trembling.
“Uh, actually, we need to move. My wife just landed her dream job, so I won’t be able to make the commute here every day,” you corrected his mistaken impression, trying to work your hand free without breaking John’s fingers along with his grip.
“No, no, no, we can make this work. We can still make things work,” he mumbled. There were damp spots growing under his arms; he was sweating so profusely. Was he having a heart attack or just a nervous breakdown? Did you need to call an ambulance? Should you break his fingers if that meant saving his life?
“Can you make it in at least one day a week? Physically make it here?” he demanded, suddenly intent, and you realized you’d been lost in thought long enough for him to collect himself at least a little bit.
“Ugh, well maybe?” you replied and immediately realized it was a mistake, because a ‘maybe’ might as well be a ‘yes’ in context.
“I can not understate how much we need you in this job Mister Emiya,” he told you, eyes level. “For the first time in years we have averaged an occupancy rate of over fifty percent for the last month, and we’ve already got people booking rooms for the end of June and into July when they find out that we’ll make sure they can get access to the restaurant. Your restaurant, Mister Emiya. And your food. We desperately need you to stay on and finish working your magic on the menu. And I know you’ve been up to something training the chefs. We desperately need to modernize, and you’ve put us ahead of the curve with your Classical British and Japanese Fusion Cuisine.
“If we can build momentum, can show that we’re still profitable, we can get the money we need to update the decor and get back on the lips of High Society again. But right now, everything hinges on you and that restaurant. I can hire someone to do the books for you. I can hire more people to do the cooking. I’ll even pay you your full salary just to come in one day a week and teach the rest what they need to know, but we need you to do what no one else can! Please, will you help save us Mister Emiya?”
The last word made you flinch, just a bit, but … Did you really want to turn him down? Could you afford to, when he was offering you a consulting job paying as much for the equivalent of sixteen or so hours a week as you had been making for putting in fifty or more?
“Well John, I-
[ ] - can stay.” (1 AP remains committed to working at the Ritz, effective beginning next month. May be spent on various actions. Keep getting paid 3 dots of income from the Ritz, ???)
[ ] - really am sorry.” (3 AP committed next month for working out your notice, but no further AP needed. Lose revenue from Ritz income, ???)
ASTtM
In the wake of your talk with poor John in HR, you did find yourself helping out in the kitchen more than you had been. Room service orders were through the roof, for reasons now explained to you, and at peak hours your chefs were having trouble keeping up.
Between that and your surprise trip north, you didn’t make much progress on the renovations for the first couple weeks. The good news was that a lot of the demolition work had already been done as part of bringing the electrical up to code. The bad news was that there were specialist tools you needed that you couldn’t simply Trace. In a combination of disgust with yourself for slacking and a need to get ahead of the curve before your wife started giving you the Evil Eye, you did manage to get a list together for the tools you’d need to rent and the precise work needed to get the old plumbing into a better state for habitation.
Monday of the third week of August, you got up early and went out to rent the specialist gear you needed. Then you got to work. The main stack was relocated to be out of the way for your open concept second floor, pipes were soldered, and fixtures were connected. By the time you had to return the rented tools Tuesday night, you were ready to call and schedule the inspection …
You just had to improve your methodology for concealing the sewer access. Unlike the electrical, you didn’t think just shoving something in front of it and ensuring that nothing that needed inspecting was nearby was going to work.
You were still mulling the problem over the next day at work when a routine glance out at the dining room made you freeze mid-step and look back just as you were beginning to look away.
There was a man sitting alone at a table. That, in and of itself, was not entirely unusual. The pen he had stuck in his breast pocket was. Your reflexive scan of it had revealed that it was used to write food reviews.
… There was only one acceptable response to that knowledge.
“Has the gentleman at 3-B ordered yet?” you asked as you stepped into the kitchen proper.
“Uuuh, yeah,” one of the assistants answered. “All three courses. Beef tartare, Langoustines, and the mousse for desert.”
You nodded. Another point of evidence for your assumption; the man knew what he wanted
“Very well, I’ll be handling his meal personally,” that statement drew glances, but even this early your people were all too busy to really comment. It was one less thing for them to have to deal with, after all.
You were glad you’d sorted out the trouble with the restaurant’s suppliers. The taste of round steak melded much more smoothly into the flavor profile you wanted to create for your beef tartare, and it was barely an effort to whip up an order. In only a few minutes, you had the appetizer portioned out on top of the grilled crouton and drizzled on the last of the dressing. While you would have delighted in observing the man’s reaction to your dish, you instead busied yourself in preparing his main course.
Preparing the main dish was as simple as putting the ingredients in their foil pouch to cook, but you wanted no mistakes with the coleslaw.
You selected the pickled cabbage, edamame, and carrots carefully and cut them thin for the base, then moved on to grate the ginger root while toasting the sesame seeds.
As soon as those were done, you turned off the burner and set them aside to rest while you whisked together the sesame oil, vinegar, garlic, ginger, sugar, salt, and pepper. Once the dressing was perfect, you tossed the pickled vegetables together with some freshly chopped scallions, and the sesame seeds with the dressing until it was coated perfectly, then set it aside to cook for a few minutes. The contrast between piping hot seafood,asparagus spears, and chilled coleslaw was an integral part of the experience.
Once the langoustines and asparagus spears were done, you plated them along with the coleslaw and dispatched them to the front. A part of you wished the man had ordered a desert that you could have micromanaged as well, but making quality mousse was not something to be done in the time it took to eat a single course.
That did, however, give you the opportunity to watch the man’s reaction to the middle third of his meal.
It was gratifying to watch a professional react to your playing decisions. Though you didn’t yet have the stark white hardware you would prefer, even 80’s tableware couldn’t ruin the elegant plating of the dish, with the rounded stack of coleslaw balancing the longer hot elements.
The man carefully noted the arrangement before tasting, and right away his eyebrows shot up. His first bite was quickly followed by a second before he visibly forced himself to remain professional. Still, you could see that it was a struggle for him not to attack the portion as enthusiastically as Taiga at her most voracious. Whoever he worked for ought to be leaving the Ritz a rave review.
ASTtM
A few days later, you finally managed to make time for a visit to Jimmy Port, the builder parahuman who seemed fixated on improving his gym equipment.
The question, of course, is how you want to proceed from here. You could move forward with your original plan to commission equipment from him for your home, or you could attempt to convince him to join the not-yet-fully-established Baker Street Irregulars. He certainly seemed to need a consistent source of income.
In the end, you decided to-
[ ] - Commission gym equipment, as originally planned. (Variable cost. Get workout equipment for your home.)
[ ] - Ask him if he’s heard of the Thatcher Initiative and try to convince him to join the Baker Street Irregulars. (No direct cost to you. Unknown odds of success.)
[ ] - Why not both? (Likely improved odds on getting him to sign up. Maybe more cost? Maybe less? Delay on getting your personal equipment?)
HR manager trying not to panic over the Golden Goose wanting to quit: 8d10=1 success. Queue the shenanigans, I guess.
Coming up with anything to keep Shirou from quitting: 9d10=5 successes. Desperation breeds innovation?
Shirou’s resistance to begging and bribery: Charisma+Integrity+Appearance bonus=2 successes. I guess that’s a fast talk success. Noted for weighting purposes.
Random event roll for restaurant: 1d100=97. In the background, Rin Laughs in Tsundere.
How good is Shirou’s cooking today? Dex+Craft(Cooking): 13d10=8 successes. So, yeah, he’s on his game.
A/N: So, this took forever, partly because I simply wasn’t ready for where the dice decided to drag this story yet. I also needed to do a bunch of stuff in the back end to get ready, and really didn’t want to deal with it, so I kept putting it off. Finally got around to dealing with all of that, so I’ll try to go back to weekly updates on this.
Thanks to Seraviel for beta reading, idea bouncing, and making sure I don’t accidentally mess up Worm lore.
