Expert Oppinions
3rd of December 2006 A.D.
On a more in depth consideration, about the depth of the balefire burns on the target mannequins for the demonstration come to think of it, you decide that handing these guns to a pair of teenagers who have never held one is not a good idea, even if the guns to come with a copilot. So you box them up to take home.
Gained Arsenal ●●●
You are a serious collector of military hardware, not only of small arms, but also body armor, grenades and medical supplies. Wouldn't raise eyebrows in some parts of the country... if only it weren't all alien tech.
Thus you spend the rest of the Academy's working program getting Olivia and Daniel set up to take some courses, explaining customs and expectations back and forth as well as demonstrations of Olivia's powers which get some thoughtful looks from a handful of the teachers, especially a black-scaled gurvel veteran named Twice Unbound Emerald Claws, a former Syndic-Corp assault team leader for Integrated Entertainment.
"If given sufficient protection from passive mental assaults you could be a terror upon any battle ground. Choose your sitelines correctly and any magician seeking to pin you down must put themselves in range of your weapon. Learn to stalk your targets and the threat of your attention might be worth more than the flash of your flux-gun."
Sneaking a look over at Olivia you find her looking daunted. "I never much liked Westerns as a kid," she tries to make a joke out of it.
"You don't have to..." you start, but she shakes her head.
"No, this is part of what I asked for, not just to protect myself but the others as well. Fear... fear is something I can use. it's better if they are afraid and don't start shit after all, the vampires, the fairies, whatever else is out there. I'd rather work with the police, Special Investigation you called them, than be the lone gunman though. Feels like they could use the help."
As you explain the conversation to Twice Unbound Emerald Claw the old warrior tilts his head bemusedly. "Of course you should seek a team to watch your back and place all action in right-harmony with the law. Why would that be in question?"
Even though you do your best to explain the veil between the mundane and the supernatural on Earth you do not think the point gets across, not even as much as it had with the Council. They are used to thinking in terms of high level politics, factions and layered conflicts that might produce counterintuitive results, but for the academy staff the idea that there might be a conceptual difference between a flux-gun and one that works on common chemical accelerates, one that it would be worth a wide spanning conspiracy over, is utterly alien.
One copper haired woman blinks slowly, accompanied by the sound of a camera shuttering from her third augment eye and shakes her head. "Now I understand why the preconditions for traveling Beyond are so stringent Majesty. We are talking about a full technological lock-down"
She pauses to think and by now you know that look. On the one hand you are a living god, on the other hand you are over here being chummy with these obvious young folk so maybe you did not think this though.
"Permission to speak freely," you somehow manage to deliver Picard's famous line without giggling.
"It seems unlikely that such an embargo would last for any great length of time, weapons, kit, bodies, all of these are potential vectors of contamination and ones which are far more amenable to study than the purely arcane works of 'wizards'," she uses the English word rather than try to parse out a translation.
You open your mouth to reply that magic has only been growing more obscure since the Enlightenment with those places and those people for which the curtain is drawn back having an interest in the status quo and then you remember something from the files read on the way here. The woman in front of you Still Blossom Among Black Thorns is herself over twelve hundred years Earth Standard. Were she born to the same world as you she would have been alive when Charlemagne was crowned. Her idea of 'a great length of time' is definitely not the same as yours.
"Perhaps that is so, but it is no reason for haste when the Powers that Be have not even shown their hand."
Speaking of Charlemagne or his descendants in particular Daniel is nowhere near as enthusiastic about Silver Needle as Olivia, not only does he not have her affinity for mental veils, but given his training in close quarters fighting, both armed and unarmed standing off four hundred feet with a riffle isn't the best use of his talents.
But it would make him safer, the small voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like Mom points out.
What do you sugest for Daniel?
[] Learning the Fivefold Howling Style in the City of Law, it is grueling training and not without its dangers, but far less so than what he planned going out and getting into fights with monsters
[] More Swordmanship training for now. You do have a certain prize sword he could use if he does well enough
[] Write in
OOC: No rolls for this one, Daniel was never going to become a snipper when he has no firearms skill but does have Brawl and Melee 2.