[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] We don't really want to spread around our Seer status, so we'd appreciate his discretion with the info. He should tell anyone he judges need to know, naturally, but don't just tell everyone, please.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] We don't really want to spread around our Seer status, so we'd appreciate his discretion with the info. He should tell anyone he judges need to know, naturally, but don't just tell everyone, please.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] We don't really want to spread around our Seer status, so we'd appreciate his discretion with the info. He should tell anyone he judges need to know, naturally, but don't just tell everyone, please.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel
So! Evidently when a new release of NetTally goes live, any old versions you may have break irreversibly. That was fun. Regardless, vote closed.
Vote Tally : Sci-Fi - Dragon Ball: After the End | Page 206 | Sufficient Velocity ##### NetTally 1.7.5
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] We don't really want to spread around our Seer status, so we'd appreciate his discretion with the info. He should tell anyone he judges need to know, naturally, but don't just tell everyone, please.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel No. of Votes: 8 Terrabrand ChildishChimera faflec Fastrike KaintukeeBob Karnax626 Nix's Warden The king Chad
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel
-[X] If he wants, we can teach him the Kamehameha and he can teach us the Galick Gun. No. of Votes: 2 Andres110 KnightDisciple
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] Also, we let slip that we're a seer here, but we can limit the damage; request that he keep our spooky white eyes a secret, since while it was relevant to our strategy in dealing with the sealing here, we don't really want it getting around.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel
-[X] If he wants, we can teach him the Kamehameha and he can teach us the Galick Gun. No. of Votes: 1 Deathbybunnies
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] Talk about Jaron.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel No. of Votes: 1 Bommelom
Total No. of Voters: 14
Much better. We have a winner. Writing the update.
[X] Yes
-[X] Ask for advice on working around the watchers and contacting the Senzus without sending out a ki pulse.
-[X] We don't really want to spread around our Seer status, so we'd appreciate his discretion with the info. He should tell anyone he judges need to know, naturally, but don't just tell everyone, please.
[X] Planning session
[X] Visit Betarel
Proactivity Is A Group Sport
"Um, I have a couple more questions," you say. "I mean, I kind of want to know if you have any ideas about avoiding the watchers. They're my teachers, that's..." You shudder. "I guess there are more for when we're out of school?"
"Sometimes," he says. "Generally, Jaffu- Jaron is under constant watch. His mother keeps him at home unless he's going somewhere. A friend's house, for instance...although that's rare enough." He scowls for a moment before shaking his head. "Even then she'll set a very exact curfew for him, and somebody will be within a mile's distance at all times. If they were to lose track of him, I imagine that she'd think it was an emergency." He pauses. "Of course, she's watching in secret, and you're not 'in' on that secret. So you should be able to steal him away if you find an excuse to get him alone...once. So in short...always assume that she has somebody watching you, and save the chance to get him out for when we're ready to move."
You nod. It's slightly frustrating that that's your best option, but you're not seeing much else. "And how do I talk to you all? I can't fly around sending off pulses until you answer. Somebody would think it was weird after a while."
Raditz hums, resting his chin in one hand. "Good question. I'd like to have Dandelor give you an exception on the Veil -- ah, that's his spell, the one removing our location from everybody's minds -- but your father has already shown that he's willing to read your mind on this topic."
A full-body shudder races through you. You still hate that he did that.
"That said, that was under pressure. Perhaps he won't if you manage to stay under the radar. Other than that...the problem is that any way you could contact us is vulnerable to the same problem as us lowering the Veil -- your father might find it. I suppose I could give you a location to sit in to signal that you want to talk, and we could then approach on our own if everything was clear, but anything has some risk. I'll have to think about it. Secrecy is important, but so is speed, especially if you see an opportunity or need to spirit Jaffur away and need refuge quickly. But if we're found..."
You nod seriously. You'll have to think about this on your own. "Okay. Um, one last thing! About secrets..."
He blinks, re-focusing. "Ah. Your..." He gestures around his eyes.
"Yeah." You nod. "I don't really want to share it too much. So...I mean, I get that you have to tell some of your family to plan -- probably your brother -- but please don't tell everybody?"
He makes a dismissive gesture, nodding. "Of course. Really, only Dandelor needs to know, and that only because he's the one who will be designing our counterspell. Beyond that, your secret to share."
His ki pulses briefly. "Speaking of Dandelor, that was me calling him over. I really should let him know as soon as possible, and better if he hears it from you for all the details. Loses less in translation that way."
"Well, I wanted to talk about planning too, so..." You shrug.
He nods. "Of course, although we'll need to make it quick. You can't stay too long before your father starts wondering."
You nod fervently. "Yeah. But if we think there's enough time, could I talk to Betarel after this? We were friends back before...all of this. I wanted to see if we still were."
He smiles at you. "Of course. He's missed you as well."
You freeze for a half-second, flashing back to the vision. So...what, does he like me, or does he just miss his friend, or...
You blink, setting the thought aside. You can consider that -- should, probably -- on your own time.
You change topics. "So, your brother is a good Sorcerer, right? I mean, he kept you hidden this long, right?"
"Wasn't that hard," says Dandelor, a few feet behind you.
You scream, whirling around.
"Dandelor," says Raditz, a note of reproach in his voice.
"What? It's fun," says the Sorcerer, leaning on the crenelations.
You take a step back, breathing quickly as you get back under control. Then you kick him in the shin. "That was mean!"
"Son of a-!"
"You deserved that one," says Raditz as his brother hits the deck, clutching his leg. "You're lucky she didn't break anything."
"Meanie," you say, crossing your arms and turning away from Dandelor.
Raditz walks over to his brother and helps him up. "As funny as I found that, I didn't call you over just to watch you get floored by a little girl. We have something to tell you about Jaffur's Seal."
Instantly, Dandelor straightens, all-business (aside from a tiny wince). "What is it, Scion?" he asks, looking at you. "Did you manage to wheedle something out of Dandeer?"
You notice a lot of venom in his voice as he says her name. Sounds personal.
"No," you say, shaking your head. "I don't talk to her." You glance at Raditz, hesitating, and then square your shoulders. "I'm a Seer. I Saw it."
His eyes widen, and he looks at you with new respect. "Really? I'm listening. What can you tell me?"
You run through the tale as quickly as you can without losing anything. As you talk, he goes through a range of emotions -- confusion, realization, horror, and finally hope. It's a weird sequence, and it doesn't really fit what you're telling him -- not that bit at the end, at least. You frown as you finish talking.
Raditz notices too. "Dandelor? That means something to you beyond what it meant to me. I can tell. What is it?"
The Sorcerer blinks, looking at his brother. "I..." He glances between the two of you for a moment before settling on Head Raditz. "This isn't my secret to tell, but it's relevant now, so I guess I have to." He sighs. "This whole time we've been assuming that the Seal went off perfectly. It seemed to be working as intended, and there wasn't any need to question that. How badly could it go wrong and still do that, right? But it's not working as Dandeer meant it to. She accidentally made a whole new person to replace her son with and locked Jaffur away."
"Probably a result of him being a Super Saiyan during the Sealing," says Raditz, shrugging. "I know that was her explanation for the changes to his Masque."
Dandelor grimaces. "I understand why it looks that simple, but no. I-" He lets out a sharp, irritated sigh. "Damn it, I thought I wasn't going to have to share this."
Raditz frowns. "Dandelor."
"I'm getting there!" The Sorcerer growls to himself and then looks at the two of you. "Two months before the Sealing, Jaffur came to me in confidence. He wanted to be tested. For sorcerous potential. And...he passed."
Silence. Your eyes widen. Head Raditz's jaw drops.
Dandelor shifts nervously. "He couldn't ask his mother, because he didn't trust her to keep it a secret from his father, and Lord Vegeta would never have approved. And forget asking the Gokun. And given that there are no other Vegetan Sorcerers -- more on that later-"
"Focus, Dandelor," says Raditz, sounding dazed.
"-right, sorry, later, given that there are no other Vegetan Sorcerers, I was his only choice. So. Jaffur passed. He's a Sorcerer, completely untrained. And it was meant to be a secret I thought I could keep because the Seal took, and I figured that he couldn't have thrown up any counterspells if that happened and the point was moot. But, it turns out, he changed the very nature of the spell into one that keeps himself awake and creates somebody else to be the Masque. I can even see how it would happen now that I know it happened, not that I think he meant to achieve that. I doubt he even meant to cast a spell or do anything beyond resist in general. But he was transformed and we all know that dumping ki into a spell can supercharge it and make it do weird things." His jaw snaps shut. "And...that's that. And now I'm going to have to apologize to him for sharing this secret once we get him out, too."
You stare.
...what?
[X] Visit Betarel
Voting in order from what you do first to what you do last, what do you do?
[ ] What?
-[ ] Write-in questions.
[ ] Continue planning.
-[ ] Write-in an idea to brainstorm with the others.
[ ] Continue vote in abeyance.
[ ] Just leave. Time could be running short anyway and nothing firm is getting decided today.
As a separate vote, what means of contacting the Senzus will you be going with?
[ ] Drop the Veil. It's a risk if Dad ever thinks he needs to read your mind, but if things get that bad you'll be running here anyway. You want to be able to remember this location.
[ ] Meeting point. Nothing is totally secure, but this is more secure than most. This way the Senzus will be able to judge if something is wrong before coming to get you.
[ ] No change. Flying around with pings might be noisy, but if you do it often enough people might get used to it.
[ ] Write-in.
THESE VOTES ARE NOW CLOSED.
Yes, I rolled for it.
Yes, he really did roll a 97.
Yes, I checked my dice afterwards.
No, they are not loaded. Probably.
Jaffur has weird rolls. In his fight with you and on the Sorcerer roll he got nothing below a seventy. In his second fight with you and the fight against the Sealing, his rolls were well within expected distribution.
Everywhere else? Bombed. His Seer roll was 2. Every single social check? Thirty-seven or less. Oddly, Jaron has much saner rolls. I suspect that physics is deliberately f*cking with me at this point. Either that, or Kakara and Jaffur really are the fated protagonists. You decide!
No, it isn't OOC for Kakara to kick Dandelor in the shin. She's ten and feeling frustrated at a mean adult. And she kicked a bit harder than she meant, but as annoyed she was, she won't feel bad unless she breaks something. Pacifism has its limits, and here it ran up against the limit that is the good behavior of a ten-year-old who's just been scared.
It lost hard.
This has happened before, but just to clarify once again: sometimes a sub-vote will trigger a revelation or response that really merits breaking for a vote, but isn't at the end of the vote and wouldn't make sense to be placed at the end of the update. This one, for instance. Doesn't make much sense to go have playtime and then come back for high-stakes scheming, at least not to me (plus, from a Doylist perspective that would be a tonal mess). So rather than discard the rest of the vote I write as much of the update as fits into common sense and then hold the rest at the end. If you still want it, you check "Continue vote in abeyance," and nothing more is said of it. If you think a change is warranted, then you don't.
So Jaron might natively be a sorceror, since Jaffur is and nobody checked that seal.
Too bad the brotherood of crotchy old bastards can't sneak him out and hide him under the auspice of ensuring an untrained human sorcerer doesn't accidentally tear down the masquerade.
To take a page out of Raditz's book, 'deuteragonist'. When it's two protagonists in this context, it's not 'protagonists', it's 'deuteragonists'. Unless you meant fated possible protagonists.
Can Dandelor give any crash courses in the sort of magic which might be useful if Jaron turns out to also be capable of it or Jaffur turns out to be capable of wielding it from the inside? Kakara can smuggle the information to him, especially if she's already teaching her friends a bit of ki as cover.
Wait, the mages can apparently create whole, new, independent identities. Could they create one for Kakara to contain the secret of the veil which wouldn't be susceptible to a mind-delve of Kakara?
I'm all for just dropping the veil. If Dad tries his mind-reading shit again we can shut him down pretty good with a Super Saiyan punch. He might be our dad but there's a line and that's it.
If he asks for our consent and we refuse him, it won't be suspicious as we'd be righteously angry and hostile to the idea on principle.
Wait, the mages can apparently create whole, new, independent identities. Could they create one for Kakara to contain the secret of the veil which wouldn't be susceptible to a mind-delve of Kakara?
Can Dandelor give any crash courses in the sort of magic which might be useful if Jaron turns out to also be capable of it or Jaffur turns out to be capable of wielding it from the inside? Kakara can smuggle the information to him, especially if she's already teaching her friends a bit of ki as cover.
I have no idea what you're talking about. The character sheet says she's ten. Has since she turned ten in the middle of the summer. We have always been at war with Eastasia. (You have a mid-year birthday, around the height of summer. Character sheet has been updated -- knew I forgot something.)
We could probably use this information to convince Dandeer to consent to at least weakening the seal. Guilt-tripping her into doing it would probably be rather easy actually. Outright removing it would probably be a very bad thing since 'killing' Jason would probably fuck up Jaffur even more than his dad did, but we might be able to set up something along the lines of what Yugi and Yami Yugi had going on.
There's a difference between trusting them a lot and trusting them utterly. This is our personal headspace and we should be more discriminating in that regard with everyone.
I really doubt Sorcery is involved in his fighting style. He only knew he was one for two months, no time to train on it and much less create it from scratch.
The most important question, I think, is how does this affect our chances to break the seal? Yes, it is not working properly. How much harder will it be to find a solution?
I really doubt Sorcery is involved in his fighting style. He only knew he was one for two months, no time to train on it and much less create it from scratch.
The most important question, I think, is how does this affect our chances to break the seal? Yes, it is not working properly. How much harder will it be to find a solution?
He was only sure of it for a few months, but he clearly had a pretty serious suspicion if he went to such dangerous lengths to verify it. The fact that he created Jaron shows that formal training isn't necessary to make use of sorcery while confirming that it interacts with ki. Tapping into the talent while designing his own completely original style from scratch under incredibly stressful motivation doesn't seem like much of a stretch. His prep for the first spar involved concentrated meditation and resulted in him punching far above his power level due to a never-before-seen level of control which astonished an acknowledged genius of ki control and sensing.
-and I just proposed a potential solution of having Jaron or Jaffur learn how to magically break it.
