I'm not familiar enough with the sword's properties to say if finding it would be helpful. But assuming it's worth finding... bear in mind, likely answers include "blown up in the destruction of Earth," noting that (present-not-future) Trunks died fighting the Enemy. Or "on some planet somewhere in the galaxy that we can't reach without a spaceship." The second option would potentially enable us to retrieve the sword, but only because we have access to the Senzu's spaceship, and we can't let Berra know we have access. Without some kind of elaborate deception or a radical change in our Sealing-related plans, that's not going to work.
[X] Take a break from the tournament grounds and go visit...
-[X] Maya.
[X] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[X] Papata Fren.
[X] Spend time with your family tonight.
Actually, socializing with the prisoners might still be viable. Since everybody's in masque anyway, showing them what they're up against during some of the contest might help convince them to assist in reaching a peaceful conclusion.
[X] Sweet kais this is going to be chaos. Get as many people as you can to hold off for a second so that they don't end up shooting each other. Organize them and keep them from interfering with each other's work.
Fields of Fire
You process the situation in a second that blurs by faster and faster as you drag your power level down to fifteen million. All around you, fighters lift their hands and shout, getting ready to stop blasting. Your own comes up...
...and latches closed around Fenella's wrist, choking off her first attempted blast before it can start.
She gives you an affronted look. "Hey! What the heck, Kari?!"
Blasts start ringing out, and you switch to telepathy to compensate for the sudden volume. This is going to be crazy. Blasts are flying everywhere and nobody is teaming up. People are going to wind up hurting each other. Hang on a second before you start.
You cup your hands around your mouth and pour all of your ki into your voice. "EVERYBODY SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!"
Quite a few people in the vicinity -- those who can hear you over the blasts -- flinch into panicked compliance at the sound of an angry Scion, swiveling to face you. One keeps going, or maybe just fails to stop their shot in time. The blast screeches out, dead-center with another of the contestants who stopped in its path.
vip
You appear in its path and backhand it so it veers off to the side. A sphere pops.
You idly wonder if that counts as a point for you as the blast's owner shrinks under the sheer heat of your scowl.
Other contestants start to react to the ring of silence around your starting position, and after a moment, everybody is still and attentive, wondering if the Scion has anything significant to say.
Your eyes pan over them, considering. Command Training: 89. Pass.
You're on the clock. You don't have time for a fine reorganization of this morass. Quick and dirty it is.
"EVERYBODY GROUP UP!" you shout. "GROUPS OF FIVE, THE PEOPLE NEAR YOU!"
"This isn't a team competition!" protests one of the contestants.
"AND IT'S NOT A FRIENDLY FIRE COMPETITION EITHER, BUT YOU GOT RIGHT TO WORK ON THAT!" you reply, folding your arms. "GROUPS! FIVE! NOW! OR YOU ANSWER TO ME ONCE WE'RE DONE!" Communication: 97. Pass.
They group up. Most do, at least. Some snort or sneer and turn away to get back to blasting. You ignore them. You don't need total compliance; just enough to make sure nobody dies.
Then you sweep your arms up, gesturing along the shell of spheres. "EVERY GROUP SENDS ONE PERSON TO FIND A SPOT! COVER THE WHOLE DOME! ONCE YOUR PERSON HAS A SPOT, GO JOIN THEM AND START SHOOTING AT THE SPHERES!"
One of the people who ignored you snorts and turn. "We don't need to waste our time with this! The solution's obvious! Stop the spheres!" She then turns and rockets off towards the sorcerers with a wild yell.
She makes it halfway there before a strange glyph flares up in her path. She zips through before she can correct and immediately falls out of the sky, slamming into the ground at Mach 80. She does not get up.
One of the sorcerers lowers his arms, looking smug.
You blink away your shock and clap your hands, getting everybody's attention back. "LET'S MOVE, DUMMIES! BALLS TO SHOOT! GO!"
They move, and after a moment of shuffling, the shooting resumes.
You find your way to Fenella, in a group of other saiyan kids your age, and start firing as well. "And now I'm going to be behind," you grumble, hands blurring as you pick balls out of the sky with pinpoint accuracy.
Fenn gives you an incredulous look.
"What?" you say, firing a wide-area blast that clears away a dozen spheres.
She shakes her head and goes back to shooting with renewed vigor.
* * *
The time limit, it turns out, is five minutes.
The sphere limit, it turns out, is not sufficient to last those five minutes while hundreds of saiyans are firing at them with anything even resembling coordination.
You nod sharply, satisfied that nobody was hurt from something as idiotic as friendly fire, even as you resign yourself to the fact that you've lost the count.
Sure enough, when the screen overlooking the ring flickers to a scoreboard with ten names on it, you're not surprised to see that yours is not at the top.
The rightmost column -- labeled, "spheres destroyed" -- starts out blank, but rapidly fills up as the top tens' counts click up in rapid motion. Dura Kamir takes the top slot. You know her as an ancient veteran of the Cap Circuit tournaments, and one of the foremost masters of Vegeta style. You clap politely as the applause starts.
And then the header for the rightmost column blinks. In its place, suddenly, stands -- "contribution to spheres destroyed."
The scores begin ticking up again, but for most names, it's a brief thing -- a mere blip in the standings, with only two people near the bottom changing places. One, though, shoots up far faster.
Your eyes widen as your name rockets to the top of the scoreboard.
Dad stands, over in his box. "Any saiyan can shoot a target," he says, his voice again amplified by ki. "I'm not looking for just any saiyan. I'm not even looking for the fastest and most accurate shots. What I am looking for are saiyans who remember -- who already know without me needing to spend time overwriting a lifetime of training in order to teach them -- that warfare is not a solitary pursuit. This fight against the aliens will not be held on the tournament ring. It will not be a matter of individual valor. It will be a fight against professional soldiers and military veterans, with an established command structure and traditions of battle. It will be hard, and in groups our enemies will strike harder than an equal number of us. We have lost the art of war. We no longer have the instinct.
"Save, apparently, one of us."
Dad turns to face you. "My daughter has never fought on the tournament ring, and has immersed herself more enthusiastically in the art of command than the art of the warrior. And her first response, upon seeing a chaotic mass of warriors, all preparing to fire at maximum pace? She stepped in to organize things. Because it was messy." He smirks, you flush, and his words tear a chuckle free from the crowd. After a moment, Dad waves them down and says, "Those are the instincts we want. I must admit, I didn't know that my daughter was signing up today, but once I did find out, I knew immediately who the winner of this competition would be."
The arena goes quiet. You look down, bright red and not quite sure how to handle the praise.
Dad looks straight at you, never blinking. "We will have hundreds of thousands of warriors when the aliens come. Our shortage will be natural soldiers. Some of you have shown the aptitude for that mindset today. One of you proved that it comes naturally."
He throws something at you. You catch it on instinct, and it clatters with the distinctive sound of zeni chips.
Dad gives you a broad and proud smile and sits down in his seat. "We have a winner. Scion Kakara Goku, ladies and gentlemen."
There's a moment of silence before the cheering starts, and it begins slowly. But once it picks up momentum, it doesn't stop, and before long, the audience and your fellow competitors are both on their feet and applauding. You look around in disbelief.
And then, you smile.
Reputation Gained: Natural Soldier.
Exceptional Command Training now available for regular training.
Natural Soldier: While it's as much a matter of clever presentation and unorthodox training as actual fact, your performance at the target shooting event at your father's tournament has given you a reputation as a natural-born soldier, in contrast to the Exile's more warrior-oriented mindset. Of course, you know that this isn't a matter of natural aptitude. You overcame your problems with violence late, and thus was far more comfortable with the lessons of command and organization. Nonetheless, the attention and acclaim has buoyed your confidence, and now that you think about it, you have acquired a mindset worth exploiting, even if it's a product of circumstance rather than a gift. Others will look to you for leadership in combat.
There's another round of elimination matches tomorrow. What will you do until then? Select as many of the following as you please, with the top three winning (thanks to multiform already, so don't write that in, please).
[ ] Take a break from the tournament grounds and go visit...
-[ ] ...(write-in a human of your acquaintance to visit. Jaron is a possibility; he's not here).
[ ] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[ ] ...(write-in somebody. You all know the possibilities. Write-in any specific topics or requests you have in mind).
[ ] Spend time with your family tonight.
[ ] And nothing else (if the third winning option, limits you to two multiform clones, with the top two options winning. If the second winning, third winning is discounted and Kakara does only the top winning, with no Multiform use at all. Use this if your ideas for what to do are for some reason mutually unfriendly with three- or two-way multiform).
[ ] Search for a vision.
-[ ] Pastsight (write-in a one-word topic for which to search).
-[ ] Presentsight (write-in a one-word topic for which to search).
-[ ] Futuresight (write-in a one-word topic for which to search).
[ ] Write-in.
TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM. THIS VOTE IS NOT YET CLOSED. TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM ON VOTES.
Remember how you upped your Seer ability? Now you can get consciously-called visions, rarely. So, if you want one...
Now before we all go nuts, remember that this vote is by approval voting. By design there is no pressure to participate in the inevitable furball of a debate over visions. If you want one, vote for one. If not, don't. And don't feel any pressure to tactically vote; y'all know that I'm generous with my vote merging.
I hope you all enjoy the update! Have fun! I have updated the character sheet with the new info already. I will probably leave this vote open for a while, so get your butts over here and throw your hats in the ring. I wanna see votes!
Actually, socializing with the prisoners might still be viable. Since everybody's in masque anyway, showing them what they're up against during some of the contest might help convince them to assist in reaching a peaceful conclusion.
Publicly splitting the pot among the ones who cooperated?
[X] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[X] Papata Fren.
[X] Spend time with your family tonight.
[X] invite a few scouts to watch the tornament with you.
[X] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[X] Papata Fren.
[X] Spend time with your family tonight.
[X] invite a few scouts to watch the tornament with you.
I don't split votes if I can avoid it, so I kept the 'tornament' misspelling.
[X] Take a break from the tournament grounds and go visit...
-[X] ...Sophie. Because we should probably remember that we have more than two human friends sometime, right?
[X] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[X] ...Papata Fren. Because... honestly, I just want to see more of her.
[X] Search for a vision.
-[X] Pastsight - Oozaru. Because this is most likely to give us help in the coming fights... whether learning how best to fight in the form by watching other saiyans or learning how to (or not to) fight giant, overpowered enemies by seeing how others fought against the saiyans.
[X] Take a break from the tournament grounds and go visit...
-[X] ...Sophie.
[X] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[X] ...Papata Fren.
[X] Search for a vision.
-[X] Pastsight - Oozaru.
I mean, you gave us a totally open-ended "you can do anything you want" vote option. Most of the obvious choices involve socializing with people, with a few wild-cards like "have a vision." How is it a sign that the tournament arc needs to end, if people go for things along those lines?
Not that I'm opposed to visiting Sophie, but... Basically, in any quest you have a limited number of options to actively decide to cultivate or interact with friends, because you have a limited number of opportunities to do anything, capped by the number of votes the QM can hold on what to do if nothing else.
It's kind of inevitable that all the quest protagonist's social energy gets channeled towards a few specific people, when in reality they'd be interacting with a lot more people.
I never really got any feedback on this; does anyone think "try to visit Jiichan" is a good idea? Or for that matter a bad idea because of interesting reasons?
For now I'm voting...
[X] Head on over and have a chat with...
-[x] Papata Fren
[X] Spend time with your family tonight.
I never really got any feedback on this; does anyone think "try to visit Jiichan" is a good idea? Or for that matter a bad idea because of interesting reasons
