Ya'll are assuming the Library of Congress even wants supernatural predators to keep prisoner. Also that once they have them, if they agree to take them, that they will not be used irresponsibly. Do you really trust all decision makers in the LoC not to attempt to weaponize the Akuma, or worse, use them as a go-between communication relay to Emma-O?
It's possible that LoC either won't want to take the prisoners, or will just shoot them once they are out of our sight. B9th of those would be important data points forming our future relationship with LoC. It's also the option as close to "actually follow the law" as functionally possible in this situation. I really want to cultivate Murphy as an asset, and this requires positive relationship with her. At least proposing this should give us brownie points with her.
You're confusing two things. Lesser akuma who have performed the Rite of Renunciation and everyone knows have given the Yama Kings remote admin access to themselves.
Infernalists who have sold part of their soul and haven't performed the Rite of Renunciation. In canon the Yama Kings have no authority over them whatsoever. DP has changed this to give the Yama Kings some control over these infernalists.
These lesser akuma are a new category, people who have sold none of their soul but been conned into performing the Rite of Renunciation anyway. That's given Emma-O authority over them, but authority that's probably much easier to remove as he doesn't 'legitimately' own their souls.
I don't believe they've sold any of their souls. I think they were conned into performing the Rite of Renunciation without that, so they still own their own soul.
If they preformed the Rite of Renunciation they have lost ownership of their soul, KotE The 1000 Hells is quite explicit about this.
KotE The 1000 Hells said:
The Rite of Renunciation (level 3 Rite)
Rarely do Kuei-jin, even akuma, learn this ritual. Most who do learn of it wish they had not, as they are forced to go through its motions by the new owners of their souls. Nevertheless, a few copies of it exist, and it is possible to perform it on oneself, though one must wonder why any Kuei-jin would wish to do so.
During the Rite of Renunciation, the vampire forswears the Road Back and instead accepts the Road Downward. He swears his enmity to the August Personage of Jade, renounces his Dharma tenet by tenet, vows eternal opposition to the Wan Xian and the other representatives of the Celestial Bureaucracy, and gives himself wholly to the Yama Kings. Generally, this rite is performed before the Yama King or one of his representatives, who at the climax physically and spiritually violate the Kuei-jin, tearing away the remaining scraps of enlightenment and free will and replacing it with his own will. As noted earlier in the book, the precise form this spiritual rape takes can vary, but it is invariably calculated to cause the Kuei-jin to realize that his body and soul are no longer his own. A vampire who for some reason performs this ritual on his own may or may not attract the attention of a Yama King, Bane or other spirit. If she does, then at the climax of the ritual, she too is made a soulless slave of the forces of darkness. If not, it's still good for a Moment of Blindness - Heaven frowns on the stupid
Something else to note. There's no such thing as a mook Wan Kuei. They're all people with the protagonist grade Willpower for their P'o to break out of Hell and their Hun to remain intact with the body until it managed, combined with the instinctive facility with Chi to tie the three together and take the Second Breath.
It's like talking about mook Dragonblooded, or a mook Mage/Wizard.
The part of mook in the Wan Kuei ecosystem is filled by bakemono.
Being granted investments is something that can be done remotely. Investments also don't need to be swapped. There's not limit to the number of investments an akuma can have.
I don't believe they've sold any of their souls. I think they were conned into performing the Rite of Renunciation without that, so they still own their own soul.
Also, selling a majority of their souls isn't enough to become a real akuma. They need to sell all of it.
The rules in the book are for elders that are engaged in deals after gathering considerable personal power. These guys are idiots who got plucked right from the grave.
Similarly to how NPC exalts are supposed to take a century or more to hit e5 and PCs/primary characters can do it over months of IC time not all rules are the same for different people. We're talking about a game, not a simulation.
In this particular case I don't see any reason why Emma-O wouldn't take everything in the first trick if he's doing it at all. He got them to sign for the worst bit while they were at their most vulnerable after all, what does he gain by actually paying full price later once they learn more?
Overall, I'm also skeptical of Akuma being no limits monsters as a whole group. There's a limit in time or resources somewhere on the other side, and likely in soul quality beyond the Po rules, otherwise he could have made all these idiots equals to tWoK and fought us that way.
Edit:
They're a vampire species, they have mook members just like the red and black courts do.
We went through these two like they were mortals, and they were counted as so insignificant that they were given the same duties as Bakemono despite the Akuma's ability to make more of those as needed to do the same jobs.
The rules in the book are for elders that are engaged in deals after gathering considerable personal power. These guys are idiots who got plucked right from the grave.
Similarly to how NPC exalts are supposed to take a century or more to hit e5 and PCs/primary characters can do it over months of IC time not all rules are the same for different people. We're talking about a game, not a simulation.
In this particular case I don't see any reason why Emma-O wouldn't take everything in the first trick if he's doing it at all. He got them to sign for the worst bit while they were at their most vulnerable after all, what does he gain by actually paying full price later once they learn more?
Overall, I'm also skeptical of Akuma being no limits monsters as a whole group. There's a limit in time or resources somewhere on the other side, and likely in soul quality beyond the Po rules, otherwise he could have made all these idiots equals to tWoK and fought us that way.
Edit:
They're a vampire species, they have mook members just like the red and black courts do.
We went through these two like they were mortals, and they were counted as so insignificant that they were given the same duties as Bakemono despite the Akuma's ability to make more of those as needed to do the same jobs.
There are limits in what he can do with the material, not just the power of their Po but what their mind can endure. Keep in mind these are not puppets of Emma-O's will that he drives around personally. The relatively young vampires still have to be able to control all that power, comprehend what their senses are telling them etc...
@DragonParadox do we need to specify that we have Clippy take everyone's photo, or can it be assumed that by the end of the encounter we will have photos of everyone that have been present for this event? Both prisoners and allies alike.
@DragonParadox do we need to specify that we have Clippy take everyone's photo, or can it be assumed that by the end of the encounter we will have photos of everyone that have been present for this event? Both prisoners and allies alike.
Prisoners are automatic, allies would be a bit awkward to arrange since you are making a magical focus they could be scryed by and Gard knows you are good at scrying.
Prisoners are automatic, allies would be a bit awkward to arrange since you are making a magical focus they could be scryed by and Gard knows you are good at scrying.
OK, this means that we'll need to ask a question about Odin using rune caster before we part ways. Or collect spent ammunition. Yeah, collecting spent ammunition after mercenaries leave is probably the way to go for crown foci.
LOC will not have means of containment, Dresden Jade vampires almost never leave Asia. I really just see the Yama king just granting them so powers, and the LOC either being subverted entirely, or at least suffering a severe internal purge.
They're a vampire species, they have mook members just like the red and black courts do.
We went through these two like they were mortals, and they were counted as so insignificant that they were given the same duties as Bakemono despite the Akuma's ability to make more of those as needed to do the same jobs.
The Red and White Court have mooks because they're easier to make. You can't just manufacture Wan Kuei. Only exceptional mortals can qualify to become one. They can't just be mass produced like the Red Court can, or become one in hereditary grounds like the White Court and turn out to be a screw up. There're very big hurdles to qualify to become one, and mooks wouldn't get over them. That's what they have bakemono for.
And Molly is a solar tier Exalt. She can probably go through a squad of White Council Wardens like a hot knife through butter. What she can do does not reflect what the Library of Congress can.
Emma-O has deployed the effective Wan Kuei population of a major city in terms of resources here. They're one in a hundred thousand. It's not like the Red Court where you can have nests of dozens of them in a city. Wan Kuei are rarer but individually a lot more significant.
There are limits in what he can do with the material, not just the power of their Po but what their mind can endure. Keep in mind these are not puppets of Emma-O's will that he drives around personally. The relatively young vampires still have to be able to control all that power, comprehend what their senses are telling them etc...
That has a limit too, do it too much and you damage the initial mind's sense of itself and now you have an insane (as in out of touch with reality) vampire on your hands. The Yama King can still give it orders, but since those orders too have to pass through the warped prism of their insanity they end up doing more harm than good to the interests of their masters. That is one of the reasons most akuma are elders, not only are they more skilled and possessed of contacts but also a stronger will. Does not help at all in resisting their patron because the control is absolute, but does help keep the mind in one piece.
LOC will not have means of containment, Dresden Jade vampires almost never leave Asia. I really just see the Yama king just granting them so powers, and the LOC either being subverted entirely, or at least suffering a severe internal purge.
Only assuming they are stupid. If they are not, and, after reading a manual on aiuma containment we provide them, they realize that they can't reliably hold them prisoner, LoC will likely just execute them. In fact, a quick trial followed by execution is mook akuma likely fate anyway.
Mortals have agency, and LoC has existed for several hundred years already. They shouldn't be incompetent. Malicious, possibly, but not incompetent.
That's got to be a fun dose of creeping dread, or at least as close to it as a literal Valkyrie gets.
She's familiar with scrying, but Molly's downright absurd at information gathering. Trying to map that to traditional thaumaturgy gives some pretty nasty implications. That's not how it works, but it's not like she knows that.
Things that it's dangerous to leave around for a mage to play with:
1) Blood
2) Hair
3) Truly treasured possessions
Things it's dangerous to leave around for Molly to play with:
1) Pictures, or particularly good drawings, of
your body
2) Rooms you've been in
3) Consumables like bullet casings
LOC will not have means of containment, Dresden Jade vampires almost never leave Asia. I really just see the Yama king just granting them so powers, and the LOC either being subverted entirely, or at least suffering a severe internal purge.
The LoC shouldn't be that easy to subvert or something else would own it by now and the Akuma would be playing against a peer power instead of mortals.
It's possible, but default assuming two baby Akuma can get loaded for bear and go through any opposition they like purely because the people involved are mortals is overestimating them.
The Red and White Court have mooks because they're easier to make. You can't just manufacture Wan Kuei. Only exceptional mortals can qualify to become one. They can't just be mass produced like the Red Court can, or become one in hereditary grounds. There're very big hurdles to qualify to become one, and mooks wouldn't get over them. That's what they have bakemono for.
And Molly is a solar tier Exalt. She can probably go through a squad of White Council Wardens like a hot knife through butter. What she can do does not reflect what the Library of Congress can.
Emma-O has deployed the effective Wan Kuei population of a major city in terms of resources here. They're one in a hundred thousand.
I think this entire arc so far has shown you repeatedly overestimating them. Not that they aren't dangerous, but they aren't that outsized for the setting as implemented here.
If Emma-O could just take these guys and twist them into super monsters after the ink was dry he'd already be doing that and the setting would look very different.
Since the Akuma don't run the world, and in fact Divisamir was confident that it was a good idea to fight this many Akuma at once, implies there are actually reasonable limits here.
One in a hundred thousand isn't that impressively rare. I can buy that it takes a spark of something to become one of these in the first place, assuming the Yama kings don't cheat and let them go specifically to catch them in the mortal world, but they start as wild animals nearly any competent supernatural can kill. They aren't instant badasses out to take on the world and that's when these guys got grabbed.
you know theres at least a chance that the library of congress knows about demonreach. Given I wouldn't say its likely more likely there have been members in its history that have known about it and that stuff is both forgotten and kept secret over the years.
Edit: Same way there's probably a deal made with odin by the organization even if its a century or so old and lost in some cabinet somewhere.
The LoC shouldn't be that easy to subvert or something else would own it by now and the Akuma would be playing against a peer power instead of mortals.
While this is true Molly also has a demon grafted to her soul and she just ate a soul. Choosing to just kill them (or rather suggest that) is within the range of acceptable write ins. If you take it like all other decisions it will come with its own consequences for future characterization.
1)The soul in the Dresdenverse, and in canon Kindred, are somewhat different.
Here, it regenerates, and can be/is used as a fuel source for magic. So the its nowhere as
Whatever our spiritkiller does, its not a soul eater, because it works on entities that by Dresden lore dont have a soul.
How that squares with the mechanics of akuma creation, I have no idea
2)It shouldnt. Not for Molly Carpenter as characterized.
Not for someone with <Michael Carpenter Love/Admiration> and <Harry Dresden Crush/Hero Worship>. If she did this, its the kind of character-defining event that should see character sheet changes with regards to things like Mentor, as well as significant reputational consequences. Even attempting to and getting stopped should have consequences for our relatioships.
If we followed this to the logical conclusion where I think it should lead, we will be playing a radically different tone of game.
Especially as Molly is the person who pointed out that these were vampires she knows were recruited as akuma under false pretences soon after their Second Breath.
Honestly, @uju32@Yog I don't suppose you guys can propose something that does not involve just letting them go?
I am not too enthused with just outright killing them but letting them go without so much as a slap on the wrist is not something I can accept. It is probably the same with some of the other people voting to destroy them.
In all honesty, I think a compromise vote would do wonders here.
I honestly cant see it.
If we had a Hell, we'd just toss them into jail without a qualm until whenever we could do something with them. But thats the easy solution. If we had killed them mid-combat I would have much less of an issue.
But there is literally no case in which I can see a Molly Carpenter who had the forbearance to go for disabling these people in combat when she could have killed them without anyone objecting, then come back to murder them in cold blood in front of her crush and her father and her allies.
And no situation in which Michael would let her do it without objecting, any more than he would let Harry do it.
And after sleeping on it, I find the arguments about our responsibility for their future actions pretty specious.
If we followed that principle, we would be obliged to kill everyone we fought or we'd be responsible for their future actions.
And a lot of people who we havent fought.
And critically, Molly would find it specious as well. Because its worth remembering that for Molly, all that stuff in church is real.
She has reason to know that the White God is real. That there are angels, and a capital H Hell. That there was a Jesus.
Those arent empty platitudes to be mouthed in church about mercy and morals and chances.
When she says"Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us" it cuts different than it did five months ago.
And thats the issue: we're not playing an OC, we're playing Molly Carpenter.
She's not a blank sheet to impose our wishes and desires, she has preexisting characterization to keep in mind.
Characterization that was just evidenced by the fact that she delimbed these guys instead of beheading them.
Ok, that works, actually. It should even placate Murphy. Library is the closest to a legal authority we have to hold them, and the best chance to a fair trial under anything approaching U.S.A. law they have. Would Gard and her guys be up to guarding them until the capture team arrives? Would that be within the boundaries of our deal with them? I am guessing it's less than one day.
[X] [AKUMA] Reattach their limbs and propose handing them over to the Library of Congress
-[X] Have Harry whip up some containment circles to hold them in place, and get Monoc security to guard the circles
--[X] Using occult excellency and working together with Gard and the rune caster help Harry make a better circle
-[X] Provide the Library with a short booklet explaining the dangers of akuma and how they can be contained
Two words: Obligation Discipline.
Specifically Obligation 3, even though Obligation 1 and 2 are potent in their own right, and free to use.
1 · Evaluate ·
The successful magistrate must first learn to look into the souls of his charges. The power of Evaluate allows a Kuei-jin to gauge the state of a target's Hun. By using this power, the vampire can discover a great deal of information, which can be used to gain an advantage over the target.
System: The Kuei-jin spends a turn in concentration, then rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty of the subject's Willpower). A botch on the Perception + Empathy roll indicates that the Cathayan misreads the soul or becomes too emphatically attached to the person (perhaps mistaking the target for a closely linked soul from another life).
1 success Cathayan gains a basic understanding of the target — general personality, surface likes/dislikes, etc. Some information may be cryptic or false
2 successes Cathayan gains a deeper understanding of target — true name, some history, Demeanor
3 successes Cathayan gains insight into the deeper areas of the subject's soul — repressed memories, hidden dislikes/hatreds, etc.
4+ successes Cathayan gains complete understanding of target, including Nature, Willpower score, Humanity/Path/Dharma type and rating, and whatever other info the Storyteller deems appropriate.
2 · Soul Bridge ·
Gradually extending her mastery of the Hun, the vampire is able to establish a psychic link between her soul and another. Through this channel, the vampire can use her own Hun to influence the workings of a lesser soul.
System: The vampire must face her subject, then roll Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty 6 for mortals, 7 for shen). This power doesn't work on Kuei-jin with higher Hun scores. If the vampire succeeds, she may perform one of the following:
- Add one die per success to her next Social roll against the target (a vampire who scored three successes can add three dice to her next Social roll).
- View one of the target's surface thoughts (chosen by the Storyteller) per success. Thoughts viewed typically appear in pictorial form, like paintings.
- Make a Hun roll (difficulty 6) to silently transmit simply empathic urges to the target. Thus, a vampire could fill a victim with fear, joy, sorrow, or similar emotions. A Kuei-jin victim may resist with Hun. If the wielder succeeds/winds, the emotion is strong enough that the victim is forced to act on it.
3 · Authority ·
The Cathayans once held a mandate over mortals. Although Heaven seems to have annulled this mandate, the Kuei-jin haven't forgotten it. With this power, the Kuei-jin displays the strength of his Hun by using it to awe and overwhelm other souls. Souls thus subordinated are quick to obey the Cathayan's commands, as if he were an emperor of old.
System: The vampire spends a temporary Willpower Point, then rolls Hun + Etiquette against a variable difficulty. If using this power against a mortal, ghoul, or similar creature, the difficulty is only 5. if using Authority against a shen (Kindred, hengeyokai, etc.), the difficulty is 8. Kuei-jin can't use the power against other Kuei-jin who have higher Hun or Dharma scores. The same roll is used to determine the power's effect against all creatures in the vicinity. If the roll succeeds, the Kuei-jin is imbued with Authority, which affects all present at the time of the power's manifestation. While under the mantle of Authority, the vampire's Charisma and Manipulation scores increase by three points with regard to affected creatures. These creatures also find themselves unable to lie to the vampire. In the eyes of affected individuals, the vampire is a person of rank and importance; victims obey him with little thought as to why. Most mortals don't even realize that the vampire's authority is supernatural, although wise ancients might suspect, and shen certainly know. The vampire may give commands and expect to have them obeyed. To give a command, the vampire faces the person(s) to be commanded (who must be affected by the Authority already established), then vocally gives them an order. The victim must be able to understand the vampire. The vampire rolls Hun against a difficulty based on the chart below. The mantle of Authority lasts for a scene.
Difficulty /Successes Needed/ Type of Order
5 /one/ Cease action, don't act, do nothing
6 /one/ Simple order, or one the victim knows is the "correct" thing to do
8 /one/ Complex order, order to do something "out of character"
8 /two/ Potentially life-threatening, violation of the victim's honor/principles
9 /two/ Self-destructive
As written, the Unfolding Scarlet Lotus Investment can be patched in essentially overnight.
Giving Emma-O access to elements of the United States national security apparatus is one way we could turn this operation from a net loss to a major success for him.
I think technically Alratan is right.
The special investments for Greater Akuma can be very involved, but the lesser ones that Akuma get for their soul-commerce can be done in dreams, I believe?
Yes. Deals can be, and often are, conducted in dreams, and Infernal Investments remotely installed and removed.
Furthermore, lesser akuma can be patched remotely with Investments; there's presumably a mechanical limit, but there's nothing actually mentioned.
And given as Emma-O has his stamp on them and their souls/magic organs in his treasury, I have significant doubts about our current ability to stop him upgrading them in detention.
If Emma-O finds it worth his while to grant any of these lesser akuma multiple dots of Hellweaving or Obligation remotely in order to make them better at setting hooks in the Library's personnel, he can do it.
You do NOT want an akuma with Obligation 3 anywhere near the US govt.
Being granted investments is something that can be done remotely. Investments also don't need to be swapped. There's not limit to the number of investments an akuma can have.
^^^
If we dont trust the Library of Congress enough to talk with them, let alone giving them a copy of the Book of Yomi-Wan, putting a lesser akuma in their hands is as irresponsible as putting a naked hard radiation source in the hands of a high school science department.
[X] [AFTERMATH] You have a suggestion: Write in:
-[X] Let J come up with some simple story, don't even try to explain the corpse. He was out of town, everything else is the kind of weirdness that nobody really wants to investigate.
-[X] Offer, but do not suggest, to make the body disappear without trace, if it existing is an issue for Murphy or Butters
One thing to keep in mind about obligation (and really all social combat enhancers) is that it requires the vampire to be able to socially interact with the person they are trying to sway. In a controlled environment using a combination of recordings, hidden cameras and decoy interlocutors one can effectively 'will-tap' a prisoner, though of course it would not be entirely without risk depending on how much experience the person doing the interrogation has.
Especially as Molly is the person who pointed out that these were vampires she knows were recruited as akuma under false pretences soon after their Second Breath.
This keeps getting brought up, and while tragic I don't see how it changes things.
They will commit more of the same crimes they were part of now later. It isn't a question because they don't have a choice.
As I see it justice should have an element of compassion, but it owes it to present and future victims as much as it does to the criminal themselves.
Not assuming, but knowing recidivism is inevitable we have some sort of obligation here. Letting them go is enabling the crimes Emma-O will commit with them.
Which leaves us with three options; reform them ourselves, kill them outright, or pass them to the closest thing to legitimate authorities we're aware of.
The first might not even be possible and the second is unpalatable. The third seems like the best route we have.
You keep leaning on intimacies here, but Molly isn't the same as her role models and she has one with her mother too in any case. There isn't a contradiction in her character to draw a different conclusion here from two of the three major adult figures in her life.
One helicopter does not control of the entire government make. You guys might want to look back to the agents of the Library you actually met in the quest as well. Molly is not working entirely blind from an IC perspective here.
If Emma-O could just take these guys and twist them into super monsters after the ink was dry he'd already be doing that and the setting would look very different.
Since the Akuma don't run the world, and in fact Divisamir was confident that it was a good idea to fight this many Akuma at once, implies there are actually reasonable limits here.
Point of order:
Its worth remembering that the Yama Kings, most of them, are themselves paranoid. Even about their lessers.
Very few of them invest power in their servitors that they dont think said servitor wont need immediately, even if they can sustain it, and its canon that they do remove powers they have granted to akuma, both as a whim, incentive and punishment.
I dont know
Devsimar was willing to fight this many akuma in daylight, with a Knight of the Cross and what can only be described in Shih terms as an archdevil backing him up.
I suspect he'd have been less willing if
This keeps getting brought up, and while tragic I don't see how it changes things.
They will commit more of the same crimes they were part of now later. It isn't a question because they don't have a choice.
As I see it justice should have an element of compassion, but it owes it to present and future victims as much as it does to the criminal themselves.
Not assuming, but knowing recidivism is inevitable we have some sort of obligation here. Letting them go is enabling the crimes Emma-O will commit with them. Which leaves us with three options; reform them ourselves, kill them outright, or pass them to the closest thing to legitimate authorities we're aware of.
The first might not even be possible and the second is unpalatable. The third seems like the best route we have.
You keep leaning on intimacies here, but Molly isn't the same as her role models and she has one with her mother too in any case. There isn't a contradiction in her character to draw a different conclusion here from two of the three major adult figures in her life.
1)Its very much a question because Molly made it clear that they can claw back a measure of free will.
2)This is not true. We know recidivism is not inevitable in this setting.
Even in the Dresdenverse, mortals get the opportunity to reject Fallen Angels. And we explicitly know that in Kakuri in this setting, Jizo-Bosatsu is roaming and freeing lesser akuma and similar souls who run into him and accept his offer.
I would not be surprised if something similar exists in other Hells as well, with the Yama Kings doing their best to keep them secret from each other.
3)I lean on Intimacies because they matter.
It represents a major change for Molly to go from not swearing in front of her father to killing prisoners in cold blood in front of him.
And it would be significantly out of character for either Harry or Michael to let her.
Its worth remembering that the Yama Kings, most of them, are themselves paranoid. Even about their lessers.
Very few of them invest power in their servitors that they dont think said servitor wont need immediately, even if they can sustain it, and its canon that they do remove powers they have granted to akuma, both as a whim, incentive and punishment.
That alone isn't enough, it's too much lost utility.
I'm not saying he can't upgrade them or that they aren't dangerous as a group, but clearly there are other reasonable restrictions here because they their behavior doesn't make sense if such restrictions don't exist.
No it isn't. Her line about clawing back free will was very specific in that it's within the clauses of the oath they swore.
Eiko is an experienced elder playing this game, and her best play is leaning in real hard on the best interests clause of her orders. Something that still obligates her to fill her other duties while she plays her game.
Absent very limited outside intervention they will continue following orders because their time to choose has passed and they're on to the consequences part of the process.
3)I lean on Intimacies because they matter.
It represents a major change for Molly to go from not swearing in front of her father to killing prisoners in cold blood in front of him.
And it would be significantly out of character for either Harry or Michael to let her.
Intimacies matter, but they aren't mental transplants. You learn from your role models, and sometimes what you take away is that you think they're wrong.
Note that the other option isn't just killing them, it's trying to get them to legitimate authorities first. It's just that I'd take killing them over letting them go and I think Molly has the experience and divergent views via her connection to her mother and own experiences to reasonably make that choice.
You might disagree that it's a good idea, but I don't buy the idea that it's irreconcilable with Molly as a person at this juncture.
As to Harry and Micheal's responses; Harry had to be stopped several times from doing something like this, so I don't think he's likely to strongly object. Micheal might, but then we can have this conversation with him and work it out in character.
