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In Pursuit of Virtue

Arc 0- Tutorial
(Jason Wells)
[Preparation]
​
You tap your phone, forcing the screen to turn off and the phone to lock itself before you shove it back in the pocket of your pants.

For a long moment, you stand there, staring at the counter of the kitchen. It doesn't take long for your hands to start shaking; you lift them to the hard stone and begin drumming them over it, biting your lip to stop an annoyed noise escaping you.

It doesn't help. Anxiety roils, deep in your stomach, churning and frothing until it's all you can do to stop the nausea escaping through your throat.

A frustrated sigh escapes you, the sound loud enough to cut through the tentative silence of the apartment. In a single movement, you jerk yourself upright and push yourself towards the kettle, where you clumsily begin making yourself a cup of coffee with trembling fingers.

The problem, you think, is that you just don't have enough resources any more. In Venice, you'd had everything at your beck and call; the police, the gangs... You'd had millions, hundreds of millions at your disposal.

You smirk ruefully. You'd formed some very bad habits in Venice; it never did anyone good to become too accustomed to having things at their fingertips. That was how you'd been ousted from your position as the Wells representative there, after all. You'd become too trusting, had just accepted Joan's presence.

That didn't exactly help you now, though.

"Phase," you call. A moment later, he walks through the kitchen wall. You can see his raised eyebrow even though his body is translucent like this. "We..." You trail off hesitantly.

Whatever was happening with Salone was niggling at you. He was probably only refusing the meeting to hide from you, but...
​
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Here in Milton, your resources are much more limited than they had been in Venice and Paris. There, you'd had access to the Wells family resources (or whatever your father had deemed fit for you to use, at least), alongside what you'd been able to gather from the populace and your activities, both legal and illegal. With that amount of funds at your disposal, with the ability to buy metahumans with a huge variety of abilities for a negligible amount compared to your fortune, it had been trivial to secure yourself an empire.

Here, you were operating entirely on your personal funds, the money you had secretly squirreled away in case of a situation exactly like this. While you weren't exactly poor- hell, you could have lived extremely comfortably for the rest of your life on that kind of money- it was only a drop in the bucket compared to what you needed.

With that money, you had managed to secure yourself some territory, at least. Salone and Kapur, both staunch traditionalists, hadn't raised too much fuss when you had set yourself up right next to them; it's why you'd chosen to set up here, in defunct docks serving as the city's slums, rather than anywhere downtown. Trading in the potential for larger profits for more protection from the scrutiny of local heroes, as it were.

Your money had extended to hiring several local gangs- after weeding out the undesirables, of course. Those too addicted, those too strong-willed, those unlikely to follow you in had all been "politely requested" to take their families and move elsewhere.

For the most part, that'd worked fine. Freddy's group were out, hounding businesses for their "protection" money; you had Richard following them in case any wannabe heroes turned up. You'd deliberately kept everything low-key enough that no heroes of any actual worth should turn up this early in the game.

Thomas and Ellen- you think those were their names, at least, you had trouble recalling- were responsible for the local drug sales, too. There would be no point in dragging them off their duties, though; while each had a couple of bodyguards, they were really worth a lot more to you selling their products than giving you a bit of extra muscle.

No, if you wanted extra muscle, you'd do better to contact Henry- one of the only metahumans you had managed to hire, alongside Drake and Richard. Henry was powerful, if liable to lose control when provoked. Classified as a Tier 4 metahuman, Henry would be an even more powerful asset than Phase if the meeting went south- but, uncontrolled, he was as likely to turn on you in his rage as he was to turn on whoever attacked you.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

[] Your moment of hesitation stretches on as you considered. Do you want to reassign anyone to provide you with additional protection during the upcoming meeting?
[] Reassign Freddy's group. Big men, very muscly; pretty good with guns, too. If you reassigned them, you'd probably take a hit to your profits for the next couple of days, and you ran the risk of having them die if things went really south; but to be quite honest, you place significantly more value on your own life than on theirs.
[] Reassign Richard. While only a Tier 2 metahuman, Richard was nonetheless a powerful asset. Quite cheap, too. His ability to cover himself in jagged rock made him handy to have in any fight; the added weight of his stone body (and strength that came with the use of it) was good enough alone, but paired with its additional durability, made for a great asset in the field. Of course, if you reassigned him and a wannabe hero came along that exact day, you'd look pretty foolish.
[] Reassign Thomas and Ellen's bodyguards. This would carry the potential to bite you in the ass, if any of their customers turned violent on them, and you'd potentially lose a lot of money if they were mugged or murdered and anyone stole the drugs they had on them- but, as always, you placed significantly more value on your life than on theirs. It would be far more difficult to recoup your profits if you were dead, after all.
[] Hire Henry to come guard you during the meeting. Henry is a Tier 4 metahuman- someone classified as powerful (very powerful), but liable to lose control or otherwise cause extensive collateral damage if not used correctly. Phase could probably keep him in line, although you'd feel better if you had someone else alongside him, too. Unless you were attacked by the Red Fang, though, Henry could probably keep them occupied for long enough for you to flee- it'd be expensive, but bringing him along would almost guarantee your successful escape from any... problems.
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Much as gathering and maintaining information is a huge part of your job, so is resource allocation. Unless you play particularly well, you'll likely find yourself overextended quite often. You'll be forced to minimize the impact this will have on your performance, reallocating resources to the places they're needed most and accumulating damages as you go.

Jason here lacks three key resources; territory, money, and manpower. This is causing him issues, because he needs additional manpower to secure his own safety at the upcoming meeting. However, if he reallocates his resources towards securing his own safety, he is going to lose himself money in both the short and long term- and he runs the risk of losing a significant portion of that manpower, too, which will cause him issues until he is able to replace it. Additionally, he also runs the risk of superheroes invading his territory; if they do so, he will be forced to abandon parts of it to avoid scrutiny that may reveal him to the local authorities. Reallocating other portions of his resources may cause him to lose territory, which will make gaining future money and manpower even harder.

As such, you will need to weigh up the risks and rewards to be found; do you want to reallocate manpower? If so, how much of it do you wish to reallocate? The more you do, after all, the more problems you cause for yourself in the future.

Oh, and- as I did not indicate differently in the update itself, you can choose multiple options here. You could even choose them all, if you wish, although I would advise against it.​
 
[x] Hire Henry

To be honest, its the only palatable option. Money is replaceable, our lives are not. That and well, making a statement, so to speak, that we have significant reserves/power even if we don't, could be a helpful advantage.
 
Henry's explicitly noted to be difficult to control though. He's probably more like the Hulk than, say, the Thing.

Hm, not sure what option to pick here, the safest is probably Henry + Richard, but in that case, there's a bit of a 'why bother hiring Henry'.

Wait, this is the tutorial, right? We don't need to be stressing out about this too much.

[x] Hire Henry
 
[x] Hire Henry

Edit: I would argue why I am in favor for this. But I'm a bit busy.
 
Take everybody. You may not survive this night.
 
Last edited:
Alright.

I'll be closing votes in about an hour. Again, the update will be up either just before or just after I get up, depending on if I manage to get it done.

Now's a good time for any arguments, etc.
 
Arc 0- Tutorial
(Jason Wells)
[Stationary]​


You shake your head briefly, the motion helping to clear your head of the thoughts that had begun to crowd you out.

"Call Henry," you decide. At Phase's offended look, you tack on, "Not that I don't trust your skills. Hiring Henry is a statement."

He gives you a long-suffering look, which you roll your eyes at. Without waiting to see if he actually calls the other metahuman, you turn back and retrieve your cup of coffee. It's far too bitter and far too hot, exactly as you like it.

Only two hours to wait. Ordinarily, you might attempt to busy yourself within your business, but not today.

The book you had only half-finished reading- American Gods- is still sitting on the arm of your couch. Perfect; there are few better ways to calm one's nerves than with a good book.
​
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​
2 Hours Later
​
Henry's intimidating bulk makes the car seem smaller than it actually is. No mean feat, considering you had bought the car thanks to its small stature; Henry, standing over six feet tall, is hardly short enough to fit within it, even crouched down so far that his head rests against the seat in front of him.

Thankfully, he is silent through the drive. In fact, if he weren't so tall, you might even have forgotten he was there. You only wish you could say the same for Phase, who was cheerfully sitting in the front of the car, singing along to the radio.

Phase has perhaps the most obnoxious singing voice you have ever heard.

You are massaging your temples, trying to relieve a growing headache, when your car pulls up in front of a nondescript restaurant; Barcaglia & Sons, it proclaims, the letters tall and obnoxiously red. Almost as soon as Phase shuts off the car's engine, you are undoing your seatbelt and climbing out of the car, heedless of the traffic around you. He eyes you as he climbs out of the driver's seat, but doesn't comment.

"Alright," you mutter. "Henry, Phase, you ready?" At their affirmative nods, you step forwards and push the restaurant's door open.

Inside, a waiter meets you- "Names?" "Wells and associates-" "Ah! Ah! Your reservations are ready, right this way, sir!"- and leads you through the building, through a thick oak door to a large room, likely reserved for parties and business meetings. Two long tables fill the room, one tucked carefully against the far wall to make room for everyone to sit comfortably at the remaining table. The room is pleasant, the carpeting gentle beneath your shoes, the lighting soft and pleasantly dull.

The table is scarcely occupied, but you know nobody else will be coming. Nearly everyone is here. Kapur, the foreigner from India, heavily involved in the drug trades; Jasmine, your fellow new arrival, implicated and involved in blackmail, corporate espionage, and smuggling; Terrence, a new face in town, involved in... something, you're sure; Albrecht, the old German, with his fingers in every pie; even Naomi, as fresh-faced as she is, scarcely involved in anything beyond fudging the books in her brothels.

Each of them brought bodyguards, although you are pleased to note the tightened expressions on Kapur and Naomi's faces as they spot your own. As far as you can tell, none of their bodyguards are metahumans; they are dressed in body armour, carrying weaponry you don't recognize- technopath weaponry. If it came down to a confrontation, you are fairly sure you would win.

The problem was deciding where to sit.

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[] Where are you going to sit?
[] Sit near Kapur. A staunch traditionalist, much like Salone, Kapur is generally considered to be a non-entity. He sticks to the usual; cannabis, marijuanas, occasionally heavier drugs, none of the newer fabrications that had flooded the market with the advent of technopaths. He could make a good ally, with lots of money under his belt, but if things went sour with him... well, it was never good to make enemies with someone with more money than you, especially when their territory bordered and mixed with yours.
[] Sit with Jasmine. You have an inroad with her, at the least; both of you are new, both of you are uncertain of your positions here. Make a show of solidarity here, and you would be well on your way to the beginnings of making an alliance with her.
[] Sit with Terrence. The only unknown factor here, you don't know who invited him, or why. Perhaps tacitly showing your support of him by sitting near him may provide you with a foot in the door when it comes time to make alliances; or, at the least, you may learn something about him here.
[] Sit with Albrecht. Albrecht is the most secure person here, the most well-acknowledged; he had been around for longer than even Kapur, and had learned more tricks of the trade than any other in the city. He had the most money, the most territory, the most people, the most judges and police in his pockets; making an inroad- any inroad- with him would be worth the price of offending the others.
[] Sit with Naomi. She is the least advantageous of all your potential allies, but in turn, the most... palatable. Her workers were clean, well-fed, well-maintained; her line of work was illegal, but neither of you did, could, would consider it immoral. Offering your support would be a good way to make not just an ally, but a friend... and a potential revenue source, too.

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Ordinarily, I won't be so blatant with your political choices. Choosing who to sit next to is extraordinarily unsubtle as far as politicking goes, and I do so hate to be unsubtle.

Nonetheless, as you necessarily know next to nothing about these people and there are only two updates left in the tutorial, I am not going to try to force you to tease meaning out of a scarce few hundred words. In future, however, I likely won't provide you with a set of checkboxes for use in politicking; you'll have to determine who and what may be best from the information you glean from my writing.​
 
[X] Sit with Naomi. She is the least advantageous of all your potential allies, but in turn, the most... palatable. Her workers were clean, well-fed, well-maintained; her line of work was illegal, but neither of you did, could, would consider it immoral. Offering your support would be a good way to make not just an ally, but a friend... and a potential revenue source, too.

Brothels attract all sorts of people, many of them don't know how to keep their tongues in check.
 
[X] Sit with Naomi. She is the least advantageous of all your potential allies, but in turn, the most... palatable. Her workers were clean, well-fed, well-maintained; her line of work was illegal, but neither of you did, could, would consider it immoral. Offering your support would be a good way to make not just an ally, but a friend... and a potential revenue source, too.

I agree with the previous line of reasoning. Brothels make for possibly good intel through the fine art of pillow talk.
 
[X] Sit with Naomi. She is the least advantageous of all your potential allies, but in turn, the most... palatable. Her workers were clean, well-fed, well-maintained; her line of work was illegal, but neither of you did, could, would consider it immoral. Offering your support would be a good way to make not just an ally, but a friend... and a potential revenue source, too.
 
Arc 0- Tutorial
(Jason Wells)
[Cautionary]​

Naomi flashes you a brief thankful smile as you move and sit in the chair beside her. Behind you, Phase and Henry arrange themselves nonchalantly against a wall, eyes raking over the bodyguards surrounding them in the room.

A moment passes in which nobody speaks, before Naomi inches her chair closer to yours and leans closer. "So," she says quietly, "Do you have any idea what this is all about?"

You tilt your head for a moment, considering the question, before shrugging. "I'm not sure, but it's got to be something big." You gesture at Albrecht and Kapur, who are glaring daggers at each other over the table. "I mean, whatever got them to call this meeting, it was bad enough to get those two to set aside their differences."

She hummed in thought. "Right," she says eventually. "And they didn't-"

The sound of a door opening quietly cuts her off. You swivel, turning to look at the two men entering the room- one dressed in the same uniform as the waiters outside, a simple black-and-white affair of fine pants and button-up shirts, and the other in a formal suit, shirt wrinkled but otherwise pristine.

Marcus. The closest thing you all had to a leader- well, the closest thing any town's organized crime rings could have to a leader, given the chaotic and disorganized nature of competing criminals. Most counties just couldn't pull it off; someone might establish themselves for a month or two, some had even made it for a year or more, but sooner or later heroes always busted down the doors.

Most people weren't metahumans, like Marcus was. Combinations like that were rare.

You try not to look directly at him as he circles the table, stopping at the chair reserved for him- an empty chair at the very head of the table. Two seats to his right sits Albercht; the only person stupid enough to sit that close to him, the only person who had earned the right. For now.

"First of all," Marcus' voice booms across the room, a pleasant and melodic tone. "I'd like to thank all of you for setting aside your grudges to attend this meeting." He eyes each of you in turn. You meet his eyes evenly as he looks at you; his lips turn up in a brief smirk, or perhaps a sneer. "Before we begin our discussion, the handsome Frederic here is waiting to take our orders."

You briefly scan the menu. It doesn't have the broadest collection of foods; to be expected, you supposed- the store would make for a poor front if it frequented too much high-class business.

It only takes a few minutes for the waiter to walk around the table, collecting the orders of those of you at the table. He pointedly ignores the bodyguards, who in turn watch him warily, hands straying towards coat jackets. Only Phase is unprofessional enough to quirk an eyebrow when Frederic ignores him, mouthing 'What crawled up his ass?' at you. You roll your eyes and turn back to Frederic, ordering a simple broad bean salad.

Moments later, the waiter is bowing and turning to take his leave. Marcus waits for the door to close behind him, then gestures. You're confused for a brief moment, until one of Jasmine's bodyguards steps forward, pulling a folder from the inside of his coat and handing it to the metahuman.

Your blood freezes for a moment as the bodyguard returns to his position behind Jasmine, eyes fixed on the wall opposite him. Jasmine's face has paled; she recognizes the implicit threat.

"Very good," he murmurs, opening the folders and glancing at them. "I've called you all here today because of this woman." He snaps the folder closed and tosses it on the table. You all grab for it, but Naomi is the quickest. She opens it, then hesitates briefly and pushes it to the side, allowing you to see it.

There are close to a dozen pages inside. Your hands twitch, itching to reach over and grab the folder- but no. That would be an excellent way to ruin whatever fledgling alliance was building here.

"Who?" Albrecht's voice is dry, but there's a strong undertone of annoyance in it. Marcus glares at him, but it lacks any real heat.

"Darcy King." He waits for a moment, then raises his eyebrow as if mocking you all for not already knowing who this woman is. "The new leader of the M.H.M.A. She's due to arrive in two days."

"Fuck," you blurt out. A blush creeps up your face as everyone turns to look at you with varying degrees of condescending amusement on their faces. "What happened to Stilson?" You look over at Naomi and gesture emphatically at the folder. She frowns, but pushes it over to you;

Albrecht sits up and speaks up before Marcus can, this time. "She's been in deep shit for a while now," he says calmly. "We all knew it- well, we knew it." He gestures between himself and Marcus, who allows it as a smile steals over his face. "We had an arrangement with her, we don't step over her lines, she didn't step over ours. Guess it made her look bad."

"Not how it happened," Marcus says cheerily. Albrecht shoots him an annoyed glare, but sits back down and crosses his arms sulkily; you continue to flip through the folder, a growing frown on your face. "Not stopping us did make her look bad, but that wouldn't have been enough to get her fired, especially not after I have her Ulfric. Nah, she was sent off to some shitty little town in Texas. Reckons her boss got suspicious. Couldn't prove it, of course, but here we are. Got her a pay cut, a cushy job in the ass end of nowhere, and us a new pain in our asses."

-----------------------------------------------------

Bitch's tricky to track. You owe me extra for this one.

Couldn't dig up much on her. Not much to dig up on her, as far as I can tell; girl's boring as hell. Fuck, even her bookcase is boring, full of old Sherlock Holmes books and shitty cookbooks and stuff. Not a single fun thing to do in her entire house. No wonder the MHMA hired her, I reckon.

Girl grew up in a shitty old house, three older brothers, two younger brothers, so poor she could barely afford clothes, blah blah blah, typical bullshit white trash sob-story childhood, Daddy ran away from home when she turned four, Mama offed herself when she was fifteen. Raised her younger brothers by herself for a while, didn't go too well, one of them's still in prison for beating up on an old homeless dude. Dunno, man; case was sick, didn't look into it very hard. Kid was vicious. Other's working some dead-end job with the Chicago council, builds roads for a living, haha. Poor shits.

Older brothers're doing better for themselves, I reckon. One's got himself a cushy job as an EMT; managed to worm some stuff outta him after I cut myself up with a knife, spun some bullshit about how life's so hard after my ma downed a bottle of painkillers. Kid fell for it so hard, I was almost embarassed for him. Apparently he managed to get a scholarship, went to college and everything. Other two didn't do so well, but at least finished high school. One's working at some camping store, sells tents and shit, was boring as fuck. Other's got a job driving buses, apparently has a girlfriend and a kid on the way. None of the three of 'em keep in touch with the bitch, so I didn't dig too much, not much point, you know?

Girl barely scraped by in high school. Dug up her records, apparently passed two of her classes on a technicality, some bullshit about stresses affecting her grades, had to re-sit some test on mythology and calculus, shit, how fucked is that? Who the fuck has to resit an exam on mythology? Just make up some shit about Zeus knockin' someone up, fuck, it's not hard, everyone knows he was doing it with fucking anything that moved. Jesus. Wish I coulda managed to bullshit 'em like she did, man, woulda been so easy to pass then.

Didn't get a job with the cops right away, either. Nah, man, she fell down hard for a while there. No job for like four years, lived on social security, lit up like every other night until kid brother went and did his thing. Jesus, what a wakeup call, getting a call from the cops when you're high as a fucking kite, hey miss, your little bro straight-up killed a dude, you dig? Scare anyone straight, I reckon. Got called in to the station, dug up some old files, apparently got sat down in the cells for a couple days when the cops noticed the reek of weed and weak-ass wine. When she got out, it musta clicked, right? She went straight on over to the police academy and signed up.

Took a couple years from there, but yeah. Ended up in traffic, hahaha, wish I could've seen her face, woulda been great. Worked there for like two years, handing out tickets and shit, before she moved on to the Narcs. Went undercover for a while, was pretty hard to get hold of those records, lemme tell ya. Apparently did pretty good, too, managed to royally piss off some of the boys there, made some pretty big arrests- heard of Julien? Yeah, that was all her, got all medals for it and shit. Managed to steal 'em and pawn 'em off, hehehe.

Apparently she was angling for a position in homicide, but yeah. Chicago Riots. That shit was fucked up, jesus. Apparently, this lil bitch was right out there in the thick of it, trying to talk down the mobs old Padrone had mind-whammied into doing what he wanted.

Pretty funny, actually. You know, it wasn't one of the mobs that got her, wasn't even Padrone, fuck, wasn't even one of the gangers that had mad hateboners for her, right? Was actually Star. Yeah, Star- the big old hero of the Chicago Riots, managed to pull off like a thousand different rescues over the night? Yeah. He didn't even watch where he was going- just, bam, straight through one of them big old signs over a service station. Trying to save a little kid, apparently. Musta felt like shit when he realized what he did, but too late. Girl was straight-up wrecked. Sign hit a car, only thing that saved her from dyin' right away. Side of the sign fell over, right all over the side of her body, right? Completely crushes her arm, only doesn't ruin her leg 'coz the got the bottom of it. Star tried to save her when he realized, but only made it worse, haha. Sign completely fell apart when he touched it, piece fell right on her head, little sharp piece stabbed her right in the eye.

She was in hospital for like a year after that. Nine, ten months? Pretty much a year. Got one of them new bio-tech arms, the real cheap models. Guess Star didn't feel that bad for her if he didn't even fork over the money for a full cyber arm, hehehe. Lost her eye in the fight, leg is still wrecked; checked her apartment a few times, she's on some pretty heavy painkillers, has a bunch of canes stored around. And guns. A lot of guns. Seriously, bitch's paranoid.

Not much else to say, really. Dunno why the fuck they'd pick her out, of all people. Got outta hospital, stayed in her room for like a month, then musta got a job offer, bam, right down there with her wrecked arm and everything, workin' for the hotel she lives in as a security guard. Nothing special, as far as I could tell. Goes downstairs to work, goes back up when she's done. Goes out twice a week, always to the same market, think she's got a crush on the chick that works there, all blushes and shy glances and shit like a shy teenager. Never goes out for beer or nothin'. Went to the bookstore once, didn't say nothing, just picked up like four or five books, paid for 'em and went home.

Seriously, got no idea why they picked her. I gotta be missing something, but I tracked down everything I could find on her. She was a pretty decent cop, worked pretty good undercover, but what the fuck does that have to do with bossing around a bunch of idiot heroes?

Fuck, I dunno. Maybe whoever hired her just wanted in her pants. Best bet I got.

You'd best pay up. You know my details; money'd better be over by Monday, or I'm gonna be pissed.
Your brow furrows as you leaf through the pages in the folder, biting your lip to prevent a frown spreading over your face. There was a lot more information in here than just the dossier on King. There was information about heroes- Psyche? Auspex? Rapidfire?- who'd been assigned to the city alongside her. Hell, there was an entire page on the tech shipment coming in alongside them- new armour for the regular MHMA troops, some new technopath taser, all sorts of shit.

You glance up and still. Marcus is watching you, a keen look on his face; as you watch him, he glances deliberately down at the folder in front of you, then back up at your face, a small smirk growing.

He doesn't say a thing.

And you don't have a clue what he expects from you.
​
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[] What should you do?
[] 1.3x Put the folder down without saying a word. If it comes to it, you can keep everyone distracted from the information in here by asking questions of Marcus. Keeping everyone here in the dark works in your favour, too. The more pressure the new director puts on them, the stronger your own position will be- and you'll know what to prepare for.
[] 1.2x Fold the front page, the dossier on King, and pass the folder back to Naomi. She'll understand the intent, and you can (probably) prevent her from telling anyone else. You're not that much of a dick, really- and it'd be a good move to solidify this new alliance of yours, make it into something more real than a seating arrangement and a nod of acknowledgement. However, you don't know Naomi. If someone pressures her enough, she might spill the information- and then they'll be pissed at the both of you, and the fledgling alliance might crumble anyway.
[] 0.9x Speak up and ask Marcus what other information he knows. It'll gain you points with everyone else at the table, you know- and what he reveals, how he reveals it, will speak a lot about his intentions for this meeting. That said, it might piss Marcus off- and that is potentially the worst possible outcome of this meeting.
[] 0.6x Pass the folder freely around the table. Everyone deserves to know what they're up against; after all, if they collapse because of the new heroes, your own position is going to become remarkably precarious.
​
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Politickssss.

Actually, this update is mostly filler, sorry. It's important for the plot progression of the tutorial; the gangs learning of Darcy's impending arrival is basically the entire plot of the tutorial, alongside what's coming up next.

However, I didn't want to end on that big a cliffhanger, and I want to ease you into the mechanics of the quest, not throw you into the thick of combat right after receiving Darcy's dossier. God, that'd be a dick move.

Also, I guess that makes me a liar; this was the first of four remaining posts in the tutorial, not the first of two. Sorry about that; just, again, I'd prefer to use the tutorial for its intended purpose as an actual learning experience.

So... yeah. Feel free to vote. Also, sorry for the delay between updates; I get a bit discouraged when I only get a couple of responses, and I renewed my WoW subscription, so I decided to push through my remaining Burning Crusade content to prevent me burning out on the quest before we even get out of the tutorial. Again, sorry.​
 
[X] 0.9x Speak up and ask Marcus what other information he knows. It'll gain you points with everyone else at the table, you know- and what he reveals, how he reveals it, will speak a lot about his intentions for this meeting. That said, it might piss Marcus off- and that is potentially the worst possible outcome of this meeting.

A lot of interesting information on our future MC. I like it all. *_*

I would argue for the 1.2 or 0.9 option. 1.3 is safest, but it's probably going to disappoint Marcus. If he tossed the papers towards Jason, there must be a reason. The big difference between us and the rest of the people here is firepower - he's probably trying to gauge what that firepower means. Is Jason just playing it cautious, or is it a statement of some sort? Playing it safe makes Jason looks like a turtle, being a little riskier probably makes for good leadership material.

0.6 looks like the 'I can't read social cues' option, I wouldn't take it.
 
Ask Marcus directly. He wants to play a game, find stuff out. Let's not play it.
 
[X] 1.2x Fold the front page, the dossier on King, and pass the folder back to Naomi. She'll understand the intent, and you can (probably) prevent her from telling anyone else. You're not that much of a dick, really- and it'd be a good move to solidify this new alliance of yours, make it into something more real than a seating arrangement and a nod of acknowledgement. However, you don't know Naomi. If someone pressures her enough, she might spill the information- and then they'll be pissed at the both of you, and the fledgling alliance might crumble anyway.
 
[x] 0.9x Speak up and ask Marcus what other information he knows. It'll gain you points with everyone else at the table, you know- and what he reveals, how he reveals it, will speak a lot about his intentions for this meeting. That said, it might piss Marcus off- and that is potentially the worst possible outcome of this meeting.

This isn't quite barebones - but as the stalker dude said, we can't figure out /why/ they hired her. Marcus probably knows, and we all need that information. With a little luck, he won't stab us repeatedly in the face when we ask.
 
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