Maverick Quest (MMX)

[Ekans Ekans Ekans]

I have to admit, I've been waffling back and forth on this decision. If we do get the slide and knife, we could get double our cash in the bet, but who we could take on is limited. But if we get double money and lose the barrier, we're in for some trouble. Granted, it is niche technology, but if someone can bastardize that crystal weapon, there's a chance they could do it to our stuff. To be on the safe side, I say we take the big toy back, and use it to help take down some of the juicer targets.

Click to shrink...

Actually I don't even know if any bastardizing would be necessary for someone to use the Leidenfrost. It didn't have any prerequisites listed in its description. And if we failed a mission due to not being sufficiently upgraded, not only would we lose as much money as we made off the bet, Weld would also have less reason to hang on to our bits for us.

And if the Hermes mission involves swarming foes, Leidenfrost is going to be perfect for taking it on.

 

[HeavyBane]

. Granted, it is niche technology, but if someone can bastardize that crystal weapon, there's a chance they could do it to our stuff. To be on the safe side, I say we take the big toy back, and use it to help take down some of the juicer targets.

Click to shrink...

As I said, Weld knows that the only reason why Boreas is tagging along is because he wants his parts back. If he sells these, he's in trouble, so he will abstain unless greed overcomes him. Perhaps Weld himself can become an "optional boss" as Boreas beats the shit out of him to learn who he sold his parts to? Either way, I say that we try our hardest to avoid killing our targets, this will make the robo-police/hunters react slower than if we retire someone during our "adventures", accidentally or not.
Unfortunately, unless the QM changed some things, the standard penalty towards Maverick bots is destruction, or perhaps life-sentence at best, so either way Boreas is fucked.

 

[Vee Ess]

As I said, Weld knows that the only reason why Boreas is tagging along is because he wants his parts back. If he sells these, he's in trouble, so he will abstain unless greed overcomes him. Perhaps Weld himself can become an "optional boss" as Boreas beats the shit out of him to learn who he sold his parts to? Either way, I say that we try our hardest to avoid killing our targets, this will make the robo-police/hunters react slower than if we retire someone during our "adventures", accidentally or not.
Unfortunately, unless the QM changed some things, the standard penalty towards Maverick bots is destruction, or perhaps life-sentence at best, so either way Boreas is fucked.

Click to shrink...

As per Maverick Hunter Quest, Mavericks generally get less-severe sentences if they surrender and haven't been actively killing people. Ones suffering from actual malfunctions that can be corrected get rehabilitated; Zero was in fact the case example for that policy.

 

[HeavyBane]

As per Maverick Hunter Quest, Mavericks generally get less-severe sentences if they surrender and haven't been actively killing people. Ones suffering from actual malfunctions that can be corrected get rehabilitated; Zero was in fact the case example for that policy.

Click to shrink...

That makes sense and ties with what I said: Malfunctioning Reploids are given a free pass if they go haywire and kill other Reploids before being stopped, such as Zero did*, but intentional murderers or crazy rampages are given less respite. The fact that one of Boreas' targets is a Maverick Hunter himself will make things worse, but that's life.


*I wonder if they're still given a penalty of some sort if they kill humans in some way though, as harming humans is considered a harsher crime due the fact that Reploids are inherently stronger than squishy humies. Maybe Zero had no choice but to join the Hunters until he paid back the damage he did? While he was rampaging he killed an entire S-level Hunter squad, hurt Sigma, the Hunter Commander at that time, and god knows who else.

 

[Aquarium]

Sigma is a big fan of live capture and rehabilitation - and his results (with Zero in particular) speak for themselves. Your nonlethal options are rare, which would make you valuable as a legitimate hunter, and indispensable as one of Sigma's loyalists.

That said, an idea occurs. Can we use that crystalizer to freeze the ground, like use Slide and drag our blade along the ground to make an ice rink we can skate-murder our way around, or even use it to seal exit/entry points?

Click to shrink...

If you're stabbing anything that's got a lot of electricity in it you'll get ice spikes. More electricity, more spikes. Generally just aggravates wounds, but if you pierce an electric-element guy when he's charging up or launching a big attack it'll do a lot more.

Leidenfrost doesn't have any prerequisites, though it would be significantly easier to install on someone who already has ice systems. All of your sold systems could be bastardized to varying degrees - Weld wouldn't buy them if they didn't have significant resale value (even if he is buying them for pennies on the dollar). If you'd sold the core lattice system there's one regular client of Weld's who would really find it handy (as in, jump a rank from installing it handy).

If you aggressively buy up core systems, he won't sell anything out from under you by the time you have them all, but Weld has a bit of a caviler attitude toward stock specs, and has replaced most of his own original parts by this point. Dibs don't last forever. He figures that by the time you've earned that million from jobs, you'll appreciate getting the salary you deserve enough that you'll want to keep working with him.

As is, equipped with all your expensive prototype systems, your upkeep and rent combined would be like five thousand zenny a week. That's a shitload of money to earn in normal jobs, but trivial enough to be abstracted away so long as you keep doing 'work'. On a thematic level, you took this life of crime explicitly so you don't need to care about this petty everyday bullshit. If you ever want to go legit, though, better have something that makes a quarter mill a year lined up...

Anyway, Imma let upgrade chat simmer a bit and do some between-mission social stuff.

 

[HeavyBane]

Sigma is a big fan of live capture and rehabilitation - and his results (with Zero in particular) speak for themselves. Your nonlethal options are rare, which would make you valuable as a legitimate hunter, and indispensable as one of Sigma's loyalists.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, as demonstrated in the first mission, Boreas' skillset is varied enough to work for nearly every situation, but he shines as teacher material. Any organization with half-a-brain and military tendencies would aggressively recruit him regardless of the costs: From the army (Repliforce), to law enforcement (hunters), to perhaps even mercenary parties. The exorbitant costs of maintenance would be offset by Boreas' increasing value as a teacher and decrease of maintenance fees as technology standardizes.

Then again it's implied his company bankrupted due internal corruption more than anything else, so perhaps his "failings" was exaggerated.

If you aggressively buy up core systems, he won't sell anything out from under you by the time you have them all, but Weld has a bit of a caviler attitude toward stock specs, and has replaced most of his own original parts by this point. Dibs don't last forever. He figures that by the time you've earned that million from jobs, you'll appreciate getting the salary you deserve enough that you'll want to keep working with him.

As is, equipped with all your expensive prototype systems, your upkeep and rent combined would be like five thousand zenny a week. That's a shitload of money to earn in normal jobs, but trivial enough to be abstracted away so long as you keep doing 'work'. On a thematic level, you took this life of crime explicitly so you don't need to care about this petty everyday bullshit. If you ever want to go legit, though, better have something that makes a quarter mill a year lined up...

Click to shrink...

Assuming Boreas keeps doing his "pacifist playstyle" and avoid killing people for a while so that he keeps his moral compass stable*, it's quite possible that Sigma himself will show up and offer Boreas the chance of a stable job that will pay for his costs as well as a place to sleep at, and maybe even buy off the rest of his stuff so that Boreas doesn't have to worry about loose ends. Seeing that he took the mercenary path due desperation, it would make sense IC to accept said offer and join the Hunters, if only because the alternative is to run away screaming before Sigma delimbs him and drags him to their base by force.

It likely will still end in tragedy of course due Sigma's inevitably going mental, but it would be funny for Boreas to have been in both sides of the law.

*Mechanaloids are not sapient so they're fair game.

 

[Wightraven]

[X] Plan: Permafrost

 

[Aquarium]

Weld seals up the hatch in your chest, and detaches the pincer on his sixth arm from your neck. Feeling returns to your body in a storm of sensation far sharper than its departure. "After a job like that, you deserve a victory celebration, and my friends deserve a proper introduction. I'll close up early and we'll hit Wild Bulls, my treat."

Over the centuries, New York has accumulated a warren of connected subbasements, utility tunnels, subways, and forgotten buildings.

Wild Bulls isn't one of the trendy 'hidden speakeasies' that the upper crust love. Wild Bulls is the type of dive bar that doesn't see a lot of traffic before 3 AM, the type that stays underground because the customers aren't fans of daylight. The bartender is scarred and longhorned, but you catch the double meaning in the name. Shit that'll give a reploid a buzz would put a human in the hospital, and there's nothing here that wouldn't kill a human. A flatscreen TV drones in the background, tuned to some news program, but the only people here seem to be Weld's friends. A horse is at the far end of the bar holding a dart, and the other two are fiddling around with the board.

"Has Wasp showed up yet?" Weld asks.

"Nah," a white haired woman in dark purple replies, finally detaching the board from the wall. "Still dealing with that Erlking shit. This the new kid?"

"Boreas just proved his chops," Weld says, heading over to the bar. The last member of the group, a bright blue-and-yellow lizard takes the dartboard, and flings it over at the horse like a frisbee. He stabs his hand up to intercept it, then jogs over, board spinning on the end of a dart.

"Well, you were certainly talking him up enough," he says. "Red Hare and, yes, I know. It's a historical reference. Pleased to meet you." He gestures at the other two, "And these ladies here are Ember Skink and Turbine."

Turbine gives you a fistbump. "Saw you made the news. Niiiiiiiice. You sure you haven't 'done work' before?"

Weld returns with his spare arms extended, carrying five mugs of something green and frothing, "A toast, to new friends."

You all drink to that. Whatever it is is sour, and burns on the way down.

Ember drains hers first, slamming it to the bar. "So, did you really rip his skin off?"

"Of course I didn't," you say. "I had him rip off his own skin, and stuff it into a briefcase."

"And he just... did it?"

"I can be very persuasive. For instance, I was wearing his driver's face as a mask."

Turbine cracks up. "Oh man. Bet he thinks you needed his skin as a disguise too. A secret society of bodybuilders, where you must be this jacked to enter their sacred halls." She stretches her hands apart to show just how jacked she means.

You take another few sips.

"Anyway, this is Wasp's crew. We've been colleagues since way back - I scout promising talents, she helps find 'work' that puts that talent to use."

Turbine finishes her mug, and snaps her fingers at the bartender. He flips her off. She gives him birds akimbo in response.

Hare, steadfastly ignoring her, tries to keep the conversation on track. "Wasp's skills are in demand, and she has enough of a head for politics to keep us out of feuds. If you spot a good target for troubleshooting, procedure is to run it by her first, just to keep from stepping on the wrong toes. As long as we keep our acquaintances happy, they'll keep outsourcing jobs to us, rather than on us."

"So just don't fuck it up," Ember says.

[ ] Conversation topics - questions, bragging, complaining, whatever.

 

[Wightraven]

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.
- Play up a small amount of mystery to remain interesting, but don't oversell yourself.
- Listen well, but try not to ask too many probing questions

These are seasoned vets. We've basically already told our best story. Anything else we have to brag about would seem like child's play to them. BUT we want them to think we're cool enough to hang, so being overall humble about skills and accomplishments leaves them with questions that we can hopefully answer later when we're more established.

Learning about our new associates would be wise, but asking TOO many pointed questions makes us look like a rat or undercover authority figure. There is no honor among thieves, so the more we can discover about them voluntarily, the better.

Also let's not be cagey. Answer questions we're asked. Be polite, humorous, charming, whatever. These might be a nice bunch of folks and great allies. We don't wanna screw up an opportunity for allies off the bat by playing too hard.

 

[Pred1059]

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.

 

[Vee Ess]

That's kind of a mild reaction for meeting someone whom they know as "the guy who steals people's faces". We won't have trouble getting along, but that doesn't say great things about their potential sanity levels.

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.

Click to shrink...

but play down our accomplishments until we get a feel for who these people are. Best case scenario they really are in the same boat as us.

 

[Ekans Ekans Ekans]

How would you guys feel about trying to cultivate Jaff as an asset instead of just straight taking him down?

We can start dropping a dime on rivals/roster targets and building up a rapport with him as a CI. We'll be able to freeze them and harvest out physical parts, while he secures the kill and gets the DNA data. As this first round of post-mission rolls show, he'll be getting upgrades as we do anyway, but this way we'll get to see all the attack patterns he harvests. And thanks to our adaptive combat learning trait, the more we see him fight (or fight alongside him) the more we'll learn about his style and how to counter it. But that's only for if we HAVE to fight him. If we do this right, we never will.

As long as his "CI" is bringing in results, he can get money from the Hunters to pay us. And we'll get money from Weld for taking down our Roster targets as well. Now taking them alive is probably worth more money, and it's probably not as good for intimidation purposes if the Hunters get the credit- but to be honest, we can start bringing Jaff out to the bar with us. Create an impression in the Underworld that he's on our payroll. (He will be for real soon).

We can basically set up a deal where he uses these missions to pay off increments of his debt to Weld. That way he won't be uncomfortable hanging around with us. Taking nice gifts from his mob buddies on occasion.

And we benefit in that we won't get heat from these takedowns like we did from Asbestos Joe. And we will have backup for hard missions (like Laser Ferret who counters us). We can sic him on rival gangs eventually, too.

Ideally all of this would culminate in some kind of Insurance Scam to completely absolve his debt. He takes out a big insurance policy on himself, we cut off his arm in an actual combat scenario. He gets the payout, we get his boss-harvesting adaptable weapon whatchamacallit. Boreas officially takes on Jaff's debt for him. Jaff's out, Boreas has a cool boss-weapon-absorption system.

But here's the catch. We secretly record the planning phases of the insurance fraud, and the action and the aftermath. Now we've got blackmail on him. He could've talked his way out of having fishy black market parts, but not this. Especially since we've been drawing him into our social circle all the while.

So we use that to keep sucking him into dirtier and dirtier business, and use that as successive layers of blackmail. It's intel 101. Jaff is very prone to be flipped. We subvert him and get a guy on the inside of the Hunters. Cover for our criminal activities. Access, information. He can use his authority to cover for us where our interests align. If we push his career along far enough (and those takedowns from our Roster will definitely help for starters. As will further black market upgrades) he'll eventually be able to make investigations into us just go away.

I don't want to beat Jaff. I want to make him ours. We'll probably make less money in the short-term, but we're gonna be rolling in money no matter what. Better to invest in good human intelligence assets.

If anyone sees ways this is likely to backfire horribly, ways that it could be done more safely/efficiently, or just thoughts on the idea in general. Is it good, is it bad? Is it worth the effort/loss of early cashflow?

 

[Preventer Squall]

I don't want to beat Jaff. I want to make him ours. We'll probably make less money in the short-term, but we're gonna be rolling in money no matter what. Better to invest in good human intelligence assets.

Click to shrink...

This is absolutely diabolical. The sheer depths we could drag this unwitting soul into for no other reason then our own advancement, only to be a prelude to future treachery? It's heinous on a level that brings a genuine tear to my eye.

I like this alot. We may have to smack him down to properly establish the pecking order, but I don't see why we can't turn this into a long-term investment. Hell, I say record every deal we make with him, just to make a really nice highlight reel when he thinks he's free.

 

[Ekans Ekans Ekans]

This is absolutely diabolical. The sheer depths we could drag this unwitting soul into for no other reason then our own advancement, only to be a prelude to future treachery? It's heinous on a level that brings a genuine tear to my eye.

I like this alot. We may have to smack him down to properly establish the pecking order, but I don't see why we can't turn this into a long-term investment. Hell, I say record every deal we make with him, just to make a really nice highlight reel when he thinks he's free.

Click to shrink...

Smacking him down if he gets uppity isn't going to be a problem, I think. If we tag along with him on all of our joint hunts, our adaptive learning will let us come up with counters to his moves (and turn him into a really great phantom for us!), and we'll know his exact kit so we can make upgrade decisions to be sure that we're always ready for him. And if he's doing some of the heavy lifting, we can probably hold a few tricks in reserve that he won't be ready for.

The best part about all of this? If we take him along to cover up our kills, we can still technically keep our hands clean. "I've never killed anyone!" (I've just frozen them to a wall and had my pet Hunter finish them off)

EDIT: When we actually roll out the blackmail on him, we can have one of the other guys in our crew put the squeeze on him, too. Play good cop/bad cop. "Damn Jaff, I can't believe Red Hare would try to pull this shit on you when you were finally square with us. Don't worry, I'll take care of it for you, buddy. We're friends after all. But can you help me with one little thing, too?"

 

[Preventer Squall]

The best part about all of this? If we take him along to cover up our kills, we can still technically keep our hands clean. "I've never killed anyone!" (I've just frozen them to a wall and had my pet Hunter finish them off)

Click to shrink...

Even better, we can make our phantoms to really guilt him.

And actually using others to be our foil would be amusing, but we'd have to be very careful. They could well promise to let it all slide if Jaff just took us out, since we are giving them access to a very powerful pawn. And we aren't too sure how into sharing this bunch is.

 

[Ekans Ekans Ekans]

Even better, we can make our phantoms to really guilt him.

And actually using others to be our foil would be amusing, but we'd have to be very careful. They could well promise to let it all slide if Jaff just took us out, since we are giving them access to a very powerful pawn. And we aren't too sure how into sharing this bunch is.

Click to shrink...

I mean, it's dependent on how the group dynamics in our gang wind up playing out, obviously. I think we can make inroads with them. Build trust within the group. To that end, actually:

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.
[X] Offer to spar with any of them who are interested.

We're literally built to be a bleeding edge training dummy. Let's offer those services to our new allies. We can start building friendships, demonstrating value, and building up a rapport where we can get them to help us out with little things as well. And hey, we'll be making our team stronger. We're not planning to bail on them any time too soon.

Training with them will also mean that we can make phantoms of them once we have the combat data projector, and kick their asses if we ever have to fight them for real. But they don't have to know that part. Just that we're giving them professional-quality combat training for free, out of the goodness of our heart. Once one of them accepts and we're able to give them great feedback, the others will probably start taking up the offer too. And no better time to float a fun bonding activity like this than when we're all drunk together and riding high off Boreas' first big successful mission.

 

[Preventer Squall]

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.
[X] Offer to spar with any of them who are interested.
We'd have to point out we were made for being a training partner, but I don't see why we can't give this a try. Sure we'll get thumped, but alittle roughhousing does sound like a fun little way to kill time. And when we get our recording equipment back, we'll be able to learn afew useful tricks while we're at it.

 

[HeavyBane]

That's kind of a mild reaction for meeting someone whom they know as "the guy who steals people's faces". We won't have trouble getting along, but that doesn't say great things about their potential sanity levels.

Click to shrink...

They're crooks. Even IRL this lifestyle is not good for mentally balanced individuals, especially machines who are already unstable with no ability to have families of their own to care for (so that they can care for someone else besides themselves).

How would you guys feel about trying to cultivate Jaff as an asset instead of just straight taking him down?

Click to shrink...

That's a long plan relying on lots of stuff we don't know the details yet. What if Jeff doesn't want to cooperate and tries to do the right thing and take us down?

ith him as a CI.

Click to shrink...

What do these letters mean?

kill and gets the DNA data.

Click to shrink...

That reminds me: If this is pre-X1 timeline, the Hunters sure got access to Megaman's gimmick quite fast, maybe a little too fast IMO, seeing that most Reploids are still one-of-a-kind prototypes.

This is absolutely diabolical.

Click to shrink...

Yep, it would certainly set Boreas to the cackling Maverick villain path.

The best part about all of this? If we take him along to cover up our kills, we can still technically keep our hands clean. "I've never killed anyone!" (I've just frozen them to a wall and had my pet Hunter finish them off)

Click to shrink...

I would prefer to not to kill anyone for real, if only to see how long Boreas can last like that, especially against one of the targets which is a humie. That one we MUST NOT harm at all, no matter what. Physical damage or outright human deaths caused by Reploids are judged very harshly.

We're literally built to be a bleeding edge training dummy.

Click to shrink...

Oh fuck, is Boreas a Reploid Saiyan?

We can start building friendships, demonstrating value, and building up a rapport where we can get them to help us out with little things as well. And hey, we'll be making our team stronger. We're not planning to bail on them any time too soon.

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't make friends with these guys yet, no honor between thieves and all of that. Besides:

Sigma: "Greetings Mr. Boreas, I have an offer for you: 3 million Zenny to buy off your stuff back, pay whatever debts you have remaining with that crook, a comfy bed to rest at, eight cosmetic tails to give you a kitsune image and five minutes with your human creator in a room with no cameras."
Boreas: "The catch?"
Sigma: "You will work for the good guys."
Boreas: "(ignoring players' commands) Sold."

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.
[X] Offer to spar with any of them who are interested.

 

[Ekans Ekans Ekans]

That's a long plan relying on lots of stuff we don't know the details yet. What if Jeff doesn't want to cooperate and tries to do the right thing and take us down?

Click to shrink...

It's not a hard and fast plan. Just a general idea. Worst case scenario, we just fight him like we would've anyway. We could prepare a few tricks and traps in advance for that eventuality.

What do these letters mean?

Click to shrink...

Confidential Informant. A snitch, basically. Usually paid for the information they give.

I would prefer to not to kill anyone for real, if only to see how long Boreas can last like that, especially against one of the targets which is a humie. That one we MUST NOT harm at all, no matter what. Physical damage or outright human deaths caused by Reploids are judged very harshly.

Click to shrink...

Technically I'm just suggesting helping a Hunter kill dangerous Mavericks, not that Boreas kill anyone himself.

As for the human, Hermes? I say we go for him next. The Leidenfrost Barrier should basically nullify the Swarmer Mechaniloids that were mentioned in his news update, and much like having strings on a dirty hunter, having strings on an Indusrialist on the wrong side of the law will be useful, too. We can intimidate him like we did with Joe, but trying to cultivate a longer-term relationship with him will probably be useful.

I wouldn't make friends with these guys yet, no honor between thieves and all of that. Besides:

Sigma: "Greetings Mr. Boreas, I have an offer for you: 3 million Zenny to buy off your stuff back, pay whatever debts you have remaining with that crook, a comfy bed to rest at, eight cosmetic tails to give you a kitsune image and five minutes with your human creator in a room with no cameras."
Boreas: "The catch?"
Sigma: "You will work for the good guys."
Boreas: "(ignoring players' commands) Sold."

Click to shrink...

If that happens, I'll happily drop all the spooky plotting, but until then it doesn't hurt to have options.

As for the no honor between thieves thing... there's some truth to it, but these are still people. Friendships and factions still happen. And it's generally better to be known as a cool guy who gets shit done on the job and is totally chill in personal life. It never hurts to be liked.

Like you said, bots like us don't have any families to bond with. Filthy gutter criminals they may be, but deep down they are just looking for someone to connect with, like any other thinking being. And hey, we're a gutter criminal ourselves, so I don't think getting to know them is gonna hurt.

 

[egexxx]

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.

 

[Hunter Command]

Honestly, the bent hunter plan IS narratively interesting, though I think it would culminate in a relatively high-power fight at the end, rather than Jaff staying in line. It might even work, if we could get Weld to give us some low-level chaff we could offer up as information.

That said, it's still ambitious as hell. I think if we tried it we'd want to set seeds early and, on first meeting, sell up the idea that we were screwed right out of the gate, had to part ourselves out to keep our head above water, and really just want to do the right thing. If he offers to get us into the hunters, we could do one of several things--evade and say we've "got a rap sheet" by now, just doing what we had to do to survive. Or we could even actually do it, maybe even burn Weld. Mercenary as hell and sure to invite massive payback, but hey, it's an option, especially if we already secured all our most important parts.

I think the best way to pursue it would be to see if the crew likes the idea--we just got told to run our plans past Wasp. If they do, maybe we can drip-feed Jaff either unimportant marks, or underworld rivals we've got intel on. Hell, we could set ourselves up as the crew's intel guy, the way we studied Joe to take him apart. It matches our skillset.

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.

 

[HeavyBane]

IMO it would be better to join the Hunters after defeating Jeff, to create more tension. The crooked hunter plan is diabolically evil, but so far Boreas hasn't crossed that line yet. Having him finally get a legal job where his actions and skills are recognized and valued, only for everything to break down once more the moment Sigma goes evil would make for an interesting tragedy.

 

[Ekans Ekans Ekans]

Honestly, the bent hunter plan IS narratively interesting, though I think it would culminate in a relatively high-power fight at the end, rather than Jaff staying in line. It might even work, if we could get Weld to give us some low-level chaff we could offer up as information.

That said, it's still ambitious as hell. I think if we tried it we'd want to set seeds early and, on first meeting, sell up the idea that we were screwed right out of the gate, had to part ourselves out to keep our head above water, and really just want to do the right thing. If he offers to get us into the hunters, we could do one of several things--evade and say we've "got a rap sheet" by now, just doing what we had to do to survive. Or we could even actually do it, maybe even burn Weld. Mercenary as hell and sure to invite massive payback, but hey, it's an option, especially if we already secured all our most important parts.

I think the best way to pursue it would be to see if the crew likes the idea--we just got told to run our plans past Wasp. If they do, maybe we can drip-feed Jaff either unimportant marks, or underworld rivals we've got intel on. Hell, we could set ourselves up as the crew's intel guy, the way we studied Joe to take him apart. It matches our skillset.

[X] Stay cool, stay humble.

Click to shrink...

I absolutely agree with running the Jaff plan by Weld and Wasp before we make any moves- ask Weld to set up the first meeting for us. To be honest, if it culminates with a big fight with a character with whom we've built a relationship, or an offer to join the Hunters, those could both be interesting too. And in-character it doesn't have to start with a grand, Machiavellian scheme. Boreas might just be looking to get some cred within the gang by having a Hunter deniably take out their rivals, or get a little extra money from the CI payments, or hell- we could bring Jaff to help out on fights that counter us in the Boss Cycle. Laser Ferret in particular sounds like he's gonna be a rough one for our build.

Another Bonus: Cutting a deal with Jaff to gradually work off his debt with us also lets us avoid the heat that comes with going after a hunter- and Jaff himself can help divert some attention from our jobs, once we've got a working relationship with him.

Speaking of setting ourselves up to gather intel, on top of Weld's money I think we should squeeze Hermes (the industrialist) for one more small favor: Find out where Ice Core's IP wound up when it went under. Probably sold off for pennies on the dollar and just rotting away in someone's servers. I'd like to see if we can sniff out any prototypes that were under development for our product line that never got put into production- we could probably hire Hermes to fabricate them for us. There's no guarantees we'd find anything, but if it worked out we could get some more quality mods that were designed for our build, and we could start giving Hermes some extra side work/bonus cashflow from us. A carrot, when previously we'd only used the stick. That would be a good way to build out a positive side to our relationship with him, and I honestly think cultivating him as an asset will be important long-term. Especially if we stay in the Underworld and go the full Kingpin route.

HC, how do you feel about the sparring with our new gang-mates for this current round of voting? I think it confers mostly benefits without too many downsides. It helps ingratiate us to the group, it gives us an avenue to get high-quality phantom data (We should have the combat data projector back after another mission, if it pays as well as the first did), and in the event we ever have to fight them, our adaptive learning software means that having sparred with them will give us a big advantage. On top of that, it's a good way to hone Boreas' combat skills- he was only a few weeks old when the company that build him went under, and I think he's probably lacking in actual combat experience.

IMO it would be better to join the Hunters after defeating Jeff, to create more tension. The crooked hunter plan is diabolically evil, but so far Boreas hasn't crossed that line yet. Having him finally get a legal job where his actions and skills are recognized and valued, only for everything to break down once more the moment Sigma goes evil would make for an interesting tragedy.

Click to shrink...

As I talked about above, I don't think that Boreas would immediately start out with a sweeping Xanatos gambit to corrupt Jaff right out of the gate. But getting a slightly crooked hunter on our side is going to bring a lot of benefits that would appeal to even the current Boreas. He provides cover for our missions so we don't catch as much heat, and attacking a Hunter directly would draw way more attention than helping him work out a payment plan. Plus we can probably weasel some CI money out of him, and bring him along to help out on Roster targets that hard-counter us. All good Human Intelligence operations start by building up a friendly relationship, and for the time being that's all I think we need to do with Jaff.

 

[HeavyBane]

Another Bonus: Cutting a deal with Jaff to gradually work off his debt with us also lets us avoid the heat that comes with going after a hunter- and Jaff himself can help divert some attention from our jobs, once we've got a working relationship with him.

Click to shrink...

How would you approach Jaff for that? He's a cop and will probably be lurking around the nearest Hunter Base they have, for not to mention that if he realizes he's a potential target, he won't be willing to listen. Moreover, most, if not all of these targets of ours are not actual mavericks. Some may be paranoid yes, but using a Hunter to justify their demises/body harm as Maverick attacks when they're not might eventually drawn investigation fromt he Hunters' internal police. It's their job to take care of crazy robots, so corrupt Hunters are probably something they take into account.

Lastly, the quest's structure seemingly still has us fighting 8 opponents no matter what (plus the intermission ones), so this won't change much anyway unless Boreas goes legal (moment in which he likely would have to hunt these guys shown in the latest update as the "replacement bosses").

Speaking of setting ourselves up to gather intel, on top of Weld's money I think we should squeeze Hermes (the industrialist) for one more small favor:

Click to shrink...

How would you convince that guy to cooperate? Unless we have plenty of blackmail, the best we can do is threaten bodily harm and he knows that Mavericks intentionally attacking humans are dealt in the most permanent way possible.

 

[Aquarium]

[x] Plan Permafrost (sell Swoler Power, get the Leidenfrost back)
[X] Stay cool, stay humble, maybe bring up sparring.

"I'll try not to make too many waves," you say. "I'm still new at this."

"Hope you're not another Razor!"

"Oh god, Turbine," Ember says, massaging her temples, "don't bring her up."

Probably best not to push it. "Well, I've told you the good bits from my first job. How about yours?"

"Me first! Okay, there are these two companies, and the guys we like are worried the other ones will win this big contract. They have this big prototype they just finished, and our friends want me to sabotage it before it gets presented. Now, they tell me about this like an hour in advance, and traffic is just godawful. I finally get to the building five minutes late, and guess what? It's already on fire. Some PhDick screwed up without me."

"And you just turned around and left?"

"Nah, I was gonna do that, but then I thought they wouldn't pay up if it didn't look like I did anything, so I chucked a couple propane tanks in a window, with a few sparks to ignite them, and hoofed it. Cops ended up calling it insurance fraud."

Ember is next. "So, I got roped in on a bigger job. I ended up climbing to the top of a broadcast tower to disable it. This security gargoyle is waiting for me. We fight, I kick him off the edge and look down, and so there he is, in midair, still on fire, with his tiny little wings flapping as hard as they can and doing jack shit to slow him down. It was fucking hilarious."

You look over at Hare. "I spent a weekend beating up carnies who didn't pay protection money." He shrugs. "They can't all be winners."

Weld orders another round, this time shot glasses of something viscous with a reddish sheen.

"By the way, any of you guys want to spar sometime? I'm sort of," you gesture at your self, "literally built to do that."

"I know that feeling," Ember says. "Personally I sometimes get this urge to sit in a box and sinter car frames all day. It'll get less intense over time."

Turbine shakily lurches to her feet, and electricity starts crackling across her fingers. She says "You wanna go-owwww" as Hare grabs her by the ear. "Not here, and not while you're drunk."

The conversation moves into a less business-focused direction from there. You soon discover that you've missed out on a lot of pop culture, having been too preoccupied to spend any time on yourself. You leave the bar with a pile of recommendations for music, movies, books, and games - and for once, actually drop into your charging pod without feeling emotionally drained.

-----
The next day, you decide to consider your next move. You could jump on one of Weld's targets now, but they'll keep a while if you have something else you want to do.

=Status updates=

Ingram Mechaniloids announces production of new 'bare bones' variant of their popular M-501 model. The dramatically reduced price point makes swarms of this mechaniloid affordable, allowing highly scalable prospecting, insect population monitoring, and more.

They still haven't paid up.

Combine Badger still hasn't been seen in public, but seismographs indicate a large number of underground explosions from her farm.

roll 1d100=23

Click to shrink...

Jaff has defeated the dreaded C-class maverick Pugil Pink, and obtained that rarest of weapons, the beam pugil stick. So yeah, he isn't any more of a threat now than he was.

Weld has sent you a message about a new target as well.
Laser Ferret is smuggling weapons out of an abandoned drilling rig just a few miles offshore. It seems he thinks that international waters are a free-for-all where anyone can set up shop. Take his operation out.

[ ] Select a Target (or other write-in)