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Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

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[X] The Pensive Wok of Dreams

On a side note, if we keep referring to Rei as The Rei, will she start designating annoying fellows as "Special Friends"
 
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    • Scheduled vote count started by Lunaryon on Jul 24, 2024 at 6:13 PM, finished with 102 posts and 58 votes.
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  • Voting
    • Okay. So we got a magic wok. It would be hilarious if this thing only gave a +1 or 2 to our next attempt to revisit our |-|, or whatever people are hoping this will do, and we still fail the roll for it. Which given the way the quest has gone so far would prompt a search for an even stronger item that will for sure guarantee a successful roll.

    Might just be my impression but nearly every time we fail rolls the reaction is "This sucks, we don't have enough number. We should dedicate the entire next turn to getting more number." As opposed to "Welp, we can try again later and hope the next roll goes better. That's just how the dice be sometimes."
     
    zernoc56 said:
    Which given the way the quest has gone so far would prompt a search for an even stronger item that will for sure guarantee a successful roll.

    Might just be my impression but nearly every time we fail rolls the reaction is "This sucks, we don't have enough number. We should dedicate the entire next turn to getting more number." As opposed to "Welp, we can try again later and hope the next roll goes better. That's just how the dice be sometimes."
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    You might have a point if this wasn't an unexpected reward from a main Quest goal being reached. It helps, and we didn't go out searching for it. All we did was kill someone we were beholden to kill anyway.
     
    zernoc56 said:
    "This sucks, we don't have enough number. We should dedicate the entire next turn to getting more number."
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    I disagree with this. What normally happens is more "This sucks. We've got too much going on to try again anytime soon. Oh hey, we got Things that increased Number. Let's try again! Dang it, oh well. Next time for sure!"
     
    What we need, irrespective of any roll outcomes, is more number in Intrigue and Stewardship. Specifically three more base Stewardship and five more base Intrigue.
     
    FictionPack said:
    You might have a point if this wasn't an unexpected reward from a main Quest goal being reached. It helps, and we didn't go out searching for it. All we did was kill someone we were beholden to kill anyway.
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    Well, to some extent it the exact situation that supposedly caused the reward was serendipity. If Usagi had been conscious, things might have somehow played out a little differently in the endgame there inside Cendrellion's pocket dimension.

    But with Usagi rolling "you succeed but pass out" on her Raise Dead check, that put Minako in charge. Since Minako had neither the means to 'Escalate' Cendrellion back into a human, nor the history and inclination that would predispose her to letting Cendrellion live as a youma even if she were inclined to surrender, that pretty much clinched it, I'd say.
     
    All I know about vorpal swords is that they go snicker-snack, which sounds onomatopoeic and could plausibly refer to some chainsaws I've encountered.
     
    I suspect a lot of magic swords are at least a little bit vorpal, because if you're trying to Cut Real Good, then your available options are (1) magically enhance the blade's ability to start a cut so that it does so more easily, or (2) magically enhance the force of the strikes and plow through things that the blade would not normally be able to cut when swung with human strength.

    If we see any misty mages with big dramatic hats, we should watch out for (2), but it seems reasonably to suppose that a lot of magic swords focus on (1).
     
    I'm curious about Ami reporting to us regarding her meeting with Director Samui about extraditing the Chinese Amazons. On the one hand, they clearly pulled their weight in the recent assault, and the Senshi have made it clear that they are willing to put a good deal of their time and resources to make this work. On the other hand, Fudo Kazanari is digging his heels in until he gets what he wants, rumors regarding their culture and their relationship to Nerima may be a bit concerning from an integration standpoint, and there might be a hint of foreboding at the thought of the Senshi gaining "personal foot soldiers" as a result of all this.
     
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    Interlude: Los Angeles Defenders - Part 3
  • Sidestory
    • Interlude: Los Angeles Defenders
    Part 3    ​

    "LAPD!" A booming voice comes from outside the mall. "We have you surrounded! Come out with your hands up!"

    The LAPD's new Chief of Police, Thomas Harris stands outside the central doors of the Westside Pavilion Mall, next to the towering SWAT truck whose Public Order Systems he is using to call out to the chaos indoors. The tall black man loosens the button of the handheld microphone before he sighs, rubbing at his eyes. Things have been… Stressful doesn't seem to be quite a strong enough word for what has been going on for…

    A long while now. Difficult, likewise, doesn't feel like enough of a descriptor.

    An absolute shitshow might be the closest thing.

    Forty years. Harris has been a police officer for forty years now, admittedly short of just a few weeks ago he wasn't a police officer here in LA, but Harris still remembers the chaos of the Watts Riots, the Holy Week, and all the suffering that came out of Operation Hammer. There was a very good reason why Harris had avoided Los Angeles when the police were under the command of his predecessor, Daryl Gates.

    But after the shitshow and the travesty of justice that happened two months ago with the South Central Riots, it was decided by the powers that be that Gates was no longer a capable leader for the LAPD.

    Which was when Harris was brought in. The chief knows that to some degree he was brought in to try and soften the public's view of the LAPD by bringing in a black man to replace the man who allowed such racist violence to happen.

    But saying it like that makes it sound like Harris isn't a skilled officer in his own right. Nothing could be further from the truth. Admittedly, the man hasn't had nearly the time that he would have liked to have chased down every creeping tendril of corruption that has tightened its grip around his new department, but protecting the people of his new city comes first.

    Just thinking about everything that has happened in the near sixty days that he has been working sends lichtenberg scars of wrathful neon green dancing over his arms. Seeing the sparking, sizzling light of his own so-called 'psychic' abilities makes the man take a step back. He closes his eyes, breathing in slowly and counting to eight before breathing out.

    That masked, tuxedo wearing maniac was already exacerbating the tension in the city when he was just breaking into any place that he pleased. Before he started turning people into Cryptids. He stole from the rich, and slapped magnets on any computer he came across. What was worse was when he decided - And he did so commonly - to become a little more creative in his acts.

    Like breaking into the Mayor's home and gluing every bit of furniture to the ceiling, or when he snuck into Harris's own house, replacing every scrap of food he had with Kraft Singles and replaced all his cigars with candy canes.

    The man was a menace, and he needed to be stopped.

    …And hopefully, if he is stopped, then those stupid kids would stop as well. Though, Harris does have to admit that they might have started going out there and acting as vigilantes not because of the tuxedo wearing asshole, but because they don't trust the police.

    Which isn't the masked menace's fault. That is the fault of entirely ordinary people. And it is his fault for not managing to make things better enough that 'Missy Moon' and her friends felt they could leave everything to the adults.

    On the other hand, Harris notes to himself, the fact of the matter is that they need the Missy's, now that the Tuxedo wearing thief has changed his modus operandi. Not even Doctor Vercingetorix of the National Cryptic Agency has managed to develop a countermeasure to the Tuxedo Thief's new mutagenic plans.

    And speak of the devil, he doth appear.

    Harris watches as a full sized trailer truck pulls into the parking lot around the mall, the logo of the NCA splayed widely across the side. Frowning, Harris lets loose a soft grunt, icy blue misting out past his lips, the only visible sign of his frustration. He needs to keep better control of his own abilities. His magic, even if the rest of the government refuses to use the word.

    Things are about to get complicated, because Doctor Ver always demands to take complete control of any situation his men are deployed in. The man is a busy-body, and the worst kind of one two, micromanaging everything he can. For a brief moment, Harris almost reaches for the walkie-talkie at his shoulder. If he orders his men to move in, then Doctor Ver won't be nearly as capable of taking control of the situation away from him.

    But… No. That wouldn't be the right thing to do. Moving in before his men are prepared is just a recipe for something to go wrong. And there is too much on the line, just in general, for things to be allowed to go wrong. He is going to have to deal with Ver, and make sure that that man's need to make everything fall in line doesn't botch up the mission.

    Harris spends the next few minutes checking and organizing everything that he can, all in order to make sure that everything is as ready as it can be for what he knows is about to happen.

    "Excuse me," A voice calls out, somber and in control. A voice completely unlike the one that Harris was expecting to hear. "Are you Chief Harris?" Turning, Harris blinks as he comes face to face with a man fifteen years his younger. The man's hair and mustache are both cut short. He has a distinct look on his face, the kind of no-nonsense gaze that puts people at ease. Like the man knows what he is doing.

    "I am, and you would be?" Harris asks, raising an eyebrow. Harris looks at the man, and the man looks at Harris, and both weigh and measure the other.

    "Field Commander William Mitchell, NCA. I have two LSR rangers with me, Lieutenants Greyson and Rawlings. Ready to deploy however you would prefer." Mitchell says simply. There's no push of ego, no jockeying for jurisdiction that Harris had been expecting.

    "You're not here to try and take the command out from under me?" Harris asks, eyes narrowing for a moment as he stares at the man opposite him. Mitchell shakes his head.

    "No sir. I am aware of how the good Doctor tends to handle these situations, but he's been stepping on enough toes that the NCA decided it would be for the best if there was someone else handling the field work, while Vercingetorix focuses on the technological development side of things. And you know what they say," Mitchell says, with a hint of a smile on his face. "A Chief in action outranks a Commander at rest. This is your mission, on your ground. You know what is happening, and your people much better than I do. If I tried to take command, I'd only be getting in your people's way."

    Already, Harris's opinion of this Mitchell is going up. The man knows how to work with others. "Alright then, give me a brief overview of your Rangers and their capabilities, and we can start working on where to put them."


    THOOM

    THOOM

    THOOM

    Lieutenant Greyson's every step is heavy and lumbering as he approaches the group of officers that he is going to be joining as they prepare for the breach.
    ​
    There is a moment of quiet as the policemen look at Carter's heavily mechanized frame. "Woah." One officer says, "When are we going to get some of that?" the man asks, before he grunts as another officer elbows him in the ribs.

    Carter chuckles, the sound echoing through his helmet's auditory systems a little oddly. "That's a good question honestly. The NCA wants to reach the point where every department with a SWAT team has a Range squad attaché, but right now these suits are a bit… expensive. You've been briefed on the plan?"

    "Yes sir." The smallest officer says, and it takes a moment for Greyson to realize that she's just… petite, not any younger than the other officers. What does stick out about her, however, is the fact that she doesn't seem to be carrying any kind of weapon, but instead there is what Greyson first thought was a bracelet of copper studs around her wrist. When she moves to salute, the studs lag a little, and Carter can see that there isn't any string connecting the studs together, they are simply floating around her wrist through her own power.

    There are also other copper studs across her body armor.

    The majority of the government has taken to calling the abilities that people have started to… 'develop'... as psychic powers. The term Esper has been thrown around a little. Given his rank in the NCA, Carter knows that there is an even chance that this officer already had her abilities for years now, only starting to reveal them now that the sheer amount of chaos across the world has made the government mandated masquerade no longer feasible.

    "Good. We should be moving any minute no-" Carter starts to say, before everyone's walkie-talkies crackle to life at once.

    "Thirty seconds to breach. Ready!"

    Taking two long steps back, Carter grins as the power systems in his armor hum louder and louder as he prepares himself. The seconds count down, then the officers open the door, and Carter explodes into motion, the sidewalk beneath him shattering apart as he accelerates. His armor no longer lumbering, but moving with the strength and speed of a walking tank.

    The other police officers hurry behind him, not quite able to keep up with his own movement as Carter starts to hear the sounds of violence. As he arrives in the center of the mall, he finds complete chaos.

    There are five teenagers – Somehow their faces (and their faces alone) are blocked out by static on his visor, along with the masked terrorist that the Field Commander said was the primary target, along with the transformed civilian that the terrorist is able to somehow control.

    Three of the girls are huddled off to one side, the two with blue highlights have their hands up to one arm of the one with the orange highlights, the girl's arm somehow having been wrapped in what looks to be the tiling of the mall floor.

    Meanwhile, the one in the green highlights stands on the back of the fifteen foot tall mutant, wrenching on what looks to be cords of some dark material that she has gotten wrapped around the monster's arms and legs, barely keeping it held back while the one in red darts back and forth, throwing what look to be grenades at the masked terrorist.

    The masked man casually leaps and flips and dodges around the exploding weapons that the girl is lugging about. What is interesting, is the fact that they aren't exploding into fire and heat and light the way that Carter might have expected, but instead there is a sudden spurt of massive amounts of foam, almost like elephant toothpaste, which visibly starts to harden a few moments after it appears.

    Some kind of foam grenade?

    Already ideas on how something like that could be used pop into Carter's mind, particularly when it comes to firefighting. Before Carter was scouted out by the NCA, he used to be a firefighter.

    "LAPD! Hands up!" the officers call out as they catch up to Carter, at the same time that another near identical shout comes from the other side of the courtyard as the other group of policemen and the other ranger arrives.

    Giving one last backflip, the masked man laughs uproariously. "You don't really think that I would give in that easi…" He starts to say, before he spots the two rangers. "What in the world are you wea-"

    And then things get even more complicated.

    As all at once, another figure appears, blurring down from somewhere above and kicking the masked menace in the face.
    ​
    It is another man wearing a tuxedo and a mask. Great.

    "I just flew in from Tokyo, and man are my legs tired." The man says with a noticeable Japanese accent.

    …So that is what kind of day this is going to be…
     
  • Sidestory
    • I couldn't figure out how to explain things simply - but Chief Harris's elemental affinity is Neon. Which tends to change color depending on his emotional state
     
    LAPD: Dynamic entry in power armor
    Missy!Tuxedo Mask: "What the fuck are you wearing?!"
    Tuxedo Mask: "FUCK IT, WE'RE DOING IT LIVE!"

    Also, I just realized how much Joker from Persona looks like Tuxedo Mask when they are both in costume.
     
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