Reroll

I head back upstairs (it’s nice being inexhaustible), and report to the others, “Okay… so… 99% of the data on the phone was a bunch of exploitation porn of Bambi.  It's sickening, and doesn't tell us anything new, so I just deleted that off the laptop after my minion did the bulk copy.”

Betty nods, “I was starting to wonder what took so long.”

I glare at her, “Moving on… I also found two exploitation videos of a mermaid plus one of some winged woman; I saved those so we can use the image as an additional scrying focus to maybe find them and help them.” I glance at Ed: Scrying is on the Druid list, so he’d be the easiest choice for making that happen.

Ed considers, “I can certainly try a scry, but… it's very unlikely they're the only ones.  Taking down the Inquisition needs to take priority, doesn't it?  If the people holding them captive go away, so does their captivity.”

I purse my lips, “That… feels wrong, but I can't quite name why.”

Betty considers, “Keep in mind, in addition to the 'feels good’ of the rescue, they may be useful witnesses, proving to the public that the Inquisition also grinds down and takes advantage of harmless people just because they're not human, without having the risk of abuse that comes with exposing Bambi's curse.”

Ed nods, “Okay.  I’ll prepare two copies in the morning.  If we can figure out how to rescue them with a reasonable resource expenditure, well.  But… well, these people are going to be at least nationwide, and scrying just gives a few feet around the subject.”

I shrug, “Still verifies life and status.  I mean, if those were one-off videos and they let them go with that cortex bomb tracker? Well… they're as safe as they will be until that system is down.  If they're in prison? I can switch more of my load out into Divination and delve further.  If they're dead? Then we'll know. But you have a much lower initial ‘investigation cost’ than I do… among other things, I can't get Scrying until 10th, while you can have it tomorrow.”

Ed considers, “We’ll need a silver mirror worth a thousand gold pieces….”

I chuckle, “As a focus it doesn't get damaged, the quality of modern mirrors is vastly superior to olden times - so the cost probably is a non-issue - and I know an antiques dealer now… I'll ask her now,” I send Bambi a text on my phone.

“That settled…” Ed continues, “We posted a quick video on a new UsTube account while we were waiting for you to do the hacking. Tomorrow, the Children's hospital in the next town over.  Sounds good?”

I nod, “Should be fine.  I'lll pick up something to speed my way in the morning… Distant Teleport from Warp, which will also help with retreat if they can find me at all.”  It's only Long range - 680 feet at this level - but I can do it every six seconds forever thanks to Primarcane, which works out to basically eighty miles an hour if I also walk while concentrating… better than freeway speeds, and I don't have to worry about traffic or roads.

Betty smiles, “Great! Did you find anything else in the phones?”

“Yeah… a couple recorded meetings, some texts, work contacts, mission documents, and so on.  Here…” I pull up the current mission profile, “So yeah… here's their orders.”  Betty and Ed go through them.  

Betty reacts first, “There's Ike forty handlers assigned?”

I nod, “Which means some hundred sixty-ish of the Guardians, based on units of four.”

Ed cringes, “I'm more concerned about the ‘if convenient’ line.  They have a blanket license to kill us.”

“But not muggles,” I point out, “They need to be sure.”

Ed looks at his tiger, “I can shrink her down with Reduce Animal… how are you set for illusions?”  He looks at me.

I cringe, “Not great. I have the basics for my shadow companions, but the healing and Warp investment means I'm out of space and don't have the bandwidth for making glamours last.”

Ed nods, “I'll need to leave my cat at home most of the time, then… pity.”

I nod, “Yeah… I'm due two new talents next level… I'm just hoping we don't get into more fights.  They get dangerous.”

“We are immortal…” Betty begins.

“We can't trust that,” Ed counters, “We're up to Katherine.  There's only fifteen letters left in the alphabet… and we're going through them far to quickly.”

“Don't look at me like that,” I glare at Ed, “It's not like I'm trying to get killed.  I've just had rotten luck with the dice.”

“Right…” Ed drops it.

We also go over the past missions briefly… they tend towards ‘very violent’... and most of the time, with cause.

We also review the meeting videos… those are boring. I have no idea why they saved them.

We also briefly review the mermaid and winged woman videos… yeah, we don't learn much, beyond that the Guardians are anatomically correct (if slightly improbable) and are low expression even in the throes of passion.

Betty considers, “Huh… hey, were the Bambi videos the same way?”

“No, they were worse. A lot of them got quite violent… I'm guessing because Bambi is game for anything thanks to the curse, and can't be permanently injured.”

Betty shakes her head, “Not that… like… did the handler ever show?”

I shake my head, “No… Bambi even mentioned that aspect: She never sees a handler, always just the Guardians… who rotate through a LOT.”

Betty nods slowly, “So they're scared, and the Guardians are expendable.”

I consider, “What makes you say that?”

Ed nods slowly as well, “Right… they've been taking advantage of Bambi for how long now?”

“She said fifty years,” I supply.

“And not a single one has risked sticking it in the perpetually willing woman, despite having plenty of videos showing she's safe spread over a very long time?” Ed looks at me like I'm stupid.

“Right… so they're concerned about contamination or something,” I'm nodding now.

“And they're sufficiently convinced it's true that NO ONE breaks that taboo, even though they clearly have normal enough lusts,” Ed's got the clue bat today, it seems, “They're terrified of us, and not just for what we can do.”

“We'll have to ask why next time we have one charmed,” Betty adds, “For now, though… how about I research those contacts? I'm sure they have social media accounts, white pages entries, and such.  Even without those, they're phone numbers.  The block is going to be handled by a phone company, and someone's going to be paying for them.  I want to know who.”

Ed considers, “Yeah, sure.  If you can get a bead on their funding we might be in a better state to choke them out eventually. If you come up dry, it's just a bit of wasted time, right?”

Betty nods, “that's the idea.”

I nod, “I'll go do more scouting until it's time to hit the children's hospital … the handlers are human enough, I'd like to stalk one for a while: See where they sleep.”

Ed pauses, “I take it you don't need sleep?”

I shake my head, “Nope. Which is good, as I'm pretty sure I'd be having some rather nasty nightmares from this.”

Betty nods, “Nice… how'd you squeeze all that in, by the way?”

I shrug, and go over the specifics of my build.  This of course naturally leads into a discussion of their builds as well, and where they can go with them.

Like… Betty has a heavy warhorse for her Divine Bond as an S-class Paladin… I let her know about the Monstrous Mount feat: A Griffon will do much better in battle, as it can attack with her… and because she summons her Mount, she only has has him when she wants him, so the oddity is no big deal. She lets me know she'll grab that the next time she levels up.

And of course, Betty having both of them reiterates to Ed that a Wild Cohort is a separate beast from his Animal Companion.  As more bodies are quite useful, he tells me he's going to pick up a Riding Dog next level as well by that path.

The discussion does bring something else to light, “Betty, where are you getting those extra skill ranks?” I am really curious.

She answers easily, “Oh, you mean the Linguistics and Handle Animal ranks? Those are Background skills.”

Ed frowns, “That's an optional system we weren't told to use….”

Betty shrugs, “So?  It's still d20 compatible content.”

My turn for the cluehammer, “Right.  But we're NOT using them.  We're not playing by exactly the same rules.  That has some implications.”

Betty gets it now, “Like it's not Rachel deciding whether or not something is legal… it's us, individually.”

Ed nods, “We can't cheat, I tried….”

I chuckle, “Me too. But the rules appear to be coming primarily from our own subconscious, we don't share them.”

Dropping our plans for the evening, we get into discussions about various optional rules that are straight-up power increases: Hero points, Action Points, Combat Stamina, Light Body Technique, and others.  We get so excited by the possibilities and what we're going to do that it takes us a bit to notice when midnight rolls around and the lighting changes….