Reroll

Yeah, I'm not having any of that. As he approaches, I cast a Warp effect: Extradimensional Torpor: It can be used on unwilling targets too… and he goes down like a chump, vanishing into my storage space.

He doesn't stay there, though. There's a save to get out for a while… and he gets a big boost for being healthy. I should fix that.

Before I can, I feel fangs digging into my neck… which hits my force field, of course.  Fun trick, given how I'm wearing vacuum-rated armor… but games are like that.  I step away from him and pop out enough soldiers to fill the room, who all draw their weapons and armor as well, pointing them at Vlad, as I go ahead and pull out a Zenith Artillery Laser…. maybe a light-based attack will be extra effective on a vampire.

Not that it matters too much.  He's got like twenty guns pointing at him.

“Ah… maybe we can talk about…” he doesn't get to finish his sentence, getting burned with laser light, hit with bullets, partially dissolved by short-lived nanites, and frozen by a giant blob of supercooled air.  Starfinder has quite a variety of weapons, and my shadows are smart enough to avoid area attacks.

They do miss sometimes, though; the house doesn't fare too well.

“Unfair! Vermin!” Vlad is screaming as he… dissolves into mist?

“Should have just Challenged her,” Ralph manages a weak chuckle from his spot on the wrecked couch, “I didn't know she already had an army, but Challenges are mono-a-mono.”  He pauses, “Womono-a-mono? Eh, whatever.”

A creature under Gaseous Form is still a creature… I retry storing Vlad… and again, he vanishes.  He should be down a bit in health after that….

Marigold speaks up, “Ah… we should probably leave….” I look up… eh, the roof will hold a little longer… “...as that PROBABLY drew some attention. The fight could have been a loud action movie or something, but this…”

Ah.  Right, I look at Merlin, “Seems we need to postpone our talk.”

Merlin tosses me a business card, “Call me when you're ready.  And… no, I don't plan on a duel or anything.”

“Your loss, Marty,” Ralph hands me a card as well, “Not sure what we're gonna do about the leeches, but… your call now.  I'm going to go inform the packs; they'll want to meet you.”

Hmm. Telling me what I should do without actually coming close to giving an order… “Thanks.” I store both cards in Warp, “Is this place disposable?  Any problems with burning it down to cover what happened?”

Ralph smiles as he walks out the door, “None at all. It's not even in our name; just a zombie house we were maintaining.  Elaine's a realtor, and found it for us. There's plenty more where it came from.”

“Great….” I lob an Incendiary grenade into the place as soon as we're clear: The place is immediately a blazing inferno.

A few quick spontaneous talents for Ranged and Mass Warp, and I have my soldiers back in storage…. Just in time, as the shooting show and fire appear to have attracted the police. The real police, even.  A little illusion covers our escape just fine.

As we fly back up to the ship in a semi-living illusory shuttle, Marigold comments, “So you didn't need me today after all?”

I shrug, “I had hopes, but… well, ‘The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley,’ as the poet said.”

Marigold furrows her brow, “You… broke up a bit there?”

I chuckle, “It's from a poem from 1785; language has changed since then. It's usually translated as ‘Often go awry'.”

Marigold nods, “So Murphy's Law has been alive and well for centuries, then, despite it only being named due to jet testing.”

I just smile in response.

Ed speaks up, “You should probably place those calls before we're out of range….”

“Right,” I give some directions to our invisible ride, and she starts hovering in place.

I then get out a cell phone and start placing calls… Ralph first.

“Hello?” He picks up like any normal person who's expecting a call from an unknown number.

“Hi Ralph, this is Alice.”

“Ah, Double A, what can I do for you?”

“Let's start with an info dump; how is it that you three became the Resistance leaders?”

“Ah. Well, the packs are PACKS, structured like wolf packs because we keep winning.  When lower ranking members get uppity, they challenge whoever is next up.  Whoever wins then takes the higher position, the loser drops down a bit. You skipped a few steps, but I challenged you, so that works.”

Ralph continues, “The leeches hold an election.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It's rigged, but as I understand it, that's actually the point. Whoever is best at social manipulation - threatening voters, blackmailing their opponents, quietly having people assassinated, however they pull it off - gains the title of Vlad.”

I pause, “So if Vlad is a title…”

Ralph confirms it, “His real name is Vinny, and Merlin is Marty. I was supposed to go by ‘Lupus’, but have never had much use for titles… that's yours now, by the way.”

I nod, not that he can see, “Great.  And how’d Marty become Merlin?”

“A magic competition. Kinda like us wolves, but more organized, and not quite so direct. They… duel by proxy, I think is how to phrase it. They do whatever voodoo they do and make a champion from clay, stone, corpses, animals, humans, sticks, or whatever, and send those at each other in some tournament.  Once the battle starts, neither mage is permitted to interfere.  Whoever's proxy wins takes the round.  For later rounds they can use the same proxy… or not. There's a scoring system too, but… not my thing.  Still… it's honest, so better than the leeches.”

“Hmm. Any idea what happens if I don't return Vinny?”

“Wait… you mean you didn't kill him?”

“No… I just put him on ice after he turned into mist.”

“Ah… well, that will kill him eventually. He needs to get back to his home soil… he always keeps a few boxes of dirt from New York stashed away nearby…” he texts me an address and a unit number, “...and trusted me with where one of them is.  He gave Marty a different one. If you don't want him dead, he needs to be there by sunrise.  If you do want him dead… small loss.”

Fine.  I give the directions to our ride, “and what happens if I keep him down?”

“They'll hold a new election.  Once voted in, it's a lifetime appointment; record holder had it for three decades, Vinny has held the title for about four years, which is longer than average.”

Who in their right mind… “Thank you. Also… Alice is, itself, a title of a sort; call me Kenny in private.”

“Your Myth bent you, huh?  That's rare outside the more infectious circles.  I expect it sucks.”

I shrug, “It's certainly different… which circles is it common in?”

“Mermaids, nymphs, dryads, harpies, fauns, witches… they're usually a bit infectious, but their Myth calls for them to be gender-locked.”

“What makes a Myth infectious?”

“Some have it built into the myth… a lot of werewolves and vampires are that way.  For the rest… talk to Merlin, but… groupings.  Like… goblins are trash fighters on their own, and live in tribes… but a Myth almost always takes root in a single individual. But the Myth demands a tribe. So when a Myth takes root and makes the first goblin, and that goblin encounters a… you used, ‘baseline human’... the Myth will often convert them, to MAKE a tribe. It's hard to say exactly how often it will happen… but in general, the bigger the grouping in the Myth, the more likely and faster it is to convert encountered baseline humans… then it just never stops until something wipes ‘em out entirely… which is hard, because goblins also breed like rabbits.”

I find I'm nodding along, “We'll eventually need to make what amounts to leper colonies for those types, then…” that's a nasty, nasty business, but I can't see much of a way around isolation (preferably voluntary, but forced if necessary) for infectious myths, “You seem personable enough… what determines how… social… a convert?”

“You mean like how the ogres, trolls, goblins, nymphs, sirens, and such are compelled to kill? Again, the Myth.  When the Myth is ‘violent’ or ‘stupid’ by whatever flavor… the Myth produces exactly that.  When the behavior doesn't really make the myth, the person is basically unchanged.”

“Of course; I should have guessed.  Thank you.”

“You're the Alpha.  Whatever you need, it's my job.”

I consider a moment, “That pack behavior….”

Ralph takes a breath, “It's part of my Myth, yes.  I'm a wolf. It's how we work.  Anyone I infect will naturally play by those rules as well.  Any pack member that sees me will know I lost the Alpha of Alphas position, and am now the high Beta. Any pack member that sees you will instantly recognize you as Lupus, no matter your form.” He pauses, “Well, NATIVE pack members, anyway. We have a lot of non-wolves in the pack structure playing by the rules, more or less, and they won't get that instant recognition of your status, but they will respect it.  Oh, and please try not to get beaten in a proper challenge.  Anyone but me challenging you needs to go through me first, but if you issue one… well, that's how you got it.”

I consider, “And what's the status of the factions?”

I can practically hear Ralph cringing, “Not great….”