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Untamed Silver Water
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It makes sense Cannie would be a BIT SKEPTICAL of all that, especially the Nunitus stuff. She did after all work with them. Bit surprised at how NON-gungho she is about all of this, though. Perhaps she got really traumatized by the power level of Donjon's Dungeon?
... ask her how many floors in she ever went, if she's got this much of an impression of the dangers of dungeon delving. Was it past three? Because, according to Saba, the first three floors of the DonDung is specifically designed to discourage people from even trying. The demon lord wanted people with enough skill and willpower to power through to be the ones to first receive its training potential.
If that's not it, though... yeah, maybe we should work a little harder on convincing her, at least on the importance of staying tight-lipped. You brother seems a bit thoughtful. Eye him and nod towards Cannie to see if he has any INPUT on HER.
>Don't want to save the world
Uh. You get that. You really do. But then you think about the DUNGEON BREAK and you don't want that - or worse - to happen to anyone else. Sucks if Cannie doesn't want to form a team afterwards, though that's fair enough as she's willing to HELP OUT with the DUNGEON and TRUSTS you enough to NOT REVEAL THIS to those who might try to HURT you and Will or ABUSE your Awakening power - which are fair concerns, yeah?
Even if she doesn't buy the angel angle, any rich and powerful elitist assholes in Donjon who heard about ANY of this would be SURE to try to TAKE ADVANTAGE.
>Skeptical of fighting strength and skill
Literally every day is gonna make some people stronger as long as they're around you. She should be assured while you're feeling some pressure, you're NOT leaping into this half-cocked. Heck, getting more people to participate in FIGHT CLUB could be good PRE-DUNGEON TRAINING here, right? She could even hold, like, a seminar on the dangers of dungeon delving since she's got some experience.
Also, out of everyone she shouldn't undervalue Andrea's power. Just being able to keep on trucking day and night has some serious utility and guard implications for dungeon expeditions, don't it?
There might be a few people from Donjon you could pull in too. There's a vigilante, Shocker, who knew your brother back in the day - but he might be hard to get in touch with, you're not sure. There's your ex, Nipha - sister to Kazu, actually - who's a bit of a FIGHTER, and also another Tinker - Rudy - who's coming to visit on MONDAY, you'll be seeing if they're receptive.
And there's Mint, your auction SLAVE (attempted freed), who you Awakened into a Tinker and knows ADVANCED TECH FROM ANOTHER WORLD. So... yeah. You'll keep piling on the advantages. People still might die, for sure, and you'll never sugarcoat that. But if you can get to the stage where you can prevent dungeon breaks or worse things from happening, you would be happy to take calculated risks.
>On Nunitus
It's fine to be SKEPTICAL or think that there's more to this. You yourself have a hard time believing the ENTIRE organization is 100% bad or you would never have approached Cannie in the first place - even Mint let on that there was like a 10% CHANCE an angel WOULDN'T ATTACK (though that's still really low). From the sound of things they're definitely coaching their people to think angels are good, and while you'd like to believe not all are aggressive the FACT that they're keeping a lid on the upcoming INVASION and letting Donjon slide into a messy decline while using the Heroes' League as a 'look at these greedo mofos' foil should be a WORRYING SIGN if she's willing to entertain the notion of what you're telling her here.
Besides, it's not like every religion ever can be RIGHT, right? And if the angels' protection comes at the cost of TAKING OUT Awakened that just don't fit their rigorous ELEMENTAL STANDARD (not to mention THOSE CLOSE TO THEM) then that's kind of a PROBLEM! Maybe they're applying an uncompromising 'the greater good justifies all' kind of thinking, you can see them seeing KILLING PEOPLE as a NECESSARY EVIL in order to shuffle people's SOULS off to somewhere else so DEMONS can't ENSLAVE them, but it definitely feels off to you that all you can expect for your trouble fighting dungeons and demons to keep people safe is a righteous smite in the back.
And if they're already here, opposed to the Demons, WHY HAVEN'T THEY BEEN HELPING? No, there's more to this.
So in order to convince her of the seriousness here, whatever her beliefs, you've got more to share.
>Factor one - Iraphena & Her Secrets
Iraphena KNOWS about the demon auctions. In fact, she's probably staying in town here so she can participate in them, since AUCTION SITES are A THING and you yourself saw her at the auction - AND she texted you immediately the morning after, the text of which you can SHOW TO CANNIE AS PROOF.
When you confronted Iraphena about the demon invasion thing, she muttered cryptically that the DEMONS' WEREN'T EVEN CAT'S BIGGEST WORRY. At the time you found that really disturbing, but it meshed up well with what Saba's will revealed. You also asked her about Nunitus during the artifact trade today, and she confided she LEFT the ORGANIZATION due to a DISAGREEMENT. You don't actually think she's fully left, but you think she's cut ties as much as she's able, that she knows what's coming, and that she knows it's gonna be bad because of her PRECOGNITION and Saba's will revealed that all the psychics and seers he spoke to were pretty uniform in their belief the world was gonna get turbofuck'd by the INVASION and its aftermath.
Your SUSPICION is that Iraphena is playing the best hand of cards she can according to her visions. And that you're complicating it, because you just became the wildcard she can't predict. In order to make her NOT decide to remove you from the equation, you've been playing your own hand nice and helped her identify a lot of the spare Artifacts that she gathered today.
Like. A LOT of spare artifacts. Iraphena is taking serious precautions in getting STUFF that'll help DEFEND her and give her things to trade, presumably for OTHER ARTIFACTS, WEALTH and INFLUENCE. You think she's DOOM PREPPING as best she's able - fuck, one of the artifacts she had could LEVEL THIS TOWN. Sadly, you think Iraphena's also still in too deep with Nunitus to be able to risk trusting her with what you know - as a junior who left on her own Cannie was MORE APPROACHABLE. Leshanna also said she had A FRIEND in the guild still, and... well, that FRIEND is probably who they'll be telling about YOUR FAKE POWER, which on its own is enough to make you sweat given what you know so far, but at least you've THOROUGHLY convinced Iraphena your power is DETECTION-BASED.
>Factor two - Rex & Nunitus' Spy Operation
Introduce Rex. Rex is from the ROACH KINGDOM and the first PERSON you Awakened. Yes, that was a sentence. Their story is a bit of a doozy.
He can tell it himself, but to summarize: Rex was part of this spy initiative in Donjon. Trained, intelligent roaches, enslaved and ordered to sneak around observing people's homes, reporting back signs of newly Awakened to some "Overmind" every week. You had no idea at the time, you just picked up a roach and tried to Awaken it to see if that would work as a test case. And it did! And Rex gained their freedom and a telepathy power, which meant they could tell you about being a slave under the Overmind's control. Your Awakening actually freed them from that bondage and now they're set on helping you out.
Anyway, you only got this impression earlier while Cannie and Isabella were chatting, but the Overmind is someone connected to Nunitus, aren't they? Nunitus being an information guild might explain this sort of surveillance experiment, but a) you gotta say it's WRONG to enslave a bunch of INTELLIGENT INSECT-PEOPLE and b) it's WORRYING that they've set up a way to spy on EVERYONE and specifically report on NEW Awakenings. And has Nunitus RECRUITED a lot of people? It's a relatively SMALL guild, isn't it? So what does she THINK they ACTUALLY DO with ADVANCE WARNING about NEWLY AWAKENED?
You don't know yourself, but the implications kinda disturb you. You'd want to check how Donjon's lethal crime and accident statistic - or disappearance statistic - meshes with the average rate of Awakenings compared to other places, since NEW Awakened tend to be at their WEAKEST. Or who's actually picking up all the newly-discovered recruits and WHAT they're doing with them.
>Awaken Mom
She'd be putting her mother on the front line, especially if the angels DO IN FACT murder the eff out of Awakened without the Light elemental affinity (unless she has that). You kind of want to be SELECTIVE in who you Awaken for this reason. You'd be painting bullseyes on people's backs and that means you want to be able to TRUST THEM enough to TELL THE TRUTH so that they know what they're GETTING INTO. Then again, eventually the INVASION will happen and being able to DEFEND YOURSELF then would be useful for pretty much EVERYONE...
Yeah, alright, you'll Awaken their mom. Might take her up on the offer to do it with the book item though, so Cannie and Will can say it's part of Willamina's INHERITANCE. The less people actually know about YOUR REAL POWER the better you feel. You've got a good thing going now with everyone else in the know presuming you just have a DETECTION-based touch power.
Is Cannie so sure she wants to give the book up, mind? It IS, like, precisely what she said she wanted, and if they say they trust their mother's discretion you'd be willing to risk it.
>MINT-MADE TOWN ENERGY SHIELD SUGGESTION - an alternate offer to Awakening Mom / additional assurance
... oh! If what Cannie - and Will - REALLY wants is a way to PROTECT THEIR MOM AND THEIR TOWN, maybe THAT could be what you'll spend the CRYSTAL on for Mint's project? Mint did mention the LAST BASTION of her world was kept safe thanks to an ENERGY SHIELD that held up until, like, an actual ARMY of FALLEN ANGELS attacked long after the invasion stage, so even a WEAKER version of that sounds like SOME SERIOUS DEFENSIVE BEEF. She probably knows some of the specs and can collaborate with the other Tinkers on setting it up.
If it is made and the control device given to Nicky the town would have a really good DEFENSE in case of outside danger, like from monsters being spawned by a DUNGEON BREAK or an angry bunch of heroes, or demons or angels or whatever. It'd give people time to organize, to call for help, maybe for you to return from your dungeon explorations and make a difference.
>Awaken Isabella - Truth & Topic Avoidance
Awakening Isabella... is another topic - okay okay, shit, less annoyingly vague, uh. Here's the thing. What you said during that dinner conversation was this: She doesn't have a SINGLE power. Now take into account Miss Iraphena approved of that statement. Leshanna Iraphena, the mistress of being cryptic, had a little laugh at it.
...
Yeah, no shit Isabella's Awakened. POWERS, PLURAL. The nature of which you're not gonna get into right now since they're still sorta private. No shit Iraphena knows either - you're 100 % certain they worked together to pressure you into revealing your power (well, the fake one you made up on the spot) and put you in Iraphena's debt, because you got Rex to follow them and he overheard them SAY SO.
Your assumption is Isabella is straight up working for Nunitus, since she has those connections, much like you think Iraphena hasn't quite cut her ties. She's probably also connected to the Heroes' League, since she had that big and very personal encounter with the HL rep who came in to verify Will's Awakening. Which makes SENSE if your presumption is they're sorta under the same organizational thumb, right?
And... you're sorry for all the secrets. You're sure people think they're keeping them for good reasons, but that probably doesn't hurt or annoy her less and you actually wish you weren't the one dropping all of these deets. But it's part and parcel of what you've come across, of wanting to stay up front about everything. You're still aware of some other stuff that could lead to DRAMA, but you don't want to RUIN RELATIONSHIPS, especially not in ways that COULD DO HARM OR RISK EVERYTHING BASED ON AN INCOMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION, so you'll hold off on that for now.
Summed up: shit's complicated, but we should all try to keep our cool and work together to find a way to come out of this mess intact, our loved ones protected. Agreed?
... does she need a pillow to PUNCH? Get her a pillow to PUNCH.
(Isabella's powers being FIRE BASED, the actual findings from Rex's SPYING and MAX being ALIVE sound like too much to get into tonight.)
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