I decided to take a few minutes to clear my head in the meditation chamber before heading out, figuring I could make up the time by skipping my usual home-cooked breakfast. It was only a half-day of non-union work anyway; if they'd really wanted me to be on time, then the cheap bastards could have shelled out the extra couple of hundred bucks.
The air in the meditation chamber was heavy with plum blossom and had the crispness of a fresh breeze. When the doors were closed, the room was free of the semi-audible deep thrum of car tires on asphalt, perfect for a quiet moment to yourself. So, what had I learned?
My cousin was unhinged, seemingly like every other high-level martial artist, possibly including myself. I felt most of my actions could be justified in their contexts, but I was sure JingJing, my mother, and Kas would all say the same about themselves. Either way, it didn't speak well of my chances to escape this universe sanity intact. Maybe I would talk to Pak Hadiman about how he had stayed grounded for as long as he did; the man was thus far the only reasonable master I'd met.
Vincent He had a black hole technique. If that included the time-bending aspects of extreme gravity, then everything might have been fine at the Kingfisher, even if I hadn't intervened. Gutting – but at least I'd bought myself enough goodwill with the gang to have avoided another set of enemies. It might also explain why I hadn't received any Quest Rewards for foiling the assassination attempt; I originally assumed it was because the innocent waiter's death had 'failed' the Quest, but if Vincent had the ability to take care of the Flesh Puppet without knowing it was there, then I could see the Producers not giving it to me either way. There was a vanishing chance that the assassination had been a setup by Hou, but I didn't buy it; too messy, too many moving parts, and going ahead with the plan when I was deep in the Happy Idiot and impossible to read would have been suicidally stupid. He had no idea what I could or would do in that situation.
On that note, after the first serious outing of the Happy Idiot, I think it could safely be called a mixed success. The Stance had its uses; against ordinary people or for getting around the city unmolested, for example, it was excellent. And JingJing had confirmed its most powerful defense, the ability to mask my Aura, which meant that it could keep me safe from unseen mystics tracking me at a distance. However, as a result, in person, I was profoundly disturbing to anyone who could sense Qi, especially because it also prevented them from understanding what was happening. Likewise, it made people like Uncle Hou, a cutthroat veteran of Social Combat, feel blind and deaf as he suddenly became totally incapable of even guessing my intentions or abilities. To a regular person, they might chalk that up to them having a bad day or me being particularly mysterious, but to someone as paranoid as a Triad, it was a threat. It didn't matter if their confusion could be directly attributed to me – I was the obstacle to be removed.
Against anyone already inclined to underestimate me, like Denny, the tech-store guy, the Happy Idiot could work wonders. But Hou and his ilk? I doubted Hou ever underestimated whoever was across from him in a negotiation. He was a man who could only ever look past the Empty Head to the God beyond, regardless of what his instincts or senses might tell him.
That didn't mean the Stance didn't have a place in high-stakes Social Combat. At least I gave the man face by walking through the door as I did. No matter what else could be said, Hou would know that I respected his skills; I'd literally invented a new, powerful Stance on the eve of our meeting just to deal with them. If I'd had more info on the Underworld going into the meeting, I could have made a play at manipulating Hou, but I'd been almost totally ignorant. In a sense, Uncle Hou had blown his chance as well; next time we met, I wouldn't be nearly so naïve and ill-informed, and he would be just as vulnerable to the Empty-Headed God.
Would refusing to negotiate at all and simply leaving with the dossier on the Tigers have been more or less insulting? Was my plan to woo the Founder of the Cranes with Relationship Tokens suicide or genius? Should I have let the honeypot with Edie and Jewel happen, and did I return to make the play at seducing the nervous Edie for more information?
All questions for another time. I'd have to muse on them with Maki, Ma, or Kas – or, honestly, as much as it pained me to admit it, I did have theoretical access to an expert in these matters. I frowned. The thought of asking him soured even the immaculate mood of the meditation chamber. Reaching out via a letter was one thing, he was significantly less annoying in the medium of text, but I'd have to go see him for this.
I sighed. "Goddamn it, Dad."
Maki, Ma, and Kas could all act as sounding boards and offer their own perspectives, but there was only one man in my life who I could turn to for actual advice on these topics, and he was in a maximum-security prison in the Pine Barrens. It wouldn't be great advice, or he wouldn't have been locked up for murder at the moment, but it would be better than anything I could get from the others. He might have been a bad father and a terrible husband, but by all accounts, he had been a decent thief. And he'd survived for decades as a career criminal in Black Harbor, a small triumph on its own.
I pulled up the Starting Quest I'd avoided thinking about the most.
> [Character Quest: Honor Among Thieves, part 1]
>
> Determine the truth behind your father's arrest.
>
> Reward: 125 XP, +1 to six different skills of your choice
'Part 1,' huh? Sounded like a headache – every aspect of it, really. I wouldn't be able to speak to my dad about my gang problems openly while he was monitored by prison staff. There was an implication in the Quest that I could clear his name, but doing a gritty investigation into his arrest was out for a number of reasons, the least of which was my lack of available time.
"Do I break your dumb ass out of the pen just for a conversation, John Chang?"
Now, there was a question for another day if I'd ever heard one.
My place had its defensive Upgrades, but I needed to be cautious. When I was a renter, my utilities were covered by the landlords to better cover up their rampant insurance fraud, but the internet was in my name, and I was sure a dedicated opponent could find me through that. I left via the back in full Innocuous Oaf, but continuing the theme of mental clarity, slipped out of the Happy Idiot once I was a few blocks away from my apartment. I still couldn't sense the cognitive and emotional effects the Stance had on my mind, but there were too many signs to dismiss them entirely. Just to be extra safe, I even avoided thinking about more than my immediate actions until I'd dropped the Stance.
Silk and speed would be my shield today. It was too risky to use the Crouching Tiger haphazardly; one way or another, eventually, my theft of the technique would be found out, and there would be no rest after that happened. But knowing where I was and intercepting me in the middle of rocketing over the rooftops was another thing entirely.
Unfortunately, mid-journey, I did discover one guaranteed way to make me stop. Right before I'd left the bounds of Harbor Hill, I noticed two sharp, desperate spikes of intense killing desire on the edge of my perception. The hatred was directed at three men, and there was a strong tinge of hopelessness to it, along with a broader and deeper sense of misery.
I slowed down and hopped my way from roof to roof to avoid kicking things off with my presence before I could understand what was happening. It probably wasn't an ambush today, but someone had once told me that there were four guns for every man, woman, and child in Black Harbor. Slamming to a stop on top of a nearby streetlight felt like the wrong move. The loud wobbling, droning sound they made when I did that startled me even when I knew it was coming, and there were twenty million guns in the city.
Outside of a deli, three older teens/young men were harassing two teenagers, a boy, and a girl, clearly on their lunch break from the nearby high school. The harassers didn't have matching jackets like gang members out of a musical, but each was wearing a suspicious amount of green and purple. Their car, an old BMW, still running and parked partially on the sidewalk, had the same scheme, with a badly spray-painted purple racing stripe across its green side. I didn't recognize the colors, meaning they were probably one of those small outfits that popped up in the buffer zones between larger territories.
Two of the gang members had the girl trapped against the wall with their bodies, though they weren't touching her yet, merely menacing. Another had his arm 'casually' around the shoulders of the boy, whispering into his ear. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I didn't need to; the collective body language in the scene told me everything I needed to know.
I checked the time on my phone – damn, didn't have the space in the schedule for anything short of overwhelming brutality. What a shame.
Being hidden meant that whatever I did would go unopposed unless these random thugs had the Feats to prevent surprise attacks. I had to hope that men with Feats like those weren't in small-time operations like these, or else my crusade to clean up the city was going to be a hell of a slog. Using the presumed advantage, I split my total Aura + Telekinesis pool into two, targeting the men trapping the girl, 8 for one and 8 for the other. I could have probably been fine splitting it three ways, but I had a plan for the last – I didn't want them to blame the victims, after all. It was time Harbor Hill's criminals got the memo that there was a youxia in town.
Crouching down at the edge of the roof, I hid the bulk of my body behind a parapet just across the street from the deli. The locals were quick to walk past or change directions if they could, doing as much as was possible to remove themselves from the situation, their apathy and self-interest clearing the space for me to work freely. Two hands outstretched towards my targets, I rolled my Telekinesis, grinning viciously as the dice clattered – seven Successes for both men. Wow, weren't these guys lucky?
Not long ago, I'd considered this power one of my trump cards, to be played only when necessary. That had been before I was seen summoning a fire tornado and dueling my mother over a Peach of Immortality. I needed a new strategy now; what exactly, I didn't know yet, but trying to keep my second most overt Qi ability a secret seemed plain silly.
I lifted my arms, and both men flew up about twenty feet into the air, giving them just enough time to start kicking and shouting before I slammed them down onto their nearby car. I was kind to them, by which I mean I didn't aim for the hood or the frame, but the roof and the rear window instead. Those were where I would pick to crash into a car from above if I had to, at least – it was the small mercies that separated the brutal vigilante from the noble youxia.
The early 2000s beamer was rocked by the force hard enough that one of its tires lost a hubcap, and a rear axle snapped, tilting the whole thing at a fatal angle. That was two cars totaled in two days for me – nice, if I kept this up for several hundred years, Black Harbor might finally be free of the wretched machines. The 'softer' landing zones did the job of keeping them alive and conscious, and kept the Damage from counting as Murderous, though whether that remained the case was up to the task of emergency services not fucking them up further. I'd hit the Injury Threshold for both men, leaving the specifics up to the system and fate to decide. There was quite a bit of blood, but people were hardier in this world, so I assumed they'd be 'fine.' Lethwei guys spent hours headbutting boulders apart, and that was just training. This was a relatively minor beating, all things considered.
The third thug was freaking out. In an act of pointless and unnecessary cruelty, he'd pushed the boy away from him towards the deli hard enough that the teen had gashed his head open on one of the iron bars over its windows. He drew his gun, but unsure what to point it at, he settled on, incredibly, the car of all places. That did make me feel better about what I was about to do. A man this dumb had no business in the Underworld. Full traction in a hospital was time out for guys like this; it would give him the opportunity to consider his priorities in life.
He was prepared for my next roll, making it contested, but the mook had no shot in hell of beating me. I lashed out with my Steel Silk Sash, wrapping it around the arm with the gun, and tugged it in my direction. This was where I was grateful for the survival instincts of Harbor Hill's residents. Had there been more of a crowd, I might have had to jump down and get involved, but instead, I aimed his arm at the block wall of the building I was standing on and let him empty his magazine harmlessly into the thick concrete and stone. The gunshots would hopefully help summon police and ambulance quicker as well, though the bar was low for response times in the neighborhood.
I both yanked and retracted the Sash back, making another opposed roll against the thug. This one was too successful. The man must have Whiffed his check because he stumbled, aiding me in pulling him off the ground, and slammed into the block wall at speeds I hadn't anticipated. This was a new rules interaction for me, and potentially an addition from the Patch. Normally, I was allowed to spare someone from the last point of Damage to keep them conscious, but I guess that didn't apply when opponents did an exceptionally bad job of defending themselves. The system picked his Injury Threshold penalties for me as well, mangling his shoulder, shattering his knee, and maybe breaking his jaw. It was hard to tell with how much blood was suddenly covering his face.
"You need to find a hobby, bro," I said to the unconscious man I was now dangling over a sidewalk like he was a disappointing fish I was about to throw back into the water.
His arm was now twisted twice past its limit, and he smelled of piss, though the latter may not have been a new condition. This was the part where I was going to give an intimidating speech threatening anyone else dumb enough to commit crimes in broad daylight in Harbor Hill – a storybook moment, you know? Instead, I carefully lowered him to the ground in one slow, clean motion to avoid further injury.
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"Do your gang shit at night, assholes!" I yelled to the street and any witnesses, hoping they couldn't hear the vague sense of anti-climax in my voice. The gangbangers might not have been in any position to listen, but I didn't want people wondering if this had been a personal vendetta.
> [Recurring Quest Complete!]
>
> Stop a crime.
>
> Reward: 3XP
No Encounter results and only three Experience, eh? Fair, guess it was more a beating then a fight, and the crime had been relatively minor even if I'd probably prevented much worse by putting the men in the hospital. Oh well, people had seen me and gotten an idea of where I stood and what I was willing to do, and that was ultimately all that I wanted here. I returned to roof hopping my way to work, avoiding looking at the two teens I saved in case they were mistakenly assumed to be anything but strangers to me.
Maybe there was something deeply wrong with me, but I arrived near the sound stage for today's shoot feeling nothing but good vibes. Had those been triads, mafiosos or other professional, professional criminals, I'd have been anxious about retribution, and had I been anywhere but Harbor Hill, legal trouble. But I couldn't bring myself to fear a criminal syndicate that spray-painted purple racing stripes onto their cars, nor did I think any Hillers would rat me out to the cops if they were ever even asked. The sole benefit of having a ludicrously corrupt police force was that they sure as shit wouldn't care about me violently ambushing low-level thugs.
Nope, that had been an unequivocal win, I was pretty sure. No one had died, idiot gang members included; those two teens could breathe easier for a bit while the green-and-purples switched their attention to me, and whatever backlash I did receive would only serve my ultimate goal. A safer, less chaotic Harbor Hill was a more defensible Harbor Hill.
Ending all crime in the neighborhood, or even ending all violent crime, was quixotic, but it was paramount that I do something to make my immediate surroundings less of a powder keg before things got rapidly worse.
Falling Leaf Lin had said, 'The time of peace is over. The Wheel is turning.' And Li Tieguai had said and intimated as much before her. While the Immortals had been excited by the prospect, I was yet to be infected by their divine sense of boredom. For me, those words were warnings from two separate, if minor, gods. Under those circumstances, making an example of a street gang or two seemed like a sensible start to begin preparing for the worst.
An unambivalent success – when was the last time I had one of those?
Jesus Christ, it had been when I'd rescued Marianne's daughter, Shania Greene, under almost identical circumstances to those teens, hadn't it? Everything else, even taking Annie as an apprentice, had added slowly mounting complications and hurdles to my life. Maybe I ought to consider making the lateral move from youxia to superhero.
"Ah, yes, James, to yearn for the uncomplicated lives of Spider-Man and Daredevil, how very clever of us," I said to myself. "And once we got the Party together, we could live as carefree as the X-Men."
I giggled aloud at the image of a non-dramatic X-Men, in which the members communicated their problems openly and resolved them without extended, sometimes years-long melodramas. How wonderfully absurd.
Today's commercial job was being shot in a rental sound stage operated out of an older warehouse retrofitted with modern equipment. I'd landed outside the lot, intending to check in like normal for, I don't know, nostalgia's sake, I suppose. There was nothing stopping me from hopping the chain-link fence that separated the lot from the rest of the Foundry.
I checked the time – only five minutes late – and eyed a hip new coffee place that had opened down the block. Formerly the city's most rundown industrial neighborhood, the area was currently in the midst of an economic revitalization, with high-rise condos and new shops going up at record speed. There was a picture of a sinful triple berry iced lightning matcha-chino with a tower of whipped cream and fresh fruit atop it calling my name, from a high-end café that might be gone by the next time I was here. The Foundry looked like a different place on a month-to-month basis these days. Friday had been meant to be a relaxing, fun start to my weekend, and the drink was definitely the sort of thing I could bring to the makeup booth. How professional did I want to be today? Or rather, how professional did I want to be for my non-union, commercial gig now that I was insanely attractive and talented? This was an industry for divas, after all.
A doughy, well-dressed man was currently trying to bullshit his way past the security guard manning the checkpoint, Raj. The man might have been an excellent bullshitter, hell, he might have had an actual reason to be let inside, but I knew Raj well enough from past jobs to recognize that he was having too much fun being an asshole to play along. It wasn't anything personal; the security guard was just a transplant from Philadelphia, and being pointlessly combative was a common pastime there. I could probably get away with blaming Raj and the man for the delay. 'Sorry, some guy was holding things up at the entrance,' I'd say. They didn't need to know that the fence was no impediment to me.
Grinning mischievously, I fast walked past the gate, giving Raj a big, encouraging thumbs up as I did. 'Fuck that guy,' I mouthed, before tapping my wrist to emphasize I wanted him to continue messing with him as long as possible. Raj laughed and nodded in return.
The man turned to follow Raj's gaze, and I instantly knew that I had played myself.
"Heavens! Mr. Li, just the man I was here to see," he said in a comically posh British accent.
I stopped mid-stride. "Ah, fuck me."
"Sorry?"
I looked between the man and back to the poster of the triple-berry iced lightning matcha-chino, so recently taped to the glass of the cafe that the sun had yet to rob the colors of their full vitality. The man looked frumpy, and British, and annoying, and the drink, ah, the drink, so glorious, so bursting with beautiful empty calories and a psychotic amount of caffeine.
Fuck it, diva mode activated. I turned away from the man without saying a word and started walking away in the direction of my prize.
"W-wait!" He started following me, jogging to keep up. "I want to proposition you!"
"Ha! Understandable, but I'm not interested."
"Oh, god, no, sorry. That was one of those occasions where you're so desperate to avoid misspeaking that it's all that you can do when you finally open your mouth. I have a proposition for—"
I cut him off. This stank of something serious and complicated, the exact opposite of what I assumed the triple-berry iced lightning matcha-chino smelled like. "Hey, sure, whatever, man. But I'm running late, so—"
"Please, if I could have just a moment of your time, Mr. Li! I'm a journalist—"
I started walking faster. "Sorry to hear that. My condolences."
"Wait!" He clapped a hand on my shoulder.
I stopped, narrowed my eyes at the offending member, and contemplated how badly I could crush his wrist without getting blood on my clothes.
He wisely snatched his hand away, but to my surprise, seemed relatively unaffected by my fighting spirit. "Forgive me. My name is Paul Occam. I'm a journalist for the Harbor Moon, Mr. Li, and I did try to reach out to you conventionally, but a preliminary investigation gave some indications that your electronic communications are being surveilled. I wish that I could tell you more, but I'm barely more than an amateur in the realm of information technology."
I sighed, both at the news I was being watched, which I probably should have guessed was happening, and at the name of the paper. The Harbor Moon was the Dark Media newspaper that Kas paid tens of thousands of dollars a year to have access to. It covered a mix of the Underworld and all the news that wasn't fit to print for one reason or another. Kas primarily used it to insider trade his way into a fortune.
I ran a hand through my hair. "I assume if I kill you, someone else will just step in and write whatever story you're working on about me?" That wasn't a threat, I was genuinely curious how an Underworld newspaper functioned, not that I didn't enjoy pressing the journo.
Occam winced. "The story regarding the Incident on Bell Street has already been sent to press, I'm afraid, Mr. Li." He added nervously, "But I'm not working on any particular story about your actions outside of that night, nor were you mentioned by name, that I assure you. No, beyond the contract work I take for the Moon, I do longer-form, more in-depth research as well for a very select group of clients. I believe my current investigation is mutually aligned with your own curiosities and interests, and I would like to compensate you for your help in pursuing it. Unfortunately, I don't think I should say any more outside of a secure environment. If you aren't opposed, we could schedule a meeting at my home or yours, or if you aren't comfortable with those options, there are venues in the city that cater to needs like ours. I would, of course, shoulder the costs associated with meeting at one of those."
I checked the time again. "You do understand that I won't hesitate to reduce you to ash if I even suspect treachery, don't you?" That was a threat.
He gulped and attempted a conciliatory smile. "I am keenly aware, Mr. Li."
"Call me James." Well, might as well do this properly if we were going to do it at all. I extended my hand for him to shake. "Not one for formalities. Nice to meet you, Paul."
Occam breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders slumping a tad. "The pleasure is all mine, James."
The moment the journalist's hand was in mine, I tightened my grip, simultaneously circulating my Qi through his body and overwhelming him with the full, unadulterated force of my killing intent. Occam's knees hit the sidewalk, and he began to gasp for breath, sweat beading on his forehead. Nearby tufts of weeds and grass began to wither and wilt, as though a strong heat gun had been applied to them. He had handled my mild fighting spirit earlier with grace, but this was different. That had been James Li, diva; this was James Li, Master of Black City Kung Fu, son of Lily Li, the Golden Eagle. I wanted both to let this man – or man-shaped thing – know precisely what awaited him for his betrayal and for him to understand, in case he was capable of stopping me, that I was going to take my time to inspect his Qi network whether he liked it or not.
Curious – I'd never felt anything like this before. I wasn't sure if Paul Occam had a Qi network at all. Instead of circulating his spiritual power through his body, it was as if his metaphysical self was constantly reaching outwards, trying to 'grow' into the world like a tree extending its roots. Even now, it was spontaneously reaching into me, despite the fact that its tendrils were being burned into nothingness at the point of contact. It was like he couldn't help it; this was just his nature.
"A wizard," I said at last, realizing what I was sensing. In system terms, Occam used Attunement for his main Mystic Attribute, drawing on leylines and more esoteric forms of naturally existing power, strange dimensions, the outer cosmos, and the like. "Huh."
I had a somewhat decent Attunement myself from various Quest Rewards at this point, but my Qi network looked nothing like his. I wondered if that would change if I ever began to actually use the stat.
Retracting both my killing intent and Qi, I helped the man to his feet, patting him on the shoulder reassuringly. "Sorry about that. There's a Flesh Puppet user running around at the moment – I had to be sure. You get it."
He coughed, clinging to me for support. "Y-yes. Perfectly understandable, all part of the profession," he said, sounding surprisingly genuine. "A mage capable of Vile Dominion, that is worrying though, almost worth prioritizing if I didn't have my own deadlines. I'll put out the word through my contacts when I get home. So…does my continued survival mean that you're amicable to my earlier proposal?"
"We can schedule a meeting, I suppose. I really am late for work, though, and I'm too deep now not to get that triple-berry iced lightning matcha-chino. You know, sunk cost fallacy and all."
"Er, I don't think that means what you're implying it means. In fact, I think it means the exact opposite."
I shook my head, smiling, already feeling the chill Friday vibes again. A real-life wizard – that was so sick! I was playing it cool, but I was pretty excited to potentially bag my own Merlin for the team.
"Paul, buddy, one day you're going to discover the simple joy of intentionally being dumb as fuck, and it's going to blow your mind. You say 'fallacy', I say I'm a 'fella 'bout to see' my ass to an overpriced milkshake disguised as the healthy alternative. Toe-may-toe, toe-may-toe, nahmsayin'?"
"Ehm, perhaps."
"Anyway," I said, "I've got to get moving. Do you think we'd be good if I hit you up via a burner SIM on a fresh phone?"
"Yes, certainly. I actually think your regular phone calls are fine, but again, I'm not an expert on the matter. Text-based communication, however, is significantly more at risk. A burner SIM should be more than enough, though." Paul handed me a card. "When can I expect your call?"
"Soon. I'll see how bored I get with my weekend off. Plus, I should do the responsible thing and vet you a bit more. But I foresee good things coming out of this friendship, unless—"
"Unless you have to light me on fire?"
"See!" I slapped him on the back. "We're already sympatico! You're finishing my sentences, and we've known each other for barely five minutes."
His shoulders sank, and the bags under his eyes looked a bit more pronounced. "Ha, yes, wonderful."