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Tom is wandering. London's a big city; wandering's a decent way to spend an afternoon, when you've got no classes and your homework's done and you don't have any friends you'd rather spend the time with because everyone around you is a contemptible idiot you're the kind of introvert who needs a bit of solitude to recharge. He's glancing at the shops he passes, in case any seem more interesting than the walk. Miracles do happen*.
*No they don't. Magic isn't real and neither is God.
"I really don't think I will. Personalized, I like. Just... very chipper."
Okay, which of these does he want.
The fish is condescending. The Stone, from what he can determine, is efficient but unexciting. The Vessel, what, like he can't get his own water? The armor is nice but if he's fighting someone in person he's spending too much time in airports. The Sun Shard, ditto.
The Talisman and the Pearl... it would be really nice if he could get both.
"Do you know if there's any way to get the Pearl if I take the Talisman, or vice versa, even though I can't get both on the same signing bonus? Will she take a pre-order?"
"You can buy more with power points, if that is where you wish to do the spending."
"Well. We'll see where my spending impulses take me, they're just both very tempting."
For now... the Talisman almost fills up his signing bonus, and he can buy the Pearl later; if he does it the other way around he'll have to pick up more cruft. The Pearl still needs him to take some cruft, though. Two points' worth.
Fuck it. The fish may be condescending, and he does not love the concept of having a pet forced on him, but it's not like a source of spiritual energy (whatever that is) is useless. Talisman, fish, thank you ma'am. (Miss? ...making sure his words rhyme is beneath him and he did not think that.)
Gah.
"Where to next? The thing that hybridized me, that category seemed to have some interesting things in it?"
"Many interesting things there! Do you want the good interesting that cost points or the bad interesting that give extra? Extra is not only short term take it home today not next week but also power cap increases if this matters."
"Let us! Let us be bad over here - oh, that's curious, your - soul has took one already... it is already factored into your points... seen this once before, blind client needed to take separate perk to unblind instead of drawback to stay blind through awakening. This one is making you a sociopath! Do you like it this way or prefer not being so?"
Huh.
"It's worked for me this long," he demurs. "I really wouldn't know what to do with all that... affective empathy. Are you the only one who can tell that I, ah, took that drawback?"
"And how many of those are there walking down the street? ...also, are they more likely to react with oh what an interesting quirk or well we all do some inadvisable things in pursuit of magic, tut tut or Jeeves, lock the doors and hide the livestock?"
"Rare walking down the street. Most people cannot get up to rank five at all and the ones who can may do it any which way, not only divining. But not hard to find if someone with an organization that likes to check up on people likes to check up on you. It is fairly tut tut but people may assume you were in throes of grief or naturally awakened and had no choice."
"Hmm. And might they choose to confirm with you that this was not the case?"
"I tell people fuckall! Very big guns become very agitated if neutral awakeners are hassled."
"Ah! My confessional is sealed. Then I will not be fixing that little problem, thank you enormously. Now let's get back to inconveniencing myself... a lot of these stars look very big, I wonder if that's a good or a bad thing." He points at a modestly sized one which looks like it could balloon to fill almost the entire space. "For instance, what on Earth is that?"
"Variable in size actually. Gives you a secret weakness, more points if it's more common and fucks you up more from farther away. If you touch plutonium and this only makes it twice as hard to do magic, only seven points. If a can of beans wrecks all your magic from across a basketball court and makes you easy to hypnotize and less immortal to boot, thirty three."
"...huh. If someone can touch me, it feels like I'm already in pretty dire straits, dire enough that a bit of an extra handicap won't be the decisive factor... how much less immortal?"
"Nixes passive methods of coming back to be alive. Nymph method will still work - is discount True Love's Kiss, someone plants one on you sleeping beauty style and wishes you were less necrophilia to mack on and poof."
"I bet I could arrange for that. And then the rest is just intensity? I don't want my mind affected by it but I'm fine with it burning me, or keeping me from doing magic, or that flavor of unpleasantness. Plus nixing my passive resurrection... and I need something for it to actually be, don't I."
"No, cannot be quite so hard to acquire for someone wanting to inconvenience you. They need not be able to get six at Tesco but it cannot be gated on romance quests."
"Drat. I don't really want it to be something sticky, so virgin's blood is out... not to mention that sounds awfully inconvenient if I'm going to be interacting with virgins, and I wouldn't like to deny myself that."
He thinks about it for a moment.
"Do unicorns exist?"
"Yes. Though, you would get false positives, as naturalists playing silly buggers with goats and horses and narwhals also exist."
"Hmm. ...I can live with that, I think. If I make my one true weakness the heart of a unicorn, is that rare-but-not-too-rare?"
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