If Sophia hadn’t participated as eagerly as you had—hadn’t lifted your shirt up over your head and allowed you to pin her to your bed, wrestling her tongue into submission—you’d feel embarrassed as to how badly you’d just basically molested her. But she had participated just as enthusiastically, would have been running her hands over your body just as much as you did hers if you hadn’t pinned her hands together and held her down, so you can’t bring yourself to feel embarrassed.
Really, all you can bring yourself to feel is aroused, as you slip into bed that night with one hand practically down your panties already.
It’s a good thing you’ve already invited Madison over, because despite Victoria relieving you recently, you’re already building up a head of sexual frustration again. Having this many cute girls around is very good for your libido.
You fall asleep at midnight, hands newly washed and a new set of panties on. As you fall asleep, thoughts swirl in your head, plans for tomorrow—and the rest of the holidays.
There’s no school for a while. This is going to be fun. [Pick three of the following options. Please note that this vote only encompasses Saturday. Please note that you have one large expense and one small expense. One small expense has been automatically deducted to pay for Taylor’s phone credit.]
[] Your date with Amy is just about here. Ever since your talk with Victoria, you’ve been feeling kind of guilty about how much you’ve been keeping from Amy. You’re not sure you’re ready to talk about your powers yet—maybe your empathy power, if she asks, but definitely not the mind-control aspect—but you really should tell her about your other girlfriends soon. Before it gets so bad it’ll blow up in your face. But how?
— [] Just do it. Put on your big girl panties, walk into that café with her, and do your level best to hold a mature discussion with her about your other girlfriends and your desire to see other women. Make it clear that you respect her, and you’re not trying to cheat on her—you just want to see other women, and you’d like to talk it over with her to find a state that’s agreeable for the two of you.
— General results: Amy will not be happy. She will appreciate that Taylor came clean before the two of them became deeply involved in their relationship, but will still not be happy that Taylor kept quiet about this—even as she understands that she would not have reacted well. May make Taylor slightly more assertive when it comes to relationships she cares deeply about. Many potential events for Amy during the school holidays will no longer be available, greatly reducing the prospects for romantic progression with Amy during the school holidays. May cause Taylor to backslide into depression if not mitigated soon.
— [] Set the groundworks now, but just—you can’t just say it straight to her face. Build it up now, and give her something to think about. Next time you see her—before you go on a fourth date with her, you’ll tell her. Definitely.
— General results: Amy really will not be happy. Taylor will tell Amy when the mood is right during their later trip to Boston; Amy will initially react badly, but by playing on Amy’s fantasies (even unknowingly), Taylor can mitigate the worst of the impact. By waiting past the third date, however, Amy will lose some of her trust in Taylor. Decreases Amy’s Loyalty by 1. Doubles the difficulty of gaining new points in Loyalty and Affection until a score of 5 is reached in the respective stats.
— [] You just—you can’t think of a good way out of this. No matter how you think about it, regardless of how you approach this, Amy is going to be hurt. And you can’t guarantee that she’s going to want to stay with you afterwards. You’ve avoided using your powers on Amy so far, but—you’ve enjoyed not having to use your power on Amy, but there are some things that are more important than your principles, and Amy’s happiness is one of those things.
— General results: Amy will, unsurprisingly, be okay with Taylor dating other women. Taylor, no longer buoyed by having a successful relationship without the use of her powers, will backslide somewhat into depression. Could deal minor but long-term damage to Taylor’s self-esteem. Amy will not find out unless players vote to tell Amy, or the Alarm stat reaches 10 and Taylor is discovered as a Master.
[] You’ve asked Madison out on a date. You’ve already got a date with Amy, and this can be pushed off, but—maybe it shouldn’t. You can take Madison out after Amy. She won’t mind. Dad will be home, though, so if you want any sexytimes with Madison, you’re going to have to get creative about it.
— Success chance: Cannot be failed.
— General results: Taylor will go out on a date with Madison, eventually returning to Taylor’s house. Provides several short-ish scenes of Taylor and Madison being themselves around each other. Also accustoms Madison more to being around Taylor and serving her whims. May provide scenes regarding Madison servicing Taylor, either non-sexually or sexually.
[] There’s a girl you’ve been looking at recruiting—in particular, a Ward. It’s risky, but well worth it if you can pull it off. With the school holidays going on, you should be able to find somewhere that Shadow Stalker is scheduled to appear. If you can just get access to her for a short while, who knows what you might be able to do?
— Success chance: 30%
— On a success: Provides very early access to the in-game knowledge that Sophia is Shadow Stalker. This revelation will provide several opportunities to make Sophia feel much closer to Taylor than she already does, potentially bringing Sophia in almost as close as Madison is before the end of the holidays—albeit without the submission angle.
[] There’s another girl you’ve been looking at recruiting—Vista. Being a Ward, Vista is most likely on holidays now herself, meaning she should be participating in public relations events soon, as well as just having more personal time generally. If you spend a few hours looking things up on the internet, you should be able to build up a memorized schedule of where Vista might show up. If you can attend a few of her PR events, you should be able to sink your hooks into her.
— Success chance: 70%
— On a success: Provides access to Vista at several points during the holidays. If these options are chosen at least twice, early recruitment of Vista will become available.
[] Invite Emma over to your house in the morning to go through some catalogues with you. There are a lot of furniture places in town that might be willing to sell you furniture at reduced prices across the next couple of days. And, more importantly—while the furniture isn’t particularly urgent, Emma responded very positively to you asking for her help with your room. Costs one small expense, negated if the action fails.
— Success chance: 40%
— General results: Increases Emma’s Devotion by 1. Taylor will invite Emma over to go through a series of catalogues, and later online posts, searching for furniture and other decorations for Taylor’s new bedroom. The additional show of trust will make Emma substantially happier.
— On a success: Taylor will actually find a small lounge on special for low enough that she can afford it. Knowing that Taylor has no means to transport it, Emma will offer to have one of her school friends drive it to Taylor’s house, for a price; a kiss. Substantially increases Taylor’s stress, while offering a commiserate increase to Emma’s happiness. Taylor will, of course, greatly enjoy the kiss.
Spoiler: Stat Changes
Sophia:
+1 Lust
+1 Loyalty
+2 Intrigue
+1 Affection
Due to rolling 50 points or higher above the necessary threshold, the following bonuses were achieved;
Sophia:
+1 Loyalty
+1 Affection
Sophia will be somewhat more affectionate in future.
Sophia will not be so quick to believe Taylor has hidden motives in future.
2.14
> Success chance: 40%
> Necessary roll: 60. Rolled: 90. Success.
Spoiler: Winning Votes
[] Your date with Amy is just about here. Ever since your talk with Victoria, you’ve been feeling kind of guilty about how much you’ve been keeping from Amy. You’re not sure you’re ready to talk about your powers yet—maybe your empathy power, if she asks, but definitely not the mind-control aspect—but you really should tell her about your other girlfriends soon. Before it gets so bad it’ll blow up in your face. But how?
— [] Just do it. Put on your big girl panties, walk into that café with her, and do your level best to hold a mature discussion with her about your other girlfriends and your desire to see other women. Make it clear that you respect her, and you’re not trying to cheat on her—you just want to see other women, and you’d like to talk it over with her to find a state that’s agreeable for the two of you.
[] You’ve asked Madison out on a date. You’ve already got a date with Amy, and this can be pushed off, but—maybe it shouldn’t. You can take Madison out after Amy. She won’t mind. Dad will be home, though, so if you want any sexytimes with Madison, you’re going to have to get creative about it.
[] There’s a girl you’ve been looking at recruiting—in particular, a Ward. It’s risky, but well worth it if you can pull it off. With the school holidays going on, you should be able to find somewhere that Shadow Stalker is scheduled to appear. If you can just get access to her for a short while, who knows what you might be able to do? Saturday morning brings with it the loud sound of swearing coming from next door. It’s too muffled for you to understand what they’re saying, but it’s emphatic enough to draw you out of bed at barely half past five in the morning, muttering your own little swear words at them in turn.
It also brings with it the knowledge that it’s the school holidays now, but somehow, that seems less important in the moment than getting away from all that swearing does. You stumble out into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and very, very annoyed. It’s not an auspicious start to your school holidays.
The coffee maker bubbles away merrily after you turn it on, preparing to spill its delicious innards into your mug. As you wait, legs crossed in front of the bench, you consider.
During the holidays, you’re not getting new assignments and homework to keep up with. You’ve pretty much finished this year’s textbooks and everything. The only school-related stuff you even could keep up with at this point is to reread the textbooks for the year, or to purchase next year’s textbooks and read through them. And to find out which textbooks Sophia’s class is reading and locate a copy of them so you can help her study for that, of course.
It won’t exactly occupy you as much as it normally would, though. Right now, for instance, you really don’t feel like heading back to your room and rereading through your textbooks. It might help, but that’s just not the kind of thing you want to waste your holidays doing all the time.
That does, however, leave you with a quandary; what are you going to do until your date with Amy?
You open the refrigerator and take out a stick of celery as you consider it, idly chewing as you pad back over to the coffee machine and begin pouring the liquid into your mug. None of your girls will be awake yet—if they are, they shouldn’t be—so you can’t talk to any of them about anything just yet.
You’re halfway through your third bite of your celery stick when a thought strikes you. Ah—with it being the holidays now, wouldn’t the Wards be participating in one of their programs? Not official PR programs, of course (there are complicated legalities involved with employing minors to appear in public; nothing insurmountable, but enough of a pain to not make it worth it all that often, and not on an ongoing basis), but they usually hold some events during the school holidays to raise awareness of the Wards program while the Wards aren’t having to go in to school every day.
And if the Wards are out and about in public, they’re going to have to post a public itinerary for it to do any good.
Considering it, you nod at first sharply, then more hesitantly. Well—well, okay. Maybe you shouldn’t look up their entire itinerary yet. You have a date with Amy later today, and you really don’t want to make yourself feel uncomfortable looking up Vista’s schedule when you’re going to meet your maybe-kind-of-girlfriend in just a few hours.
You grab your mug of coffee in the hand that isn’t currently carrying your celery stick and head over to the computer. You have to double back, again, and grab a towel from the linen closet to cover the modem so the sound of it booting up doesn’t wake Dad up. It’s really kind of annoying. On Earth Aleph, they apparently have modems that don’t make these horrifyingly loud screeching noises when they turn on. That’d be nice.
The chair isn’t the most comfortable, but you slip into it anyway, loading up the ParaHumans Online board and navigating as quickly as you can to the Brockton Bay subforum. From there, it’s easy enough to find Shadow Stalker’s thread; it’s nearly halfway down the page, but given how active the threads for Panacea, Glory Girl, Armsmaster and Battery are, that’s really not surprising.
It takes a surprising amount of searching through the thread to find any information on these events. After fifteen minutes of searching, you open a new window and navigate back to the PHO board itself, just in case you’d missed a general thread on it. As it turns out, you had, but it’s not a particularly helpful thread—just a notification that the Wards would be making public appearances during the holidays, with a note that the dates will be updated when they’ve been confirmed.
Incompetence in the PRT staff? There’s incompetence everywhere, you guess. At least this one only appears to be an administrative error.
It’s not like you don’t have the time to spare, so you settle back in to Shadow Stalker’s thread and begin reading backwards from the newest posts, searching for any hint as to when the events will be. After a while, you also open Aegis’ thread—he’s the leader of the Wards, so if there are any group events, they’re most likely going to be found here.
