1.23 Interview With a Paladin

Masa Yoshi, Paladin of Justice, was having an odd day. Sure any day with actual orders to follow would be odd. For Masa followed no God, or rather she had ditched her God. He was a hypocritical self-righteous lackwit and only sought Justice for his followers.

She decided to seek ‘true justice’, stripped of her divine might she followed an odd Quest deep into the desert and found a God-like creature willing to supply her with divine energy so long as she truly seeks to bring justice to those in need.

It was a great deal for her, today was only the third time she had been given a job by “the boss” and it was just as odd of a job as the other two. He gave her the ability to veto quests or missions for any number of reasons, but this quest to gather info on the leader of a new faction in the Hive area was not a problem. In fact, she greatly enjoyed the boss creature’s habit of gathering as much information as possible before passing judgment.

In her youth, she would have happily taken a quest to kill a goblin tribe that was stealing food from a village without ever considering why the goblins were stealing food. Now she knew that was her old God's idea of justice, and it boiled down to vengeance against those who in any way harm my worshipers. There was no justice for Greenskins or 'monsters' back home. This city seemed quite a bit better. large and medium ‘Greenskins’ like trolls and orcs sometimes took 'Tank' roles in adventurer groups or took work as mercs, bouncers or bodyguards. But for some reason, she rarely saw the small types of ‘Greenskins’ like goblins, gremlins, gremgobs, or even races of similar stature like kobolds. Though the non-monstrous small enlightened races like gnomes and halflings were common enough. She would not have even noticed had she not been here a few times before.

Her target today seemed fine with being followed for nearly an hour before she approached Masa to confront her tail. Masa was calm as the 'Omega' woman was not gearing up for a fight. Her grey lab coat fluttered in the breeze as she marched straight across the street for Masa.

“Why are you following me, and what do you want?” The Omega Woman demanded to know.

Masa was a little taken aback, The Old Man should have already spoken to her a bit, he was sent weeks ago. She quickly checked her quest log and found that the old coot hadn't sent in a single report on his investigation. She even had a quest update to find what happened to him. She hadn't, actually, checked the log since getting the quest and boarding a ship here. A quest marker only she could see marked this woman as her target, so she had been easy to find.

Masa decided to be as open as possible in the hope she would get an equally straight response. “My boss sent me, his last agent has not checked in, so I'm here to figure out what you are like, and what happened to the Old Man.”

“And by Old Man you mean Buddy?”

“Uh, yeah”

“He is in the southernmost Hex of the city discussing music with my daughter, that hex is in the midst of being taken over by giant rats, so the kids are using Buddy’s fuck off aura to create a mobile safe zone for evacuation. Just as an extra note; he seems oddly proud of the kids using his oppressive aura to save people.”

Masa was a little taken aback at this at first, then she remembered how lazy and bored 'Buddy' usually was and how he obsessed over anything he found interesting. If kids’ music was his new thing she wouldn't bat an eye. However, these kids that were using his primal aura to create a safe zone from hostile low-level creatures were worth keeping an eye on. keeping an old monster entertained to use him as a giant can of Rat repellent was a brilliant use of the annoying old fart.

“So basically he found something interesting and did not bother going to report on his task...You didn’t even bother to lie a little bit”

She was impressed that the woman just straight up told her 'oh your missing coworker is slacking off with my kids'

Masa sighed, exasperated by Buddy's antics. “Well, I guess I have to keep following you around and observing your actions a bit longer, sorry if I don't then our boss is gonna keep sending folks. And no, I can’t tell you why, that's up to the boss man, err maybe boss thing?” she sighed again and shrugged as if to say ‘oh well, what can you do?’. her boss was not the kind of creature that genders really applied to, and calling him her ‘boss creature’ out loud tended to make people misunderstand and think she was insulting it.

The Omega woman seemed surprisingly pleased by the development though “Oh that is great, you’re basically an unbiased 3rd party lie detector, that will save me so much time today.” She took the Paladin by the crook of her arm and led her away, "come come, we have souls to save, educational tools to acquire and trial by combat to un-rig. It is gonna be a busy day.”

Masa was too surprised to resist, normal people didn't get excited to have a Paladin watch their every move for a few hours, let alone a whole day. It was like finding out you were being targeted by an inquisition and showing up at their headquarters and demanding to ‘get it over with’. This person seemed to not only be fine with it but also, already have plans to take advantage of her presence. Masa had to admit to being curious about her plan.

“Professor Omega” The woman identified herself as they walked.

“Paladin of Justice, Masa Yoshi”

“Should I call you Paladin Yoshi?” she asked

“No no, Masa is fine please, Do you have a fist name?”

Omega Chuckled. “I mean... I guess ‘Professor’ is my first name, I didn’t earn the title so much as my powers allowed me to acquire the skills to become one, teaching people is what I wanted this version of myself to do, so I am Professor Omega, my self that wants to forever learn new things and test the limits of our knowledge is called ‘Doctor Omega’ there are five of us ‘Omegas’ right now, I think. We are all Omega, But only I am ‘Professor Omega’. Does that make sense?”

“Yea actually, that explains why I have a bunch of quest markers that all tell me to find the omega woman. As you were the only quest marker in a public place in the city, you were the easiest marker to track and observe, but having a quest telling me to find one person and then give me three markers top track is new. Now I’m curious why only three and not five though”

“My guess is that because 2 of us can not be classified as ‘women’, Omega Core, and Omega Magic.”

We arrived at ‘Big Red’s Artifact Warehouse’ one of the largest buyers of magic items and tech from retired adventures or corpses. Not the kind of reputable establishment I would personally frequent, especially with their well-known habit of ‘accidentally’ buying and selling cursed items.

Omega spoke to me quietly before we went in “can you just follow me around looking like you disapprove of me, and aggressively point out if either I or anyone else lies.”

Masa had to cover her mouth to stop herself from laughing. After she composed herself she said, “I call that the douchebag paladin special #2” she chuckled a bit again “knew a lot of guys like that back when I followed the Church of the Endless Crusade. I quit and wandered off into the wilds to seek ‘true justice’ eventually I found the boss creature and it became like a patron on my quest for Justice, supplying me with divine power again and occasionally giving me tasks like this. So ya, I think I can channel my inner ignorant douchebag and play the role.”

They entered the store after a few more minutes of planning. Omega wandered among some locked display cases looking at weapons, armour and items of utility magic. She was exuding an aura of wealth and privilege, her lab coat now seemed to be made of silver thread, and her glasses were gold with red specks, most likely dust infused gold.

Masa stomped after her Glaring at the woman she blatantly followed and ignoring the store’s wares entirely.

A few sales clerks saw the pair and fled, a few minutes later a two and a half meter tall red-furred wolfman came out of the back to greet them.

“I am Big Red, what can I help you lovely young ladies find today.”

Omega smiled politely, “I need dungeon cores, blank or occupied, any size. I would also like to see any items that used a dungeon core in their creation. Any utility item that creates a substance, endless bottle of water, sand, oil, whatever”

The man looked nervous when she was talking about dungeon cores, but latched on to the utility item idea like it would shake the woman from the other topic. “My lady, we do have such a creation item, an umbrella of rain, it creates a 10-foot aura of rain around the user.” He led Omega and me over to the display case with the umbrella. “The Rain Lord 3000 creates an endless light rain for the user, a favourite of moody lords, goths, and farmers.”

Omega turned up her nose and sniffed haughtily “that’s no creation item, it just draws moisture out of the air, meaning that in a desert it would just keep re-using the same water, or a farmer might screw up the rain cycle in his local hexes, in a word, junk.”

She smiled pleasantly at the man. “Stop wasting my time, show me the Cores or a real item of interest. I just KNOW you can do better.” her expression had turned vicious and predatory when she stressed the ‘know’ before it shifted back to her default pleasant smile.

Masa was supposed to jump in when someone lied, and while the merchant claiming they had such an item was true, it was only a half-truth, things she could pick up on, but not really what Omega had asked. Same with his claim of it being a favourite of goths and farmers, half true, which likely meant he had tried unsuccessfully to sell it to such people, or an item much like it.

“We Don’t have anything else like what you are asking about” the man lied.

Finally! “Total Lie”

Omega smiled grimly at the huge salesman. “Ahh yes, this is a paladin of justice, making sure I am a good person or something. She can sniff lies, mine or yours. She will happily rat me out if I lie to you as well, just to keep things even. Now I was not joking about KNOWING that you have some of what I seek.”

10 minutes later they were in a private room on the third floor looking at a variety of powerful artifact weapons, creation items, and a few high tech gizmos.

Omega bought most of the stuff and haggled a significant discount on all she bought in exchange for warning him of potential issues with the law or the criminal underground, planned thefts, cursed item raids, that kind of thing. She used her uncanny knowledge of his business to get everything she wanted and make the man happy in the long run for having been brutally murdered in his haggling attempts. Most smart people would rather try to be friends with the lady who knows all your secrets already.

After the third store that they pulled their good customer bad customer routine on, Masa had to ask. “How is this acquiring educational tools, and saving souls? I am assuming we have not gotten to the rigged trial portion of our day yet.”

“Ahh well, many of these items were made using dungeon cores, The most common type of dungeon cores are often basically soul gems that can house hundreds of souls. Usually the main dungeon’s soul and the souls of people who died there, or the souls of the dungeons minions. So items that use dungeon cores to power them are basically using the natural energy souls create to power their magic, some of these so-called cursed weapons are dungeons that bond with their wielder to use them to gather more souls to continue feeding the dungeon core in the weapon. Based on my estimates, I just bought over 2000 people. I planned to accuse the shopkeepers of trading in slaves and lost souls if they did not surrender the cores to me. I will give the trapped souls a choice between working for me, becoming dungeon monsters working for my partner Sydney, becoming Sales creatures working for my other partner Holly, becoming Aetherial creatures populating that mostly barren plane, or moving on to their chosen afterlife if they follow a god. Shit… I am gonna need to spin off a new aspect of myself to deal with my new Soul/Death-care industry, It is my daughter’s domain, but she will need time to grow into such a role…..” the last few sentences were obviously Omega talking to herself and not Masa.

“I actually know a GrimReaper and a Valkyrie who might be able to tell you more about setting that up. They would even be incentivized to help as the locals are so diverse, that Phychopomps like them often fight over souls as so many Faiths have differing views on who or what are supposed to collect the souls of the dead.” Masa added helpfully, she was shocked by the number of souls trapped in items like that, and her helpful nature moved her mouth on autopilot.

They chatted about how she had met the Psychopomp duo; apparently, they teamed up, the Valkyrie collecting the souls of those who died in battle and the grim reaper collecting the unclaimed souls, most angels, devils and other creatures collecting souls might be willing to try and gang up on one or the other, but as a pair they were way too much trouble to tangle with. They met the paladin while collecting a soul she was questioning about it’s murder. She called on them like afterlife informants, and they had her look into some murders only soul collectors and the victims could know about, good hard-working folks in Masa’s mind.

Eventually, they came to the arena under the adventurer district. The stands could hold up to ten thousand people, but most seats were empty and there was a crowd of a couple of hundred adventurers squashed in around one side of the arena pit. The betting pool for adventurers. The crowd cheered as a deep thunking crack rattled through the arena.

They approached the side of the arena with a few dozen adventurers looking pissed off and stomping on some papers that said things like “you lose -100DD”. Now that they were closer to the pit, Masa could see an Ogre wearing a slave collar pulling his bloody club from the Skull of a giant lizard monster covered in metallic looking scales. A Dwarven Man was Commanding the Ogre like a pet, who was taking in all the praise from the winning side of the arena.

“Grimbeard has made the Ogre kill his own mount and since enough of you bet on that exact outcome, he gets to keep the Ogre Mindslave for the MAIN EVENT! All 5 of today's Competing adventurers made it through to the final round. So the main event is going to be all five of Today's heroes versus a team of Monster Chieftains charged with crimes including treason, Oath breaking and destabilizing the safety of our great city!”

Most of the people who had bet on the monsters in the last round moved to the other side of the arena. Leaving Masa and Professor Omega as the Only people Betting on the monsters to win. A big yellow holographic smiley face popped out of the wagers terminal and asked how much she wanted to put on the Chieftains.

“I’ll bet as much as them.” Omega said gesturing to the other side of the arena where the Adventurers were unknowingly throwing their money away.

The hologram didn't miss a beat “Very good, which ones mam”

“All of them, of course, can't let the match get unfair now can we?”

The yellow smiley face blanched a bit.

Masa didn’t gamble, but even if she did, she would never bet against her new terrifying friend. The Foolish Adventurers across the way had no idea how screwed they were. Masa grabbed a seat next to the pit on the monster side and picked out one of the bags of snack food the pair had picked up during their shopping spree.

If she was going to bet, it would be on this being a lot of fun.