Court of Blessers

PhotoMan accepted her hand up and her apology, reclaiming his usual inexpressive face. "Don't worry on my behalf," he encouraged her. "And I'm happy that I've made you feel that way... Comfortable with yourself, I mean."

BlessMan's smile remained; eerily, it was impossible to make anything else out of his emotion, because there were no other facial features to look at. "I understand. The path of a Blesser is filled with responsibilities as well as power. It's not something to accept lightly," he replied. "Perhaps there is some worth in the quest for personal improvement as well. I simply offer my blessings to those who require great strength to uphold their goals. If you ever change your mind, feel free to seek me out."

"I'm sure you understand when I say that I can't accept the offer either," PhotoMan pitched in.

At this, BlessMan's mouth fell momentarily, then he broke into a small laugh. "Daughter? But you already accepted the oath! I gave you my blessing some few months ago, don't you recall?" he chuckled in a good-natured, yet possibly senile way. PhotoMan's blank expression indicated that he was just as confused by the statement as anyone else could be. "Oh, you're... Huh! You're not my daughter. Your face looks just like hers though. What a silly error on my part!"

"Father, please. Allow me to finish up with our witnesses here. Why don't you go attend to WarHawk and MarriageMan?" the judge asked; it was now apparent how he'd mixed the two up. Their faces looked pretty similar, what with the unexpressive frowns... though even then, it wouldn't be an easy mistake to make.

"Would you fellows like to come with me? You're all Blessers now, after all!"

"... These two have declined to become Blessers, remember?"

"Ah, yes! Right then. I'll be off."

After that disturbing exchange, the halo-wearing man walked off to follow the prosecutor and shriveled defendant. Jury turned back to the two with worry clear upon her face. "You two; I have the payment from WarHawk to give you, as well as my own part to thank you for acting as witnesses in the trial. There is another small matter, however, and I'm afraid I'd be negligent to allow you to leave without first giving you another small task. I need someone to confide in, and I believe you're the first two non-Blessers to see his... what you've just seen," she informed them. "I'm worried about father... and all of the Blessers, to be honest. On the day of my Oath, I spoke untrue; I only had to make father think that I was a Blesser. I am only pretending to have a Blesser's power because there is something I know: the Blessers are all being driven to insanity."

She paused a minute, as if to let it sink in, then continued. "The two were correct earlier: this court room has not been used often. I made it as a way to try to discretely strip Blessers of their power. Unfortunately, Father's interference has blocked even this marginal effort. While my court is a new and untested facility, I can assure you that the psychiatric ward he spoke of has been seeing a lot of use. They're insane... All of them. Growing more so over time. You saw the state of MarriageMan, one of the oldest Blessers. And now my father... Well, you two witnessed that as well."

"The reason I'm bothering you two with this is because I have to stay and tend to the Court of Blessers; it's part of my perceived oath as a Blesser. You two, on the other hand, are free to travel outside and inform others. I don't know how you're going to do it, but I need you to deliver a message. Anonymously, for your own safety. I need you to tell the outside world that the Blessers are a threat to everyone. They are increasingly mad AND increasingly powerful," she warned the two in a grave whisper. "If you agree to this, I will give each of you your chips and let you on your way."

PhotoMan crossed his arms, then raised one finger. "Will you excuse the the two of us for just a minute?" he asked. When the judge nodded, he took SplashLady off to one side and leaned in to whisper. "SplashLady, I don't know if we can trust her on all of this. Her father may be senile, but he doesn't seem dangerous. The only Blesser I've ever heard of going mad... well, granted, I don't know a lot about Blessers... is that MarriageMan. If we were to spread rumors like that, we could be putting all of these folks under a lot of scrutiny, if not directly placing them into the searchlights of the NP. What do you think we should do?"

"...Uhh..." SplashLady just stared blankly as BlessMan took his leave. How'd he forget that quickly that they refused? And, how could Navis have children? Granted, she had a sibling Navi, but that was different...

Luckily, she snapped out of it in time to listen to Jury's request, which was...unsettling, to say the least. She didn't say anything, and let herself be excused with PhotoMan, who had his own concerns. "Well...we also don't know if we can't trust her, either. Plus, it might not be such a terrible thing to let the NP take a look at this. I mean, as far as I can tell, every situation except ours addressed here was in a private location. That's gotta violate some privacy laws or something. And if that's all true, and we end up with incredibly powerful Navis that have gone completely insane...that could get ugly really fast. So, maybe we should look into it to see if there's anything to this." The mermaid Navi paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to word the next part of her remark. "...Besides, you heard her. If we say no, we don't get the stuff that was promised to us. And I don't know about you, but they were going to give me some pretty nice chips, so, I say we agree, and then do a little...independent research on it. If we can't find anything conclusive, we'll just let things take their course, I guess. But if we do, we spread the word. Sound fair?"

PhotoMan nodded, but still seemed very reluctant. "Let us proceed cautiously... I don't know much about these Blessers but I know a bit about the NP and a lot about the press. Once they get hold of some reason to perceive a person or entity as villainous, that notion never quite goes away..." he suggested. "I don't want to put anyone in harm's way if I can help it." PhotoMan's courteous (bordering on pedantic) personality might be getting the better of him again.

The two returned to Jury to give her the answer. "We accept your terms, Jury," he answered, intentionally leaving it brief so as to allow them the window for their own investigation.

"Good. I have two contacts you can meet with: either Inky, who works with World News Server, or Bayonet, who works with the NP. Provide this list of Blesser identities as well as my warning to whichever party you choose. I don't believe you'll want to e-mail it or it might look like a hoax... It would need to be delivered personally." Of course, there would be nothing to prevent the two from taking the money and running, if they wanted...

"Please make sure it reaches whichever party untampered... It might see suspicious otherwise. Are those terms agreeable? I don't mean to force the two of you into anything, especially after forcing you to show off your undeniably private extramarrital floor sex..."

"Well, just because they could end up being dangerous doesn't mean they're bad people, necessarily..." With that, SplashLady broke off the discussion, and led the way back to hear exactly what they needed to do was. "Er, don't worry about, uh, that. You're not forcing us to do anything. And you didn't really force us earlier, either. We did it completely of our own free will, thank you very much!" ...Why did it sound like she was proud of that fact? "Anyway, if we're just warning people, there's no need to bring the NetPolice into any of this if it can be helped. We'll meet with this Inky person." Admittedly, Jury was probably right about the whole e-mailing thing. Then again, if she knew these people, why couldn't she just e-mail them directly? ...Maybe she was just overthinking it now. All she knew was that SOMETHING was off with the whole Blessers thing, and it'd probably be a good idea to get to the bottom of it...

"Ah, good then. If the two of you are comfortable with exhibitionism then there was no harm done," Jury replied; PhotoMan opened his mouth to object, then realized that he had been the cause of a lot of exhibitionist behavior lately. He quickly closed his mouth. "Thank you. Here are the items," she finished, giving the two of them each their chips and handing over the document to SplashLady, also sealed in a gem of data. The data was not actually locked, however.

"If you'd like, SplashLady, I could take care of it. I interviewed with Inky quite recently, so she would probably meet with me again by request," PhotoMan offered, reaching one hand out to accept the data packet.

((SplashLady received LilBoiler3 and AquaBlade battlechips! She also receives BlessNames.txt...))

SplashLady happily accepted her fee for coming there, as well as the info crystal, which she promptly passed on to PhotoMan. "Well, if you think it'll be easier for you to see her, then here you go. Oh, by the way...PhotoMan? If you don't mind me asking, what chips did you get for coming here? Something gun-related seems fitting to you...I got LilBoiler3 and AquaBlade, myself! It'd be pretty embarrassing for a water-based Navi like me to not be able to do lots of water-based damage, wouldn't it?"

"Hm? I requested monetary payment. I don't do a lot of netbattling, so I don't have much to do with chips beyond using them as payment or personal security," PhotoMan answered, frowning awkwardly. The value of the chips SplashLady had roped in made him think that their stance on chips might be a disconnect between them. He seemed to be pondering whether or not he said the right thing; the gears in his head made small clicking noises.

The judge gave a small "ahem" to call back their attention. "If that is all, I would ask you to vacate the court so that I can... prepare," she requested, falling into an awkward frown of her own. She blushed slightly as she realized they must know she had nothing to do so long as there were no Blessers to try, which there apparently never were. The court room didn't need cleaning either, so in reality, if she was going to use the court room for anything, it would probably be sleeping or whistling a tune.

"Yes, let us leave. It was good to cross paths with you again, SplashLady, and I hope to see you again soon. I will go and turn in this warning to the News Server as, as we discussed," he concluded, leaving quickly. He seemed to have a lot on his mind and none of it particularly related to Blessers.

((Gained 16 PhotoMan FXP and 3 Jury FXP))

"Oh...sorry, thought that was chip data you were getting!" Honestly, SplashLady didn't care much one way or the other; she was just making a little small talk.

And with that, Jury was essentially showing them the door. Well, it'd probably look a little suspicious if they hung out there for too long. After all, it wasn't like there was anything to do in there. ...Which made her wonder exactly why they needed to vacate the premises... "Sure. My operator's probably worrying about me not making contact by now, anyway...later, PhotoMan!" And with that, she vanished in a trail of light.

(Jacking out)