Drinking is more of a thing your dad liked to do, but you decide to knock back an extra Long Island iced tea before going over your past. You find that reminiscing is an overall worthless exercise a good portion of the time. But when it's not, it's always been an asset. Sometimes it reminds you of that one time you had to make a gun out of duct tape, a hair dryer and some party favors. Sometimes it reminds you of that one time you met a guy who turned out to be a spy and the only clue was that he got his Irish accent wrong. It's these kind of little things dabbed all over your lifetime's experience that really make looking back worth the time. You never know when you'll have to know stuff like this for the future. This particular night brings you way back. It's morning, you can tell by the way the light slants into your room from the east side of your apartment. You roll over lazily. The ever helpful clock on the surface of your desk seems to be telling you that it's going to be morning for a good four more hours and that it's not just a morning, it's a Monday morning and you feel [] Horrible. Where's your gun? Might as well end it now. [] Late. You've got school. [] Pretty dang spiffy. Dad's gonna take you out with the show tonight and that means payday.
get out
You've basically had the worst few days that you've had for a long while. Worst since the last time you saw the Sour Kraut in fact. So you say screw everything, you're getting a nice place and you're paying for room service and watching awful movies in high definition and doing all kinds of hotel stuff, maybe even a one night stand. Actually, you don't really like people very much, they're all kind of irritating and, more often than not, they're ugly. You're not exactly a supermodel yourself, but you're attractive enough for a good majority of the population. The near constant leers are proof enough in your book. So you feel like it's alright to be a little judgmental, to have something called standards. So, you're gonna have to settle for the familiarly cold, steely company of your Double Eagle tonight because right now you're just not up to more social interaction. Guns are nice. Most people call you a loon because you think so, but guns are very elegant little tools and that's why you surround yourself with them. They're made for a single purpose. Many parts, many interactions, many functions and one result. That singular, driven purpose is something you would like to think you've attained in life. Money. You can do whatever you want in this world with money. This hotel you're walking into, for instance; you don't have a reservation, you don't have connections but you have enough money to pay for any room in this place and they'll somehow make this happen. So you take a room up top and have them cart all your stuff of there for you, because you have money. Money is the gas in the engine, the powder charge in the bullet, the wind in the sails. With it, you can do everything this world has to offer. Without it, you're just more grist for the mill. So you're going to have money, whatever it takes. They're running that Yellow Wasp movie. It's shit. It's palpable how ****** it is. It doesn't help that Jeff Logan or whatever the guy's name is can't act for his life and is basically maimed in the face. Room service food is actually pretty underwhelming. You suppose it's not like it's a restaurant really. The bed's nice at least. It'd be nicer if you didn't have to wake up in the morning alone and go kill people. But we can't have everything. Money lets you do what you want, but only as long as you have it and having it... that's the tricky part. It's late. You probably won't be staying in this hotel for another night and you've already cleaned and maintained all your weaponry for the day. You can't do anything about Thorsen Technologies on the hotel internet without leaving a footprint for someone to pick up on so there's nothing left to do but... [] Sleep. [] Phone a friend. [] Reminisce.
noted and updated
What do I look like? Where am I now? Are you having as much fun with this as I am?
Rather than seeking the enrichment of my own soul through enlightenment, I remain in suffering among the mortals to guide them along the path to grace.
The path to victory isn't in the footsteps of your opponents. You decide to take your things and head over to pick up your stuff. You had it send to one of your contacts who'd take care of the equivalent the underworld has for customs. Essentially, he checks for live explosives and then holds onto things until someone pays him enough to betray you or you show up. It's a good system because most people are smart enough to know who to not cross and you're one of those whos. Being famous is kinda nice sometimes. The place you're going is downtown, so you get yourself into a cab and move it. The cab driver is this Indian guy in his forties; really, really, touchy feely in a verbal way. Where are you from? America. But where are you from? America. Family's been there since the fifteenth century. How old are you? Twenty four. What are you doing here? Tourism. Are you married? And divorced. How recently? Last week. I have a son, you know. This is the place, here's the money. You find another, less annoying cabbie to finish out the trip. This one is another middle aged dude but you think he might be some kind of southeast Asian. Maybe he's a flip. His English is pretty horrible so you spend a lot of time pretending to listen and looking out the window for potential threats. He does ask one thing that catches your attention though. He says that Thorsen Tech is making a big announcement at a trade show soon and if you're in town for that. Thorsen Technologies is well known for being a corrupt hive of evil. So when you hear that you're in the same town as those guys, you wonder if it's related. The pick up is at a growhouse. Yeah, marijuana, weed, pot. Whatever you want to say, these guys keep it on lock down in there. Door made of three and a quarter inch solid steel on hinges to match. There's a gate through that door that you have to pass a metal detector and general security in to just enter the place. From there they've got a sniper's perch up a flight of stairs where they can hit you if you do anything funny. Finally, you can get to the actual grow rooms. in the basement, though, is the place you're looking for. The deals and exports room is where they keep your shipments when you come into the UK. Your contact, Rory Breaker is a mean sonuvabitch. No other way to put it. If you hold back anything, he'll kill you. If you bend the truth or he thinks your bending the truth, he'll kill you. If you forget anything, he'll kill you. In fact, talking to him is basically just working very hard to stay alive. He greets you with the warmth of a three day old corpse and then asks for his pay. You drop the payment, as usual. He looks kind of angry. Like not normal, "I'll kill ya." business. Something else is bugging him. You drop a little extra and hold your hand out expectantly. He hands you the stuff you shipped and tells you to scram. You aren't about to do anything but get as far away from this nut as possible. Unlike you, he has a tendency to take things personally. Back on the street it's starting to get on in the hours. Even in English latitudes the sun's beginning to droop in the sky. Time to... [] Find a hotel and book. [] Look into Thorsen Tech. [] Look into Breaker.
Fap until your dick falls off.
You haven't been to this particular airport in the past so you decide to take a look about and see if there's anything of note that you might need to know later. Sundollars, McFonald's, Panda Dynasty; it's like you never even left America. Well, there were the rude Limey punks at customs. That was new. Even though America is supposed to be the security obsessed asshats, it's the Brits that found a way to perfect pissing you off. Speaking of people who you don't like, Wesson should be here also. You look around for him a bit on your way through baggage pickup. Not there. Not anywhere. That's problematic. You don't like it when people know where you are but you don't know where they are. That information deficiency just irks and annoys you. You're about ready to go pick up the Anzio and whatever else it was you sent. It feels like months ago that you were chasing down Sour and thinking about your apartment burning down. Still, now's not the time to be thinking of the past. Now is the time to be planning the future. According to the contract, you're going to be on a job for the next two years with eight people including Sour and Wesson. You have no clue who the others are and you have no leads. You should... [] Stay at the airport and look more. [] Go get your stuff.
Alright so for the two or three of you responding and the hypothetical silent audience as well, I think it's finally time I give a brief reader's manual. Because let's be honest, quest threads aren't a thing on khv and when they are everyone does them differently. First, all quest threads are actually eroge. You can, and I sorta encourage, you to search out pairings in the cast. It's a small thing that won't go anywhere more often than not, but the power of love is a huge thing in fiction and it can greatly affect the story if you want to try and do it right. Also, I give you choices to outline the types of thoughts the character might be having, but **** in between or totally outside of that is also valid provided you can get some people to support it or get me to like it. So take the options with the knowledge that I do have some character traits outlined for each person but you shape them and they can end up totally different from how they start. Eventually, I start just giving no options anyway. Alright, so next is arguing with other people. You should try to get people to change their votes to yours if there's ever a tie. Tiebreaker votes are cool and all but fighting figures it out faster sometimes and it's just more amusing for everyone involved. Next, keywords and parallel situations. Since there are a bunch of characters running in parallel, you have to control which one gets time. So I have keywords. Be the other guy is an easy one. Switch characters. It usually comes up as an option when a line is slowing down or transitioning. It means you cut out the end of that line and pick up somewhere else earlier in that line. Another is do the time warp. It means you get to skip over an event in some way shape or form. I use it mostly to keep within a single line but skip over things like flashbacks or sleeping. So last is be yourself. Self explanatory, if you would switch, you don't. So there are tons of other possible keywords but those are the three that I can think of. Finally, spread the plague. Soon everyone will care about the least interesting time of day or something. Updates begin again tomorrow.
Nah, I mean, I get that. It's just volume, because I like to have these things more concise and trimmed than they're throwing them. Like I thought it was cool to have the scene where the guy finds his gun and then rejoicing over his own suicide and other stuff like that. It's just when it starts to repeat things I've already seen I kind of feel like he's just saying, "cool more guts fit here."
