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"Of course I came here for the Decapathon. Tell me why else I'd be here in this shoddy town. I'd come to kill you to make enough money to enter the damned thing, you fool."
Simon isn't terribly pleased with this answer. You can sense him frowning.
"Are you really so shallow? Do you care not for honor or justice or, well, anything really, beyond gold?"

You stop and think for a moment. Is there anything you really want besides gold? Um. You love swords. You love decapitations. You're fairly sure defenestration would be a fun thing to try too, but you've never had the chance. Then you realize that he's trying to deceive you. You hate it when your conversational partners try to take the moral high ground.

"Well, of course there are other things, beyond gold and decapitations," you respond hastily. What exactly those other things are, you're not terribly sure.
"Ah, as I thought. You aren't simply a callous murderer. I've been looking for an accomplice, you know. Let me tell you a tale of this country, of my exploits, my adventures, how I came to be the way I am today."
Oh gods. He's going into exposition mode again. You're fairly certain you can ignore the next few minutes of his speech without missing anything important.

"As you know, the country we find ourselves in -- Prothemia -- is a nation with a troubled past. Our unique position in the center of the known world is a major part of this. To our East, lands of mystic and wonder, to our North and West, frigid lands of waste and decay. To the South lies a vast desert and countless warring states. Thousands of years ago, a group of people unlike any other emerged. They were, for all purposes, advanced far beyond all other life. They had magic coarsing through their veins, or so say the texts. They say before them, there was no magic in the world."

He pauses for a second, looks to the sky and smiles like a fool. He must really like this next part of the story. You sigh (quietly!) and continue to zone out.

"Now, these supremely advanced beings were much like normal humans, much like you or me, yet they were more remarkable in every way. At that time, Prothemia was not one solid entity but a menagerie of fragmented city-states all vying for control, but thanks to them, they were united. They instated a monarchy and ruled over us all. We flourished for hundreds of years, but slowly the bloodline thinned. Mixing and interbreeding was a common thing amongst royalty of the time, and a thousand years later we're not even sure if our Queen has any of their blood left in her at all. Given how corrupt the bureaucracy's become and how little authority the Crown exercises, any talent for leadership our Majesty's progenitors may have had has long since vanished."

You sigh again. 'Them', 'they', 'their', why doesn't he refer to the bloody Liegable by their proper names? Beyond that, he's acting as if you don't know any of this, but you do. You were educated at a fine institution and are quite knowledgeable about the history of this land. You'd consider speaking up, but he's so engrossed in his own tale that you've been collecting a large group of sharp bandit weaponry in a pile behind him, completely unnoticed.

"Of course, there's some folk who believe that those with even a hint of their blood in them excel at everything. Magic, combat, even scholarly deeds all benefit. It's a great belief to hold, sure, and it works wonderfully for explaining away your own inadequacies, but it's utter folly to put stock in such an idea. There's no evidence of it! While without a doubt they were strong in their day, a few drops of their blood can't have such a profound effect on a human being. Enough of that tangent, though. I'm sure you know about telekinetics -- you're one of us, after all. In the past three decades, there are those of us who've been born with innate power not unlike that of, well, them. Be it superior strength or intelligence or speed, we're special. Most peculiarly however, we all are capable of manipulating the world at a distance, with our minds. It's distinct from magic; it requires no spiritual focus or energy, and it is both mentally and physically draining. Only a few dozen telekinetics have been born to date that the government is aware of. After our 'discovery' they were quick to implement a series of tests, all conducted at birth, to determine whether or not a newborn child was one of these telekinetics."

Yes, you know this. You're a telekinetic yourself! You wish someone would just shut him up already. The pile of sharp objects behind Simon continues to grow -- this time if push comes to shove, you'll force them through his telekinetic barrier. You will hold your ground and refuse to give up. While he may be better trained, you're really started to get annoyed by his long-winded explanations.

"Some progressive scholars have compared us to them directly. These scholars have a tendency to go missing. If we really were at all related, we'd represent a threat to the monarchy, to the bureaucracy, to Our Grace, and as such we've been getting the short end of the stick quite a lot recently. As I said before, I'd tell you about myself. I was an ordinary lad, born telekinetic, subject to a battery of government tests and much of my childhood was fraught with suffering. Not unlike yours, I suspect. Well, one day I said 'No more' and ran away and that's that. I've been living as an outlaw ever since. What's with this army of bandits I've been raising that you've so handily slaughtered? I intended to become a King of Thieves, amassing a vast criminal network stretching across the entire country. I'd have informants in every shop, every merchant would know my name. I'd find telekinetics before even the royalty, I'd kidnap them as raise them as my own. I'd train them from birth to use their abilities, and together we'd topple this corrupt regime and build a new one in its place. The time for change has come, and the people are suffering!"

Wow, that sure turned political fast. You almost scoff at his ridiculous scheme but manage to hold it in. Simon seems to have huge, overarching plans, but he's completely ignoring the part where you single-handedly exterminated his entire force. You're ready to attack him at any time, now.

"While you've destroyed the foundation of my rebellion, there was a silver lining to it all. You see, I need someone like you to rule with. I need someone like you to help me build an army, to help me with the legwork around here. I need you if I'm ever to stand a chance! If two ascend a mountain, one can aid the other if they slip!"

What? Oh gods. He actually thinks you give a damn about any of this. What are you going to do?

---

Status: Soaked again, coated in mud. And blind. Have a 'thing for swords'. Bandaged?
Abilities: Telekinetic. Can lift small objects and also swords. Swordsmage. Can hear the whispers of the blades and maybe cast some magic. You think you've forgotten most of the magic you learned, though. Telekinetic Sight level 2, you're always aware of what's going on around you.
Inventory: Two swords are next to you, on the ground. Your third is still missing. You've assembled a handy pile of sharp weapons behind Simon, ready to fly at a moment's notice, though.

((This is what happens when you guys don't give me enough to work with! I toss exposition at you like it's no one's business. I can't make an entire update out of 'I came here for the decapathon!' I need actions, people!))

Naw the colors arn't appropriate either. Well unless your a steriotypical man (according to evil sexist statistics)

Basically the person took an ordinary pair of markers and then pasted a lable on them to change the name

For example if Air (Dioxygen) was included they would pick blue. Despite the fact that I believe Oxygen isn't a flat blue.

If they HAVE to do this I'd want the color to be as appropriate as possible!

I'm pretty sure air isn't just 'dioxygen'. From what we've seen anyway, the colors match up pretty well. Copper sulfate, for example, is blue. They likely just avoid colorless chemicals altogether. The entire point of it is to have the colors match up.

And you're wrong, oxygen is a 'flat blue'... when liquid.

Unless you're actually being sarcastic which seems pretty likely in hindsight! Oh well.

One thing that's kinda irksome: If he was trying to draw attention to it or you know, make it as outrageous as possible, he would've included sexual crimes from the get-go. Oh, and against children, too, HellMOO style. Instead he went with a sort of passive "No, I don't think I'd be comfortable with that in my game," sort of answer.

Yeah, the tournament seems like a good idea. I wonder how our skills with katana will transfer over to the inevitable practice swords they'll force us to use?

We can probably hop from rooftop to rooftop and get back to the merchants quickly. Chainmail might be nice but the army might provide us with a set. I suggest searching for some light replacement clothing. A proper sash/obi would be nice so we're not just using a rope.

The robed figure may or may not be associated with Neptune's army. I suggest we corner him and interrogate.

I can tell you with 90% certainty that it is more difficult in your head than in reality. Anyone can talk for 2 minutes.

This is completely true, especially if it's a prepared speech. I might be in a unique circumstance -- the elementary school I went to forced us to make four 2-minute long impromptu speeches a year from grades 4-6. We also drew the topics from a hat which meant that the speeches varied wildly, from 12 year olds trying to explain heterodox economics to each other to 10 year olds rambling on about smelly socks (they were the lucky ones).

Just last year I wrote a speech for a friend who was running for president¹. My advice: snoop around and try to figure out what your opponent's speeches are going to consist of. If possible, find the winning and losing speeches from last year. Try to make your speech in response to the other ones and say what makes you different from them.

Sentences like, "While everyone says they're going to campaign for more school dances or more extracurricular funding, they don't specify how they're going to do this. Meanwhile, I plan on doing <x>" (where <x> is a discrete example of changes you're going to make) work wonderfully. It makes it sound like you've actually thought about what you're going to do.


¹- He won, but I'm not going to try to fool myself into thinking it was because of my speech. Rather, the only other person running for office ended their speech with, "I may have lost the battle, but I can still win The Game."