Goes Smoothly....

We fortunately get to use existing infrastructure for background checks and things: We hire a couple companies to do that for us. We're able to make gold, so the astronomical price of same day service on background checks that include a couple detectives interviewing friends and family of the applicant across international lines isn't a big deal, to the point where we have three distinct companies do it independently for everyone who has a good application.

Which is, a week later, how we find out that ninety of the top hundred applications are actually government agents from various places.

“So…” Alice shakes her head, “...that's a bust.”

“Is it though?" I consider, “We kind of expected this, which is why we went to the trouble.”

“Yeah, but if our hired hands say ninety percent are planted spies, we can't trust the other ten percent.” Adam shakes his head.

“What if we heal ‘em all,” I rub my chin.

“Umm…” Adam frowns.

“Hear me out…” I smile, “...we heal everyone. Explain the restrictions as galactic law, enforce the ‘no telling’ with both a Geas and a Contract, and let all the spies return to their home countries to find they can't report in. Meanwhile, we do some mind reading and Sense Motive skill checks; when we get a good person who is NOT an agent of a government or a corporation or whatever… I feed them.” I chuckle, “The spies will be examined, and found that all we're doing is healing and enforcing the restricted information. The handful of legitimate good people… magic!” I smile, “and we check in on all of them periodically. Make sure they're still good people, aren't trapped in some lab, and such.” I take a breath, “And once the spies’ masters figure out they're not getting any useful information that way… we'll start getting a decent ratio of regular people.”

Adam considers, “Okay. Worst likely case scenario, we retreat, change our faces, and try something else.”

“I suppose being immortal shapechangers with magic is kind of cheating…” Alice considers, “...yeah, let's do it.”

So I set up fifty Conjuration Companions with medical gear (courtesy of Starfinder, the Technomancer, and the Fabricate Tech magic hack), buffed to the gills with a focus on Sense Motive, Bluff, and healing magic. We call in the top hundred applicants, send them through mostly-meaningless hour long screenings (during which the secrecy is spelled out, along with the methods of enforcement applies), similarly useless thirty minute examinations, six second mental bindings (Quicken Spell on Greater Geas from the Fate sphere), six second healings (various types, mostly Life, all modified by the Mana sphere for a Permanent Contracted Spell), and eighty minute exit interviews. Ten people (all spies) back out before the actual castings, and we send them away untouched by magic. Eighty-six spies (the screening missed half a dozen) and three regular folks go home cured of all physical ills, magically bound by two distinct means to be nice people and never communicate anything that went on during the entire ordeal or anything else they may later experience within the embassy. One lucky woman has me take over in the exit interview, and gets a dose of milk to go with the same benefits (and restrictions) everyone else received. She's dosed and sleeps off the inner updates in the same eighty minute window as everyone else's exit interview. We then do the same the next day for the next hundred promising candidates. And the next. And the next. And the next. We note everyone down, and I scry in a hundred of them, selected at random, every day. The faces change, the numbers change, the injuries change, but the basics stay the same…

…until they don't. I find one of the spies being **** and waterboarded when I ‘check in’... so I extract him (the Call Planar Creature talents of the Conjuration Sphere, done from inside an Extradimensional Room from the Warp sphere). I heal up the various injuries he received from ****, give him a ten pound bag of gold coins and a copy of my familair with instructions to keep him safe, and Warp him to England. Another getting prepped for surgery while in chains… I do the same, dropping that lady off in Australia. It's not long until the various governments start nabbing the civilians, too. I respond by turning up the rate at which I check in on the ‘visa holders’, including using the Time Clone talent to make it easier on myself by pawning the work off to my copies.

I also ask something of Alice over dinner at her place… no, I don't need to eat thanks to Mythic, and she doesn't either thanks to buffs, but it's still yummy.

“So… I have a big favor to ask.” I begin.

“You raised me from the dead. Name it sweetness, what do you need?” She chuckles.

“You’re the closest thing I have to a family member in this world… and I need an Heirloom item,” I take a breath, “something passed down.”

My woman leans back in her chair, tilting her head, and pursing her lips, after a bit she nods, “I got just the thing….” she grabs another bite of her steak, and walks out of the room. A few minutes later, she comes back holding a piece of history.

She hands the item to me… an old six shooter, a little over two pounds of steel that looks like it belongs in an old western movie. I look at it reverently as she explains, “My great-great grandfather brought it home from the Phillipine-American war. He gave it to my grandmother on her wedding night: I found it in her stuff when I executed her estate… didn't seem right to sell it.”

I immediately check the barrel and the cylinder…. not loaded, good… look her over and find a model plate: She's an S&W Model 10, 38 Special… the 6.5 inch barrel, apparently, and well polished. “She's beautiful,” I breathe out.

“What are your plans for it?” Alice looks at it herself.

“I'm going to turn her into a powerful magical artifact and keep it forever.” I turn the weapon over in my hands, “She’s perfect. Thank you.”

“So when can I see the results?” She smiles sadly.

“Tomorrow,” I Warp over and give her a hug, “and don't worry, I will take care of her. She's precious.”

I store it on my shadow, and we finish dinner….