Earlier in the day, he met with a representative of Lucid Guild. They offered more money than any other guild or agency that he's met with thus far. Even his lawyer seemed surprised. He explained to Lawrence there was more salary compression in guilds compared to agencies because there's less individual negotiation and representation. 

Guilds specialize less than agencies by dint of their size but they do still specialize. Lucid Guild had a specialization in psychics, and Lawrence had strong psychic powers that they really wanted. And they had a lot to offer him too. Combat espers tend to be more compatible with other combat espers, psychic espers with other psychics, so on and so forth. And Lucid has more psychic espers than average. They think they could find a very compatible partner for him much more easily than any other organization.

They would also be able to offer a lot of specialized help: practice to improve his backlash efficiency, his precision, ways to mitigate the effects of his backlash. 

Lastly, Lucid Guild is the guild of Kang Jaeha — the A-rank psychic esper, the only one who has the ability to remove Nightmare's mark on a person.

It was a very good pitch. Part of him already had the thought that Lucid is the obvious winner and he should cancel the rest of his appointments and start the next steps with Lucid, but. Lots of money are on the line, here. There are only a few appointments remaining. He should be diligent and finish it through to the end. Maybe Quasar Guild will be able to offer something better...

The person Quasar sends to talk to him is... quite unlike the reps from the other guilds, even at a glance. He's not a corporate mook in a nice suit looking professionally done up; he is a tiny blond bombshell with numerous piercings on each ear, wearing a golden choker over a tight T-shirt with sleeves that only go down a third of his upper arm and do a good job of showing off a very fit torso, baggy slacks over combat boots, bracelets, and eyeliner.

"Yo. What language?" he asks, in English, as he offers a hand to shake.

He is. Certainly one of the representatives of all time. Lawrence resists the urge to let his eyes wander and part of him thinks that he should be awarded an additional classification for that.

Oh. His eyes are golden. Is he an esper? Why send an esper to this kind of meeting? He permitted the testing center to make his backlash (or what he said was his backlash) public, so maybe they're sending an esper they think would be compatible?

"English, please." He shakes his hand.

They are not compatible! Lawrence yelps and recoils. He's not used to the feeling of incompatibility, yet. He really ought to — the brochures said that most esper pairings will be neutral or incompatible.

He shakes his hand a bit but his reaction is less strong and more like he expected this. He sits on his designated chair in a decidedly slouchy fashion and says, "Ha Si-yeon. Backlash's indecision, power is that I can do things, A-rank, mostly combat and rescue but occasionally specops. Nice to meet you."

Right. Lawrence and his lawyer sit too.

"Nice to meet you as well. Lawrence Lopez Lacson, backlash is difficulty moving, power is control of movement and mind sensing. A-rank," he says by way of introduction, even though all this information is something everyone coming here already knows.

"This is Ramos Sanchez, my counsel." His lawyer bows slightly.

"Yo," he says to the lawyer. Right and index finger pointing forward close together slide down, summoning his holographic commscreen. He taps at it for a couple of seconds, and a contract appears in a flash of weirdly localised light on the table. He looks at Lawrence again. "Do you wanna talk about contracts or let your lawyer look over it while we talk about the real interesting stuff?"

Wow. He's read about commscreens during their preliminary research, but to see one work in person is another thing. A good pitch tactic, to show off what he could receive in such a visceral way, if he joins.

"Real interesting stuff sounds good."

"Cool, awesome." He slides the contract over to the lawyer. "So, uh... welcome to being an esper, I hope it didn't suck too much, I don't actually usually do this kinda stuff so I don't have, like, a script. I'd try the pitch they used on me but I'm a bit, uh," he taps one of his earrings so it jingles, "unconventional."

?????????????why did they send this person???????????

Is a man wearing earrings that unconventional? Well, he doesn't have his ears pierced and has never worn earrings, so he supposes that's a point in favor. It's unconventional compared to the other people he met with. Who. Actually prepared.

He's kinda curious now as to what pitch they used on him. "Thank you for your concern," he says instead. "What makes Quasar Guild real interesting?"

The lawyer will take the contract.

"Didn't need to do the bulllllll uh stuff that other guilds make you do so you always look perfect in public, mostly. Also they, like, care about people as individuals, but I was instructed not to say that 'cause no one believes it when you just say it. But yeah like, I don't really know how it is in the Philippines but in Korea? We gotta look perfect. All the time. It's obnoxious, and Quasar isn't like that." Another earring jingle. "And I really hated having to wait for corporate approval for my wardrobe choices like my previous guild did."

His lawyer and his research told him about how Korean and Japanese guilds are very invested in the public perception of their espers but. He didn't know it was that bad.

Yeah, he's right that Lawrence doesn't believe it when he just says it. The fact that he was instructed not to and just said it anyway is so funny, though. Or maybe he was instructed to say that he was instructed not to say...

So the appeal of Quasar is that it doesn't have standards? part of him feels like saying, but it would be incredibly rude. 

His expectation for the meetings was that the representatives would already have their pitches prepared and would deliver them but. Si-yeon just said that he didn't have one. So he's a little confused and directionless about where to go, from here.

And, he realizes belatedly...Si-yeon said that he's A-rank. Him spending fifteen minutes on Lawrence was worth like. Hundreds of thousands of pesos or something. It is a signal for them to send such a high rank esper to speak with him, even if that esper is......really unprepared.......

"How is Quasar not like that?"

"Your contract guy can tell you more about it but Quasar sees itself as... being a resource for the espers? Like yes technically they are my employers but the way they put it is that that's just funneling the money I'd be making anyway to me, and making every other part of being an esper easier. If you want to have a public image you can, they have people whose whole job is that, you'll have tons of resources at your disposal to become the Instagram hero of your dreams, or to back the charitable causes you want and bring awareness to them, or whatever. But if you want to literally never interact with the media ever and never have to give anyone an interview you can do that. And you don't have to pretend like the fact that you're in a relationship with your partner is a dirty little secret. ...if you are, that is, not everyone is, my own situation there is a bit complicated."

He has the gremlin urge to poke the complicated relationship situation. He has learned enough to know that espers get into some very heated drama. Sometimes literally. He suppresses this urge.

No media requirements is a big plus. But, and he may regret thinking this later, he doesn't think he's that averse to interacting with the media? He definitely wants to get media training first thing after signing with anyone. He's not sure how valuable or special it is outside of the Korean context. 

"Having no obligation to interact with the media is valuable; thank you for telling me that. That Quasar is accommodating of espers who don't want media attention is good. But don't all guilds and agencies function as resources for espers? Their incentives are aligned; they're invested in maximizing the effectiveness of their espers."

"Eeeenh," he says, doing a so-so gesture with his hand. "Guilds are NGOs, right, and they're more, like, collectivist? About it? Than, like, Western agencies, for example. There's a ton of politics, and overlooking individuals to focus on the good of the guild as a whole. And like I can't think of any other guild over in my corner of the world offhand that doesn't have a policy of hierarchy based on esper ranks, overt or not, other than Quasar. And even the hierarchy that does exist is, well—the way prez says it, hierarchy is only useful when it has a use, otherwise it's just an inefficient waste of everyone's time and talents. ...that sounds shorter and snappier in Korean.

"Anyway what I mean to say is that most guilds want you to be a well-behaved cog in a nicely oiled machine rather than getting you everything you need to be the best you can be, yourself."

That makes sense. He is privileged in that he's of high rank, but...he agrees that someone's rank or esper power is not indicative of whether or not they'll be a good leader.

"That certainly sounds like a very good deal. But what does Quasar get out of all that? If it's giving me all those resources? From what it sounds like, I should be the one pitching you on why I ought to be permitted to join."

"...okay so like the story here is that prez, that's the guild president, he was like super rich and super bored and for some reason he had to interface with like espers and guilds and he went 'wow you all treat your espers like things to use and this makes me angry, I'm gonna fix that', so he went and figured out how to put his reams of money to good use. So, goodness of our hearts, really!"

"That said I think they asked me to come here of all people 'cause your power might be useful for specops and they probably wanted me to sound you out on that."

Oh. He doesn't know what to think about that. It has the same energy as a corporation going "we're all one big family here and we work hard and play hard". It has the same energy as his parents giving him things he didn't ask for and expecting him to be grateful for it. The bad thing about transactional dynamics is that people only see you as an object. But it doesn't lie about you being treated as an object.

He has thoughts about how that doesn't seem like a stable equilibrium but the second part is indeed, real interesting.

"I don't know what you mean by specops."

"Special operations. Mission Impossible, action movie, spy stuff. 'Cause, you know, it turns out that dungeons aren't the only bad things in the world, and not all espers are working towards the common good or just being accountants."

He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. At least it's coming from a guild and not a government. Do they actually really want him to do interrogations? Except they don't know the real flexibility of power...right? But no, there have to be espers that can like. Read minds and stuff. Or maybe tell what power another has? Is that a thing?

"Could you elaborate? To the extent you can — I assume there's a lot of confidentiality involved. How do you imagine my power being useful for that?"

He knew that not all espers worked in dungeon clearing. Espers with 'useless' powers notwithstanding, a lot of espers worked in industry or construction. Belatedly, it makes a lot of sense that they would do this type of work, too.

"Psychic powers are real flexible. Sometimes they trump each other in ways you don't expect. You being able to sense minds even when you don't know they're there is genuinely pretty rare. Knowing for sure you're not being eavesdropped on is very good.

"The other bit, about controlling movement, can be a lot more useful against humans who are more creative and less, like—singleminded—than dungeon monsters, sometimes, and even a second's advantage can decide a conflict. But that's secondary, really, there isn't that much direct conflict per se, and I'm usually better at that than just about anyone."

He looks for a moment like there's something else he wants to say, but he seems to decide against it, and the moment passes.

Lawrence notices the hesitation but he doesn't know what to think about it.

"That's not true," he says reflexively. "My power doesn't detect hidden microphones or cameras. It doesn't detect someone putting their ear to a wall to hear a conversation on the other side."

He sighs slightly. "After I figured out my powers, I thought that I would be the sort of combat esper you bring out to deal with boss monsters and then put away, because I don't have very good sustain. Or something along those lines — I don't know much about dungeon clearing tactics and strategy. And I came into negotiations assuming that, and for the most part it was correct. Most people do want me to use my powers for that. Dungeon clearing is a very well established esper profession.

Using my powers on humans is," he says, like he didn't just use his powers on humans a whole bunch several days ago...how to say this in a non-rude way..."fraught."

"Yeah. It really is. And doing dungeons is, like, totally fine, of course. And you'd be buried under so many confidentiality clauses like you don't even know, trust me, it's nowhere near as cool and fun as Tom Cruise makes it look. But it is something I sometimes do, and so if you wanted to think about that possibility, it'd be open to you."

He feels like he doesn't really know what to say about that. He supposes he can be some kind of anti-esper agent??? If he signs with Quasar??? Maybe for another kind of person it would be really appealing and a selling point. He doesn't know. He mostly just feels scared about the thought. Scared about how, him existing means other persons like him exist. Scared about being made to use his powers in ways he doesn't want them to be used. It's funny, because he isn't really. The most moral person. He's always kind of seen himself as. Amoral? Or, more concerned about equilibria and arrangements rather than morality. Maybe it's trauma from being raised by really religious parents. It's so ironic, that someone who kinks on mind control would get a mind control power. He doesn't even know whether he's into mind control, still. Now that he's awoken. The thought feels so awful to contemplate, now.

"Do you like doing it? Why did you get into that type of work?" He's assuming that Si-yeon chose to do it and not that Quasar ordered him to, because it seems like that's not the Quasar way of doing things. Or, at least, it wouldn't accord with his words.

"Yeah, I do like it. I'm a nosy little queer, I like knowing things no one else knows. I like the, the—actually I'm not sure I should say this, it makes people worry sometimes when I say this. But yeah, I really like it.

"And my power is actually just a lot better for dealing with espers than with monsters. I, like, can help with dungeons, but dungeons and monsters are all thematic, right, they're all doing just the one thing, so the flexibility of—I can just do things, any things, fancier things are more expensive but I can react to anything—is just a lot more useful against opponents who are actually creative and resourceful. That's—about as much as I can say, the specifics of how I got into this kind of work are unfortunately classified."

Lawrence resists the urge to laugh at Si-yeon calling himself that. Like. It's so relatable. Same, really. Lawrence is not going to say those words with his actual mouth, though. Those are inside thoughts.

"Thank you for your forthrightness. I'm glad that you have work which you like. I'm not made uncomfortable by you saying that.

Now that you say it, it does make sense that...well, espers aren't trained, they just happen. We have better institutions now but it's not like espers are selected for...ethicality. There would be forces that have to deal with problematic espers.

I don't think I'm categorically averse to doing this type of work, but." He purses his lips tight in lieu of a response.

He's going to glance at the contract for a moment, actually. How much is Quasar offering? Are they offering more than Lucid?

About the same, maybe a teensy bit less.

"Yeah, I get it, it's definitely not everyone's cuppa."

He looks up from the contract.

"Lucid offered me more money," he says matter of factly. He asks Ramos to give the figure and Ramon does so.

"They said that Lucid specializes in psychics, and my psychic powers were very desirable to them. And that the trends of compatibility point towards them being more able to furnish me with a partner, because they have more psychic espers than the typical guild. And that they can give me psychic specific training for my powers which other guilds are unlikely to be able to offer. And that Lucid is the guild of Kang Jaeha, the only esper thus far capable of removing Nightmare's mark on a person.

I will also be forthright with you and say that I'm strongly considering joining Lucid, because of these reasons. Quasar is one of the last few organizations I'm meeting with before I make my decision."

He twitches when Lawrence mentions Lucid. "Oh we're covering that. Hold on." Commscreen to text someone. "I'll get you a better number in two minutes."

"And they're... right... about that... but also Quasar is actually the biggest guild in Korea and we definitely have more people than them and we can find you someone compatible for totally sure."

Okay! That happened quickly!

"Thank you," he says. Wow, they really resolved two of those issues instantly. He'll want to look up guild numbers again later, but he doesn't think Si-yeon is lying about that. That would be such a stupid thing to lie about.

"It seems like the experience of working for Quasar is different from that of working for other guilds. I don't have experience with either, so I would find it valuable to hear about it from you."

"Oh yeah that's totally why they sent me too, isn't it, so I could tell you what it's like for an actual esper. That's smart. 

"Okay, so, lots of guilds, most of them, really, they're, like, they're corporations? And corporate culture is what it is. But it's a weird kind of corporate culture because at least in normal corps you can, like, get promoted. But if you're a dungeon esper then you're a dungeon esper, you might start leading teams but there isn't the same corporate ladder. So if you don't even have a corporate ladder to climb that might improve your lot all that's left is politics. 

"On the positive side, they're very comfortable and familiar, especially to espers who grew in the relevant countries? Corporate life is what we all grow up expecting to do, and I'm, you know, not good at conforming but lots of people are and like that. And you can just do your nine-to-five and know that you're doing your part and treat it like a job. 

"Quasar is in a lot of ways more like a Western agency. Figure out your own special snowflake thing and get professional help seeing it through. The way it's not like agencies is that it tries to be more proactive about nudging you? It won't be waiting for you to say I want XYZ and then giving you that, it'll try to give you those options from the start and suggest things and support you while you figure it out. 

"On the negative side, not having a proper hierarchy sucks for a lot of people, it can feel, like, unstable, and Quasar definitely won't be telling you what to do, you'll need to be more decisive about figuring out your own path. You want to be a dungeon esper, great, they'll find you dungeons and you can accept to work on them or not, and you can figure out whether it was a good choice in practice and learn from that, but that can be scary. ...I don't find it scary, I'm not the kind of person who wouldn't like Quasar, maybe someone who'd hate it would be more compelling about the negatives."

"Thank you. I think that was helpful.

So what I'm confused about is...I understand that I've asked this question before, but. What sorts of expectations would Quasar have of me? In terms of...other guilds talk about how I need to clear a certain percentage of all dungeons they send me to, or something like that. It's less hierarchy for me. More about...so long as you are at least doing X, you're fine. It's difficult when it's ambiguous what your standing is." Though there is also a lot of danger, in being so legibilized as that.

"So the standard dungeon esper thing is pretty similar, you're expected to accept at least a certain percentage of the dungeons you're assigned, although your first month will be more flexible I think? 'Cause you won't have figured it out yet. And also spending your time on training and preparing for dungeons also counts some and is expected. If you can't or won't do that many dungeons you won't get fired but the guild will want to figure out why and help clear any obstacles that are in your way, and you can also scale down the dungeons in general for a proportional reduction in pay.

"There's also an option for you to have a more agency-like relationship with the guild where rather than having a fixed base salary with variable extras depending on dungeons you have almost fully variable salary where you can accept only and exactly the dungeons you want to and you're paid per dungeons cleared, scaled with difficulty, and so on. That's the one I do, 'cause of all the non dungeon work."

Okay, that makes more sense, now. The second one sounds appealing but it's a little fraught because he's kind of attached to the salary increase they gave him, now, and asking for the second type of contract reopens the question of pay. Well, reopens it more, because there's still more talking to do after these appointments.

What other questions does he have?

For all that Si-yeon is terribly unprepared, he finds that he actually rather appreciates Quasar's sending of him to represent them. Separate from the halo effect of his beauty. He's very...not upfront. More like...unfiltered? It's quite refreshing. And Quasar was willing to match Lucid's pay and affirmed that they are equally or more capable in finding a partner for him.

"What kind of training or coaching would be available for me, for my powers?"

"We're not Lucid but we do have some psychics with experience, and some people whose whole job is helping us all do better at backlash management. First order of business would be finding anyone minimally compatible before they can properly experiment, and then once Quasar has that they'll start looking for someone who could actually in fact be a long term partner. There's these mixers new espers go to to shake hands and see if any recent awakenings pair up, and Quasar isn't above trying to poach someone who already has representation if you turn out to be compatible with them, since it's better to be partners with someone in-house, but we've got plenty of people with off-guild partners. 

"And your first few dungeons, if you're doing dungeons, would be smaller ones with more experienced espers to see how you deal with the environment. If you've never had any self-defence training they'll probably want to give you a bit of that first, though, you should at minimum know how to fall and how to run. Then they can tailor training regimens to how you prefer operating.

"Wow, look at me, I'm being so professional and informative, I think I deserve a cookie." He starts tapping at his commscreen so he can summon a cookie.

He kind of wants a cookie now too, it's been three hours since lunch Si-yeon is being a very skilled negotiator in demonstrating further uses of the commscreen. He's heard of mixers from Leah.

"That seems good. I've never had any self-defense training.

How does the commscreen work? Who gets them, in Quasar? They use dungeon materials, right?"

"—oh everyone in Korea has them. Well, every esper. Wish I could say it was a Quasar thing but Lucid and stuff totally have them, too. Do you want a cookie, too?" He summons one and offers it to Lawrence. "They're dungeon bullshit, you gotta get a little chip implanted but it takes literally seconds with a little box anyone can get you off the inventory system. It teleports stuff, to be clear, none of this is being made out of thin air. ...I guess other guilds might not have as much teleportation, but we have the most powerful teleporter in the world and also the batteries that store his power so we're pretty liberal about it."

"Yes, thank you." He accepts and takes a bite. He is being won over with baked goods.

Batteries that store the teleport power of the most powerful teleporter in the world. Wow. Why did he not lead with that. Probably because he doesn't have a script.

"One thing that appeals to me about joining a guild is that, because of how big it is, you get a huge professional network instantly. But the issue also is that, if you dislike your coworkers, it's harder to leave. You mentioned politics as an issue that plagues some guilds, before. Do you think Quasar handles that well? How does it handle internal conflict? Especially given that some espers have more valuable powers, powers that the guild would be more hurt to let go."

"They make sure not to schedule you to go into any dungeons with anyone in particular you don't want to work with. Actually that's true even if the other person isn't on the guild. I don't think we've had drama big enough that anyone left over it, or at least not over just that, other than the, uh, one obvious case. ...wait, were you, what, twelve at the time or something, maybe it didn't even make the news in the Philippines...?"

"That seems wise. I'm eighteen," he says, waiting for him to, presumably, elaborate.

"Lee Tae-gun—I assume you know who that is—and Kang Jaeha—same—used to partner. And Kang Jaeha left the guild when they stopped partnering. I don't think anyone knows why, there wasn't any big blowup or anything, they are as far as anyone knows not hostile? And it could just have been, you know, a bad breakup, and Kang Jaeha not wanting to stay. We've had breakups before, though, and often even when there's bad blood people just decide to not be around each other and it's fine."

There's an undercurrent of something in his voice, but he sticks to the facts.

He does know who he is now but he learned of him perhaps more recently than Si-yeon might expect. He is definitely going to have to research that drama later.

"Hm. If I join Quasar and decide to leave and join another one, how difficult would that be?" He's assuming there are penalty clauses like with other guilds. "What about if I decide to retire — not out of injury or anything like that. Just...I don't want to do any major esper work anymore."

"I think if you were being relied upon for any specific contracts there's a penalty, and partnership contracts can also have those, but the default is if you give a month's notice you're fine and in practice I don't think Quasar fusses a lot about that, wouldn't be living up to our ideals very much if we wanted to take steps to keep you around against your will longer than you wanted to stay."

Exit rights are great, we love that.

"I've heard things about the esper culture in Korea. It's good that you say that Quasar will accommodate my media interaction requests, but it would be good to know more specifics. Do you interact with Korean media or journalists a lot?"

"I'm complicated because of all the spy stuff. But you don't have to interact with the media any more or less than you need to. Quasar does encourage you to, uh, try not to give interviews unprepared, because journalists are sharks and smell weakness, but if you want media training we can do media training."

Lawrence definitely wants media training. Anyway...he feels like he asked a bunch of random questions, but. Yeah. Their fifteen minutes are running out. One last question, or maybe two.

"I have heard that there is a lot of homophobia in Korea." Which is not a question, but.

"Sure is. Uh, people often give espers a pass, 'cause it's a life-saving intervention and also it's hot when it's famous people, they can write their brain fanfics, but that feels icky, too. Can't help you there. Quasar's fine, though, we got a group called Queer Quasar and someone being homophobic or biphobic or whatever is an offence you can report to HR. Doesn't really happen, though, like, are you the one who wants to be homophobic to Lee Tae-gun, didn't think so."

That's very good. Also he didn't know Lee Tae-gun was into men. He is really dropping the ball on research.

"Our time is about to run out. Is there anything else that you wanted to say?"

"Don't think so! I think it'd be cool if you joined us but it's chill if you don't wanna, do whatever works for you." Ping. "Oh, here's the updated contract." He summons it and hands it over to the lawyer.

That is truly one of the closing sentences for a pitch of all time.

"In that case, thank you for meeting with me, Ha Si-yeon. We will get back to Quasar with our response in a week." It's almost certainly going to take less time than that but better to be safe.

"Awesome. Cheers!" And rather than walking out he tap tap taps at his commscreen and disappears in the same flash of weirdly localised light that summoned the contracts and cookies.

Teleport!!

Is he gone now? He feels the urge to do the thing that Si-yeon made him think of, which is to sweep the area with his power to detect for sentients, except the pamphlets warned him Very Strongly against that because, even if he rides out the small amount of acute backlash, it will turn into chronic backlash which can accumulate and cause various nasty bodily issues over time. So, he'll refrain. Well he could probably ask to hug Leah again but he doesn't want to bother her and her accounting.

He waits for one minute.

He really needs to prepare a list of questions for when that happens. Not that he thinks it will happen, because there are only a few other organizations on his schedule, but. On principle, he should have one.

They do a few Google searches. Apparently, Kang Jaeha used to be Lee Tae-gun's partner, but they had some kind of falling out (speculation abounds as to why that is) and Jaeha went to Lucid. So perhaps that's what Si-yeon's big reaction was about — he and Quasar do not want Lawrence to go to Lucid. Due to, what? Some grudge or petty breakup dispute? He has a mind to try provoking Quasar and Lucid into a bidding war over him...but he shouldn't do that; it seems like it would work but that he would pay for it in goodwill.

He looks up Ha Si-yeon. He said his power was 'doing things' but like. What does that mean. Oh. He's a mimic who gets skills from his power. What a powerful power! Apparently the type of skill he acquires determines the backlash rate but. He's surprised such a power is a thing.

He looks up Queer Quasar. There's pictures of same-sex couples kissing on the official Queer Quasar page. It makes him feel some type of way.

That is all the time remaining before he has to meet with the next organization.

Vigilo Security Agency was an agency based in London. It was a dungeon clearing agency that also specialized in psychics, he thinks. They do research on psychic dungeons and phenomena. Interestingly, it seemed like they were more interested in his psychic sensor power than his control power? Which was interesting. They were very cagey about what they did, which made sense, but it disappointed him and his curiosity. The money was about average among the offers of his shortlisted organizations.

Columbia Esper Solutions was an agency based in Washington, DC. Their representative...said a lot of words that didn't amount to saying anything except that they would like Lawrence on their team. Their website was similar. It all looked very...stock photo bland and corporate. He tried asking questions but...they gave very...politician or beauty pageant answers where you, again, say a lot of words without saying anything. Ugh. It gave him a bad vibe. They were offering about the same amount of money as Quasar and Lucid, possibly even more depending on the rates you use for currency conversion.

Okay. He has finished meeting with all the organizations. Now...he specifically wants a few pieces of information from the Quasar contract. But he doesn't want to give away what exactly he's searching for, so instead he will have his lawyer explain each part in exacting detail. Yes, his lawyer's time is expensive, but he is about to make lots of money, so.

How difficult is it to switch from the salary with dungeon clearing requirement payment model to the pay as you clear payment model?

Is it required for him to fully disclose his power or his backlash?

If he goes from salary to pay as you clear, he is still expected to clear the dungeons he has remaining for the current pay period (Korea typically has monthly pay periods, and Quasar does too). Otherwise you just notify the office.

There is no legal obligation of doing either. The contract says that whatever uses of his power he's willing and able to use are what he's considered to have, and anything he's not comfortable using or sharing basically doesn't exist, for the guild's purposes.

Quasar is obligated to refer him to an esper partnering institution in the case they can't find him a partner within a certain timeframe, but that time is longer if he doesn't disclose his backlash to them. Quasar is under an NDA about his backlash in any case so they're not allowed to share, reference, or act like they know any aspects of his backlash unless they learned them through public channels or he gave his explicit consent.

Part of him thought that it would be more difficult to pick a guild. But in the end, that didn't end up being true. He still waits until the next day before making a decision.

He signs the contract and asks his lawyer to convey that information to Quasar. And to politely decline all the other offers.

He will do so.

Perfect! Welcome to Quasar. Does Lawrence require temporary lodgings and/or siloing?

Temporary lodgings yes. Silo...he currently has zero backlash and so does not need one immediately. But he would accept a Quasar silo.

(He still has money left over from his bridge loan but, yeah. And if he's not trusting Quasar to manage lodging for him, why trust them for anything else?)

The silo would need some setting up, too, probably, if there are any backlash accommodations he needs.

Well, he's been very careful not to rack up backlash, so he doesn't have good experience as for what's good...and his backlash doesn't seem very amenable to accommodations, honestly.

Probably a wheelchair? An electric one. And some sort of device that lets him do text-to-speech with minimal input, like what Stephen Hawking has, in the case his backlash is to the point where he has trouble speaking.

Also some kind of ventilator or Ambu bag device for someone else to use, in case he stops breathing. It might be a good idea for him to get some kind of watch that measures his O2 saturation, like a pulse oximeter but with a better form factor, so it can send an alert for people to come help him if that happens.

Also, meal replacement drinks like Huel, and, hm. He wants the design of the silo to be such that it's good if you're feeling very lazy. (His backlash manifests as something like procrastination at the lower levels, but he doesn't want to explain that, because his backlash is officially just 'difficulty moving'.) Maybe set it up so he can have the silo do stuff with voice commands or with a remote, rather than with him having to move.

That's all the thoughts he has for now. He hasn't existed long enough in backlashed states to have more ideas as to how he might be better accommodated.

Those are possible to arrange! 

With most powers they'd suggest a new in-house batch of testing to validate the government testing, but between the power, the backlash, and the fact that he doesn't have a partner, that's kinda hard. So for his next steps, they are going to send him a list of anonymised espers who could potentially be compatible with him and who are currently open to new partners, and he could look through this list and meet up with them. There will also soon be a meetup where new espers are encouraged to go and shake hands with each other to check for compatibility. 

Does he have any self-defence practice?

Yes, he would be pleased to look through the list. And go to the meetup. What does he need to prepare for the meetup...business cards, probably. And maybe a Korean translator. He already has a suit — is a suit fine?

He definitely wants to receive tutoring in Korean as soon as possible. He's fluent in English but Quasar is a Korean guild, so. He actually has specific requests for a tutor: one of his hobbies is and was conlanging and he knows his subjunctive from his indicative and his nominative from his accusative. So, if they could refer him to or provide a language tutor who can make use of that, that would be best.

None whatsoever! He was also rather sedentary before he awoke, though he doesn't know how exactly how much awakening affects your physical attributes aside from "they go up".

A suit is fine but it's not a formal event, it's a social meetup.

Tutoring in Korean is definitely doable! That can start whenever he wants. 

If he doesn't have any self-defence training then they should schedule some for him. The Quasar training and gym facilities are open 24/7 and he can go to them whenever. If it's fine by him, they can have an eval and first training session on Monday.

Will be be moving to Seoul on a more permanent basis?

Oh right, teleportation is. A thing. He was given to understand that teleportation was something reserved for like. Urgent dungeon stuff. But then he also saw Si-yeon just teleport out of here rather than like, take a flight. Will he also be teleported or is he going to go to Quasar HQ mundanely?

He was assuming that he definitely would have to but apparently this is not mandatory. It seems like it would be best if he could go to work without having to fly or do teleports about it, though. (And he has few ties tying him here.) So yes, he would be happy to move to Seoul semi-permanently. Could Quasar help with the necessary bureaucracy?

Yes, he can be evaluated and trained on Monday.

Hm. It's fall in Korea, now, and Korea actually has winter. Real winter, where it snows. He'll have to get used to that. And buy cold weather clothes.