Ahehehe...
Something that cropped up in tonight's Unknown Armies game:
Alex Griffin (my guy, an epideromancer, surgeon, genius and epitome of all that is godlike and glorious about the human form) has been cornered by his liege, Suzanne the so-called Dragon Empress of Chicago (a lunatic hiding out in an invisible, steam-powered, elevated train, played by Mish), into promising her several significant magickal charges.
Now, significant charges are incredibly valuable to Alex, as they allow him to further modify his body to make it just that little bit closer to perfect. He's got them, but he's hoarding them until he really has to give them up and has been trying to avoid mentioning this fact to Suzanne.
The eventual transfer of these charges will be via the medium of Jay the conniving avatar of the Merchant.
Unfortunately, today was Jay's occasional medical check-up, courtesy of the Dragon Empress's court physician... Alex Griffin. (Diagnosis: Respiratory damage due to smoking too much and, oh yeah, your liver's going to crap out in a few years if you don't stop drinking all the time.) Jay exchanges a few minor magickal charges for a bit of mystical tweaking of his own lungs and liver, to put off his eventual death by a few more decades (he's already 180 years old, thanks to purchasing extra years off people every now and then).
And I roll a 00 fumble on the casting roll.
Jay's lungs fuse up and he ends up in the Emergency Room. Before the ER team can reach my room at the clinic , Alex pumps a few more charges into Jay and saves his life. (See, he must owe me something for that, right? I saved his life!)
While Jay heads off for some more mundane medical treatment, Alex gets a call from Suzanne, who wants the significant charges he promised, and what does Alex mean that Jay is in the ER? She needs him better, now!
Alex gets ready to head down to ER and pump in a bit more magic to get Jay up on his feet, when he thinks for a moment.
Alex says to himself (who, after all, is the only audience that truly understands Alex Griffin's awesomeness), "If Jay dies, I get to keep hold of all these charges..."
*skip a beat*
"FUCKING HIPPOCRATES!"
I love playing Alex. He's a genuinely decent, moral, intelligent, courageous individual (a modern hero, I guess), but he's marred by a deep-seated egocentrism, the horrific depths of which only truly surface at times like this...