Overseer Employment
The floors of the Ocean Skyscraper quakes as the ___s apply changes to its layout. Halls and corridors twist, and walls and floors turn. Pumps rang to life as they flooded several corridors and chambers for the purpose of allowing acquatic species to traverse the floors above sea level. Conversely, there were pumps hard at work keeping several halls and corridors below sea level free of water to allow the more terrestrial species to traverse the underwater portions of the Ocean Skyscraper. Some rooms were split into wet and dry by durable glass walls so that species more inclined to water may meet and speak with species more inclined to dry land eye to eye. Perches and balconies were installed to accommodate airborne travellers, and ledges and alcoves ran through the corridors to accomodate the tiny and vertically challenged. The building is to be made accessible to all species regardless of capability and need.
This is in preparation for Project Overseer's future employees. The ___s have installed a new program in Project Overseer's system, allowing it to assign and prepare positions and jobs. There are four classes of jobs the Project Overseer can prepare: Engineering, Logistics and Commerce, Security, and Relations. Jobs are further divided into four ranks, each with their own responsibilities and privileges: Intern, Employee, Manager, and Executive.
The Intern Rank is for individuals that are nominally under training. Their pay is small but so is their responsibilities.
The Employee Rank is for individuals that have passed the test and have been deemed worthy of being hired by Project Overseer. They are given a living wage and the option to live in the skyscraper.
The Manager Rank is for individuals that have been given the responsibility direct and manage employees and ensure that work is done in a timely manner. They are given good pay and the option to live in the skyscraper.
The Executive Rank helps directing the progress of the city. They are close to Project Overseer and are consulted to provide advice to the AI and its administrator. Executives are given the responsibility of directing a large group of employees and acting as the face of that group to the general populace. That high responsibility warrants them a high pay and a good room in the skyscraper.
PORES| Project Overseer Remote Employment System V1.0
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🛠 Engineering 🛠
Engineering-class Jobs involve construction, design, modification, repair, and controlled demolition and disassembly of various structures and mechanisms. If you are interested in repairing and learning drones, vehicles, and car beetles, this class may be for you.
You are an Intern-rank Engineer. 12 jobs are available!
Apply for a Job!
💡 Logistics and Commerce 💡
Logistics-and-Commerce-class Jobs involve the acquiring, management, and transport of various resources and money. You will be handling money, tending to shops, and facilitate trade and barter between races, tribes, and families.
You are an Intern-rank Logistician and Commercialist. 56 jobs are available!
Apply for a Job!
🛡 Security 🛡
Security-class Jobs involve the defense of oneself and others and protect, defend, and rescue people during disasters and crisis. Project Overseer will be providing equipment and training for those interested in taking this class.
You are an Employee-rank Security. 107 jobs are available!
Apply for a Job! | Apply for Promotion!
🤝 Relations 🤝
Relations-class Jobs involve diplomacy, the handling of communication and relationships between people of differing or the same race to ensure that peace and stability reigns.
You are an Intern-rank Diplomat. 7 jobs are available!
Apply for a Job!
Project Overseer deployed several computer kiosks throughout the Uneven Isles just for the express purspose of providing access to the employment system's online portal. While the employment system's reception was lukewarm at first, the system was a hit, and hundreds and approaching thousands became under the employ of Project Overseer. Derzor itself would become one of those that applied for a contract with Project Overseer, whose superhuman physique and intellect would earn it a quick rise up the ranks in all the job classes, becoming an executive in the affairs of the scaled fish and the deep sea before the first half of the age could pass.
The Invisible Star Tribe of the ruinarins, some nocturnes, and verbose parrots were quite miffed about being displaced by their homes by the onset reconstruction, but many were turned around by Project Overseer's employment benefits. Many of Project Overseer's first regular employees came from the population that called the tower home, and now they roam the labyrinth of carpet and flooded halls along with other employees and contractors. No longer are the halls of the Ocean Skyscraper largely empty of animal life as people of all races roamed its halls for work and life.
Final drug herb
Many of its ilk have sprouted in the ages past, but today, no more of its kin, no new kind of mystical herb would grow, for this would be the last age the ___s would be touching this patch of the world. This mystical herb grew spade-like leaves of a purple hue. The herb possesses a nootropic effect, and those that consume it would find themselves temporarily able to learn more easily. The herb would be called thyme.
The people of the isles would covet the purple herb, seen as a valuable learning aid for the intellectually challenged, a mental block remover to the scholarly, and a source of inspiration to the artsy. Some of the more unscrupulous would use the herb's effects to become better scam artists and sell dyed leaves as rare sprigs of this herb and as anti-aging panaceas. This would cause an uproar as many authorities became alarmed at their skill, so much so that it was deemed bordering mind control. Many of such scam artists would be caught by authorities, headhunters, and Project Overseer's security personell to be executed or sentenced to reclusion perpetua, but some would manage to escape, going into hiding, forming an underground criminal group so well hidden that much of the isles never heard of them or believe them to be a hoax. Project Overseer would periodically issue public announcements about them so that the general public does not completely forget of their existence.
Like all the other mystical herbs that popped up in the past, a golden variety exists out there. Regular thyme was already found to be quite valuable, it stands to logic that its golden variety would be even more valuable. All of the isles would scramble for its search. Regular people and unscrupulous people search for it to exploit its permanent nootropic properties. Project Overseer's security personell comb the weedy corners of the numerous platforms for the purposes of keeping it away from the hands of scumbags. In the middle of the age, the first golden thyme would be discovered by an inchling, who consequently uprooted it and quietly sold it to the crab people priesthood for an extortionate price. Project Overseer would install heavy monitors and security around the hidden grove the crab people planted the golden thyme. Word wouldn't come out until five years after the crab people's acquisition of it, and it would take until the end of the age for someone unscrupulous to infiltrate the heart of the crab people's sacred groves and steal a sprig of the sacred herb. The thief would be caught two days later, but the sprig that he stole was long gone.
Necro-scepter
Anwik was a pious nocturne. Born from impure fertility, piety and loyalty to the standing stone was engraved into his heart long before he was even born. He attended all the masses the high priest held before the menhir. 21 green signs marked his dark skin, a sign of his devotion to the blessed stone. If the high priest had allowed him to take one more often, his body would have long become a tapestry with more marks than there were letters in a novel. He prayed thrice a day for three hours at a time to an effigy of the malachite menhir within his home. No one was quite as pious as he was in Grimhaven, and that piety is why he became the wielder of the Necro-scepter.
The Necro-scepter is an artifact crafted from obsidian and adorned with twisted jagged bones. Atop the scepter is a brass-plated horned skull whose eye sockets glow with green fire. It emits an eerie black aura, shrouded in whispers of despair and decay. When held, a cold unsettling feeling would seep out, surrounding its wielder with an ominous aura of fear and terror that penetrates the hearts and souls of all those that approach.
Anwik believes the Necro-scepter as a sign of being chosen by the great menhir. With the Necro-scepter, Anwik was able to manipulate flesh, healing injuries as well as disfiguring and turning others into grotesque beasts. Anwik would be called an apostle and those who followed him were turned into monstrous abominations with unnatural strength, high senses, and resistant to magic, but none of will that once belonged to them. The monsters created follow the commands of their creator.
Anwik drained the life of those that opposed him, and that stolen vitality was channeled into his body, strengthening and empowering him. As Anwik approached the divine dome that housed the Malachite Menhir, his body had morphed into something cursed and unrecognizable. Gone was the gangly propertions of a malnourished nocturne and in its place a hulking monster of sinewy flesh and limbs.
The ground creaked with each ponderous step. There, at the foot of the holy menhir, awaited the chief of Grimhaven. Anwik smirked as he saw the chief freeze in place with that stupefied mug of his as he witnessed the Chosen One of the Malachite Menhir approach.
The chief was a large hulking nocturne with a torse as stout as a skycraper's foundation. Arms as thick as support pillars hung from its shoulders, and wicked claws longer than a nocturne was tall adorned each of its fingers. Drool drip from its too-full mouth, unable to be closed fully by the number and size of the knife-like teeth jutting from its gums. While the wing-arms on its back was quite muscular and thick, it could never possibly carry its monstrously bulky body. Its skin was incandescent with the light of a thousand marks. Even its glassy eyes and cavernous mouth was aglow with an eerie green light from the marks etched within. It stood fore the menhir as though the standing stone was its throne.
Anwik's monstrous form stood twice the of a normal nocturne, yet their chief, blessed by the marks of a thousand rituals of the Granite Heart, still stood twice as tall as he was, but he was not deterred. Anwik stood under the entrance arch undaunted. His many gangly arms splayed open like wings on his back while two trunk like arms hung on his shoulders with one holding the abominable scepter like a mace.
The chief roared. A wall of sound swept through the temple, sending and splintering the tables that was so carefully arranged. The nocturnes that hadn't yet fled from the scene were crushed to pulp as the wall of sound passed through them, liquefying their flesh. But the Anwik was made of sterner stuff than that. He faced the wall of sound like one would face the surf, and like the waves of the sea crashing upon a concrete pillar, the wall of sound parted against his tough body. A cloud of sand and splinters followed the wall of sound and crashed upon Anwik and the walls beside him, leaving shallow bloodless scratches on his surface.
The chief was perplexed, but its confusion was shortlived as anger smothered all feeling and painted all the chief could see with an irritating red. Stupid disobedient heathens, the chief wanted to scream, but its disfigured mouth mutated that to an unintelligible beastly bellow that shook the sub-urb's steel underbelly.
The chief charged at Anwik with a wide swipe ready to cut Anwik into fleshy ribbons. Its body blurred as it sprinted, leaving craters and deep gouges on the concrete floor. The chief crossed the hall separating them in a fraction of a second, causing a fierce wind to blow. It was much too quick for even Anwik to dodge, but he was quick enough to move to defend against it. Just before the strike could connect, Anwik's arms that splayed behind it moved to cover his left side.
Claws of steel met bones of dense calcium. It was a strike that created a deep crater where Anwik once stood, but it was not quite enough to break even one of Anwik's blesed bones. Anwik was sent flying, to crash into one of the many high-rise apartments of nocturne bone and leather.
The building collapsed, burying the upstart in rubble. The chief snorted, somewhat satisfied, but then suddenly, pain erupted from its fingers - no, its bones! It came from the hand it used to strike upon the upstart. The chief saw that the once flawless metal swords it called claws were cracking. The meaty fingers the claws were attached to were shriveling and graying, as though old age had struck them.
While the chief was inspecting the damage to its claws, the pile of rubble exploded as Anwik jumped to the sky. He held the scepter high, ready to strike down upon the chief. The chief parried the hammer strike. Anwik jumped back ten paces before sprinting forward to a headbutt. The headbutt hit the chief square in the chest, sending it skidding backwards five paces, much to the chief's surprise.
The chief began growling, indignation burning hotter and brighter than it ever had before. The chief charged forth with to strike upstart which Anwik parried with his scepter. Steel claws meet brass-plated bone. The two fought in the square around the Malachite Menhir, demolishing all structures that surrounded them. The chief attacked Anwik with savage swipes and ferocious blows. No less than seven times the chief had leaned forward to lop off Anwik's head, and an equal amount of times Anwik ducked away just before the jaws could close. Anwik countered with unpracticed blows. Although he couldn't quite match the savage skill of his chief, he made it up with superior grace.
The two fought for hours, evenly matched. The land that surrounded the Malachite Menhir was reduced to dust, and the two now stood in a crater one hundred meters deep. The sub-urb underneath them cried and cried in pain with every blow exchanged as each of their steps left dents in the submarine city's inner hull.
Then, the chief felt something that it hadn't felt for a long time. Fatigue. The chief's arms trembled and slowed, disobedient to his commands. Its vision blurred and its heart struggled in its chest. Something was wrong. He felt weak, almost as weak as the chief had been before he had embraced the menhir's blessings.
The chief craned its head down and looked at its own body, and was horrified by what it saw. The chief had become gaunt and thin, skin sagging from its limbs as the muscle that once filled them out had wasted away. Broken yellowing claws tipped its fingers, streams of blood flowed broken teeth, and ribs poked at its now gaunt chest. Despite the weakness that now pervaded its whole being, the chief saw that its skin was still flourescent and not one mark had been scrubbed away.
Anwik erupted into laughter when he saw the chief appalled at its transformation. It was unworthy of the menhir's blessing if it did so to oppose the holy rock's chosen one. It would be akin to moving against the Malachite Menhir's will. How impious of them. He had held back the power flowing into him from his every strike, but now he could no longer hold it back.
The chief could only look in horror as Anwik began to tranform. His skin bubbled and warped as the flesh beneath melted and swelled. The flesh pulsated and the stolen vitality flooded into his veins. The wing-like arms on his back twisted and writhed as though in ecstasy as more of their kin sprouted from the bubbling flesh. His back hunched ever so forward until he was forced onto all fours, but before he could slam his arms to ground to balance himself, two pillar-like arms suddenly sprouted from his back, slamming to the ground and stabilizing him. His neck lengthened, his snout elongated. Glowing eyes opened up along his neck and around his head, bathing the crater in an eerie otherworldly light the same way the Malachite Menhir's eyes would wash the temple with its holy green light.
The chief had to crane his head up just to gaze upon Anwik's face. Whatever Anwik had turned into could no longer be identified as a nocturne. It was more akin to a fleshy perversion of a dragon. Wings made of hands splay behind it, blocking what little light of the sea above, forcing the chief to face the Anwik's wicked light alone.
Quicker than a blink of an eye, Anwik swiped the chief and hend it close to his chest. The chief could feel and hear Anwik's monstrous heart beat beside him, rumbling like a turbine and burning like a reactor. Anwik twisted his head near his chest to gaze closely upon the struggling chief in his hand. The chief's struggles grew weaker and weaker with every passing moment as it was siphoned to the Necro-scepter which laid on his other hand. Soon, the chief grew still in his grip, no longer possessing the strength to squirm even against his relaxed hold. With each bone it broke in the struggle, his disturbing smile grew larger and larger, baring its uncloaked amusement.
Anwik dropped the now near dead chief to the foot of the Malachite Menhir, and a new mark appeared on his skin.
Faraway Bridge
It arrived quite suddenly in the dead of night. The ground did not shake when it was built. The sleeping folk did not stir when its metal skeleton rose from the deep. No guard turned their head, no lookout witnessed its coming, no bird saw the concrete, brick, and metal flowing and enfleshing the bare metal bones. Not even the very fishes heard of it planting its foundations firmly to the bedrock. It came so quick and quietly that it wasn't there one moment, and there it was in the next. All the creatures could not believe that such a great structure stirred not a soul as it pulled itself out of the aether.
When the first rays of daylight shone unto the world, the creatures of the isles awoke to a great new bridge extending out to sea. It was a wide bridge made of metal, concrete, stone, and bricks put to gether in a chaotic but beautiful artificial symphony. Each inch of the grand bridge was a work of art.
The bridge was paved with colorful bricks that formed a strange abstract mosaic. The bridge wasn't of bricks of uniform shape; some bricks were short, some much longer, and some of some strange curved shape that's perfectly nestled between equally strangely-shaped bricks. Like the bricks that so pave the bridge, each picket of the metal fence that forbade all from simply walking off the sides of the bridge was unique. Pickets were of differeing lengths and shapes with ornamentations at differing locations, all cohering to the aesthetics of its surroundings. The hundreds of cat's-eyes embedded throughout the structure come in a rainbow of colors, from red to green to white to black and to colors not readily visible to the human eye. They are embedded everywhere, on the road, on the fences, and even on the sides of the pillars. At night, the cat's-eyes would glow like stars, marking the bridge's outline with their ethereal reflective light.
The bridge extend out from one of the disused docking areas of Marrow Town. It stands a hundred meters wide and some kilometers out ot sea before abruptly ending. Stout columns periodically dipped into the sightless deep. Large blocks of an indestructible material served as their feet, planting their foundations firmly atop the bedrock. The strange material resembled a mixture of metal and ceramic and was impervious to all known damage; this material would be dubbed by the denizens of the deep as bridgestone.
However, the most intriguing aspect of the bridge would be that the bridge slowly grew towards the sea, creating new bridgebone, concrete, metal, and other materials ex nihilo. To the casual onlooker, the bridge seemed like a static ungrowing structure, but the bridge grew a measurable two to five centimeters each day. The bridge's growth could no longer be denied when at year's end when new columns began growing at the bridge's underside. No longer would it be a measurable growth but also a countable one.
The bridge captivated the minds and imagination of all of the isles' residents with its splendor. Many people wanted to have a piece of its splendor in their homes, so they took pieces of the bridge - some brick, picket, or cat's-eye they particularly liked - and hung them over their tables so they could admire them everyday. Some of the less scrupulous would harvest material from the hunk of masonry and sell them to peoples living much farther from the bridge such as the ruinarins and nocturnes.
Even Project Overseeer was not immune to the allure of harvesting material from teh bridge, seeing as it is a near unending source of material. As the AI impregnated the structure with its nanites, Project Overseer would begin to notice more peculiarities to the bridge. The beams and rebar that so makes the bones of the bridge seem to be made of some mysterious adamant metal that is distinct that so makes the bones of the platforms. The density and mystical make-up of the metal prevented Project Overseer from infiltrating its nanites in the adamant metal's structure. This metal would be dubbed bridgebone.
The bridge's mystical properties seem to be concentrated on its bridgebone. While nobody has been able to get a sample from the bridge, it has been observed that it was bridgebone that grows first as the bridge grew longer and longer. It was also here where the material that so enfleshes the bridge was created. It was curiosity that would occupy many people's mind for many years.
But there would be no one more fervently curious than the rebar dragon. Like many of the isles, the rebar dragon would learn of the curiosity that was the bridge only through word of mouth. Months had passed since the appearance of the great bridge when the words finally reached the dragon's ears. At first, the rebar dragon merely dismissed the structure as some inferior mortal construction, but as more words filtered into its awareness, the more curious the dragon became. The word of it being no mere mortal construction intrigued the rebar dragon to no end that eventually, it simply lost the will to resist anymore.
Marrow Town would fill with screams as the rebar dragon appeared one day. It passed through the town's gates and through its wide thoroughfares. The people in its path tried their best to step aside, but in the busier streets, some simply couldn't step aside as the rebar dragon squeezed in its concrete body through. Those that were in the way where squashed underfoot, may that thing be a car-beetle, guest, or inchling.
The rebar dragon would stare down at the guards and heroes that arrived. The warpicks and warhammers forged for the express purpose of striking the rebar dragon lay ready in their hands, yet not one of them wanted to provoke the beast. The rebar dragon was known for its terrible intelligence and not for its mercy or temperance. They couldn't engage the dragon there, not there, in the middle of Marrow Town, where the rebar dragon could reduce all that they love into nothing but ash and cinders. The guards firmly planted their feet on the cobblestone, positioned in such a way that if the dragon didn't want a fight, it could only go where they wanted it to.
The rebar dragon did not want to fight. No, it simply could not afford waste what little mental energy it had on fighting. Mental energy was a precious resource to it, and it need that to have any motivation to do anything at all. But it also did not want to go wherever the townsfolk wanted it to go. It didn't want to take any detours, it wanted to go straight to the bridge.
The guards tensed when they saw the rebar dragon open its mouth. Their grip weakened, as though they were dunked into a tub of cold water. They feared the worst. Some of them have resigned to their fates. But the rebar dragon did not spew nuclear fire, but rather, words.
The guards never fell to the ground faster than ever before. They covered their ears with their hands, but it couldn't drown out the dragon's hateful voice. Some speared their ears so that could be spared from the dragon's abominable reprimand, but they could still feel its contempt through their the vibrations from the ground. The rebar dragon ranted, expressing its contempt and disdain upon all the creatures that stood in its way. The people of the isles have acclimatized to the dragon's rant some time ago with many no longer flinching at hearing an exerpt of an exerpt, but this was not part of the great rant.
This was a wholly new rant. It was a new impromptu speech, with a wholly different motivation, intent, and emotion. Where the previous speech expressed the rebar dragon's heaven-reaching anger at its perfect designs being stolen and bastardized, this one spoke of the rebar dragon's contempt and scorn at the guards for holding it up in its pilgrimage to the bridge.
It was awful. The guards could only curl and shrink under the rebar dragon's overwhelming contempt. Tears flowed like rivers as the dragon attacked their sense of worth. Their heart hitched in their chest as their organs felt like giving up, feeling like they were not worth keeping alive. They tried to keep themselves together, but with the barrage of hurtful words spewing like a waterfall, some could not do it and died right there and then.
The guards had to endure this torture for thirty minutes straight. The rebar dragon looked at the heroic figures that thirty minutes ago were brave warriors. Some lay still and cold, dead and having given up. Others curled into a ball, whimpering and crying, their pride and sense of self-worth shattered into infinitesimal pieces. The rebar dragon could only snort. Of course such inferior beings could not withstand even a very very short rant of its.
The rebar dragon moved on, leaving the wrecked guards behind. Thirteens steps since, the rebar dragon yawned. It was getting tired. It seemed that its short rant tired it more than it thought.
Just a few streets and some turns later, the rebar dragon would find itself before the great bridge, and it was grnader than it could have imagined. The rebar dragon looked down upon all mortal creations (mortal meaning people that aren't it), but the bridge was simply too wonderful for it to be anything other than some immortal construction.
The rebar dragon examined the bridge closely. The aesthetics was simply divine! Despite being asymmetrical and made of a discordant array of colors and shapes, the bridge managed to not appear busy. The discordant parts blended together, each piece fitting together like pieces of a puzzle, forming a harmonious whole. The designer of this brige had to be an interesting one.
The rebar dragon was dismayed to see all the pits and potholes all the people made on the wondrous bridge. Alas, it is but one of the many flaws mortals possess; they do not seem to be able to appreciate true art. Oh well, another set of people it would add to be destroyed (where did it put that plan again?).
The bridge had fully absorbed the rebar dragon's attention. Everywhere the rebar dragon looked, there was another intriguing feature. It keep striding forward to examine closely an interesting pattern, it would then discover another a little farther away that begged its attention. Without even knowing it, but comments began slipping out of its mouth. It gushed at just about every interesting detail, and calmly critiqued the parts it thought didn't mesh with the bridge's artistic vision.
If anyone heard the rebar dragon speak right there and then, they would surely have fainted with shock. Everyone on the isles had a preconceived idea of what a dragon is like: an angry loudmouth with a voice of a chainsaw constantly spewing hateful obscenities. But the words the rebar dragon uttered were not spoken in the angry rant or contemptuous speech it typically used to speak with mortals. The voice was a smooth carefully calculated harmony laced with great admiration. Gone was the deep anger and contempt that constantly simmered just under the dragon's surface. If anyone had heard the words, they would have believed the voice belonged to an angel.
Then, before it even knew it, the rebar dragon reached the end of the bridge. The rebar dragon broke out of the trance when it realized that the detail it was trying to examine was actually the horizon. The bridge stopped so suddenly, in the middle of the sea. The end looked unfinished, as though the bridge was meant to be even longer than it currently was. The concrete slab was bare of any fancy brickwork or ornamentation, the fencing not yet installed, and the inner structural beams jutted out, exposed to the elements.
The rebar dragon laid its body down on the unfinished segment. A sigh escaped its mouth. It could feel the motivation in its core guttering out at any moment now. It was a shame that such a beautiful construction had such a disappointing end.
The rebar dragon was just tinking its foreclaws into the bridge's exposed bones. The music helped alleviate that fatiguing disappointed that weighed heavily on it. It was strange though. It sometimes got a long bassy note that was impossible for its claws to make. A mystery for another time.
As it was about to turn and walk away, it suddenly noticed something peculiar. The crystals and grains in the concrete were moving. The motion was slow, but definitely there. Not only that, the grains weren't just moving, the concrete slab was actually growing! It observed the bridge for an hour and found that it definite grew a millimeter or two.
It knew that the bridge was too perfect to possibly be a mortal creation, but it could have never imagined it to be like itself. The hunk of metal and masonry was a dragon, only a dragon could possibly that beautiful. So excited was the rebar dragon to the possibility that it began freely speaking to the bridge. It complimented its beautiful body, commented about the aesthetic vision of its biology, and shared many of the ideas it had made while strolling there. The long bassy noise emanating from the bridge's bones was enough to thoroughly convince the dragon of the bridge's inner life. The rebar dragon talked and talked to the bridge for hours on end, talking until sundown and well into the night, when fatigue finally caught up to it and forced it to slumber.
The next day, Marrow Town would awaken to the rebar dragon sprinting through its thoroughfares. The isles had never known the rebar dragon was capable of such speed. Marrow Town sighed in relief that day, but that relief would quickly be smothered when the rebar dragon returned the next day, the day next, the day further next, and so on, to see the bridge. It felt like the world had turned upside-down when the rebar dragon started to regularly pass through the town to visit the bridge. Project Overseer was horribly concerned at this development.
Inchling Dust
A new ability have arisen among the inchlings. Inchlings can now produce a golden dust that allow them to share their abilities and typed powers to other individuals. How long these abilities are shared depend on how much and how large their recipient is. To give some of their abilities to their fellow inchlings, it would take only a handful, but to share it to a guest, it would take ten times as much.
The dust couldn't be simply stolen. The dust must be willingly given for the ability to be shared; that is an property of the golden dust some unscrupulous individuals would discover. The dust is useless when gotten second-hand. It is only ever effective if it is straight from the source. The sharing of one's dust is typically a sign of trust. While some generous souls freely share their dust, some are more guarded in its distribution, only sharing it to those that they truly trust. To carry someone's dust is to carry the essence of one's concern.
A cultural boom would occur among the inchlings during the age as many inchlings would feel for the first time what it's like to be typed. The power of beasts flowed through their veins, and the elements answered to borrowed command. The health and toughness of beast-types could be shared to the diseased and grievously injured to help them recover. The arts and jobs that had once gated by natural powers only possessed by certain individuals had been opened up to the general masses with advent of the golden dust, granted that you knew the right typed inchling to share some of their dust with you.
While the sharing of typed powers is quite fine and dandy, it wouldn't be the most significant thing to be shared. Every inchling was granted the power to create this golden dust, and while some would argue such beings wouldn't have anything significant to be shared, there are still those that yearned what the regular inchling had. It is an unfortunate fact that certain individuals are dispossessed of such basic abilities by their birth or through grievous injury, but through the golden dust, the blind saw with borrowed sight, the deaf heard with borrowed ears, the mute spoke with borrowed voice, the lame walked with borrowed grace, the flightless flew with borrowed wings, and the dying lived with borrowed time.
Nightmare of The Old World
The monsters of the dark bargain roam the isles. The monsters of the deep swim listlessly beneath the waves, flinching at the barest sound, fearful it may be a continuation of the rebar dragon's rant. Those that remained aground were savage beasts that oft wreaked havoc upon the Concrete Jungle. Their monstrous biomechanical forms prowled the streets, ruining the pavement beneath and demolishing in their way.
Project Overseer's Security Corps patrol the streets of the Uneven Platforms, keeping the populace safe from the rampaging bargaining beasts. As the monsters are immortal and impossible to kill, the Security Corps' goals regarding engagements with creatures are never extermination of such creatures but capture and control. Project Overseer would construct a secure compound for their containment and study. A bargaining beast would occassionally break out, but throughout the compound's existence, none would remain out for long.
... Until the start of the new age.
The ___s called out to the bargaining beasts, to those that dwelled in the deep and those that roamed atop the Uneven Platforms. It was a siren call that none could resist. The monsters pounded on the masonry, twisted through the bars, tunneled through the concrete, and jumped over the walls. Project Overseer could do little to stop them.
The monsters jumped to the sea like a man possessed. Even men and women that had been tempted by the Bargainer's offer but not maddened by the rebar dragon's rant lost of control of themselves and jumped for the waves against their will. All the bargaining ones of all the Urban Sea were called to the same place. It was an irresistible force, compelling them to come, even if they didn't want to. The monsters congregated to some point in the sea, grinding their bodies together. Soon, their flesh would, their bodies melding together into one mass of undying rotting meat. The bargainers were horrified at the sight, but they could not stop. The compulsion was too strong. Their bodies fused, becoming a biomechanical leviathan.
It was sinuous serpent of flesh and metal. Scales of plastic clad its skin, while pipes and ducks of copper snaked over its body like ivy. Instead of eyes, the beast had compound eyes resembling dark windows and screens strewn throughout its lenght like portholes. Seven rows of ivory and iron arm its mouth, and seven pairs of arms are attached to its body at even intervals. The leviathan resembled a large submarine, with the symbol of the apocalypse painted prominently on its side.
The leviathan bellowed with screams of a hundred horrified folk, reflecting the discordant screams of a hundred souls in its mind. The maddened men had realized the horror of what they have become, receiving temporary lucidity, just to know that they've transformed into a much more horrific monster, yet that lucidity would fade, as their minds were broken down and melded together. The many of them that had been driven insane by the dragon's anger and hate had finally been given peace in death, memories of their suffering scrubbed away from the sea, and in their place, a new consciousness is born.
The leviathan possesses the collective might and physical power of all those that composed it, along with the ability to manipulate and transmute inorganic matter into more biomechanical horrors. It cannot bask in the sun any longer than an hour or else it begins to burn and fall into a torpor until no sunlight shines upon it. Intense electromagnetic fields also causes it to become paralyzed and unable to act.
In the office of the Bargainer, a bright red phone appears on the Bargainer's desk. Occasionally, it would ring, and when the Bargainer answered, the leviathan's voice could be heard on the other side. The leviathan could call the Bargainer at any time, even while awake.
The leviathan could be seen drifting through the deep. It could be seen weaving through the underwater streets lying in the city in the abyss. Whenever the leviathan passed by the sub-urbs everyone would stop whatever they were doing to watch the magnificent yet unsettling beast pass by their homes. It would occasionally bump the sub-urbs, causing the ground to shake and tilt. Some would come to fear the leviathan's bellows and the sight of large objects underwater.
The crab people of the deep would crane their eyes upward to the leviathan hovering over them. Its compound eyes trained on them and smirk on their mouth. The crab people were frozen in fear, petrified by the sight of a monster marked with the symbol that so haunted their nightmares, but when the leviathan opened its mouth, the voice that exited wasn't a thing of nightmares. The leviathan was oddly friendly to the crab people in a way that it wasn't to all the other races, acting like a loving parent at times. It was willing to listen, to give advice, and even held the crab people in their predicaments.
So friendly was it that the some crab people would begin to question their fear of the symbol emblazoned upon the leviathan's side. It would begin a fierce philosophical debate among the crab people and even among the scaled fish on what the symbol truly meant. Was it a symbol of warning or a symbol of hope? Some crab people would approach the leviathan for the meaning of the symbol on its side, but to their confusion, its answer was the same as orthodox opinion: it was a symbol of the apocalypse and should be avoided. Some would begin to wonder, could the leviathan even see the symbol on its body?
The leviathan possesses an extreme hatred of the rebar dragon. It was a hatred that matches the hate the rebar dragon was capable. The leviathan was liable to lose itself in its rage whenever the thought of the rebar dragon appeared in its mind. Even the crab people, who it dearly cherishes and likes, are not safe from its rampage. It often loses control of itself, thrashing everything around in hopes of striking low their most hated foe.
At night, the leviathan could be seen stalking the shallows, in search of its most hated foe. The darkness of the night helped little in its search as it weaved between the supports that so held up the platforms above. Whenever it saw figures in the dark that vaguely looked like a dragon in the right angle, the leviathan would rise from the foam and snap them into its gullet. The leviathan would become infamous for capsizing ships and attacking the platforms' edges. Whenever the leviathan would appear before one without it immediately attacking you, it is advised that all should remain silent and still before the bargaining beast, lest it construe your intentions as pertaining to its hated foe.
Dark Readers
The Iron-blood Children of the ruinarins would dig up a strange find among the rubble of the northwest corner of the platforms. It was a pair spectacles made of soft black substances that easily bends but would always return to the shape of glasses. Any ring or hole made in the substance is filled by a translucent film that acts as the glasses tinted lenses.
A spirit possesses the glasses. This spirit is terribly curious and quite quick to learn. It is capable of seeing whatever can be seen through its lenses and could hear all that was spoken within earshot. The spirit could give visions to those that look through its dark lenses, but it cannot show something it hasn't or known before. The spirit is quite friendly but becomes easily attached and doesn't like not being worn or its wearer giving it up.
The first wearer simply hung it over its fireplace. The first wearer didn't like wearing the glasses as the visions it gave often distracted it from work, but nevertheless kept it nearby. It was a fascinating item with clearly magical properties. It made several experiments with the dark readers, often involving hammering into different shapes. It was quite fascinating to see it reshape itself back into spectacles.
However, the item would be lost in the war against Grimhaven, alongside Iron-blood Village and the platform it was built on.
The Healer of Minds
Jeni looked upon Le'ig. She could feel how broken he was. Despite being conceived well after the dragon's rant, she could see the same cracks in the inchling's psyche. That draconic anger out of place in a inchling's mind and the mind buckling all around attempting to contain that anger. The young inchling was a reckless one, charging into battle with wild abandon. She had been told that he's an incarnation of the One Who Will Be.
Jeni hugged Le'ig, reaching out his mind. Despite not being born typed, she had powers that allowed her to heal the wounds in her fellow's minds. Their elders was quite puzzled with her abilities and they couldn't sense any typed energy within her. Nevertheless, her abilities were tentatively classified as Unicorn-type.
When she bore witness to the wide gaping wounds in her fellows' psyche, Jeni couldn't help but feel pathos. She could feel their pain emanating in her chest, and she just had to run up to them to take away their pain. Her heart aches whenever she thought about the people she couldn't save, all those whose mind did not simply crack but shattered. The vessel that had been forcefully overfilled with the dragon's anger shattered into pieces that fell into a sea of hate. There was no saving them. Even if she dredged up the pieces from the fathoms of hate, the acidic hate would have worn the pieces down almost to dust, not enough to make a full mind.
Jeni dedicated her life to reversing the damage of the dragon's rant, but her life would to come a snag when the Grimhaven suddenly exploded like a bomb.
The world so turns. At the middle of the age, Anwik, now crowned king of the Grimhaven and the nocturnes, plotted to take over the isles. He would show the power of the menhir and make all the isles bow before the holiness of the Malachite Menhir. Grimhaven could only bow before Anwik, the Champion of the Malachite Menhir, and those that opposed were quickly disposed of and offered to the Malachite Menhir. Many of those happy accepted being sacrificed; better an offering to the divine than be made a slave.
Alas, it would have to be a story for another time.
With the era's end, the world let's go of your influence, to drift into the void, until it reaches out again for another go. You'll wait patiently. You know that that wouldn't be long.
Assessing...
Choose one of the following perks:
[] [Perk] Monster Maker
Acts that create individuals gain +2 points.
[] [Perk] Artisan
Acts that create artifacts and artificial objects and creatures gain +2 points.
[] [Perk] Landscaper II
Acts that change the shape and composition of land may pass as Great Acts.
The world expands once again, and you anticipated its coming, but this time, the world did not give you a barren patch of its expansive ocean. As a celebration of a last Era of the Epoch, the world offered something special for the occasion. The world showed three special islands that could come to be, but only one could become true. Choose one.
[] [Island] The Black Meteoroid
A black mountain that lies in orbit around the world. An ovoid mass of dark rock and stone lying just at the edge of the planet's gravity well. It lies quite far from the world and its moon, them being just pale marbles in the sky.
Deep craters pockmark its sooty surface, some dug so deep that its bottom had never seen the light of day. While the depths of the craters remain in permanent shadow, it is not devoid of light. It is in these deep dark craters where mysterious purple crystals are exposed. Veins of this mysterious mineral lace the core of the Black Meteoroid, all emanating a strange energy that seeps into the rock. This energy may substitute part of the needed power to realize Acts.
[Thematic Coherence] Voidborne - Acts that create objects or creatures that need no air or some liquid medium may pass at Great Act and gain +2 points.
[Mysterious Purple Crystals] The mysterious purple crystals emanate a strange energy. This power may substitute part of the needed power to realize Act, allowing it to pass one grade lower, but at a cost.
[Landscaper] Acts that change the shape and composition of land may pass at .
[Monument Maker] Acts that create structures gain +2 points.
[Combo Builder] Acts that build on two or more Acts gain +2 points.
[] [Island] The White Comet
A dirty iceball lies in a highly eccentric orbit around the sun. The White Comet is a hunk of glacier hurtling through the void. It wallows in darkness, wallowing in the harrowing cold of outer space. So far away is it from the sun that it's light is weak and pale, barely enough to thaw the frozen air coating the planet like frost. However, in 90 years or so (or 4 and half Ages), the comet would close to the sun for its frozen surface to begin sublimating.
Frozen in a vault of ice, there is a peculiarity. A large mechanical raptor clad in thick turquoise plates and armed with sickle-like claws. Its unsettling red eyes stare ever forward, frozen in its hate. This is the Glacier General, trapped in a glacial vault, but that may not remain so forever.
[Thematic Coherence] Winter Wonderland - Acts that create amusement and amusing objects or creatures may pass as Great Act and gain +2 points.
[The Glacier General] A mechanical monster trapped in a prison of ice. Should it be freed, it would go on to kill and destroy everything.
[Hero Forge] When a species of sentient creatures are created, one of the first creatures will be bigger, stronger, smarter, and healthier than all the others.
[Windsinger] Acts that manipulate the weather gain +2 points.
[Transformative] Acts that change previously realized Acts gain +2 points.
[] [Island] The Red Debris
Further out than the world, in orbit around the sun, is a field of debris. This field of debris is made of rock that is primarily red, and a mysterious force seems to be keeping it apart, prevent it from collapsing into some planetoid. It accompanies the world in its orbit around the sun, a constant companion, finishing its revolution at the same time as the world.
Strange whispers pervade the area. It is similar enough to your voices for the world to listen to its suggestions. It might require some power to stop it from listening.
[Thematic Coherence] Pirate's Treasure - Acts that create ships, buried treasure, and treasure hunters may pass as Great Acts and gain +2 points.
[Otherworldly Whispers] The Whispers will propose an Act. If not voted on, the whispered Act will pass.
[Derivative Improvement] Acts that build on other Acts slightly enhance those Acts.
[Cradle of Civilization] Acts that create sapient races gain +2 points.
[Artisan] Acts that create artifacts and artificial objects or creatures gain +2 points.