[] Social with the Adepts. Complete the agreement
Cloudy Skies 11.2
Monday, June 27
You pull up a chronometer screen and nod. "That should be long enough for Standstill to get to the Adepts' place."
"I still don't understand why you or Samantha couldn't just teleport to her and take her to their hideout," Tim says with a huff as he picks up the standby form of his latest creation. "It would make things a lot easier."
"Maybe in the short term, but you didn't just have a weird conversation with Alexandria the way we did. I don't want to run into Legend and have to worry about being almost-threatened into joining the Protectorate because I'm powerful enough to be part of the next generation's Triumvirate. One of those talks is enough for a lifetime."
He shrugs but walks closer to you, and with a single command your casting sigil appears beneath you and erases the world to replace it with the drab walls of… an apartment? This is not where you met the three untrained mages last time! "Storm, did you take us to the wrong place?"
"Whoops. That's my fault. Maclibuin gave me a new address, and I had Sextant forward it to Storm." Tim clears his throat. "I, uh, thought he would tell you."
The jewel on your staff chirps in apology. "Did not consider matter significant to bother Mistress. Will do in future."
"It's fine, it's fine. Just took me by surprise. Anybody home?!" you call out.
Something thumps from down the hall, and in maybe ten seconds Epoch pokes his head out from around the corner. "Calamity Witch, and compatriots. You caught us by surprise, I'm afraid. Please, join us."
In the main living room you find Maclibuin and Standstill still sitting at a fold-up table with cartons of Chinese take-out in front of them. "What happened to your old base?" you ask, images of them being driven out of their headquarters dancing through your head.
"We decided it was too much space to defend with just the two of us. This is a safe house only a few of the Adepts ever knew about. We needed some place that Gevaudan and Lilliput wouldn't know about."
And the best safe house they could find is an apartment? You have your doubts about that but keep them to yourself. If this really is one of their homes, you don't want to mention it and unnerve them unnecessarily. "Well, we're back and with presents to boot. It might be easier if we split up, though. I can give you pointers on your spells, Epoch, and Samantha and Standstill can discuss some of the practicalities of creating a Guardian Beast. Meanwhile Shipwright can work with Maclibuin on the details of his Device—"
"I can't really do much on that score," Tim says, cutting you off. "I know enough about it to build the Device itself and can tell you the basics, but how to best use your spells? I wouldn't know where to begin. I'm just glad Storm had enough information to help with the programming."
Perfect Storm shouldn't have any information on support spells, but Immortal Assimilation Engine? That is a different kettle of fish entirely, and not one that will make you sleep easier at night.
"So what do I need to do?" asks Maclibuin.
"Not much at all. Just put it on and follow the directions."
Tim hands over a thin copper bracelet, the ends of the torc decorated with yellow spheres. Maclibuin shrugs and slips it on. "So what—"
"New user identified." Everyone startles at the deep voice that comes from the bracelet, the decorations on the ends flashing citrine light with each syllable. "Request Device designation change."
"It wants a name," Tim whispers, trying his best not to be overheard. Personally, you don't think the Device would care what Tim says since it – he? – is being worn by Maclibuin, but what he does is his business.
The gigantic mage scratches his chin. "A name. Hmm… There is only one appropriate name I can think of. Hiallus, who assisted Loan Maclibuin with the forging of his swords. That is your new name."
"Designation 'Hiallus' accepted. Ready to initialize."
"Proceed, I guess."
"Command acknowledged. Configuring Barrier Jacket. Optimizing protocols. Set up."
Maclibuin's body shines with brilliant light, enough that it eclipses his outline and turns him into an emerald sun. Several moments pass before the light finally fades and Maclibuin falls to his knees. His muscle shirt and jeans are gone, replaced by soft grey cargo pants tucked into boots and… well, it looks like another sleeveless shirt since his arms are still visible through the long coat he wears, revealing what is now a golden torc wrapped around his left bicep. The hood of that coat is pulled down, revealing the slim domino mask that along with the shadows of the hood will completely hide his identity.
"Mac!" Epoch and Standstill yell.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. That just felt weird." He grabs onto a nearby chair and pulls himself up to his feet. "I still feel a little strange, but I'm not hurt or anything." A small frown crosses his face, and then he grabs both sides of the folding chair and pulls as hard as he can. The chair stays intact when he gives up, which must not have happened for years considering how long he had his superstrength. This time he smiles. "Maybe more than a little strange, but definitely not in a bad way."
«I guess this is the best proof we can get that Devices really will strip capes of their original powers,» Samantha whispers to you telepathically. "Come over here, Standstill. We can have a nice long chat about turning animals into people and the responsibilities that come with it."
"Don't scare her too bad! And we can talk about Shooters and flying and telekinesis."
Epoch nods with a smile of delight and turns his chair around to face you while you sit on empty air. "I don't suppose I would be able to do that myself, would I?"
"Flight forces localized to center of mass. Small adjustments necessary to reorient position. Emulating Mistress relatively simple."
"Let's not jump ahead of ourselves," you warn Perfect Storm. "Since you don't have a Device to help with the calculations, we did our best to simplify the math. A Shooter spell is the easiest of the three, so we'll start with that then work on telekinesis and flight last."
A flick of your hand pulls up the screen with a much smaller formula than you are used to, but then again the spell you plan to 'teach', or rather refine, is also a different beast than Flare Shooter. Your personal spell has a large section of code that is explicitly for controlling and manipulating the unusual effects of the Mana Conversion Affinity Perfect Storm installed into your Linker Core along with the template itself, so that had to go along with the additions that turn your projectiles into homing missiles. At that point it became easier to further prune the code into its most basic form than to rework the other adjustable parameters, creating what is by far the smallest spell formula you have ever seen.
"We wanted this spell to be something you can whip out quickly in case you were surprised, which is part of the reason it's small. All this spell does is create the bullet itself and then fire it in a straight line."
"Um, Calamity Witch? Not that I am unappreciative, but what exactly am I supposed to do with this? It looks more like something a mathematician would come up, not a witch."
You look at the formula again and then back to him. What is he talking about? This is the simplest you could break it down! It's so basic you almost don't even need to do any vector calculus to run the transformation and oh yeah on second thought he might just have a point. «Storm? Is there any way you can simplify this so someone who hasn't had to learn post-college level math and doesn't have a Device can actually figure out what they're doing?»
«Can be done. High-level mathematics developed by Al Hazard to simplify magic experimentation. Pre-Device magics visualization and mnemonics. Mistress desires static graphic or simulation?»
Simulation? That sounds like it would probably be better, and at your command the screen clears itself of text to show a human silhouette, the shimmering dot in the middle of its chest obviously representing the Linker Core. Sounds of breathing play softly in the background as the dot expands and contracts slightly. A closer look at the dot shows that small flakes of light are drifting around and through it, and it is these that move with each breath.
"Oh, yes. This works much better."
"Mana generated or gathered by Linker Core," Perfect Storm says before changing the view to the outline standing with one arm outstretched. Red lightning streaks from the Linker Core down the arm to the palm of the hand. That part of the screen expands to shows the flakes of light swirling in tight spirals in every direction. As you and Epoch watch, all that magic falls towards the center and becomes a complete sphere. "Mana gathered and compressed. Flight vector calculated or imagined."
A ring appears around the sphere, and the edges curl inwards and stretch away from the hand. The second screen vanishes to show the silhouette again, and the image moves out so you can see a pair of lines leading from that silhouette to a second one. The sphere flies away from the first person's palm and hits the second person in the chest.
"Fire."
Comprehension lights Epoch's face. "So that's why I had so much trouble when I tried to do it! I couldn't get the ball to hold together because I was just trying to squeeze it into shape when what I really needed was to spin it and let centripetal force do the work for me. Even when I could get it to form I can't throw it. I have to lead it to the target." While he talks, he flexes his fingers, and within only a couple of seconds a blue orb surrounded by a faint haze begins growing just above his upturned palm.
That was faster than you thought he would get it, and the fact that he was already close is somewhat unnerving. Your feelings are unchanged when you hear Perfect Storm chime in, "In essence correct. Density of mana particles determines physical impact of spell. Range in strength from light source to explosion. Current formula limited to straight line." Equations dance along the edges of the screen as the path leading from the shooter to the target shifts around, the code becoming longer and more complicated and in turn twisting the path into a pretzel.
"…I think I can live with a straight line for now."
With the simulation method of teaching now proven to work – maybe even a little too well – showing Epoch how to move objects with his mind and to refine his flight takes less time than you had previously expected. Perfect Storm also fills in Samantha about this discovery, and a quick glance shows that she has pulled up a screen of her own to go over the last few details about the Guardian Beast ritual.
It is the screen in front of Maclibuin that grabs your attention now, because it does not have diagrams on it. It has actual formulas.
"Interesting," he tells Tim, scrolling through the calculations before flicking it away. "And all spells can be broken down like this?" Tim nods, which leads him to ask the million-dollar question. "Could it figure out what happens when I use my ritual?"
Tim opens and closes his mouth a few times, but no words come out. He looks to you only for you to hold out your hands cluelessly. How are you supposed to know? "I don't really know. I guess we could find out?"
"Standstill, do you still have your charms on you?" The woman pulls up the end of her sleeve to reveal a charm bracelet with five individual charms hanging from it and drops the bracelet over into Maclibuin's outstretched palm. A faint green nimbus surrounds him for a moment before it suddenly flares and a circular casting sigil appears beneath his feet.
«It shouldn't have adapted this soon,» Tim projects to you. «Even if his ritual was close enough to a Device spell for it to learn, I would have expected a few castings. This is way too fast. There's something else going on here.»
"Whoa," he says when the spell effect ends. "That was a rush. Hiallus, did you get all that?"
"Yes, sir. Analyzing now." A screen pops up with a rat's nest of code, and all of you watch the formula untangle itself. Two more screens showing other programs appear on either side. "Cross-referencing. Similarities found. Identifying variables."
Wait, what?
Sections of the code flash red and green, and the middle screen splits into two, the one on Maclibuin's left holding only the colored sections and the one on the right everything else. The screens that you can only assume are for his other spells merge with the color-coded one.
"Underlying spell isolated."
"There's… a spell specifically to enhance parahumans," mutters the hulking ex-cape in disbelief.
"I don't think there was such a spell before now." Maclibuin looks over at Tim. "I certainly don't know one, and I didn't program it into your Device. This was all you. It just so happens that the way you figured out to empower objects can also be used directly on people. At least, that's what I'm guessing based on everything we just saw."
"Or there's a simpler explanation than even that." You shrug. "Spells aren't secret knowledge that can only be known or performed if they are taught. They're more like physics with magic. You didn't get lucky and your spell hit that one-in-a-million chance of being like our own. Your spell and our spells are similar because that's just how magic itself works."
"I don't know whether to be happy or not about that," muses Epoch.
His teammate, on the other hand, rubs his chin in thought. "Question. If my ritual works like these spells enough that you can pull out a formal spell to do the same thing, does that mean we can do the same thing in reverse? Adapt any of these spells into an enchantment?"
"Running simulation." The leftover formula twists itself this way and that, and no more than ten seconds pass before it expands in such a way that there are multiple blanks in the code. "Enchantment template complete. Adaptable to any enhancement spell."
«What spells did you give him again?» you whisper to Tim.
«Healing and a strength boost. Which means he can now create items that turn anyone into a Brute, at least for a couple of seconds.»
«Is this something we need to warn the Protectorate about?» Samantha interjects.
Looking at the trio of former teammates, you can't help but want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Partly because you put a lot of work into them, but also partly because going around expecting everyone to act in the worst possible manner is a terrible way to go through life. «Let's not borrow trouble. Standstill and Maclibuin are both heroes, so they won't go off the deep end. Most likely. Hopefully.
«And if they do, we probably shouldn't make it look like we knew it was a possibility ahead of time and still gave them that power.»
"Maclibuin's Boost Device" removed from Key Items.
Epoch's, Maclibuin's, and Standstill's character sheets added.
Dragon's Synchronization updated.
All of Maclibuin's spells are Boost spells of one form or another. Add in a portable supercomputer, and it only made sense that Hiallus would figure out how to adapt the ritual into something(s) amazing.
Standstill now knows how to perform her own spell, but is her Guardian Beast…
[ ] Randomly generated – Dice rolls! You get no say in its parameters, but it will have exclusive abilities that make it more powerful than a designed Guardian Beast can be.
[ ] Designed – You determine its species, age, personality, and class. It will never be as strong as a randomly generated Guardian Beast, but she gets whatever you think best for her.
