Magical Girl Home Base Quest

Picking up the blade in your workshop, you carefully sounded it out with your power. Still hellishly cursed, still liable to try and kill anyone who came into your workshop, still legally able to be lain in sheathe if you needed to. Three curses, each worse than the last lain in it. First, to cause thrice works of great evil and doom among Man. Second, to cause death every time drawn, to the point of madness. Third, to kill the wielder.

No pressure here, none at all. Laying it out on a table, you pulled out the butcher paper, and started drawing. If you analyzed the sword like a wand, then the metal itself was the rod of the tool, while the three curses were core, focus, and binder. The first step, then, would be to unfasten the binder.

The issue was, what was the physical manifestation of the binding? The blade itself was the core, while the ever-sharp and blood-seeking edge was the focus, and the physical metal was the rod. Something that tied it all together- the handle, perhaps? It was worth a shot, and to start you wrapped the blade in a cloth and put it in your vice. You'd need heat to get the golden hilt off, which would in turn call for a tool. Just… urg. You had this furnace here, but this damn sword was throwing off the sort of rage and horror you weren't willing to possibly taint it by using this. A small barrel fire? No, that wouldn't work. Checking a clock, you noted it was nearly ten at night, so you tabled the project for tomorrow morning.

As you awoke, you remembered that the girls mostly did their work at night, where you couldn't see it. Why did you need to remember this?

"AHHH! Anyone, help! They've kidnaped-"

A sharp thud came from the lobby, and you just pulled on your pants sadly. Was this going to be a mess? Survey said yes, but the sound of gunshots going off outside as some cop raided a crack house a few blocks down meant it would be an easily disguised mess. When you reached the commotion, you had to stare at the audacity of it- a chained-up Alchemist in a battered wooly greatcoat that was completely out of season, unwashed green hair, and her nightclothes. A handful of socks served as a new gag, and a faint haze over her eyes showed Trompdoy's influence as the cackling Magical Girl let her mind wander.

"Hey, Medicine Boy! We got you a present!" Eowyn called out raucously. Walking up to her, she presented you with a leather belt, holster, and inside some plastic pistol you didn't recognize. "It came with a free Alchemist attached even!"

Your stare could pierce the heavens. "Why. Literally why."

"Well, we figured you'd appreciate a way to defend the motel…"

"I'm not talking about this-" you said, punctuating it with a wave of the gun belt, "-but rather her."

"You are breaking a curse designed to kill people, Medicine Boy." Trompdoy said, smirking. "We just brought you an emergency sword-sheathing component if something goes wrong."

You raised your nonexistent index finger, fluttered your hand around, and dropped it.

"Put her in the workshop and chain her to a chair or something." You finally sighed. "Presumably, she'll know something about making cursed items, and we can use her to help reverse-engineer this."

"Or kill her?"

Putting your head in your hands, you groaned. "Can we try not to kill people please? It's bad for business and I can't get rid of a corpse."

"Fair enough."

While you got to work making breakfast and Homer got told the Library was Off Limits due to delicate thaumaturgy happening, the Alchemist was transported to your workshop. As much as you dreaded going in, eventually you bit the bullet and opened the door.

Your first thought was that the girls were paranoid. The folding chair they'd used had been chained to a spare bag of concrete, the Alchemist's legs were hobbled, and her hands were locked up in front of her at the wrists and elbows. Worse, they'd thrice wrapped her neck in a chain and tied that to an eyebolt in a floor member for the next story up for when you inevitably needed a block and tackle. They hadn't even removed the gag! Pulling the mess of socks out, you stared at the Alchemist, daring her to open her mouth.

"So." You grumbled. "Have a name?"

It was a moment before she answered. "Scullery Apprentice."

"Really."

She tried to shrug. "I washed the glassware. My brother joined up, dragged me into it. I just did scutwork for them, the lessons never stuck. Sometimes tested a potion?"

You stared at her, practically smelling the falsehood coming off her. "Alright then." you said, grabbing a container of arcane water, and popping the top off. With your back turned to her, you poured in some vodka, a big squeeze of sweet almond extract, a pinch of cardomon, and for added measure you poured out a capful of bleach on to the table. Spinning it idly to mix the ingrediants, you felt an inkling of power whip around the bottle, before going inert at the incomplete mess in the bottle.

"Well then, drink this." You said, grinning maniacly. As the Alchemist smelled the bleach, her face paled a tad.

"Don't you need me alive?" she asked.

"Oh, this won't kill you." You said sweetly, uncorking the bottle and waving it under her nose. One thing not many people mentioned often? Arsenic smelled like sweet almonds, and you just so happened to have a can of rat poison on your desk.

"Are- are you nuts?" the girl yelled, trying to leap away from you on the chair. As she cleared the seat and got choked by the ceiling chain, you smirked. "That's got rat poison in it! You bastard, everyone knows to mask with bleach-"

Your smile was visible from orbit as you gave her the finger and slugged down half the mess. It tasted like shit, but all arcane potions did. "Want to retry your story?"

"…motherfucker." The Alchemist muttered. "Sweet almond?"

"If you didn't smell the bleach you'd have realized it sooner." You said, shrugging. "So I'm going to stick with the presumption you do in fact know what you're doing."

"In which case, fuck you, and yeah. I was part of Sustainment."

Laughing, you looked at the viced-up sword. "I don't suppose you have any hints on cursebreaking?"

"Boyo, I barely even know how we curse shit. Normally they just duplicate something from a master artifact, and presto there we go."

Nodding, you went over to your butcher paper and started scribbling. If it was a duplication, then copy errors would creep in. Going back over to the sword, you went back to thinking. If there were copy errors, they'd probably start cropping up first in minor systems and unrelated programs to the main design functionality.

Time to light the oven and the forge. Going over to the rebar, you quickly selected some short rods, and a few bracket plates to make a small, sword-sized cage. Wrapping it in tin foil liberally, you tossed it in Oven 1: this would become your safety liner for this job. Oven 2, meanwhile, would shortly be dedicated to cooking you a more esoteric gadget, as you got another chunk of the rebar stock and started making parallel loops of #4 wire. You needed a welder to make this really good, but some magical flux would work for the job. To work on this, you needed a sensor you could use while diagraming faults and errors- your diagnostic senses weren't fast enough. Likewise, you'd also need a diagram of elements to fuck around with to control your curse moderation and proliferation, but that could come in a minute. If everything came to plan, you'd stick the sword through the hoops, and oh! Indicator, right, something to indicate… eh, two strings of old-ass Christmas lights would work. Working them through, you blinked when the Alchemist started talking.

"I've never actually seen an Artificer work before." She said, shrugging. "It's intruiging, how you turn junk into tools."

"You ain't seen nothing yet, then." You grinned. Satisfied with your curse-ometer, you threw it in Oven 2 and got to work on the control array. A few planks, some chalked-out dials, and a hot chisel from your forge let you sear the sympathetic array into the boards, before you pinned in the dial needles and slung them in Oven 3.

Since these were diagnostic instruments, the arcane draw wasn't too bad, but when everything was done the rig looked about as shaky as it felt. The sensor held all lights blue for no item, green for no curse, orange for magic, and red for curse with the rest of the rainbow flickering around for reasons undetermined. The gauges on your not-quite-an-Ouija board barely synched up to the sensor, the sympathetic rune trying to code 'purple' as 'bottleneck' for some reason in determining magical flow, and it took nearly an hour to finish the oven cage.

"So walk me through this." The Alchemist said, sighing.

"It's simple." You said, rolling your hands. "I heat up the sword to get all the magic free-floating and disjointed, then I shove it in the sensor while I pick it apart."

"And how are you going to get at the magecraft inside it?"

"Probably an empathetic circle, and if that doesn't work I have detonite ampules and sulfuric acid."

"You mad bastard." The Alchemist said, grinning. "If this kills me, write 'Jocelyn' on my tombstone."

"Great." You grumbled. "Well, I'm gonna get lunch while this heats up."

"Can I get some water?"

"Sure."

Lunch was a quick affair, and true to your word you did bring back a jug of water. Once the sword was heated up through the oven protector, you then set up the cherry blocks in the sensor, and in went the sword. Right off the bat, it was screaming- evil, evil, evil; straight into the detectors. Once the hilt came off, though, and was put straight back in the oven shield to cook down, things started clearing up.

"Okay, so the board is diagnostic only." You muttered. "I'll have to change this manually. Hand me some chopsticks."

You should probably have been concerned that at some point Jocelyn had managed to ditch her hand and arm manacles, but the neck one held firm by dint of the fact you had rebuilt the lock.

"Chopsticks." She said, handing them over. Spitting on the ends, you reached in, feeling the heat of the sword as the curses resisted their undoing. The last curse had been undone, thankfully, but the madness was still in there going strong.

"I need toothpaste, a brush, and a beaker of arcane water."

A minute later the supplies were on the table next to you. Putting the toothpaste on the brush and swirling it in the charged water, you felt it pick up that slight metaphysical oomph you'd need, before sticking it in. If you did this right, you could polish the curse up, without working on the underlying magic.

"oh, fuck." You muttered as the ring went red, two went yellow, one went purple, and your chopstick got the shit blasted out of it. Moving back to the board, you worked the signal noise out, before you grinned.

"We get it?"

"We got the madness it looks like." You said, squinting. "Those evil deeds are in deep."

"Try a metal pick?"

"I need an insulator, not a conductor."

"A metal pick on a stick then."

"Then you lose the connectivity both ways, and it stops picking and starts probing!"

Joselyn blinked, and nodded. "Right, uh…"

"It needs to be sharp…"

Our thoughts hit the same point at the same time. "Glass!"

Rummaging through your drawers for a whiskey bottle, you chucked it in Oven 2 for a minute while you found a string and some vinegar. Once it was warm and in a pan, you put on some thermal gloves with the correct missing fingers and snapped the neck off cleanly, before subdividing the bottle in four. A few minutes of flintknapping later, and you had a workable knife that just needed a little handle duct tape.

Once that was done, you went back to work with a vigor, the glass sinking into the magical matrices of the sword as you pumped power into it. "steady, steady…"

"Readings are good…" Jocelyn muttered. "Still orange across the board… red on four."

"Red on four?" you groused. "I thought four was set?"

"I'm telling you what the board says. I think it's a conditional spool you knocked loose."

"Fuck this…" you muttered, getting a chopstick to poke ring four's spellwork with. As the tip of your probe entered, you gulped. That was a strong arcane pull.

"DUCK!" you yelled, as the sword exploded. As a piece creased your brow and Joselyn screamed, Homer came running in.

The next few minutes were blurry, but apparently the cursebreaking had worked, and blasted the intial enchantment a little too- thus the edges blowing out five fragments on your side and four on Joselyn's. With Homer and you doing first aid, nobody got too badly hurt, and the wand would take a little time in the shop on Friday to fix up for issue.

The real question was what to do with Joselyn, now the proud owner of at least three chunks of potentially cursed magical artifact buried in her thorax cavity. God, that would not be fun to deal with later- but today's work was done.



-/-/-/-/



"This is gonna be so good…" you muttered, salivating at the sight of the giant cardboard box in the lobby. You'd done a little bit of mail-order shopping out of Ye Olde IKEA catalog, and now the fruits of your labor were in front of you! A brand new armchair! It even had a pronounceable name: Muren. Now as you started unboxing and assembly, the girls around you stared.

"So it really is true." Trompdoy muttered from underneath a pair of blankets pinned together into a full cloak. "Men really are driven to have a recliner."

"It's almost hypnotizing." Eowyn added, smirking. "By the way, has anyone seen Calypso?"

"OH GOD THE SPIDERS!" you all heard from upstairs, followed by a thunk and the crystalline tones of magic.

"I'm sure she's fine, but maybe someone should check on her." Mistletoe said, sighing.

The three experienced magical girls looked at each other quickly, and yelled simultaneously the magic words. "Not it!"

Whatever. Your recliner was complete, and it didn't take long for you to curl up in it, sighing happily. This felt good. This felt really good. Reaching down to pet the cat on your lap, you sighed happily as Mistletoe screamed and the sound of a frying pan hitting a floor joist echoed out through the hotel. As the sounds of a Three Stooges routine went off upstairs, you started dozing lightly.

When you woke up, three magical girls were sitting around an electric kettle on foam knee pads trying and failing to sit in seiza next to one young woman wearing a kimono with a… uh, Japanese glaive… nagantina? Naginata? Something like that, anyway.

"When do you think Sevenfingers will get up?" one of them asked, before Rose looked at her and sighed. You could tell it was Rose, since she had both the titular flowers in her hair and the slightly annoyed sigh that one of her minions was saying a dumb.

"Probably after Elise shows up." Rose said, grumbling. "I go to the trouble to drag you guys here, and you know she's always late.

The cat on your chest meowed and batted at your nose, forcing you from 'kind of awake ish' to 'all stations go' as you got up out of your recliner and sighed.

"I'm Medicine Boy." You announced, looking at them. "Y'all need something?"

"Just a handshake." The one in the kimono said, smiling slightly. "You can call me Kaguya."

The cat meowed again, looking like it was going to pounce on her. Moving quickly, you grabbed it by the back of the neck just as it was about to go for her, and squinted. "No. Bad kitty." You explained, before taking Kaguya's hand. Those were delicate hands, yes, but the calluses in them felt earned and earned well.

"Eto… hanabi?" Kaguya muttered, before nodding to herself. "Thank you, Medicine Boy. I will treasure this."

Your eyes narrowed. "Something to do with your ability, I take?"

A slight smile was your reward, before she grinned. "Would you like a demonstration?"

"I wouldn't mind, no."

Walking out into the parking lot outside your lobby doors, Kaguya yawned lazily, before drawing her naginata and spinning it carefully. Two twirls, a low circle spin around herself, and then a pair of upward and downward slashes before she leaped forward into thin air and right out of the same next to you.

"Personal teleportation to a person? Quite impressive."

Kaguya smiled slightly. "I knew Rose from a mutual entanglement which is how I got to America; things over here seem to be much more hectic than at home."

"I can believe it." You nodded politely. "In any case, do you need my services?"

"At present moment, no." Kaguya replied calmly. "However, your title is well-deserved after I met Trompdoy, and there are few who are comfortable working on someone like us. Dr. Ono has a waiting list several months long, and as like as not I am one of the few in my area who can transport a critical case quickly."

You blinked appreciatively. "In which case, I'd offer you a room if any were free right now."

"I must decline. My apprentices, as wayward as they may be," and here a piercing glare met the rest of the girls gathered around the electric kettle, "have graciously arranged to provide reasonable housing until such time as my obligations here are fuffilled."

"Better than my hostel?" you asked, morbidly curious.

"No."

Well that answered that, and you nodded peacefully while the girls behind her tried not to run away screaming from Kaguya's aura.

"In any case, you have free reign of my lobby at present moment." You said kindly. "If you need anything, please, don't be afraid to ask."

"Got any gear yet?" one of the girls asked in badly accented English.

"Not yet." You said, smiling slightly. "I'm working on something big."

Some Japanese swearing met your ear, and Kaguya lazily handled it with a slap upside the head. While she was standing next to you. Truly, she was a senior magical girl, to be able to use that sort of spellcraft so casually!

Soon, the girls departed, and you pet your new cat carefully.

"Well, you won't cause me any trouble at all now, will you?"

"Mjau."

-/-/-/-/

Once you'd recovered from your short bout of Indiana Jones Artifact Reaserch, you got back to the shop and to work. The remains of the cursed shrapnel were sealed up as per normal, while the now-jagged sword had glass filling to cover up the problem areas and a new micarta handle made since the old one melted down into goop.

After you pulled the sword from the oven, you had to whisper to yourself in awe. The shrapnel gaps had been turned into a beautiful glass-coated flamberge pattern, while the new blue handle blended in perfectly. Picking it up, you felt it's power carefully, smiling. Forever preternaturally sharp, forever swung true, and most importantly, capable of interacting with the invisible and unknowable to block ethereal attacks and cut through certain types of spellcraft. That last one would be draining as hell, but to the right girl? It would be priceless.

You could decide who later though. Right now? Still tired, and your recliner still needed to be crashed in.

/-/-/-/-/-

The Joselyn Question
[] Keep her in a cleared-out room: she's not inherently a bad person, and the artifact shrapnel in her could lead to some interesting research possibilities.
[] Throw her out: her work here is done, and quite frankly a lot of the girls here have a professional interest in killing her. Their respect for you only goes so far.
[] Kill her: the only good Alchemist is a dead Alchemist.

Build a Tool
[] Trinket
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 3.
[] Wand
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 2.
[] Bomb
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 1.
[] Costume
-[] Write in Level, between 1 and 1.
[] No, you want to work on your building instead
[] No, you want to improve your workshop instead.