Combinatorial Explosion (Worm/Original)

I was distracted as I worked on the finishing touches for the Wards' commissions.

Missy's was easy enough. Gallium Magic and Lisa's consultation let me compress everything down, eventually creating a thin wrist guard covered with tiny holes, controlled via a dial and a palm-mounted button.

Tasers, Grenade Launchers (I made sure that only non-lethal ones were actually in with the ones she brought), as well as a collapsing wrist-mounted baton with a lithium-battery powered stun-gun mounted on it.

The end result still looked a bit edgy, but Missy assured me beforehand that "They can spray some glitter on it later," when I was asking how it needed to look.

The only point of concern I had left was checking if her ability to warp space interacted nicely with my ability to warp reality. I found it concerning how easily she was able to fit standard-sized grenades into the thimble-sized mounting brackets where the ones I had set up were kept, and decided to inform the PRT that I didn't want lethal munitions being used in it, even if she could fit them in there.

She wasn't amused by me making the phone call right then and there, but that only made it seem all the more imperative that I didn't get a reputation for being able to stuff high explosives into kid-sized modular weaponry.

Kid Win's request proved to be more complicated, however, and he would need to come in personally to work out the details of the reactor he wanted me to build.

As the door to my shop jingled merrily, I sealed the last little bits of my makeshift mana engine. With the realization that precious metals reverted all mana types to their own, I realized that Precious Metals were the secret final ingredient I was missing to make quality mana engines. Since all mana types reverted to one specific type, precious metals quite literally undid the process of mana corrupting into ambiance.

A thin layer of platinum in the chamber that turned dust to mana meant that all dust I put into the chamber would turn into pure untainted lightning magic.

"Hello! Welcome to Sage Produces! How can I help you?" I ask, turning to face the new customer.

"Thank you for welcoming me. I would like to commission your services. I'm in need of your unique energy supply, and a total top-to-bottom renovation of my properties to properly distribute it" the masked man says, mechanical plates that make up his 'face' shifting to match his expression. To his left and right, two immaculate individuals stand a polite distance to the side and behind him.

He looks around my shop, taking a deep breath as he peers around at the messy shelves, alchemically shaped toys and small sacks of various spices occupying most of the front section that was open to the public.

I blink, not recognizing the man. "Who are you, sir? I hate to pry but I'm not sure I'm comfortable being commissioned by... Certain people. I also don't have Mana Engines released to the public yet," I explain as carefully as I can. I hope Lisa knows what's going on, as I don't exactly have a way to let her know what is happening while she's in the back room reading magazines.

He clicks his tongue quietly, as if sampling what he is about to say before he says it. "You may call me Accord. I've purchased your produce in the past by proxy. You've sold to unsavory individuals without your knowledge already. My being forthcoming is a courtesy to one producing a product I have found myself enjoying. A courtesy I have taken great pains to perform."

He pulls out a small phone that looks vaguely tinker-tech, unfolding it until it looks more like a tablet. "I do not appreciate your dishonesty. Do understand that my patience with you is greater than most, but not without limit," he explains, activating the interlocking device and navigating to files saved on it.

Accord's voice is disdainful, clearly restraining his temper for some reason as he begins to speak again. "As you can see here, two of your Mana Engines are either in production or in active use. One seemingly kept by a Lisa Wilbourn outside her duties in your employ, and another, currently tied up in production for the PRT, as you can see here," he explains, efficiently swiping to photographs taken of Lisa, overlaid with some kind of weird filter, and documents that I'm positive aren't available to the public, including a literal transcript of my talking to Kid Win on the project I was going to work on for him.

The prototype for which was sitting on the table right behind us.

"So no, what you've said was a lie. If not the entirety of the public, then most certainly a curated facet of it including both private individuals that serve your interests and government affiliates that do the same."

By now, I noticed something strange, focused as I was on the information he seemed to pull out of thin air. Normally, the boardwalk was awash with traffic, both on foot and by car, but while Accord was here, not a single one passed by my shop.

He notices my staring, glancing behind himself for a moment. "A fifteen-minute window I established for this meeting. A traffic jam on fifth and Johnson, a movie released on the same day, and three temporary restaurant closures due to CDC violations. I did explain already that I had put some effort into providing you the courtesy of a personal meeting."

I swallow heavily.

"That said, our meeting is quickly coming to a close. Yes or no, Sage? Your ability provides the ideal ambiance necessary for me to reclaim a certain quality of life that my power makes difficult, and I would have access to it for purely legal purposes," he says, glancing at his watch briefly.

"It's illegal for me to sell tinkertech to known villains," I say meekly, prepared for this to turn violent.

The interwoven wood and metal components of his mask shift, the eyebrows on them raising.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response, Sage," he says in rebuttal.

[][Accord] Provide Accord with low-grade Ambiance generators. (Supremely Illegal. Overall Monetary Power is increased to 6. You receive supernatural knowledge of certain locations Accord frequents.)
[][Accord] Do not provide Accord with any mana-generators. (Risk of Reprisal)

When I finally answer, the man nods.

"Have a nice day, Sage," he says, walking out the door with his two business-suit-wearing lackeys.

Moments before he finally walks out, he seems to decide something, looking back towards me. "It would be in your best interest to be more mindful of your city, going forward. Politeness and personal meetings should not be considered the norm, when one's self and businesses are sought out. I am far from the only individual set on interacting with you in a way you did not solicit."

With that, he leaves, and roughly a minute later, a car goes by and I see a few people jogging down the street.

Lisa slowly opens the door, having quietly been listening from the other side. A handgun is in her hand, clenched in a white-knuckle grip.

"Thinker from Boston. He bought your spices off the internet. Took the edge off his power, even with almost undetectable mana levels. I think your mana probably influences probability, no pun intended," she says quickly, distracting from the fact that she apparently has a gun on her person, and decided to pull it out.

She blinks, stowing the gun quickly as the door jingles again, and I whirl about to face whoever just walked in.

"I'm here to work on the engine?" Kid Win says, glancing between the two of us awkwardly.

"Right," I breathe out nervously, wondering if I should reveal what just happened. Lisa jabs me in the side with a "not now" look on her face, and I decide to follow her lead on this one.

"So, how do you feel about matter-annihilation power generators?" I ask, clapping my hands and putting on a cheery look.

---

We talked shop for a long while, and worked on a bunch of different prototypes made out of transmuted and alchemized material, until eventually, we settled on a small Gallium-Compressed Dust Reactor lined with platinum, and powered by burning what he called "Island-of-Stability Nanoparticles" as the 'dust'.

My power cheerfully informed me that "Z=114" and "N=184", the tinker-tech materials that he was using as dust fuel, had mana types that literally defied description and apparently involved tentacles.

I took that as foreshadowing, and reacted accordingly. "By the way, Kid Win, never, and I mean never, breach that reactor while it's consuming fuel," I said to him, giving him as firm a look as I could through my mask as he gingerly picked up the dust reactor, which looked a little bit like the reactor from the Iron Man movie that came out a few years ago, circulating mana in an endless glowing donut loop of Platinum Magic and humming merrily.

"Thanks, I'll try not to break rule one of Tinkertech in general; 'Don't break the power supply'," he jokes, waving goodbye and hopping on his hoverboard outside to fly off to god-knows-where.

"You probably shouldn't have mentioned that denser dusts made more mana," Lisa says, crossing her arms.

"Quiet you," I retort.

"You should have asked for samples. You can hardly call yourself a wizard without a few eldritch horrors at your beck and call," she snarks.

'If only you knew,' I thought to myself, glad that Lisa hadn't quite picked up on the reason for my grimace, or if she did, she kept it to herself.

---

As I worked on a few easy experiments, I only grew more distracted with what was to come.

My latest test sat on my table, a ball of metal that I had 'inflated' with Gallium Magic.

It was a failure, interestingly enough. While I could expand a container to make it larger, Gallium magic's nature as a conceptual agent reared its ugly head.

The metal vessel was made hollow by reshaping it with Gallium Mana, but it still had a capacity of 'Zero'.

Even opening a hole up in it, I found that I couldn't stick so much as a finger inside the square-meter of space that was inside it. It hurt to look at, and made my eyes itch when I tried putting things inside the alchemically generated space.

Expanding existing vessels was possible, of course, if I took something that was hollow, and increased the size of it with gallium, the new space was perfectly usable. Creating a hollow however, resulted in this, a false space that nothing could occupy. Gallium Magic has a very limited ability to change an object's properties, even if its shape changes. Much like how if I turned a knife into a perfect sphere, it could still cut, if I tried to give an object properties it didn't have using gallium, the effects were odd, even when they did work.

The best example I could think of was how, no matter how sharp I made something with gallium mana, it wouldn't be able to cut any more than it could originally, unless I gave it a tiny amount of sharpening, which seemed to 'break' the effect, resulting in a razor sharp edge.

Using the void proved to be its own interesting mess for trying to make my own vacuum chamber. I had set up a thick glass box, and created a portal to the void in it. Sure enough, air began to seep out of the box and into unreality, but as it did, I felt a shudder run from my feet to my head, and the memory came up unbidden, of the time I saw a fisherman throwing chum into the water.

The chamber was empty, as perfect a vacuum as I could make, and I was all too eager to close the void portal once it was.

The air that went into the void floated there only briefly before being unmade. The scent of matter insufficient to draw whatever could survive in an environment that lacked all reality itself.

One thing I did notice was that, in order to create a void portal, I couldn't have mana occupying the same space. Either a portal to the void was in a spot, or ambient mana was there. It spoke of interesting properties that left me wondering. What kind of world had something as esoteric as the magic I had?

I couldn't wait any longer, putting my box of vacuum on a shelf for later, and fishing out my envelope.

I felt nervousness pool in my stomach, and I knew I wouldn't be able to put together a ritual as ornate as the one I used to summon Queen Administrator. It felt too impersonal, too casual for that, and I felt unfocused and impatient.

"Dad, I'm heading out to the testing spot," I said, grabbing my costume-bag and stuffing the letter in it.

Dad nodded. "I can come with you, if you want?" he asked. Ever since he found out that a villain showed up at my shop, and one that knew dad had one of my weapons, he had started openly carrying the pen-weapon, the mana engine inside it rapidly growing irrelevant as dad's magic proved sufficient to sustain it.

I thought about it for a moment. He was the only other magic user, and while his powers were incredibly weak as they were now...

"No, it's fine. I'll keep in touch, alright?" I said, slinging the bag over my shoulder.


Sadly, I wasn't able to buy a random specific patch of forest miles and miles away from Brockton Bay, but I was absolutely able to buy a general patch of forest miles and miles away from Brockton Bay. It wasn't quite the one I wanted, but it was in the same general area, and I was able to put together the funds to pay for a small area to call my own.

With that said, since this was a rather public act, I suspected that there was little reason to be subtle about going there. Once I was far enough away from the house, I changed and summoned Thoth, simply flying the rest of the way to my own secluded patch of forest to attempt my second true summoning.

As I landed at the site, I briefly released a pulse of magic, and, satisfied with the lack of spy equipment spying on me, I created a large wooden dome, sealing me and Thoth away from the world.

For this summoning, I knew the appropriate thematic elements and metaphors to use in enhancing the arcane magic I would be weaving in order to summon the person I was after.

Taking off my mask, I took out the copied magical letter, and, with a pen of paper mana, I simply wrote on the letter three plain words that left no uncertainty as to their intent.

'Return to Sender'

As I levitate the letter in front of me, I begin to rhyme. A short, simple thing sufficient for my purposes as I summon layered recursive barriers to contain it, and the magic that it will soon act as the center of.

"This letter here, this postcard true, has given me a lot to do."

"It gave me magic, for that I thank, but being honest, and to be frank,"

"I must know why, I must see who, and so I cast a search for you,"

"This magic letter, creator render, let's correspond, Return to Sender!" I announce, unleashing my spell and consuming the copy in magical fire that begins beaming pure, undiluted information through the void, bare traces of mana housing it as it seeks out its creator.

The magical flame begins to shrink, and then, it begins to grow.

What new fresh horrors am I going to see? What truly mutated and deformed being lives in a world of magic? What twisted mind calls out into the void in search of me?

In the center of the protective circles, a being forms. Two legs, two arms, two eyes. Not a tentacle in sight, and not once does it seem intent on wearing my face in any way, shape or form.

Instead, it resolves into a small fuzzy child in off-white clothes who looks like a raccoon on two legs. Round glasses made of mana pop into existence to perch on the end of their face, completing the mana-avatar.

As the summoned individual looks up at my face, they blink several times in disbelief.

"Holy shit it's Skitter," he says.

[][The Source] Write-in