Summoner Quest (Celestial Menagerie)

We didn't gain the pocket dimension I expected. Thankfully this time I didn't prewrite the paragraphs about it. I'm learning! Instead, we gain the ability to transform/fuse with a primordial divine Mammoth. That's cool too.
I add a lot of fun describing the power interaction with the Mammoth, too much perhaps. But as always, power interaction is my favorite thing in this quest. I hope you'll have as much fun reading it as me writing it
Also we'll discover what Denis wants. Truly a mystery for the age.
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Sunday, 05/08/2011 (4 AM)

I was in the Mental Realm while my body was sleeping. I was spending time with some partners that I didn't call on much, or ever. Mainly those that were too useful for Material Extraction to miss a day of it and so preventing me from summoning them in the real world.

Oh, the Mental Realm was perfectly comfortable, and that wasn't an exaggeration, each personal bubble was custom-made to provide the perfect environment with all the amenities one can wish for. This includes food, resting spots, entertainment, and even illusory companies such as prey or packmates. They could even visit each other's personal bubbles, providing endless environments to explore.

Still, despite all that, I sometimes felt bad that they never got to visit the real world. In an effort to compensate I tried to spend time with them when I could. Currently, I was playing with Minos, using my jacket as a cape in a facsimile of corrida. While I despised the concept of real corrida, and even more so now that I could feel the emotions of animals, the fact that he was the one who initiated the game and that he appeared to enjoy it immensely alleviated my concerns in this instance.

Of course, Minos was smarter, stronger, and more agile than a normal bull, so it was a much fairer competition.

Just as I jumped to the side to avoid his latest charge, a sudden burning sensation manifested all over my body making me scream and tripped. An instant later, I gasped for breath in the real world clutching my head as something entered my brain forcefully. A peculiar type of pain that reminds me of something.

It took all I had to refrain from screaming. I vaguely felt my current partners trying to alleviate my suffering by taking it on themselves, with limited success. Olky hovered near my bed and hit me with a wave of healing, it helped a little.

My agony abated after a few minutes and I could breathe freely again.

Slumping back down in my bed I absently petted my Nut, grateful for his presence. It was only half an hour later, around four in the morning, when I felt well enough to analyze what happened.

The pain comes in part from the new Magic Circuits and the improvement of the old ones. We now have twice as many as before and of a much better quality./It's the same process as when Shadow became a Servant. The magnitude was just that much greater.

Thinking back, yes I could see the commonalities. The same burning sensation all through my body.

The Menagerie chose to gift us those wonderful Magic Circuits because it will allow us to use a Noble Phantasm of our own. Like Shadow's Dark Pool of Oblivion./Of our own might be an exaggeration, this Noble Phantasm belonged to a Servant version of Ivan the Terrible./We won't linger too much on Ivan, we don't have much info about him anyway./It was the download of the metaphysical knowledge about the Phantasm that causes the pain in our head.

I didn't look but I could indeed feel a new weight inside. Not with my partners, it was sort of in between the conduit for my invocations and my lists of Blue Magic Spells.

And as far as Noble Phantasm go, this one is a completely different level./It's a self-transformation effect lasting a few minutes, the lower half of our body would become a sort of primordial magical Mammoth, with a hornblade at the end of its trunk for reasons./While a first glance this may just sound weird instead of powerful that Mammoth is a giant thing reaching upward to one kilometer in height at the top of his hump.

I was getting accustomed to being caught by surprise. I even braced myself for that one, expecting something. It wasn't enough. Hurriedly, I accessed my newfound knowledge in case my Minds decided to prank me. But no it wasn't a prank. It could really transform my legs into a Mammoth the size of a mountain. A giant Mammoth that could fire an energy beam wider than Rex, because why not?

Once I managed to digest that my inner discussion continued.

So I can't think of any scenario where we'll be able to use it. We'll do more damage than an Endbringer just by transforming, moving wouldn't help matters, and firing the laser would be completely overkill./So, will this turn into an amazingly powerful power but a completely unusable one?/I wouldn't go that far. It doesn't count as a partner so it has some interesting power interaction./The first thing that comes to mind is that as part of our body it benefits from Strength of Many but using the Mammoth strength and endurance as a base. The results are just insane. And then you need to add Self Boost. I don't think we can conceptualize the resulting numbers./There are the Modifiers too. Mountain-sized Mammoth with Dragon Wings, anyone?

I was still trying to wrap my brain around the resulting image when another mind chimed in.

What about Solar? Could he apply Plasma Body to it?

This prompted a long discussion with our Shard. Solar was more than willing to try if only for the data. But realistically it exceeds its limits by multiple orders of magnitude. Applying Plasma Body to parts of the Mammoth's body, like the trunk or the tusks, was a possibility, however.

Two Minds noticed at the same time that we could technically use Share Power with it to have two Mammoth transformations, one for us and one for a partner. Apart from the fact that if we ever need that much firepower and have enough room for it, we're probably already screwed, like a moon-sized asteroid threatening to destroy the planet in the next few seconds. Even ignoring that unlikely possibility, I'll need to touch the target partner to make it work, meaning that we'll end up with two one-kilometer-tall Mammoths on top of each other. Unhindered Movement would make it possible but probably awkward. It wouldn't forget about the possibility but again the probability of needing it was even lower than using the Noble Phantasm itself.

I don't know how but this segues into a discussion of applying Cards effects to our Mammoth-self. The Big was dismissed out of hand, going bigger seems to be a ludicrous proposition. When The Jump was brought up there was a pause and we decided to stop there. The risk of creating an extinction-level event of our own was all too real.

So in conclusion, this one won't make it into our report. Nobody would believe it and even if they did they'll ask for a demonstration. And where would we hold it?

With that decision taken, we turn away from the Noble Phantasm itself to how we could use our shiny new Magic Circuits. Considering the cost of acquiring them you can bet I want to use them.

We did the Math and we realized that we could summon Shadow using the Servant Summoning ritual and keep him summoned 24/7 with the occasional mana regeneration effect. We'll just need to draw a permanent ritual circle. One more thing to add to the Orb's dimension.

That would free up a slot for one other partner. And I like the idea of having a permanent invisible bodyguard that would follow me around.

Those inner ruminations reached their conclusions around five. I considered going back to sleep but I was far too awake for it. I got up as quietly as possible and booted up my computer. I could play a little until it was time to make breakfast. It's been days, I had a lot of daily quests to catch up on. And it would make for an excellent distraction.

A few hours later, around nine, I was back at the Rig, in my little used office reading my mails. Aggretsuko was resting today, she earned it. Today being Sunday people we finally started to leave me alone. The only thing was a meeting with the HR department just before ten, it seems that I accumulated too many work hours. As a pseudo-military organization, our rules were more relaxed than a civilian organization. But I was still well above the quota.

My status as a pseudo-Noctis cape complicated matters, because there was a clause in our contract stating that we were paid the same for our daylight work hours and nighttime work hours. But in exchange, if we accept to work more often at night we receive a premium at the end of the month.

Then there was the issue with my partners to take into account. If I'm patrolling while Clank is helping Colin with his Tinkering, does it count as twice the hour of work? If I'm sleeping at home but Scalpa is guarding the building with the troopers does it count as working?

One would think that this would have been dealt with in my initial contract, but as my powers grew and the number of partners I could call upon increased, this contract became more and more inadequate.

All in all, it was a thorny issue and despite my newfound fame, it was still something that needed to be resolved.

And for that, I need to go to the PRT building. I understand why the PRT and the Protectorate were two separate organizations but we worked so closely together that having two separate buildings, and not even adjacent ones at that, was a pain to deal with. And I could teleport, so it was even worse for my colleagues.

After two hours of discussion, we managed a new wording for the contract that was agreed upon, subject to a review by the legal department. It boiled down to my partner not counting as separate entities for the purpose of calculating work hours but in exchange, I got a pay raise. I didn't strictly speaking need it but it was appreciated, and I could understand why counting my partners separately would be too complicated.

Following that, I had a relaxing lunch with Assault and Battery. There was an awkwardness that wasn't present in our interaction before. Seeing the scope of my powers put some distance between us, a sort of instinctive deference that I could see in the way they worded things. I tried my best to dispel that, and for the most part, I think that by the end of the meal I succeeded. Ethan started telling jokes again so I took that as a good sign.

I was at my desk in my office, the one in the PRT building this time, around two in the afternoon, when someone knocked on the door. The Harvest unit on duty showed me that it was Clockblocker without his mask.

"It's open!"

The door opened much slower than I would expect from the bold teenager. He entered the room with hesitant steps.

A little confused, I greeted him warmly. "Hello Clock."

He responded with false cheer. "Good day. How's the Endkiller doing today?"

I decided to humor him. "I'm doing just fine. I'm on a break from the mountain of paperwork I had to deal with."

He forced out a laugh. To help him relax I called on Olky to bring us something to drink. I gestured for him to sit down. And while waiting we exchanged pleasantries. He talked about the battle explaining that the Ward all volunteered for search and rescue. They all witnessed the fight and cheered together when we won.

When Olky brought our drink, coffee for me and pineapple juice for him, I judged that it was time to break the ice.

"So what brings you by?"

I saw him hesitate. He lowered his eyes and to gain time he slowly sipped his drink. Then he took a deep breath and looked at me fixedly. I saw tears in the corner of his eyes. "I want to ask if you could heal my dad." The dam broke and a torrent of words spilled out. "Please. I'll do anything. He's deadly sick. I overheard the doctors saying that he didn't have long left. You can do healing. I can't lose him, I can't. Please."

He sagged into his chair with a ragged breath.

I certainly didn't expect that. It brought to the fore painful memories of my own. What would I have been willing to do if I knew that someone would have saved Dad?

As gently as possible I spoke up. "If you came to me I assume that's it's serious. What is he suffering from?"

"Leukemia." It was only a whisper but I caught it.

I frowned, calling on both my Menagerie-granted Veterinary knowledge and the medicine I learned from Miss J, that could be tricky. As delicately as possible I asked him a series of questions to build a profile of his dad and to learn the specific characteristics of the malady. Even though he couldn't tell me everything, it was enough to determine that it was a case of chronic leukemia. The survival rate was pretty high but his father might just be an unlucky case, resistant to mundane treatments.

I could easily deal with the symptoms and heal the damage to his organs. That would give him more time. But it wouldn't solve the problem at the source. Considering that it was a cancer of the bone marrow my Doctor Fishes would be of no use.

Still thinking on how I should go about it he mentioned that his father was in St Laura Clinic, an establishment in the southern district. That reminds me that maybe I should visit hospitals and clinics other than Brockton General.

Another question occurred to me and I saw no reason to not voice it. "What about Panacea? Unlike a lot of people, you do have contact with her. Why didn't you ask her? She could certainly do it."

He sighs. "You wouldn't believe the number of times I almost approached her. But she has rules, I know she doesn't take requests. If she refused I don't know what I would do."

He paused. "Does this mean that you can't help?"

The poor kid looked desperate so I hurried to ease his worries. "I didn't say that. I can heal a lot of things fairly easily, I can heal the damage dealt by the cancer. That will give him some time at any rate. Dealing with the source is more complicated but maybe doable." I'll need to consult with Yuhe but a bone regeneration jutsu should be within his arsenal..

The raw hope in his eyes almost hurt to look at. "Really?"

"Yes, really. But we do need to talk about logistics."

"Hn?"

"If I present myself to the St Laura's clinic and ask to heal one specific person it will definitely endanger your identity. So I'll need to contact them beforehand and arrange an event to heal multiple people. Maybe I'll contact Amy to see if she wants to join me to further disguise things."

The teenager slumped into his chair, the relief was palpable in his attitude, tension leaving his body. "Thank you. Thank you so much. If you need anything from don't me don't hesitate. I'm in your debt." As he spoke the tears at the corner of his eyes spilled out.

I didn't comment, in his place, I would do the same. And I couldn't help but think about a living grandmotherly mask that I gained recently. Maybe I would call in this favor sooner than he expected.

Wordcount: 2615
Excess words: 197
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There we go, nothing to say for this one.

Activity vote:

[] Sergeant Blair contacted me to organize another training exercise with the Wards
[] I should check on that animal shelter that accepted the dogs from the dog fighting rings.
[] The PR department organized a visit to an orphanage for me.
[] Compendium is supposed to visit a school and talk to the children
[] I accumulate a fair number of Enchanted books, it's time to put them to use.
[] Armsmsaster proposed a spar. Me against the rest of the team.
[] I got a rest day. it will be good to spend some time at home
[] The meeting with the Adepts has been approved. Let's see what they want.
[] Kid Win has found his specialty and he wants to show off. Let's go see the results.
[] It's time to give away more partners and create more heroes.
[] I have enough parts to build my own Mech, let's do that.

For the roll, 350 (Banked) + 240 (Chapter) + 120 (Excess words) = 710 points.

[] Creature

[] Power

Voting will be closed Thursday at 3 PM GMT

Note: I hope I didn't offend anyone with my brief explanation of Leukemia in the chapter. What little I know comes from a Wiki page. If you or someone you know suffers from it you have my deepest sympathy.