All Level, No Experience (Worm/Pathfinder Amnesia Quest)

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Well, no harm in continuing your efforts along the lines of the Divinity Drive, after all. A quick teleportation brings you back to your lair, where you promptly begin once again with the research process, to chip away at it just a little further. And indeed, a good eight hours later, you are indeed closer- though you very much still didn't know proportionally just how much closer you actually were quite yet. Still, eventually.

From then, the next idea to pop into your mind was simply enough, handling at least the parahuman element of the local and rather minor gang of the Merchants. Hmm, going from the least of the gangs up, possibly? Well, regardless, this should be fairly simple to handle. A quick go through your own memories paired with a search on your phone confirm the three capes that make up the Archer's Bridge Merchants: Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush. With that confirmed, and fairly helpfully a few photos of each available. Now then, Blood Money into Limited Wish to begin a Scrying on Skidmark, which-

Well, that is an exceptionally filthy restroom by your view, and certainly not somewhere you'd be willing to- as Skidmark appears to be doing- to use more polite terminology, engage in physical congress. Well, a few seconds later, another repetition to cast the next Scrying, and Squealer appears to working on a car that, quite frankly, what you can tell from the sight of it is almost personally insulting, and appears to be treating herself to a small snort of what you think is possibly cocaine. Some form of white powder you can't quite identify. Right, then, one more repetition, and Mush appears to be the most reasonable of the three, in that he is only alternating between drinking beer and 'hotboxing' would be the word in the backseat of a trashed pickup truck.

Right then, spend a few more moments to fix up the previous Blood Money castings with another use of Limited Wish, then follow that up with a Greater Invisibility on yourself, and finish that by of course topping off the staff once again with Memory of Function. Sure, that invisibility would only last a few minutes, but frankly, as you slide that same Sap you had made quite the while ago using part of the Dragonslayers' gutters, you doubted it would take even that long.

Teleport directly behind Squealer, a quick listen-in of your surrounding confirms she's alone at the moment, line it up just right, and even with you remembering to pull your hit a fair amount, already unconscious at the first hit. For the moment, just leave her where she is, then teleport just outside of the truck by Mush as you can't fit in the thing yourself, and he also appears to be alone. A simple enough one-two to smash the window in and knock Mush out before he has the chance to react, let alone gather any trash, and once again, unconscious at the first hit. Then, teleport to that unfortunately grungy restroom, and you are very quick to realize that this does seem to be some form of rather loud party going on just outside the room. The room you can now see is locked from the inside.

Right then, position yourself just right once again, and two quick blows knock out both Skidmark and the woman he was, involved, with at that moment, and even with holding back, Skidmark needs to be stabilized, as does the woman. Right then, that takes another solid few seconds, but then they're both properly stable again. Well, even though you've certainly dealt with much grosser and more unpleasant over the many years- no, actually, you had Limited Wish. A Silent Blood Money into a Silent Limited Wish provided you with Telekinesis, which you used to yank Skidmark's pants back up, rather than have to actually physically do that yourself, and besides, you've heard it put aptly that spells are generally 'use it or lose it'. With that done, it's simple enough to pick him up, and teleport yourself back to Squealer, pick her up, and a few moments later teleport to Mush and pick him up as well, electing to just haul all three under your lower left arm.

Ah, just barely over a minute- perhaps if you pushed yourself a touch more you could have done it in under that, but alas. For now, dispel the invisibility on yourself, top the staff up again, and one more teleportation brings you to-

Where do you decide to go to with these three, again?

[ ] [Merchants] Brockton Bay Police Department, these are criminals, after all.
[ ] [Merchants] PRT ENE, they are the ones to generally handle Parahuman Affairs, after all.
[ ] [Merchants] The Lava Moat, that shouldn't leave any evidence behind.
[ ] [Merchants] To somewhere or someone else (Write-In)

And after that- well you would be making a few of your altered Cauldrons of Plenty and a Decanter of Water to keep your end of the Benefits you'd extended to them once they properly started work tomorrow after the weekend finished. You're certainly not going to break a deal you made only yesterday, after all.

[ ] [ThePlan] Oh, Lisa finally got back to you on that, it's been a few days. Check what she has to say.
[ ] [ThePlan] Hand the reigns to Iluontar
-[ ] [ThePlan] One day
-[ ] [ThePlan] One week
-[ ] [ThePlan] Until the Model District opens. (Moderate Timeskip)
[ ] [ThePlan] Research technology
-[ ] [ThePlan] Research the Divinity Drive (Progress: 90,400/???)
-[ ] [ThePlan] Research the Overlord Robot Frame (Progress: 0/???)
[ ] [ThePlan] Just take a while to rest, at this point.
[ ] [ThePlan] Take a look into the Planar situation, it's been a good while.
-[ ] [ThePlan] Any Specific Plane to try for?
(Iluontar will naturally default to the Plane of Earth in absence of any other preference.)
[ ] [ThePlan] Something to do with Passenger research, possibly?
-[ ] [ThePlan] What was up with the Discern Location results from Coil's passenger? It was the first time you'd tried that on a passenger- was that normal?
-[ ] [ThePlan] You're fairly certain that was still, technically, Tinkertech Squealer was working on, perhaps check that out while there's a brief window?
-[ ] [ThePlan] Write In.
[ ] [ThePlan] Make (further) good on that campaign promise, go handle one of the remaining gangs. (All Parahumans, at least.)
-[ ] [ThePlan] ABB
-[ ] [ThePlan] E88
[ ] [ThePlan] There's still something missing in your memory that you feel might be pertinent, and you'd like to figure it out. (Test if you have certain feats and/or abilities.)
-[ ] Any specific feats/abilities to test for? (Optional Write In. If none, Iluontar will test semi-randomly.)
[ ] [ThePlan] Something else entirely (Write In)

Ah, regardless of what you do, you are almost certainly going to take an hour to recover and the like. As you do so, would there be something non-strenuous you do or check up on?

[ ] [Interlude] Not particularly, no. (No Interlude)
[ ] [Interlude] Perhaps move around some of your finances, but that's about it. (Numberman/Cauldron Interlude)
[ ] [Interlude] It's been a good moment and you know Dragon frequents the site, and she has tastes that tend to agree with your own, perhaps check on PHO. (PHO Interlude)
[ ] [Interlude] A quick email for the next morning to provide in writing the uses of the Juggernaut and Reclamation Robots you've sent over to assist in the union construction efforts. (Danny Hebert Interlude)
[ ] [Interlude] Let your mind wander, daydream. (Write-In a proposed Interlude subject.)

For Interlude Write-Ins, I am not accepting: Zion/Scion, Endbringers, or Kevin Norton, for story reasons. Nor ABB (also story reasons) or E88 (Too racist, I just straight up would rather not).

It is currently 8:01:12 PM EST, April 10th 2011.

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AN: When I did indeed go back to do a re-read of things, yep, In-Universe, 8.8 was yesterday. I did a power-skim after worrying if I repeated a day or something, but nope- this is legitimately just the kind of pace y'all are capable of working at. By everything.

Anyhow in other stuff, some while ago in thread fiction live got mentioned, and by raw coincidence I did end up stumbling across it some weeks or two ago, and I have to say? I kinda like it, like a surprising amount. Now, I'm not jumping ship here, no worries, but I think if I do end up doing another quest or the like, I might try them out.

Also, finally remembered to update your spells prepared (not much, you're literally only down to your last Limited Wish before resting but that's it) and then your Finances to reflect the Union payment and Land Purchase.

Hope y'all've enjoyed thus far!

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Kurt loosened his tie by thirty seven millimeters as he reflected, walking towards meeting room 12C-J, with a pace and stride that would bring him to a meeting of the conspiracy with approximately 237 seconds to spare before the technical beginning point. The date and time had been chosen semi-randomly- as random as anything can be within the general proximity of Contessa- as was often done, as a means to further obfuscate any attempts at observation from Thinkers, Tinkers, or other potentially applicable powers.

The meeting previous had finished 45 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes, and 9 seconds ago, which had taken a total time from beginning to finish of 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 52 seconds, of which 12 seconds had been spent successfully lying to varying degrees to Legend, 2 minutes (inclusive of 73 seconds of silence) of Contessa speaking after a 2.5 second exchange of glances at 170 degrees and nods of 37 degrees and 20 degrees between her and Doctor Mother respectively, 42 minutes and 19 seconds of combined shouting (counting all vocal utterances longer than 0.75 seconds and 74.22 decibels or higher as a 'shout') between Legend, Alexandria, and Eidolon, 1 shout of 113 decibels from Contessa (1 word, "QUIET!") putting on the vocal impression of a man that, based on timbre, intonation, and tone, would have been aged between 30 and 36 and born between the years of 1903 and 1914. After that was 9 seconds of silence, 2 minutes of seemingly unimportant chatter that Contessa nonetheless facilitated, of which between 45% and 70% exclusive were reminiscing on cartoons, before the remainder of that meeting was spent reconciling with Legend to various degrees per person, reading Legend into approximately 98% of what be had been kept secret from (but had previously been within Kurt's own awareness), handling other administrative matters, minor informal verbal reports were shared, and moderate congratulatory festivities, at an approximate ratio of 10/45/5/5/35, respectively.

88.32% of the way to the meeting room, the smart phone in his left pocket vibrated twice at a 0.25 second interval, a notification indicating high enough priority to check immediately, but not to take any specific action. He knew certain signals that, were he to receive them, he should immediately dodge in a particular direction, drop, jump, or begin sprinting, as those were set in a manner that only Contessa would know how to properly set them off.

Reducing his pace speed by 23% and stride length by 4%, he checked his phone: Iluontar the Mountain-Smith had put in a transfer of $10,000,000 USD from his savings account to his checking account. In advance of further large, up front purchases, perhaps?

He had arrived at the meeting room and taken his seat with 32 seconds remaining before the scheduled beginning of the meeting, all others bar Contessa were present and seated. At four seconds remaining a rectangular prism, approximately 3/10ths of a millimeter in depth, 6 feet in height, and 2.33-repeating feet in width appeared on the opposite side of the conference table to him, from which emerged Contessa, taking two steps before she was seated as well.

The meeting began in a manner similar to 163/208ths of previous meetings, continuing in a fairly rote check for 12 minutes and 14 seconds, before Doctor Mother spoke.

She said, "Based on what those present are likely already aware of, it appears that the Terminus Project has not, necessarily, died with Coil."

Before Number Man could do more than turn his head 3 degrees more towards Doctor Mother, Contessa had slid a folder across the table, which made 2 full clockwise rotations, opening itself on the final half-rotation and halting directly in front of him, the papers within perfectly parallel to the manila folder they were delivered in. Standard Earth Aleph A4 paper, a transcript of an interview between a news anchor in Brockton Bay and- ah, Iluontar the Mountain-Smith.

He nodded to the remainder of the table, he could read through that with part of his attention and follow with the remainder. Iluontar had proven a mix of uniquely vexing and demographically helpful. The projections for Vancouver had improved in more categories than not with his continual re-appearance there with the cape he had chosen to take under his proverbially large wing, Ungoliant.

Yet, nearly all but the broadest models of him had yet to maintain anything other than extremely short term viability, short term enough to not be useful beyond more conventional methods of thinking in the first case.

His own observation of the available footage had shown that Iluontar's capabilities had some forms of hard numerical implications, at the least, though beyond that particularly broad observation Number Man had yet to find the time, urgency, or particular inclination to figure that out himself. Not when by all of his observations, Contessa had it in hand.

And if Contessa did not have it in hand, there was little if anything he could do. Kurt knew that just because he could easily calculate the speed of a bullet approaching his chest to the eighth decimal, that didn't mean he could force the correct muscles to contract and expand fast enough to dodge it.

He closed the transcript and accompanying observations of the known advanced technology and tinker-technology in Iluontar's possession, and was asked by Eidolon, "Number Man, your odds on him winning that election?"

Kurt considered for only a moment, before answering, "As it currently stands, a sixty-three point three-two-three percent chance of Iluontar's victory."

Alexandria chimed in, "One hundred percent. He's going to rig the results- no, he'll check if he'd win naturally first, then he'll rig it after that."

Ah, that would certainly dramatically increase the odds of success. The standing orders from Doctor Mother were to mostly maintain operations as normal, leaving Brockton Bay as the Terminus Project was unexpectedly altered but ongoing, and to prepare for likely future induction as he was approaching discovering them.

Based on the report in front of him, all models pointed towards him having no greater knowledge or suspicion of Cauldron, until he became extremely close to aware from no apparent source, all at once- almost certainly some form of additional Thinker ability- of which their only warning was Contessa, at the moment he typed out a text suggesting information he could not possibly know absent a power, asking for a second opinion from an entirely separate Cape he had subordinated well before meeting Ungoliant.

And despite the exchange of money, subordinated was the word to prefer over hired, as both she and the rest of the Undersiders had all but gone to ground, generally not acting except at his order.

From the various reports and information coming from Contessa he had read, he had also noticed that anything featuring Iluontar prominently seemed to have less information or lower quality than Contessa's usual, which implied that while he was not a total blindspot in the manner of Eidolon or The Enemy, he still remained at least partially one. However, more of immediate note, is that in seeing that, it was of course Contessa had allowed him to see and take note of.

They'll have to properly work to figure out the being that was Iluontar, wouldn't they?

'Being' indeed, as with analysis in front of him, Iluontar absolutely could not be a real Parahuman whatsoever. They had certainly known quite early that he wasn't a true C53, as he was both absent from all of their records, and images of his first meeting with Miss MIlitia had shown that the omega on his arm was just a well done tattoo, and lacked any of the identifying internal marks or imperfections to the real ones they implemented. That, and of course his age precluded that as well.

Doctor Mother was the oldest of them, and she was in her early 50's, or approximately 33.33 repeating years of conscious life experience accounting for average human sleeping time. Iluontar was in his mid 4,000's, and even assuming an average human sleeping time during those years, he would have 3,012.67 years of life experience- the proportional difference utterly massive.

Partway through, other ideas were tossed towards Brockton Bay and the Terminus Project, possibly altering it further since it had already been so inadvertently.

There was a note, handwritten, in his folder below the final paper, clearly for him. It appeared everyone had a note from probably Contessa, written in some Non-English language, with instructions to not read it out loud or even think directly of the precise contents- as well as something that kept one's mind off the precise contents.

If this was true… and the odds were massively in favor that it was, then this both helped explain the recent minor but statistically noteworthy improvement in vial quality, but could also lead to a major revision to the plan to prevent the End of the World.

The meeting ran 23% longer than initially planned, but was worth the overrun.

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AN: I'm tired as heck but I got this done today! If there's formatting or other stuff I'll fix it tomorrow or so. Remainder of the vote and such happen next week, see y'all then!

Hope y'all've enjoyed so far!