wow thats far ahead. and ild say just put your ideas in a word doc somewhere and if you ever get around to them il'd certainly read them.
A Flair for Mould Breaking [Celestial Forge / Multiverse]
- Thread starter Melakias
- Start date
- Crossover
Mgunh1
Not an AI, honest!
- Location
- Northern Luna Base, Module 5, Sublevel 15
I'm not so sure. Eezo is literally space magic. I even had a draft of a RWBY/ME cross where eezo is just naturally occuring gravity dust, and it would change nothing about how eezo is used.
Could I trouble you for a link? I came across it while perusing the Jumpdocs and I had no idea it was a Dritch fic. It looks interesting.
It bothers me more than words can express that that is both true and that I've never noticed it before.
Why Eezo? You made me trust in your pseudo-scientific legitimacy, but you're just fantasy rocks with a mask on.
- Location
- Home
Here you have Again
Yeah, it's why I did play with the idea of crossing over to Mass Effect, mostly to style on the aliens for the lolz.
Character Bios - Sabbah
- Location
- Home
Sabbah
Full Name : Sabbah Hassan
Monikers: Shadow
Classification: Supernatural Fighter
Age: 22
DoB: May 18th
Skills : Wild Survival, Knife wielding, pickpocketing, gardening, stealth, monster hunting.
Likes: Green spaces, Rick, Dani, hanging out, small animals.
Dislikes: Being alone, being told she can't do something, this who insult those close to her.
Which is predominately why I suggested it as a late story, in and out, crossover event.
There's literally nothing of worth from that verse other than going for style points and just F'ing up the plot before it can get going.
But, while you'd be able to drastically alter things even now... it's not the sort of styling on them that even a few more four hundred point + perks would do on them. And isn't really worth the effort to style on them, unless your character can do it with little to no effort.
It's literally only worth going there when there's nothing that can touch you, and you're just going to wreck some douche's feces face. And there are a lot of such douches in Mass Effect whose day it be fun ruining.
- Location
- Home
That's why I've been playing with an specific detail for most crossovers. And that is that Rick will most likely not interact with them at first, instead I'm mostly planning to have the teams go in his place at first.
Chapter 39
- Location
- Home
AFfMB – 39
"What'cha you doing?" Dani asked from a few centimeters behind me.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, hands hitting down on the keyboard in front of me. Thankfully nothing had gone wrong, and I would only need to delete a few random letters from the code.
"Goddamit Dani." I sighed as I tried to calm down. I did a quick check of the clock. "Oh… I spent all day here, no?"
"Yeah, Sabbah and I were starting to get worried."
"You could have asked Asos to poke me, or check if I was still alive." I half-joked.
"Too impersonal for me." She poked my side. "I just asked Asos to ask one of the clones to open a way here so I could check on you." I smiled at that. "Anyways, I was asking, what are you doing?"
"Well, I finished the weapons," I pointed over to a table. "And the next batch of adjutants is going to be awakened soon, so I decided to move on a slightly tangential project."
"That looks like a whale, are you going pinnochio on someone's ass?"
"… maybe? The Guardian Whale is an over fifty meters construct, the idea is that they will bond with whale pods and act as godmother for the group, they will also filter sea water for things like heavy metals, micro plastics, oil spills and other floating trash. I'm also giving them a powerful hydrokinesis."
"So basically your fuck you to whalers?" Her grin sure showed a lot of teeth.
"Yup, I'm thinking of making orca, dolphin and even try at shark models in the future too. And those are just the starting ideas for the aquatic guardians. I doubt any will ever be as big as the whales, but may end up making a number of mythic animals."
"Will they get the ability to transform too?" I chuckled at Dani's giddiness.
"That'll be up to them, the bigger ones may actually get a remote body instead of a smaller configuration." I shrugged. "But I won't discount the idea of giant whale transformers standing in the middle of the ocean to glare down at someone."
"Sounds cool, but I think you could use a break, and we are getting hungry. Plus grab the new weapons, we'll train after eating."
Thinking about it, I could use a break, and there was no rush at the moment. "Okay, let's go, I'm feeling pizza, so how about it?"
The smile she gave me was all I needed to know.
\/AFfMB\/
Dinner was good, and we even sneaked a short movie before we got to train. I like to joke about the girls beating me black and blue, but that was a lie. And not because I could hold my ground.
Kicking my ass that way only worked for a bit, mostly as a very quick way to help me break a few bad habits a normal person had. Things like closing your eyes at incoming objects, seizing up, etc…
Also, actual Aura training had a lot more to do with calisthenics and Tai Chi than what most people would consider supernatural training. There was a lot of training about being able to identify Aura and move it around, pull it to the surface and wrap it around my body.
This last step was a lot harder to do when you did it consciously rather than let the usual Aura protection cover you automatically. Apparently it was an advanced technique, it wasn't that complex, it mostly worked on the user's ability to control their Aura. It was just that most people didn't have experience with that kind of skill before being awakened. Knowing how to wrap yourself with your own Aura allowed one to not just layer the protection, but also reinforce your body for offense and defense.
The part where they kicked my ass, or more like just handed it to me, was in sparring, armed and not. Thankfully the girls were of the school-of-thought that grinding me into the ground was useless, and they kept themselves just above my level of skill. Just enough pressure put onto me to force me to grow, but never light enough to allow me to win; frustrating but effective.
"The new Banshee feels great." The sword practically slid through the air around Dani as a fish would swim through the water. "And these don't fall behind." The bangles on her wrists seemed to float just around the wrists no matter what movement she did.
"I agree, weapons in Remnant have always been considered half art pieces and half engineering masterworks. But these leave what I considered good on the ground." Sabbah added as Ricer Snake, her newly named belt sword, switched between forms as the olive-skinned woman moved through very obviously different katas at high speed.
I flipped one of the fans open and held it in front of my face. "Hmm, I feel like there's something I'm not completely getting." I huffed softly, my hand flipped the other fan open and swung both in opposite directions.
It was almost there, I could practically taste something in the point between both fans as they were at their closest.
I tried again and again, my focus growing and making me forget about the world surrounding me. My perception focused down on that tiny point as I could feel the ebbs and flows in reality. It wasn't magic or other power of similar nature. But I was coming down short.
Finally I decided I was getting nowhere and stopped the repeated motions, letting a sigh of defeat escape my lips.
"All okay?" I felt Dani's hand on my shoulder.
"Just…" I groaned. "It's like a word on the tip of my tongue I'm just not getting."
She chuckled at my words. "Oh, I know that feeling. Don't worry, it usually comes with time, I think our teacher called it getting in the zone?" She looked at Sabbah as she asked.
"Something like that, I don't remember his exact words, but he explained that Aura being so spiritual there's a lot of its use tied to being enlightened about yourself."
"Well, that kinda sucks… but I'm not looking to fight on the front lines anyways, no?" I chuckled. "Okay, how about another round of training?"
They nodded and we got into position.
\/AFfMB\/
We kept training, sadly I didn't get anywhere closer to beating them. I was certainly no kind of combat genius nor prodigy, and having decided I wouldn't be fighting directly seemed to have curtailed some of my potential.
I was honestly okay about it. I'm sure others may think I was waxing about not dirtying my hands, or not wanting to get hurt, and while I was certainly not looking to feel pain; the real reason was that I was lazy. I preferred to take my time, not because I had patience either, but because I liked to think about my moves. Plus I saw no reason to not simply steamroll my opponent with overwhelming power if it was a possibility.
That translated into my fighting style soon adopting redirection, dodging, quick movements and quick take outs of my opponents. Or run away if necessary. It made sense, in hindsight, why I had ended designing a gun I wouldn't be holding.
All that training had been also very conducive to putting me to sleep after, and I would most likely have slept till morning under normal circumstances. Except we're all wearing the sustainment rings, meaning that less than two hours later I was up, fresh and ready to start working again.
I leaned back on my spot in the meeting room, only Asos joining me this early as I nursed some very good coffee. "Ready to start our plan for defamation?"
"I would say that for this to be defamation, they should have a good reputation to begin with. Or have me lying about the subject. But yes, everything's in place, at least for today's little mistake." The AI turned to the large screen projected on the wall. "I've to say that they have made it incredibly easy to carry. I simply appended the list of news agencies they normally use for a pretty inflammatory email that shouldn't see the light of day."
I chuckled as I eyed the list of contacts and the original address, almost made me laugh out loud. "And they won't notice it till after the other news agencies have checked the details in it and found everything is true."
"Given how juicy this piece of news is, I doubt they will take more than a few minutes to confirm its veracity before putting it on air."
"Well, I'll certainly enjoy watching the ensuing carnage. The eight new Adjutants are also progressing well, using Rose and Athena's mental frameworks. It should allow them to pick their personalities quite well. Plus I've looked over a comment Rose made on the mental development having been slightly corrupted by the sources they took, so I lowered the effect they should have on the new eight AIs."
"I'll look over them." I gave Asos a smile. "Athena would also like to note that the space port's advancing well over at Moon Base one, and can't wait to get their younger siblings to delegate part of the work. They also think that you should move ahead on the plans for the Mars' base since they think you want to keep most of the work on Earth to yourself."
"Do I?" I leaned back, taking another long drink from the coffee and thought about it. "Uh… I can see why she came to that decision. I'll have to talk with Athena, I do have a number of things they can do around that could be pretty useful, there's also the fact that one of their new siblings will hopefully be getting lessons on law from someone in Vlad's pocket."
"I'm glad to hear that you are looking into that. If you want to open a moderately legal company for the Celestial Forge, then we need someone that can outplay them at their game." I chuckled, Asos practically saw all that I did unless I asked them not to.
"And talking about playing the game, I had a little idea for some good pr." I opened the project named, almost jokingly, Cobalt Combatants. "The general plan's divided in two steps, the first is to release a mainly multiplayer mech game where the players customize their bots with modular parts. The game should be sold cheap, run even in old computer systems, and simulate reality as best as possible.
"The second part builds on the first, it's to set a tournament with prizes. Everything online except for the finals, which will be carried with real versions of the bots, not that the players will be inside the mechas. It'll definitely not be easy to set up, but I think it's mostly not knowing what laws to follow and which to ignore." I shrugged.
Asos looked over the project. "Yes, I can see a few difficulties in the execution. It's not just public relations, no?"
"No, besides the public relations I'm aiming to have the Adjutants not only help balance the game, but use it as a medium to interact with people and mature. The finalists may give us one or two mundane drivers."
"They will join as players?"
"And as AI bots too, it's not like people will know if a NPC's playing better or just cheating. I'm sure they know they can't steamroll the competition unless the competition is looking for nigh-impossible odds." We chuckled as I checked the time. "Well, looks like it's time to wake up the new kids, as a new batch of protoforms is ready for them."
\/AFfMB\/
Everyone attended the event, not just Dani and Sabbah to observe the awakening of the new eight AIs, but also Rose, Athena and Asos as they would be upgrading their protoforms.
The improvement had been mostly carried by my clones, with the main difference was a sort-of improvement on the t-cog. Though it may be better to call it a side-ways change as the original design already supported something similar.
The form change provided by the t-cog gave the Cybertronian a lot of flexibility in how they could act, but there was actually quite the collection of weaknesses in this. Not just being attacked mid-change, but their hybridization usually had weak spots that were hard to cover.
So I had reduced their ability to change form, keeping the humanoid and infiltration forms, and instead made their bodies capable of more extreme form and size change by using larger armor-like accessories. Not too dissimilar to what some versions of Optimus could do with his trailer. A link-up system.
The bodies were also much more malleable than before, and not just thanks to the effects of Heretical Adaption. But the living metal had been treated to grow with the owner's wishes, which should hopefully allow me to improve on them without a complete change. I had also improved on the soul core/fusion plant, from the previous version that simply anchored their burgeoning soul in place, it should now help them develop better.
Honestly, what I was aiming for in the next version was to design an actual genetic code for their bodies to be truly theirs.
"So Rose asked you to change her armor again?" Dani asked, half curiosity, half trying to make some idle chat during the wait.
"Hmm, apparently her new friend commented that her mask's a bit scary, so they spent some time looking for an alternative. She even decided that her new siblings could use it too." I chuckled a bit, it was nice to see some good influence from Maya already. Though Athena was keeping a close eye on their interaction, just in case.
The coffins whistled as the pressure in them was released. "Oh, look at that, I was going to ask you to show me the new mask, but it appears Rose beat me to it." She joked.
I nodded as Asos' pod was the first to open, they stepped out looking pretty similar to before. The main difference was how the draconic attributes had shrunk a bit, mainly an angular design to their features and a scaly pattern on the skin. They also had maintained their wings, they just hung like a cape when not in use.
Athena and their new siblings/underlings came out next. My first kid had chosen to redesign their simplistic design and move a bit closer to a human, for that they had picked the reploids from the megaman series. In a way Athena and their new siblings looked like people wearing slightly bulging armored bodysuits, it was the lack of obvious gender in them that kept them from being completely seen as so.
Rose and her new siblings stepped out of their respective pods a bit more energetically than the other branch of the family. My first daughter's new body appeared closer to that of Zer0 from the Borderlands game, except for the obvious female gender. While her helmet seemed to take the assassin's helmet and mix it up with Daft Punk's members by making the shield on the front only extend to her forehead while taking the other's 8-bit image visor. Her siblings all sported a similar body, with the only difference being the lack of visible gender on any of them. I doubted that would, last given Rose was a base for their mental model.
"I like the new look, Asos." Sabbah's words made the AI preen. And it was well deserved, they had designed it by themselves, only using my original work as a base.
"Definitely more approachable." Dani joked.
I nodded and turned to the new eight. "Happy birthday kids, everything should be in order, but please run a quick check up." I asked them and waited for a moment.
"All checks come up green," Athena spoke, a small smile on their lips. "Anansi, Nike, Hermes and Lakshmi all are ready for their work."
"Wonderful, have you chosen who will be taking the role of learning law?" I asked.
One of them stepped forth. "I'm ready to learn father, on my name as Nike, I will bring victory." I chuckled internally, while they sounded mature, they were practically newborns. The shortcut they had to maturity didn't hide things well from my eyes.
"I'm happy to hear that, Nike. And you too," I looked at the rest. "You're my kids, so don't be afraid of asking if you want to learn something, or do something in particular. We'll be having a pretty active week." They all nodded as I turned to Rose.
My daughter had had her helmet retract and expose her face, different from Athena and their siblings, Rose had kept her robotic face.
"All system checks done successfully, dad. Aster, Passion, Lily and Daisy are happy and ready to go out." She gave me a grin and a thumbs up.
"Good to hear, Athena should have a list of very interesting targets to hit." I commended her.
"Wait, what?" Dani's the one to ask me as she turns to face me.
"Oh yes, one of my clones actually took one of my ideas and discussed it with Athena a couple days ago. She's been pulling up information on as many illegal trafficking operations on the country." I chuckled as Sabbah nodded at my words, it looked like my shadow had a better idea of what I was talking. "Drug trafficking, mostly that coming into the country, human trafficking, resources getting taken out of the country.
"It's not a secret all of these are happening right now. While not perfect, Athena has been using a combination of ways to acquire enough proof of not just their movements, but the big places they store their goods. Sow some chaos in the underworld."
Dani nodded. "Sounds like fun. Think I could join sometime? I know it wasn't the main thing I did, but the few times I was in the South I tended to drop hints to the police… when they weren't as dirty as the clothes in a gym bag."
I chuckled. "Yeah, that's why we are moving, mostly aiming for drugs and resources. We don't have the infrastructure to deal with a container filled with people at the moment. If we end up finding one, we'll most likely have to contact the police and national gendarmerie, try it to pass as a traitor in their group spilling the beans. It honestly hurts me to do it this way." I sighed, I really wanted to do more, but we lacked the influence necessary for more.
We shared a silent moment before Sabbah decided to break it with a quick clap.
"Enough gloom, I think we should find something happier to do, no?"
"You're right, okay kids, your new bodies should all have a personal DIA system incorporated. The system had received a big upgrade, to begin with, Athena's now admin for the central server. As long as you are on this Earth, you will be able to share, send and receive inventory contents. That means that outside of weird circumstances you will have access to the armory at any moment, that extends to us too." I added the last to Sabbah and Dani. "Having a central server will also improve the VI's responses as the data can be properly shared and collated to advance the system's responses. Don't be afraid of experimenting with it, except storing your siblings. Even if you all aren't biological, I would prefer to leave that for lab work."
I received quick nods all around, Athena and the other commander AIs headed for the growing information center, meanwhile Rose and the rest of the flowers would be heading to the armory, a clone had already stocked it up with plenty of guns for the kids to experiment somewhere deserted and find what they liked the most.
Finally Asos gave me a quick nod before they headed to work on toppling the government, leaving just Dani, Sabbah and me alone.
"There are a few hours before Asos drops the bomb, any idea of what to do?"
"Hmm… Well, we have watched movies, trained, gone to the beach…" Dani counted with her fingers. "And one of your clones took us out for a walk last week."
"We could have an orgy." Sabbah drops harder than Thor's hammer.
"First, I don't think three makes an orgy, and two, eh…" I quickly find myself out of words.
Dani simply pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I think it's best if we leave a subject like that for another time, how about if we play tourist in some big city?"
I smacked my lips, ignoring the olive-skinned woman's pout. "That sounds good, though we need to choose a place and a couple of locations to visit. It should be easy to find an empty spot to open the Spacebridge. The accessories I gave you a few days ago should cover communication quite easily."
Internally I was doing my best to put Sabbah's comment away for the moment, maybe visiting some exotic place could work. Would need some dollars or the local coin, I hope no one gets angry if I decide to forge some cash, it should be practically inseparable from true money.
\/AFfMB\/
Thankfully we had found a nice, empty Parisian alley to connect the Spacebridge. With no camera looking in its direction we could easily step out as if we had always been there. We also were close enough to the Louvre Museum that we could maybe swing by, but first we had a large number of gardens to walk.
"I can't believe I forgot to tell Asos or Athena to create bank accounts for us before." I grumbled. The use of one of the glamor spells from Lao Shi's grimoire would keep people from remembering what we said, what we looked like and electronic records from being usable; allowing us to speak practically with impunity.
"You can't think about everything." Dani grinned as she patted my back.
Sabbah, meanwhile, looked around. "It's lovely here, though I'm wondering, were you making those debit cards forging if all necessary records exist?"
My mouth opened, closed and I thought for a moment. "I think it does count as forgery, after all they weren't properly emitted, no matter how 'legal' their use may be."
"Eh, that money would have never been used for anything for years. In a way we are activating the economy." Dani commented, making us all laugh.
Our conversation went into lighter subjects as we walked through the lovely gardens. I felt the Forge activate and slipped the multitasking ring on to not miss the talk while also checking what was new.
You have created Ten Artificial Intelligences
1 Charge Acquired
Rolling… Perk Acquired
Eight-Fold Geomantic Mastery(Magic Items Domain) (2 Charges)
Stipend Charge Acquired
Rolling… Roll Failed
3 Charges Banked
1 Charge Acquired
Rolling… Perk Acquired
Eight-Fold Geomantic Mastery(Magic Items Domain) (2 Charges)
Stipend Charge Acquired
Rolling… Roll Failed
3 Charges Banked
The perk was all about the laws, steps and needs to create manses. Maybe it didn't appear to be that large given the cost in the number of charges. But Manses were about using practically all my artistic ability to empower an area with very varied powers and characteristics.
Technically, manses could only exist inside the reality the perk had come from, but the perk changed things up. The interesting part was that I was technically altering reality by the use of architecture, magic and pure artistic ability. A manse would create a hearthstone, which was the core of the area, it would allow its owner to channel certain actions through the manse itself and use some ability related to the zone.
I would need to invest time, work and a considerable collection of rare resources for the creation of even a low-power manse, but the rewards were plenty. I could easily orient the manse into one of eight aspects, the five elements: fire, earth, wind, water, wood and three energies of solar, lunar and stellar, also called sideral.
Honestly it was the fact that it called for Solar energies that tipped me off the perk came from the world of Exalted. The land of reality-breaking kung-fu and interesting times.
I would certainly be creating manses, the tropical island would most likely be the largest in the short order. But I also remembered that I needed to find a proper way to channel sunlight for the alchemical creation of holy silver, which a solar oriented manse could help a lot with. Maybe I could experiment if there was a possibility to add an aspect of Good.
I slid the ring off and allowed both minds to merge into one, returning my full attention back to the conversation. It was still a very weird sensation to think with my soul, emotions hit differently as while there were no biological stimuli, I was also much more open to the world. My empathic sense became so much clearer. I would need to experiment more, especially if I was going to move completely when creating the second body.
I gave the girls a quick smile and reassured them as we started to move back home, it was time to see how things started.
- Location
- Home
Pretty sure I already said in-story that they're in Bs As, Argentina.
i figured it was south America when you started to talk about drugs and human trafficking
I've also just realised that Fallout might be a great crossover to attempt, depending on your familiarity with the setting.
It has subtle supernatural elements so ghosts and magic won't be out of place, it's got sentient androids and advanced robots that'd be interesting for the Adjutants, it's got quite a bit of weird and wonderful locations and people to explore, some interesting technology from going down a different tech-tree entirely, it's a world that quite desperately needs help rebuilding civilization, and it can be as dark and gritty or light and hopeful as an author desires to portray it.
It has subtle supernatural elements so ghosts and magic won't be out of place, it's got sentient androids and advanced robots that'd be interesting for the Adjutants, it's got quite a bit of weird and wonderful locations and people to explore, some interesting technology from going down a different tech-tree entirely, it's a world that quite desperately needs help rebuilding civilization, and it can be as dark and gritty or light and hopeful as an author desires to portray it.
So this is minor all things considered, but as a native speaker of (American) English living in a country where most people have English as a second or even third language, the "how about if we" immediately feels like something someone who isn't a native speaker of (American) English would say. Specifically, adding if in there sounds... off to me. Seeing as Dani is an American... (I only know that Americans wouldn't use the if there, hence why I specified American English.) Basically, "how about we" works better as far as I can tell.
Thanks for the chapter!😁
- Location
- Home
Sadly, there's drugs and human trafficking everywhere. Usually it just has to be close to the border.
Fallout's indeed another setting I think the Forge would thrive quite well. But I also feel it's a setting where you need a native to really appreciate the politicking that goes between all factions around. The best idea I have come up for Fallout is a group of survivors find an experimental vault that connects a piece of tech (The Forge) to one of them and forces them to build a settlement to receive better perks. So they have to do with attacks by mutants, cannibals, other factions, other survivors wanting to take over, etc... And once they are big and known enough they have to deal with the larger factions, the local BoS chapter, the Minutemen, Ceasar's Legion, Aliens, etc...
Or go the other way and make sure everything can survive and thrive in the radioactive wasteland.
In the original version of this story (This is actually the third version believe it or not), one of the first things built was indeed a Lunar Manse on the Moon. I didn't feel like doing it again straightaway and ended making another thing.
There will also be Guardian Sharks. Also Guardian Whales are about 50 meters long in animal form and over 30 tall in robot form. They will be very good at glaring down disapprovingly at people.
See, but I am XD I will see to fix it later. Sometimes my brain does weird things between the two languages, I sometimes fear what would happen if I learn more.
Also in my experience a consequence of spending a lot of time on the internet from a young/er age with english is having a weird mix of the different englishes.
some words i default to us or uk spelling some I subconsciously flip between the various spellings.
i joined my first MMO in the really early 2000's and i was born in 93.
Thankfully I speak Levantine Arabic which has basically no overlap with English. That and Levantine Arabic doesn't have a written form, being a spoken regional dialect.
Chapter 40
- Location
- Home
AFfMB – 40
Kim and Ron had been taken to the small study room only a few minutes ago. It was a familiar place, it wasn't the first time the head of the Global Justice Network had met them in her personal study.After her close encounter with the ghost, Ron had practically been glued to her side, spending the whole Sunday just pampering her silly and complaining about her not taking him along.
"I still think you should have let me come with you." Ron repeated, Rufus shooting his partner a dubious look.
"We have gone through this, first you are scared of ghosts, and honestly, given the ghost we found I was scared of it. Second, as much as I don't like to do what a villain, or ex-villain, tells me, you're a magnet to weird and dangerous, taking you along would have been asking to get into a worse situation." Rufus, the little naked mole rat, nodded at her second point, making Ron shoot the little fella a look of betrayal.
"…Okay, I'll drop it." He lowered the tone of his voice as the door opened and Betty Director stepped through. Ron quickly greeted her. "Director."
"Dr. Director." Kim greeted her too.
"Kim, Ron, it's a pleasure to see you two, and you too Rufus." The little mole rat waved. "And please, call me Betty here, I think we're more than acquainted by now."
"Betty it is then." Kim added.
The older woman chuckled and gestured to the couches on a corner of the study instead of the desk. The three of them sat around a small coffee table.
"I'm always open for a chat, Kim, but you said you had found something important." The head of GJ kept a business tone, even as her posture deemed the situation more lighthearted.
She nodded. "I would say it started nearly a month ago, Vlad Masters contacted me for a small job. Everything was above board, one of his expeditions had found a particularly interesting artifact, but the situation didn't allow him to move it somewhere safe at the moment, so he employed me to play security. Said artifact was a large stone tablet, Wade can send you the images I captured of it, but Vlad didn't make his possession of the item a secret, so he may share more information too.
"The job stretched for three days, the first wasn't especially noteworthy. Looking back on it I can now say that was a warning sign. The second and third day were spent rebuking attempts to steal the artifact, or destroy it given the roughness some of the thieves used. A very interesting detail was that a large number of attackers are well-known ghost hunters."
Betty snorted. "I know the sort, the GIW likes to employ them as mercenaries and disposable patsies. I'll see if I can get some information from them, they tend to misplace important information and documents." Kim and Ron exchanged a small look and chuckled. "Continue."
The younger woman nodded. "Thankfully Vlad arrived shortly before I would have been too tired to keep protecting the slab of stone. Getting his people to move it somewhere else, he paid the due for the job and some extra. It was refreshing to not fall into some overarching and nefarious plot, as usual for his type."
Betty Director nodded.
Ron blinked. "Wait, the guy's a known villain? And no one does anything about it?"
"Yes, we know of the connection between Vlad Masters and the villain Plasmius, but between the fact he's behaving, he's the mayor of a city like Amity Park and his sheer wealth, we are restricted on how we could move against him. It's also known to us that Phantom keeps him on a short leash, metaphorically."
Kim nodded. "On Friday night Vlad contacted me again, apparently Shego had been looking around the city, apparently looking for something or someone. He wanted me to shoo her off the city, especially as she had been poking around the house of someone he had an investment on." Kim continued to describe her meeting with the large bird protecting the house, meeting Shego, the high-speed chase, getting interrupted by the ghost, getting saved, knocked out and waking up in her car, after the whole thing was done outside of the city. "I can bring the car in here, but Wade will send you his findings on it later along with the pictures of the artifact. But I can show you this."
She placed her phone on the table and slid it over.
"A C-phone? Vlad gave it to you?" The woman asked. and Kim shook her head. "You already had it, and that's not the thing, right?" She picked it up, checked it around. "I don't see anything particularly out of the ordinary, my lab guys have been gushing about the technology on them being years ahead of the current models. But everything's mundane."
"It was so before the Saturday's incidents. Right now it's generating power instead of consuming it." The older woman turned to look at Kim. "Wade has tested it well, the phone currently lacks a battery as we know it, instead is constantly generating enough energy not just to run itself, but enough that it can charge my car's battery, which has been completely converted into an electric model. He tried to study it further, but it's completely black boxed to the point it'll most likely just break before giving its secrets away."
"That's… Impressive to say the least." Ron nodded at her words.
"That's not all, open the icon named apology note." Kim pointed at the phone, which made the woman do so, her eyes quickly going down the short writing.
"Celestial Forge… I've to say that I never heard of them before, neither of the two members you met, albeit shortly, ring any bells in any of the currently active groups or individuals around the world. But at the same time…" The eye-patched woman rubbed her chin. "Give me a moment." She stood up and walked over to her desk, picking up her phone and speaking very quickly in Hindi. Fast enough that Kim barely picked a few words and they sounded more like code words than an actual conversation. She then returned to the couch and sat down. "She should be here soon."
The two of them nodded as a moment later the door of the study opened and a woman of dark complexions stepped in and approached them.
"Director," She nodded to the head of the GJ before turning to them. "Greetings, I'm Akuti, I'm head of the historical department of the GJ. It's a pleasure to meet you, Kim Possible, Ron Possible and Rufus."
The three of them returned the greetings.
"Akuti, I'm glad you could come so quickly."
"Please Betty, you couldn't keep me away when you call me for something like this." The woman laughed softly before sitting down closer to Dr. Director. The woman handed her the phone with the message open.
"Well, well, well… I never thought I would see something like this while I was alive." She daintily covered her mouth to chuckle before returning the phone to the table. "For an explanation, as you know, a lot of what has happened during the past has been lost. A lot was also actively hidden, I'm sure you two have experience with such bits of history.
"The Celestial Forge's one of the most hidden elements, mostly because many back then assumed them to be gods, sadly this meant most records were destroyed by the religions that came after them. The group identified themselves by the drawing of a dragon holding a galaxy, just like the sign on the note."
"And this." Kim tapped on her phone and turned to show a similar drawing but carved on stone.
"Impressive, very impressive." Akuti commented.
"And you said this is currently under Masters' possession?" Dr. Director asked.
"Yes, it was carved by one of Phantom's sigils." Kim explained.
"Hmm, I will have to ask the man about it. He's shown to have an interesting and very broad knowledge of past events. And if it's related to the Ghost Defender…" The head of the history department seemed to go into a quick muttering. "Anyways, if it was related to Phantom, it may suggest that the Celestial Forge were also time displaced when they carried out those actions, so it's not their past, but their future. To think that such an enigmatic group could actually be developing right now!"
The eye-patched woman placed her hand on Akuti's shoulder. "Calm down, we don't know yet. And given what Kim told me about their short meeting with a couple of their members, they prefer to keep their privacy at the moment."
Kim managed to keep her chuckle low, while both Ron and Rufus laughed bit a louder at the pout the woman gave Betty.
"This brings a lot of very interesting points, Kim." Dr. Director's tone was back to full business. "Mainly I want to say that I'm glad you are okay. I've heard more than one horror story of the dangers of meeting some ghosts in particular. It's a rare occurrence outside of Amity Park, but it's known to happen, especially when people summon spirits without the proper preparation and knowledge."
Kim smiled as the conversation moved onto the subject of Shego's action in the area and what Drakken had gotten after getting broken out of jail by his family.
\/AFfMB\/
The news had metaphorically exploded the moment the information about the mail chain had been confirmed true. Athena and the others had kept a pretty close look at the digital go-ons behind scenes, especially on the government and the news agencies aligned with them. This had quickly started to pay with mails to certain companies that allowed us to draw a much better map on the people to keep an eye on.
The divide between the news that talked about the leak and those that called it fake, had sparked even more chaos as some smaller news groups tried to keep it neutral. Sadly the information in the leak about past and future movements of the current government was a bit too damning on some subjects.
Still, past the first explosion and screaming matches, the news had become a bit boring to watch. Speculation and such was becoming the main topic as the news groups on the government's side tried to distract the people, hopefully tomorrow's discovery would help put more pressure and bring today's subject back to people's mind. I had looked at the email chain and the investigation, there were more than a few points that aligned well enough that people should start reaching proper conclusions.
So I had decided to move onto a project I felt needed attention, the construction of the second soul core. Interestingly, there was some of the knowledge on how to construct manses that really helped with this, the idea of the heartstone as the core of the manse and how to utilize some rare resources to reinforce the enchantment.
I knew I was practically kitbashing knowledge to build a phylactery, or at least my version of it. I started with a diamond, but not a small, or an already cut one, instead this was a smooth sphere the size of my head. There were enough concepts of purity and such on the normal diamond that would work perfectly as the core of the soul home.
Of course it wasn't smooth anymore, I had carefully carved a single ribbon of runes from the top to the bottom, spiraling down and covering all its surface. The carvings were filled with pure platinum before the whole thing was coated in the purest gold and the next set of rune ribbon. The carvings were once again filled with platinum and a layer of one of the magical isotopes of silver, I was pretty sure it was the closest to what could be called spirit or soul aligned. It didn't end there, the complexity of the rune ribbons actually demanded about a dozen layers.
That meant that the original head-sized diamond sphere ended up about twice as big, even with the smallest amount of metal as possible. To protect the whole thing another layer of platinum covered the sphere and that was placed in a modified protoform. This wasn't final, as I would at least craft the protoform myself, but I needed to test if the soul extension core would allow me to control the body as my own or it would be just a puppet.
With that done and everything in place, I decided that all I could do was to test the system. At worst I would get a rebound and leave my soul a bit sore, but Aura should cushion the 'impact'.
"All systems are up and running," Asos commented as Lakshmi worked the scanners.
"Thanks for joining us, Dani." I smile at my girlfriend.
She snorted. "It's okay, Sabbah's taking Rose and the others for training on proper gun use. Plus I can keep a better eye on you this way." She added teasingly, making me snort.
"Again, thank you." I lean and kiss her softly. "I always feel safer with you around." I hum as I turn around to walk over to my spot on the array, the soul protoform standing on the other spot. "Okay first test."
I saw the ones overseeing the test give me nods as I started to reach down into the array with my magic, empowering the enchantment. Powering the array had a strange effect, as my energy flooded it and started to flow, it stopped being mine, and my mouth filled with the strange flavor of my own magic. Or well, it was my processed magic, a strange and spicy flavor with a mysterious undertone that seemed to change with each curve of the array.
I could also feel how it started to reach into my soul, past that area filled with my Aura and the soul wisps that floated freely around it. The first tug was a test, as I felt no pain and the few scans pointed at that not-area indicated there was no visible damage or permanent deformation when depowering the array I moved to the second test, feeding a second part of the array.
With the first array tugging and stretching my soul, the second was basically a test to see if it could stretch far enough, giving a soft chime when achieved. With the first chime and still no damage, the test continued, pulling the soul into a pocket dimension and receiving another chime of success.
"Okay, everything's good so far. Dani, do you see anything weird?"
"I can kind of see it, but I don't think I saw a soul that wasn't at least partially contaminated with ectoplasm. It's actually quite impressive how you managed to remain ecto-free after living a month in Amity Park and visiting the Ghost Zone." I would need to check on that later.
"Asos, Lakshmi?" I asked.
"All systems are in the green, the array is still working as expected." Asos commented.
"Scans still haven't noted any kind of tearing or damage on your soul, father." The other added.
I nodded. "Okay, then let's power these down and make sure that's true before we proceed to try and make contact." A few agreements were spoken out loud as I slowly stopped feeding my energy into the array and let it go dormant. "Starting now."
I pushed into the first and third array. Now my soul wasn't just being pulled out further and further, but also guided into the prototype, slowly coaxed to push into it.
I could feel the whole process in a weird sort of not-way. As one of my current strings of thought was running on my soul, it felt like someone was dragging me out of my house by my arm without actually dragging me out. The array started to light up as I could feel that stretched part of my soul flow into the diamond core, filling it up more and more.
Asos' voice felt almost distant. "Array's showing an expected strain, but every measurement is still in the green."
My power kept flowing into the array, maintaining the effect as more and more of my soul flowed into the core. Maybe because it was science what we were doing, because I felt a small bump and we all heard the crack.
I could instantly tell what had gone wrong, that massive diamond hadn't been enough, or the material hadn't been as good as I expected. I greatly suspected the latter more than the former.
Another crack and before I could stop feeding the arrays, the core cracked too much. And like a rubber band, my soul bounced back, with quite a bit more power than expected; I could feel the immaterial sensation of it snapping back into me.
"Okay, that was weird, how are the scans? Any damage?" I quickly asked, turning to Asos and Lakshmi.
It wasn't hard to notice their eyes weren't on me, but on me. The me that was currently laying limp on the ground. The only one that was actually looking at me was Dani.
"Rick?" She asked with a surprise in her voice.
"Oh... well, I wasn't expecting this." I looked at myself, but apparently I didn't have a shape. What I did have was a lot more time, everything seemed to be slowing down as I focused more on myself.
The second I noticed was that since I wasn't wearing the multitasking ring, I was running a single line of thought, that on my soul. On good news, Asos was noting that the body was still alive, just unresponsive and coming as negative on the soul scans.
"This is a terrible way to achieve Astral Projection." I tried for some levity as Dani quickly changed into her ghost form and floated up to my side.
"Is that you, Rick?" She asked.
"Apparently." I tried to take shape, but apparently that part was a characteristic of ectoplasm and my soul was free of it. "I think I should be able to easily return to my body, but I'll need your help to move."
She let out a soft sigh of relief. "I'm glad to hear that." She quickly turned and updated Asos and Lakshmi on the situation.
Meanwhile I inspected myself some more, a closer look allowed me to pull on my Aura, becoming a bit more visible for those non-ghost. This had also made my soul wisps more visible as the small number of them orbited around my body, a small idea came into my mind.
I currently had five of them floating aimlessly around my soul, still as ready for me to control and shape, so that's what I did. I pulled on the five of them and shaped them around my soul, taking a physical form; though one still uncaring of gravity.
"Testing..." I pulled on my magic for a quick spell of ghostly voices. "Testing… much better."
"Is everything okay Rick?" Asos asked.
"Yes, everything feels okay so far, just new." I looked at my body, there was a strange mix of disconnection and morbid curiosity of seeing my body just laying there, at least it seemed I still breathed. "Thankfully, I can't die while in this pocket dimension, and while this is not a full step into being in two places at once. It's definitely a very interesting step sideways."
"That's good to hear Rick, but could you return to your body? Or I'll push you into it." Dani sounded a bit frantic, making me nod.
"Ok, ok, I'll leave the testing for some proper time later." I allowed her to drag my physical construct over to my body before I released it.
Being close enough to my own body allowed me to feel that it was the right container for myself. Making the process of slipping into it feel natural and a moment later I was taking a real breath again.
The multitask ring was quickly taken off my finger as I got up and moved off the array, even if it was unpowered I didn't think it was okay to stay on it. Now that I was back in my body, I could also tell how weird the experience had truly been, most likely some disconnection from not having a proper biological body.
"Not seeing double right?" Dani started to ask me a series of questions. "Left is left and right is right, no? Tell me if you feel like you put your arm in the wrong leg…"
I patiently allowed her to ask me as many questions as she wanted, she was the expert on this after all.
"Okay, it looks like you are back into your body properly. Now that that's checked." She punched my arm. "You asshole."
I smiled, it didn't even hurt. "It's been a while since you called me that."
"It's been a while since you put yourself in danger like that!" She grumbled.
"Okay, okay, I won't do it again. But I'll have to look into astral projection, it's an interesting development that I may need to protect against. I don't want someone to get a lucky hit in and just end me by pushing my soul out of my body." She huffed but nodded.
"Okay, but only if I'm around." I nodded at her words.
"I can work with that." I turned to Asos and Lakshmi. "Did the scans pick anything interesting?" The AI nodded. "Good, I'll want to see that later." I turned to Lakshmi. "Can you make sure everything's copied in the back-up server?" She nodded. "Thank you dear." I reached over to pet the child's head. "Okay, stepping out of my body has certainly opened my appetite, how about we see about lunch?"
Dani nodded, we two headed out of the pocket dimension, utilizing the Spacebridge to find Sabbah and the bouquet training marksmanship in a particularly empty and not-transited area of the Nevada desert.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"They learn fast." Sabbah's tone reminded me of the no-nonsense drill sergeants from movies for a moment.
I nodded at her words and looked at Rose first. I reached to pick up one of the sphinx cubs that had come along to play on the sand. It made me think for a few moments about Drake, the check I had carried when saving Kim and Shego showed the bird had finished maturing, and he was definitely enjoying the largest Delfire Orb, and the murder that followed his commands. I would need to visit more often.
My daughter seemed to have picked twin handguns and experimented with them as she moved and shot at the holographic targets in the distance. Meanwhile, only Lily appeared to have chosen a sniper rifle and was in the process of laying flat down on empty air, the fixed anchor system on her armor keeping her in place, as she shot a target I could only see because Asos' could feed the information onto my vision.
Aster, Passion and Daisy seemed to be in the process of testing weapons from a sizable collection on a table.
"That's good, once they have chosen and trained I'll see about equipping them with personalized versions." I could tell they had heard me and seemed to like the idea.
I smiled, a bit of pampering to my kids was okay, they were developing well and maturing past their original intended limitations. I felt the Forge activate, allowing myself to keep looking as the information flowed into my head.
You have separated your soul and your body
1 Charge Acquired
Rolling… Perk Acquired
Make Me A Better Man(Biotech Domain) (3 Charges)
Stipend Charge Acquired
Rolling… Roll Failed
2 Charges Banked
1 Charge Acquired
Rolling… Perk Acquired
Make Me A Better Man(Biotech Domain) (3 Charges)
Stipend Charge Acquired
Rolling… Roll Failed
2 Charges Banked
I breathed in hard through my teeth. This one was a doozy, not only was I now The surgeon, but now I could conduct operations that provided to others part of my powers. It wasn't completely safe, especially given some powers and perks, but I could technically give Sabbah and Dani Anima or make them into Kilns. I could also do something similar to supernatural powers that were based on the body of the user, like Dani's half-ghost nature or Jake Long's dragon nature.
It brought a lot of possible problems, but also opened a door for ways that I could use to keep my biological body safe. Some powers didn't come from the supernatural, as I could technically implant the genetic immortality some animals had. I would have to look more into it.
I noticed Dani looking at me, so I quickly gave her a gesture that everything was okay. This would most likely be a perk I kept close to my chest for a good while.
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- Location
- Deep inside the sand
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
My favorite part of this chapter is Kim and Ron's view. As usual my favorite part of this part of the story is when others need to spend time wondering the absurdity of the Celestial Forge.
- Location
- Home
It's definitely a very fun part to read, and in this case, the scene practically wrote itself. I honestly started thinking it would be just 500 words or less and then an OC sneaked in somewhere and the scene rolled out to three times the expected length.
Still, while it's a very fun part of the Forge, gotta balance it against proper progress and not make any third party pov a reaction post to the hero.
Okay, I clearly missed something. Could someone point out the chapters that explain what information they were releasing?