With little better to do with your time, you spend much of the day remaining ahead of the army, resting, tossing ideas at Inspiration, and practicing your singing. If you're going to make song into one of your most memorable themes, you should at least be good at it.
Sadly, a single day of effort is no substitute for years of training. It'll have to be an ongoing project.
[x] If you think it'd help, use some smallish void portals to interrupt their sleep.
You're honestly not sure it'd be worth interrupting your own sleep just to harass the army throughout the night. However, as your stalker seems to be doing a good enough job all on their own, you simply open up a single Void rift in the skies far above them soon after the camp has settled. The distinctive scream should be adequate for inducing paranoia.
With that done, you head for a semi-hidden cave, assemble a simple clockwork explosive-slash-alarm, and go to sleep.
[x] Attack tomorrow morning. Ideally just before sunrise so you can use that to punctuate your Surge, but if they get up early you'll settle for interrupting their breakfast.
-[x] Announce yourself with a void portal in the sky. Not necessarily a big one, but you might as well start developing a trademark.
-[x] Try to keep 2.5 to 3 batteries available for use during your attack.
When you're woken up by the rather distinctive *
screeeeeeCRACK* of your alarm detonating, three batteries have been fully filled and await your use. After getting up and making yourself presentable, you open up a short linked rift-pair to take you back out of the cave and look around. It seems your timing was almost perfect; you can still see smoke from where the campsite should be
and the first rays of dawn are only just creeping over the horizon.
Inspired Behavior?
You open up a screaming tear in reality as far above the camp as possible. It shouldn't harm anyone all the way up there. Once you're sure you've gotten their attention, you open up a linked rift pair close to the camp and attach your defensive module to Skybreaker.
Yes, we can get started.
Access granted.
You sway precariously as Inspiration's chosen knowledge fills your mind. Unless you're very much mistaken, there's far,
far more of it than there should be. The fabric of the universe unfolds before you, blinks, and
establishes eye contact.
You step back and try to ignore the feeling of
something closely watching you. You're used to your gift looking over your work, but
this? You might as well compare a candle to the sun. If you were of a religious bent, you'd wonder if you attracted the attention of God. Or
a god, at least. One who seems intent on watching everything you do.
No pressure, right?
At least you have yet more evidence for your new idea of Inspiration being a single entity. But if it
is, why does it not seem to care about its partners killing one another? Your gift seems to like
you well enough.
Inspired behavior.
You shake your head and take the hint, striding through the open rift and ignoring the insignificant
mites incapable of harming you. Even if Inspired in general are prone to being distracted, you aren't just
any Inspired. You fully intend to prove that to the entire world.
Although you'd rather like to use
the earth itself for the mass you'll require, reality is mortally certain the ground is supposed to remain relatively unchanging. Even human-forged garbage is a result of humans converting something old into something new; you'll have precedent on your side when it comes to changing it once again.
Material properties.
Of course, if you get it hot enough, the ground will turn into something different
anyway. Could you not use it after that? All you'd need is something to melt wide swathes of land — say, a giant thermal cannon — and you could start forming castles beneath the earth.
Alas,
what could be won't help you right this instant. Something for your next audience-fueled Surge, perhaps.
OOC: Use preference voting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, where lower numbers mean you prefer that option over the others. However, be warned that voting will be locked for 2 hours after this goes up.
[] Glass Cannon
(Aether, Clockwork, Crystal, Electricity, Thermal, Artillery, Personal, Adjustable)
A ranged hand cannon capable of liquefying the very earth. Technically, it wouldn't be turning anything to glass unless you shot at sand. You feel the name still works despite that little detail. The fact that it can be used as a weapon is just an added bonus; your primary objective is to open up the possibility of proper army-sized audience exploitation in the future.
You might be able to merge it with Skybreaker, but you aren't certain.
[] Lightweight
(Aether, Crystal, Electricity, Personal, Adjustable)
A device virtually useless on its own, Lightweight would let you almost completely shut off gravity in an adjustable area. The maximum size should be enough to fit an entire keep inside. As with virtually every other project you'll create while you have an audience to work with, it won't ever require additional fuel.
[] Aten
(Aether, Clockwork, Crystal, Thermal, Adjustable, Aligned)
A mirrorlike disc with a radius of approximately five meters, Aten would be capable of directed flight, albeit at a relatively low altitude. During the day, it would also be capable of incinerating any poor fools directly beneath it at middling ranges. You're pretty sure you won't even need to bother with railings as long as you make it automatically move to support you.
[] Prometheus's Gift
(Aether, Crystal, Modular, Adjustable. Optional: Clockwork, Automaton, Personal)
The most powerful miniaturized perpetual energy generator you can make with the knowledge you have access to. On its own, it accomplishes absolutely nothing, but you should be able to use it as a power source for your future inventions. It should suffice for
at least a few ordinary projects. You're hoping to give it spider-like legs and some rudimentary defenses as well, but that's strictly secondary to your main objective.
[] Wraith Field
(Crystal, Aether, Personal, Worn)
A device to temporarily pull you and everything close enough to you — say, within a meter or three — into the Void. You'll need to build some form of propulsion once you're in there, but travelling inside it should let you effectively navigate through solid objects. You'll need to set up safeties to ensure you don't return inside a wall, of course; you get the feeling doing so would be distressingly fatal.
[] Titanian
(Aether, Clockwork, Crystal, Fabric, Personal, Automaton, Automated, Toggled, Worn)
A two-layer suit of armor. The inner layer is an almost scandalously form-fitting dress capable of dampening the force of most incoming attacks in addition to telling reality that no, those bullets can't pierce the cloth it's made of, thank you
very much. The golden outer layer can break apart on command to form a swarm of small, flying warclocks, half of whom would block incoming threats while the other half would seek out and destroy any weapons attacking you. The users of any such weapons, if any, would be left alone.
Voting will be locked for 120 minutes after this first goes up.
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