sainen
Elder Lich
right, thanks for that, all I remembered about Heartbreaker was that sometime during the time skip Imp took a trip in remembrance of Alec and somehow offed Heartbreaker, which led to her leading the Heartbroken.
Alchemical Solutions [Worm/Exalted] Thread 23: We Wonder Where Who Wanders When Watchers Wane
- Thread starter Gromweld
- Start date
- Location
- Columbia, SC
Is this a reference to her rather curt vision from Auto during her conversion or something else? I still hold out hope that more will be unlocked after meditation, and that it was due in major part to him doing TWO conversions SIMULTANEOUSLY.
I believe he came to a similar conclusion.
Explain to me how this is a problem?
This looks like a problem that Saki's Linguistics specialty is helpful for.
...new slash fiction from "PrettiestRobot001" is absolutely trashy, in the best possible way. People who
That would be wasteful. Heartbreaker is almost assuredly going to try for Saki once she goes on TV (especially if we help nudge things along), and between Industrial Survival Frame, Willpower being a thing and her social charms, she should be able to ignore his mind control aura. Then all she has to do is get close to him (shouldn't be difficult; that's his goal as well) and then Personality Override Spike him, convince him he wants to surrender and tell the good guys who his time bombs were and then have some variation of a) go to prison, b) join the Protectorate (visibly or under an assumed name) or c) work for Cauldron as a way for them to further keep things from falling to shambles. We keep an admittedly powerful social cape around while removing him as a problem, get to field deploy our friend the Happy Fun Stick and when we're done we can take the team out for ice cream.
ChandraMagic
I can't be bothered to expend the energy to care
Implying that Heartbreaker isn't already making plans to pay a visit....
Collateral damage.
Nikos Vasil isn't known for his target discrimination, and has a habit of using civilians as ablative armor.
Actually kinda looking forward to her doing this.
Unfortunately, Heartbreaker's mojo is for people to obey him.
Can't see public opinion or PRT policy being in favor of such a thing, and it makes him a prime target for Ziz subversion.
Odds are he gets
Oh, he would have been, until Taylor earned that S-class Master rating.
And Prayer has been too mobile to be a target.
But Saki is both less daunting, and more attractive a target.
And more valuable to a fugitive; teleporter after all.
Especially since, IIRC, he is down three capes since Cherish and her brothers absconded to Boston.
If someone gets through PRT defenses again, the Youth Guard will throw a fit.
Unobstructed Blow and Horrific Wreath weren't removed from Violet Bier of Sorrows Style because they were too powerful, they were never supposed to be part of the style.
Back in 1ed, those Charms were part of the Sidereal Brawl tree. But 2ed removed Brawl as an Ability, so something had to be done. For Solars and Dragon-Blooded, their Brawl Charms were collected into Martial Arts styles, Solar Hero Style and Terrestrial Hero Style, and they were given the explicit ability to create stand-alone Charms branching off of those styles. Sidereals, on the other hand, didn't have enough Brawl Charms to create a style, and were originally designed to be unable to expand their Charm sets. So the writer translating the Charms to 2ed uncreatively shoved their Brawl Charms into VBoS and called it a day. Similar levels of unimaginative laziness could be found all over the Sidereal 2ed Charm set. The errata was made to fix this foolishness.
- Location
- U.S.
But it introduced serious balance issues at the same time, which is a much more serious issue.
That has no bearing on the 2e balance, they were fine as VBS charms, and should have been left there. Where they were in 1e isn't important.
I think the problem with Accord is less that he does not fit. The bigger problems are the fact that he is kinda crazy and led a pretty nasty criminal organization. Sure, he had plans to end world hunger and all, but does that excuse his actions?
Ofcourse, we are working with both Cauldron and Bonesaw to accomplish our objectives (without shard-mindrape), so dunno if we are in a position to judge.
Its one of the reasons that I kinda hope that Taylor would be there (even if only remotely). Sure, the charms are nasty and have loads of potential for horror, but its not like there arent lots of good applications too, and having someone there capable of pointing it out would be handy.
Being able to just erase an intimacy for example is kinda horrid. Except, it means that when Heartbreaker does come for the app 7 Alchemical, Saki will be able to heal all his victims. And in general heal victims of other masters that inflict permanent effects like that. This also presumably works as a psychological tool that could be used to remove negative intimacies like terror or phobia or addiction and so on. If done with the patients consent, its not exactly evil. Heck, Saki herself saw the benefit when she removed her own unwanted phobia of scorpions. Granted, that was a different charm, but it could be done with this too.
Memory deletion generally is kinda bad overall, but there can still be potential uses. Erasing exceptionally traumatic memories with full consent of the patient for example. Theres also the more immoral (but still potentially possible) option of doing stuff such as erasing Bonesaws memories of Jack Slash and turning her back into Riley. Ethically doing it forcefully would be kinda out there, but you could argue that basically erasing years of brainwashing by a thinker to a child could be justified in extreme cases like Bonesaws (she already had a kill order for example).
Virtues can be decreased which can be sucky if you bring someones virtue down to 1. However they can also be increased, which could basically be considered helpfull. A drug addict or an alcoholic who is unable to get clean would probably benefit greatly from a dot or two of temperance for example, and would probably happily give consent. Granted, not sure how exactly this works without souls, but presumably it does somewhat. I mean we know that the POS Saki has is special Autochton design (she has as submodules what would normally be fully separate charms, including normally E4 ones), and Auto is fully aware that people on Earth-Bet are soulless (and has had the opportunity to study two such cases directly before giving POS to Saki).
Decreasing willpower is bad, but it can also be increased up to 8. Generally having more willpower helps, so if people had souls, this would basically be "make you highly resistant to Simurgh"-power. Not exactly horrible in Worm, thats filled with all sorts of masters who are rather malevolent.
Memory extraction is iffy morally, but its something that can potentially save lives if used on serious criminals. However the description itself states that even questions like: "What memories are false?" and "Do you have gaps in your memory?" are valid ones, since it does not matter if the victim consciously knows it. I can already think of one more that would make PRT salivate: "Are you a Simurgh tampered timebomb?". Saki can basically detect it if someones memories have been tampered or erased, which if she gains sufficient trust, would actually help with things like detecting if someones mind has been tampered with. Oh, and since this charm locates the tampered memory, she can presumably heal even Simurgh victims by just erasing the part Simurgh tampered with. Heck, standard erasure of all memories from those who fight Simurgh or hear her scream would basically render Simurgh impotent. This could even be done to those already in containment by just erasing the time they heard the scream and a few hour surrounding it (unfortunately, too many victims to heal all).
Craft Memory is pretty bad overall. Not a lot of good uses to crafting fake memories or rewriting personalities. I guess it could in theory be used with volunteers to infiltrate thinker organisations though (If the guy does not know he is a PRT infiltrator himself, the thinker is unlikely to figure it out either. Especially since the source was non-shard based). Memories could then be restored later. However generally I doubt this would be practical use.
However it does have a twin of restore memory. Prayer for example would probably instantly realise that Saki could give all Case53s their original memories back. Cauldron might not be a fan of that, but a lot of C53s probably would want to know who they and their families were, and this would boost the rep of the Assembly among them. Also give hope of a cure (we know its possible in theory to develop a shard POS submodule so maybe not an utterly false hope either?). Or people who might have had memories erased by parahuman masters. Or even people who suffer from amnesia caused by whatever. Noticably it can also restore false and altered memories too.
Implanting an alternate personality does not really have a moral use that I can think off.
Basically, if its spun right, there are lots of ways that Saki could use POS to help people and improve the quality of life of many who suffer from mental issues. Throw in the fact that she also has Multifunctional Hypodermic Apparatus with several extremely potent magical healing drugs in it, and you could further argue that Sakis powers are primarily meant to heal rather than hurt. And heck, its not even a lie in this particular case. Odds are that Saki is far more likely to help people who give their free consent, than she is to start mindraping everyone left and right with POS. Compassion 3 and all. If some other alchemicals in Autochtonia prefer the alternative uses? Well, thats hardly Sakis fault is it?
Ofcourse, the trouble there is that you would need people able to trust that Saki is being honest and not implanting hidden personalities in everyone she heals. Thats problematic, as is getting around the fact that the charm CAN do horrible things. But eh, atleast its not all bad. Theres lots of potential good too. Atleast Saki herself knows that she can do a lot of good if she wishes, so that would probably help offset the fear of the negative possibilities somewhat.
Hmm. Probably depends on whether Saki returns to Philadelphia or not. I mean it would be absurdly easy for Taylor to instantly detect him long before he got close (assuming a working SoPA at the time anyway...), cloak and basically shoot him in the back of the skull. Or take him hostage to keep his civilians in control (Potentially allowing their capture for Saki to heal. Could get a lot of trust that way, and PRT would likely be far more willing to let her use POS on people who have already been utterly mastered).
Ultimately though, Saki could do it too. Just use HSA to appear as some normal civilian adult, make him believe she is under control (ISF will almost certainly block him, and Saki could certainly use Willpower to resist even without), then dump him to the prison dimension.
Programmed Catechism Rebuttal is also a perfect social parry, and also allows Saki to defend others incase of somekind of ambush (and while thats not a perfect defense, it might help block the effect anyway?).
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Not really? Dozens of capes are typically involved in Simurgh battles, and POS is 10m, 1 WP per use. We're talking about the expenditure of hundreds of motes and dozens of WP over an extended time period. That's just the capes, let's not forget about the civilians in the AO. And mind games are not Ziz's sole means of attack; remember her display of TK against us at the Cradle.
Damn you are right. I forgot about the WP cost (motes would be far less of an issue with a vat (3x mote recovery rate) and stunts and possibly others with hypodermic eventually).
Actually, can Taylor do that? @Gromweld, since "Resting in a regenerative nutrient broth at a vats complex allows an Alchemical to heal and regain Essence at (Essence) times his normal rate.", and since Iris functions as a vat of sorts for Taylor, could Taylor in theory jump into Iris occasionally when her motes get down for a couple of hours and theres some emergency that would require us to get motes fast. I would assume being in a vat counts as resting, so for an Essence 4 Taylor, that would be 32 motes/hour.
That being said, its still plausible to say have a really usefull capes stay longer, since a counter now exists. Especially since you could do just a couple capes a day if necessary. The WP cost makes it far less usefull though, since WP is harder to recover.
And yea, Ziz does have TK, but while thats dangerous, its ultimately not what terrifies people about her so much. Its the mindrape that scares people so much, so taking that away from Simurgh (even to small extent), would be very helpfull. Its not because of TK that capes wear explosive armbands.
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- Location
- Spain
You can recover WP with stunts too.
Thief of Words
Trans lesbian librarian
- Location
- Best book girl
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually, outside of charms there's one thing that does that in Exalted. Striking/Enchanting Looks (4 point version). The 2-point version is: if you fit their orientation, (not type, but orientation), then they attracted to you. If not, they still think you're gorgeous. The four point? Everyone is attracted to you. Everyone.
I know this due to having pondered the same merit on Emma in Conundrum.
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Pod peoplllllllllllllllle
Translation: "We totally think you're a pod person, we just don't have iron-clad proof. Also, we don't want to piss off the lady that just offed the S9 and 'accidentally' took control of every living thing in Philly for a while."
Side note, I'm really digging how you're driving home just how unintentionally persuasive someone with Appearance 7 can be. And not just that, putting a human face on it and treating it seriously instead of lolz Helen of Troy ain't got shit on us.
Can I just say that I am SO looking forward to the part where Heartbreaker thinks he's put one of the assembly under his control, only for them to saunter up and kick him square in the dick?
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Not really. At least, I fail to see it.
I am looking at the errata'd VBoS right now, and it remains a terrifyingly potent CMA.
It's not just as fuckoff broken as it was before.
I mean seriously, f they had left those three charms in VBoS?
You would have people using Unobstructed Blow(4m for a Piercing tag and halving enemy DV) with a fucking grand daiklave(Damage 11L, Overwhelming 4, Acc +1, Speed 5) as a form weapon. At Essence 2.
After perfects had been errata'd to between 8m and 12m cost.
Yeah no; that's a perfect or die situation if I ever saw one.
It gets even more preposterous when you consider that the core charm of VBoS, Blade of the Battlemaiden, allows the martial artist to stack the starmetal MM bonus on top of whatever other MM bonus the grand killstick was already rocking.
I am no expert at charm design, but it seems to me that it got moved away from VBoS for very good reason.
Your table may differ, of course, but sticking Unobstructed Blow in TSS, where the most potent form weapon caps out at ~5-6L/B damage, is a much more sensible move from a mechanical point of view.
Not actually true.
Every single charm in that tree has legitimate use, just like the poppy plant can be used to make heroin or morphine.
Even Transcendental Brutality Programming, which has been accused of being a torture charm, is the kind of thing that a social expert might carry into combat to get her enemies to obey her without her having to kill them. I mean, if she'd been fighting Siberian or Crawler, punching them several times with TBS would have made them susceptible to listening to her.
And then there's Butcher.
People forget that Alchemicals don't need to torture anyone; they have easy access to UMI.
They don't even need charms; the elemental core/hearthstone equivalent Quickmouth Apparatus is only Artifact 2, after all, and makes any social attack UMI for 3m. They don't need torture charms against mortals, and they aren't going to be torturing Exalts.
This is a reminder:
Canon!Pretender is a Protectorate team leader in a major city, and he possesses people.
Canon!Gallant manipulates people's emotions with his Blaster power.
Fic!Intensity, who used to work in Camden, was known for manipulating emotions in an area for entertainment; he was popular at parties.
None of this is out of the ordinary for capes; the surprise is the number of Master powers she has available.
Parahuman criminal on probation gets a minder that takes over if he/she intentionally commits a crime, and takes him to a police station.
Parahumans with powers that cause psychotic break(see Burnscar) gets alternate personality that triggers when psychosis happens and takes control until psychosis ends.
I assume that Heartbreaker hasn't remained at liberty for over 16 years(Alec's age) by being stupid.
Nope.
The game changer is the fact that the Protectorate no longer have to blow up capes who stay too long in the Ziz zone.
Keep them alive, and she can deprogram/screen them over several days.
Instead of bombs, you put tranqs in the armbands to knock them unconscious.
Mass deprogramming of entire cities is Taylor's area.
Hers, or that of the team sorcerer.
Note:
IIRC, WoG is that Saki's Sanctum allows her to recover Essence and heal as if she's inside a vat.
So she can actually afford high-expenditure strategies, and then retreat to her sanctum to meditate/read a book for two hours and return with a full tank.
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Eh. That may help somewhat with motes, but not WP.
I don't think it was outright stated, but she's spent the equivalent period of time around Armsmaster all day
Well the easiest way to deal with him is send someone he can't detect up close, and reprogram him to restore his victims to reasonably independent functionality(I wouldn't try to revert them with his powers, since it's unlikely he knows what their personalities were like well enough) and disarm any bombs he remembers.
This is a positive. Excessive aggression is one of the things you can treat with that.
While SV has an enormous level of belief in sanctity of mind, there are going to be quite a lot of people willing to pay to end a self admitted toxic personality spiral that they can't dig themselves out of.
Scams make large amounts of money out of claiming to be able to do so.
Particularly for former abused children and the like, the ability to construct something good, even if they know it's fake, to remember is going to be a valuable part of recovery. This is important for the Heartbroken, who're in possession of emotional control powers, were born and raised in a toxic environment, and generally doomed from the start due to that.
While she's not going to recover willpower THAT quickly, I'd also note that once they observe the qualities of her Sanctum, we could box up all the Simurgh overstayers and use the Sanctum's imprisonment feature to put them into stasis, while she fixes each one and release them as willpower regenerates.
Bonus in that it screws up Simurgh's plotting even more, since from the point they get slurped up, they don't show up accurately on precog until they come out.
Chapter 9.3: Part 3
Gromweld
Learning By Mistake
Chapter 9.3
(Part 3)
(Part 3)
***
Judging by the uniformly-sterile hallways that remind you of Protectorate Island's high-security prison, you're probably somewhere in the basement of PRT Tower. The most interesting part, really, is the actual shape of the hallways: instead of being perfectly rectangular, the corners are all sloped just a bit to make the hallways oddly-shaped octagons. You don't feel like asking again after you were told about the reason for it in the tour… something about making it easier to detect Strangers and Masters?
A few blank hallways from your interrogation room, Miss Militia guides you to one of the large elevators and hits the 'down' arrow. When it opens, Prayer's heavily-armored form awaits you - helmet off, and carried under her right arm.
A light frown creases her brow as she studies the two of you silently for a moment, before looking more pointedly at Miss Militia and nodding.
"I will serve, now. Thank you."
You're deliberately not looking at anything in particular, but out of the corner of your eye you notice Miss Militia's knife in her right holster pulse green before shifting into a much larger caliber weapon. It had shifted twice - from a pistol to a grenade bandolier then to a knife - while the two of you had been walking, so you're not sure if her power just fluctuates on its own or if she's trying to send a message.
You're pretty sure Prayer wouldn't even notice a pistol shot in that armor of hers, so it's probably just powers being weird again.
"Tatsu-" Miss Militia pauses, placing a hand on your shoulder, "requested I serve as her initial chaperone."
There's an awkward silence, which causes you to blink in realization of what's happening and whip your head between the two.
"Ano…" you finally mumble, working past your bleh at being so pretty that you got a Master rating. "Can I have you both?"
Maker dang it.
"As chaperones!"
Miss Militia colors a bit again, but looks more exasperated than embarassed. Prayer-
… -somehow got her helmet on while you were turning to look at Miss Militia. Hmm.
Do you ship it? Miss Militia didn't date anyone in Brockton Bay, and you've already thought of trying to pair Prayer up with someone…
"No, Tatsu."
"Huh?" you blink, looking at Prayer's judging helmet. That sounded like she was talking about something else? "What?"
"Weaver found your fiction," she intones, armored, aquamarine-crystal arms folding across her broad chest. "I have been warned."
Your books? Or-
"Oh," you realize. "Oh!"
Then… start shuffling to the corner of the elevator while feeling your face burn. That means… Taylor found the things you wrote about her, too… "Did you-?"
"Just a warning. She has not shared."
"Oh, thank the Maker," you heave, falling back against the elevator wall. First thing to do when you get access to a computer: set all your stories to private until Sakura gets back. You may have written most of them, but it was her idea to post them publicly - you're not taking the fall for her this time!
"We're… " Miss Militia wonders aloud, eyeing the two of you warily. "I'm missing something."
"Nothing!" you smile, trying not to smile too hard while holding your hands up innocently. "Ah, it was an… inside joke! Hee hee!"
"Ah," Miss Militia blinks, then nods in apparent understanding. "Did it involve Clockblocker?"
Wait what? "Uh… I... yes?"
"I hope he hasn't been too poor of an influence on the two of you," she sighs, shaking her head. "I tried to find out how you were all doing while I was stationed at the Refugee Camp, but reports were slim. Clockblocker tended to act up during high-stress situations, so I worried that he might get up to trouble after the move."
You try not to eye her too critically, and Prayer is no help in her big, bulky armor, but you're not… quite sure what happened there. Dr. Marchbanks said…
Does your disguise… not stop all of your... Master-ness? It's clear that you're no longer 'zombie-inducing', but maybe there's other parts to it?
The elevator dings. Well, maybe you can figure it out a way to turn it off now? You're not sure you want to admit that you don't already know how to turn it off, but… Taylor seemed to always tell the PRT when something was going on with her charms.
"Now that I think about it, Tatsu," Miss Militia frowns, giving you a considering glance, "I need to report to Legend, Chevalier, and Director Uriel first before I can agree to staying in New York much longer. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have… agreed so easily."
"That's okay," you smile, trying not to let how much this is freaking you out show through. You take a step up and nudge the big blue Alchemical as the doors open to another blank hallway. "I trust Prayer."
That earns you a pleased wrinkling of Miss Militia's eyes and and solid aquamarine gauntlet on your left shoulder.
You keep smiling, but no one can tell it's fake.
***
Continuing the similarities to Protectorate Island, the Power Testing Chamber that Prayer escorts you to is about the size of your high-school gymnasium (Clarendon's or Hero High's). You're definitely underground now, since there's no way this place would fit in the building above-ground, but does that mean the parts underneath go under the street or into other basements? And isn't there a subway tunnel nearby?
Right. Tinkertech. Taylor's job, not yours.
To your great relief, your savior is even here! Sort of.
"Are you alright… Tatsu?"
The grapefruit-sized drone floats about waist-high, the top part folded open in several parts to display crystals and lenses - which are lit up, projecting Taylor's undersuit-clad upper half. She's still in full Alch-mode, not even hiding her charms anymore and her glowing 'veins' are still noticeable even though she's a semi-transparent, blue-and-white hologram.
And she's looking at you like you're the weird one.
"Ah, yes?" you shrug, offering a weak smile because you'd rather not talk about it right now. "It wasn't so bad. Boring."
Her face scrunches up as she looks you - and your baggy jumpsuit - over critically. "Yeah, I'm… sorry about that. Did you try meditating? That usually eats up a whole day."
"They-" you look to the four labcoat-adorned PRT scientists standing nearby, prompting the leader to nod and take over.
"We're currently dealing with a spike in gang activity, Ms. Weaver," the Spanish-looking man explains, looking a bit chagrined. He nods to you and then to the hologram, "Director Peterbuilt decided he didn't want to risk another unexpected 'Thinker storm' like what happened when your caravan passed through here in February."
What's he- oh, right. Outside of the pizza place. That was… terrifying.
Taylor does that weird thing where it looks like she turned off her face, but you can see the… eyes?... on her forehead are all swivelling around much faster now.
"Why didn't-" she starts, voice cold, then blinks. Her eyes stop swivelling and point off to the side for a moment, and then her face starts up again… just as she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Right. New York. Always busy. Did the Director make any changes to this scheduled testing, Doctor Rose?"
"No, m'am," he frowns, looking between his colleagues who are expressing varying levels of wariness themselves. "Though we were under the impression that this wasn't going to be a full battery of tests, due to Ms. Tatsu's… alignment issues?"
Taylor's holographic form shakes its head, causing the eight legs flowing back from her temples to sway with the action. "I was hoping she'd get a chance to sort that out before now, but… oh well. Are you ready to begin? Tatsu?"
"Y-Yes?" you straighten up, while Dr. Rose and the other doctors (probably?) move back - some to the table nearby, which has a few computer screens on it. At your side, Prayer nods and shifts back to give you space while assuming a closed stance.
Huh.
"What?" Taylor wonders, loud enough to make you realize that you said that out loud.
"Oh, I just-" you carefully point at Prayer's feet and hands, "-realized that she's in a closed stance. And… I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have known that… before?"
Taylor's projection makes a sound as the drone floats a few feet away, a bit closer than Dr. Rose but still near enough that you can read her thoughtful expression as she taps a finger on her cheek. "I was going to suggest you start with your anima, but baseline changes works. Go ahead and disable any charms you have, first."
You cast a quick glance at the scientists, and you're getting the feeling they're a bit put out by Taylor taking over, so you give them a weak smile and a shrug… which immediately makes them relax and roll their eyes before focusing back on their instruments.
How are you going to bring that up? Ugh.
Ok, right. Turning everything off. So you just…
… well, it feels as if you were wiggling a finger, and had just forgotten about it, but now you do notice it again and you want it to stop. Except your finger is made of electricity, and it's in the back of your brain.
Sakura's better at metaphors, anyway.
The cascade of tiny hexagons is fun to watch, but what strikes you the most is the pressure that you didn't even realize you were feeling when your bones pop back into place and your body fills out again. Like wearing a belt that was a bit too tight, but not tight enough to be annoying?
"Did you feel something, there, Tatsu?"
"O-oh, yeah," you blurt out, "do you- right, should I describe everything like I did last time?"
"You mean the initial test of your parahuman power, Ms. Tatsu?" Dr. Rose inquires, cutting off Taylor just as she opens her mouth. He raises a finger in admission, while glancing at the hologram. "We have the results from it, and your notes Ms. Weaver, but yes - please just say whatever comes to mind, everything you feel that sticks out, or even anything that you remember that might be relevant."
"R-Right," you nod, then relate what you just thought - which draws a hum from Taylor.
"That's-" she frowns, looking to the side for a moment before refocusing on you, "-probably due to alignment problems? How many charms did you just use?"
Closing your eyes, you try to get a feel for what you just did again - as if you were going to repeat the process. "Umm… two? Wait… no, there was a... third one? There's two disguise charms and… one that… absorbs energy from them?"
"Ok," you hear Taylor's voice muse, as most of your focus is on figuring out how you missed that third charm before, "I think-... okay, one thing at a time. Try attacking Prayer."
What.
"What?!" you balk, eye going wide in disbelief at the smirking blue hologram, before pointing to the giant blue juggernaut and then back at Taylor. "But she's-! Prayer's-! She's so-... BLUE!"
"Do not fear," the hulking woman in question intones, her voice calm and understanding while it reverberates through her crystalline armor. "I will not blue you."
...
You're not sure when your brain restarts, but you're pretty sure you beat Taylor to it if her expression is any indication. The doctors, on the other hand, are desperately trying not to fall over laughing.
Prayer has started to shift uncomfortably. "...What did I say?"
"Nothing!"/ "Nothing!"
You and Taylor share a glance and a nod. The pact is sealed.
Eventually, the snickers from the scientists dies off, and you realize that you should probably at least make a token effort to maybe… push her? Yes, something that's clearly not harmful so you don't break your hand on her armor and she doesn't break you on accident.
Coughing to get her attention, you raise a hand to silently ask permission to approach - which gets you a nod of approval from the massive wall of crystal - then slowly shuffle a little closer with your hands raised.
Okay, well, if her feet are… there… and you're standing… yes, you just step once, then into her guard and - oh, she's turning! Turn with her, her center of balance is over her left leg now so grab behind her left knee with your left hand and push up on her chest with your right hand-
The crashing sound of solid crystal echoes through the large testing chamber.
"What?!"
After blinking a few times to realize that Prayer actually is alright- oh. You said that.
"Was that as fast as you could go, Tatsu?" you hear Taylor's voice from behind, though you're busy worrying over Prayer. You try to offer her a hand, but she waves it off before sliding her legs out into a smooth rising crouch… huh. Oh, right.
"Um… maybe? I didn't want to get hurt, but when Prayer started moving faster I tried to... shift with her?"
"It was a skilled strike," Prayer nods, "you knew to act before your limit was passed. You have been blessed with training by the Great Maker."
"Oh!" you exclaim, smiling in relief. Though- "Does that mean I don't have to train with Bladedancer anymore?"
BLUE-!
Uhhh… that's... the ceiling? You're… on the floor?
You're... not hurt, but you try to speak and your lungs don't have air-
"Bladedancer could counter that strike, young one," Prayer intones, her helmet poking into your field of view from the top as she leans down from above.
Her tone is as cheerful as you've ever heard it.
"So, no."
***
Testing the rest of your 'baseline' skills is roughly just as embarrassing; every time you make some new discovery about cool new things you can just do now… Taylor, or Prayer, or even the scientists (Traitors!) find a way to push the test beyond your limits.
You can lift as much as a small car, run a treadmill at a full sprint (which isn't that fast…) for half an hour without tiring, and do kung fu…
… you can speak a whole new language, memorize maps just by looking at them, and you're pretty sure you couldn't pick up on body language quite so easily before…
… all of that, and it's still a wash.
You've somehow forgotten how to dodge.
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sainen
Elder Lich
yeah I can see how that would happen
(Dexterity + Dodge + Specialty + Essence)/2.
(2 + 1+ 0 + 3)/2 = 3DV
I blame budget XP constraints that at the time I argued were enough
I had to read that several times to get it.
Yeah, I did point out several.
However its also true that Sakis power is potentially considerably more problematic than the PRT masters you listed. Even before we begin, theres the whole visual of it. Spike being jammed into someone probably has some subconscious negative connotations.
More importantly though, none of the masters you listed were capable of the kind of permanent reprogramming or implantation of hidden personalities and such. Their effects were also obvious very, whereas with Saki, others would just see her stick someone with a spike, and would have to trust that she only did what she said she would, and is not slowly turning everyone into sleeper agents that will run crazy on her command.
Possession is presumably very obvious thing, and its also obvious when it ends. It also presumably does not cause permanent personality alterations on the target.
Again, a temporary effect. He can make you angry or happy for a brief time until the emotion fades. Saki can implant false and permanent memories that make you believe you were sexually molested by your parents or that you are a serial killer or who knows what.
Once again, an obvious and temporary effect that almost certainly fades away once you get out of the area of effect. Saki is closer to heartbreaker or Simurgh than she is any one of those.
Well, its probably because of the name. I see no harm with Saki using it as melee weapon in actual combat.
Which is somewhat more problematic. I mean we can presumably "reset" the current Butcher by erasing all memories of the time since she killed the previous Butcher, but we can't deal with the shard yet, so the voices of the previous Butchers would just start twisting her anew. She would need regular treatments until/unless we get a shard POS submodule that we can use to make the shard stop.
Yeah, thats true. The problem is that WE know Saki won't be going around torturing people, implanting false personalities, reprogramming everyone and so on. But do the people in the story know that? If she for example wants go give Weld back his memories pre C53, what do the others see?
They see what might be a "podperson" sticking a nasty looking spike into Weld, the two being inactive for a time, and then the spike retracts and Weld starts crying about remembering his family and old life. Again, WE know that the memories are all true, since we can just read how "Restore Memory" works from the corebook. But how could some PRT observer know that Saki did not just implant fake memories to Weld? How does said obsrver know that she did not do other unnoticable changes while she was there? Or if she heals a drug addict or someone suffering from severe social phobia or cures PTSD, how does PRT know thats all Saki did? They don't.
PRT has no way to detect any such changes, so they would have to just trust Saki. Which might not be easy given that technically they can't even be 100% sure she even IS Saki (we know all about souls and such and have Gromwelds WoGs. People in PRT don't).
Simurgh was originally thought to be benevolent, so its likely that people are less willing to trust blindly. And like I said, the truth is Saki is far closer to Simurgh in ability, than she is to other masters (or even Taylor, who just takes control of your body).
Yeah, that occurred to me. However I wonder if that could possibly be legal?
This is true.
Eh, after the feats Taylor demonstrated after becoming an alchemical, I would say assuming that Saki is easy prey just because she has not publicly shown any obvious super-skills or abilities would infact be pretty stupid. I can see him being clever about how he goes about it (or what would be the challenge?), but a truly smart person would just say "yeah, no.", and stay away.
I don't think Taylors powers allow that. Heck, you yourself once complained when I called her powers mind-control by pointing out that Taylor just hijacks the body. Simurgh Bombs would presumably not be affected.
Yep. She can cocoon herself. Though she could also do that in Lord Grasps minivat (though the sanctum is more convenient ofcourse since it does not take Lord Grasps time and is always available).
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
Trying to figure out if Taylor's new drone is just more fancy tinker-tech, or an essence formed drone that Iris flash forged. Or maybe that was one of the eye drone charm?
Anyone want to way in?
Anyone want to way in?
Octagonal hallways? This is probably for reconfigurable corridors, in three dimensions. Octagons are the best shape for maximum freedom of motion for reconnecting them.
Is she working on that accidental innuendo specialty? xD
The greatest fear of many teenagers.
That one day you die and then your parents find your porn while gathering your effects and then you will die of shame.
That's something I hadn't noticed. Saki regularly takes the fall for Sakura's pranks?
...what's happening back in Autochtonia?
I imagine a lot of problem solving in the PRT goes:
1) Is it enemy action?
2) Is it Clockblocker action?
3) Okay, who is it this time?
4) Did Clockblocker put you up to it?
;_;
Manipulation spec ow.
That's a good metaphor. I can imagine it clearly.
She will Blue you away.
Oh god the Blue.
Also damn, Blades is GOOD.
Kali: "Remedial lessons time~"
Actually no. Pretender's possession is completely undetectable, he passed as Alexandria perfectly after some coaching.
The only way to tell it ended was seeing Pretender elsewhere(except Satyr could pretend to be Pretender using a shapeshifted clone).
Go back to classic Stranger protocols: Test for knowledge that Saki had no reason to be in possession of.
Remote Sensory Drone.
Taylor's SoPA range does not extend to New York from Philadelphia, so it's not a bug drone. I presume she's using Essence vision mode as well(which the charm could use, but not a tinkertech drone).
sainen
Elder Lich
does Tatsu have enough space once her Charms are Arrayed to plug in some of the cool charms stored in Lord Grasp's Mini-Vat?
if she doesn't have enough space to plug every thing we want from there in, then TBP is the first charm I think should be to unplugged to make room.