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Beneath the Waves (Worm/Celestial Forge)

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Low Ebb 1.3 New
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    • This chapter gave me some trouble, and is technically one half of a larger chapter. I didn't want to keep everyone waiting, however, it has been split into two. Once I finish a major task this upcoming week I should have more time to finish the second half of this, and get Everett set up with a basic base. Hello to all the new watchers, and I hope you all enjoy this next segment. Also, it's time to start brainstorm: what should Everett's cape name be?


    Low Ebb 1.3


    I dedicated the rest of my day to preparations. A call to my manager and a co-worker whom I'd covered shifts for in the past meant I now had tomorrow free. My paycheck would take a hit, but that was a tertiary concern now that I had the modular armor's life-support systems online. I could go for three to four days subsisting on the tasteless paste the suit produced, which honestly wasn't that bad.

    I'd made sure to scan every part of the modular armor into the database before I tried tampering with anything. The armor itself in its base form would be too heavy for swimming, but I could still make use of the hardware once I removed the metal plating. The end result kind of looked like a wireframe skeleton stretched over the dive suit, but while it wasn't very pretty, it should work for what I needed.

    The extra straps meant to accommodate additional equipment modules added at a later point to the armor would mesh well with the dive suit harness. My scanner would fit on there nicely alongside the habitat constructor. Once I got what I needed from the ship graveyard, I would also fit an EPP on there and see about adding back some of the armored plates for protection.

    My vision from the Forge showed that the breathing EPP was geared more towards actually walking along the ocean floor, though free swimming was possible. Perhaps I could do something more with the strength- and speed-enhancing exoskeleton? Being able to transition from water to land without needing to stop and swap out the fins and the dive suit would be a real benefit. And with the fusion reactor, a limitless source of small-scale power, I didn't need to worry about the excess energy drawn from the new attachments.

    The fusion reactor and battery array were one of the first things scanned. I could tell instinctively if the items were lost or destroyed, they would eventually return, but I wanted to make more. It was a neat power solution for my initial habitat; I wouldn't need to figure out how to hide about a dozen or so solar panels above or near the surface of the water. I just needed to get the materials, but I wasn't sure if the coolant and rarer metals would turn up in the shipwrecks.

    I also spent time modifying the modular faceplate to fit around the diving mask. Halia would be able to feed me more kinds of data through the handy HUD software, and a tinted visor would do a better job of concealing my face. If I went out geared up, even if I wasn't seen, I would still be going out as a cape. I understood enough about parahuman culture to know that identity and presentation mattered. If my identity wasn't known, then I was just another faceless casualty in the crowd when a cape fight broke out unless I chose to out myself.

    Unmasked capes were seen as a taboo target, but the past murder of New Wave's Fleur proved that was more of a guideline than a hard rule. To that end, Halia was trawling through the mire of PHO for information about local capes. I had a general understanding about the Bay's local gangs, but there was a difference between knowing the names of all of Empire 88's roster from the news and understanding what kind of force they could bring to bear.

    If they didn't have the largest amount of capes in the area outside of the Protectorate, they'd be the most acceptable target for heroes, rogues, and other villains. No one likes Nazis except for Nazis.

    I also knew about the Merchants in the sense that 90% of Winslow's school assemblies brought them up as one of the reasons why you shouldn't do crack or oxy as a teenager, and why everyone who owns a vehicle in Brockton Bay remains wary of seemingly empty roads thanks to Squealer's invisible death tanker-truck. The Enforcers religiously kept any potential Merchant pushers far away from the Boardwalk, so I didn't often see the non-caped members.

    Lung, one of the other major criminal cape leaders in Brockton, had his infamous reputation from his battle against Leviathan near Kyushu. It was also hard to miss a rampaging angry dragon man laying waste to the area near the Azn Bad Boy's marked territory that meant all the roads in the vicinity would be closed for the next week at least.

    All of these were far above my weight class. I'm not sure I could take on a halfway decent mugger without my armor at my level right now, but that was something to work on once I had my hideaway set up.

    As Halia downloaded the relevant discussion threads in regards to documented powers and other tidbits, I deconstructed the solar panels and the car fabricator into my subspace. On the off chance someone broke into my van between now and tomorrow, I didn't want to answer any awkward questions. Once everything was ready, I locked up the van, exited the employee parking lot, and headed up the Boardwalk until the shops petered out into long stretches of empty beach.

    There were regular shuttles that ferried tourists up from the Boardwalk to the Market using the little side road outside of town, but I figured the local shortcut cutting across several fields and a stretch of beach would be the faster option. From there, I could access the shoreline and find the best spot to slip into the water unnoticed.

    While a bus could take me from the Market to the tip of the Docks' northern suburbs, I didn't want to access the ruined shipyard by land. Several blocks worth of abandoned housing, warehouses, and industrial manufacturing centers lay rotting across the area. People who lived near the old shipyard either couldn't afford housing elsewhere, were trying to lay low from the law, or homeless squatters taking advantage of four walls and a roof.

    The area's close proximity to the Trainyards also meant the whole area was a point of interest for potential Tinkers. It was an easy bet to make that most of the smaller recycling centers and dumps had ties to the PRT or one of the cape gangs. It was a bad idea, in short.

    I wasn't alone on the long stretch of beach leading out of town. A small trickle of families and solo hikers passed me in both directions. I wasn't much for interaction, but I waved back and exchanged small greetings with anyone who did the same. It wasn't surprising since the Market was the busiest on the weekend for both locals and tourists alike, and I hoped that the sheer amount of people would make it easier to mask my movements. I'd browse for a little bit, look for anything I could reasonably buy without suspicion, and then make my escape.

    The sound of a large crowd heralded my arrival to the Market. As I'd expected, there were hundreds of attendees. I could barely see the ground beneath the packed swathes of people and the bulk of the rented booths. The designated parking area was full, complete with a full circle of food trucks, and the Enforcers were out in numbers keeping the peace.

    As soon as I stepped onto the asphalt, I felt the Celestial Forge stir, and I tried not to panic. There was a new power coming along with a vision, and I was in one of the most public areas of Brockton Bay. I hadn't really questioned if there was a visible sign of receiving a new ability, nor had I asked Halia. and I really didn't need anyone to notice me spacing out or whatever I did during the vision.

    There was a line of port-a-potties nearby, set up on the edges of the Market for customer convenience due to the lack of running water and other public utilities. I tried not to sprint outright as I made my way there, but I still nearly bowled over a blonde teenager who had been absorbed by her phone as I rounded the corner of the nearest port-a-potty.

    "Sorry!" I called, wincing, and stepped up into the unpleasant plastic box as she scowled at me. It stunk to high hell as the previous occupant had left the toilet seat up, but I managed to get the door shut and locked just as the astral net tightened around the oncoming mote.

    A dark forest, twisted and warped by strange and bizarre magicks, stretches out away from your village as far as the eyes can see. A ruined cobble path, little better than a deer trail marked with the occasional dirt-packed flat stone, marks the only clear way forward. You know, inevitably, that something out there is watching you, waiting for you to step beyond the boundary stones marking the last farm of your land, and you'll need every scrap, every piece of bizarre magic you can get your hands on to make it through this demiplane alive. Good luck.

    Another relevant power. Another sign from my passenger that I was going in the right direction. The vision was shorter this time, and off in a way I couldn't put my finger on, but that was secondary to my newfound knowledge. This power specialized in cobbling together scrap and scavenged bits into durable, functioning equipment. It wasn't necessarily compatible with my Alterra-based technology, but maybe I could cobble together some of the tools I didn't have enough materials for.

    I remained in the port-a-potty for another minute or two— I really hoped the blonde girl wasn't waiting outside to yell at me for the near collision, I hated public confrontation— before the smell became too much to bear and I escaped back into fresh air. As I made my way back to the rows of stalls, my eyes felt drawn to all the different electronics and scraps of metal. I tucked my hands into my pockets to avoid any Tinker-based temptation.

    I could see possibilities in the materials, potential substitutes for my current catalogue of blueprints. Most of the components were in electronics that I couldn't reasonably carry with me, but I ended up paying a few dollars for a handful of kitschy fridge magnets. They weren't the same as pure magnetite, but my power informed me I could melt the metal backings down and substitute them as the core for a stasis rifle.

    While I was leery of building anything gun-shaped, I'd rather have some kind of weapon. The only other thing in my current toolkit was the survival knife. It was a useful tool to deter overly-curious Stalkers trying to take a bite out of an unknown intruder to their kelp forests, but gang members and capes don't typically leave after a light swipe across the snout.

    Enough on that. I had the materials now for the rifle, and I'd make the knife once I set up my workspace in one of the sunken ships. I put the magnets in my pocket— shunting them into my subspace as soon as they were out of sight— and walked a loop around the Market, pausing appropriately to browse every few stalls. It took about half an hour to complete a few circuits around the location, and I also grabbed lunch from one of the food trucks before I felt that my obligations of appearing normal were satisfied.

    The beach was a short walk away from the Market, but despite the proximity to one of the most bustling locations in Brockton Bay, it didn't see nearly as much use. Part of that came from the lack of care– the Boardwalk sandbonis couldn't maintain the beach this far north because of the amount of large rock formations that would wreck the machinery— and part of it came from the proximity to the shipyards.

    The tidal currents carried a lot of nasty debris broken off from the derelict ships to this part of the bay, and even from where I was standing there were nasty rust-colored splotches visible just under the ocean surface where bits of scrap had settled. Sand and pebbles crunched underfoot as I made my way up and onto a rocky shelf that stretched at least fifty feet out from the shore and into the bay. It wasn't an appealing place, but I had faith that my new modular dive armor would protect me.

    The larger formations of the rock shelf quickly obscured the view of the shore, and once I was out of sight I made my way down to the tide line. It was ebb current, which would pull me away from shore. I sat down on a shallow indent in the rocks that offered a ledge down closer to the water and pulled out my PDA.

    A handy function of its subspace storage was the featured Equipment tab with a paper doll interface: I could drag and drop clothing items onto the digital mock-up of myself to change out my clothes for the dive armor without needing to get naked out in the open. Between one second and the next my street clothes were replaced by the suit, tank, and fins. I opted to pull my new helmet out of subspace rather than use the paper doll interface. For this first dive, I wanted to ensure everything worked as intended.

    I connected the oxygen tubes to the back of the armored helmet, and watched as small magnetic clamps locked it into place. I gave the tube a quick tug, but it held fast. The helmet was also properly connected to the portable reactor and battery array, so I secured my hair into a tight bun before I slipped it on. As expected, the corners of my vision immediately lit up with the new HUD and the inside of the mask faded away. Tiny cameras inside the modular armor's faceplate ensured I had more vision than the narrow tinted visor slit would normally indicate.

    "Oxygen tank feed successfully linked to helmet rig," Halia chimed in my ear as the helmet's airtight seals clamped down around my face and neck. "Exterior oxygen siphon active. Nutritional data active. Temperature data active. Compass added. Exoskeleton output data added. Power supply active. Ready to dive."

    Music to my ears. I took a deep breath, and I could feel the flow of air filter into the helmet. Systems were green on the HUD. I nodded to myself, and without further ado I stepped off the rock shelf and plunged into the water below.

    Silt swirled around me as I sank below the surface. I could feel the ambient cooler temperature of the water, but the sensation of liquid seeping through the fabric and wetting the skin I'd get from a regular wetsuit never came. I took in a deep breath as I twisted back and forth, testing the seal on my helmet, and when I exhaled the screen in front of me didn't fog up. The dive armor was working as intended.

    "Halia, system check?" I queried as I kicked away from the rocky shelf. "How is everything working so far?" The combination of my fins and the empowered boost from the exoskeleton easily shot me fifty feet out into the bay. The Ship Graveyard was still easily two miles out, a distance an average swimmer could make in about two hours cross-current, but at this pace I would take less than half an hour to reach my destination.

    I maintained a distance of about 30 feet below the water's surface, marveling at the clarity of view from the helmet feed. The lighting from the sun above was enough to highlight any rocks or debris poking up from deeper waters. Glints of silver flickered past me as schools of fish dipped and darted to feed from the surface. Shadows of gulls and other seabirds passed lazily overhead.

    "All systems reporting green, Everett," Halia replied, and I marveled at how crisp her voice sounded in my ear. "Modular dive armor working as predicted."

    I couldn't stop a smile stretching across my face. It was quieter here, though the distant hum of small watercraft echoed quietly across the bay. No watchful eyes, no judgement, no expectations. Just me, Halia, and the sea.

    Even with all the pollution, Brockton Bay was breathtaking. Great plains of underwater grasses and seaweeds swayed below me, with the occasional outcropping of oyster reefs poking beyond the thick canopy of greens and browns.

    A pod of harbor seals passed close by as I drew closer to the wrecked shipyard, and I slowed to take in their dog-like snouts and blue-grey pelts. I'd never seen the creatures this close before, especially not in their natural habitat. The seals that napped on the floating piers near the Boardwalk were largely motionless lumps unless it was two bulls fighting over a female. I backed away as one of the smaller seals boldly darted closer, circling loosely around me with curious, wide black eyes. If I reached out, I bet I could touch it.

    No, Everett, I thought to myself. Bad. Do not pet the seal. That is a wild animal and shouldn't be accustomed to humans. Yes, even if it is very cute.

    The harbor seal circled a few more times, at times just brushing against the edges of my suit, before it drew back and gave me enough room to comfortably swim away. Once I was clear of the pod, I re-engaged the exoskeleton boost and continued the journey.


    I knew I'd arrived at the Ship Graveyard by the amount of silt and underwater debris. The dense kelp fronds and oyster reefs on the ocean floor had slowly given way to a thick layer of mud, sand, and rust. The massive shapes of the cargo ships cast deep shadows and tinted the water an ominous brown-red as I swam closer to the shipyard docking piers.

    At some point, someone had smashed a sizable hole in the side of the first ship— a remnant from a cape territory fight, perhaps, or something from the original dock worker protests— and the vessel had taken on water. It now sat mostly submerged and listed violently to the right. I made a note of it and moved on; since the top of the deck was still accessible from the shipyard, I bet that looters had picked almost everything clean. There were so many ships to explore, and I had my eyes on ones further out in the bay.

    Not surprisingly, there was a lot of clutter above and below the waterline. Destroyed or discarded industrial equipment had been dumped into the graveyard alongside more mundane trash. It was likely that one of the cargo ships carried fertilizer at some point, as the bay floor around the first group of ships was absolutely coated in the stuff.

    I kept to the outside of the ships as I started my initial scans. There were lifeboats and other smaller watercraft sunk alongside the larger vessels, and some of the cargo ships had fallen into each other, broke apart, and created a veritable wall of hazardously sharp metal that looked like one prick would guarantee I got tetanus.

    Despite the underwater risks, I wouldn't stop moving. There was so much material here, and as I swam over the wrecked remains of a car I could feel the Celestial Forge stir again. It had been only a little under an hour since I received Scavenger and half a day since I got the modular armor. Either my passenger was speeding up the process of gaining power, or something I was actively doing contributed to catching more fish in the astral sea.

    A house sits in the depth of the snowy woods. Countless dolls, almost perfect small replicas of humans controlled through a mixture of magic and technology, perform dozens of tasks simultaneously. Sweeping snow from the roof, preparing food, and carving most of their compatriots. From your position at the head of your doll crafting table, it's almost as if you're sitting alone in a crowd and not the one pulling all the strings.

    I blinked to clear my head as I tread water up to the surface to refill my oxygen supply. This vision had been shorter than the others, but the power was one of the most potent so far and I was reeling from the amount of information my brain suddenly had to parse through. The past powers had given me access to technology trees, equipment, and the ability to substitute parts, but this one gave me the background expertise and potential to reverse-engineer foreign devices.

    I thought of the portable fusion reactor and battery array currently fueling my armored dive suit and the exoskeleton; the ships here had to have some impressive materials and power storage devices I could cobble together into a less exotic version of the fusion reactor I could upload then Earth Bet recreation of the fusion reactor into my blueprint database, adapt it to the Alterra prefab builds, and make more with the fabricator.

    It would neatly solve my issue with hiding the solar panels long-term, as well as the concern of how I would power my Tinker lab once I expanded past one or two rooms. I suspected that the Celestial Forge would warrant larger expansions to accommodate all the tools and technology I would eventually gain.

    I poked my head slightly above the waterline and scanned the graveyard, marking the more distant ships on my HUD. My best bet for my workshop was one of the sunken ships that wasn't accessible by land, and would prove risky for a smaller watercraft to maneuver into. I was tempted to branch out all the way to the ship sunken into the inlet, but I wanted to keep close to my material resources for now.

    "Halia, check the passive scans," I murmured into my helmet as I dipped back below the water. There were ten to fifteen ship candidates available that fit within my criteria. "Let's explore our options for the workshop. Do any of the ships have some kind of hull breach?"


    >Sixth roll - 36 (Quality: Resources), 11 - Scavenger (Ravenwood) (100CP). Acquired. 100 CP available for the next roll.
    >Seventh roll - 33 (Crafting: Magitech), 5 - Doll Maker of Bucuresti (Touhou) (200CP). Acquired.
    Scavenger (Ravenwood) (100CP)
    Sometimes, you do not have the luxury of top of the line equipment and need to rely on what scraps you can salvage. You, however, have an advantage, being able to cobble together scavenged bits into functional equipment that work as well as the real deal. This talent will also inherently improve the durability of such improvised equipment to function even when such materials should not feasible hold up under the strains of use.

    Doll Maker of Bucuresti (Touhou) (200CP)
    Being an indisputable genius in terms of mathematics and science in a realm ruled by magic tends to undermine just how impressive it is. Your ability with technology and engineering is so great that you are able to adapt to handling, repairing, modifying and even reverse-engineering completely foreign devices you have little to no background on. Your connection with both practical technologies along with magic allows for you to eventually unlock the secrets to creating magitech if given enough time to experiment.
     
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    • Huh, this chapter made me realise how much incredibly worse the ocean must be for people with thalassophobia in Earth Bet.

    Edit: grammar
     
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    My preference is Aquanaut. Not only is it appropriate given his use of Subnautica tech, but Undertow, Dagon and Abyssal all sound like villain names. Namor the First uses Submariner as his super name.
     
    Alterra itself is a decent name ripe for stealing. It's a potential nice nod to the fact that 'all of terra' is open to him, not just land, and is a reminder of where he started.

    Oof, the terraformer tool, that's some memories.
     
    ScreamyBirb said:
    Alterra itself is a decent name ripe for stealing. It's a potential nice nod to the fact that 'all of terra' is open to him, not just land, and is a reminder of where he started.

    Oof, the terraformer tool, that's some memories.
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    Honestly, you're not wrong about the Alterra name since no one but Halia and Everett would know the origin of it. Also, I absolutely remember the Reaper Leviathan ground cages and the other hilarious builds people used that terraformer tool for.
     
    Ariadne said:
    no one but Halia and Everett would know the origin of it
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    Well, that depends if Unknown Worlds exists on Aleph. There's decent odds of that, though the release dates of Natural Selection 2 (the setting Alterra exists in) and Subnautica are sadly far enough in the future to be unlikely to come up without some pretty heavy time skipping, or to survive being butterflied away into something else. Though Leet getting all excited over it and gushing at Everett about an 'awesome game that is totally based on you!' is potentially very amusing.
     
    Is there actually a shard which has the forge or does mc? Its pretty important for the kind of story this will be, will mc actually own the perk or will the shard gets all the benefits or he is just imagining its a shard when its just the forge. The main question is do all these perks belong to the mc or the shard.

    If there is a shard is it getting copies of all the knowledge mc gets, seeing as shards all keep a cloned mind of their host on them. This has pretty big implications for the endgame seeing as what shards are and a shard with all the forges rollls.

    In addition knowing if he has any precog protection or anti reverse eng is also pretty important because unless you are going with the theory that rolls disrupt precog he will need something to block it otherwise he will end up as a puppet dancing on thinker strings.

    Maybe these details can be known and revealed behind a spoiler because both of them lead to very very different stories which some readers would like to read or not based on that info.
     
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    january1may said:
    I believe you accidentally an adjective.

    No comment on cape name, though I agree that Alterra and Subnautica are both solid choices. Both of them feel a bit too feminine, though.
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    Corrected, thank you for catching that! A good reminder I shouldn't try to edit and post late at night when I'm tired. Also Everett is female, if that influences your decision for the cape name.
     
    Trek said:
    Is there actually a shard which has the forge or does mc?
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    Good question - is Everett an actual parahuman with a Corona Pollentia and an associated shard or did they get the Celestial Forge power from another source?

    The CF power itself requires all this knowledge of fictional worlds and I don't know if a shard could do that. Always felt it was beyond what a normal shard parahuman power could do but maybe not!

    If the power itself didn't tell them the are not a parahuman (like Joe's did in the original BCF) I could see how they think they are a parahuman because that's the only kind of cape there is. Finding out they are in fact a unique snowflake unlike every other cape could be interesting.
     
    These perks make me think you should build a magitech, Scrap-ship Mecha if only to blitz salvage operations. Though, a quiet build up of ship bases with cobbled together fusion reactor is the wiser path.
     
    So our protagonist bumps into a blonde girl... something tells me she's not just any random blonde. My first thought is that she's either Glory Girl or her cousin, but what are the chances that it's Tattletale?
     
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