I think Lord's ruling on that is that it's a Tinker Megaproject, and those tend to be a Big Deal (TM), so it'll take a bit (by joe's standards, like a day and a half maybe?) to crack unless Joe gets a select few Perks to help out, in which case it'll get done nigh-instantly.
Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)
- Thread starter LordRoustabout
- Start date
- Location
- Texas
It is also the start of open conflict from a narrative perspective, the second those bombs are gone they have to go in due to national attention which also means the teeth and that is before we get into baluda's reaction to things.
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Barba
Voluta indomita
- Location
- Argentina
- Pronouns
- He/His
Horcruxes cannonically require a Ritual/Ritually prepared vessel. they don't simply appear because you fracture your soul, specially since technically while he used his soulstuff they are now the souls of Fleet, Survey and Matrix.
They also require a life sacrifice, which means the caster needs to commit a murder as part of the ritual.
- Pronouns
- He, Him
Ugh. Just feels like an excuse to avoid action or doing stuff. Just like how a whole lot of the meeting was a whole lot of avoiding action. I dunno. Things have just been feeling really really passive again lately, when it feels like Joe should be out there doing something. Instead he's just holed up in his base. I can only take so much training before I start to wonder what's the point of all this power if it's not actually being used to help the world at this point.
I think that's mostly because the only way to split your soul in the Potterverse is to commit murder. Joe doesn't really have that problem.
By that logic, every Elven Enchanted item in LOTR verse would have been a horcrux.
Speaking of enchanting, is Joe going to get Elder Scrolls enchanting at any point?
There's still the whole other ritual involved so Joe's fine on that end.
- Location
- Somewhere in The Woods
If I understand correctly, for it to count as a horcrux you need to put enough of the soul in for it to have enough mystical weight to actually act as a, well, anchor. Therefore, look no further than The One Ring.
- Location
- Texas
It's been like... A day since the villain meet and greet. Right now it's pretty much a holding action untill Lisa pulls her head out of her ass or he figures out bakuda's code. I think we will see a paradigm shift during his next meeting with Lisa, his doormat power won't let him drop things this time- there has also been some setting the stage with Alec where he has had it with this nonsense.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
I believe Joe has access to Magicka, and theoretically any Lore or Game accurate feat of magic from TES is something he can develop, but I don't believe there was a specific Perk related to TES Enchantment inside V1 of the Forge.
So in a nebulous way Joe might outside the scope of the story develop all of the magic system schools and exploit their capabilities to their full extent... some within the story's scope... but he's already spoiled for choice on what to research or train.
A plot point we might run into depending on how rolls function is that the Personal Reality has a time manipulation function within Fiat confines that requires no effort beyond luck to acquire and Joe always exploits advantages from his Perks even if he can't afford to make full use of them.
One concern would be regressing on Mental Fortress by bunkering down for a year to build-up and train for a hundred. Even if that really would be the most optimal way to handle things. It wouldn't fit with Joe's desire to experience personal growth by integrating and living in the world with the people in it, good and bad, if he hid away at the first legitimate excuse.
But it does mean a day spent recessed from the world becomes a hundred, so that's over three months, with Perks boosting the relative speed and efficiency of all training and research on top of that. Meaning he might at least have core competencies in all of his trainable abilities and skills granted by Perk before he has to focus his attention outside Brockton Bay.
The cool part is, each of those magic systems and special abilities from other settings are distinct enough that it would seem like Joe had a sudden breakthrough and just jumped straight from developing tech specialties, to jailbreaking powers.
What's every Tinker's perceived weakness? Taking away their equipment or failing that torpedoing their logistics and supply chain if you want to at least limit the scale they can act on.
Can't do the latter to Joe since he might as well generate materials ex nihilo from how subtle his suppliers or resource acquisition methods are (it's just literally the truth).
Stealing his equipment off his body would require a very specific power which might work. Might be detected by his scanning technology in advance. Or might result in the following:
Destroy his equipment? His extremely volatile technology which can take out chunks of cityscape, and maybe whole armies with it?
It boils down to "any confrontation with Apeiron must be assumed to be the last one".
And then they discover he can't be disarmed rendering the point moot.
I think Survey already knows and just isn't telling Joe because Joe asked Survey not to tell him unless he asks about information regarding parahumans and anything that could tie to their identity. It's not like there's anything that can stop Survey from knowing anything that's part of the greater internet, especially with IoWP (Internet over Warehouse Protocol). If Survey considered hardened Protectorate Servers trivial, Coil's would be a joke, the *only* limitation would be air gaps, where the servers themselves aren't on the internet.
No, the original writer of the Celestial Forge from which Lord used as inspiration would not have minded THAT, it's just because they were written after the Celestial Forge was written.
The original CF was written years ago, and a new jump is written practically daily.
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- Pronouns
- She/They
And at that point the only real thing Survey has to do to defeat them is get in range for her exotic and/or divine senses to let her copy the data off the drives/introduce bugs directly.
- Location
- Philippines
No, I meant as to why LordRoustabout doesn't have any plans to add the Doctor Who perks to the perk list. It's not about the part where LR doesn't know the origin series as much as they are just that problematic. Heck, the only time travel Joe has access to costs 800 points and the only valuable thing about the perk is the time travel.
When you consider the techbases in Doctor Who and the existing jumpchains give access to them for 300-400 points, well you can see how that might get a little problematic.
- Location
- Nowhere
(Kinda went on a little tangent got to engrossed into what I was writing and only realise now after I wrote it, huge fan of Doctor Who and rarely ever get to talk about it much. So my apologies.😅)
Oh yeah totally Time Lord tech trump's most if not everything he already has available tech wise outside of the other incredibly powerful tech he's got access too like, the Transformer's tech, Star Trek tech just from the top of my head.
The show itself despite showing off a lot of technology doesn't do it justice... Time Lord's were so powerful that they banished magic from reality, wrote the law's of time and dictated the rules of reality and according to one source in the lore were responsible for connecting all of time and space into a single point so they could transverse it at their leisure creating the Time Vortex. Hell If I remember correctly Time Lord's also stabilised the multiverse? or something like that and when they were around it was considered trivial to travel between universes.
In expanded Doctor Who works like the novels for an example, it really drive's home that Time Lord's in their prime were nigh-unbeatable by any other race in the universe. Take the time war for instance it literally took place across the entirety of time itself, dead soldiers being resurrected as their deaths were rewritten over and over again. Even some of the names of people in the war just sound terrifying here's one "The Could've-Been King led the Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres" - Taken from the wiki. There is also the Nightmare Child.
The Eye of Harmony is from my understanding, A collapsing star in the process of becoming a singularity only it will never reach that point forever trapped "The Eye was created by suspending time around an exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole, harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur." - again the wiki. Nigh limitless energy something Entities desire to allow them to continue to grow.
Another species had already found a way around the main problem Entities face "At some point before the 20th century, the Logopolitans discovered that the universe had already reached its point of collapse due to the advance of entropy. To maintain its existence, they built CVEs, which opened up the universe, N-Space, into a smaller one, E-Space, moving the entropy into the other universe. The Logopolitans, through their Block Transfer Computations, copied the Pharos Project on Earth and used it to relay computations to the CVEs. This preserved the universe while they sought a more permanent solution." - Tardis wiki again. A solution to Entropy albeit not a complete one.
Presumably the Time Lords were more advanced than Longopolitan's and could of achieved the same thing seeing as they freely travelled to other universes.
Ok Just seemed to realise how much I've wrote... but yeah Time Lord knowledge let alone their tech? not much would be able to stand up to him if he had access to that especially with the low cost.
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I've just thought of something that could make a funny omake: Joe's reaction to getting the Fallout 76 jump Instant Construction perk
Instant Construction (600CP): Rebuilding Appalachia will take quite a lot of time and effort, so let's remove at least some of that. If you know how to build something, and have the resources available to you, you can consume those resources and snap that item into existene nearby you. You remove the time needed for construction, and the risk of manufacturing mistakes. However, you can only do this in areas that are either owned by you, or have no one else nearby to potentially contest your claim
This essentially means that as long as Joe doesn't want or need to make the item by hand (Divine Construct) or with the volcano skyforge and he's in the Workshop or there's no one that could attempt to contest his "claim" in the area he can just make whatever he wants in an instant, and I'm pretty sure most of the Quality perks would work on it too, since he's still technically "making" it
Also just found another that'd be interesting:
Mechanical Teaching (100CP): With Appalachia becoming mostly automated, it was inevitable that those who teach others would eventually get replaced too. And normally, who could possibly expect canned phrases and a set lesson plan to produce quality students? Well, you aren't normal, and now your students will be able to learn intuitively what lessons you are trying to impart. You can teach someone to shoot simply by having them pick up a pistol and try firing at static targets, or have someone learn survival skills by simply telling them to go outside and gather edible flowers. As long as you actually intend on your students learning something, they will, no matter how simple or bad your instructions are. This perk assumes a Jumper has no teaching skills, but if they do, then the effectiveness of the perk is magnified further.
Obviously Joe wouldn't take such a hands off approach to teaching Aisha unless he absolutely had to, but it'd definitely allow him to teach her a lot more and quickly. Also imagine the public's reaction to learning its effects somehow, maybe Aperion accidentally doing something that reveals it?
Instant Construction (600CP): Rebuilding Appalachia will take quite a lot of time and effort, so let's remove at least some of that. If you know how to build something, and have the resources available to you, you can consume those resources and snap that item into existene nearby you. You remove the time needed for construction, and the risk of manufacturing mistakes. However, you can only do this in areas that are either owned by you, or have no one else nearby to potentially contest your claim
This essentially means that as long as Joe doesn't want or need to make the item by hand (Divine Construct) or with the volcano skyforge and he's in the Workshop or there's no one that could attempt to contest his "claim" in the area he can just make whatever he wants in an instant, and I'm pretty sure most of the Quality perks would work on it too, since he's still technically "making" it
Also just found another that'd be interesting:
Mechanical Teaching (100CP): With Appalachia becoming mostly automated, it was inevitable that those who teach others would eventually get replaced too. And normally, who could possibly expect canned phrases and a set lesson plan to produce quality students? Well, you aren't normal, and now your students will be able to learn intuitively what lessons you are trying to impart. You can teach someone to shoot simply by having them pick up a pistol and try firing at static targets, or have someone learn survival skills by simply telling them to go outside and gather edible flowers. As long as you actually intend on your students learning something, they will, no matter how simple or bad your instructions are. This perk assumes a Jumper has no teaching skills, but if they do, then the effectiveness of the perk is magnified further.
Obviously Joe wouldn't take such a hands off approach to teaching Aisha unless he absolutely had to, but it'd definitely allow him to teach her a lot more and quickly. Also imagine the public's reaction to learning its effects somehow, maybe Aperion accidentally doing something that reveals it?
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Barbaric Bob
The Barbaric One
- Location
- Soon to be plundering a village near you
...maybe?
i think the murder of an innocent is important to a horcrux though, in a magical ritualistic way
it might have some sort of phylactery-ish traits for him maybe?
hell if he dies while a clone is out he may just straight up usurp his spot?
- Location
- Nowhere
Well souls are soul's... I don't think they differ depending on where there coming from? is that right.
No the way I see it however is each setting that involves soul's has differing mechanics when it comes down to manipulating/interacting with the soul's.
In Harry Potter the soul's are a real tangible thing, Dementors' literally eat and consume them and certain act's and magic's can affect on them, in the creation of the horcrux the willing undertaking of an innocent life with no regret or remorse can fracture the soul and it is then through the unexplained and unexplored Horcrux ritual that, those fractured part's are split from soul and placed into whatever the container is to be.
In fact I have heard JK.R has devised the ritual that is used in the making of Horcruxes but decided it was too horrible to actually put down in words. Though that might just be speculation and rumour's.
However what I am getting to is each magic system and or technological system that can mess with the soul approaches it different, and thusly has different limit's to what is possible however it still remains true that it is the soul, which as Joe noted through the ability that let's him see the points in the body that create the biological map of the soul, it was still the same soul just a different way of seeing and interacting with it.
snrbryjm
Newtons Third Law in action
- Pronouns
- It/He/They
No as in there was a whole WOG about how Joe is uncomfortable using some sources 'lesser souls' which arent sentient because he could 'upgrade' them into the sentient souls. It might be the 'same soul' but they have different capabilities,limits, and properties versus just rules of interaction, since the 'same soul' however its defined can move through souces. Some sources have souls which are basically energy sources and others are essentially just people made out of ghost stuff, and they exist simultaneously, well following the rules of their source unless modified, so why would all souls/Joe's soul follow HP soul logic automatically if that isnt true for all other sources souls? Joe's soul could have an argument bc HP magic but I dont think it was ever stated in the books that a witches soul was something specifically different than a muggles soul, unless I forgot something there?
- Location
- Nowhere
No much like anything else in Harry Potter's magic system it's all sort of left unexplored or explained and usually handwaved away with "Because it's magic" or "A wizard did it". Very little of the actual book's delve into how the magic of that universe work's so we have to take what we know and everything else is sort of conjecture.
In the book's it is left very vague whether or not all living being's have a soul, you could probably find a way to argue nothing that does not have magic can have a soul. However Dudley was almost kissed by a Dementor therefore muggle's also have soul's which means it is not limited to magical being's in the Harry Potter universe, we know Dudley is muggle because squib's have been noted to actually be able to perceive Dementor's. (Arabella Doreen Figg stood by her statement of seeing the Dementor's however Harry is left unconvinced on whether or not that is true, continuing her statement was accepted by the Wizengamot. So it is likely she did indeed see them and therefore other squib's could as well. Therefore seeing as Dudley was still attacked he must have a soul by Harry Potter standards.)
However I do see what you mean, I took it a whole other way. Your right, the soul's having differing level of sentience with some not even being sentient was something I had totally missed. With some universe seeing soul's as just energy, it could be they simply lack the mean's to interact with the soul in the way another universe which see's it as simply a metaphysical representation of a person's being and who they are. I still think they are interacting with the same thing just coming at it with different approaches and different limit's imposed by their universes own rules.
(Below is a lot of postulation which is most likely baseless, however feel free to read it.)
Now when it comes down to the level of awareness? the sentience and sapience of a soul? That is way more trickier and much harder for me to actually give information on that is not just personal opinion from my own experience and understanding of the story and other fictional works. My understanding may be wrong, but depending on what makes a soul able to achieve the state of awareness/sentience/sapience it can change.
Animal's have soul's which Joe can verify by unlocking an animal's Aura therefore even something not as intelligent, or as self aware as a dog? cat? maybe even a fish has a soul? Now how would their soul differ from a human soul. I guess it could be the potential of whatever species or being they are?
We know a human soul can be reduced to a state unable of being self-aware/sentient/sapient. From this I assume a baby's soul is the same? maybe it's age or something more spiritual like experience that separate it form a whole fully grown(Would fully grown actually even fit here?) adult soul.
Man this is really some mind twisting stuff... I don't feel confidant enough to actually give you a full answer outside of what I've already wrote. But yeah I agree, the way one universe treats a soul cannot be applied to another universes own way of treating a soul.
snrbryjm
Newtons Third Law in action
- Pronouns
- It/He/They
The way I've been seeing it is that they are all interacting with the 'same soul', however different amounts/parts of that soul, and thus limited by what they 'have' versus what they can 'do'. A soul from this anime might be completely different than a soul in this book series well being the same soul, as they are both connected to a 'true soul' and just different aspects of it, creating said hard limits and making it a process for Joe to 'upgrade' souls versus just interacting with them in different ways. Its probably just a slight difference but I think it gives more credence to hard limits on 'types' of souls, you cant do x to a y soul cause doesnt have the bits for x until you draw upon it/add more to it/grow it to an x soul, versus doing z/x/y/ to any soul at any time. Otherwise Joe could treat all kinds of souls exactly the same without any 'alterations' to said soul because he has the means to interact with it in an out of context manner.
Yeahhh this is some Stuff to discuss. After all there are many different ways of awareness, and how can we judge how 'sapient' a soul is by itself anyway? How much can soul be divorced from its body? What should it be divorced from any real form? Is there a difference between an animal soul and a diminished human soul?
Though, in narrative Joe is having the exact same sort of crisis, which is always fun. What is the difference between a 'fresh' artificial soul and a soul thats been things before? Is one 'more' than the other in any meaningful capacity?
Lots of fun things to ponder that dont have definite answers, basically everything that could be said here leads to interesting interactions and conversations in story and outside, even no real answer
- Location
- Nowhere
That is actually a really good way of looking at it, yeah.
Having each universe only being able to interact a minute aspect and or fragment of the true soul is a fitting way to describe it, at least unless Lord explore is it more. Having each universe only being able to reach a specific portion with their own limited abilities does explain it nicely.
Just realised I pretty much said the same thing just in different way's but I just can't help it, I totally didn't even think about it like that.
Oh yeah absolutely, some heavy topic... and seeing as Joe himself is also going through this? only it seem's like he keep's the soul stuff to himself or at last doesn't elaborate on it to the rest of the Celestial Forge. That has to be placing some weight on his shoulder's. Especially with his own understanding of it, which is made up of various other universes own understanding.
Like when Joe uses a soul in his crafting he literally increases the quality of the soul in question which is pretty much left unexplained, like is Joe as a demigod got a superior soul to others? hell when he get's that one perk from God of War that makes him a descendant of a Titan? what would that do to his soul on top of his already divine heritage? The two universes that his divine nature comes from approach it completely differently.
It is such an interesting philosophical thing, one that is likely not going to get anywhere but still mentally stimulating all the same.
snrbryjm
Newtons Third Law in action
- Pronouns
- It/He/They
Quality is a confusing concept when applied here, but bring it back to the whole 'souls can be grown or diminished' it could be either drawing on more of the soul itself and thus making it 'stronger' (if such a concept can be applied to any form of an immortal soul) or possibly 'purifying'/'intensifying' it? more soul per soul?? If the souls do ever get bodies (Im still holding out for the fantasy world that only exists in my head where they get their own lil planet and society) seeing the differences a 'stronger' soul could have would be interesting. Would the users of 'stronger' souls be able to draw upon their abilities more or have any extra senses? What sort of knowledge does a 'refined' soul give? Is there a difference between 'growing' a soul and 'refining' the 'lense' used to draw upon it, or is it the same action looked upon via another perspective
Species souls are strange. Personally I think the most likely story is that all souls are uniform but we get another sort of 'diminishing' when we put them into different species. Less of a general 'debuff' to 'strength' and moreso white light splitting into different wavelengths, all originating from the same source and all light, but with different effects and properties. Now what happens when you staple 'red' and 'blue' light onto a 'yellow' light is anyones guess. It's all the same soul, but these are definitely different aspects that should have never interacted, I doubt they should clash because immortal soul, but their interactions and overlap are an interesting hypothetical.
A 'godly' soul from PJ would probably just be a more 'refined' or 'larger' aspect of a soul with newer properties but how that carries down is interesting. Having varying types of souls for different species either says something about the soul, or the species, either that souls 'check' their species and their heritage before manifestation, or are limited by said species and body. Id say the second is probably more likely since too much of Magic Juice tends to lead to unpleasant deaths in most stories.
It makes me think of a reincarnation system and the like but thats a different path to talk about.
With how Joe's soul is going to grow, it's probably going to sort of mimic the Celestial Forge in and of itself. Theres going to be overlap and completely different ways of looking at things, but it'll build and augment itself, and it is seemingly all part of a larger 'whole', which is cool in all ways. Its yet another way Joe is going to learn about himself at some point if he finally gets the downtime to handle it and really sink his teeth into the anxiety induced philosophy.
With Survey and Fleets 'borrowed' souls, are they their souls? Any WOGs on that topic? Is the gifted soul essentially 'their' soul now? Is there a difference between the soul being 'Joes' and 'theirs' or any ship of Theseus type questions, or is that 'fragment' of a soul growing into a 'new' soul? Theres obviously at least some separation between the self and the soul but it definitely blurs at some point or doesn't matter, as the souls Joe got definitely have memories and personhood-though there Id say the most likely answer is that a soul is more seperate during a life and 'takes' the person 'into' itself once their is a death, or the person is a more separate aspect of said soul interacting with the world on its own. Or it could be a 'hand vs brain' or 'hand, arm, brain' type situation where the person is an extension of a soul in a divorced way, or an extension of an extension. Though at this point you have to ask if there is any functional point, which, probably not but damn is it sure fun to talk about!
Sorta off topic: hows the exsphere doing, and how sentient/sapient will it be?
The Wardrobe (AmberSlime)
The Wardrobe
"Are... are we sure this is a good idea?" Taylor asked as Alec adjusted the camera hanging from his neck and Lisa taped the end of a thick spool of yarn to the floor. She eyed the walls -what she could see of them, that is- nervously. It had taken some luck, some deception, and a few plundered goods, but the Undersiders (including Rachel and her dogs, thanks to a bottle of endless water and an endless bag of dog food, both courtesies of Joe) had managed to sneak into Joe's base as he and his team were leaving it."There isn't anything in our agreement that necessarily prohibits what we're doing," Brian noted, prompting an unimpressed look from Alec. "We're just... exploring, is all."
"Yes, exploring the closet of the strongest Parahuman in several states," Alec snarked. "Next, we'll go pull a panty raid at Alexandria's house."
"Oh, hush," Lisa said, walking up to the group, spool of yarn in hand. It, too, was rather endless. Lisa had cited a newfound interest in crochet while asking for it. To her credit, she did actually use it for crocheting, but she had actually asked for it with the intention of using it during this little expedition. Lisa smiled, seemingly rather excited. "Look, who would need a closet with turns in it? Joe's got to be hiding something juicy in here."
Taylor felt... rather conflicted. On one hand, she was curious about this closet, that had seemingly endless outfits hanging from its walls and ceiling, lit by dim... she decided to call them candles. On the other, Lisa had more than likely roped the Undersiders into this just because she wanted something to hold over Joe. Her talks with Alec had convinced her that Lisa had a slight obsession with being the one in control of any situation. Taylor would much rather be finding out about the Undersiders' secret boss, but refusing to come along might have been suspicious.
Nearly everybody had a small trinket (by Joe's standards) on hand. Lisa had her spool of endless yarn, Rachel had her infinite dog supplies, Alec had a handheld camera with a couple of hundred yottabytes of storage space (whatever that was) and an unending battery, and Brian had a sort-of sapient flashlight that hovered over his shoulder, casting a beam of light into the gloom. Taylor had been put in charge of the backpack containing infinite water bottles and boxed meals.
"Camera's rolling," Alec announced. He turned the camera towards himself, held it aloft with one hand, and gestured towards the rest of the group. "What's poppin', Youtube? We're the Super Snoopers, and we're raiding our wizard friend's closet while he's out on business."
Lisa scoffed and rolled her eyes. "He's not a wizard."
"He might as well be, Janet!"
"My name isn't-- ugh, whatever. Come on," Lisa urged, gesturing with the hand holding the spool of yarn. "Let's see what we can find." With that, the group went onwards, Taylor following along with some trepidation in her steps.
Fifteen or so minutes later...
"You know, it's strange," Lisa noted, sounding almost pleased. "I don't think this style of clothing is native to Earth Bet."
Silence washed over the group for a few moments. "And what makes you say that?" Alec retorted. "This stuff looks like an anime's interpretation of Greek togas."
"Well, for starters, some of these design elements have almost nothing to do with the Greeks, and a few don't line up with nearly any human culture. You'll notice that a lot of the footwear actually leaves the sole bare, and that there's a rather obvious lack of coverage for the upper body."
Huh. Really? Taylor started looking at random outfits along the walls and saw that very few of them would cover a man's pecs. And the ones designed for women were... something. She plucked a shoe of some kind from against the wall and turned it over. "Hey, she's right. This is like some sort of weird, reverse flip-flop; the bottoms of your feet would be touching the ground."
"See?" Lisa asked, sounding rather smug.
"I still don't see how that proves that Joe has a closet stocked entirely by extra-dimensional fashion," Alec retorted.
Brian cleared his throat. "As fascinating as it is to hear you two debate about closets," he began. "I'd like to point out that we've been walking for around seventeen minutes by this point. With how maze-like this place is, I would've expected to have at least seen our trail at some point, yet we haven't."
"Oh, stop being such a worry-wart," Lisa retorted. "With how extra Joe is these days, this place is probably just utterly massive. I sincerely doubt he has an endless closet crammed into his dimensional pocket; all the available space would be taken up by it."
Hours later...
"Every single one of these outfits are different," Taylor noted as she stared at the wall, the sound of crackling flame coming from behind her. The group had gotten a bunch of outfits from the walls, piled them up in the middle of an intersection, and set it alight with the help of Brian's flashlight. Now, they were sitting around the fire, eating and drinking.
"Hmm? What do you mean?" Lisa asked, looking up from her sandwich.
"Like, I don't mean in broad terms, I mean the finer details. These two togas have slightly different patterns and colors. Even their shoes are different. I don't think a single one of the outfits I can see share a color."
Taylor got up and began to pace. "I haven't been paying attention to all of the outfits, but if I can't see a single repeated item amongst everything here..." Taylor gestured to the walls of the four-way intersection they had set up camp in, and their respective hallways. "Whose to say that there are any repeats in this entire closet?"
"I'm fairly certain that's impossible," Alec interjected. "I mean, there's only so many variables involved here, even if I can only name like two or three of them. If this closet contained every fashion to ever exist in the entirety of the multiverse, I wouldn't be arguing, but it looks to me like we're dealing with one... I dunno, set? There's got to be a repeat somewhere in here."
Lisa hummed to herself, nodding. "Yeah, I think I've got to agree with Alec here. A culture's fashion can't be all-encompassingly broad; there's gotta be a repeated outfit somewhere."
"Hmm..." Taylor shrugged and brought another boxed meal out of her backpack. Hopefully, it'd be another sweet one. She really liked that cinnamon roll...
The next day...?
"All I'm saying is that there comes a point where something just isn't worth it, and taking powernaps on the floor so we can explore more of a ludicrously massive closet is reeeeal close to that point."
"Oh, hush, Alec. We've got the entire break, there's no need to worry about any family members raising a fuss."
Taylor was fairly certain she was going slightly insane. Cabin fever, or something like that, but in this case it'd be called Closet fever, and the symptoms would include hallucinating that the clothes on the walls were twitching. She'd see a pantleg bend or a sleeve (the few that there were) raise, and she'd jump and stare at the offending outfit, only to find that it was hanging there inanimate, as clothes should be. Well, Garment was an exception. She was too... bubbly to ever be scary, even if she insisted on putting Taylor in outfits only pseudo-royalty should be wearing.
She sincerely hoped that-- did that shoe just twitch?!
?????
Everybody was twitchy and jumpy as they set up camp for the... third? Fifth? Eighth, this was the eighth time... probably. By this point, it wasn't just Taylor who was seeing mobile clothing out of the corners of their eyes. All of the Undersiders sat in a ring, facing away from each other and towards the hallways as though they were keeping watch for something coming after them.
Taylor really hoped that something wasn't out there.
There was a quiet, constant shuffling sound. Taylor didn't notice it at first, but once she did, it didn't leave her awareness.
"Who the hell is squirming around so damn much?" Rachel barked irritatedly. Taylor looked around at the other Undersiders, but they were all sitting relatively still, something that Rachel seemed to realize as well. The shuffling sound got a little louder, and everybody started looking around in confusion.
"What..." Lisa gulped down another pull of water, gasping slightly. "What on earth is that noise?"
Everybody stood up and began to shuffle around, trying to spy whatever could be making the noise. Taylor couldn't see anything moving in the hallways, nor could she see anything amiss on the ceiling, or the walls of the intersection...
"I'm pretty sure it's coming from down here." Brian spoke quietly, but everyone heard him nonetheless. They all gathered around him, peering into the gloomy hallway. The rustling noise was certainly a bit louder in this direction...
All of a sudden, the end of the hallway was blotted out, and Taylor found herself blinking and rubbing her eyes. She looked again and found that the end of the hall was still blotted out. In fact, it seemed like the blot was coming closer...?
It took Taylor a moment to realize what she was seeing. Clothes. A mass of clothes bundled together like a gigantic worm, the mess of colors and patterns blending together into a haze. And it was heading towards her. Taylor shrieked, as did every other Undersider, and they immediately turned tail and ran. But just as the mad dash began, it suddenly stopped as Taylor's eyes were assaulted by bright light. She tripped over her own two feet, fell, and felt something fall on top of her back. It was either Brian or Rachel's larger dog. She didn't really care. There was something chasing her, and she wanted to get away.
After a job well done...
I stepped back into the Workshop feeling rather satisfied with myself. The entire Protectorate Headquarters remodeled in only an hour, and not a soul had cottoned onto the fact that I had used my duplicates to help out. The entire job took five hours, and really, that was only because of all the red tape and bureaucracy. Sure, it was still very expedited, but I definitely could have been done faster if I was just left to my business. I understood that the Protectorate and PRT wanted to make sure everything was above-board but did it have to be such a slog?
Somebody tugged at my arm. "Uh, Joe?" I turned and saw Aisha looking off to the side with a concerned expression. I followed her pointing finger and saw... the Undersiders, in front of the Resplendant Wardrobe, in a tangled heap on the floor, panicking and squabbling like they were being chased by some monster. The sight was so bewildering that I didn't even say anything. I just stopped and stared in bewilderment.
Eventually, I realized that this situation needed to be, you know, handled, and not gawked at. "Uh..." that was all I managed to get out before every single Undersider, in nigh-complete synchronization, stopped in their tracks and locked onto me like one of Fleet's turrets.
"We've been in there for DAYS!" Taylor shouted hysterically, a sentiment echoed by every other Undersider in turn. I was about to walk over and comfort the gaggle of upset super-teens when something Taylor said caught my attention. Days...?
I checked the Workshop systems through my implant.
"Oh, shoot, I forgot to turn off the temporal dilation."
The End.
My thought process behind writing this consisted of: "hey, you know that Backrooms thing? What if Joe's closet was that?"