Remove ads

Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

Reader mode
There are some chapters that are fun, and other chapters that feel like its pulling teeth.

This was one of them. I didn't enjoy it.

Joe's psychosis over not knowing is one of the Longest running splinters in the whole story. I can only hope it eventually bites him so hard up the ass that he finally has the ability to acknowledge that his decision making ability on topics like this are compromised because of his own fear and bias.
 
Noctis said:
There are some chapters that are fun, and other chapters that feel like its pulling teeth.

This was one of them. I didn't enjoy it.

Joe's psychosis over not knowing is one of the Longest running splinters in the whole story. I can only hope it eventually bites him so hard up the ass that he finally has the ability to acknowledge that his decision making ability on topics like this are compromised because of his own fear and bias.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Doubt that it would happen though. And Joe IS justified with sticking to Unwritten Rules cuz it takes one Thinker for which his countermeasures are not accounted to turn everything into a shitshow.
 
Tower123 said:
Yeah, even that comment where he gets empowered and comments that it was usual for these situation was absolute gold. Its going to be shit tier or overpowered...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hopefully, something relatively simple, but with a niche like Joe's.

Probably a 'Disengage' type or 'Retreat' given his personality.
 
___ said:
Hopefully, something relatively simple, but with a niche like Joe's.

Probably a 'Disengage' type or 'Retreat' given his personality.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I can immagine something more like "Endure" or "Blend In" for Chen. He seems to be a generally focussed person, so something that helps him stay grounded and focussed could work. On the other hand, he's also good at keeping his head low and getting into position, so a stealth-based semblance sounds logical. Would fit more with what we see of him near the start of the fic.
 
Remove ads
Such Misfortune (Knaka)
  • Apocrypha
    • boosh said:
    I now need an omake for Joe just messing around with all the worlds evils.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Hmmm,

    not exact, but...

    <pops in, throws omake, pops out>

    XXX

    Such Misfortune

    XXX

    "Ouch!"

    Analyst Tom Johnson cursed as he rubbed the finger that had accidentally been poked by a pen he had been trying to grab. Somewhat absentmindedly, he turned all of the other pens in the container around so that their pointy ends were facing down.

    Only for one of them to break and spill its ink in the container.

    Johnson let out a tired sigh as he, yet again, heard another curse behind him. It seemed that one of his coworkers had once again managed to trip over nothing.

    For some reason, minor accidents in the PRT ENE seemed to have skyrocketed recently. While nothing truly dangerous had happened, many annoying, inconvenient, or embarrassing incidents had occurred.

    And yes, he had laughed at a few of those incidents, such as Jeff accidentally getting the spicy sauce Weld used mixed up with his 'custom' mild sauce, Annie playing that recording of her singing over the speaker system, or Greg dropping that containment foam grenade in front of Director Piggot.

    Privately, he had laughed at those events privately, away from those affected.

    From what he had heard, the director had been convinced that the string of unfortunate events was somehow parahuman related, but the think tank had refuted that claim. Johnson wasn't sure how they knew that, but he wouldn't put it past parahuman thinkers to be able to back up that claim.

    "Ouch".

    Johnson sighed as he heard Mike exclaim after stubbing his toe. Honestly, this persistent misfortune was probably the result of everyone pushing so hard in the wake of the Ungodly Hour. Of course people would be prone to making mistakes with everything the department was under.

    There was no need to think someone was doing this on purpose.

    XXX

    "Hey" duplijoe 1 mentioned to his twin. "I really think we're forgetting something here."

    "Must not be important if we forgot about it" duplijoe 2 said. "Now, help me with this poem. I want something that will really get under Cherish's skin."

    XXX

    A/N: If you haven't figured it out yet, in this omake the duplicates set up some minor annoyance curses on several groups and individuals in Brockton that they didn't like, both to see how it would work and to have some laughs. They watched stuff like Kaiser giving himself a wedgie, Skidmark throwing away his drug bag instead of his trash bag, and some random gang members step in various nasty things. They only left the curses up for about fifteen minutes before removing them.

    They forgot one.

    Also, yes, I did use a certain character's catchphrase for the title. I couldn't think of anything better.
     
  • Apocrypha
    • The Shallow said:
    I can immagine something more like "Endure" or "Blend In" for Chen. He seems to be a generally focussed person, so something that helps him stay grounded and focussed could work. On the other hand, he's also good at keeping his head low and getting into position, so a stealth-based semblance sounds logical. Would fit more with what we see of him near the start of the fic.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    A mental resolve type would also fit,like Ironwood's given that his first appearance was shooting that mook in the face. Sure, it seems underwhelming, but if it provides anti-Master/Stranger protection, it could still be fairly versatile.
     
    dragon_cloud16 said:
    He hasn't been mentioned to have developed one yet at all. After all, it has only been a few days since his Aura was awakened in story for him.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Joe called Chen to warn him about the terrible side-effect of aura. How he could get an additional superpower. Sorry !

    It's called foreshadowing. It warn the reader in advance that yes, Chen is going to get a power later in the story, and no, this power doesn't come from the writer's ass.
     
    Last edited:
    So, last week I was geeking out about Chosen of Death, wondering about what memories The Enigmatic Artificer might get from the perk and it's rather OP freebies. Now I'm interested in one line in particular in the descriptions, and what it might, or might not, mean for the future. Namely, this line: "Those who look upon you in raised Aspect know, instantly and surely that you are divine, that you embody a facet of creation."

    That part seems pretty clear, the iffy part is the raised Aspect part... that is evidently something that can be turned on and off, though from my understanding at least it is also something that grows when used, and esp. so when it is witnessed by perspective worshipers. Or maybe I'm just mis-interpreting the rather poetic description?

    Well, we'll know more in a few hours...
     
    Remove ads
    102 Progress
  • Threadmarks
    • 102 Progress

    All things considered, I wouldn't have chosen to have to deal with a major power in the wake of an emotionally exhausting mess dredged up from my past, but my power had never followed a convenient schedule. Honestly, I was just grateful I didn't need to deal with this in the middle of everything. If I was going to get floored by a power, it was better for it to happen when I had a modicum of privacy and security.

    And besides, not every major power had been completely overwhelming. They were all significant, but some of them were quite manageable. New abilities, new technology, or new ways of looking at the world, but not the complete upset I'd needed to deal with from some of the more extreme motes.

    As the burning nova of energy descended upon me, I braced myself and hoped that my power would see fit to refrain from Workshop alterations, existential crises, unveiled past lives, theological conflicts, or societal implications.

    I should really stop tempting fate.

    The unknown is not unknowable. Even if the fantastic becomes understood, it does not become mundane. The wonder of the universe is not limited to its mystery, for knowing a thing allows it to be treasured more for what it is than all the possibilities it might have been.

    That was the core of my new power. Or my new set of powers. Like most of my most disruptive abilities, it hadn't arrived alone. A power that on its own would have been able to shake the foundations of the world was just one part of a large cluster, paired with abilities that were 'free' in terms of the effort needed to secure them, but massively disruptive in its own right.

    I sat in the outer courtyard of my portion of the Housing Complex in my Workshop as I worked through the impact of my latest connection to the Celestial Forge. It had been one of the powers that came with memories. Not simply skills or abilities, but a reference to a past life, one that actually happened.

    So far, the shadows of my existence in other worlds had remained mostly indistinct. Hints of another life, details that could be discerned from the items I'd received or certain features of my abilities. Rarely there were memories, but even then, unless they were connected to a major power there tended to be a sense of separation, like I was receiving a report on another life, rather than living it myself.

    The memories connected to major abilities were far more intense. Because they weren't just memories, they were experiences. Things that had somehow actually happened to me. It was impossible to actually fit those events into the timeline of my life, but that didn't change the fact that they had absolutely happened. They were part of my past, a fact that was enforced as strongly as any of the other absolutes that my power put in place.

    Not all of the experiences were equal. The memories I had received from that Star Wars ability were centered around design and construction. Anything not related to the skills granted by the power faded into a fog of nothingness, but that didn't change the fact that I absolutely was the leading expert in the design of droids and starships in the Star Wars galaxy. Despite all the missing details, that was one thing that rang true and clear about whatever form my existence took in that universe.

    The effect could fall anywhere on the scale. My Servant class granted me awareness of my place in the Throne of Heroes and the composite existence that made up my Saint Graft, but trying to isolate any of the contributing lives in more than the most general terms was an exercise in futility. The memories of my origin from Craftsmen of the Gods had been incredibly visceral and distinct, but that was necessary for the ability to function. Knowledge of the start of all things to allow modification of the primordial expressions of creation. What had happened after that, or if my existence had even continued beyond that point was completely unknown.

    Then there were powers that came with more detail. Specific concrete experiences and events that could be recalled as clearly as anything from my own life. Like with Mechanical Genius, my memories from Erudition were centered on the skills and technical understanding granted by that power, but the context of those skills painted a visceral picture of humanity at war. A desperate struggle against an overwhelming enemy, with every resource at humanity's disposal being utilized in an attempt to turn the tide. I could remember my education and work set against a backdrop of the grim determination of an entire culture at war.

    With Cybertronian Forge, I received both the memories of an alien existence and the body I had inhabited during that time. Experiences spanning hundreds of thousands of years, enough to overwhelm anyone without the protected mindset of a Transformer. Even then, it was painted in broad strokes with huge sections missing, both because of gaps that naturally existed in my memory and because Transformers don't exactly try to live in the moment when they're stuck doing rote maintenance for tens of thousands of years.

    And then there was Master Craftsman, my first experience with having additional events spliced into my personal history. My time in what I was now fairly certain was Avalon could be considered the shortest of the intruding events, or it could be considered infinitely longer than any others I had experienced. Trying to quantify the duration of an event in a place where time doesn't exist was an exercise in frustration and futility. The timeless nature of that memory was what caused it to be simultaneously the most significant and most manageable, even if I hadn't really thought of it like that at the time.

    My latest power fell into that category. The major powers that came bundled with personal experience that through some artifact of the Celestial Forge, was decreed to have actually happened. I remembered another life on another world. The training I had received, the people I had met and the acclaim I had earned. The concerns and turmoil underlying every aspect of that society, eventually boiling over in a conflict I was uncertain of, both due to gaps in my own recollections and that fact that I was deliberately kept insulated from it.

    And then there was what came after. The fundamental, universe altering aspects of the power that were tagged on like free extras. Elements that fundamentally altered my understanding of my sense of self, my role in the universe, and the nature of existence. Without that, the power would have been manageable, a collection of technical knowledge and memories of a somewhat twisted society that existed in another universe. That was something I could have acknowledged and moved on from, not something that required careful thought and the evaluation.

    The power was called Chosen of Death. It was named after the core experience of my life in that world. The 'Death' in question was Yama, the God of Death, at least in the context of that world. A world that culturally and religiously resembled India, though locked in a medieval level of advancement, though with the gods as a present force in the lives of the population and reincarnation a common aspect of existence.

    A world that almost seemed fantastical. Something that could no doubt pass as a fantasy setting, at least until you began to learn more and the layers of pretense and deception started to fall away. Until you were able to learn the nature of the great works that sustained that society and made it possible. The fantastic becoming understood, but no less wondrous.

    That was the life that had been dropped into my head, and possibly inserted into my past. Working alongside a god who was not a god, but yet was, to accomplish wonders that were not wondrous, but yet were. Everything that had existed as a divine mystery could be analyzed and understood. Plucked from the earth and granted access to the mysteries of the cosmos.

    But the mysteries went far deeper than that. It wasn't just a matter of alleged gods faking their divinity with technology. There were aspects to the state of existence that was regarded as godhood that went beyond what anyone could have anticipated. Beyond what most of the ones who proclaimed themselves as gods could understand. Almost beyond what I could come to terms with, even after I had been 'granted' it myself.

    I turned towards the edge of the plateau as Aisha and Tetra touched down. Fleet had driven them, Garment, and Survey's replica droid back from the Regency Center while I had been wrestling with my new power. Technically, Tetra had been with me the entire time, but she was technically everywhere she had been. Since she at least needed some accountability for her civilian identity she had joined the rest of them for the return trip.

    Once they returned to Garment's Studio they had flown up to the 'loft' section on the plateau, presumably to see the effects of my latest power for themselves. The Strikers Tetra had manifested on her legs flickered out as Aisha's armor disappeared in a flash of light. Tetra was already aware of the changes, but Aisha had been going off Survey's reports. Considering this was another world with direct accounts available, she was quite excited about documenting everything. As such, there were already a lot of reports.

    Aisha had skimmed them with her usual lack of interest, which explained why seeing the changes firsthand had such an impact. She let out a whistle as she craned her neck, taking in the transformed Loft.

    "I have to say, this is a hell of a design choice." She said as she made her way over to take a seat near me. "And a bit over the top, even for you."

    "Not exactly my choice." I said, looking at the new design. "An 'item' called Opulent Warehouse came paired with the last power."

    "Yeah, well, truth in advertising, I guess." Aisha said. "I wouldn't have thought that we could go much further in that direction, considering what the houses already looked like."

    "The houses haven't changed that much." Tetra said as she took a seat by Aisha's side. "It's the other places that have been upgraded, though it's for things on top of the plateau."

    "The 'Loft' counts as a separate area." I explained. "Apparently this kind of thing can be focused here without affecting the rest of the workshop."

    Tetra nodded. "There have been changes to the Trophy Room, Library, parts of the Entertainment Rooms, Joe's office, the Gym, the Arsenal, and the Arena." She slightly flickered as she spoke. My awareness of the Workshop told me she was checking each of the facilities in question.

    "Probably for the best." Aisha said. "Having an entire continent like this…"

    "Yeah." I agreed with a sigh as I looked around.

    Any part of the 'Loft' that hadn't already been the peak of luxury had been overwritten with a level of opulence that would have been seen as excessive in an imperial court. Everything from the decor to the landscaping had been taken to eleven. More than just a surface level overhaul, the modifications had been extended through the entire structure. It didn't just look nice, it was an expression of wealth and craftsmanship on a fundamental level.

    The effect complimented and enhanced the improvements that my duplicates had already put in place. Even areas where the full force of my crafting abilities had been used to create a beyond perfect expression of form and function, the effects of Opulent Warehouse came in to take things just a little bit further with complementary elements that took the design just a little bit further.

    A step beyond what I had regarded as the apex of my abilities. I had to wonder if that was intentionally symbolic, considering the other aspects of this power.

    "So, this is what that city of the gods looked like?" Aisha asked.

    "The Celestial City." I said, remembering the 'heaven' of that world in precise detail. "And not exactly." I considered the aesthetic that had been put in place. "Maybe for the gardens, but I'd say the architecture is a bit of an improvement."

    Not the least of which because it was in my taste, at least broadly speaking. I wouldn't call myself a stylistic trailblazer, particularly compared to someone like Garment, but I think I could outdo a bunch of egotistical pseudo-immortals who had decided to cosplay Hindu divinity.

    "Also a vault full of gold." I added, almost as an afterthought.

    Aisha snorted and Tetra seemed amused. "Yeah, I remember when enough gold to swim in would be a big deal." She leaned back. "Guess I have to learn to get used to the high life."

    "Literally, considering our elevation." I said. Aisha cracked a grin before turning back to me.

    "So, god power?" She asked.

    "Mainly technology power, though with a hefty side order of god stuff." Both fake god stuff, and stuff that was more nebulous in terms of its authenticity.

    "So, we making a tradition of this?" Aisha asked. I raised an eyebrow. "I mean, you get some pseudo divine nonsense from your power and go brood on top of a mountain until I come to talk you down."

    I let out a short laugh. "This isn't exactly like when I got Titan's Blood." I said.

    "Well, yeah. This time I have Tetra to help me." Aisha said.

    Tetra waved to me from her position next to Aisha. She was out of 'civilian mode' meaning her hair was back to intense life fiber red rather than the more human shade she had maintained at the charity event.

    "Aisha said I could help get you off of your bullshit!" She declared proudly. I gave Aisha a look, but she just smirked at me. "Though I think she meant it affectionately." Tetra added.

    "I appreciate the effort, but this isn't the usual type of bullshit." I said.

    "I figured." Aisha said. "Is it really…" She trailed off. I reached down and tossed her a copy of the book. She caught it out of the air and looked at the cover. It was a recreation fabricated by the Matrix, but was as close to the original printing as they could make it.

    "Lord of Light." I said. "Novel by Roger Zelazny, published in nineteen sixty-seven."

    "And this is a match?" Aisha asked, thumbing through the book.

    "As far as we can tell." I said. "One of my duplicates dumped everything we got about that world into the Spiritron Computer. Survey was able to match it to the novel."

    I had stopped by the Spiritron Core to read it myself. And to take the time necessary to process the information and recover from having an account of a world I remembered personally and intimately presented in the format of sixties science fiction.

    "You got a major super-tech power out of sixties science fiction?" Aisha asked, putting down the book. "I don't know if that's terrifying or pathetic."

    I smiled at that. "Well, the computer technology was a joke, but the rest of it… well, it's kind of all over the place. Either outdated or insane without much middle ground. Particularly the biotech."

    "Uh, yeah. I can see that." Aisha said.

    "I could tell when you changed." Tetra said. "It was really interesting the way it interacted with the rest of the powers affecting your body, particularly the mutations and brain structures."

    Because of course Tetra could detect that kind of thing the second it happened.

    "I only read the cliff notes, but they, what, print you a new body and email your soul into it?" Aisha asked.

    She sounded a little uncomfortable with the idea and I could understand why. The idea of a society that managed technological reincarnation through artificially created bodies and mind transfers was a disturbing concept, particularly if you didn't understand the continuity of self that was tied to a person's bioelectric makeup, or how that could be effectively transferred and preserved.

    This was actually my second brush with technology from this universe, though the first encounter was nowhere near as significant. The Divine Machines had granted me a functional understanding of the elementary forms of the technology used by the 'gods'. It was enough to service and repair the devices or assist in greater works. The skill of one of the acolytes who labored in the Vasty Hall of Death, not one who could stand as Yama's equal in the arts.

    From that power I understood the concept of mind transfer, but the higher-level use of the technology wasn't obvious. Nor was the full potential of what could be achieved through examination of the atman. The concepts had been filed away, with scattered elements used to support other projects. It wasn't until I received Chosen of Death that I understood what that technology was capable of, and what it had been used to accomplish.

    "It's not exactly like that." I said. "I don't think the power changed my body out so much as made it so I always had a body with these aspects." I shook my head. "There's a separate power to represent that. Divine Physique. Because of that it's going to bleed into everything, even if it shouldn't."

    "So what, like, the transformer is going to get boosted and prettied up when you do the fusion thing?" She asked.

    "Actually, yes." I said. "I mean, the more important thing is that equivalents to the mutations and brain structures will carry over."

    "So you can still use the god powers? Or demigod powers?" Aisha asked.

    "There's not really a difference between god and demigod beyond the level of control over the Aspect and Attribute." I explained. "That's mostly what I've been trying to work through."

    "Yeah, I figured it must have been big if you were back in the Workshop." Aisha said. "I mean, with the time thing off that's what, an hour of lost time every seven minutes?"

    "If you count the Spiritron Computer, it's over eleven hours a second!" Tetra declared.

    "Thank you, Tetra." I said. "But yeah, the extra parts of this are a big deal. I mean, the stuff from the core power isn't exactly peanuts either."

    At my current level it was hard for a piece of technology to truly distinguish itself against all of the other worlds of knowledge I had. Chosen of Death was probably saved because of its connection to sixties science fiction. I mean, I didn't see it that way. I understood every aspect of the science perfectly. Every element of the technology that sustained and empowered that society had been revealed to me. I not only understood the design of weapons, armors, vehicles, and utilities, I could innovate and improve the designs.

    And those designs could be terrifying. There was a reason that the God of Death was the one behind their creations. Handheld weapons that could erase mountains, tear apart creatures with no physical bodies, or scar the face of the moon from the surface of the planet. My standards were a little high, but even I had to take note of man portable equipment that was capable of planetary bombardment from the surface of another planet.

    Of course, most creations weren't on the level of the Trident of Destruction or the Wand of Universal Fire, but I still understood how those devices functioned and could recreate them, or build similar devices to my own tastes. Chosen of Death was a power sufficient to stand on its own abilities. Except it wasn't alone.

    "Yeah, I got some of that from the cliff notes." Aisha said. "Tetra just memorized the entire book." Tetra grinned at her, but Aisha just rolled her eyes.

    "How much did you get from the cliff notes?" I asked.

    "Basic outline." Aisha said. "In broad strokes, the colony ship had its crew mutated while flying to a new planet. They end up with cape powers and fight a big war against the aliens on the planet they were heading to. Then they put themselves in charge of everything, pretend to be Hindu gods, and keep everyone else at the peasant farmer level of development. That about right?"

    "Pretty much." I said. "I have better memories for this than from a lot of other powers. Growing up in that society, they don't exactly tell people about the colony ship. All the early events are mythologized. Gods descending from the heavens to defeat demons and save humanity."

    "Sounds like the kind of thing they'd do." Aisha said.

    "Survey's doing a comparative analysis between the progression of this society and other ancient cultures where rulers assumed a god kind status." Tetra said.

    "Survey's doing a lot of analysis." The combination of a primary source from my own memories and the novel providing a point of reference has kind of set her into overdrive.

    "Great. We don't have to read any of it, right?" Aisha asked.

    "I don't believe the majority of her reports will be relevant to our situation." Tetra said, which was a somewhat diplomatic way to refer to the climate and agricultural models Survey was developing for a planet that didn't even exist in this universe.

    "Right." Aisha said. "Anyway, after that there was some stuff about a rebellion because one of the gods got pissed at the others for being assholes so he invented Buddhism to screw with their fake religion. Then that goes to hell, he has a bunch of weird adventures, loses a big war, then gets brought back to life and they win, or sort of win?"

    I gave her a flat look. "That was a hell of a book report."

    "Hey, I just skimmed cliff notes in the car. I mean, is it actually important that I know this stuff?" She asked.

    "Probably not." I said. "Though it helped fill in a lot of blanks for me."

    "Survey did say the accounts from the duplicates lacked contextual elements." Tetra said.

    "What does that mean?" Aisha asked. "Gaps in what you remember?"

    "Some gaps, but mostly just a limited perspective." I explained.

    "Seriously? Weren't you like trained by the head tech guy?" She asked.

    I smiled. "By the end I could match the 'head tech guy', but there was still a lot I didn't know. With the 'gods' it wasn't like some secret society where they gave you a big book of secrets the second you showed up in the Celestial City. There were younger 'gods' who didn't know about the colony ship, to say nothing of demigods or the attendants. It wasn't really a society that encouraged curiosity." Somewhat ironic given that was what allowed that version of 'me' to reach such heights.

    "So how much of that stuff did you know about?" Aisha asked.

    I took a breath. "I have memories of that world, and of learning how the technology worked. The priests used more advanced tech to communicate with the 'gods' and that had to be maintained. It was all dressed up in ritual and ceremony, but they still needed someone who could fix it if things went wrong."

    Maintenance as a ritual was something I understood well from my experiences with the Laboratorium and skulls, but that had a different character to it. Deliberate obfuscation of what was being done, rather than reverence for the act itself.

    "What, like a cross between an altar boy and a mechanic?" Aisha asked.

    "Pretty much." I said with a shrug. I could remember following the instructions of the 'holy writs' for what amounted to changing burned out components of a transmitter. "With that it was kind of a conventional rise, or as conventional as it got in that world. Maintenance work at small temples to larger temples to central temples of the entire faith and then suddenly you've been chosen by the gods to serve in the Vasty Halls of Death where 'artifacts of divinity' are forged."

    "Uh-hu." Aisha said. "At that point, did people still buy the god thing? Think they were actually performing divine intervention when they changed a lightbulb?"

    "Some of them did." I said. Aisha gave me a skeptical look. "The role didn't require that much initiative or ingenuity. Following instructions was enough for some people."

    "Even for the 'city of the gods'?" She asked.

    I remembered the other mortal acolytes in the Celestial City. "Well, there were other factors that were taken into account."

    It took a beat for Aisha to pick up on my meaning. "Right. Pretty face and just enough competence to not embarrass themselves."

    I shrugged. "They were immortal rulers of an entire planet with built in superpowers. It kind of takes hedonism to a new level."

    "I can imagine. But you got promoted past the role of eye-candy, right?" She asked.

    I don't think I was ever in that role to begin with, but still I nodded. "Yama was different from the rest of the gods. Different drive, different understanding." I gestured to the book. "It goes back to the early days on the planet, but I didn't know any of that. Or really much about the history or culture of the gods. I just stayed in the workshop most of the time."

    "No, really? You're telling me you locked yourself away from everyone else to stay in the super advanced workshop to the point where you didn't even know what was happening outside? I can't even imagine you in that kind of situation." She was taking the sarcasm a little bit too far.

    "It's interesting." Tetra said. "There are shared traits and inclinations despite a completely different culture, upbringing, and environment."

    "Yeah, that's one of the harder things to deal with." I admitted. "I know there are other versions of 'me' in the different universes, but how much do they count as me? Is it parallel lives or other incarnations or even something weirder?" I shook my head. "It's a lot easier to deal with when I only have vague hints, rather than scattered childhood memories."

    "Yeah, I don't think there's going to be an easy answer to that." Aisha said. "But this other you, or whatever, managed to match the head tinker of the gods?"

    "Parahuman categorizations probably aren't the best way to break things down." I said. "Yama didn't have tinker powers. He was just a brilliant and ruthless scientist. His actual power was a kind of death gaze that killed people he looked at."

    "So did they even have a god of technology or forging or something like that?" Aisha asked.

    "Vishvakarman." Tetra offered. "Or Tvashtr. Though they weren't specifically referenced."

    "This was a case of people trying to fill the roles of the gods. They used the religion as a framework, but it wasn't like they automatically had each role ready to go." I explained. "They had craftsmen, but not on the level of Yama. Not a lot of people even bothered with advanced technology. Most of the craftsmen were painters, sculptors, that kind of thing."

    "They had technological superiority over the general population and no enemies left to fight." Tetra sounded almost sad at the prospect. "There was no need to advance or even maintain their current capabilities."

    "They had nothing to do." I agreed. "It got so bad that one of them gave a rogue Catholic priest a zombie army just so they'd have something to fight." Aisha gave me a blank look. "It didn't end well for them."

    Slowly she looked down at the novel. "Maybe I should read this thing." She muttered. I shrugged. From the perspective within that culture and even within the Celestial City Nirriti the Black had been portrayed as the ultimate evil, and force of absolute darkness that stood against the gods. Finding out he was just the ship's chaplain who was pissed off about the fake god business was quite a trip, but then again seeing a life laid bare from outside would do that to you.

    Aisha shook her head and turned back to me. "So the fake gods got all corrupt and decadent." Given the opulence we were surrounded with, we probably weren't in the best position to criticize decadence. "And it only took one pissed off god to bring the whole thing down."

    "It was more complicated than that. A lot more complicated, and I wasn't really aware of most of it." I explained. "I knew there was something bad happening at the higher levels between the gods. Kali disappeared, then Agni. Yama vanished and there were demands for weapons, as many as could be produced. That was about all I knew."

    "Wait, there was a war kicking off and they didn't even tell the only person who could work with their super-tech what was actually happening?" Aisha asked.

    I shrugged. "I was a base born up-jumped acolyte with less than a single lifetime of experience. I'm pretty sure most of the 'gods' thought of me on the same level as the furniture, or maybe a major appliance." I shook my head. "You don't exactly brief your washing machine on the developing tactical situation."

    "And the people who did know were probably afraid he would join Yama if he found out what was happening." Tetra said. I nodded to that. It was fairly likely that my ignorance to the situation wasn't entirely self-inflicted.

    "Wait, Yama turned?" Aisha asked.

    "Yeah." I gestured to the book. "Big war, whole pile of factions throwing in. Yama's weapons, the zombie army, remnants of the aliens, and Sam."

    "Yeah, about that." Aisha said. "The 'god' who kicked this all off was really named Sam?"

    I shrugged. Considering I went by 'Joe', I couldn't really offer criticism on that point.

    "Maha-sam-atman." Tetra explained. "Truncated down to Sam." Tetra seemed to be enjoying filling in the exposition in place of Survey. While Survey could certainly manage remote presence in our conversation, apparently she hadn't been invited to help me 'get off my bullshit'.

    "So is there any reference to you in this thing, or…" Aisha asked, but I shook my head.

    "Either I wasn't important enough to warrant mention, or I'm from a different version than what ended up in the book." I explained.

    That seemed to be fairly standard for the worlds that I'd been able to identify. The account in the novel was a closer match to my own experiences than most of the other examples, and I had more detailed memories of the experience as well. Still, there was no mention at all. No account of an unusually skilled assistant to Yama. No concern over the production of additional armaments for the gods, and no account of what happened to me after the war.

    "So this isn't actually accurate to what happened?" Aisha asked.

    "The backstory seems to be. And the events up to when that version of me would enter the picture. After that…" I shrugged. "I don't have memories through to the resolution of whatever happened, just enough to cover the powers I received."

    "So that's the whole technology thing, and being turned into a demigod?" Aisha asked.

    I nodded. "That came after the war. I think it might have actually been something they accounted for. They lost Yama, but as far as they were concerned, they had a spare." I shook my head. "Hell, some of them probably thought it would be an improvement. Instead of having to deal with Yama, they'd have some young mortal who was brought up through the temple system to treat all of them with deference and respect. Someone who would be so grateful for his ascension that he wouldn't dare cause any problems for them."

    "Right…." Aisha drew out the word. "And how did that go for them?"

    I gave her a weak smile. "The thing about calling the gods 'fake' is it isn't exactly true." Aisha raised an eyebrow as Tetra leaned forward with interest. "The idea that they have any actual connection to the Hindu deities is completely fabricated. Just a useful fiction to create a social structure with them on top. But the idea that they were gods didn't come from nowhere."

    "Well, yeah." Aisha said. "You have a bunch of people with superpowers lording over everyone weaker than them. We all know how it goes. I mean, you keep hearing about capes who declare themselves the second coming or the earthly manifestation of Zeus or the vanguard of the Fomorians and then dupe a bunch of people into following them."

    "That's not what I'm talking about." I said. "Look, you got the list of powers that came with this, right?"

    "Yeah." Aisha said. "The tech one, the warehouse rebuild, the pile of gold, the body upgrade and the god powers." She paused as she recalled the details. "Attribute and Aspect?"

    "Attribute Induction and Aspect Cultivation." Tetra clarified.

    "Right. The first is a superpower and the second is some kind of supermode, right? Like a power booster?" She saw the seriousness of my expression and a bit of her levity dropped away. "Right?"

    "The Attribute is pretty much what you described. It's a mutant ability curated and refined over millennia of study to the point where it can be safely induced. For all intents and purposes it might as well be a parahuman power, except harder to use. Most demigods can barely manifest their attributes, even with technological assistance." I explained. "They can be powerful, death gazes, darkness manifestation, illusions, control of electromagnetics, but they're still discrete abilities. Finite and consistent manifestations of power."

    "And Aspects aren't like that?" Aisha asked.

    "No, they aren't." I said. "Aspects aren't a manifestation of power, they're a state of being. It's not just a way to power up your Attribute. I mean, I can do that, and to an insane degree, but that's because anything raised in concert with an Aspect is enhanced to an insane degree."

    "Okay, so it's a serious powerup." Aisha said.

    I shook my head. It was hard communicating a concept I had only just begun to understand. It was kind of funny that the book went into a similar topic when it touched on Buddhism. The nature of the world and the impossibility of explaining it to people who haven't experienced it. How any metaphors and parallels used to describe existence would fall short. Describing something as being like something else wasn't describing that thing as it was. It was a rather abstract challenge compared to the typical stuff my power would throw at me. Still, I gave it my best attempt.

    "Aspects aren't about intensity or degree. They're something else. Something bigger. Whatever crazy effects that were caused by the mutations that gave those people these powers, they went beyond arbitrary manipulation of the forces of the universe and into something deeper. That's what an Aspect is. It's connecting to, manifesting, channeling, and becoming an ASPECT of reality. Life, death, destruction, nature, darkness, illusion, dance, really anything that you could imagine."

    "Wait, you mean the god powers cause you to transform into some kind of force of nature?" Aisha asked in clear concern. "That it changes you into a fire person or death specter or something even weirder?"

    "No. There's no change." Aisha looked at me in confusion. "That's the thing. Manifesting an aspect is a mental process. It's not about becoming something else. It's about being yourself so much that you resonate with an element or reality. You can't take on an aspect that's opposed to you because your Aspect is you. The most you that you could ever be. Recognizing the things inside yourself that are important and bringing everything into alignment with everything else."

    Aisha gave me a concerned look. "That sounds… serious." She said.

    "It is." I agreed. "Somehow a group of mutant humans from another dimension's version of the future managed to find a way to tap into the fundamental nature of reality and make it manifest through them. They might not have been Brahma or Vishnu or Shiva or Ganesha, but they were something. Something more than human. Something more than a human could possibly be." I let out a slow breath. "I think that might have been why they started the whole divine masquerade in the first place."

    Aisha raised an eyebrow as she considered what I had said. "You mean since they were sort of divine already, they decided they might as well play at being the real deal?" She asked.

    "No." I said, shaking my head. "I think it scared them."

    I saw Tetra's face scrunch up in thought and felt the energy dancing through her fibers as she considered what I had said. "Why would that have scared them?" She asked.

    I took a breath before replying. "This is just guesswork from what I know about the process, my own experiences, and what I read in that book, but I think what happened was they realized they had tapped into something bigger than any of them could handle. Something that they needed to use just to survive the planet they found themselves on, but nobody really understood what was happening. Nobody was ready to become a part of the infinite and the divine. So they took on the names of gods and set up the caste system and pretended that they had control of the situation, rather than being beyond overwhelmed by the magnitude of what they had stumbled into."

    "Fuck." Aisha said. "So you're here trying to deal with that? Or at least your own flavor of it?"

    I nodded to her. "You need a very specific mindset to manifest your Aspect. I was only a demigod, so my control of it isn't that good to begin with." I explained. "Not easy even under the best conditions, which is why I'm up here."

    There was a slight pause as the three of us drank in the lush and peaceful sights of the plateau, along with the vast expanse of the lands of my Workshop spread out below us. Despite everything, every change and alteration, the Workshop was still home. It was a constant that had been with me since the night of my trigger and something that had slowly grown and developed along with my power. And just like my power, despite being beyond anything I had imagined, it was still part of me. Still connected and important.

    "So, what is your Aspect?" Aisha asked. I turned back to her as she pressed on. "I mean, if everyone had a specific one, then you've got to know which one you have, right? There's some element of reality that you're the sort-of a god of?"

    I smiled at her. And at Tetra who was leaning in in anticipation. Thinking back to the memories that had been dumped into my head, I remembered the training I had undergone after my 'ascension' to demigodhood. The guidance, medication, conditioning, mental techniques, and technological support. The exercise and effort needed to accomplish that state. All to reach that perfect sense of self, the moment when you were yourself so hard that the universe synchronized around you. The moment the first weak and feeble manifestation of my Aspect had come forth and I knew what it was. Who I was.

    "My Aspect," I said as Aisha and Tetra leaned in, "is Progress."

    "Progress." Aisha said. There was a beat as she processed what I had said. "You were the God of Progress. Are the God of Progress."

    "The demigod, but yeah." I explained.

    "The God of Progress." She continued. "In a world where nobody is allowed to develop beyond the level of dirt farming and horse drawn carts." I could see the amusement bloom on her face, an expression echoed by Tetra. "And you became the God of Progress immediately after that huge war against that movement to advance society?

    "Accelerationism? Yeah." I said with a nod.

    "The obedient acolyte who everybody expected to shut up and do his job, the last person who could actually make the highest levels of their technology, was the God of Progress." She smiled.

    "That must have been a surprise." Tetra added with clear amusement in her voice.

    "Yeah, that's one way of putting it." I rubbed the back of my neck as I went over those particular memories. "It went over about as well as you would expect. That's the point where things start getting kind of indistinct for me. I'm not sure what happened, but I know they cut off any support for my training, for all the good that would do."

    "What do you mean?" Aisha asked.

    I smiled. "Progress, remember? Kind of hard to stop someone from developing beyond a limit when they actually embody progress."

    "And you don't know what happened?" Tetra asked. "How things ended up in that universe?"

    I shook my head. "There's nothing in the book that gives any clues. I mean, assuming I'm from a different version of the universe but things still continued the way they did in that novel? I could probably guess what that version of me might have done, but no. There's nothing I know for certain."

    Which was fairly typical, though I didn't know if it would have been worse to find an account of my life in some novel, movie, or TV show. Not knowing the truth of what happened on any of those worlds was frustrating, but it was probably preferable to having my own life spelled out by some author or screenwriter.

    To my surprise, Aisha let out a short laugh. When I looked at her for clarification, she grinned back at me.

    "The God of Progress is a Gym Bro." She said with clear amusement.

    I rolled my eyes at her, but Tetra seemed equally entertained by the concept.

    "Once again, demigod." I clarified. I was struggling too much with this power to meet that highly dubious classification of 'god'. "And I don't think I've earned that title just yet. I've been a member for less than a month, and the gym has been effectively closed for half of that time.

    Aisha shook her head. "Nope. I've heard the talk around the gym. You're an honorary gym bro at the very least. They've basically adopted you."

    "Adopted?" I asked.

    She shrugged. "As someone with personal experience with that kind of thing, yeah. You're in the club, for better or worse."

    I shared a smile at the idea, then my face fell as I focused on the task before me.

    "So, what's the problem here? I mean, besides the whole 'connected to an aspect of the universe' thing." Aisha asked.

    "That's not enough?" I asked in response.

    "For most people, sure." Aisha said, "But having everything you know about reality turned upside down is like a daily occurrence for you. More than daily, really. I mean, this is big, but it can't be that much bigger than the stuff you have lying around the color laboratory."

    Tetra perked up at the mention of the Prismatic Laboratory. So far, she hadn't been included in that particular flavor of reality bending. It was on the list, but I wanted to get a better handle on how to control and manage the effects of the light first. Tetra's mind functioned very differently from a normal human's, but the effects of those colors weren't limited to human minds. I had a strong suspicion that relying on Tetra's alien nature as a form of defense wouldn't go well.

    "Like, this is just one more flavor of sort-of-god, right? I get that the power isn't easy to use, but after everything you've already gotten…" Aisha trailed off. "This is different, right? Like, not just the memories or the Workshop changes or the crazy power. It's something else, isn't it?"

    I nodded. "It's progress." I said. "Or I'm progress, or I'm supposed to be progress." I let out a breath. "I seriously don't know what that means. I understand it on the technical level. I know how the mutations form and the kind of neural structures that are needed to manifest the effect. I can guide someone through their development and build devices to help them manifest their powers, but the Aspect itself, what that means… I don't know."

    "It's not just another divine power? Or something psychic?" Aisha asked.

    "No. Or not quite. It's not divine like my other powers and it's not precisely psionics, though it's close. It's not really clear what the power is, other than a manifestation of elements of reality." I shook my head. "This is a lot more fundamental than what I'm used to working with, and with the Aspect it's even worse."

    "How so?" Aisha asked. "I mean, if you had to be god of something, Progress doesn't sound that bad."

    "It's not exactly like becoming the God of Progress, it's becoming progress itself, progress as a concept and everything that it represents in the universe. Every element that falls under that category, all the good and bad, all at once." I took a moment to put my thoughts in order. To try to communicate the actual problem I was having.

    "It's not just flipping a switch to turn on a power or thinking a certain way to bring about an effect. It's looking deep within yourself and finding the truest aspect of yourself and then having the universe answer in kind. It's something personal and fundamental. More than Aura. Even more than Spiral Energy." Tetra looked up at me and I gave her a slight nod. "Taking on an Aspect, it's like losing yourself in yourself to the point where that identity is reinforced by the very fabric of creation."

    Aisha took a moment to respond. When she did, she had a knowing look on her face.

    "Are you freaked out because you can manifest an Aspect of reality, or are you freaked out because of what that Aspect is?" I didn't respond verbally, but from my reaction she seemed to have her answer. "I thought so."

    "Why?" Tetra asked. "What's wrong with progress? Why would that be bad?"

    Aisha turned to her. "Because it's big and important and meaningful to a lot of people in a lot of ways. That makes it hard to get down on yourself." She turned back to me. "Because it's not something you can downplay or ignore, right? Your Aspect means no bullshit, because that's how it has to work."

    I took a breath before nodding. "Something like this, there's weight behind it. I'm not just someone with powers that are like a god. This is actually representing an element of creation in its entirety. It's powerful and I can accomplish so much with it, but it feels like it's too much. Like it's not something I should be representing."

    It was an incredible amount of pressure. I was only brushing against the potential of what an Aspect represented and it was still difficult to wrap my mind around exactly what I was dealing with. I couldn't imagine what the first settlers had to go through when they were effectible flying blind with this kind of power. I was only just managing and I had the benefit of a reinforced sense of self and the perspective granted by multiple lifetimes.

    Okay, they had that as well. A culture where reincarnation is standard medical practice does tend to grant a broader perspective. I imagine having several lifetimes to come to terms with the nature of your Aspect probably helped. Then again, they had set up an oppressive false religion in order to maintain control of the population and distract themselves from their inherent nature and keep other people from achieving the same state without their direct control and permission, so maybe they hadn't dealt with it that well.

    "I didn't expect to get a power like this, and if I did, I definitely wouldn't have expected my Aspect to be something like Progress."

    "Seriously?" Aisha asked. She looked from me to Tetra and back again. Then she looked at the palatial landscape around us. "Fucking seriously?"

    "What?" I asked.

    "You didn't think 'Progress' was a good fit for you?" She asked. "After everything that's happened? Everything you've done?"

    "That was the Forge." I said. "My power throwing abilities at me hardly counts as being an icon of progress."

    "Not what I'm talking about." Aisha said. She reached up to briefly touch the amulet containing her armor. "Where was I two weeks ago? Where was Tetra when she first showed up? I remember back when Survey thought you should follow ISO standards for making tea and Fleet barely spoke. There was a time when you could count the number of components the Matrix had on one hand. All that and you don't think progress is a good fit?"

    I took a deep breath, then let out a sigh. "No." I said. Aisha smiled at that. "I know Progress fits. I know because it's my Aspect. That alone means it's right. But there's a difference between having vague inclinations towards something and having the universe itself step in to confirm them."

    I focused, drawing on the faint flickers of power that I could access. The dregs of ability afforded to me as a demigod before the very nature of my existence put me at odds with the self-appointed masters of that alien world.

    "Progress is important, but it's also difficult, frightening, and at times destructive. The drive for progress is a direct affront to people who are satisfied with the current state of affairs. It threatens a comfortable existence with an unknown change. It challenges and demeans the accomplishments of those who worked to achieve the present equilibrium. The capacity for improvement exposes flaws and failings of what currently exists."

    Aisha nodded. "People don't like change, even when you're trying to make things better." Her voice was slightly bitter. "It's easier to pretend that you're selfish, or ignorant, or actively trying to mess things up than admit there's anything that needs fixing in the first place."

    I returned her nod and continued to focus on my Aspect. Our situations couldn't have been more different, but I understood where she was coming from. My own experiences, the reason this concept was so important to me, was the desire for change. The hope for things to get better, the idea that what I was dealing with did not have to be the case forever.

    That had meant fighting against every controlling influence in my life, and usually losing. The only thing that needed to 'progress', to improve or change, was me. To admit otherwise would mean acknowledging a deficiency that they had a responsibility to address. So it wasn't enough for them to take no action, they had to ensure that I couldn't even work to improve things. Lack of agency, stifled initiative, and the constant impression that any problem was due to my own deficiencies.

    It was an environment that was easier to manage, but never one I accepted. There was always hope, always a desire to try to make things better. To find a way. Maybe not a perfect way, maybe not an easy way, but the hope never completely left.

    That hope wasn't a light and airy thing that you got from poetic depictions. It was hard and jaded. Not something that lifted me up, but something I dragged with me all my life. And no matter how much easier it would have made things for me, I refused to put it down. Hope forged from spite, determination, and an obstinate refusal to accept things the way they were. Hope that had to be rebuilt as the softer parts crumbled away. Hope that nearly broke during a bad night with my family, but hope that endured, first in myself and then with everyone who had come to support me. Everyone with their own hopes, dreams, and personal drives. Their own quest for progress.

    Hope drove progress. There was no movement towards something better without the belief that it was possible to get there. Progress didn't just happen, it was the result of effort, drive, and determination. To make progress means to give up things the way they were, but also to give up the infinite potential of what could be. In taking the step towards one future, countless possibilities were forever lost. You had to give up what 'was' and what 'could have been'. That was the only way to achieve what 'would be'.

    It was the only way forward, the only way to achieve change and to make a difference. It was something everyone knew deep in their heart, even if they didn't devote themselves to it. I knew. I knew and I understood. Hope, determination, and progress were universal elements. Things that united everyone and everything. Because all things strive.

    I felt the alignment of forces, the conviction and truth, the ruling passions of my being as they resonated with the fabric of the universe. A mantle of power rose around me, still weak and unstable, but undeniable. An Aspect. My Aspect.

    It was like removing a mask I hadn't known I was wearing. Everything that wasn't me fell away leaving a purity of intention that was undeniable. I hadn't just activated a power, I had embodied my Aspect.

    But my grasp on the state was weak. It took energy to maintain my Aspect, and the effort of BEING a concept was unlike anything else I had experienced. My body was capable of supporting the forces required, but it was that of a newly created god, unused to the burden I was placing on it. The fact that I had been able to fully raise my Aspect rather than the weak and feeble flickers that most demigods managed was a feat in itself.

    Ultimately, I couldn't maintain the state. I released my Aspect and the power fell away, or possibly receded. It wasn't like I was diminished, more that I was burdened in a way I hadn't been before. I wiped sweat off my forehead, a sign of one of the few acts of true exertion I was still capable of. I took a breath and looked up at Aisha and Tetra.

    They were staring at me wide eyed. Aisha looked completely stunned, but for Tetra it was more the complete picture she had received through our link. The direct connection, the Dragon's Pulse, our Teigu link, and the extradimensional senses she possessed painted a much more dynamic picture than the one Aisha had seen.

    Not that Aisha was unimpressed.

    "Holy shit." She gasped. I shrugged. "No, seriously. I thought this was going to be like a transformation or maybe a bit of a lightshow, but… Seriously, I could see it. I could tell just by looking at you."

    I nodded. "To wield an Aspect is to become that Aspect. Taking on the mantle is evident to everyone who sees it."

    "Yeah, I get you were saying that, but seriously." She shook her head again. "Fuck. No wonder those guys got delusions of godhood."

    I inclined my head. There was no doubt there was something more than human going on. Something that went beyond just throwing around 'supernatural' powers that were later scientifically quantified. It might not be godhood, but taking on an Aspect meant you became something more than a mortal existence.

    "Right." Aisha said, apparently mostly recovered from the display. "So, how strong is your Aspect? I mean, that was serious. I know that was serious, but like, what does it actually do?"

    "Currently, it's fairly weak." Aisha gave me a skeptical look. "Compared to what it could be. I can just barely summon it in full. Most demigods can barely manage a flicker in the direction of what their aspect represents."

    "Okay, but like, practically? I get the significance and the philosophy and all that, but in practical terms how does it work?" She asked.

    I grinned, forcing a bit of levity into my expression. "So, fake space god power 101?" I asked.

    She smiled back at me. "I'll settle for the course outline. I'm guessing there's going to be a full breakdown of this available from Survey."

    "She already has three reports ready." Tetra explained. "Including a truncated summary that she recommends you review."

    "Of course she does." Aisha muttered in an amused voice. "So, space god magic, what do?"

    I rolled my eyes at her quip. "Alright. Power is divided into Attribute and Aspect."

    "The power and the crazy impossible state of being." Aisha said.

    "Right. The Attribute is a discrete ability, but it always aligns with your Aspect." I said.

    "So, what did you get?" She asked.

    I smiled at her. "Can you pass me that?" I said, pointing at the copy of Lord of Light next to her. She glanced down, then picked up the book and tossed it to me. I caught it out of the air and held it up. It was a paperback copy of the novel, freshly printed by the Matrix as closely to the original publication as you could get.

    I drew forth my Attribute and focused on the book. There was a moment of stillness, and then the book began to change. Form and structure flickered as countless possibilities flowed into each other. Inherent potential present in any physical creation of human intellect was drawn forth and channeled to bring out a tiny aspect of progress.

    The process completed and the flickering stopped. The book was still a book, but it was sturdier. The paper was more robust, the binding stronger. It was a more advanced version of what the book could be. A more advanced example of publishing in general.

    "You made it… what, stronger? Better?" Aisha asked.

    "I advanced it." I said. "That's the easiest use of my Attribute. Manifestation of progress. Applying it to a physical object that was the product of someone's labor is relatively simple." I tossed the book back to her. "It's not a permanent change, just a manifestation of my power. It will shift back when I drop the effect."

    "Okay." Aisha said. She examined the book, flipped through it, then passed it to Tetra. "So you can make stuff a bit better if you touch it. I mean, that's good, but it doesn't really seem that significant." She paused, then turned to Tetra who was very excitedly examining the book. "What? What's the big deal?"

    "Joe didn't change it to make it better." She explained with considerable enthusiasm. "He changed it to have been made better!"

    "Um, alright." She said, "There's a difference?"

    Tetra nodded. "This is a new type of paper. It's better, but it wouldn't be more expensive than the type of paper they normally use in books like this. The chemicals used in the printing are easier to produce and have less environmental impact. Also, there's a new structure used in the binding that makes the spine more durable and less likely to wear out."

    Aisha turned back to me. "So you redesigned the book? Made it better?"

    "No." I said. "I probably could have come up with those improvements, but I didn't. That was my Attribute." I relaxed my power and the book shifted back to a normal paperback. "It's not about making something better, it's about how something could be made better and bringing that about, at least temporarily."

    Aisha nodded slowly. "And then you can just recreate the design that your power pulled from wherever. Like if you used your Attribute on something more advanced than a book, you'd get a better version of it, but also know how to make it better."

    I nodded. "More complicated items are more difficult, and the benefits can be more marginal. Slight improvements or optimizations, but still," I grinned at her. "It's progress."

    She groaned. "Uh, that was terrible."

    I shrugged. "I've just had half a lifetime of memories dumped in my head and my perspective of the universe turned inside out. I think I earned that one."

    "Fine." She said, "So, that's your Attribute. What happens if you use it with your Aspect? Bigger improvement? Faster deployment?"

    "Well, right now what would probably happen is I would lose focus on my Aspect due to the strain of trying to channel both it and my Attribute at the same time without sufficient practice and conditioning." I said.

    "You know what I meant. What happens if you get it working properly?" She asked.

    I dropped the smile from my face. "That's what I was trying to explain earlier. Aspects don't just empower your abilities, they represent the fundamental forces of reality. You're effectively working from behind the curtain as far as universal forces go. As long as you're acting in concert with your Aspect, ANY powers used will be magnified and exalted."

    "What does that mean?" Aisha asked.

    "It means the rules change. It means that limits aren't limiting." I gestured to the book. "My Attribute can impose progress on crafted items. Raised in harmony with my Aspect, it gets more powerful and a lot less limited."

    "You can affect other things?" She asked. "What kind of stuff are we talking about?"

    I shrugged. "What can progress apply to? People, places, events, organizations, plans, missions, or even ideas." I shook my head. "Some of those things are abstract, but to a certain extent so are Aspects. Conventional limits get a bit fuzzy when you're playing with the fundamental elements of reality."

    "People?" Aisha asked. "So what, if someone was trying to learn something, you could manifest a version of them that already knows it?"

    "At the most basic, yeah. That would probably work." I said. "I haven't exactly had a chance to practice with advanced uses of my Aspect."

    "And then whatever they knew or accomplished, it would go away when you stopped?" Aisha asked.

    "It would." I said. "But they would know they could achieve that state. They would know how to achieve it, and what steps they needed to follow to accomplish it. I mean, progress is a journey, and it's easy to follow a trail that you've already walked."

    Aisha shook her head. "Of course they would. God of Progress. Can't be making people discouraged about their prospects."

    "I really don't think 'god' is the right word here." I said.

    "And I really don't think we have a better one at the moment." Aisha retorted.

    "It is pretty unexpected." Tetra agreed. "I never even imagined something like that was possible."

    I shrugged. "For all I know, it might not have been before I got this power."

    Tetra nodded. "There's no way to discern between undiscovered and undetectable aspects of reality and elements that may have been added because of your power."

    "For what it's worth, I don't think your power is messing with the nature of the entire universe." Aisha said. "And that's definitely not just a coping mechanism for my own peace of mind."

    I grinned at that. "Regardless, this is something I need to figure out. It's too important to leave on the back burner."

    "Yeah, that stuff you mentioned sounded crazy." Aisha said.

    I shook my head. "It's not just about boosting my Attribute." I said. "That effect works with any powers raised in harmony with my Aspect. As long as they're acting in support of the ideal of progress, any of my powers can be similarly expanded."

    Aisha stared at me. "Any power? Seriously, any of your powers?"

    I nodded. "As long as it's in harmony with my Aspect. If I'm acting towards progress, I can take any of my abilities to another level, both in terms of their strength and their usual limits."

    "So like, if you did that divine crafting stuff with your Aspect up…" Aisha asked.

    "Massive increase in power." I explained. "Removal of typical limits. Could probably add multiple features, or contingency features that would change based on the situation, or bend the rules that normally limit them. Use Master Craftsman through automated mass production or use refined materials for Craftsmen of the Gods. The same with my magic, or psionic abilities, or divine powers, or really anything else. As long as it's working in concert with my Aspect, the brakes come off."

    "That's insane." Aisha said.

    I nodded. "This is basically reality warping acting in support of my other powers. Insane is pretty much the only way to describe it. Even the 'gods' working with nothing but their Attributes and divine tools could do impossible things like affect aspects of someone's personality or specifically target their soul with effects that shouldn't have been able to achieve anything close to that."

    "Soul?" Aisha asked.

    "The bioelectric patterns that provided continuity of self with reincarnation." Tetra explained. "But it's equivalent to the soul for the purposes of Joe's other abilities and technology."

    "Right." Aisha turned to me. "So that means those jars…"

    "I can get them bodies as soon as they're stable enough for the transfer." I said. "Providing they want them."

    I could have done that before, but with a more basic understanding of the body transfer technology it would have required more experimentation, guesswork, and reliance on my other powers. Right now, I could basically automate the process.

    "I'd wonder what you'd do with them, but I guess with the whole Celestial City set up you're set for a heavenly afterlife." Ashia joked.

    "Really?" I asked.

    "It is literally a shining city on a hill." Tetra said. "Well, an expansive plateau, but from the ground it looks very impressive."

    "I bet it does." I said. "Guess I've been a bit preoccupied."

    "Understandably." Aisha said. "Okay, so this is important. I get that. Are you going to be working on this with your duplicates?" She asked.

    I shook my head. "No. My Duplicates can't manifest my Aspect."

    "Really? How come?" Aisha asked.

    "Because it's MY Aspect." I explained. "They have different mindsets. It helps them function for their limited duration, but it means there are some mental differences between us. Not big ones, but enough to mean that my Aspect isn't the same as their Aspect. They can use my Attribute, but manifesting the Aspect isn't going to happen."

    They had taken that in stride, actually being engaged with the idea that there was something I could develop independently from them. The fact that it was equally a mental process of personal development probably also helped to sell the idea. It was weird having versions of myself who seemed to both take every opportunity they could to mess with me while also seriously acting in my best interest.

    "So if they can't help, what else? Is this something Tybalt can help with?" Aisha asked.

    I shook my head. "There are martial Aspects, but this isn't one of them. It's not something Tybalt can help with."

    Both my Aspect and Attribute were definitely things that could be used offensively. I was embodying all aspects of progress, including the less positive ones. Progress could be a destructive force, quite literally at times. Still, it wasn't quite enough for it to count under Tybalt's mastery of war.

    "Okay… so, boosting items?" Aisha mused, looking from Tetra to myself. "The stuff you do with that arcane crafting power. And you said they used items to help with this kind of thing? You can make those, right?"

    I smiled at that. "Yeah, I can handle all of it. In fact." With a thought a streak of silver launched across the courtyard to my hand. The Bright Spear hummed in its new form, resonating with my Attribute and the aftereffects of my manifested Aspect.

    "Spear from the other power?" Aisha asked. "It looks different."

    "It's been upgraded." I explained. "The Chosen of Death power involved access to a lot of resources. I think that's why I ended up with the Warehouse upgrade and the pile of gold, but it also boosted my spear."

    I held up the weapon. It was still the deadly instrument it had been before, able to fly in response to my thoughts, carry me aloft, block attacks, and vibrate through any shield, but now it had taken on a more complex shape. More like a tool than something that was strictly a weapon. It was an artifact designed to resonate with my nature, resonating and channeling my Attribute like an extension of myself.

    That part was actually quite literal.

    "It functions as an extension of my power." I said as the spear floated around me. "Basically part of my body. Anything that requires my direct interaction or physical contact, I can manage through the Bright Spear."

    I paused and extended my awareness to the other item that counted as a part of my body. Thankfully the Avid Glove was secured, and the spillover of the manifestation of my Aspect hadn't caused too much trouble.

    "So you can use your Attribute remotely?" Aisha asked. "Send the spear off to boost something."

    I nodded. "It also enhances the Attribute, so I can handle bigger items than I normally would. Like, for instance…"

    With a thought the spear flew off and embedded into a decorative fountain at the edge of the courtyard. It was something that had been added by the recent renovations rather than crafted by me, my duplicates, or the Matrix. It was still a beautiful piece, with elegant sculptures, gently falling crystal clear water, and artfully arranged water lilies on the surface.

    I focused and drew forth my Attribute, channeling it through the Bright Spear and into the fountain. Despite the size of the structure, the activation was easier than when I had enhanced the paperback novel. Possibilities flickered across the surface of the stonework as paths of progress were evaluated and selected.

    Aisha let out a whistle as the already immaculate structure turned into something that made the fountains of Las Vegas casinos look like a discount waterpark. Jets of water flying at impossible angles danced through the air without disrupting the calm surfaces of the tiered pools that gently flowed into each other. Sculptures detailed enough that they looked like they could step out of stone and come to life.

    Of course, if I had built it by hand they very well could. It was only a step of progress, not enough to take things to the literally supernatural level of craftsmanship I could produce. But it was still a larger step than had been taken with the book, carried out with less effort and on a much larger structure.

    I called back my spear from the fountain. Despite sinking into the stone, there was no cut in the surface as it slipped out and flew into my hand. I allowed the effect to persist for a few moments before letting it fade back to its earlier form.

    "Okay, that was pretty cool." Aisha said. "Does it only help with the Attribute, or does it do the Aspect as well?"

    "Only Attribute." I said. "At least as is. I can build devices to help with focusing an Aspect, but conditioning an Aspect is a combination of conditioning and self-hypnosis. Anything dealing with minds…" I left the statement hanging.

    "Yeah, I can get that." She said.

    Really, my Mental Fortress negated the risk, but given the intensity of what an Aspect represented I was being careful in how I approached it.

    "Really, this isn't the kind of thing that's supposed to be easy to get a handle on." I said. "The 'gods' devoted lifetimes to mastering their Aspects and even they had limits in how far they can push them. Beyond just parking myself in the Spiritron Computer until I get a handle on things, I'm not sure there's much that would make a real difference."

    "So, I guess you've got your plans for tonight sorted." Aisha said with a smirk.

    "Ha. I suppose so." I shook my head. "It will mean shutting down the time field for as long as I'm in here."

    "We'll manage, right?" Aisha turned to Tetra.

    "Right!" She said, "Though I will miss the time shift. It's fun to see the world at two different speeds."

    I smiled at that. With Tetra's senses it went a lot further than just 'seeing'. The multidimensional nature of her existence and the connections she maintained added… complexities with respect to the passage of time. Time was and wasn't a dimension in itself, and Tetra existed in, though, and around it. The whole thing was just another aspect of the new ground that she represented.

    "Hey, if the duplicates can't help with the Aspect thing, what are they up to?" Aisha asked. "I hear they were 'busy'."

    "Well, as soon as I got this power one of them jumped in the Spiritron Core and started transcribing just about everything for Survey. Every detail of that world, my powers, memories, and the technology I had access to." I said. "He was done before I made it back to the Workshop."

    "Right. Eleven hours a second." Aisha said.

    I shrugged. "Since then he'd been projecting through the QEC to the Final Frontier helping upgrade the systems."

    "What upgrade?" Aisha asked.

    I looked at her. "The technology I learned about from this power? The stuff that can rip apart matter and energy patterns or fit what would otherwise count as a capital ship's main weapon into a man portable system. That technology."

    "Oh, right." She said, "Um, yeah. The whole 'manifesting Aspects of the fabric or creation' thing kind of overshadowed it."

    I nodded. "If my technology wasn't as advanced as it is, this stuff would be Earth shattering." I mean, a lot of the stuff still can be considered what was basically casual medical care in that world. "As it stands, it's 'only' increasing firepower by a factor of several hundred while adding new and unprecedented methods of controlling matter, energy, and the forces of the universe."

    "Well, that's hardly worth mentioning." Aisha said with a grin. "Though even in Passenger Space, is it even making a difference?"

    "It is!" Exclaimed Tetra. She wasn't as present in Passenger Space as places she had physically visited, but between her dimensional awareness and the connections she'd been able to extend, she was well appraised of what was happening there. "They've been able to swat aside projections that had been causing them trouble, and Fleet really likes the maglev drives."

    "The same stuff that's in my spear." I said, causing the Bright Spear to twirl behind me. "Only scaled up to capital ship size."

    Which I could do without trouble thanks to Always a Bigger Robot. There weren't any issues taking a piece of technology that was normally only used on a personal scale and turning it into a key ship system. The new drives allowed for precise, high speed, and undetectable maneuvering, at least at sub-light speed. They also worked well to complement certain types of FTL systems, making navigating Passenger Space child's play, at least compared to our first expedition.

    Of course, that same scaling could be used on weapon systems just as easily. Handheld weapons that would cause a mountain range to vanish into nothing or burn the face of another celestial body could be scaled up to a terrifying degree. The Wand of the Universal Fire and Trident of Destruction were not simple devices, but I had more than enough skill, resources, and crafting speed to create giant sized versions of those weapons. More than enough to meet even the strongest Passengers on equal footing.

    Well, meet them in Passenger Space. Countering the abilities of passengers in a semi-virtual environment was a very different matter from trying to counter a multidimensional entity in its entirety. I didn't even want to imagine what Taylor's passenger would be capable of if it was able to act at full power.

    Tetra had manifested a holoscreen projector for Aisha and was showing her some of the Final Frontier's recent weapon tests. It was both very impressive and nothing I'd want to see within a half dozen astronomical units of Earth. It was a display of power that spat in the face of the conventional understanding of physics as well as casting aside any semblance of efficiency, restraint, or the very concept of limits. That, of course, made it fit in perfectly in Passenger Space.

    "Damn." Aisha said as she watched a live fire exercise that made solar flares look like firecrackers. "But what about the other one?"

    I grinned as I accessed the Workshop's systems. "We just got complete access to an entire new world of culture. Where do you think he is?" I asked.

    "Garment's workshop?" She suggested.

    "Garment's workshop." I confirmed as I skimmed over the activity log. "Though not just to update her on the fashions of that world."

    "What is he doing?" Aisha asked. I called up a display of the logs of their work.

    "Using his Attribute on various outfits." I explained, showing Aisha the effect of manifested progress on some of Garment's designs.

    "Seriously?" She asked. "I didn't think it would work with things like fashion."

    "Designing is about progress, it's just a matter of what your objectives are." I explained. "Same with using my Attribute. You can have refined styles, or you can have things like this."

    I showed Aisha a pair of images showing a dress before and after the Attribute had been used. "Um, what am I looking for here? Because they look exactly the same."

    "Nearly the same." I explained. "The second dress has the same design, silhouette, and body shape, but it also has full sized pockets that don't compromise the style of the outfit." I pulled up details of how they were integrated. "It's also a design that can be integrated into other items of clothing without needing special equipment or effects."

    "Yes!" Aisha exclaimed. She looked at me with what I could only describe as passionate gratitude. "I knew if you stacked enough power bullshit together, you'd eventually be able to do something really important!"

    "Um, I think you might be exaggerating a little." I said.

    "No I'm fucking not. Do you know what it's like to have to deal with those dresses?" She asked.

    "I thought you liked Garment's clothes." I said.

    "Of course I do, but I miss my fucking pockets! Everyone wants pockets." She pointed to the screen. "She's going to roll this out, right? Not proprietary or anything like that? For the sake of humanity, you've got to share this with the world."

    "It's just a sewing and placement technique. I probably could have figured it out earlier, even in a form that could be shared." I said.

    "Could have, but didn't." Aisha snarked. "We had to wait for a damn convergence of universal forces to align before you solved the pocket problem in a way that didn't use space warps or holes to another dimension."

    "Ha, ha." I said flatly. "Anyway, for the rest of the update, for those who need it..." I looked at Tetra, but she didn't seem to mind me elaborating on information she was inherently aware of. "The Matrix is picking over the plans along with Fleet to find out what can be applied to the next generation of nanites. Some of the energy field controls have potential. Fleet is all in on testing out the new ship upgrades, so he'll mostly be focused on that until his meeting with Bitch from the Undersiders tonight."

    "Oh yeah." Aisha said with a grin. "His date." I gave her a flat look. "Okay, maybe not a date."

    "He said it's a riding lesson." Tetra offered. Aisha's face twisted as she desperately tried not to make the most obvious comment in the world, if only for Tetra's sake. Tetra tilted her head as Aisha struggled to control herself. "Not in the euphemistic sense, or at least not on Fleet's part. He is very popular online and there are active discussions as to the-"

    "Thank you, Tetra." I said as Aisha struggled to contain herself. Despite Tetra's energy and apparent youth, you couldn't really think of someone with her breadth of connections as naïve.

    "Ahem, so." Aisha began. "What are they going to be riding?" She asked.

    "Probably some of Bitch's dogs. I'm pretty sure she's self-taught as far as that goes. Though he did ask if he could borrow some of the wolves from the Workshop."

    Aishan blinked at that. "Are you okay with people knowing that we have wolves?" She asked.

    I shrugged. "At this point I doubt it will make a difference. And her power might work better on wolves than dogs."

    "Really?" She asked.

    "Hint from my passenger. Don't know if it'll pan out, and they might not even bother with that, but it'll be interesting to see."

    "Right. Anything else?" She asked.

    "Survey's juggling data on three fronts right now." Meaning her central program, physical form, and Passenger Space iteration. "That's going to be her focus for a while. Tybalt is helping close things out at the Regency Center. He'll be there until the volunteers head over to the after party."

    "Sponsored by the Matrix." Aishas said, but her mood faltered a little at that. It didn't take much effort to guess where that was coming from.

    "Parian?" I asked.

    "Fuck. Yes. Parian." She muttered. "That put a bad taste on the entire event. Everything we did, all that work, and it ends like that." She looked up at me. "And that was lucky. You know that right?"

    I sighed. "Believe me, I do."

    Dealing with the mess, the whole situation with Sabah and then with Parian, it had been exhausting. The first encounter was bad enough. That was something I'd just barely been able to navigate, but I'd made it through alright, or at least as well as I could have hoped. Not something I ever would have wanted to go through, but just being able to deal with it and move on had felt like something of an accomplishment.

    And then everything had gone wrong. Because nothing could actually be simple. With capes, nothing ever was, and I was including myself in that mix. Whatever concerns Sabah presented to her boss had hit on unresolved issues and trigger related concerns, sending Parian into an unstable spiral that could have ended in any of a dozen different disasters.

    Without the capabilities of my team to address the situation, I don't know what would have happened. Things could have gone to hell for me, for Parian, or for everyone still at the event. Second triggers were serious and even brushing against one was a sign of how close to the edge we had come.

    I looked at Aisha. "You wanted to do more."

    "I wanted to do something." She said, "Just, anything but leaving things like that and pretending they didn't matter."

    "We haven't left them." Tetra assured her. "I'm helping Survey keep track of things. We'll make sure this can't happen again."

    "Containment." Aisha said. "Not that Parian knows it."

    That really was the sticking point. Parian hadn't gotten off scot-free, but in her mind she might as well have. It was hard letting someone come so close to causing a disaster, then leave them without even an official rebuke.

    I had been able to accept a policy of containment. Making sure the unstable parahuman has a chance to stabilize was more important than coming down on her for her actions. Actions that were inexcusable, but not technically actionable. That was another side to things. Vague implications left room for people to fill in horrors of their own imagining, but weren't the same as direct accusations of wrongdoing. It was the kind of thing that would also have been hell to address if it wasn't caught immediately, or if it hadn't been presented to people who demanded more than indistinct statements on the matter.

    That specific aspect hit hard. The unbelievably damaging accusations made in a way that granted impunity to the accuser. That left room for them to back down and pretend they didn't mean what everyone would be led to assume they meant. It was high school bullshit taken to the level of having serious legal consequences and it had taken a borderline miracle to head things off before they got out of hand.

    "There wasn't much we could do in an official capacity. There were no legal accusations and the truth of the situation was revealed before damage could be caused." At least to anyone but Parian herself. Aisha reluctantly nodded in agreement. "If we wanted to do anything, it would be outside official channels. And that could get messy."

    Very messy. Even without legal recourse, there was no limit to the actions I could take in response. Literally no limit. That was something I'd acknowledged with Emma. I was someone who could rain down biblical levels of vengeance at the drop of a hat. The question wasn't what could I do, it was what did I want to do?

    The idea of people gathering behind my back and twisting the truth to their benefit at my expense was something that would never sit right. If that accusation had been made with active malice as part of some kind of coldhearted ploy, I would have supported every act of reprisal by Garment and Aisha suggested and more. The full force of my team's resources would have been mobilized without a second thought, but that wasn't what happened.

    This entire mess was the result of a panicked woman lashing out while under the influence of trigger related stress and active interference from her passenger. Mitigating circumstances could only mitigate so much, and if the damage of her actions hadn't been contained then we would have had no choice but to come down as hard as possible. But they were contained. Incredibly, the only person hurt by Parian's incredibly damaging accusation was Parian.

    It was like watching someone take aim at you and mess up so badly that they manage to shoot themselves in the foot. That didn't change the damage the shot could have done, but it did mean you were in a better position to deal with the aftermath. Parian hadn't even recognized the significance of what she was doing. Not surprising, given her level of panic and the actions of her passenger. The confusion she had expressed when it had to be spelled out that there were actual legal consequences to her actions made it clear she had no idea of the kind of damage she could have caused.

    Frankly, that wasn't good. Someone in Parian's position could cause a lot of damage, but she seemed completely ignorant to the amount of power and authority she had been throwing around. Even when stressed and emotionally compromised, she should have understood the seriousness of her actions. The fact that she didn't, that she apparently still didn't, was concerning. Concerning for her career and for everyone who worked for her. Not just Sabah, but every student currently interning at her studio.

    "Yeah, because we're too strong to do that kind of thing." Aisha said. She let out a breath before looking back at me. "I get it. I do. That stuff can get out of hand. You follow your first impulse in that kind of situation and things get messy, even without powers involved." Which was basically what Parian did. It was weird to think that Aisha was able to approach the situation with more sense and maturity than a parahuman who had been running their own business for two years.

    "It wasn't a good way for things to end." Tetra agreed. "But it could have been much worse. Even if we had done something, I don't think Parian would have understood why we were doing it."

    "Right, and that matters." Aisha grumbled. "Not a good place to be." Aisha added, then turned to Tetra. "Are you sure you want to make this your project?"

    "Survey and I can handle it." She said confidently. "And It's better we deal with it than drag everyone else into things."

    There was an exchange between Tetra and Aisha that I could tell had more meaning than they were letting on. Probably something to do with Sabah's situation, and not something I wanted to deal with.

    Fundamentally, that was it. I did not want to have to deal with this. I wanted to be able to move on from Sabah and not have any part of that mess in my life anymore. Frankly, that was the same thing I had wanted before I ran into Sabah at the Event, but this was kind of like looking at it from the other side. There was a difference between wanting to get out of a situation and choosing not to be dragged back in.

    I had spent a lot of time in therapy working through everything that had happened with Sabah, every detail I had missed, every mistake I had made, every decision that could have been handled better. It was tempting to imagine there was some perfect solution, a way that I could have made everything work, despite going into that bad situation without anything close to the skills I would have needed to navigate it. When it came down to it, the best thing I could have done would have been recognizing the mess for what it was and avoiding the situation entirely.

    Sometimes progress was about walking away. Recognizing that something couldn't be fixed, couldn't be made right, and moving on with your life. Progress with my family hadn't involved fixing that situation or getting them to understand what was happening, it had involved getting out and living my own life. Sometimes the only way to make progress was to leave.

    That was what I wished I'd done back in college and that was what I wanted to do now. With the damage contained and the situation mitigated I was in the rare position of not having to add another concern to my already overloaded plate. I could trust Survey and Tetra to contain the situation and make sure Parian didn't end up spiraling out of control. I could trust that Survey would at least try to convey to Parian the seriousness of what had happened, and I could trust that if she still didn't understand then Survey could at least make sure nothing like this happened again. The people working for Parian didn't deserve to have their lives ruined just because they happened to associate themselves with a cape who was much less stable then she presented herself to be.

    "Hey, I was wondering, the progress thing?" Aisha asked as I felt the Toolkits constellation miss a connection. The Celestial Forge was moving again.

    "Yeah? What about it?" I said.

    "That was something big for you, even before you got all of reality to back you on it." A hint of amusement returned to her voice. "I mean, it was pretty fucking clear even before that, just from, you know." She vaguely gestured at herself, Tetra, and everything around us.

    "Yeah, I suppose." I said.

    "So, was that why you cut Parian slack?" She asked. "Is this progress thing going to be applied to everyone like that? Extra chances and forgiveness all around as long as there's a hope of improving?"

    She kept her tone light, but I understood her concern. It was something I wrestled with myself, over issues much more serious than Parian's situation.

    "No." I said flatly. "This was a special case. The damage was contained and we had enough information to confirm that there were extenuating factors and no malicious intent."

    "Maybe technically." Aisha said. "With how much damage she could have caused, intent barely matters."

    I nodded. "And if things had gone wrong, intent wouldn't have mattered. You can't dismiss the victims suffering in favor of the situation of the person who caused it."

    "Yeah." She said, "I just didn't want to think we were going to be cutting breaks to utter bastards because of a sob story and the hope they might be able to make 'progress'."

    I nodded. "A lot of the time, this stuff isn't about punishment or justice or redemption. It's about acknowledging that what happened to someone was wrong, and acknowledging that the person responsible needs to be held accountable."

    And I had a particular group of bastards that were going to be held very accountable for their actions. To do any less would be an insult to every life they had destroyed in their meaningless villain careers.

    Aisha let out a huff. "So with this, that would be you, me, and Garment."

    I nodded. "I'm sorry you didn't get a satisfying resolution out of this."

    She took a breath. "Honestly, if this was me a couple of weeks ago, I would have my power up and be out trashing Parian's studio right now. Which would feel great, but wouldn't actually help anything." She sounded like she almost regretted her maturity. "You're okay dumping this on Tetra and Survey, which is an option, I guess." A glint entered her eyes. "Which just leaves Garment."

    I nodded slowly in acknowledgement. "What is she going to do?"

    "She made some sketches in the car on the way back from the event." She said, "I think Survey has them scanned and stuff."

    Of course she did. That was a core feature of the Digital Database. Survey got a copy of every text that entered the Workshop. I accessed the central control system and pulled up the drawings in question.

    "Ah." I said flatly before transferring them to a holoscreen. "So, what is she going to call this? The 'Fuck Parian' collection?"

    Tetra shook her head. "She started on this before the show. It was supposed to be for their work together, but without that…"

    "Yeah." I said, looking at what could generously be called Parian-inspired work.

    As the foundation for a collaborative collection it could serve as the basis for taking some of Parian's most creative ideas and expanding them into entirely new styles. Without that, it was basically just highlighting how amateurish and sloppy her early projects had been by definitively demonstrating what they would have looked like if they had been made by someone who knew what they were doing. It wasn't just a dig at Parian, it made it clear that the woman did not have anywhere close to the experience she had claimed when she started as a designer.

    "You going to try to stop this?" Aisha asked.

    "No." I said, shaking my head. "I didn't want to be caught up in this and I meant that. You can work this out between Garment, Survey, and Tetra." I considered a final point. "Just maybe don't release them tonight? A day or two would be more reasonable." And less petty.

    "Yeah, I think Garment's got enough to deal with tonight." Aisha said. "An entire new world of clothing, Fleet on his first date, the miracle of dresses with pockets, and the volunteer's after party. She's booked."

    "Right. Then I guess we better get started as well." I said. "You ready for some call bead testing?"

    "More than ready." She said with relief. "Come on, let's go tear the universe a new space hole!"

    Jumpchain abilities this chapter:

    Chosen of Death (Lord of Light) 600:
    Great Yama, Death-god, has seen you clearly and bade you enter the Vasty Hall of Death, to serve as his partner in creation. Not merely revealing his secrets of science - you are his equal in the arts. Your creativity is that which may forge ten unique treasures each day, or mass produce legends. Design of all forms of weapons, armours, vehicles, and utilities comes to you with blinding light and strength of inspiration. With this position comes the virtual guarantee of rebirth in your next life, as a Demigod of the forge. You also gain a Discount on all artefacts and equipment.

    Demigod (Lord of Light) Free:
    Blessed child. Your righteousness and piety have become the seed of Divinity in you. From your old form you have become young, vital. The body of a God is yours, handsome, strong, fast and with the correct mudras and psycho-conditioning, you have begun to align yourself with an Attribute and develop your godly Aspect. You are very much at the bottom rung of Heaven, but even Death Himself was once like you.

    Divine Physique (Lord of Light) Free:
    The body selected for your enjoyment has been carefully shaped beyond the apex of humanity. Strong, vital and beauteous - it is a form that one could live within for hundreds of years, though at any time you may approach the Masters of Karma for a replacement, should the flames of your divine lifestyle burn it out. Care has been made that it expresses the initial mutations and brain structures to develop Aspect and Attribute - though once they have been induced, they will carry with your soul through whatever form you take.

    Attribute Induction (Lord of Light) Free:
    The Attribute is the capacity to effect the world with your will in a single, highly iconic way. It is a mutant strength, carefully developed with millennia of experience by the scientists of Heaven. With your attribute you might encourage silicates to grow into splendid – and razor sharp – trees of crystal, or have the wind sour and sicken your foes. Food cooked by your hands might keep a thousand men fed with one loaf, or you may will the birds to sing sweet praises in your favour and fly against your foes.
    Many Attributes are known best for their utility in war, but the days when mankind's position on their world need be defended by flaming fists and opalescent eyes has passed, and Heaven cares as greatly for Attributes of craft and fragrance as those of iron and blood.
    Demigods and Mortals have just begun to harness their virtues, they are like flickering embers – offering feeble warmth, but needing careful stoking. Their attributes are unstable and untested, often needing some tool to focus their energies. The former may rely on the assistance of their superiors in the Divine, the latter have only their own wills to push further.

    Aspect Cultivation (Lord of Light) Free:
    If an Attribute is the grasp of power, then the Aspect is a state of being. To wield reflections, and to become Reflection. To summon Strength and to become it. Greater and more subtle than any Attribute. Through genetic predisposition, hypnosis and chemical therapies, your passions come to correspond with those of the Universe.
    Raising your Aspect is like removing a mask or standing straight, a mustering of yourself. It takes some energy to maintain, should you wish to be capable of being anything but an avatar, but it is the exertion of being rather than the struggle to become.
    This is a power that requires your kindness. What is the nature of the gods who become Fire, undaunted and ferocious? Who become Death, unknowable, all-ending? Who become Divine Drunkenness, invincible in vitality and charisma? Those who look upon you in raised Aspect know, instantly and surely that you are divine, that you embody a facet of creation.
    Any powers raised in harmony with your raised Aspect are magnified and exalted – they are more than just spells or mutation, they are in service of the very order of the universe. An arrow loosed by the Goddess of the Bow might strike a man's heart from ten miles away, or pin his courage to the wall.
    Should the God of Flowers walk in Aspect through a forest, will it blossom and lend him strength? Or does a single rose cut and displayed by his hand speak of days of sun and offer a simple strength to all who behold it?
    Demigods, though they have begun along this path are but beginners – they summon weak and feeble Aspects to match their new and uncertain Attributes, and must still undergo a battery of training exercises and therapies to fortify their natures. Mortals who develop this faculty independently are in essence on the same level as Demigods – but lack the aid of Heaven in their development.
    Once fully matured, forevermore you will be Water or Marble, the Lute or the Joust.

    Wealth (Lord of Light) Free:
    Not merely comfortable in your station, you are quite well arrayed with the finer things. Whether this is from your merchant holdings, your mostly symbolic but well rewarded stewardship of one of the important structures of Heaven, or just the bag of gold at your hip – you have enough capital to smooth over some eccentric purchases and a somewhat flamboyant lifestyle.

    Opulent Warehouse (Lord of Light) Free:
    Do the bare walls and drab concrete styling of your cosmic warehouse offend thine eyes? Did you wish for a shaded bower, gilded conservatory or tawdry bordello? While the total size and features will not be changed, the cosmetic structure and layout is yours to realign – as long as it is opulent. Change your bare metal shelving into a dozen cozy rooms, filled with leather-bound books and the smell of rich mahogany. Make your Portal appear edged with basalt and gold, and Forcefield into an invincible iron gate that parts only for you. Once set, you may change the appearance once per Jump.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • LordRoustabout said:
    "Nearly the same." I explained. "The second dress has the same design, silhouette, and body shape, but it also has full sized pockets that don't compromise the style of the outfit." I pulled up details of how they were integrated. "It's also a design that can be integrated into other items of clothing without needing special equipment or effects."

    "Yes!" Aisha exclaimed. She looked at me with what I could only describe as passionate gratitude. "I knew if you stacked enough power bullshit together, you'd eventually be able to do something really important!"

    "Um, I think you might be exaggerating a little." I said.

    "No I'm fucking not. Do you know what it's like to have to deal with those dresses?" She asked.

    "I thought you liked Garment's clothes." I said.

    "Of course I do, but I miss my fucking pockets! Everyone wants pockets." She pointed to the screen. "She's going to roll this out, right? Not proprietary or anything like that? For the sake of humanity, you've got to share this with the world."

    "It's just a sewing and placement technique. I probably could have figured it out earlier, even in a form that could be shared." I said.

    "Could have, but didn't." Aisha snarked. "We had to wait for a damn convergence of universal forces to align before you solved the pocket problem in a way that didn't use space warps or holes to another dimension."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm a guy, but even I feel this so much. Joe, tell us your secrets. Why are even men's clothing losing pockets at this point?

    Thanks for the chapter!
     
    LordRoustabout said:
    but it was probably preferable to having my own life spelled out by some author or screenwriter.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Now I am become Chosen of Death, Destroyer of fourth walls.

    LordRoustabout said:
    "The second dress has the same design, silhouette, and body shape, but it also has full sized pockets that don't compromise the style of the outfit."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Wow is that a new Garment dress? It looks good on you.
    Thanks, it has pockets.
     
    Feels like you went over things a few too many times this chapter explaining the perk, as in like 2/5ths of this chapter is just rewording explanations from a previous paragraph

    Also need an explanation for why MC dosnt understand other people perfectly given how many sensory powers he has that would make him perfectly understand their biological reactions + his psionic telepathy/empathy, Why can he control those powers enough to willingly blind himself like this but has no control over any of his crafting perks?
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top