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Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

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The next time Joe manhandles Lung, Kenta will get the most confused murderboner ever over it, and every yaoi fangirl who sees it will rush for PHO's NSFW counterpart. Meanwhile Bakuda will find herself yandere-ing in response - she was already flustered when Joe dismissed her for his waifu Khepri - and March may find her devotion to Flechette wavering at the prospect of being Jo-Jo Posed into Apeiron's harem.

Meanwhile Alec will be taking furious notes, Uber will be inspired to battle-flirt at the master level the next time he and L33t are out caping, and Armsy will be gripping his halberd hard enough to snap it at the thought of Dragon chasing Sudden Harem Protagonist Apeiron.

Hell, maybe Squealer complains that Skidmark doesn't care enough to pose and flirt the way Apeiron can.
 
Don_taco said:
I literally cannot remember lung ever directly confronting joe but apparently it wasnt even worth thinking about.
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This Lung interlude confirmed it happened during Aisha rescue :

Those suspicions were pretty much confirmed when I burst through another wall and emerged into a meeting room that wouldn't have looked out of place in the penthouse office of one of the Downtown corporate headquarters. A dozen frightened men in various levels of business wear stared at me, stunned.

All except for the hulking form of a single security goon who turned and charged directly towards me. It was a display of either bravery or loyalty that bordered on suicidal. This was like the sequel to the guy who decided to shoot at me after I had fought off half the forces of the ABB and made me once again wonder about the possibility of chemically enhanced bravado.

With my body drowning in life fiber energy the instincts of T'ai Chi Chuan took over and I shifted smoothly out of his lunge. Garment's help wasn't even necessary, though it was amusing to see his face when his blow stopped dead against a billowing cape. Garment pulled back before he could react and I grabbed his exposed arm, spinning him into a throw. A throw that would have put down a normal man if done with my previous strength. A throw that would have caused injuries with my current Olympian build. A throw that, when combined with the overwhelming power of raw life fibers, ended up considerably more dramatic.

The thug went through the wall, into a hallway. Then through the wall on the opposite side of the hall. And into a pile of cubicles and office furniture, ending up in a collapsed mess with what was clearly several broken limbs. Survey confirmed he was still alive, though not likely to move anytime soon.
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And yeah, Apeiron didn't realized the "security goon" was Lung (he was too focused on saving Aisha from her own stupidity). Poor Lung. To be fair, it was so sudden he wasn't ramped up at all, and Apeiron KO'd him near instantaneously.
 
Oh god, so good its not on QQ or we would never escape the consequences. Now our minds may remain mostly unscared. On topic of it being Cuntessa plot, then I have to give you a strong maybe. It sounds plausible. As soon as she saw he was escalating in effects and defying at least some predictions, then came the chance he could conceptually atack scion or something. Now there is going to be a ridiculous concentration of anihilator capes, along with terrifyingly devastating tinkers, so they can maybe copy some of the effects and devise protections against them? It is a perfect crucible to forge weapons maybe able to affect entities. It only hinges on prolonged conflict and no tinker backing down. So yeah. It is not impossible, that further escalations are being arranged, to introduce new obstacles and possibilities of growth.
 
At a certain point Joe should leverage Simple Scientific Solution for more things. For example, all the subterfuge he constantly needs to go through to transport Garment.

When you think about it, an annoying commute to work is exactly the sort of problem that could benefit from a simple scientific solution. Just do that quickly and easily, because that perk is BS levels of strong when applied to a problem that falls under it, and suddenly he's got some sort of teleporter leading to a key area where two of his major allies will be working and potentially allow Garment to travel there without having to personally go and find an entranceway he can use away from home.

If it's flexible enough with what's a household problem that a need for privacy can create a thinker proof zone... Well, that's a lot of potential to leverage.
 
With all the game and anime powers Joe's been getting, I really feel sad for Uber and L33t and how their heading down a bad ending for this story. Would have been nice to see them geeking out over all the cool tech Joe has in his labs.
 
Darkchespin said:
How has no one mentioned that surveys new identity as Delphine could easily become Canary's new lawyer. We know that the trial is being postponed and we know that survey is now a lawyer. I remember someone on here and on discord mentioned the possibility of survey being canary's lawyer as an omake.
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Rather unlikely I would think. Joe doesn't know the woobified Canary we do, he knows about the one who mastered her ex hard enough to mutilate himse;f, and if he looks into it he will find she is being investigated for mastering thousands. With his current problems he is highly unlikely to have all that much sympathy. And while she might not get birdcaged they will have her bang to rights on a number of charges that would get her at least years.

Ghost in a wall said:
We have a Super Stranger who is working with Joe to be a Hero- hero's who are sorta like the police.... so in a way, a Secret Police!
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SO secret in fact that when the SP are on the clock no one can remember they exist. And now that is true for digital records. Scary stuff.

SCO said:
Why are so many people convinced that THIS protagonist is suddenly going to start killing villains? It's like a edge infection over here, he's the softest of softies. Heck he's still traumatized about potentially having triggered as a brainwashing biotinker way back when.
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We really, really, want March dead. It is not an accurate prediction, but a voicing of desire.

clonezero said:
With all the game and anime powers Joe's been getting, I really feel sad for Uber and L33t and how their heading down a bad ending for this story. Would have been nice to see them geeking out over all the cool tech Joe has in his labs.
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Leet has a decent chance of pulling off his Tron impression before he gets taken out.
 
And we have seen Leet feeling at least a bit remorseful for what is being done. But confronted with thinker of March caliber, he is sadly a wet noodle. And it's a double whammy cause his power is more content being under her direction as it gives it more conflict.
Eh. Situation with canary is complicated. It says worse things about PRT than her, that an organisation tasked with monitoring parahumans only just realised that her powers have lasting effects. Damn. She should not have been allowed on scene before there was confirmation of no lasting effects. Eh. It still stinks of railroading. And this one semi intended victim is a cause of self defence, which should be permitted, or at least a mitigating circumstance. She should have been allowed to order him to leave her alone, but that still would have been assault with power.

The whole thing stinks, cause powers are like a weapon which you cannot relinquish. And while in many countries it would be a problem, USA is one of few countries where possession of a weapon is a right and not a privilege, and where they are considered valid for self defence.
 
Yeah I guess L33t does have some chance to switch sides but what about Uber? He seemed on board with all the messed up shenanigans March and Bakuda has been doing. Seems like a prime candidate for a bittersweet separation of bros.
 
SCO said:
Why are so many people convinced that THIS protagonist is suddenly going to start killing villains? It's like a edge infection over here, he's the softest of softies. Heck he's still traumatized about potentially having triggered as a brainwashing biotinker way back when.
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Because Joe straight up said he would kill Bakuda to get all the ridiculous bombings to end if there was no deadman switch?
LordRoustabout said:
"You mean kill her?"

I glanced between them before answering. "If it will end this and stop things from getting worse, then yes, I would."
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He might be a softie compared to canon Taylor, or a real villain, but the ABB as a whole is charging full speed ahead to trying to upstage the S9. It's fine to say it's immoral to just kill villains when they put a toe out of line. But killing Bakuda, March, and possibly Lung and U&L is basically a moral imperative at this point. How many people have bombs in their head? How many people has Bakuda already blown up just to assert dominance? It's like a "would you kill Hitler if you had the choice" situation. You don't need to be a hardened soldier to say yes. It's just objectively the right thing to do now. Well, except for the deadman's switch.
 
While this chapter was a lot smoother than the last, I think there is one little bit of it I want to criticize. The Lung addendum just felt kind of off in regard to the internal dialogue. I guess this is a vague way to describe it, but it was pretty much just:

Lung: "I am Lung. I speak of Asian things. I speak of Dragon things, Asianly."

Looking into his head, he didn't seem all the different from anyone else's superficial external perspective of him, which is quite the contrast from the depth we've gotten out some other characters addendums (Leet comes to mind as a top tier example here). Made him feel kind of flat overall.

Of course, his only role in the story so far has been to repeatedly get stomped flat, either in a literal or metaphorical manner, by others. So a lack of depth on his part isn't ultimately that important, as I assume that trend will continue even if he grows big enough to be a challenge for one fight.
 
Lung is a product of his trigger. He was stuffed into s pile of drugs, he has to be so angry to be barely able to think to jumpstart his transformation, for many years led a gang through brutality and more brutality, with side helping of serial suicide bomber.
 
TitanFrost said:
While this chapter was a lot smoother than the last, I think there is one little bit of it I want to criticize. The Lung addendum just felt kind of off in regard to the internal dialogue. I guess this is a vague way to describe it, but it was pretty much just:

Lung: "I am Lung. I speak of Asian things. I speak of Dragon things, Asianly."

Looking into his head, he didn't seem all the different from anyone else's superficial external perspective of him, which is quite the contrast from the depth we've gotten out some other characters addendums (Leet comes to mind as a top tier example here). Made him feel kind of flat overall.

Of course, his only role in the story so far has been to repeatedly get stomped flat, either in a literal or metaphorical manner, by others. So a lack of depth on his part isn't ultimately that important, as I assume that trend will continue even if he grows big enough to be a challenge for one fight.
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after re-reading some of Lung's interlude from canon, it looks like the Kenta addendum hit on the major beats of his character - specifically the "I will wait as long as it takes for my revenge and then I'll rule the world" thing, referring to people with titles, etc. One difference between Lung and the other characters we've seen Lord give a lot of depth to is that we do get a peek inside his head in canon, and it's relatively simple.
Billiskner said:
Lung is a product of his trigger. He was stuffed into s pile of drugs, he has to be so angry to be barely able to think to jumpstart his transformation, for many years led a gang through brutality and more brutality, with side helping of serial suicide bomber.
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His transformation isn't based on anger, he's not The Hulk. It's based on fighting (and the anticipation of a fight, sometimes). His interlude shows no indication that his thinking is muddied by his transformation, he just happens to be fighting an endbringer so the main strategy is "just hit it as much as you can until it goes away or dies".
Lung isn't stupid, he's just usually powerful enough to beat people without having to use much strategy beyond "hit it till it dies". He's also operating on a general strategy of "live to kill you another day", so if he mucks up the first encounter he'll assume that he's got another chance to get it right.
Essentially, Lung isn't stupid, he's just never had to think tactically the way that someone like Skitter would after he triggered.
 
I don't think it's strictly necessary for him to be angry. More like he grown accustomed to it. He fights because he is angry at something became he will be fighting so he is angry. Like a reinforcing loop. Especially with passenger pushing him to fight and conflict.

And in more broad strokes, he is so angry at the world he cannot see other resolution than through conflict.
 
Albert said:
Elven Enchanting uses Joe's fea, which he doesn't have benchmarks for in terms of measuring or gains. We don't know what fea links to, other than the soul, but it's not a permanent diminishing of his vital essence, when used the way Tolkien elves did. (The way Melkor did? And later Sauron did with the Ruling Ring? It's absolutely a diminishing, but I don't think Joe is going to use his fea to create dragons larger than mountains. He's got his Big O chimera procedures for that, and he doesn't want to create phylacteries at all.) So it's like he's using muscles that he never really knew about until now, so they're somewhat weak.

It may well tie into Aura, but his fea doesn't seem to retreat into middle-school syndrome in response to trauma, so it's not quite the same as Aura.

Beria remains an essay of the craft, in terms of fea exertion, because Joe is nervous about using his Sinatra perk (I believe from Battletech, i.e. the idol singers are magic silliness) to Sing the Unseen World and produce a true Item of Power.

Gonna be interesting to see how Joe uses Sufficiently Analyzed Science to make proper magitech. But I'm still rooting for a couple of rounds of Therapy Pillows. Finding ten people who could use 'may you stay in the arms of the angels' each sleep cycle can't be all that hard for him: Between the Undersiders, himself, Aisha, Danny, and Mr. LaBorn, that's nine people already. Make them gifts from Garment for the few that he needs to pretend aren't from Apeiron.
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The one ring was specifically made to be a pseudo-phylactery, and it is possible to make magic rings without voldemorting his own soul, heck the elves didn't destroy their own 3 rings and they reeeally wanted to kill Sauron, so if they had a piece of his soul they would try to kill it

However, Sauron also learned something from the literary god of the forge and creator of dwarves, so it's likely within Joes grasp
 
kildar said:
think the issue is that not everyone uses your head cannon for enchanting
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Given Lord has taken the time to research the actual words, it's not a stretch to assume he's going to stick to Tolkien Lore.
You're welcome to your ideas, I'm just informing you that they are not going to be a part of this story.
I actually think it would be hilarious and very entertaining if something like that actually did happen... but it's not going to.

Darkchespin said:
How has no one mentioned that surveys new identity as Delphine could easily become Canary's new lawyer.
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Can you imagine if that happened and the PRT finds out later Joe is connected to Canary. That would be awesome.

Whamodyne said:
Looking forward to other "hey, that's a new way to look at it" elements in the future.
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Wouldn't be surprised if other Earth dimensions get involved in the post-leviathan story. Or some other major shakeup. The key is that you can never really let Joe just have a week with nothing to do or he starts snowballing to instant win scales.

TitanFrost said:
Made him feel kind of flat overall.
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Honestly, I think Lung is actually just a flat character. He has a simple worldview and adjusts all external evidence to fit that view. He idolises the parts of his heritage that he likes as being sacred divine traditions that are inherently correct while not even acknowledging parts of that same culture that would say "hey, maybe be less murder-dragon".
I'd love to see him get repeatedly curb-stomped and left behind, if nothing because it might actually be a chance for character growth for him to acknowledge that a human is entirely beyond his level.
 
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prussiangrandier said:
The one ring was specifically made to be a pseudo-phylactery, and it is possible to make magic rings without voldemorting his own soul, heck the elves didn't destroy their own 3 rings and they reeeally wanted to kill Sauron, so if they had a piece of his soul they would try to kill it

However, Sauron also learned something from the literary god of the forge and creator of dwarves, so it's likely within Joes grasp
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Yeah, I know. My point is that if Joe can get some practice with singing and some exercise for his fea, he ought to be able to make proper Accessories of Power, on par with the nineteen that the elves crafted. Especially since he's got Master Craftsman to make each Accessory of Power a Divine Construct on top of Singing to the Unseen.

The question is, should he? Can Joe figure out worthy Accessories of Power, either to give out or keep for himself?
 
clonezero said:
With all the game and anime powers Joe's been getting, I really feel sad for Uber and L33t and how their heading down a bad ending for this story. Would have been nice to see them geeking out over all the cool tech Joe has in his labs.
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I don't. They were always assholes (see the whole "beating up hookers" thing) and now they've chosen to become incredibly dangerous assholes. Joe can already do geek stuff with Aisha. They don't deserve it.

Without Joe they'd be an even bigger problem.

I can't wait to see him stomp all over their heads with his Master Craftsman enhanced mithril-adamantium-celestial-bronze boots.
 
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It's hard to say how it went in original, but here we can see that it's Uber who is pushing for more, while leet is the one with remnants of moral compass.
But lets be honest. The ability to speak convincingly taken to the limit could easily be counted as master power. Less said about March the better.

So I can easily see him as a sympathetic victim of circumstance. And to say that I wish to see them killed is a bit much. Maybe March, cause she seems to not have any reservations about mass torture and murder. With Uber the problem is that unless you can nullify his power he would almost certainly escape from any confinement. So yeah. He might need to go. At least to birdcage. Leet is too simultaneously useful and influenced. Sadly it is impossible how much of his actions were his own.
 
LordRoustabout said:
Pin and tumbler locks had been trivial to me for over a week, and the level or triviality had only grown since then. Back then I'd been at the 'any two pieces of metal' lockpick stage. Now I was wondering if I should try to pick them without tools, or if I could get the locks to open using only thermal manipulation from my pyrokinesis.
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Reminds me of heavily tech-modded Minecraft, stacking powers, building a citadel-factory of a Workshop...
And doing menial tasks in fully enchanted power armor with world-rending tools. :D
Also making cool toys for newbies. It's tremendous fun.


LordRoustabout said:
She stopped talking as the slip of metal flashed with an otherworldly light. There was blinding radiance in the shape of a woman and the sound of sliding metal, then nearly six feet of magical power armor was standing in my workshop.
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Aisha is now a Power Armor Magical Girl in the exact style as Tek--man Blade. Despite Jozef's killjoy tendencies, the heart wants what it wants, and this seems to be Aisha's definition of badass.
...mine, too.


LordRoustabout said:
It was called Technosorcery and was everything I had been waiting for in terms of Magitech. <-> Using this knowledge spells could be broadcast over electronic communication, the very essences of creatures could be affected through medical techniques, and entire realms of creation were possible within digital environments.
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Spell to exorcise a Dragon! Which usually involves slaying evil wizards, doesn't it? My suggestion? Loot the Ascalon off Saint's corpse and then, well:




LordRoustabout said:
Something was happening. I could either wait for it to manifest, or I could try to get ahead of it. For the first time in nearly two weeks, I needed to go on patrol.
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Finally Achilles leaves his tent, after the narratively appropriate amount of sitting. And like Achilles, it's bulldozer time.


Prediction for the upcoming fight: March will do as her theme implies and run like the wind to fight another day, only for the Celestial Forge to tick over and persuade Joe into crushing her first and foremost.
 
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LordRoustabout said:
Technosorcery (Gargoyles) 400:
Combining magic and technology is a no brainer for you. You can handily blend the two to create amazing effects like broadcasting spells over telephone lines or melding creatures together through sorcerous surgery. Very little in the field of technomagic is beyond your reach with this skill.
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Has anyone pointed out how the medical aspect of this perk could be seriously helpful in regard to curing Case 53s? The given example of melding creatures together probably wouldn't be very helpful overall, but the fact that it is a possible use of this perk kind of implicitly means this perk gives him some understanding of the interaction between medical science and medical magic.

Combine that with the database of horrific and implausible monster biology he was just given, and I'd say Joe has a good chance at this point of being able to help any Case 53 not named Weld. He might not be able to cure them completely, but surely with these tools at his disposal he could do some issue mitigating work like he did with Weld.
 
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