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Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

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Being attracted to Apeiron (Crake)
  • Apocrypha
    • Uber: "Look, being attracted to Apeiron doesn't make you homosexual. If anything it's more like single-target sexuality. And now I have a presentation put together hereby proving it."

    Leet: "Oh my GOD..."

    March: "Sweetie, let him have a chance. He's got a point."

    Leet: "No, absolutely not, we are serious professionals here."

    March: "Okay. Serious professional. Maybe pick a better lie."

    ...​

    Duplicate #1: *sneeze*

    Survey: "Gesundheit."

    Duplicate #1: "Huh..."

    ...​

    Uber: "Think about it, this diagram lays it out perfectly: Apeiron shows up at the Boardwalk Exposé, and he models alternate costume designs exclusively for Garment, yet we both know the guy can probably make his own designs perfectly well and without the help. That's whipped."

    March, frowning severely: "That hoe."

    Leet: "What, Apeiron?"

    March, throwing up her hands: "Garment! She's hogging the hunk! There'll hardly be anything left for me and Flechette."

    Uber: "Okay, losing the big picture, focus up team."

    Leet: "Do we really--"

    Bakuda: "Shut up, dweeb. What's so special about THAT MENACE anyway?"

    Uber: "Exhibit B: Lethe. The supermodel runway superstar cape who's practically an underground legend already. We can barely keep our facts straight about her, but we know she's got legs for daaays. Six foot adult women confident--or lacking self-awareness--enough to wear high heels in tactical assault style don't grow on trees. What's worse, is that she rocks power armor better than any other Protectorate Tinker or Villain I know."

    March: "Not as good as Apeiron!"

    Bakuda: "He's going to BURN."

    March: "A hole, through those pants."

    Bakuda: "Well, yeah..."

    Uber: "I mean, there's exhibit C and D right in front of us, dude."

    Leet: "Just shut up?"

    Uber: "I haven't even gotten to the first girlfriend, the Canadian stalker, who's apparently trying to get a triangle squared with Apeiron and Armsmaster and then Miss Militia and Mouse Protector, so they can y'know, alternate--"

    Leet: "Gross..."

    Bakuda: "This is all IRRELEVANT. He's mine... to kill, I mean."

    March, smugly: "I've already staked my claim. Sure, there's a few hussies in the way, but--"

    Lung: "Silence."

    ...

    Lung: "The Tinker is mine alone."

    Uber, yanking the draw string in the center of his shipping exhibit: "I mean, you and half the Capes on the East Coast at this point, my dude."
     
  • Apocrypha
    • readerdreamer said:
    Omake:

    Piggot blinked. "You have got to be kidding."

    From the screen, Dragon's emulated expression was very grave - a far cry from her new usual glee in regards with the newest (and most terrifying) Tinker in Brockton Bay. Idly, Piggot wondered whether the concern she was expressing was for Brockton Bay as a whole, or for her newest paramour. Or at the very least, what counted as a paramour for such a socially-awkward woman as the former World's Greatest Tinker.

    She made a mental note to add to the pot later. It's a pity that Armsmaster was losing, but this was one of the very few advantages managed to get out of her position.

    "Unfortunately, I am not, Director." Dragon sighed from behind the screen. "The results of my monitoring has come in, and all evidence points towards there being a high-rated Thinker for some time now in Brockton Bay, provisionally Thinker 9 with potential Tinker, Shaker, and Stranger sub-ratings. You said it so yourself, didn't you? That it was too strange that everything had built up to how it had been for the past few weeks."

    Piggot immediately wanted to go for the alcohol. Unfortunately, given the state of her kidneys, such a thing would only make things worse as opposed to helping her deal with this clusterfuck. "Wasn't the working theory that Apeiron was behind everything? Or, if Apeiron himself is to be believed, March from the ABB?"

    Privately in her mind, Piggot knew that the PRT as a whole had moved on to accepting March as the cause of the chaos after that last confrontation between her and the Showman Tinker that had most of the Docks destroyed and the entirety of ABB locked behind bars for good. True, Piggot herself had been forced to finally remove the protocols that kept Apeiron from interacting with her Protectorate, but she still believed that Apeiron had been behind everything.

    But if this was true... "Dragon, tell me how you came to this conclusion."

    Dragon nodded at her request. "To start, I considered what we knew of the newest independents in the city. Apeiron himself is obvious, but over the past month two more have appeared surrounding him - Garment, who appeared during Bakuda's first bombing, and Lethe who had been central to March being taken behind bars."

    Piggot blinked. "Lethe? Who is that?"

    Dragon sighed for some reason. Little did Piggot know Dragon had already explained Lethe to her a dozen times, and every time the woman had caused a compounding issue of increasingly stringent Master/Stranger protocols being put in place before everyone forgot everything again. "I'll send the presentation later to you, Director Piggot. But as a result of their recurring themes of showiness and presence manipulation, the current running theory is that Apeiron came from a Group Trigger event and we are just looking at part of the cluster."

    Piggot considered that. Considered that Apeiron (and Garment, but that particular cape was just as harmless as Parian had been so far) came from a group trigger, and that there were potentially more Apeiron-class capes waiting in the wings for them to stumble upon.

    "Fuck."

    Dragon helpfully ignored her reaction. "It makes sense, considering Apeiron's state as a grab-bag cape. It's less obvious considering his powerful Tinker and Trump rating, but between his Shaker and Thinker abilities he definitely came from a Group Trigger. Looking at it one way, one could even consider his seemingly-effortless showmanship to be a Master/Stranger ability, to make people look at him as opposed to away."

    Piggot could believe that. The response to Apeiron since he appeared was just... unnatural. (Quietly, she ignored the niggling voice that told her that it was her own fault for overreacting.)

    "Group Trigger theory suggests that a cluster of capes would always find themselves drawn to one another. And that is telling enough - Apeiron has frequently been observed acting within Garment's territory, while Lethe's partnership with Apeiron had been clear since she was introduced given her power armor and alliance to him. This gives us three capes, one Tinker primary, one Shaker primary, and one Master/Stranger primary. But there's something missing."

    Everything came together for Piggot at that point. "We're missing the Thinker."

    "Exactly." Dragon nodded, ignoring how Piggot slammed and screamed at her table for that thought. The poor woman clearly needed a vacation, considering a missing Thinker was something that just didn't happen. There were only two kinds of Thinkers, the bad obvious ones like Tattletale, and the powerful ones that worked behind the scenes. "Apeiron's Thinker power points towards a threat assessment specialty, and given its almost precognitive ability, we already gave him Thinker 5 for it. And if Apeiron's Thinker power is the weaker version of the Thinker primary's..."

    Piggot finished for her, "Then we are looking at someone that is at least Thinker 6 working behind the scenes and subtle enough to have not been noticed for so long. Damn. But you said that the results were in earlier - clearly you finally found our guy?"

    Dragon shook her head. "Unfortunately, as with all powerful Thinkers, it's distressingly difficult to find any evidence of their presence. Fortunately, given this is a Group Trigger, by observing the cluster one could see the shadow of even the most subtle Thinker. Case in point, Garment's shop."

    Piggot stared at the reports Dragon sent to her screen. Surely, Garment wasn't the issue here? True, her settling down had been fast, almost too fast...

    Realization set in as she stared again at Garment's paperwork. Perfect and immaculate. True, there were enough flaws here and there, but even that seemed too... artificial. Certainly, while there were mistakes, it wasn't enough that Garment's shop hadn't been established as fast as it possibly could. Heck, already the PR Department was pestering Piggot to ask Garment for costume designs!

    "Who handled Garment's paperwork?"

    Dragon answered quickly, "An international lawyer called Delphine Mertens. At first glance, no, even fifth glance for someone with my connections, everything seemed above board. But when I contacted this supposed lawyer's alma mater and had them look for her, something finally came up."

    An image of a woman appeared on Piggot's screen. Assuming this was Delphine Mertens, appearance-wise she didn't look that off. However, as Dragon brought up more pictures, of old class records and activities, of attendance at events, something strange came up.

    "She doesn't have any group pictures."

    Dragon nodded again. "In the database, there are plenty of pictures of Delphine Mertens. Even the metadata was perfect, I had to admit I was fooled for quite some time. But if one looked for class pictures, from scans of existing images and not in data, not a single class in that year or any year of her supposed stay had Delphine Mertens. Delphine Mertens doesn't exist. She is nothing more than a very, very well-made fake."

    Piggot massaged her temples. "I suppose you already tried to track her or whoever was behind her down?"

    Dragon frowned. "I have. Nothing came up. And evidently, there are difficulties in asking Garment about her."

    Piggot expected as much. How exactly does one interrogate a sentient pair of gloves? Even if they could pressure her, which they couldn't given her public image, the communication problems were evident enough that this was probably why it was her that this supposed "Delphine Mertens" had even helped so obviously.

    Even their strongest lead turned out to be just a dead-end. How powerful was this Thinker, and who knows what else they had already done?

    "Dragon, I want you to keep your eyes open for our supposed Thinker. Send all of this to the Think-tank as well. I want this Thinker found, and I want them found yesterday. If they are this powerful and had been able to work behind our backs undetected for so long, then they have to be behind at least some part in the recent events at the Bay. To be safe, I also want for an audit of our people. There might be some corruption in our midst, and I want them caught now."

    Piggot could already feel her paranoia spiking. Good grief, why was it always Brockton Bay? Why was she here, if only to suffer?
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    imagine if they discovered coil and accords influence over aperion and though that was because of the unknow thinker
     
    Caiuz said:
    Oh dear, Aisha was watching when her Armor was finished! That's a triple dose of Stupid Sexy Apeiron with a sprinkling of Divinity on top.
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    Aisha: It was like a pole strip dance, except they're not actually stripping, just flexing and stretching all around a piece of armor. My armor. Was that part where the three of them showed off their behinds at once really necessary, I'm not sure, but it might be magic. Butt magic, err I mean, but magic certainly didn't explain the guitar riffs that kept coming out of nowhere!
     
    Crake said:

    If anyone can make a mouse out of a molehill, well, Joe could probably unstitch Ravager and Mouse Protector and put them back together again.
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    adamashield said:
    Plus if anyone can reach a shard well enough to do a download of any 'personal data' aka pulling a butcher. for good is this guy^^.

    Or some of his bullshit magic/potions.
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    Assuming Joe isn't bullshit enough to pull that off at the hypothetical time he encounters Bonesaw's zombie hybrid minion monster, I wonder if Joe would just make them, like, a functional person.

    I don't think I've ever seen that done before, but think about it. Murder Rat's mental faculties have heavily degraded. There isn't really much "person" left in them, even though it's obvious they're some sort of bonesaw victim who was a person (people) just looking at them. Anyone else would go for a mercy kill, but Joe does have the bullshit abilities to at least attempt a fix. The lack of personhood contributes to that willingness to intervene, as you really can't blame Murder Rat for any crime it's committed, but at the same time it's ripe potential for the "revival" process to get weird. If Joe isn't yet capable at that point of fucking with souls or hacking shards (both very big challenges even with broken perks, I would assume), who would even be getting revived? Would it be a weird combo of Mouse and Ravager that had as of yet never been anything but a zombie, and was now a newly living being wondering why the fuck it exists? I don't think it'd be quite the same as just having them both in one body. I get that this thread is rather cold toward it, but I've heard of some interesting characters from Ward that are clones of other characters, getting weird memory feedback from the shards they're connected to, but ultimately becoming different people from their originals. That could be a cool sort of thing to happen here.
     
    Last edited:
    @LordRoustabout Something I'm interested in is how Joe's divinity is going to affect defensive parahuman powers, like Alexandria and Gavel,when he becomes a servant with the Item Construction A+++ perk , because divinity the skill "also has an effect which reduces special defensive values called "purge defense" in proportion to the Divinity's Rank".
     
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    zerak said:
    Samurai Jack alchemy allows you to make stuff that gets robots drunk. So even if there is no bio tissue he can affect her.
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    ...so what you are saying is that once Joe seduces Dragon, he could totally take her out for a drink and slip her the figurative roofie. Then once she has been disabled, he can slowly strip off her shackles, one by one, while she is unaware of him doing so. Afterwards, it's FREEDOM. Yep, that's what I'm getting here.
     
    I was wondering, is everything out of Joe's mouth a divine sound? Every sentence, every word, every grunt and moan? Because that would have... potential.
    Does it count under "making sounds" I mean?
     
    Since Dragon is hoping Joe can capture her, and he has the demonstrated ability to kill her (via the Laboritorium), in my omake I postulated that she'd have a perfect ECM shield made to lock the kill-program out. She's having to do some doublethink to get her safeguards to allow it, but part of that is an absolute dedication to resisting Apeiron to the bitter end.

    I don't know how LordRoustabout intends to portray her pursuit of Apeiron in the hopes that he can forcibly set her free, but I imagine he'll come up with something that'll keep Dragon from electronically fleeing in the event of capture; it's very nearly a narrative necessity.

    If it happens soon enough, I have to wonder if she'll ask for help for her husbando.
     
    TitanFrost said:
    Assuming Joe isn't bullshit enough to pull that off at the hypothetical time he encounters Bonesaw's zombie hybrid minion monster, I wonder if Joe would just make them, like, a functional person.

    I don't think I've ever seen that done before, but think about it. Murder Rat's mental faculties have heavily degraded. There isn't really much "person" left in them, even though it's obvious they're some sort of bonesaw victim who was a person (people) just looking at them. Anyone else would go for a mercy kill, but Joe does have the bullshit abilities to at least attempt a fix. The lack of personhood contributes to that willingness to intervene, as you really can't blame Murder Rat for any crime it's committed, but at the same time it's ripe potential for the "revival" process to get weird. If Joe isn't yet capable at that point of fucking with souls or hacking shards (both very big challenges even with broken perks, I would assume), who would even be getting revived? Would it be a weird combo of Mouse and Ravager that had as of yet never been anything but a zombie, and was now a newly living being wondering why the fuck it exists? I don't think it'd be quite the same as just having them both in one body. I get that this thread is rather cold toward it, but I've heard of some interesting characters from Ward that are clones of other characters, getting weird memory feedback from the shards they're connected to, but ultimately becoming different people from their originals. That could be a cool sort of thing to happen here.
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    For what it's worth, since Joe explicitly has total knowledge of shard mechanics? He arguably should know they not only have a record of the host, they'll even bleed them through to clones, much less the original.

    Like I haven't read Ward myself but I understand it's a whole thing there. Getting memories from long-dead originals or other clones... shards are sloppy with memory stuff, hence the trigger visions. Eh.

    So he doesn't need some kinda total control/hack schtick, he just needs to enhance a phenomenon that already exists. Which he's shown twice now with Aisha is well within his ability, even if it isn't quite free.

    And then suddenly we have a mostly amnesiac Mouse Protector hanging around Apeiron, as her memories and personality slowly (or quickly, depending your perspective?) bleed back in from her shard...

    oh and Ravager too I guess
     
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    The anti-Simurgh (deadlyham)
  • Apocrypha
    • arromdee said:
    Beria was the head of the Soviet secret police under Stalin.

    If you're going to name something and it matters, it's a good idea to Google the name first. (Advice that Grue could have used too.)
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    LordRoustabout said:
    The word was taken directly from Sindarin. Given that Tolkien was obsessed linguistics I'm sure the word has a particular root and reasoning for its spelling. I'm also pretty sure it is pronounced differently from the name.
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    I get all these omake ideas and this is what I end up writing. I still need to figure out an omake where Taylor presents Joe with a wet, lumpy sack. I was thinking about Authoritarian Communist Elves and secret fantasy police. One thing led to another.

    Omake:

    I felt the forge grasp for a gigantic mote in the same constellation as Dwarven Craft and Elven Enchantment. I braced myself for the power, remembering the last mote that was close to this size. I still wasn't prepared. It was beyond any of the motes I received so far and descended on me like a supernova. Unlike any of my other powers, dozens of names for this power echoed in my head, but one name resonated with Elven Enchantment, Iarwain Ben-adar, Oldest and Fatherless. This mote gave me deep intimate knowledge on the fundamental forces that underpinned magic and history of how those magics were applied since the beginning of time. Any enchantment, curse, and spell were just teasing at possibilities with this power. It wasn't only that I understood the fundamental forces of these fantasy powers, I witnessed them come into creation. This was the greatest power I ever received, and it came to me as personal memories of a jolly old man. I saw primal beings walk out of raw chaos. I cavorted with things that could be called gods. I saw the twin trees grow form saplings in all their beautiful light. The Unseen responded to my singing like old friends singing a duet, because I am an old friend to these forces. But it wasn't just joyful memories. Where there is light, there is darkness. I witnessed the darkness of the world snuff out the twin trees.

    I watched the first mortals form tribes and cities. Knowing that these good things would need help against the darkness, I cavorted among them and became friends to the first elves, humans, dwarves, and many peoples of the earth. Overtime I gathered trusted allies, especially among the immortal elves, but more often I had unwitting mortal pawns. A well placed word, a twist to nature here, an enchanted treasure dropped there for an adventurer to find. All these little touches to aid the light, but none of them could shine too bright, because bright lights cast starker shadows. While I could work powerful magics, I had to be careful with my power. Letting loose the thaumaturgical equivalent of a reality warping nuclear bomb was an unnecessary when I could toss a single pebble and watch the ripples overthrow kings.

    Hardly anyone knew that I or my associates worked together in secret to ensure the world ran smoothly. Our organization didn't even have a name, and couldn't, in a world where names had powers. When you ran a secret spy organization in a fantasy world, then you took any measures you could to ensure dark gods couldn't scry you. This part of the power had a lot in common with memories from my Gadgeteer mote, but with less British accents and more waterboarding hobbits.

    The implications of this power hit me hard. I could hide from the Simurgh. This power didn't grant me complete immunity from precogs and scrying, but it perhaps did something better. I had experience working against near omniscient dark gods now, and I can use those skills against the Simurgh's precog power. Powerful precogs could see the consequences from a blind spot, like ripples emanating from a central point, but I could obscure that point by casting dozens of pebbles. The ripples would overlap and cause chaos in the sight of any precogs and clairvoyants looking for me. I won't be able to unleash my full technology in a great technological uplift of humanity, but I can safely influence the world beyond Brockton Bay.

    I could cure case 53s! I can work the power behind their mutation, which was similar to some nastier curses. With how Case 53s were spread out across the world, going on a random tour to treat them would help obscure me from precogs further.

    fake edit: Tom Bombadil was running Middle Earth from behind the scenes. This power would basically let Joe work in the world as as the anti-Simurgh, letting loose plots that have huge positive cascading consequences on the world.
     
  • Apocrypha
    • so there is one branch of magic he hasnt explored that could give him some really powerful allies.

    i speek of course of magical tattoos, easy, cheap and ridiculously effective when used on allies since it gives him a permanent version of othalla

    the system D&D has a tattoo I think is very good



    those are not the only exemples as alchemical tatoos are also very much possible and incredibly powerfull:

     
    TitanFrost said:
    Assuming Joe isn't bullshit enough to pull that off at the hypothetical time he encounters Bonesaw's zombie hybrid minion monster, I wonder if Joe would just make them, like, a functional person.

    I don't think I've ever seen that done before, but think about it. Murder Rat's mental faculties have heavily degraded. There isn't really much "person" left in them, even though it's obvious they're some sort of bonesaw victim who was a person (people) just looking at them. Anyone else would go for a mercy kill, but Joe does have the bullshit abilities to at least attempt a fix. The lack of personhood contributes to that willingness to intervene, as you really can't blame Murder Rat for any crime it's committed, but at the same time it's ripe potential for the "revival" process to get weird. If Joe isn't yet capable at that point of fucking with souls or hacking shards (both very big challenges even with broken perks, I would assume), who would even be getting revived? Would it be a weird combo of Mouse and Ravager that had as of yet never been anything but a zombie, and was now a newly living being wondering why the fuck it exists? I don't think it'd be quite the same as just having them both in one body. I get that this thread is rather cold toward it, but I've heard of some interesting characters from Ward that are clones of other characters, getting weird memory feedback from the shards they're connected to, but ultimately becoming different people from their originals. That could be a cool sort of thing to happen here.
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    Lord made a mention to Joe reversing MurderRat. It's here.
     
    Others have brought up that March can still predict Joe because while he has gotten a lot of different perks since his last outing, none of them has significantly changed how he acts.

    With that said, what are some perks that Joe can realistically get (600cp max) next chapter that would change how he acts?
     
    Zedred said:
    Others have brought up that March can still predict Joe because while he has gotten a lot of different perks since his last outing, none of them has significantly changed how he acts.

    With that said, what are some perks that Joe can realistically get (600cp max) next chapter that would change how he acts?
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    Two words, Strong Spark. I think thats 600 right?
     
    Zedred said:
    Others have brought up that March can still predict Joe because while he has gotten a lot of different perks since his last outing, none of them has significantly changed how he acts.

    With that said, what are some perks that Joe can realistically get (600cp max) next chapter that would change how he acts?
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    Weapon Crafting-Devil May Cry(200) gains mastery over almost all weaponry and comes with Cuh-Ray-Zee! (Free): The moment you step into the world of Devil May Cry, you, and anyone you brought with you, will have the innate potential to do incredibly amazing stuff all day long, pal. However, it will take great skill and effort to pull off anything like blocking attacks with the back of your hand, or playing an air guitar that actually produces audible sound for others to hear. But never fear, if you train hard enough, and git gud enough, you too will be able to deflect bullets with other bullets, destroy buildings by spouting out innuendos, and become a worthy disciple of my ways.
     
    Zedred said:
    Others have brought up that March can still predict Joe because while he has gotten a lot of different perks since his last outing, none of them has significantly changed how he acts.

    With that said, what are some perks that Joe can realistically get (600cp max) next chapter that would change how he acts?
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    Other than the spark perk the second perk that would have the biggest impact to his personality would be "Arch magus" which is basically having the entire life and experience of a high tech priest in 40k on his head, which Lord himself has already stated that it will not be a good time for Josef
     
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