Remove ads

Brockton's Celestial Forge (Worm/Jumpchain)

Reader mode
Unelemental said:
Hmm. Does Apeiron's introduction at the end count as suitably dramatic for Imposing Declaration of Title? :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
"Apeiron." The man said smoothly, and glanced towards the table of his companions. "Leader of the Celestial Forge." He placed his hands on the table. All of a sudden, Uppercrust's viewed changed. The visage before altered, as the form of the cape became even more heroic, the light from Purity casting dramatic shadows across his form with his name and title framing him, while the sound of ringing hammers and other industry combined into a theme reminiscent of a heavy metal worksong.

A image broken as Aperion suddenly slumped. "Damnit, I thought I control of that."
 
Bob Saget said:
Well, that's my recent suspicion immediately vindicated during this chapter's Victor drama.

Joe in fact didn't make mind-shields for himself and his team members, which is a bafflingly enormous oversight, considering he and his teammates know the enormous damage someone who gets even the slightest access to Joe's mind could do.

And that's not even counting how OOC not super-thoroughly guarding his mind could be argued to be—considering Joe's repeatedly emphasized wariness of master effects and his deep seated fear of him/his abilities being used by another maliciously.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The Celestial Forge team does have defense against mind attacks (or at the very least Victor's skill theft), through the story don't tell whenever it's from an XCOM Mind shield or something else.

From this chapter :

LordRoustabout said:
Survey's analysis continued. 'Power nonfunctional against myself, Fleet, the Matrix, and Tetra. Nonstandard cognitive formations or Manton interactions likely. Effect present but diminished against Lethe, Tybalt, and Apeiron. Attention diversion highly effective. Effect persists. Immediate action recommended.'
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

LordRoustabout said:
Uppercrust said, gesturing towards Victor. "For those of us not as fortunate as some of Apeiron's team, this is an intolerable state." He indicated towards the lack of effect tracing to Fleet, Survey, Tetra and the Matrix as well as the diminished trails to Aisha and Tybalt, with my own flickering in and out as I worked to keep my attention away from Victor.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Keep in mind that if it come from a Mind shield, it might not grant a true immunity like in the game.
 
Last edited:
It makes sense to use Celestial Forge as the team name. It's what let Joe become a cape. It gave him Garment, Tetra, and Tybalt. It let him create Fleet, Survey, and the Matrix. It let him fix Aisha's relationship with her power, and let him give her the armor that she wears that's directly tied to her power. The Celestial Forge is what let them exist as the team that they are if not exist entirely.
 
As far as the non-Tattletale capes are concerned, the non-Apeiron members of Team Celestial Forge are:
Fleet, whose name means "nimble", and whose movements can casually break the sound barrier. He's obviously a Mover and his power is approximately Velocity's without the drawback.

Survey, who has hologram powers and a Thinker power that includes the ability to perceive Victor's power. Unless she instead has a very specific piece of Apeiron tech to do both of those to Victor's power.

Lethe, who seems to be a Stranger but whose power is unclear. She's relying on tinkertech for most of what she does.

And three exotic capes who haven't been named yet, none of whom have shown any powers beyond those inherent in their various exotic forms.

That means the obvious main threats from the group are Fleet, Apeiron, and Lethe's use of Apeiron tech, in that order.
 
Daecl said:
Man, what a nightmare for the empire 88. At best, they were up against a potential stranger in Lethe, a light manipulator in Survey, and a super brute in Fleet.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fleet's demonstration in this chapter is hilarious. Comic fans tend to underestimate the sheer power of super-speed since Flash tends to be overshadowed a bit within the Justice League, but breaking the sound barrier by raising his arm is a ludicrous display of power. Even without other powers, he could exterminate every non-Celestial Forge cape in that bar within a few seconds and nobody could stop him. If anybody there was hoping that Apieron's subordinates were of a lower power level, they were just rudely disabused.
 
Graviator said:
As far as the non-Tattletale capes are concerned, the non-Apeiron members of Team Celestial Forge are:
Fleet, whose name means "nimble", and whose movements can casually break the sound barrier. He's obviously a Mover and his power is approximately Velocity's without the drawback.

Survey, who has hologram powers and a Thinker power that includes the ability to perceive Victor's power. Unless she instead has a very specific piece of Apeiron tech to do both of those to Victor's power.

Lethe, who seems to be a Stranger but whose power is unclear. She's relying on tinkertech for most of what she does.

And three exotic capes who haven't been named yet, none of whom have shown any powers beyond those inherent in their various exotic forms.

That means the obvious main threats from the group are Fleet, Apeiron, and Lethe's use of Apeiron tech, in that order.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

An excellent analysis. Unfortunatly, the thing about a Tinker of Apeiron's level is that you can never be sure if the feat of his team are based on their own powers or tinkertech.
 
Graviator said:
And three exotic capes who haven't been named yet, none of whom have shown any powers beyond those inherent in their various exotic forms.

That means the obvious main threats from the group are Fleet, Apeiron, and Lethe's use of Apeiron tech, in that order.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh, Tetra will absolutely be up there with Fleet.

Consider: Apeiron has to activate his healing technology every time he triggers his red nightmare mode. His red nightmare mode explodes into "emergency medical tendrils" when he's badly injured, and those medical tendrils are capable of burrowing into other people's bodies as a form of attack. And then a monster made of those tendrils shows up at the summit, and she enters her own red nightmare mode upon drinking blood.

IOW, anyone who can put two and two together can guess that Tetra is an ungodly Brute/Mover with a Striker attack from hell... and she can amp up at any time just by sipping on her Bloody Mary.
 
JoeStratnoff said:
Kaiser: Hurr Durr let's get Victor to steal some skillz

Apeiron,Uppercrust,Tattletale: Called out

Kaisar: *surprised pikachu face*
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly, there is a non-zero chance that Kaiser wanted Victor there as a show of force. Very few capes are Sniper Proof, reminding people you have someone with ~100,000 hours of fire arms training is a flex that doesn't require him considering Victor's ability only being able to be turned down to 1 rather than 0.
 
You know the real fun part of that wasn't the implied threat or terrifying power analysis by Aperion. He likely expected that. No what most certainly caught him off guard was Uppercrusts social bitchslap.

The thing to remember here is that the Empire is largely without peer. Yes on paper under lung the ABB was their effective equal, but that was exclusively because of Lung. They didn't play the sort of social power games Kaiser had to as leader of around a dozen or so capes. And it's very clear that the absence of such peers has made him very, very sloppy. When someone comes in with the skill to spot his slip ups, social grace to slap him with them under the rules of 'polite respectability' to which Kaiser builds so much of his image and following off of, and backs that with not only a threat to tattle him to his backers, but a reminder that he is not the dominant martial or logistical power there? That's just something he's not used to. Something no one else in the city could actually do.

For a brief moment he had to realize he was staring down not just a powerful cape but the representative of a force that was objectively his superior. More capes, more money, more men, more leeway with the government for getting away with crap. If he legit provoked a war here... he loses, even if he isn't used as a sacrificial lamb by his backers.

A possibility he is likely just realized might be possible. Honestly might still be possible, though badly unlikely. Though he will certainly be paying for this one a bit with said backers later, even if it's just a loss of respectability and reliability in their eyes (and hence willingness to invest).

Also I'm kinda wondering how many of those mini 'trances' were obvious enough for others to pick up on.
 
readerdreamer said:
You could definitely see the realization Othala had when she heard Lethe. Anyone with a background in Greek Mythology would easily recognize the memory connection, and that kind of powerful memory erasure is not something you want in someone with a power suit.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, i had to laugh at Victor saying that he definitely won't forget Lethe
"You threatened my wife. Held a blade to her neck. I'm not going to forget that." The way his threat and glare was met with amusement caused no shortage of confusion and concern from the cape.
Lethe? who?
 
Also, something interesting I noted.

LordRoustabout said:
"Grue, speaking for the Undersiders." The darkness wreathed man spoke in an echoey voice that drew attention to the workmanship of his mask and costume.

"Trickster, of the Travelers." The boy also missed Apeiron's reaction. Honestly, Uppercrust would have as well, if not for how unnaturally perfect every other aspect of his presentation was.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Uppercrust has a view of Grue being more mature and respectable, seeing him as a man while referring to Trickster as a boy. Probably partly due to Aperion's work making him seem so.

Just a little thing I noted that caught my attention on re-reading his bit.
 
LordRoustabout said:
She closed her every briefly
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
eyes?
LordRoustabout said:
Her tolerances and reserves had grown over time, but at a glacial pace, and after over a week of hell she had nothing to space.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
nothing to spare?
LordRoustabout said:
But that wasn't the limit of it. Like so many powers this came with support items, in this case an entire cache or related tinkertech. I was past the point of zoning out to focus on my power and was currently in communication with my duplicates.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
cache of related
LordRoustabout said:
Complete an instant protection
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Complete and instant
LordRoustabout said:
Or course, getting that amount of energy meant prayers. Which meant worship, which meant an actual cult. It was easy to get caught up in the power until you realized that it basically required you to start your own religion just to get things rolling.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Of course
LordRoustabout said:
I was also, but default, an incredible musician. It was like the boost I had received with Serene Sinatra, only a thousand times stronger. It almost made me want to track down my old violin, even if it meant dealing with my parents.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
also, by default?
LordRoustabout said:
Saint took a seat in stolen, salvaged armor and ignored the reactions that were being directed his way. Some people would think he had no place at a summit at this because he wasn't a parahuman. I didn't hold that against him. I didn't need to. I had more than enough reasons already.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
at a summit as this? that also doesn't sound quite right but I'm not sure how to fix it
LordRoustabout said:
The Dragonslayers and Saint in particular were related to Dragon's mastering. I didn't know the details, but I knew it was very closely connected. And now they were here. Possibly deployed to the city in an effort to counter Dragon, but I doubted it. I key to Dragon's condition, she's forced to act on that, and then the people at least partially responsible move to the same city?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I key to... sounds a bit awkward to me but I'm not sure if it's actually wrong or just an uncommon form
LordRoustabout said:
But it was worth it. Among the crowd of gang bosses and minor warlords, Apeiron strode towards the table. Just seeing the main move there could be no questioning the presence of some form of image regulating power. It was the kind of minor boon that showed up rarely, but could end up defining a cape's career. What would Apeiron be without his showmanship?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
the man move?
 
I hope Apeiron learns from this and actually makes some mind protection technologies, specially since someone as beautiful as Survey would attract the attention of many Masters like Heartbreaker and his children.

I feel like Tattletale had a bit of a cathartic moment or something while standing up to Kaiser. At least it was against the Nazi.
Kayden really wasn't thinking when she decided to go without a mask to the meeting, as if any competent Tinker wouldn't have eye protection of some kind.

Will the other Nazis start doubting their brain-damaging teammate? I can only guess how much damage someone like Otala would have, being his wife and all. Would Joe healing her suddenly restore some critical thinking skills or the ability to detect manipulation and force her to realize she was basically raped? She was a minor in canon wasn't she?

At the very least I can't imagine Damsel ever wanting to be near him ever again, she already has difficulty controlling her power, something making her more incompetent by the second sounds like a nightmare.

Did Victor get anything useful from the group? as in some alchemy skills or something clearly supernatural?

The Dragonslayers bringing the remotely piloted suit seems like a rather silly mistake, since Joe can definitely track the signal down to their base and deal with them the moment the truce is not in effect.

How much does Joe know about Lost Garden? I imagine some old dude basically mastering young teenagers wouldn't exactly be "okay" with him.

Damm, there are so many perfectly valid targets basically jumping at him he might have some choice paralysis for some time in his time accelerated consciousness.

Will Joe get a combat boost from his music talent? there are a lot of fighting styles that really on rhythm out there.
 
I loved seeing what happened to the empire. All that pomp and posturing, real as a film set facade, pricked in an instant like a balloon. Can you just imagine the sinking feeling Kaiser had?

What a difference in the story when Joe interacts with people outside the shop. Massive elevation in impact.

Is Cataclysm (I don't remember the other spelling) just Tybalt's PHO handle? Survey referred to him as Tybalt here to the others when talking about Victor's power.
 
Given Aisha's new control over her power...

After the meeting:

Othala practically collapsed into the car seat across from Victor. "That, was..." she paused and fidgeted with a trembling hand.
"It was." Victor replied tensely.
"Um, about Lethe." Othala started.
"Lethe?" Victor interrupted.
"That's the name of cape in the power armor" Othala clarified dread creeping into the edges of her tone "The one with, with the sword"
Victor turned and looked at her. "Who?" he said puzzled.
And Othala despaired.
 
I have to ask? Did it qualify?

Imposing Declaration of Title (Asura's Wrath) Free:
Whenever you do something dramatic or just something really badass, perception of you changes for a split second. Observers see the title or high concept description of your current state or action as awesome block characters superimposed on their vision. This applies to named attacks/combat maneuvers, legendary weapons, companions and so on.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Why do I imagine Glenn being Jelly?
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top