Please do one long chapter of good quality a month please. It doesn't matter the time between chapters only that the story is of a quality that you feel can be published.
Building Steam
- Thread starter Owlfurret
- Start date
- Crossover Sci-Fi Action
- Location
- Ohio
I agree with Eternal, don't push yourself too hard. Just work on it when you can and feel like it, don't stress.
Even if it slips to one every two months, it would be worth it.
Even if it slips to one every two months, it would be worth it.
- Location
- Switzerland
That will not happen. I will not allow it
- Location
- Switzerland
I have 4k of what started as a crack fic writing exercise and it went rogue. It was supposed to be silly and then Taylor decided to go and become slightly insane. I do not know what to do with it. It was supposed to be where I tossed the ideas that I could not use here as I have elected to keep magic away from the story at least for a while. And then that thing wrote itself. Are crack fics wanted here?
- Location
- Switzerland
Finally got some time to write. About 1k done. It will be out by next weekend at the latest. My job has deployments and I can't write when I am not at a fixed location. Well, I can but what little I managed to write was not conducive to the progress of the story. As such I trashed 3k and started fresh. I also can't roll perks out here in the forest. But I have base time so it is easier to write now. And next week is leave. Yay
Chapter 7: Plots, Ducks and Songs
- Location
- Switzerland
Robert House was annoyed. This was nothing new in the grand scheme of things. It had been his default state since the bombs fell, and he failed to protect Vegas from all of them.
Now that he was reminiscing about it, he guessed that it had started when the delivery of the platinum chip was delayed even before the war, thus making it all but impossible for him to get his Protections up to war-grade arrangements.
Oh, they had the weapons, but they couldn't access them because the current operating system just couldn't handle it.
And now that the chip had finally been found after so long. The couriers he had sent to get it had all been killed down to the last.
The one actually carrying the chip, having been killed by his own enforcer. A man he had raised from the dirt of the Mojave. A child of the tribes he had so graciously allowed in HIS city.
Benny would burn for his betrayal in due time. He may think that he was being sneaky with the securitron he had hacked. Yes-man, he called it.
How…
Quaint.
"I suppose it was bound to happen. After all, they are savages. And I should have expected them to bite the hand that feeds them. No matter, I will find new pawns, but for now, they are still of some use. I will have my price. This pathetic rock will not hold a mind as great as mine. Even if I have to burn the entire planet to get what I desire…"
Deep underneath New Vegas, the remarkably young body of Robert House chuckled, looking much more youthful than he had before the war.
Alice Pov, The Plains of the Mojave
I whooped in joy as we tore across the plains. My son, now having chosen the name Vergil for himself, had a lot of fun when he smashed into old wrecks of burnt-out cars, causing those that had a faulty reactor to go critical and explode behind us.
It was his new favourite activity, smashing things that went boom. I knew that I needed one of the things intact, but he was having so much fun, and I just couldn't deny him the joy of smashing something that wasn't important or dangerous to him or anyone else.
He was having fun, and I encountered it as long as he kept the destruction to burnt-out cars. Primey was encouraging him to go after the fire-ants, but I put a stop to that. They were not really dangerous to him, but I wasn't sure what was lurking in their nest and didn't want to find out, so I told him to leave them alone for now.
He also got to test out his guns when some Cazadors showed up in the distance. They didn't stand a chance against the anti-aircraft guns, and of course, like any good child of mine, the position was shelled afterwards via the main gun. Just to make sure.
The crater was an impressive sight. I had no doubt that once the atmosphere was balanced, it would become quite the nice pond.
Now I just needed a source of non-irradiated frogs, some fish, a few newts and, of course, insect and plant life.
I pondered this conundrum as Vergil ploughed through yet another old car, causing a spectacular explosion behind us.
"Vergil, darling, please leave one of the cars intact. I need the reactor as a holdover until I can build something better. I know that you love your explosions, and Mommy does too, but leave me one intact, ok, dear?"
He hummed and dinged in acknowledgement and went back to smashing himself into other, lesser cars. I chuckled at his destructive tendencies and leaned back in the driver's seat, enjoying the chaos. Absent-mindedly observing a pod of rad roaches fleeing in the distance.
I wondered if they could be domesticated, they made for great garbage removal. After all, they could eat almost anything. It would be a low-cost system. But then again, they were known to adapt and eat through almost anything, so it would probably backfire.
But how would I get rid of the things in the long run? They adapted to almost anything except ultra violence. But that wasn't a viable option, and I wasn't going to use nanites with the eldritch being able to possess technology that had no soul of its own.
Those things were a problem. I couldn't kill them via virus or chemicals on a large enough scale before they adapted. I couldn't build killer droids to hunt them, and I had no magic to use some form of magical pest control against them.
This was going to be a challenge. I liked challenges that didn't involve world ending dangers. They were fun thought experiments.
Perhaps something that ate them but was friendly towards the rest of the world? With an inbuilt limiter and redundancies if that creature ever got hostile.
Some form of companion animal for sentient life, perhaps an evolution of the common cat or the common barn owl?
That just might work. But they would need to be omnivores with a preference for a vegetarian diet. With rad roaches and mole rats, as well as other such pests, being seen as a threat instead of their primary food source.
That way, they wouldn't go extinct after they hunted their prey to extinction. And if they looked cute enough, people would love to have one.
"Hmm, I suppose it could be a duck, too. People liked ducks, right? They are cute. Not as cute as owls, of course, but then again, nothing is as cute as owls."
My daughter took exception to that and began to pull on my hair by hanging herself from it.
"Ow ow ow. Stop it, Primey, you little menace, you are adorable. That's different from being cute. Stop it, you mechanical maniac. I need those hairs."
I desperately batted at her, but she just scrambled away from my hands.
"Ok, that's it, you little goofball. Come'ere."
I grabbed the little menace, unloaded her from my hair and began to tickle her for her insolence. Cute as she was, what she did wasn't ok.
"We don't climb into mommy's hair and use it as a jungle gym like that when we hear something that we don't like, alright, little one?"
I asked her sternly as I tickled her. She beeped and dinged in protest, but eventually, she nodded, and I stopped my onslaught.
"Good. Now, when we are mad or disagree with something, we use our words like big girls, alright? Can you do that for me? I trust you to take care of your siblings when I'm not around, so I need to know that you are going to be responsible enough for the task."
She looked up at me with grimm determination and nodded.
I hopped her on the forehead before giving it a light kiss.
"Good girl. You make me proud. Now wanna see Vergil smash another car?"
Primey thrilled happily and untangled herself from my hair before climbing up on the dashboard and urging her brother to run down another set of cars.
It was many hours later in the evening when we returned to the town? Fortress? Encampment? That place needed a new name.
Vergil's trunk was filled to the brim with loot. We had managed to scavenge quite a few fusion cores and reactors. Well, they were called fusion cores on the box, but my scanning equipment told me another story.
One, only one of them was a true fusion core. It was salvaged from a crashed Vertibird's cargo hold. The manifest saying it came from the Big MT. The rest of the cores and reactors that had been extracted from the cars had been fission reactors.
It was as I had expected. They did have the technology, but it wasn't widespread. Instead, it was experimental and in the development phase or only used for military purposes before the Great War.
Nevertheless, I had a sample, and it was only a matter of time before I would crack the archaic form of miniaturisation that this universe ran on. As soon as I did, I would use this to power the settlement.
Then, I could begin to build up the truly powerful infrastructure. What was there now was just the basics, a foothold. A basic bulwark against the wasteland, something to keep the raiders at bay.
My goal was a fortification that would make the tomb kings of old blush in envy. I wanted a fortified stronghold capable of surviving the sun going supernova and observe it from a lawn chair as it happened while I was eating popcorn.
That, understandably, would take time. And by the machine god, I would get there. I was going to turn this wasteland into an oasis. Earth was supposed to be a garden planet. It was the cradle of our species. And it was in tatters. This simply wouldn't do.
I just couldn't accept it.
Primey poked my sides, and I noticed that my skin had begun to bubble akin to a lake or lava. I took some deep breaths and calmed myself. Where had this fervour come from?
It almost felt like, like religious fervour.
Like the madness of the empire of the man of the 41st millennium.
Cold dread washed over my back. Had my prayers to the machine god opened a door? Had I left myself open to predation by HIM?
Was his attention on me?
No, it couldn't be. He wasn't even in this universe. And yet? I had Necron tech, did I not? If that goddamn corpse thought he had any right to try and influence my decisions, then he had another thing coming.
The forge had said my mind was my own, but that was in regards to the Simurgh, not THE FUCKING EMPEROR OF MANKIND. I wasn't so sure if he hadn't nudged me towards more cruel solutions.
It would be just like him, wouldn't it? Make another weapon against the four. Perhaps lower my tolerance against certain things, say rape, murder and slavery? Oh, and there was that reaction I had to mutated life in general.
The fucker had been giving me mental nudges, hadn't he? Hoping that I would react a certain way. And I, unprepared as I was, had run headlong into his arms.
Oh, he was going to burn.
Fuck him and his empire. It was too far gone. That place was hell on earth, and I refused to be yet another pawn in an endless war. I had survived one war. I didn't need a war older than the nation I hailed from.
No, hell no fuck that.
I wasn't going to get involved. I would gladly take their tech and their teachings I could use and not look back as the place burned. No way in hell was I getting involved with the Warhammer universe.
I breathed out in harsh, ragged huffs as I tried to get my roiling emotions back under control. If one of the five fuckers and there were five. The Emperor wasn't human anymore. As far as I was concerned, he was part of chaos after all the souls he had feasted upon just to sustain himself. Could influence me, then the potential for the other four was there, too.
That meant that I would have to keep a careful watch on my emotions otherwise, things could go sideways rather quickly.
Luckily for me, neither Sunny nor Dad had been around for my little episode, and they knew nothing about the terrors paying attention to me. And it would stay that way. I was fairly certain that they had no way to influence anyone in this universe other than myself, and that was only because of the perks I had.
That led me to an unpleasant conclusion. The perks went both ways and would allow certain entities to peer into this universe via my presence and attempt to influence me to do their bidding.
That could get very unpleasant very quickly. I grimaced and helped my children unload our bounty from Vergil's trunk space before cleaning my son's chassis from the debris of our little excursion.
Then it happened again.
I felt another constellation move towards me from the depths of the forge. Power razed in the depths of my soul and sent my vocal cords ablaze. I could feel my soul burn up as the power of nature pressed in on my mind, body and soul. Vines of energy wound their way through my being and introduced new and interesting forms of energy I could now access.
I bolted out of the workshop in a sprint, tearing up the newly built ferrocrete as I could feel it build up to dangerous levels. I needed to leave the settlement now, or things would get hairy very quickly. This power was a great boon, but I had no control over it as of right now, and as it was, I was liable to destroy all that we had built here. So I ran as fast as my considerable strength and speed could carry me. Heedless of the damage I left to the civil infrastructure.
In my haste, I had left all of my children behind where they would be safe. I knew they would not be safe near me when I lost control.
A titanic leap took me over the walls and the outermost moat, far from the settlement. It wasn't enough yet, so I took to the air using my fae-granted flight. Taking off at speeds that shattered the sound barrier and left violent shear winds in my wake. Destroying what was left on the ground below. Luckily, the walls held against the violent winds, as they should, considering what they were built to withstand.
But if I had taken to the air inside the settlement, the shockwave would have killed the people I saved. The outburst that I felt was coming was going to ravage the land with life, a blessing in a post-apocalyptic world, no doubt, but I didn't want my new home to be ground zero for this. The destruction from what was to come would be apocalyptic, and could rightfully be called an endbringer if I was in the earth of worm.
At a minimum, a small city would vanish from this, and I wanted to be as far from anything populated as possible. I went as fast as I could, and the air began to turn blue around me before I had to force my body into a wedge shape to better deal with the sheer pressure I was experiencing. I might be Immune to heat or blunt damage, but I didn't want to find out if the wide-area distribution of my body's mass could kill me.
I kept my body in that shape for minutes as the energy built to a near-critical level before I could no longer hold it and lost control over my flight path, and began to fall towards the ocean somewhere far off the coast of Massachusetts.
The second my body touched the water, magma flowed from me like a volcanic eruption. A violent explosion shook the American continental plate as I screamed, and a new Island burst from the seabed in a violent act of birth. The magma hadn't even cooled yet when the power of the worldsinger ravaged the newly formed landmass.
Titanic trees burst from the ground in droves like so much bamboo. A sea of grasses and undergrowth devoured the fresh nutrients laid bare by the volcanic birth. Vast groves of fruit-bearing trees sprung forth in the protective shade of their big brothers. Carnivorous horrors straight out of the minds of a demented botanist began to populate the outermost reaches of the new landmass, and I, in my agonised thrashing, did not doubt that any potential settlers or raiders would dearly regret setting foot on this new landmass.
Fields of razor-sharp grass took over the entrances to the forests. Beyond that followed vines that would ensnare the mind and lure the flesh with pheromones most vile. They would then strangle their prey and let it rot at the bottom of trees they lived in symbiosis with. Those trees would give the sandbox tree or even the manchineel tree nightmares. Toxic beyond belief, capable of actively firing their steel-like leaves like shrapnels at speeds exceeding bullets and beyond all that, their trunks were capable of shrugging off several mini-nukes due to growing in a diamond lattice molecule structure. And they were actively hostile to anything but me.
This place was a deathtrap for any invading force so long as they came from the sea and tried to land and establish a beachhead. Even the Brotherhood of Steel would have trouble with this place. The forest was actively adapting to the few sea predators that dared to try to come on land. The Ghoul squid that landed was already ripped to tiny pieces.
And the fact that I knew this was another worrying development. This was, after all, happening about 60 kilometres away. Somehow, I had gained awareness of everything that happened on this island, and it was worrying me greatly. I had no idea what happened here or how it happened. Oh, I had theories, but I was almost certain that none of them were correct.
It began to rain, No doubt a result of the massive amount of water vapour that my crash landing had released into the atmosphere. I just lay in the centre of my newly formed Island and looked up at the stormy sky. Trying to comprehend what had just happened. I had crossed most of the United States of America in a desperate attempt to preserve as many lives as possible. And I had done so with a power I had not used before. I had torn apart the very air if what I had felt on my way here was any indication, but I had no idea how I had done so or if I could repeat the feat. That action had taken a lot out of me, and it showed a danger I had not calculated for.
The fact is that perks could have detrimental effects on the environment around me.
The perk wasn't dangerous to me. At no point was I in any danger, and the only reason I was so exhausted was that I was unwilling to sacrifice the local population to a perk running wild. If I had just let my power run wild, let my voice run free and shape life all around me as I came into my power, no exhaustion would have overcome me.
But everyone in the state of Nevada would be mincemeat by now…
This was unacceptable. I wasn't going to be a risk to those I held dear, nor was I going to be a risk to civilians. I was a medic, damnit. I Would get control. I would build protocols for situations like this. I would adapt. I would improvise, and I would overcome.
The rain hitting my face cleared my thoughts, and I was once again able to think clearly without the feedback from the entire island's vegetation bogging down my thoughts. It felt nice how the raindrops evaporated from my boiling and bubbling skin.
I remembered where I was roughly speaking and the rough time frame. I was near Boston some years before the events of Fallout 4. This meant that there were two people in need of help, two children to be specific and I, despite being only in my teens myself, wasn't going to let Piper and her little sister Nat wander the commonwealth alone.
If I was correct, then they should have been tossed out of their settlement by the local population as a result of them thinking that Piper's dad was involved with the raiders that were about to attack the settlement, despite that not being the case and hin having been trying to warn them about it and getting killed for it.
I needed to find those two and get them to Goodsprings. They weren't prepared for a wasteland full of eldritch horrors. And I should also probably go get the Vault Dweller. He or she, if they were still alive, didn't need to sleep some more.
They deserved to be awake and ready for their justified vengeance against the institute. If I were quick enough, then I would be able to stomp out quite a few problems before they became a thing.
Such as the last son of atom. That madman needed to be stopped. But first, I was going to have to save Piper and Nat. They were priority alpha for now.
The biggest problem with this was that I had no concrete idea how I would find them. My knowledge of the time before the actual game was spotty, and I was running on knowledge from tabletop handbooks, wiki entries, developer comments and community conjecture.
It was going to be a devil of a time to save those two. But I had a nagging feeling that if I didn't put boots to the ground and, soon, I was going to have a large amount of trouble in the future.
The kind of trouble that came with a large amount of tentacles attached to it and way too many eyeballs and mouths. Something else was showing interest in those two, and it made me shiver in disgust. My new senses from the wordsinger perk just knew that something that did not belong to nature was hunting them, and I took offence.
This was my world now, and I wouldn't tolerate incursions from things like that. They were not welcome. And for once, I was certain that those thoughts were my own. Not influenced by any power, god, demon or spirit. I just didn't like the idea of some eldritch something hunting people, it hit too close to home for me, and it made me furious.
Whatever it was, it would burn for the sheer audacity.
I wasn't about to let eldritch horrors rip apart another pair of sisters. I had already lost my little sister, and I wouldn't allow it. If I had to start a small manhunt to save them, then that was what I would do. They would not be separated or worse if I had anything to say about it.
That meant that I would need a plan. First of all, I would no doubt need to get back home and Inform Dad and Sis what I was doing, or they would worry for no reason. Shit they were already worrying, weren't they?
Considering the way that I had left, they were right to worry, and since the ferrocrete was from before I got that perk that made all my creations nigh on indestructible, I had no doubt dug a trench in the main street. I must have left a path of absolute destruction behind. I didn't want to think about just what the people would think.
Or what that mother-daughter duo who had begun to worship me would do. I was just going to throw Dad at them and hope that it would go away. I didn't have the spoons to deal with a semi-organised cult forming in Goodsprings, and I didn't want to find out what would happen if I didn't do anything about it.
Horror stories about the Empire of Man came to mind, and I didn't particularly like the idea of a cult of magma or some equally stupid. I didn't want to be known as "Our Lady Steam" or something even more idiotic.
I began to sing a deep, dark aria, and a door began to grow next to me. I had some quick talking to do because I was sure that Dad was just about to blow a gasket from worry, and Sis wasn't far behind.
I stepped through the door with a sheepish expression and got ready to face the music.
As soon as I set foot through the door, I was grabbed and dragged inside. Yeah, I was in trouble.
Perks this Chapter
Worldsinger (Warhammer 40k - Craftworld Eldar JumpChain) (400CP)
The craft of the Bonesinger is mighty indeed, yes but as there are many notes in a song, so are there more uses for music than Wraithbone alone. In the way the Bonesinger shapes Wraithbone with psychic energy and their voice, so do you shape the green and growing things. Vegetation springs from the earth, seemingly from nothing, at the sound of your voice, moulding itself to fit your needs. Should you grow hungry, bring forth fruit. Should you grow hot, bring forth shade. Should you grow weary, bring forth a bed of leaves. All these shall heed your song.
Now that he was reminiscing about it, he guessed that it had started when the delivery of the platinum chip was delayed even before the war, thus making it all but impossible for him to get his Protections up to war-grade arrangements.
Oh, they had the weapons, but they couldn't access them because the current operating system just couldn't handle it.
And now that the chip had finally been found after so long. The couriers he had sent to get it had all been killed down to the last.
The one actually carrying the chip, having been killed by his own enforcer. A man he had raised from the dirt of the Mojave. A child of the tribes he had so graciously allowed in HIS city.
Benny would burn for his betrayal in due time. He may think that he was being sneaky with the securitron he had hacked. Yes-man, he called it.
How…
Quaint.
"I suppose it was bound to happen. After all, they are savages. And I should have expected them to bite the hand that feeds them. No matter, I will find new pawns, but for now, they are still of some use. I will have my price. This pathetic rock will not hold a mind as great as mine. Even if I have to burn the entire planet to get what I desire…"
Deep underneath New Vegas, the remarkably young body of Robert House chuckled, looking much more youthful than he had before the war.
Alice Pov, The Plains of the Mojave
I whooped in joy as we tore across the plains. My son, now having chosen the name Vergil for himself, had a lot of fun when he smashed into old wrecks of burnt-out cars, causing those that had a faulty reactor to go critical and explode behind us.
It was his new favourite activity, smashing things that went boom. I knew that I needed one of the things intact, but he was having so much fun, and I just couldn't deny him the joy of smashing something that wasn't important or dangerous to him or anyone else.
He was having fun, and I encountered it as long as he kept the destruction to burnt-out cars. Primey was encouraging him to go after the fire-ants, but I put a stop to that. They were not really dangerous to him, but I wasn't sure what was lurking in their nest and didn't want to find out, so I told him to leave them alone for now.
He also got to test out his guns when some Cazadors showed up in the distance. They didn't stand a chance against the anti-aircraft guns, and of course, like any good child of mine, the position was shelled afterwards via the main gun. Just to make sure.
The crater was an impressive sight. I had no doubt that once the atmosphere was balanced, it would become quite the nice pond.
Now I just needed a source of non-irradiated frogs, some fish, a few newts and, of course, insect and plant life.
I pondered this conundrum as Vergil ploughed through yet another old car, causing a spectacular explosion behind us.
"Vergil, darling, please leave one of the cars intact. I need the reactor as a holdover until I can build something better. I know that you love your explosions, and Mommy does too, but leave me one intact, ok, dear?"
He hummed and dinged in acknowledgement and went back to smashing himself into other, lesser cars. I chuckled at his destructive tendencies and leaned back in the driver's seat, enjoying the chaos. Absent-mindedly observing a pod of rad roaches fleeing in the distance.
I wondered if they could be domesticated, they made for great garbage removal. After all, they could eat almost anything. It would be a low-cost system. But then again, they were known to adapt and eat through almost anything, so it would probably backfire.
But how would I get rid of the things in the long run? They adapted to almost anything except ultra violence. But that wasn't a viable option, and I wasn't going to use nanites with the eldritch being able to possess technology that had no soul of its own.
Those things were a problem. I couldn't kill them via virus or chemicals on a large enough scale before they adapted. I couldn't build killer droids to hunt them, and I had no magic to use some form of magical pest control against them.
This was going to be a challenge. I liked challenges that didn't involve world ending dangers. They were fun thought experiments.
Perhaps something that ate them but was friendly towards the rest of the world? With an inbuilt limiter and redundancies if that creature ever got hostile.
Some form of companion animal for sentient life, perhaps an evolution of the common cat or the common barn owl?
That just might work. But they would need to be omnivores with a preference for a vegetarian diet. With rad roaches and mole rats, as well as other such pests, being seen as a threat instead of their primary food source.
That way, they wouldn't go extinct after they hunted their prey to extinction. And if they looked cute enough, people would love to have one.
"Hmm, I suppose it could be a duck, too. People liked ducks, right? They are cute. Not as cute as owls, of course, but then again, nothing is as cute as owls."
My daughter took exception to that and began to pull on my hair by hanging herself from it.
"Ow ow ow. Stop it, Primey, you little menace, you are adorable. That's different from being cute. Stop it, you mechanical maniac. I need those hairs."
I desperately batted at her, but she just scrambled away from my hands.
"Ok, that's it, you little goofball. Come'ere."
I grabbed the little menace, unloaded her from my hair and began to tickle her for her insolence. Cute as she was, what she did wasn't ok.
"We don't climb into mommy's hair and use it as a jungle gym like that when we hear something that we don't like, alright, little one?"
I asked her sternly as I tickled her. She beeped and dinged in protest, but eventually, she nodded, and I stopped my onslaught.
"Good. Now, when we are mad or disagree with something, we use our words like big girls, alright? Can you do that for me? I trust you to take care of your siblings when I'm not around, so I need to know that you are going to be responsible enough for the task."
She looked up at me with grimm determination and nodded.
I hopped her on the forehead before giving it a light kiss.
"Good girl. You make me proud. Now wanna see Vergil smash another car?"
Primey thrilled happily and untangled herself from my hair before climbing up on the dashboard and urging her brother to run down another set of cars.
It was many hours later in the evening when we returned to the town? Fortress? Encampment? That place needed a new name.
Vergil's trunk was filled to the brim with loot. We had managed to scavenge quite a few fusion cores and reactors. Well, they were called fusion cores on the box, but my scanning equipment told me another story.
One, only one of them was a true fusion core. It was salvaged from a crashed Vertibird's cargo hold. The manifest saying it came from the Big MT. The rest of the cores and reactors that had been extracted from the cars had been fission reactors.
It was as I had expected. They did have the technology, but it wasn't widespread. Instead, it was experimental and in the development phase or only used for military purposes before the Great War.
Nevertheless, I had a sample, and it was only a matter of time before I would crack the archaic form of miniaturisation that this universe ran on. As soon as I did, I would use this to power the settlement.
Then, I could begin to build up the truly powerful infrastructure. What was there now was just the basics, a foothold. A basic bulwark against the wasteland, something to keep the raiders at bay.
My goal was a fortification that would make the tomb kings of old blush in envy. I wanted a fortified stronghold capable of surviving the sun going supernova and observe it from a lawn chair as it happened while I was eating popcorn.
That, understandably, would take time. And by the machine god, I would get there. I was going to turn this wasteland into an oasis. Earth was supposed to be a garden planet. It was the cradle of our species. And it was in tatters. This simply wouldn't do.
I just couldn't accept it.
Primey poked my sides, and I noticed that my skin had begun to bubble akin to a lake or lava. I took some deep breaths and calmed myself. Where had this fervour come from?
It almost felt like, like religious fervour.
Like the madness of the empire of the man of the 41st millennium.
Cold dread washed over my back. Had my prayers to the machine god opened a door? Had I left myself open to predation by HIM?
Was his attention on me?
No, it couldn't be. He wasn't even in this universe. And yet? I had Necron tech, did I not? If that goddamn corpse thought he had any right to try and influence my decisions, then he had another thing coming.
The forge had said my mind was my own, but that was in regards to the Simurgh, not THE FUCKING EMPEROR OF MANKIND. I wasn't so sure if he hadn't nudged me towards more cruel solutions.
It would be just like him, wouldn't it? Make another weapon against the four. Perhaps lower my tolerance against certain things, say rape, murder and slavery? Oh, and there was that reaction I had to mutated life in general.
The fucker had been giving me mental nudges, hadn't he? Hoping that I would react a certain way. And I, unprepared as I was, had run headlong into his arms.
Oh, he was going to burn.
Fuck him and his empire. It was too far gone. That place was hell on earth, and I refused to be yet another pawn in an endless war. I had survived one war. I didn't need a war older than the nation I hailed from.
No, hell no fuck that.
I wasn't going to get involved. I would gladly take their tech and their teachings I could use and not look back as the place burned. No way in hell was I getting involved with the Warhammer universe.
I breathed out in harsh, ragged huffs as I tried to get my roiling emotions back under control. If one of the five fuckers and there were five. The Emperor wasn't human anymore. As far as I was concerned, he was part of chaos after all the souls he had feasted upon just to sustain himself. Could influence me, then the potential for the other four was there, too.
That meant that I would have to keep a careful watch on my emotions otherwise, things could go sideways rather quickly.
Luckily for me, neither Sunny nor Dad had been around for my little episode, and they knew nothing about the terrors paying attention to me. And it would stay that way. I was fairly certain that they had no way to influence anyone in this universe other than myself, and that was only because of the perks I had.
That led me to an unpleasant conclusion. The perks went both ways and would allow certain entities to peer into this universe via my presence and attempt to influence me to do their bidding.
That could get very unpleasant very quickly. I grimaced and helped my children unload our bounty from Vergil's trunk space before cleaning my son's chassis from the debris of our little excursion.
Then it happened again.
I felt another constellation move towards me from the depths of the forge. Power razed in the depths of my soul and sent my vocal cords ablaze. I could feel my soul burn up as the power of nature pressed in on my mind, body and soul. Vines of energy wound their way through my being and introduced new and interesting forms of energy I could now access.
I bolted out of the workshop in a sprint, tearing up the newly built ferrocrete as I could feel it build up to dangerous levels. I needed to leave the settlement now, or things would get hairy very quickly. This power was a great boon, but I had no control over it as of right now, and as it was, I was liable to destroy all that we had built here. So I ran as fast as my considerable strength and speed could carry me. Heedless of the damage I left to the civil infrastructure.
In my haste, I had left all of my children behind where they would be safe. I knew they would not be safe near me when I lost control.
A titanic leap took me over the walls and the outermost moat, far from the settlement. It wasn't enough yet, so I took to the air using my fae-granted flight. Taking off at speeds that shattered the sound barrier and left violent shear winds in my wake. Destroying what was left on the ground below. Luckily, the walls held against the violent winds, as they should, considering what they were built to withstand.
But if I had taken to the air inside the settlement, the shockwave would have killed the people I saved. The outburst that I felt was coming was going to ravage the land with life, a blessing in a post-apocalyptic world, no doubt, but I didn't want my new home to be ground zero for this. The destruction from what was to come would be apocalyptic, and could rightfully be called an endbringer if I was in the earth of worm.
At a minimum, a small city would vanish from this, and I wanted to be as far from anything populated as possible. I went as fast as I could, and the air began to turn blue around me before I had to force my body into a wedge shape to better deal with the sheer pressure I was experiencing. I might be Immune to heat or blunt damage, but I didn't want to find out if the wide-area distribution of my body's mass could kill me.
I kept my body in that shape for minutes as the energy built to a near-critical level before I could no longer hold it and lost control over my flight path, and began to fall towards the ocean somewhere far off the coast of Massachusetts.
The second my body touched the water, magma flowed from me like a volcanic eruption. A violent explosion shook the American continental plate as I screamed, and a new Island burst from the seabed in a violent act of birth. The magma hadn't even cooled yet when the power of the worldsinger ravaged the newly formed landmass.
Titanic trees burst from the ground in droves like so much bamboo. A sea of grasses and undergrowth devoured the fresh nutrients laid bare by the volcanic birth. Vast groves of fruit-bearing trees sprung forth in the protective shade of their big brothers. Carnivorous horrors straight out of the minds of a demented botanist began to populate the outermost reaches of the new landmass, and I, in my agonised thrashing, did not doubt that any potential settlers or raiders would dearly regret setting foot on this new landmass.
Fields of razor-sharp grass took over the entrances to the forests. Beyond that followed vines that would ensnare the mind and lure the flesh with pheromones most vile. They would then strangle their prey and let it rot at the bottom of trees they lived in symbiosis with. Those trees would give the sandbox tree or even the manchineel tree nightmares. Toxic beyond belief, capable of actively firing their steel-like leaves like shrapnels at speeds exceeding bullets and beyond all that, their trunks were capable of shrugging off several mini-nukes due to growing in a diamond lattice molecule structure. And they were actively hostile to anything but me.
This place was a deathtrap for any invading force so long as they came from the sea and tried to land and establish a beachhead. Even the Brotherhood of Steel would have trouble with this place. The forest was actively adapting to the few sea predators that dared to try to come on land. The Ghoul squid that landed was already ripped to tiny pieces.
And the fact that I knew this was another worrying development. This was, after all, happening about 60 kilometres away. Somehow, I had gained awareness of everything that happened on this island, and it was worrying me greatly. I had no idea what happened here or how it happened. Oh, I had theories, but I was almost certain that none of them were correct.
It began to rain, No doubt a result of the massive amount of water vapour that my crash landing had released into the atmosphere. I just lay in the centre of my newly formed Island and looked up at the stormy sky. Trying to comprehend what had just happened. I had crossed most of the United States of America in a desperate attempt to preserve as many lives as possible. And I had done so with a power I had not used before. I had torn apart the very air if what I had felt on my way here was any indication, but I had no idea how I had done so or if I could repeat the feat. That action had taken a lot out of me, and it showed a danger I had not calculated for.
The fact is that perks could have detrimental effects on the environment around me.
The perk wasn't dangerous to me. At no point was I in any danger, and the only reason I was so exhausted was that I was unwilling to sacrifice the local population to a perk running wild. If I had just let my power run wild, let my voice run free and shape life all around me as I came into my power, no exhaustion would have overcome me.
But everyone in the state of Nevada would be mincemeat by now…
This was unacceptable. I wasn't going to be a risk to those I held dear, nor was I going to be a risk to civilians. I was a medic, damnit. I Would get control. I would build protocols for situations like this. I would adapt. I would improvise, and I would overcome.
The rain hitting my face cleared my thoughts, and I was once again able to think clearly without the feedback from the entire island's vegetation bogging down my thoughts. It felt nice how the raindrops evaporated from my boiling and bubbling skin.
I remembered where I was roughly speaking and the rough time frame. I was near Boston some years before the events of Fallout 4. This meant that there were two people in need of help, two children to be specific and I, despite being only in my teens myself, wasn't going to let Piper and her little sister Nat wander the commonwealth alone.
If I was correct, then they should have been tossed out of their settlement by the local population as a result of them thinking that Piper's dad was involved with the raiders that were about to attack the settlement, despite that not being the case and hin having been trying to warn them about it and getting killed for it.
I needed to find those two and get them to Goodsprings. They weren't prepared for a wasteland full of eldritch horrors. And I should also probably go get the Vault Dweller. He or she, if they were still alive, didn't need to sleep some more.
They deserved to be awake and ready for their justified vengeance against the institute. If I were quick enough, then I would be able to stomp out quite a few problems before they became a thing.
Such as the last son of atom. That madman needed to be stopped. But first, I was going to have to save Piper and Nat. They were priority alpha for now.
The biggest problem with this was that I had no concrete idea how I would find them. My knowledge of the time before the actual game was spotty, and I was running on knowledge from tabletop handbooks, wiki entries, developer comments and community conjecture.
It was going to be a devil of a time to save those two. But I had a nagging feeling that if I didn't put boots to the ground and, soon, I was going to have a large amount of trouble in the future.
The kind of trouble that came with a large amount of tentacles attached to it and way too many eyeballs and mouths. Something else was showing interest in those two, and it made me shiver in disgust. My new senses from the wordsinger perk just knew that something that did not belong to nature was hunting them, and I took offence.
This was my world now, and I wouldn't tolerate incursions from things like that. They were not welcome. And for once, I was certain that those thoughts were my own. Not influenced by any power, god, demon or spirit. I just didn't like the idea of some eldritch something hunting people, it hit too close to home for me, and it made me furious.
Whatever it was, it would burn for the sheer audacity.
I wasn't about to let eldritch horrors rip apart another pair of sisters. I had already lost my little sister, and I wouldn't allow it. If I had to start a small manhunt to save them, then that was what I would do. They would not be separated or worse if I had anything to say about it.
That meant that I would need a plan. First of all, I would no doubt need to get back home and Inform Dad and Sis what I was doing, or they would worry for no reason. Shit they were already worrying, weren't they?
Considering the way that I had left, they were right to worry, and since the ferrocrete was from before I got that perk that made all my creations nigh on indestructible, I had no doubt dug a trench in the main street. I must have left a path of absolute destruction behind. I didn't want to think about just what the people would think.
Or what that mother-daughter duo who had begun to worship me would do. I was just going to throw Dad at them and hope that it would go away. I didn't have the spoons to deal with a semi-organised cult forming in Goodsprings, and I didn't want to find out what would happen if I didn't do anything about it.
Horror stories about the Empire of Man came to mind, and I didn't particularly like the idea of a cult of magma or some equally stupid. I didn't want to be known as "Our Lady Steam" or something even more idiotic.
I began to sing a deep, dark aria, and a door began to grow next to me. I had some quick talking to do because I was sure that Dad was just about to blow a gasket from worry, and Sis wasn't far behind.
I stepped through the door with a sheepish expression and got ready to face the music.
As soon as I set foot through the door, I was grabbed and dragged inside. Yeah, I was in trouble.
Perks this Chapter
Worldsinger (Warhammer 40k - Craftworld Eldar JumpChain) (400CP)
The craft of the Bonesinger is mighty indeed, yes but as there are many notes in a song, so are there more uses for music than Wraithbone alone. In the way the Bonesinger shapes Wraithbone with psychic energy and their voice, so do you shape the green and growing things. Vegetation springs from the earth, seemingly from nothing, at the sound of your voice, moulding itself to fit your needs. Should you grow hungry, bring forth fruit. Should you grow hot, bring forth shade. Should you grow weary, bring forth a bed of leaves. All these shall heed your song.
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- Location
- Colorado
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh... Oh no... The eldrich forces are playing dirty.
Also young piper and nat are on the way, and there's plans to thaw the Sole Survivor eh? Interested to see where you take this.
- Location
- Switzerland
I will for once not say anything because it have been building up to this.
- Location
- Switzerland
Yeah, I noticed that I didn't post that afterwards, I will add that later today. I posted for my phone yesterday after a 14-hour night hike and then a trauma training session. Being a combat medic trainer can be exhausting at times and I tend to forget the civilian things sometimes. I'm aware of it and I will fix it when I have the time. But basically, it's control over plants via singing. It's world singer form the 40k craftworld eldar. No wraith bone or runes but all the plants
- Location
- Switzerland
Or to have poison ivy style plants munch on raiders. Hint hint
- Location
- kentucky
i would design a harty genus of grass that eats rads and pollutants and converts them into nutrients that they use some of to grow and spread but put the rest into the soil given that it a warhammer 40k eldar perk power i really think my idea would work they have some real bullshit plants
- Location
- Switzerland
Read that perk as plants? Yes! All the plants
- Location
- kentucky
search the caloric content of radioactive elements it's insane how many calories they have but will definitely kill you if you eat them lol.
Uranium is a radioactive element primarily used in nuclear reactions. Uranium can release a huge amount of energy when it undergoes fission. One gram of uranium-235, the most commonly used isotope for nuclear power, can release about 8.22 × 1010 joules (~20 billion calories) of energy when it undergoes complete fission. Although "calorie" in thermochemistry is a unit of energy, a "Calorie" (with the C in upper case, which is loosely used by nutritionists instead of kilocalorie) is commonly used to denote the calorific content of food materials. However, ingesting or inhaling uranium is a severe health hazard and can lead to heavy metal/radioactive poisoning.
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- Location
- Switzerland
It is one of the things that can still hurt her despite her now being a slime. But we have the starbound tech for that. But she wont be eating radioactive stuff
- Location
- Switzerland
Ah fair enough. But I am more partial to something more biodiverse like moss. But there will absolutely be a rad eating ground covering plant. I eluded to that a few chapters back.
- Location
- Switzerland
I'm aware. She tends to interpret the do no harm part a bit more literally.