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Can enough magic save the world?Hopefully(WOD/Celestial Grimoire)
- Thread starter Acolyte
- Start date
This is big because the dude killed a beast that could only be killed at its era but can't even be killed at modern day
Chapter 9
The new motes appeared in my soul with a deceptive quiet. Quite meager by the measure of Gaia's gift, whatever that is, but it didn't diminish how useful they are.
First was the ability to share strength with those I consider to be comrades in arms, sharing with them my immense strength and unending vitality. Making it so that every garou will be stronger than a dragon as long as I share my strength and I have a lot of strength to share. The best part is that it is an ability that can be taught, an intermingling of essence between packs that is already known to the garou to a certain extent.
I know of spirits that let werewolves share their strength or speed or toughness between their pack. But this is wider than that. It is an ability that can encompass entire septs or even kingdoms if need be, while it does diminish with distance that is from hundreds of kilometers.
With this janissary training all the garou in New York could pool their attributes on a sept level and assign it to any pack that is currently on a mission. This is a gamechanger on the field and it would help calm the tension between tribes as you can feel their strength flow through you to smite Gaia's foes, maybe even make the warborn be more accepted.
Not that is ever going to be a problem anymore because I am not going to let any other warborn suffer what Alice has gone through. Fuck the litany, i will be the patron and guardian of all warborn and woe betide any garou that tries to punish them for a crime of which they are a victim.
The second gift is a double edged sword but one of the edges is so much sharper than the other. I now have a highly futuristic genetics laboratory inside of my ship. The wrinkle comes in the form of thousands of DNA samples of what the gift is telling me are called honkai beasts. A class of silicone based lifeforms that are made up of the fundamental power of creation. Specifically thousands of Emperor Class beasts, each individually capable of devastating cities or fighting armies unscathed. Beings that are by most margins godlike in their violence. If I learn genetics I can use this lab to slice their DNA with humans and make an army of world killers if I want to.
That is an absurd thing to give me, I have fully trusted the things that Gaia has gifted me with so far. I have had faith that it is all part of the plan of the great all-mother. But this makes me doubt it, because this is so excessively unnecessary and overboard compared to the problem that the world faces. An army or even a species of beings where even children could uproot mountains will end with the planet cracked in twain sooner rather than later.
This isn't the kind of damage that humans do, which is ultimately just cosmetic on a long enough time scale. Gaia's Avatar herself declared that when she judged the Great Trial of Humanity during the apocalypse. Why would she want me to give them the power to truly murder her if they wish it. It doesn't make any sense.
But the Great Mother doesn't make mistakes, she can't make mistakes. So surely this is something that is necessary. Yes that makes sense, she sees farther than I can, she knows that something is coming that requires me to use these things. Very well Red Fanged one, I will follow your will and use it. But I won't give this to humans, they are not ready for this. I should know, I am not ready for the power I have been given. But I won't pass on the burden of power to the other humans.
But my reverie is disturbed as a strange party approaches my resting form.
After my victory I was too injured and tired to walk or move. So I just crashed down on the bloody ground and caused a minor earthquake. I have torn out the living Caern heart of the Thunderwyrm and was wondering what I should do while I was slowly healing myself.
My spear when it first manifested from my soul had absorbed a previous artifact that I had gotten. A ring of vitality that made me healthier and increased my vital essence. That property hasn't gone anywhere and my spear still brims with vitality. So I have been slowly allowing my wounds with the mental from spear.
There was no risk of rejection as each bit of the metal is suffused with my life force. Then it is a simple matter of transmuting the metallic patch job back into my flesh and I am good as new. I truly love the affinity I hold with the forge and the mastery of it granted by motes.
But my meditation slash recovery is interrupted as a party of about a few dozen people approaches me.
"There are strangers hiding in the Buildings, Master. Machine Men think their elf craft hides them from you but thori can smell them in the towers; can I fetch them Master??" My dog says as he stays seated but raises his head in alertness in the manner of a dog that hears the mailman coming to deliver a post.
"Thanks buddy, I am sure they are just preparing in case of an ambush. Let's not scare them if we can. Is that alright with you buddy??" I ask as I ruffle his neck to calm him down. I don't want thori to be an aggressive dog despite his hel hound ancestry, it made the dogs miserable if they were always high trung to a fight. Besides, I can take care of myself.
He calms down at my reassurances and settles back down with his head on his paws.
It's almost comical seeing people that are quite literally the size of an ant walk up to me all dignified. A fun thing about giant physiology is that they don't have visual acuity as they look at small things. So I can see the woman that leads the group and everyone in the party quite clearly. I am glad I don't need a magnifying glass to recognise people. They also don't need to get close to hear someone talking to them. I can still quite comfortably hear her muttering something to her colleagues, some sort of code, as if I am standing next to her and not towering over the skyscraper even while seated. The One World Trade Center is the only building that I don't overshadow from my seat. It is also built on a festering scar of wyrm taint so deep it might as well be in the labyrinth but that's a problem for later.
"Hello. Sorry for the mess. I would clean up but this is a public space and I won't scab a union job." I greet the approaching party.
I see the word ripple through the group and I feel the collective working around the group shift to take my word into account.
A side effect of my affinity for the forge and the artificer's genius is that my magic is very aligned to machines and artifacts on a basic level. So I can sense the halo of signals that are emanating and entangling between the members of this group. It is beautiful in its complexity, an enmeshed matrix of nodes that can bend probability and use predictive software to synthesize just the right information regarding what to say. It honestly gives me ideas.
"Uhh, hello to you too. I am Jameila Belltower and we are part of an organization responsible for ensuring public safety and security. We detected some seismic and energetic emission and we were sent here to investigate what is going on. Evidently-" She points to the cratered battlefield and the slowly burning mound of Black Spiral Dancer " there was some sort of scuffle here. So we came here to offer medical help but you appear to be doing well on your own."
"Let's not play this game of euphemism Namebreaker. I know you are the Men in Black, I understand why you would be cautious about what happened here today. I appreciate that you didn't open up with the missile strikes but reached out to talk. So if you want an answer, and you always do, we can exchange question for question." I say and I feel the words fit, there is a manner to how these things go and as a spirit it is my duty to at least abide by the old forms. It also allows me to deflect my ignorance, I don't know much about the Men in Black. Besides the horror stories at least.
Her face drops the guileless sallow faced look of a woman above her pay grade and the eyes of the season veteran that has bandied words with gods before shines through. Surprisingly there isn't the innate disgust or animosity I would expect from one of Weaver's own get but there is a steel in those eyes and I feel more in danger talking to her than I did fighting the dragon.
"Of course, clear communications are efficient and we won't waste your time. But there are things that I am bound by duty and choice that I cannot disclose if you ask me." She says with the finality of a guillotine.
"Of course, you may refuse to answer any question. That is your prerogative, after all isn't that your philosophy? The mastery of the world entire and how it should be ordered." I say.
"Is that your first question??" She says with a smug smirk at getting in our verbal spar. I immediately liked her more, it proved that she is human underneath the weaves of fate and magic and that is always something to be admired. Being human in this world is the hardest thing possible.
"Not as such, although I usually don't mind long talks about philosophy and our relationship with Gaia but now doesn't seem appropriate. Standing in the ruins of a battlefield. You shall have the first question, let me just get comfortable." I say and wave my hand and the spell obeys my will. A veritable skyscraper of a couch grows out of the ground and tiny mirrors of the seat appear for each of the cabal of technomages. It's merely a coincidence that the chair covered my back from most of their snipers and artillerists.
Jameila doesn't seem perturbed by my show of power but some of her teams do give me an uneasy look before they all take their seats.
"These are comfortable seats. Now the first question is mine you said. That implies I am a guest and that you play the part of the host, so my first question is if this place is your new home." She ask pleasantly and without a hurry in her words.
I consider her question for a second before answering. Wouldn't want to make a fool of myself in front of the James Bond lady.
"Well not the park itself no, its public property and a last vestige of nature in this concrete jungle beside. No, I make no claim here besides what everyone else has. I offer the seats because I carry my home wherever I travel and my hospitality is more politeness than anything else. But I will answer the real question underneath that. I am no lost fragment of the past emerging from a slumber of eons. No, I am something new, a giant of change. I am of Gaia as we all are but I am specifically trying out for her courts, this is my internship as it were. I am to cleanse all problems from New York and then find a home there. As you can see I made some progress to those goals.
"Yes, this is an impressive debut, I fear what other interns will have to do to measure up. This must be hundreds of Spiral dancers. I didn't know there were that many in the city." She jokes.
"There weren't that many in the city. I felt the Wyrmholes that brought a lot of them here, this is probably the vast majority of the BSDs on the eastern seaboard. Should severely cripple some of the more brutish wyrm operations in the country." I reply, implicitly showing my forthrightness and hinting at a potential future like a good spirit.
I catch the messages of their network glow abuzz at my words. I catch fragments of lightning quick messages like "Entropic Manifestation Clustering", "Resonance PurgationTask Force" and "Financial Audit Department".
"That's interesting. What's your first question??" Jameila asks.
"Well I am not one for prying but I must ask. Why risk your life doing this. For all you knew I could have been a Nexus Crawler with a machine gun or something even worse. So why venture into the unknown again and again until eventually it ends with your untimely death. What drives a person to do that, what great and glorious purpose burns in your soul." I ask her. I actually hadn't been sure what to ask this question. If it were up to me I would have just asked for some actionable intel to really devastated pentex further. But my sense of Ma'at was tingling. This woman is important in the grand scheme of things. In a way that I don't quite grasp yet but this is my chance to shift the world toward a better one. This is a fulcrum in the timeline, a place where true change is possible. If I pay attention I can feel a billion attempts by beings of untold power trying to break my lock on the timeline, futility of course. But that only emboldens me, things aren't significant if no one tries to time travel to stop you.
She looks a bit surprised at my words, a furrowed brow and a look of concentration on her face. Her thoughts flicker behind her eyes like quicksilver shadows, too fast for me to notice but there all the same. After a few seconds she answers.
"I could lie and say it is about achieving the dreams of Control and eliminating all reality deviance from the world but we both know that would be a lie. If my job has taught me anything, it is that causes are great justification for doing what you want to do but a cause is not going to drive you. Not really at least, peoples internal narratives are complex and justification for actions are important but ultimately people are driven by their fundamental self-image, how they think they should act. I suppose it is a sense of duty in my case, not towards any cause but rather towards a sense that I have to go out and do what is best with the information I have. It is a very local perspective I admit, a sort of shortsighted for a officer of the technocracy like me. But as my father used to say, you can only do what you can do. So that is the reason. Why risk my life to pursue such a lofty goal; simple, I am just doing my best to live my life and leave the world a bit better than what I found because I think I should do that. It is a bit tautological but what can you do? I hope that answers your Question." She says.
I consider her answer and it honestly stumps me for a few seconds. It's such an incongruent answer for the supposed masterminds of the Men in Black.
"My question to you is 'what's in the future'. Let's say you get that internship you want and you have some time to do things now. What will you do?" She asks.
"It's a fair question but my answer is very prosaic. I will probably just try to improve the world, fix broken social systems and provide the methodologies and resources needed to create a more sustainable society. It's not terribly glamorous but it's like what you said, the little things add up and every day living to your best leads to a great life. If you want something salacious and something your bosses would like, expect a total decimation of all bane spirits available to pentex. The Gaian Courts are at war with them and I intend to be proactive and finish it. I guess that's where we differ, I believe in a cause. Maybe you don't respect that answer but the fact is that the day to day is important, you have to do it or you won't survive, but you need a cause to truly live. Something bigger than you that gives you hope and a future to strive for. The steps along the path can be most of your focus but if you never even think about the way your steps lead then you might walk off a cliff or worse walk in a circle." I replied.
It is a bad answer, I know that even as I say it. It is partially in response to her own answer rather than my unfiltered thoughts but it's still the truth, just not all of it. I guess that's what Ma'at wants me to do here, engage in an oblique dialectic with a superspy and revive her faith in higher ideals that have been covered by scars of trauma and layers of cynicism.
"Now since it's my turn, let me ask you this. What is the purpose of the organization you are part of? What is the end goal of the so-called timetable? Do you know what you are working towards??" I question her. Ma'at was really really pushing here. Giving me the words to do the maximum impact on her. She must be important.
I notice the look of apprehension and suspicion that over takes the entire squadron of analysts and diplomats with Jameila. That won't do, I mutter a quick word of power.
"You can answer freely. I have dampened the sound and signals from you. RIght now they are just seeing you politely rebuff my question. I made sure they will compliment your dissembling skills. But speak freely because I am sure you have noticed that we are at a precipice of change. What you say here will decide the future." I say.
I see in her eyes that she understands. The winds of fate are blowing all around us, a veritable cyclone with us standing in the eye. No matter how much of their power they might have tied into their implements, each of the name breakers is capable of twisting reality and more importantly they sense it.
"What's happening?? What will you do if I answer the question wrong?" She says with iron in her voice, ready to use everything she has to kill me if I threaten something she considered important.
Ah so this is why she is important. Beneath that crud of PTSD and the apathy of the jaded, there is a spine of adamant. A will that will stand against a city spanning giant with nothing but a bunch of snipers and gaggle of interns.
"Oh it's nothing like that. I am not the instigator here Jameila, I am just here to ask the questions. I am just a billboard you see on the side of a superhighway. You are the fulcrum on which the world is shifting Jamelia. Now it's the time to answer." I will continue.
"Its Control. It's always been Control. It was control when they stripped me of my mind, it was control when they enabled the strip mining of the planet and the human spirit to fuel their industry. Its control when they prune an idea just because it will disrupt the timetable." She answers and her voice is barely a whisper as she says it to herself more for herself than me.
"But what is there to be done then? If, hypothetically, what can one woman do against an institution that all but controls the world from the shadows. Is it even needed, so what if they want to control the world? Isn't the safety and stability worth it? They make the metaphoric trains run on time and not get eaten by an ancient vampire god. Answer me?" She asks and there is distraught in her posture but her voice doesn't waver as she asks me.
"We both know the answers to that, don't we? There are ideals that we both abide by. The inherent worth of a person and their ability to decide their own fate. Not be threatened by those hidden in the shadows, whether they be ancient vampire gods or victorian cabal. How old is your group?? A few hundred years old. Humanity has survived without them for many millennia, they will survive without them in the future. They can shape gods from their faith or create spirit by just interacting with a concept. I mean the sheer arrogance in infantilizing an entire species capable of sapient thought, it is a staggering level of conceited ego. But ultimately no one is suggesting you become a traitor to your cause and comrades. Nothing in existence is pure evil, even the wyrm once had a purpose, and there is something out there that is worth saving in there. So my question to you is; can you find that good and make sure it doesn't die as the things get tough, because the winds of fate are blowing Jameila and they herald change whether good or bad." I answer.
"Yes. Because it's the only thing I can do. For a better tomorrow." She says.
"I will see you again then. A gift before I leave." I cryptically remark and draw forth the object I have been shaping during this entire conversation.
My ability to sense the Ma'at was in overdrive this entire conversation but my sense of inflicting change via violent means had been urging me on as well, it sang to me of the plight of the unarmed rebel and the certainty of an uphill battle. So it suggested me an idea of how to arm her for her glorious purpose.
It looks like a primitive art piece, a bundle of black feathers encased in bronze bands and a strung with a cord made out of dragon heart string. It is a simple thing but powerful in its intended purpose. The feathers that can stabilize reality banded together with bronze of freedom. It would be a potent ward, grounding and defusing the backlash that all name breakers suffer for their temerity. I just hope that she doesn't misuse it.
After giving the gift I disappear from front of her, transforming into a gale as my power gathers a storm overhead to shield my ship.
My last sight is Jameila holding the pendant and looking at those around her with a new found conviction.
Then I feel a pair of motes attach to my soul.
Precipitated a Reformation Schism in the Technocracy(+400)
Mad a tool to annul paradox for all but the most extreme effects(+200)
Rolling
FUCK
A/N:- I usually don't do authors notes because its a bit obtrusive. But the rolls this chapter completely derailed the entire middle plot I was envisioning. No I don't want to reroll them, I know I have veto power but I prefer the randomness even if it is bit inconvenient. I don't plan much so its doable.
Some executive descision regarding the spark because i don't want to do a crossover yet. So I am ruling that this does allow ajax to leave the world of darkness via adjacent properties like exalted and scion in a media daisy chain but he doesn't know how to do it inherently. He can use it immediately teleport between realms of the umbra and the different dimensions in the world of darkness but he needs to be taught anything else or learn it. Aside from the mtg magic which is fine. Goddamn thats a strong perk.
Also a huge shout out to panopticon quest by @MJ12 Commando on SV. It is the goat quest and made me get into mage which lead to some good friends. So this combat diplomat/ slash protagonist is named after the MC there as an homage. Seriously go read that, i have literally less than 1/10th the writing ability that person does.
First was the ability to share strength with those I consider to be comrades in arms, sharing with them my immense strength and unending vitality. Making it so that every garou will be stronger than a dragon as long as I share my strength and I have a lot of strength to share. The best part is that it is an ability that can be taught, an intermingling of essence between packs that is already known to the garou to a certain extent.
I know of spirits that let werewolves share their strength or speed or toughness between their pack. But this is wider than that. It is an ability that can encompass entire septs or even kingdoms if need be, while it does diminish with distance that is from hundreds of kilometers.
With this janissary training all the garou in New York could pool their attributes on a sept level and assign it to any pack that is currently on a mission. This is a gamechanger on the field and it would help calm the tension between tribes as you can feel their strength flow through you to smite Gaia's foes, maybe even make the warborn be more accepted.
Not that is ever going to be a problem anymore because I am not going to let any other warborn suffer what Alice has gone through. Fuck the litany, i will be the patron and guardian of all warborn and woe betide any garou that tries to punish them for a crime of which they are a victim.
The second gift is a double edged sword but one of the edges is so much sharper than the other. I now have a highly futuristic genetics laboratory inside of my ship. The wrinkle comes in the form of thousands of DNA samples of what the gift is telling me are called honkai beasts. A class of silicone based lifeforms that are made up of the fundamental power of creation. Specifically thousands of Emperor Class beasts, each individually capable of devastating cities or fighting armies unscathed. Beings that are by most margins godlike in their violence. If I learn genetics I can use this lab to slice their DNA with humans and make an army of world killers if I want to.
That is an absurd thing to give me, I have fully trusted the things that Gaia has gifted me with so far. I have had faith that it is all part of the plan of the great all-mother. But this makes me doubt it, because this is so excessively unnecessary and overboard compared to the problem that the world faces. An army or even a species of beings where even children could uproot mountains will end with the planet cracked in twain sooner rather than later.
This isn't the kind of damage that humans do, which is ultimately just cosmetic on a long enough time scale. Gaia's Avatar herself declared that when she judged the Great Trial of Humanity during the apocalypse. Why would she want me to give them the power to truly murder her if they wish it. It doesn't make any sense.
But the Great Mother doesn't make mistakes, she can't make mistakes. So surely this is something that is necessary. Yes that makes sense, she sees farther than I can, she knows that something is coming that requires me to use these things. Very well Red Fanged one, I will follow your will and use it. But I won't give this to humans, they are not ready for this. I should know, I am not ready for the power I have been given. But I won't pass on the burden of power to the other humans.
But my reverie is disturbed as a strange party approaches my resting form.
After my victory I was too injured and tired to walk or move. So I just crashed down on the bloody ground and caused a minor earthquake. I have torn out the living Caern heart of the Thunderwyrm and was wondering what I should do while I was slowly healing myself.
My spear when it first manifested from my soul had absorbed a previous artifact that I had gotten. A ring of vitality that made me healthier and increased my vital essence. That property hasn't gone anywhere and my spear still brims with vitality. So I have been slowly allowing my wounds with the mental from spear.
There was no risk of rejection as each bit of the metal is suffused with my life force. Then it is a simple matter of transmuting the metallic patch job back into my flesh and I am good as new. I truly love the affinity I hold with the forge and the mastery of it granted by motes.
But my meditation slash recovery is interrupted as a party of about a few dozen people approaches me.
"There are strangers hiding in the Buildings, Master. Machine Men think their elf craft hides them from you but thori can smell them in the towers; can I fetch them Master??" My dog says as he stays seated but raises his head in alertness in the manner of a dog that hears the mailman coming to deliver a post.
"Thanks buddy, I am sure they are just preparing in case of an ambush. Let's not scare them if we can. Is that alright with you buddy??" I ask as I ruffle his neck to calm him down. I don't want thori to be an aggressive dog despite his hel hound ancestry, it made the dogs miserable if they were always high trung to a fight. Besides, I can take care of myself.
He calms down at my reassurances and settles back down with his head on his paws.
It's almost comical seeing people that are quite literally the size of an ant walk up to me all dignified. A fun thing about giant physiology is that they don't have visual acuity as they look at small things. So I can see the woman that leads the group and everyone in the party quite clearly. I am glad I don't need a magnifying glass to recognise people. They also don't need to get close to hear someone talking to them. I can still quite comfortably hear her muttering something to her colleagues, some sort of code, as if I am standing next to her and not towering over the skyscraper even while seated. The One World Trade Center is the only building that I don't overshadow from my seat. It is also built on a festering scar of wyrm taint so deep it might as well be in the labyrinth but that's a problem for later.
"Hello. Sorry for the mess. I would clean up but this is a public space and I won't scab a union job." I greet the approaching party.
I see the word ripple through the group and I feel the collective working around the group shift to take my word into account.
A side effect of my affinity for the forge and the artificer's genius is that my magic is very aligned to machines and artifacts on a basic level. So I can sense the halo of signals that are emanating and entangling between the members of this group. It is beautiful in its complexity, an enmeshed matrix of nodes that can bend probability and use predictive software to synthesize just the right information regarding what to say. It honestly gives me ideas.
"Uhh, hello to you too. I am Jameila Belltower and we are part of an organization responsible for ensuring public safety and security. We detected some seismic and energetic emission and we were sent here to investigate what is going on. Evidently-" She points to the cratered battlefield and the slowly burning mound of Black Spiral Dancer " there was some sort of scuffle here. So we came here to offer medical help but you appear to be doing well on your own."
"Let's not play this game of euphemism Namebreaker. I know you are the Men in Black, I understand why you would be cautious about what happened here today. I appreciate that you didn't open up with the missile strikes but reached out to talk. So if you want an answer, and you always do, we can exchange question for question." I say and I feel the words fit, there is a manner to how these things go and as a spirit it is my duty to at least abide by the old forms. It also allows me to deflect my ignorance, I don't know much about the Men in Black. Besides the horror stories at least.
Her face drops the guileless sallow faced look of a woman above her pay grade and the eyes of the season veteran that has bandied words with gods before shines through. Surprisingly there isn't the innate disgust or animosity I would expect from one of Weaver's own get but there is a steel in those eyes and I feel more in danger talking to her than I did fighting the dragon.
"Of course, clear communications are efficient and we won't waste your time. But there are things that I am bound by duty and choice that I cannot disclose if you ask me." She says with the finality of a guillotine.
"Of course, you may refuse to answer any question. That is your prerogative, after all isn't that your philosophy? The mastery of the world entire and how it should be ordered." I say.
"Is that your first question??" She says with a smug smirk at getting in our verbal spar. I immediately liked her more, it proved that she is human underneath the weaves of fate and magic and that is always something to be admired. Being human in this world is the hardest thing possible.
"Not as such, although I usually don't mind long talks about philosophy and our relationship with Gaia but now doesn't seem appropriate. Standing in the ruins of a battlefield. You shall have the first question, let me just get comfortable." I say and wave my hand and the spell obeys my will. A veritable skyscraper of a couch grows out of the ground and tiny mirrors of the seat appear for each of the cabal of technomages. It's merely a coincidence that the chair covered my back from most of their snipers and artillerists.
Jameila doesn't seem perturbed by my show of power but some of her teams do give me an uneasy look before they all take their seats.
"These are comfortable seats. Now the first question is mine you said. That implies I am a guest and that you play the part of the host, so my first question is if this place is your new home." She ask pleasantly and without a hurry in her words.
I consider her question for a second before answering. Wouldn't want to make a fool of myself in front of the James Bond lady.
"Well not the park itself no, its public property and a last vestige of nature in this concrete jungle beside. No, I make no claim here besides what everyone else has. I offer the seats because I carry my home wherever I travel and my hospitality is more politeness than anything else. But I will answer the real question underneath that. I am no lost fragment of the past emerging from a slumber of eons. No, I am something new, a giant of change. I am of Gaia as we all are but I am specifically trying out for her courts, this is my internship as it were. I am to cleanse all problems from New York and then find a home there. As you can see I made some progress to those goals.
"Yes, this is an impressive debut, I fear what other interns will have to do to measure up. This must be hundreds of Spiral dancers. I didn't know there were that many in the city." She jokes.
"There weren't that many in the city. I felt the Wyrmholes that brought a lot of them here, this is probably the vast majority of the BSDs on the eastern seaboard. Should severely cripple some of the more brutish wyrm operations in the country." I reply, implicitly showing my forthrightness and hinting at a potential future like a good spirit.
I catch the messages of their network glow abuzz at my words. I catch fragments of lightning quick messages like "Entropic Manifestation Clustering", "Resonance PurgationTask Force" and "Financial Audit Department".
"That's interesting. What's your first question??" Jameila asks.
"Well I am not one for prying but I must ask. Why risk your life doing this. For all you knew I could have been a Nexus Crawler with a machine gun or something even worse. So why venture into the unknown again and again until eventually it ends with your untimely death. What drives a person to do that, what great and glorious purpose burns in your soul." I ask her. I actually hadn't been sure what to ask this question. If it were up to me I would have just asked for some actionable intel to really devastated pentex further. But my sense of Ma'at was tingling. This woman is important in the grand scheme of things. In a way that I don't quite grasp yet but this is my chance to shift the world toward a better one. This is a fulcrum in the timeline, a place where true change is possible. If I pay attention I can feel a billion attempts by beings of untold power trying to break my lock on the timeline, futility of course. But that only emboldens me, things aren't significant if no one tries to time travel to stop you.
She looks a bit surprised at my words, a furrowed brow and a look of concentration on her face. Her thoughts flicker behind her eyes like quicksilver shadows, too fast for me to notice but there all the same. After a few seconds she answers.
"I could lie and say it is about achieving the dreams of Control and eliminating all reality deviance from the world but we both know that would be a lie. If my job has taught me anything, it is that causes are great justification for doing what you want to do but a cause is not going to drive you. Not really at least, peoples internal narratives are complex and justification for actions are important but ultimately people are driven by their fundamental self-image, how they think they should act. I suppose it is a sense of duty in my case, not towards any cause but rather towards a sense that I have to go out and do what is best with the information I have. It is a very local perspective I admit, a sort of shortsighted for a officer of the technocracy like me. But as my father used to say, you can only do what you can do. So that is the reason. Why risk my life to pursue such a lofty goal; simple, I am just doing my best to live my life and leave the world a bit better than what I found because I think I should do that. It is a bit tautological but what can you do? I hope that answers your Question." She says.
I consider her answer and it honestly stumps me for a few seconds. It's such an incongruent answer for the supposed masterminds of the Men in Black.
"My question to you is 'what's in the future'. Let's say you get that internship you want and you have some time to do things now. What will you do?" She asks.
"It's a fair question but my answer is very prosaic. I will probably just try to improve the world, fix broken social systems and provide the methodologies and resources needed to create a more sustainable society. It's not terribly glamorous but it's like what you said, the little things add up and every day living to your best leads to a great life. If you want something salacious and something your bosses would like, expect a total decimation of all bane spirits available to pentex. The Gaian Courts are at war with them and I intend to be proactive and finish it. I guess that's where we differ, I believe in a cause. Maybe you don't respect that answer but the fact is that the day to day is important, you have to do it or you won't survive, but you need a cause to truly live. Something bigger than you that gives you hope and a future to strive for. The steps along the path can be most of your focus but if you never even think about the way your steps lead then you might walk off a cliff or worse walk in a circle." I replied.
It is a bad answer, I know that even as I say it. It is partially in response to her own answer rather than my unfiltered thoughts but it's still the truth, just not all of it. I guess that's what Ma'at wants me to do here, engage in an oblique dialectic with a superspy and revive her faith in higher ideals that have been covered by scars of trauma and layers of cynicism.
"Now since it's my turn, let me ask you this. What is the purpose of the organization you are part of? What is the end goal of the so-called timetable? Do you know what you are working towards??" I question her. Ma'at was really really pushing here. Giving me the words to do the maximum impact on her. She must be important.
I notice the look of apprehension and suspicion that over takes the entire squadron of analysts and diplomats with Jameila. That won't do, I mutter a quick word of power.
"You can answer freely. I have dampened the sound and signals from you. RIght now they are just seeing you politely rebuff my question. I made sure they will compliment your dissembling skills. But speak freely because I am sure you have noticed that we are at a precipice of change. What you say here will decide the future." I say.
I see in her eyes that she understands. The winds of fate are blowing all around us, a veritable cyclone with us standing in the eye. No matter how much of their power they might have tied into their implements, each of the name breakers is capable of twisting reality and more importantly they sense it.
"What's happening?? What will you do if I answer the question wrong?" She says with iron in her voice, ready to use everything she has to kill me if I threaten something she considered important.
Ah so this is why she is important. Beneath that crud of PTSD and the apathy of the jaded, there is a spine of adamant. A will that will stand against a city spanning giant with nothing but a bunch of snipers and gaggle of interns.
"Oh it's nothing like that. I am not the instigator here Jameila, I am just here to ask the questions. I am just a billboard you see on the side of a superhighway. You are the fulcrum on which the world is shifting Jamelia. Now it's the time to answer." I will continue.
"Its Control. It's always been Control. It was control when they stripped me of my mind, it was control when they enabled the strip mining of the planet and the human spirit to fuel their industry. Its control when they prune an idea just because it will disrupt the timetable." She answers and her voice is barely a whisper as she says it to herself more for herself than me.
"But what is there to be done then? If, hypothetically, what can one woman do against an institution that all but controls the world from the shadows. Is it even needed, so what if they want to control the world? Isn't the safety and stability worth it? They make the metaphoric trains run on time and not get eaten by an ancient vampire god. Answer me?" She asks and there is distraught in her posture but her voice doesn't waver as she asks me.
"We both know the answers to that, don't we? There are ideals that we both abide by. The inherent worth of a person and their ability to decide their own fate. Not be threatened by those hidden in the shadows, whether they be ancient vampire gods or victorian cabal. How old is your group?? A few hundred years old. Humanity has survived without them for many millennia, they will survive without them in the future. They can shape gods from their faith or create spirit by just interacting with a concept. I mean the sheer arrogance in infantilizing an entire species capable of sapient thought, it is a staggering level of conceited ego. But ultimately no one is suggesting you become a traitor to your cause and comrades. Nothing in existence is pure evil, even the wyrm once had a purpose, and there is something out there that is worth saving in there. So my question to you is; can you find that good and make sure it doesn't die as the things get tough, because the winds of fate are blowing Jameila and they herald change whether good or bad." I answer.
"Yes. Because it's the only thing I can do. For a better tomorrow." She says.
"I will see you again then. A gift before I leave." I cryptically remark and draw forth the object I have been shaping during this entire conversation.
My ability to sense the Ma'at was in overdrive this entire conversation but my sense of inflicting change via violent means had been urging me on as well, it sang to me of the plight of the unarmed rebel and the certainty of an uphill battle. So it suggested me an idea of how to arm her for her glorious purpose.
It looks like a primitive art piece, a bundle of black feathers encased in bronze bands and a strung with a cord made out of dragon heart string. It is a simple thing but powerful in its intended purpose. The feathers that can stabilize reality banded together with bronze of freedom. It would be a potent ward, grounding and defusing the backlash that all name breakers suffer for their temerity. I just hope that she doesn't misuse it.
After giving the gift I disappear from front of her, transforming into a gale as my power gathers a storm overhead to shield my ship.
My last sight is Jameila holding the pendant and looking at those around her with a new found conviction.
Then I feel a pair of motes attach to my soul.
Precipitated a Reformation Schism in the Technocracy(+400)
Mad a tool to annul paradox for all but the most extreme effects(+200)
Rolling
Court
This is what it can be grown into. A full-sized Court. A truly vast array of Nevernever beings who are sworn to serve you in whatever manner you desire, though in exchange for certain rights and privileges of their own that you are bound to uphold, much like a feudal king over their nobles. These can be of a vast variety of natures and kinds, or an eclectic mix from many kinds. If you buy the Kingdom above, this becomes a full nation peer to the Fae superpowers, complete with highly powerful nobles among them, since you get a gigantic 7000 CP to spend on at least ten nobles of your court, who will be as Leanansidhe, Cat Sith, Eldest Gruff and others are among Winter and Summer.
This is what it can be grown into. A full-sized Court. A truly vast array of Nevernever beings who are sworn to serve you in whatever manner you desire, though in exchange for certain rights and privileges of their own that you are bound to uphold, much like a feudal king over their nobles. These can be of a vast variety of natures and kinds, or an eclectic mix from many kinds. If you buy the Kingdom above, this becomes a full nation peer to the Fae superpowers, complete with highly powerful nobles among them, since you get a gigantic 7000 CP to spend on at least ten nobles of your court, who will be as Leanansidhe, Cat Sith, Eldest Gruff and others are among Winter and Summer.
Planeswalker Spark
The post-Mending Planeswalker Spark, not the Jumper Spark. This is the Spark of the MtG universe, and your own Planeswalker Spark has ignited. Due to this your ability to understand and mold Mana becomes incredibly intuitive such that your potential far exceeds all mortal spellcasters. You know the basics of summoning creatures that you have a connection with, creating new creatures from mana, casting spells, and forming contracts with higher powers for boosts to your capabilities. As a new Planeswalker, your current capacity to use Mana starts at 5 motes of Mana before incurring Mana Burn. This will easily grow to 10 motes of Mana within a year and from there, given thorough magical research, you will be able to sustain an additional mote of Mana per year of study. Mana is generated from Lands, of which you can bond to one after half a week. Lastly, as a Planeswalker you can of course travel the multiverse. In a ritual requiring at least three motes of Mana and six hours of mental preparation, you can take with you anything on your person. This can be trained to have a lower cost and mental preparation time. In addition, you can instead Planeswalk instantly when following someone in the immediate wake of an interdimensional jump. When navigating between planes you can either go to a plane randomly or go to a plane you know or one you have seen by visualizing it in your mind. This ability is limited to the local multiverse until you ignite your Jumper Spark.
The post-Mending Planeswalker Spark, not the Jumper Spark. This is the Spark of the MtG universe, and your own Planeswalker Spark has ignited. Due to this your ability to understand and mold Mana becomes incredibly intuitive such that your potential far exceeds all mortal spellcasters. You know the basics of summoning creatures that you have a connection with, creating new creatures from mana, casting spells, and forming contracts with higher powers for boosts to your capabilities. As a new Planeswalker, your current capacity to use Mana starts at 5 motes of Mana before incurring Mana Burn. This will easily grow to 10 motes of Mana within a year and from there, given thorough magical research, you will be able to sustain an additional mote of Mana per year of study. Mana is generated from Lands, of which you can bond to one after half a week. Lastly, as a Planeswalker you can of course travel the multiverse. In a ritual requiring at least three motes of Mana and six hours of mental preparation, you can take with you anything on your person. This can be trained to have a lower cost and mental preparation time. In addition, you can instead Planeswalk instantly when following someone in the immediate wake of an interdimensional jump. When navigating between planes you can either go to a plane randomly or go to a plane you know or one you have seen by visualizing it in your mind. This ability is limited to the local multiverse until you ignite your Jumper Spark.
Structural Analysis
Fixing a broken Silhouette Knight is hard if you don't know what is the problem in the first place. This grants an eye or intuition of analyzing the general problems in Silhouette Knight or any Technology in general with a glance alone and with time and probing you could even pinpoint the root of all the problems.
Fixing a broken Silhouette Knight is hard if you don't know what is the problem in the first place. This grants an eye or intuition of analyzing the general problems in Silhouette Knight or any Technology in general with a glance alone and with time and probing you could even pinpoint the root of all the problems.
FUCK
A/N:- I usually don't do authors notes because its a bit obtrusive. But the rolls this chapter completely derailed the entire middle plot I was envisioning. No I don't want to reroll them, I know I have veto power but I prefer the randomness even if it is bit inconvenient. I don't plan much so its doable.
Some executive descision regarding the spark because i don't want to do a crossover yet. So I am ruling that this does allow ajax to leave the world of darkness via adjacent properties like exalted and scion in a media daisy chain but he doesn't know how to do it inherently. He can use it immediately teleport between realms of the umbra and the different dimensions in the world of darkness but he needs to be taught anything else or learn it. Aside from the mtg magic which is fine. Goddamn thats a strong perk.
Also a huge shout out to panopticon quest by @MJ12 Commando on SV. It is the goat quest and made me get into mage which lead to some good friends. So this combat diplomat/ slash protagonist is named after the MC there as an homage. Seriously go read that, i have literally less than 1/10th the writing ability that person does.
- Location
- Eagan
Dudes even got his own Court now. He's really moving up in the world, both figuratively AND literally!
Chapter 10
New
Once upon a time a little boy was raised by a pack of matronly werewolves. His parents had been exiled for the birth of his sister and left them with a tribe of wolves that would care for their well being. The boy and his sister were relentlessly attacked and vilified and the barbed words of the elders hurt a lot more than the rocks thrown by the children. So the pair grew close and used to sneak out at night to watch tv in the rec room of the orphanage. They made many memories of watching late night sci fi and cartoons on the channels that the caretakers called weaver propaganda during the day.
Eventually the boy and his sister had to grow up. They learned the lesson of their people, they learned of their eternal war, of the shames and triumphs of the Garou and they learned of their myriad enemies. They learned how TVs were just tool of weaver indoctrination and vectors of weaver corruption and the cultural superweapon of the hegemonic empire, only good for showing home videos or nature documentaries and the muppets.
But secretly that boy always held a soft spot in his heart for a particular show he saw with his sister. A show about hope for the future and exploring the unknown, about diplomacy and the appropriate use of force, about the potential of ethical science and the possibility of doing the right thing in even the worst circumstances. It formed a basis of the boy's innermost beliefs and he loved that show even when he knew everyone in his tribe would mock him if they found out.
I am that boy and that is the thought that is going through my head as I fly up through the eye of the rumbling storm and land on the deck of my ship. It still looms over the entire city as its silhouette could literally darken the 5 boroughs. It is an edifice of magic and science so advanced that I still can't tell the difference. Its hull is made from a branch of the world tree, able to pierce any barrier and tough enough to travel through space. Its sail is a piece of the night sky woven into fabric that rides the very eddies of space and time to propel itself at ftl speeds. The shields that line its hull are woven with runes of perseverance and defense and can bounce a nuke off its side. The only way the termite hive had penetrated its hull was by imbuing its missiles with the ability to calcify and shatter reality itself. This legitimately is a mothership that could form the core of any space fleet and the size of New York in its own right. It also has the genetics lab in its core that holds those absurd samples as well.
So when Gaia saw it fit to gift me with a mote that was a court of my own, no doubt a reward for my great cleansing of New York, it had manifested throughout the ship. The cavernous longboat/mothership was no longer animated just by its innate magic. No, now it's the seat of my court and the home of my subjects.
Millions of spirits and trolls and goblins and elves and giants now make this city sized ship their home. Influenced by my childhood dream of an adventurer space captain; my court has manifested itself as the million strong exploration crew of USS Skidbladnir. An atypical structure and purpose for a court gifted by gaia but I can't bring myself to dislike it. Even as I ascend I am grinning ear to ear. It's not everyday that you get to become the person you wanted to be as a child. So what if my court is completely separate from the gaian courts. It just means I won't be a junior member of an organization that has too many beings that would hate my very existence. Sure it would have been nice to have been a incarna with my own brood that can slot into the Garou cultural context seamlessly but if cockroach or spider or any of the other patrons of changing breeds can make it on their own as independent spiritual pantheons with their own broads then I don't see why a crew of magical giants and trolls can't survive on their own.
But enough brooding on the irrevocable change that shifts the path of my destiny. All Garou are taught to accept change, they often don't learn this well but nevertheless, for clinging to a situation is the thrall of the weaver.
"Captain on Deck!!" Announce a deep rumbling voice.
My arrival on the ship is greeted with a crowd that can fill a stadium. It is an assorted melange of magical beings, giants and trolls and elves primarily, dressed in armoured jumpsuits and armed with glowing weapons.
The command draws all of their attention and they all face me in synchronised maneuver and they salute me with crisp practice of veterans.
I recognised all the beings standing in a circle around on sight. Not because the spark gave the knowledge but rather because each person is my thoughts and dreams given form.
The giant that stands in the middle of the saluting circle with a first officer's epaulets is Kragor, the giant I had slain as a child in my daydreams. The elven woman standing next to him with a multitool and scribe's tablet in her hand is Amanda, a stick figure drawing I had stuck in my diary once I tried drawing modern tolkien's elves. That pair of hulking wolves that saluted even as they lazed about on the floor are Bill and Ted, formed from my memories of the stray dogs that hung around the orange for a few months.
So I am not being saluted by peculiar spirits or unknown strangers, no I feel content as I manifest on the ship. It feels like coming home after a long journey and things may have changed and friends might be different but its still the same place and the same place.
"Come on guys, You don't have to salute me. We are all friends here." I shout in joy as I easily lift the entire inner circle in a single hug. There are some benefits to being large at least.
Most of them squirm in my grasp and I realize how terrifying it would be to be manhandled by such a massive figure that is almost double your size.
I gently set down the greeting party and sheepishly shrug a greeting. Luckily for me most of them seem to give me exasperated yet indulgent smiles and I breathe a sigh of relief that I haven't completely ruined my first impression to my court. Now that's a heady thought, isn't it. Ajax the Kinfolk, Captain of the USS Skidbladnir.
"It's fine captain, it's not everyday all of your dreams manifest quite literally to life. We understand your exuberance. But let's not tarry, we have to do a small induction so that you know what we have before you give your first orders." Kragor says and hurries me towards the center of the ship, where the massive rowing benches have been repurposed into a seating space for literally thousands of senior officers to sit around.
The crew ranges in size from giants that were hundreds of meters tall to elves that were just the size of humans. So it was quite funny to see a giant sit on a bench that was still larger than him and have a dozen people sit on his shoulders and head. But there is an air of joviality and anticipation in the air and no one seems to mind the improvised seating plans.
"So since we just came into existence, it's a bit of a mess but fortunately for all of us we were formed into an already organized structure and no one wants to try and circumvent the chain of command so far. The bad news is that this organization is woefully inadequate to come close to our needs. Whatever formed us realized your dreams of being a ship captain but there was no attention given that a simple ship's command structure is not nearly enough to organize a flying city ship." Kragor rants as he gesticulates all around us.
"So we have no infrastructure aside from the tools and artifacts we are carrying on us at the moment of our genesis. We have no hydroponics to feed us, no heating to bear the cold or ventilation to prevent suffocation. It's literally just a supersized viking boat and those are not designed to be conducive to be living spaces for a civilisation. That's the other thing, we are quite literally 10s of millions of sapient beings of various morphologies, cultures( or your half understood version of them) and beliefs and the only real unifying factor we have is that we all have an innate sense of loyalty to you. So that's the mess we find ourselves in and as the captain it's your duty to decide what to do." He hands me a tiny, by comparison, epaulet to pin to my arm and steps behind me to address the crowd.
Ok so the dream come true is not turning out so well so far but this could be another test by gaia. Yes, she wants to test if I can create a functional society from the ground up in completely alien environments so that I learn the fundamentals of managing a society before I try to change New York and the material world. Truly the wisdom of the all mother knows no bounds.
That's why she also bestowed on me the power to travel to all the planes of existence and draw upon the power of the land, her power, with that other mote.
It's a clear test and I understand it now. I take a deep breath, which causes a gust to almost pull a few people off their perches, and square my shoulders before I open my eyes and face the crowd.
"Greetings to my fellow voyagers of the USS Skidbladnir. Welcome to existence I guess, hope it's not a bother. But the first officer Kragor has informed me of our current situation so we have to do triage and thus we have no time for a ceremony. We have 3 objectives, we need sustenance to survive, we need to organize infrastructure for habitation and finally, we need to find a way forward. Anyone have any ideas??" I ask and it is Amanda the scientist elf that answer.
"Well, Via our connection to you we have a certain set of knowledge you wouldn't expect from a bunch of mystical spirits. That massive genetic complex in the core of the ship has the facilities that can be jury rigged to grow cultured protein and carbs. The Gene-mages among us know how to operate the gene engineering and the artificers can manage the machinery and such. It will take a few hours even with the copious use of magic to overcome most of the logistical concerns and it won't be the tastiest thing in the world but as long as we get enough sunlight or siphon some power from the reactors we can grow it pretty indefinitely. But the concern is that it is not a complete diet for most of the people here so we do need to set up some aeroponic farms to supplement the nutritional needs. Or we can say fuck it and just latch onto a mortal concept to draw energy for the material world like most of the other spirits do. But that's a measure of desperation and I doubt we want a war so soon in our existence." Amanda says.
"That sounds good Amanda, let's get started on this immediately. But I also have the option of making artifacts that could supply power to people so you won't need to latch onto human concepts. It will require me to work for a few days but it can be an option for the people that want to enjoy the umbra as a true independent spirit." I say, I feel a sense of relief. I had expected this to be a much bigger problem but I guess they are all capable individuals as well.
"The next challenge is the lack of infrastructure, not just physical roads and such but also social and political systems too. You can't exactly organize mass infrastructure projects without that sort of organization. I am biased and I think my nature as the ultimate source of the court itself does give me undue influence. But I honestly believe in a series of self-organizing non-hierarchical anarchist collectives. I know all the criticisms and logistics but fuck that. I honestly believe we can do it with the shared values derived from my subconsciousness and magic facilitating the quick direct democracy. What does everyone say?" I take a deep breath as I end my impassioned plea and wait for the reaction of the people of my court.
To be clear, I can command the members of my court with absolute authority, they literally can't even think about disobeying me if I wish to and couldn't physically do it even if they figured out how. But that's not how I roll, you don't get raised by a commune of children of Gaia dedicated to researching alternative organizing principles aside from capitalism. I was the anarchist era baby but that fell apart due to personal conflict between prominent members and the hindrance of having to coincide with a capitalistic society that introduced too many hurdles. One of them should not be a problem and the sheer size of my court should prevent polarizing figures gathering too much support.
Kragor sighs as a murmur of agreement goes through the crowd.
"Come on Captain, I know that this all part of your ideal society shtick but are you honestly foisting of the responsibility the moment you got it. Feels a bit cowardly I dunno." He says and I can't say his words are unwarranted.
"Yeah, that's a fair point I guess. How about this? I am still the Captain of the Physical Ship and we form a voluntary antifa battalion. So I don't interfere with the self determination of the people but we can also effectively marshal our resources to ferment change in the world for the better." I reply and hope that my compromise might satisfy the feeling of the more proactive member of the court, after all they are drawn from my thoughts and I have never been a passive guy.
"As for the direction of the future, we don't have any particular goal beside defending Gaia and that's more of a calling than an objective. So I guess we can leave it up to you guys while me and the volunteer battalion do direct action." I say.
"Well if that's the plan then let's get to it, no use dawdling." says Kragor
So we dive right into it. It is a whirlwind of casting spells and enchantments to make areas livable. A dance to make sure I don't step on anyone as I help carry the plundered supplies from the wyrm caerns of the deceased black spiral dancers. A project to embed the strange feathers in resonators around the ship to make the ship ontologically shielded.
It takes me hours and hours of work but enough of the basics are done that I get a chance to sit down and rest. It has been a day worth an entire life and I am feeling sleepy. Even now I am sharing a significant portion of my strength to the work crews as they continue to make Skidbladnir a true city ship.
"Ok so we have the chamber ready and the gene splicing tank is finally filled with the Quantum Replicator so let's get you in there." Amanda suddenly says as she pops um from between legs as I am sitting on one of the few benches that haven't been dismantled yet.
"What are you talking about Amanda?? What tank? A quantum what??" I ask confused. I haven't given her any orders and she had been missing throughout the evening as we were building.
"Oh yeah we forgot to tell you before we started, since we came from figments of your minds we, me and the gene mages, were aware of your curiosity about the DNA samples of these 'honkai beasts'. We have been looking into them for hours now and the results are fascinating and terrifying. Honkai beasts are nothing less than a self replicating meta-stable configuration of quantum energy or what you call gnosis. It uses silicon as a substrate to sheath the primal energy of creation as a perfect tool for something like gaia to command. And they are really really strong, the samples we have are from something called emperor class beasts and each of them is a living natural disaster. They can level cities in a single blast of energy or quite literally bend their primal power to throw a skyscraper a thousand kilometers.They are comparable to the blood god that awakened during the early aughts." She says and then she points towards "-And we are going to infuse you with it so you can benefit from that power to enhance your already considerable power."
I can't help but frown at her words. This was an out of nowhere offer and it is something that I would need time to think about. I mean it is fundamentally grafting the essence of some monster onto my body. Why would I even risk it, I already have more power than what I know what to do with.
I must have muttered some of my concerns out loud because Amanda makes a waving motion as if she was sweeping away my very valid concerns.
"Don't worry about the operation, the lab is specifically designed to do this procedure and the gene mages we have are more than capable of performing this transformation. As for why you specifically should do it?? Well there are two reasons and I know you will find them a lot more compelling than my offer of raw power but it's a bit manipulative to mention them, what with me being a fragment of your shard and as such familiar intimately with your desires." She holds up three fingers and begins to count down the reasons " First is the most abstract and the least compelling, it will tune you much more closer towards reality and probably gaia. Second is a more pragmatic approach, it will make your court more attuned to the procedure and let them utilize the same to gain more power and consequently autonomy. The final one is the one that I feel is the most important, it will make you much less likely to die which means we won't all disappear after your death."
Her words stop me dead in my tracks. I don't even breathe as the weight of the responsibility settles around my shoulders.
She is right, no matter their status as individual patients, they were personified figments of my mind. They are intrinsically and fundamentally connected to me. I am the cornerstone that is the lynchpin of their existence. If I die they will die a slow ignoble death of fading into obscurity and the void.
I sigh and get up from my seat.
"How long is it going to take??" I ask her with a resigned voice of someone who has been outwitted.
"Normally it is a day long procedure but due to the sheer size and mass you possess, its going to take weeks and that's if we can stimulate the dna to bond and self replicate perfectly." She replies with a resigned tone, rightly so.
"I can't be out of commission for that long. We have a moment now and we killed a significant percentage of the enemy force. Plus it's been hours so Alice and the others are probably worried." I point out the obvious problem.
"Yeah I thought that would be an issue. Luckily for you we have a solution. We can use a section of the same DNA we are combining with you to create a secondary terminal for your soul to inhabit while the transformation takes place. The only problem is that we are concerned about the fidelity of the synthetic connection and if it will persist over weeks of constant use. We were hoping you have some magical solution for that. We are all experts but your gifts are a bit more holistic and stronger than us." She says and there is a slight challenge in her tone.
"Yeah I have something for that. A new gift that lets me connect to the things and draw mana through them to fuel my magic. It's made me immensely more powerful and I don't see why it has to be a connection just to land, even now I can feel my connection to the ship solidifying and the trickle of mana flowing across both directions. I think that link should be something I can use to sustain any sort of connection." I reply and implicitly answer her challenge. It's good that I am being challenged, wouldn't want to grow an ego now would we.
"Ok, Let's start the procedure in an hour. I will see you at the lab."
The MANTIS lab is a work of art far beyond my wildest expectation. It is a place of research with white sterile walls lined with clear glass cylinders filled with DNA samples from Honkai beasts. The actual equipment for the infusion is in the center of the lab, in deference to me a gigantic superstructure capable of holding my body in suspended animation while the changes are conducted throughout it.
But before We can do that I am standing next to the nearest human sized gene combiner and I drop a single drop of blood inside the chamber. That single drop fills the entire 10 foot tall chamber with my blood. Inside it deposits a pinch of alchemical silicone substrate that starts to greedily drink my blood and glow an ominous red color. My sense of Ma'at pings and I know instinctively its the DNA of the Honkai beast trying to recreate itself using my blood as fuel. This does not shock me that much, despite the novel nature of the problem I had a feeling that this preliminary step could have gone wrong. I asked one of the artist communes to line the chamber with hieroglyphs to shape the proper spell of Ushabti Creation.
"Be ME." I mutter and cast the spell of transformation that wrenches control from the foreign remnants of an artificial creature and purges it from the honkai beast DNA. My blood continues to permeate the substrate before the white bonelike structure grows with a burst of magic and the chuck of inert matter takes the shape of a man's body. In Fact it is my body without any of the changes, the shape I still see myself despite my titanic proportions.
Satisfied with the first step I disrobe from the giant clothes I have been wearing and enter my own chamber. I tense up a bit as the liquid slowly starts to fill the superstructure and I feel that instinctual fear of drawing and barely clamp down on it before the entire chamber fills and I force myself to breathe the hyper-oxygenated liquid. It's the weird feeling of water in your lungs and not drowning but the sleep drugs kick in by then and I slowly drift off to blissful slumber.
Well, blissful for the hour I sleep while they inject me with the replicating DNAof the Honkai Emperor Beast. As I feel the pinch of the injection fade I reluctantly invoke the first lesson of Heku in my mind, that of lucid dreaming or rather freeing my Ba to fly beyond the limits of corpus and explore the whole of the Duat. In this case my Ba is a gigantic eagle with my head and I fly out my body and dive into the Ushabti I have prepared for the ritual.
It feels constricting diving into this body, even the immense power of the Honkai DNA is unable to contain the glowing majesty of my spirit and it feels like slipping into a straight jacket. But I begrudgingly bear the constricting feeling before I feel my connection with my planeswalker spark snap into place.
I slowly open my eyes as the blood is drained from the chamber and I open my eyes as I drop down to the floor.
I struggle up to my feet grab the robes foisted upon me by the genemages as they conduct spells and scans to ensure the stability of the artificial body.
I don't need to, of course, I can feel the body drawing upon my colossal energy well through my Ba and the Ba's connection with the body would hold it together till death regardless of the stability. But it is unnecessary as the body exceeds all expectations and is completely stable in the first try.
"Ok now that I can sleep in a bed again, I am going to sleep. Flying around as Ba does not help get my beauty sleep. I will see you guys tomorrow when I return to the world. Good night." So declaring I fly towards the nearest bed with hypersonic speed.
this the worst chapter yet and it killed my motivation but should be easier after this.
Eventually the boy and his sister had to grow up. They learned the lesson of their people, they learned of their eternal war, of the shames and triumphs of the Garou and they learned of their myriad enemies. They learned how TVs were just tool of weaver indoctrination and vectors of weaver corruption and the cultural superweapon of the hegemonic empire, only good for showing home videos or nature documentaries and the muppets.
But secretly that boy always held a soft spot in his heart for a particular show he saw with his sister. A show about hope for the future and exploring the unknown, about diplomacy and the appropriate use of force, about the potential of ethical science and the possibility of doing the right thing in even the worst circumstances. It formed a basis of the boy's innermost beliefs and he loved that show even when he knew everyone in his tribe would mock him if they found out.
I am that boy and that is the thought that is going through my head as I fly up through the eye of the rumbling storm and land on the deck of my ship. It still looms over the entire city as its silhouette could literally darken the 5 boroughs. It is an edifice of magic and science so advanced that I still can't tell the difference. Its hull is made from a branch of the world tree, able to pierce any barrier and tough enough to travel through space. Its sail is a piece of the night sky woven into fabric that rides the very eddies of space and time to propel itself at ftl speeds. The shields that line its hull are woven with runes of perseverance and defense and can bounce a nuke off its side. The only way the termite hive had penetrated its hull was by imbuing its missiles with the ability to calcify and shatter reality itself. This legitimately is a mothership that could form the core of any space fleet and the size of New York in its own right. It also has the genetics lab in its core that holds those absurd samples as well.
So when Gaia saw it fit to gift me with a mote that was a court of my own, no doubt a reward for my great cleansing of New York, it had manifested throughout the ship. The cavernous longboat/mothership was no longer animated just by its innate magic. No, now it's the seat of my court and the home of my subjects.
Millions of spirits and trolls and goblins and elves and giants now make this city sized ship their home. Influenced by my childhood dream of an adventurer space captain; my court has manifested itself as the million strong exploration crew of USS Skidbladnir. An atypical structure and purpose for a court gifted by gaia but I can't bring myself to dislike it. Even as I ascend I am grinning ear to ear. It's not everyday that you get to become the person you wanted to be as a child. So what if my court is completely separate from the gaian courts. It just means I won't be a junior member of an organization that has too many beings that would hate my very existence. Sure it would have been nice to have been a incarna with my own brood that can slot into the Garou cultural context seamlessly but if cockroach or spider or any of the other patrons of changing breeds can make it on their own as independent spiritual pantheons with their own broads then I don't see why a crew of magical giants and trolls can't survive on their own.
But enough brooding on the irrevocable change that shifts the path of my destiny. All Garou are taught to accept change, they often don't learn this well but nevertheless, for clinging to a situation is the thrall of the weaver.
"Captain on Deck!!" Announce a deep rumbling voice.
My arrival on the ship is greeted with a crowd that can fill a stadium. It is an assorted melange of magical beings, giants and trolls and elves primarily, dressed in armoured jumpsuits and armed with glowing weapons.
The command draws all of their attention and they all face me in synchronised maneuver and they salute me with crisp practice of veterans.
I recognised all the beings standing in a circle around on sight. Not because the spark gave the knowledge but rather because each person is my thoughts and dreams given form.
The giant that stands in the middle of the saluting circle with a first officer's epaulets is Kragor, the giant I had slain as a child in my daydreams. The elven woman standing next to him with a multitool and scribe's tablet in her hand is Amanda, a stick figure drawing I had stuck in my diary once I tried drawing modern tolkien's elves. That pair of hulking wolves that saluted even as they lazed about on the floor are Bill and Ted, formed from my memories of the stray dogs that hung around the orange for a few months.
So I am not being saluted by peculiar spirits or unknown strangers, no I feel content as I manifest on the ship. It feels like coming home after a long journey and things may have changed and friends might be different but its still the same place and the same place.
"Come on guys, You don't have to salute me. We are all friends here." I shout in joy as I easily lift the entire inner circle in a single hug. There are some benefits to being large at least.
Most of them squirm in my grasp and I realize how terrifying it would be to be manhandled by such a massive figure that is almost double your size.
I gently set down the greeting party and sheepishly shrug a greeting. Luckily for me most of them seem to give me exasperated yet indulgent smiles and I breathe a sigh of relief that I haven't completely ruined my first impression to my court. Now that's a heady thought, isn't it. Ajax the Kinfolk, Captain of the USS Skidbladnir.
"It's fine captain, it's not everyday all of your dreams manifest quite literally to life. We understand your exuberance. But let's not tarry, we have to do a small induction so that you know what we have before you give your first orders." Kragor says and hurries me towards the center of the ship, where the massive rowing benches have been repurposed into a seating space for literally thousands of senior officers to sit around.
The crew ranges in size from giants that were hundreds of meters tall to elves that were just the size of humans. So it was quite funny to see a giant sit on a bench that was still larger than him and have a dozen people sit on his shoulders and head. But there is an air of joviality and anticipation in the air and no one seems to mind the improvised seating plans.
"So since we just came into existence, it's a bit of a mess but fortunately for all of us we were formed into an already organized structure and no one wants to try and circumvent the chain of command so far. The bad news is that this organization is woefully inadequate to come close to our needs. Whatever formed us realized your dreams of being a ship captain but there was no attention given that a simple ship's command structure is not nearly enough to organize a flying city ship." Kragor rants as he gesticulates all around us.
"So we have no infrastructure aside from the tools and artifacts we are carrying on us at the moment of our genesis. We have no hydroponics to feed us, no heating to bear the cold or ventilation to prevent suffocation. It's literally just a supersized viking boat and those are not designed to be conducive to be living spaces for a civilisation. That's the other thing, we are quite literally 10s of millions of sapient beings of various morphologies, cultures( or your half understood version of them) and beliefs and the only real unifying factor we have is that we all have an innate sense of loyalty to you. So that's the mess we find ourselves in and as the captain it's your duty to decide what to do." He hands me a tiny, by comparison, epaulet to pin to my arm and steps behind me to address the crowd.
Ok so the dream come true is not turning out so well so far but this could be another test by gaia. Yes, she wants to test if I can create a functional society from the ground up in completely alien environments so that I learn the fundamentals of managing a society before I try to change New York and the material world. Truly the wisdom of the all mother knows no bounds.
That's why she also bestowed on me the power to travel to all the planes of existence and draw upon the power of the land, her power, with that other mote.
It's a clear test and I understand it now. I take a deep breath, which causes a gust to almost pull a few people off their perches, and square my shoulders before I open my eyes and face the crowd.
"Greetings to my fellow voyagers of the USS Skidbladnir. Welcome to existence I guess, hope it's not a bother. But the first officer Kragor has informed me of our current situation so we have to do triage and thus we have no time for a ceremony. We have 3 objectives, we need sustenance to survive, we need to organize infrastructure for habitation and finally, we need to find a way forward. Anyone have any ideas??" I ask and it is Amanda the scientist elf that answer.
"Well, Via our connection to you we have a certain set of knowledge you wouldn't expect from a bunch of mystical spirits. That massive genetic complex in the core of the ship has the facilities that can be jury rigged to grow cultured protein and carbs. The Gene-mages among us know how to operate the gene engineering and the artificers can manage the machinery and such. It will take a few hours even with the copious use of magic to overcome most of the logistical concerns and it won't be the tastiest thing in the world but as long as we get enough sunlight or siphon some power from the reactors we can grow it pretty indefinitely. But the concern is that it is not a complete diet for most of the people here so we do need to set up some aeroponic farms to supplement the nutritional needs. Or we can say fuck it and just latch onto a mortal concept to draw energy for the material world like most of the other spirits do. But that's a measure of desperation and I doubt we want a war so soon in our existence." Amanda says.
"That sounds good Amanda, let's get started on this immediately. But I also have the option of making artifacts that could supply power to people so you won't need to latch onto human concepts. It will require me to work for a few days but it can be an option for the people that want to enjoy the umbra as a true independent spirit." I say, I feel a sense of relief. I had expected this to be a much bigger problem but I guess they are all capable individuals as well.
"The next challenge is the lack of infrastructure, not just physical roads and such but also social and political systems too. You can't exactly organize mass infrastructure projects without that sort of organization. I am biased and I think my nature as the ultimate source of the court itself does give me undue influence. But I honestly believe in a series of self-organizing non-hierarchical anarchist collectives. I know all the criticisms and logistics but fuck that. I honestly believe we can do it with the shared values derived from my subconsciousness and magic facilitating the quick direct democracy. What does everyone say?" I take a deep breath as I end my impassioned plea and wait for the reaction of the people of my court.
To be clear, I can command the members of my court with absolute authority, they literally can't even think about disobeying me if I wish to and couldn't physically do it even if they figured out how. But that's not how I roll, you don't get raised by a commune of children of Gaia dedicated to researching alternative organizing principles aside from capitalism. I was the anarchist era baby but that fell apart due to personal conflict between prominent members and the hindrance of having to coincide with a capitalistic society that introduced too many hurdles. One of them should not be a problem and the sheer size of my court should prevent polarizing figures gathering too much support.
Kragor sighs as a murmur of agreement goes through the crowd.
"Come on Captain, I know that this all part of your ideal society shtick but are you honestly foisting of the responsibility the moment you got it. Feels a bit cowardly I dunno." He says and I can't say his words are unwarranted.
"Yeah, that's a fair point I guess. How about this? I am still the Captain of the Physical Ship and we form a voluntary antifa battalion. So I don't interfere with the self determination of the people but we can also effectively marshal our resources to ferment change in the world for the better." I reply and hope that my compromise might satisfy the feeling of the more proactive member of the court, after all they are drawn from my thoughts and I have never been a passive guy.
"As for the direction of the future, we don't have any particular goal beside defending Gaia and that's more of a calling than an objective. So I guess we can leave it up to you guys while me and the volunteer battalion do direct action." I say.
"Well if that's the plan then let's get to it, no use dawdling." says Kragor
So we dive right into it. It is a whirlwind of casting spells and enchantments to make areas livable. A dance to make sure I don't step on anyone as I help carry the plundered supplies from the wyrm caerns of the deceased black spiral dancers. A project to embed the strange feathers in resonators around the ship to make the ship ontologically shielded.
It takes me hours and hours of work but enough of the basics are done that I get a chance to sit down and rest. It has been a day worth an entire life and I am feeling sleepy. Even now I am sharing a significant portion of my strength to the work crews as they continue to make Skidbladnir a true city ship.
"Ok so we have the chamber ready and the gene splicing tank is finally filled with the Quantum Replicator so let's get you in there." Amanda suddenly says as she pops um from between legs as I am sitting on one of the few benches that haven't been dismantled yet.
"What are you talking about Amanda?? What tank? A quantum what??" I ask confused. I haven't given her any orders and she had been missing throughout the evening as we were building.
"Oh yeah we forgot to tell you before we started, since we came from figments of your minds we, me and the gene mages, were aware of your curiosity about the DNA samples of these 'honkai beasts'. We have been looking into them for hours now and the results are fascinating and terrifying. Honkai beasts are nothing less than a self replicating meta-stable configuration of quantum energy or what you call gnosis. It uses silicon as a substrate to sheath the primal energy of creation as a perfect tool for something like gaia to command. And they are really really strong, the samples we have are from something called emperor class beasts and each of them is a living natural disaster. They can level cities in a single blast of energy or quite literally bend their primal power to throw a skyscraper a thousand kilometers.They are comparable to the blood god that awakened during the early aughts." She says and then she points towards "-And we are going to infuse you with it so you can benefit from that power to enhance your already considerable power."
I can't help but frown at her words. This was an out of nowhere offer and it is something that I would need time to think about. I mean it is fundamentally grafting the essence of some monster onto my body. Why would I even risk it, I already have more power than what I know what to do with.
I must have muttered some of my concerns out loud because Amanda makes a waving motion as if she was sweeping away my very valid concerns.
"Don't worry about the operation, the lab is specifically designed to do this procedure and the gene mages we have are more than capable of performing this transformation. As for why you specifically should do it?? Well there are two reasons and I know you will find them a lot more compelling than my offer of raw power but it's a bit manipulative to mention them, what with me being a fragment of your shard and as such familiar intimately with your desires." She holds up three fingers and begins to count down the reasons " First is the most abstract and the least compelling, it will tune you much more closer towards reality and probably gaia. Second is a more pragmatic approach, it will make your court more attuned to the procedure and let them utilize the same to gain more power and consequently autonomy. The final one is the one that I feel is the most important, it will make you much less likely to die which means we won't all disappear after your death."
Her words stop me dead in my tracks. I don't even breathe as the weight of the responsibility settles around my shoulders.
She is right, no matter their status as individual patients, they were personified figments of my mind. They are intrinsically and fundamentally connected to me. I am the cornerstone that is the lynchpin of their existence. If I die they will die a slow ignoble death of fading into obscurity and the void.
I sigh and get up from my seat.
"How long is it going to take??" I ask her with a resigned voice of someone who has been outwitted.
"Normally it is a day long procedure but due to the sheer size and mass you possess, its going to take weeks and that's if we can stimulate the dna to bond and self replicate perfectly." She replies with a resigned tone, rightly so.
"I can't be out of commission for that long. We have a moment now and we killed a significant percentage of the enemy force. Plus it's been hours so Alice and the others are probably worried." I point out the obvious problem.
"Yeah I thought that would be an issue. Luckily for you we have a solution. We can use a section of the same DNA we are combining with you to create a secondary terminal for your soul to inhabit while the transformation takes place. The only problem is that we are concerned about the fidelity of the synthetic connection and if it will persist over weeks of constant use. We were hoping you have some magical solution for that. We are all experts but your gifts are a bit more holistic and stronger than us." She says and there is a slight challenge in her tone.
"Yeah I have something for that. A new gift that lets me connect to the things and draw mana through them to fuel my magic. It's made me immensely more powerful and I don't see why it has to be a connection just to land, even now I can feel my connection to the ship solidifying and the trickle of mana flowing across both directions. I think that link should be something I can use to sustain any sort of connection." I reply and implicitly answer her challenge. It's good that I am being challenged, wouldn't want to grow an ego now would we.
"Ok, Let's start the procedure in an hour. I will see you at the lab."
The MANTIS lab is a work of art far beyond my wildest expectation. It is a place of research with white sterile walls lined with clear glass cylinders filled with DNA samples from Honkai beasts. The actual equipment for the infusion is in the center of the lab, in deference to me a gigantic superstructure capable of holding my body in suspended animation while the changes are conducted throughout it.
But before We can do that I am standing next to the nearest human sized gene combiner and I drop a single drop of blood inside the chamber. That single drop fills the entire 10 foot tall chamber with my blood. Inside it deposits a pinch of alchemical silicone substrate that starts to greedily drink my blood and glow an ominous red color. My sense of Ma'at pings and I know instinctively its the DNA of the Honkai beast trying to recreate itself using my blood as fuel. This does not shock me that much, despite the novel nature of the problem I had a feeling that this preliminary step could have gone wrong. I asked one of the artist communes to line the chamber with hieroglyphs to shape the proper spell of Ushabti Creation.
"Be ME." I mutter and cast the spell of transformation that wrenches control from the foreign remnants of an artificial creature and purges it from the honkai beast DNA. My blood continues to permeate the substrate before the white bonelike structure grows with a burst of magic and the chuck of inert matter takes the shape of a man's body. In Fact it is my body without any of the changes, the shape I still see myself despite my titanic proportions.
Satisfied with the first step I disrobe from the giant clothes I have been wearing and enter my own chamber. I tense up a bit as the liquid slowly starts to fill the superstructure and I feel that instinctual fear of drawing and barely clamp down on it before the entire chamber fills and I force myself to breathe the hyper-oxygenated liquid. It's the weird feeling of water in your lungs and not drowning but the sleep drugs kick in by then and I slowly drift off to blissful slumber.
Well, blissful for the hour I sleep while they inject me with the replicating DNAof the Honkai Emperor Beast. As I feel the pinch of the injection fade I reluctantly invoke the first lesson of Heku in my mind, that of lucid dreaming or rather freeing my Ba to fly beyond the limits of corpus and explore the whole of the Duat. In this case my Ba is a gigantic eagle with my head and I fly out my body and dive into the Ushabti I have prepared for the ritual.
It feels constricting diving into this body, even the immense power of the Honkai DNA is unable to contain the glowing majesty of my spirit and it feels like slipping into a straight jacket. But I begrudgingly bear the constricting feeling before I feel my connection with my planeswalker spark snap into place.
I slowly open my eyes as the blood is drained from the chamber and I open my eyes as I drop down to the floor.
I struggle up to my feet grab the robes foisted upon me by the genemages as they conduct spells and scans to ensure the stability of the artificial body.
I don't need to, of course, I can feel the body drawing upon my colossal energy well through my Ba and the Ba's connection with the body would hold it together till death regardless of the stability. But it is unnecessary as the body exceeds all expectations and is completely stable in the first try.
"Ok now that I can sleep in a bed again, I am going to sleep. Flying around as Ba does not help get my beauty sleep. I will see you guys tomorrow when I return to the world. Good night." So declaring I fly towards the nearest bed with hypersonic speed.
this the worst chapter yet and it killed my motivation but should be easier after this.
I wonder what's the world reaction to the wyrrm being killed
- Location
- Eagan
Where was Thori during this, did he not come along when Ajax left?
He is helping the dog spirits of the court settle in. He is their alpha by default.Where was Thori during this, did he not come along when Ajax left?
Meanwhile 1
New
Alice had been excited when her brother had gained his strange powers and the ritual to make Garou yesterday. It had removed one of her major sources of perry because that meant she didn't have to worry about her brother getting into stupid fights trying to atone for the sins of their parents and shield her from her peer's contempt. She didn't have to worry that he would have to give up more than he already had to send her to college and the jobs he would take with a smile even as they killed the light behind his eyes.
The powers were supposed to be his way out, a gift from Gaia towards her most compassionate son and a way for him to stay in the backlines and yet still be a respected member of the Garou society.
Only that wasn't how it had played out, her brother had continued to gain powers, more and more intense changes that made him stand out even more. First were the ship and the spear and then it was the God-dog which were strange but understandable. But it kept getting stranger and stranger.
For Gaia's sake she and her new pack, and wasn't that a doozy her brother being the patron for her new friends, had to fight triple their numbers of spiral dancers without anything more than basic training and spells that they had never experienced before. It was a miracle that her brother's spell had been more beneficial than curses, because they have not practiced how to fight with things like invulnerable steel fur or the strength of an elephant behind their blows. They probably would have died then and there if not for Thori garnering the attention of that entire war pack of the Spiral Dancers. She had really gotten to like that pup since she had met him.
Then for some reason her brother had to jump into the umbra in the middle of trying to break an ancestral curse on the silent striders, with every totem in the caern simultaneously shouting at the rest of the wolves to not follow him.
She had grown worried sick as the hours of her brother's silence stretched deep into the night, it wouldn't even be hard he was her patron he is literally always connected to her. But she could do nothing but wait as she wasn't allowed to pursue him with her pack by the orders of High King Albrecht himself. She had said some things to Albrect when he had ordered that, things that would have resulted in her being mauled if the King had been anything less then iron willed diplomat. Instead he had just waited for her to vent on him and then quietly and privately apologised to her but the patrons had been clear, her brother needed to do whatever he was doing alone. It was a test of sorts, for something he had to do.
Of course he was also a giant, which was something she only learned from bribing a gaffling too dumb to listen to its betters with spare gnosis.
But the facts didn't reduce her anxiety and her sleep that night was restless, a furtive dream where she was crushed under some great rock as her friends and family lay at her feet and she was unable to hold back the falling boulder. An ominous omen indeed.
So that means she was sleeping lightly when someone entered her room early in the morning. She is on her feet and in her warform before her conscious mind catches up to her instincts, she is about to pounce on the intruder before some dim memory from her childhood enters her mind.
"Krisy is that you?? you aren't supposed to be real. Who are you, pretending to be our childhood friend??" she growled at the figment of their innocence.
"Whoa calm down there Ali Bear, your brother sent me. Yeah he is currently occupied in essentially a chrysalis situation and his avatar is out raiding on behalf of gaia. But he was worried that you would be worried so he sent me since a familiar face would be most likely to be believed." The phantasm of her mind replies.
"Likely story, how did he even make you. You seem too aware to be a spell mirage and too solid to just be a spirit." So she says she starts tapping into the gift that she could feel to flow from her brother. It was different from last night, it was pulsing with power. Strength she could tap into and she feels the power enough to crush building fill her thews. But along with this pulse of power comes a sense of assent, almost agreeing with the spirit. That is finally what causes her to start to believe the stranger wearing the familiar face.
She turns back into her human form and rushes to hug their imaginary friend.
"Oh Kris, how are you here?? Did Ajax get a mote to make you real??" She asks.
"Nothing so prosaic, rather I am just a single denizen of his millions strong court. A cog in the twisted mind of Ajax made manifest." He jokes.
"As for why I am sent here. Well Ajax is busy and he also isn't the most responsible guy about his role as potential for Garou and all those that would fight for Gaia. So we at the courts thought, why don't we step up and fulfill the role of fairy godmother. So let me introduce you to Project Infinite Arsenal. The first and last spot to defend the world." He finishes.
"So I agree to a contract with you guys to improve the city and you will give me everything I need to keep my shelter running." Anna Dupree asked the strange man who had ambushed her at the coffee shop an hour ago and had gone on and on about an offer that was too good to be true.
"Yes, we will give everything your patrons need to live their lives. Food, Medicine, Safe Drug Use Paraphernalia, All weather clothes, A Stipend and Counselling. Anything else they need will be provided, and this offer isn't limited to just your place. If you know any other NGOs then we are also willing to help them as well." The man says in that same smarmy way that most tech bros talk when they try to solve the world's problem without understanding them.
The words also raised up Anna's hackles, she had heard rumors of offers like these. FIrst they come with free finance and then after you grow dependent on them your regulars start disappearing, people start becoming sicker and meaner and problems grow in ways that are inexplicable but linked to these too good to be true offers.
"I appreciate the offer but I can't accept your offer in good faith unless you tell me why whatever organization gets out of this, it's too much for your standard tax write offs. " She challenges the man and he gives her a look of respect before he adopts a more natural posture and his expression becomes less salesman-like.
"I told them we should start with the truth but they want to try the mysterious benefactor thing, fuck that. You are too good a person to mess around with and you deserve the truth. The truth is that we are representative of a magical socialist commune that wants to give a lifeline to those in need. I know it sounds crazy but I can prove it." The thing that was a man just a second ago waves his hand in front of his face and he has horns and furry goat legs underneath.
Anna Dupree is a woman that has ran a shelter in new york for 4 decades, she is not easily shook but even she is mildly perturbed with this clearly supernatural phenomena. I mean its not a complete surprise, she thinks to herself, we have all heard about the happening in the shadows and back alleys and story from the unhoused but its another thing to have a magical being stand in front of her in a public coffee shop.
"Additionally we will also be granting access to the magic system we have developed just for your cause. We will create an Obelisk of Ma'at that you can access via our contract and it will grant you the power of administrative magic, stuff like paperwork completing automatically or minimising waste or even eliminating it. You would be able to grant blessings of fortune to those that adhere to the organisation's principles and grant them supernal grace of skill and luck. It would also let you have some time off without guilt as your spells could be tuned to resist external circumstances. If the magic lasts long enough you won't even need the obelisk for power, it will continue to empower your organisation's spirit until eventually it can independently empower you on its own. This would be universal for all your volunteers with you acting as a conduit. The Meta-mages are very excited to see it in action, a unique combination of Heku's Nomenclative magics unified with the animism of the Garou with Ma'at acting as a mediator." The Goat person finally
"Yeah I am out. That's too complicated for me." Anna says and leaves.
"Another whiff, I guess that's too much all at once. Well it's not like there is a shortage of people to help in this city, we only need one shelter." The satyr says inside his commlink and moves towards his next prospective partner.
"Get away from me." Bill says as the unknown man continues to chase him into the shadows of an alleyway.
Bill had just come off a long haul route down to Texas and was eager to get back home, he had cut through an alleyway just to get home little sooner, but on his way some creepy dude with fangs had attacked him and bit him. Bill has been fortunate enough to push him away enough to run away but it was a dire situation, being chased by a vampire that's faster than him through an unreasonably long alley.
Just as he loses hope and is about to be pounced upon by the assailant, a glowing figure appears out of nowhere and cuts the vampire in half.
As the light subsides it reveals a figure just as unbelievable as the vampire had been, but in the completely opposite direction.
A woman Armoured in Bronze Plate Mail, holding a buster sword the size of a horse. Behind her floats a ring of floating blades, forming a mandala of violence to frame her ferocity.
He tries to look at her bare face but he can't seem to focus on it, only getting the impression of a scowl directed at the vampire corpse at her feet.
The giant Buster sword in her glows and transforms into a massive hunting hound, a strange glowing creature the size of a horse with a sword for a snout and blades lining its back like a crocodile's hide.
"A Mad one, was hiding in the sewers, just came out of slumber and was starving. Smelled that man there and chased him mindlessly." The blade hound says as its metallic snout blade sniffs the air and it tracks the path that the vampire took.
"There is a whole nest of them, I think they would serve well as our first hunt as partners. Don't you think so, Victoria." The dog asks the armoured woman.
She just nods in response and then with a simple gesture the floating array of blades on her backs glows and they work together to carve a glowing portal behind her.
"Level 2 Enemy Signatures detected. Manufacturing PolyPhasic Shroud, Manufacturing Sterile Membrane, Deploying Hunter Seeker Ushabti." She intones and for a brief moment Bill swears he sees a vast workshop filled with magical devices but the illusion doesn't last.
A glowing silver cape flys out of the portal and settles on her shoulders automatically. A silver sheen covers her entire body for a split second before disappearing and leaving just a simple blur around her silhouette. A number of glowing paper talismans made out of golden Hieroglyph on papyrus appear through the portal before attaching to the hands of the floating blade array.
A dozen golden figures made out of pure energy appear, each holding the handle of a single floating blade. They all stand at attention and salute the golden warrior and she just faces palms.
"Is this really necessary, I don't need the autonomous killer robots to salute me. I mean I know they are just here to back up and protect any prospective civilians in there but we don't need them. You already lend me enough power through our bond, and I am only accessing the barest fraction of your Honkai Guardian power, but I can easily kill some vampires." She says to her partner, the now named Honkai Guardian:- Blade Hound.
"You know it's our first day, the eggheads at the Arsenal are just worried, not about the vampires but there is something much more powerful hiding underneath the city. Our divination hasn't found any trace but we have heard intel from the local murder spirits that not even the Garou go into the tunnels, and those that do go never come back. If they had their wish they would send an entire Executioner Brigade but we aren't allowed to go that loud just yet." The dog answered in the tone of someone rehashing the argument they had before.
At that Bill had enough, he is an American damn it and no one would ever ignore him even if they save his life.
"Hey guys, I appreciate the assist but can you kindly tell me what the fuck is going one. Is that a sword dog, are you a superhero?? I reiterate what is going on??" He starts out politely enough but by the end of the sentence spittle is flying out of his mouth as he tries to really emphasise the point.
The Woman sighs and absentmindedly rubs the head of her horse sized companion. Her glowing robots meanwhile sink through the floor as they phase through the ground to find their targets.
"Magic and shit is real and most of it is either evil or interested in people's self interests instead of the common good. My friend here is something called a Honkai Guardian, a species of spirits infused with the power of reality itself by some magical giant and now it is their job to find partners that they can provide a fraction of their immense power, which they need us mortals because it allows them to circumvent some treaties, and empower them to fight evil things. I am not a superhero yet, apparently they can't reveal the existence of magic to people just yet so I have to work in the shadows. But at least I get a dozen magical craftsmen and sorcerers ready to provide me with any equipment I need whenever I want so at least that's good." She says.
It takes a bit for Bill's mind to digest the deluge of words but his response is an eloquent one.
"What. The. Fuck."
Candy twirled around the pole one last time before she finished her performance and gathered up her discarded clothes and tips to get off the stage.
This early into the night the strip club was empty aside from the regulars who liked the quiet and charmaine's Gravy and Biscuit. The naked ladies were an appeal as well but most people waited for the night to come and gawk at their goods.
As she gets into her backstage she sees Gina, her colleague, talking to the air.
"It won't interfere with my job right? I know what people think but I am alright with this job. The hours and pay are good and I don't mind the nudity." She says and listens intently as if listening to someone reply.
"That's good, oh candy is here. Hi candy." Gina sees her and waves her over
Exhausted from her performance candy doesn't resist, but she is concerned that her friend has gone psycho.
But then she begins doubting her own sanity as she sees a floating fairy in front of her.
"Hi Candy, I am Maddie. I was just here offering gina to act as a muse for a collective of burnt out artists. You want to do it too?? There are a lot of artists crushed by the system, and you get cool magical dance powers if you do it." The fairy says.
Somewhere inside Candy a lifetime watching a girl capture magical cards regnites again.
"Can I hunt monsters instead??" She asks the fairy.
"Of course darling. You even get a companion if you wish." The Fairy answers.
Jacob walks out of the subway station late at night and approaches the Man in a hoodie that is standing in the prearranged street corner.
"The Wolf howls." Jacob says the pass phrase.
"The Prey Cowers." The man replies with the correct phrase.
"So here I am, your recruitment post at the forum didn't tell us why you wanted to meet here. Most of the people thought it was a trap set by the feds on behalf of the globalists. But I thought it would be too stupid for them. So I came here to check, but I have friends that are awaiting my reply so if you do anything my friends will hunt you and they do have guns." Jacob says to a man whose face he still can't see.
The man replies in a tone laden with gravitas that causes Jacob's hair to stand on end.
"I contacted your community because you Jacob and your friend are believers. You say you want to hunt those in power hunting children and drinking people's blood to stay young. But you are misguided my young friend, they have preyed upon you and your isolation and helplessness, made you blame those who are not responsible for your troubles. But despite that I believe you have goodness in your hearts, a desire to be righteous. All it needs is some compassion to temper it. My colleagues think you guys are lost causes, too deep into a phantasm that blind you and too ridden with prejudice they say. But not me and a small group of like minded people. We believe if channeled correctly your violent tendencies can be used for good, but we need to hammer the hate out of you at first." The hooded man says.
Jacob has heard similar, if slightly less ominous, screeds from the woke left before. He always hates it, he despises that they would try and pity him, that they would look down upon him when they are so blinded by mainstream media. But before he can give the man a piece of his mind the man draws something from his back.
It is beautiful, a futuristic sniper rifle in gleaming chrome black. A weapon that he had never even conceived of existing in reality. A railgun with floating drone to act as spotter and auto stabilizing tripod.
This is kind of shit the military hides at area 51. Jacob can't help but reach out to touch this piece of art.
The man stops him.
"Before I give you this beauty I am going to need you to do something for me. Namely I need you to spend a month working to coach a rec league team in an underserved community centre. You will get along with those people and you will learn about them as people and their problems. I am hoping this expansion of your world view is enough to help you learn some empathy. All paid at triple your current salary of course." The man says in his booming voice.
"Once you do that I will give you the gun and genetic and cybernetic enhancement, if you so wish, you need to wield it. Alongside some appropriate targets, that you can investigate independently from me."
Jacob wanted to cut and run right after the start of the sentence and the longer it went. It sounded like this was a lizardman trying to turn him into a cyborg assassin to do their bidding.
But something about the offer intrigued him, maybe this was his way in. He could learn about their operations and take them down from the inside. He would need to do it before they mind chip him but he was sure that he can do it. This is his chance to be a hero, maybe even save those so-called kids by teaching them the truth. His mother could use the extra cash for his fathers treatment as well but that wasn't the primary reason for jacob.
"Where do I sign?" He says
An:- some more side things the court is doing while ajax does more macro shit.
The powers were supposed to be his way out, a gift from Gaia towards her most compassionate son and a way for him to stay in the backlines and yet still be a respected member of the Garou society.
Only that wasn't how it had played out, her brother had continued to gain powers, more and more intense changes that made him stand out even more. First were the ship and the spear and then it was the God-dog which were strange but understandable. But it kept getting stranger and stranger.
For Gaia's sake she and her new pack, and wasn't that a doozy her brother being the patron for her new friends, had to fight triple their numbers of spiral dancers without anything more than basic training and spells that they had never experienced before. It was a miracle that her brother's spell had been more beneficial than curses, because they have not practiced how to fight with things like invulnerable steel fur or the strength of an elephant behind their blows. They probably would have died then and there if not for Thori garnering the attention of that entire war pack of the Spiral Dancers. She had really gotten to like that pup since she had met him.
Then for some reason her brother had to jump into the umbra in the middle of trying to break an ancestral curse on the silent striders, with every totem in the caern simultaneously shouting at the rest of the wolves to not follow him.
She had grown worried sick as the hours of her brother's silence stretched deep into the night, it wouldn't even be hard he was her patron he is literally always connected to her. But she could do nothing but wait as she wasn't allowed to pursue him with her pack by the orders of High King Albrecht himself. She had said some things to Albrect when he had ordered that, things that would have resulted in her being mauled if the King had been anything less then iron willed diplomat. Instead he had just waited for her to vent on him and then quietly and privately apologised to her but the patrons had been clear, her brother needed to do whatever he was doing alone. It was a test of sorts, for something he had to do.
Of course he was also a giant, which was something she only learned from bribing a gaffling too dumb to listen to its betters with spare gnosis.
But the facts didn't reduce her anxiety and her sleep that night was restless, a furtive dream where she was crushed under some great rock as her friends and family lay at her feet and she was unable to hold back the falling boulder. An ominous omen indeed.
So that means she was sleeping lightly when someone entered her room early in the morning. She is on her feet and in her warform before her conscious mind catches up to her instincts, she is about to pounce on the intruder before some dim memory from her childhood enters her mind.
"Krisy is that you?? you aren't supposed to be real. Who are you, pretending to be our childhood friend??" she growled at the figment of their innocence.
"Whoa calm down there Ali Bear, your brother sent me. Yeah he is currently occupied in essentially a chrysalis situation and his avatar is out raiding on behalf of gaia. But he was worried that you would be worried so he sent me since a familiar face would be most likely to be believed." The phantasm of her mind replies.
"Likely story, how did he even make you. You seem too aware to be a spell mirage and too solid to just be a spirit." So she says she starts tapping into the gift that she could feel to flow from her brother. It was different from last night, it was pulsing with power. Strength she could tap into and she feels the power enough to crush building fill her thews. But along with this pulse of power comes a sense of assent, almost agreeing with the spirit. That is finally what causes her to start to believe the stranger wearing the familiar face.
She turns back into her human form and rushes to hug their imaginary friend.
"Oh Kris, how are you here?? Did Ajax get a mote to make you real??" She asks.
"Nothing so prosaic, rather I am just a single denizen of his millions strong court. A cog in the twisted mind of Ajax made manifest." He jokes.
"As for why I am sent here. Well Ajax is busy and he also isn't the most responsible guy about his role as potential for Garou and all those that would fight for Gaia. So we at the courts thought, why don't we step up and fulfill the role of fairy godmother. So let me introduce you to Project Infinite Arsenal. The first and last spot to defend the world." He finishes.
"So I agree to a contract with you guys to improve the city and you will give me everything I need to keep my shelter running." Anna Dupree asked the strange man who had ambushed her at the coffee shop an hour ago and had gone on and on about an offer that was too good to be true.
"Yes, we will give everything your patrons need to live their lives. Food, Medicine, Safe Drug Use Paraphernalia, All weather clothes, A Stipend and Counselling. Anything else they need will be provided, and this offer isn't limited to just your place. If you know any other NGOs then we are also willing to help them as well." The man says in that same smarmy way that most tech bros talk when they try to solve the world's problem without understanding them.
The words also raised up Anna's hackles, she had heard rumors of offers like these. FIrst they come with free finance and then after you grow dependent on them your regulars start disappearing, people start becoming sicker and meaner and problems grow in ways that are inexplicable but linked to these too good to be true offers.
"I appreciate the offer but I can't accept your offer in good faith unless you tell me why whatever organization gets out of this, it's too much for your standard tax write offs. " She challenges the man and he gives her a look of respect before he adopts a more natural posture and his expression becomes less salesman-like.
"I told them we should start with the truth but they want to try the mysterious benefactor thing, fuck that. You are too good a person to mess around with and you deserve the truth. The truth is that we are representative of a magical socialist commune that wants to give a lifeline to those in need. I know it sounds crazy but I can prove it." The thing that was a man just a second ago waves his hand in front of his face and he has horns and furry goat legs underneath.
Anna Dupree is a woman that has ran a shelter in new york for 4 decades, she is not easily shook but even she is mildly perturbed with this clearly supernatural phenomena. I mean its not a complete surprise, she thinks to herself, we have all heard about the happening in the shadows and back alleys and story from the unhoused but its another thing to have a magical being stand in front of her in a public coffee shop.
"Additionally we will also be granting access to the magic system we have developed just for your cause. We will create an Obelisk of Ma'at that you can access via our contract and it will grant you the power of administrative magic, stuff like paperwork completing automatically or minimising waste or even eliminating it. You would be able to grant blessings of fortune to those that adhere to the organisation's principles and grant them supernal grace of skill and luck. It would also let you have some time off without guilt as your spells could be tuned to resist external circumstances. If the magic lasts long enough you won't even need the obelisk for power, it will continue to empower your organisation's spirit until eventually it can independently empower you on its own. This would be universal for all your volunteers with you acting as a conduit. The Meta-mages are very excited to see it in action, a unique combination of Heku's Nomenclative magics unified with the animism of the Garou with Ma'at acting as a mediator." The Goat person finally
"Yeah I am out. That's too complicated for me." Anna says and leaves.
"Another whiff, I guess that's too much all at once. Well it's not like there is a shortage of people to help in this city, we only need one shelter." The satyr says inside his commlink and moves towards his next prospective partner.
"Get away from me." Bill says as the unknown man continues to chase him into the shadows of an alleyway.
Bill had just come off a long haul route down to Texas and was eager to get back home, he had cut through an alleyway just to get home little sooner, but on his way some creepy dude with fangs had attacked him and bit him. Bill has been fortunate enough to push him away enough to run away but it was a dire situation, being chased by a vampire that's faster than him through an unreasonably long alley.
Just as he loses hope and is about to be pounced upon by the assailant, a glowing figure appears out of nowhere and cuts the vampire in half.
As the light subsides it reveals a figure just as unbelievable as the vampire had been, but in the completely opposite direction.
A woman Armoured in Bronze Plate Mail, holding a buster sword the size of a horse. Behind her floats a ring of floating blades, forming a mandala of violence to frame her ferocity.
He tries to look at her bare face but he can't seem to focus on it, only getting the impression of a scowl directed at the vampire corpse at her feet.
The giant Buster sword in her glows and transforms into a massive hunting hound, a strange glowing creature the size of a horse with a sword for a snout and blades lining its back like a crocodile's hide.
"A Mad one, was hiding in the sewers, just came out of slumber and was starving. Smelled that man there and chased him mindlessly." The blade hound says as its metallic snout blade sniffs the air and it tracks the path that the vampire took.
"There is a whole nest of them, I think they would serve well as our first hunt as partners. Don't you think so, Victoria." The dog asks the armoured woman.
She just nods in response and then with a simple gesture the floating array of blades on her backs glows and they work together to carve a glowing portal behind her.
"Level 2 Enemy Signatures detected. Manufacturing PolyPhasic Shroud, Manufacturing Sterile Membrane, Deploying Hunter Seeker Ushabti." She intones and for a brief moment Bill swears he sees a vast workshop filled with magical devices but the illusion doesn't last.
A glowing silver cape flys out of the portal and settles on her shoulders automatically. A silver sheen covers her entire body for a split second before disappearing and leaving just a simple blur around her silhouette. A number of glowing paper talismans made out of golden Hieroglyph on papyrus appear through the portal before attaching to the hands of the floating blade array.
A dozen golden figures made out of pure energy appear, each holding the handle of a single floating blade. They all stand at attention and salute the golden warrior and she just faces palms.
"Is this really necessary, I don't need the autonomous killer robots to salute me. I mean I know they are just here to back up and protect any prospective civilians in there but we don't need them. You already lend me enough power through our bond, and I am only accessing the barest fraction of your Honkai Guardian power, but I can easily kill some vampires." She says to her partner, the now named Honkai Guardian:- Blade Hound.
"You know it's our first day, the eggheads at the Arsenal are just worried, not about the vampires but there is something much more powerful hiding underneath the city. Our divination hasn't found any trace but we have heard intel from the local murder spirits that not even the Garou go into the tunnels, and those that do go never come back. If they had their wish they would send an entire Executioner Brigade but we aren't allowed to go that loud just yet." The dog answered in the tone of someone rehashing the argument they had before.
At that Bill had enough, he is an American damn it and no one would ever ignore him even if they save his life.
"Hey guys, I appreciate the assist but can you kindly tell me what the fuck is going one. Is that a sword dog, are you a superhero?? I reiterate what is going on??" He starts out politely enough but by the end of the sentence spittle is flying out of his mouth as he tries to really emphasise the point.
The Woman sighs and absentmindedly rubs the head of her horse sized companion. Her glowing robots meanwhile sink through the floor as they phase through the ground to find their targets.
"Magic and shit is real and most of it is either evil or interested in people's self interests instead of the common good. My friend here is something called a Honkai Guardian, a species of spirits infused with the power of reality itself by some magical giant and now it is their job to find partners that they can provide a fraction of their immense power, which they need us mortals because it allows them to circumvent some treaties, and empower them to fight evil things. I am not a superhero yet, apparently they can't reveal the existence of magic to people just yet so I have to work in the shadows. But at least I get a dozen magical craftsmen and sorcerers ready to provide me with any equipment I need whenever I want so at least that's good." She says.
It takes a bit for Bill's mind to digest the deluge of words but his response is an eloquent one.
"What. The. Fuck."
Candy twirled around the pole one last time before she finished her performance and gathered up her discarded clothes and tips to get off the stage.
This early into the night the strip club was empty aside from the regulars who liked the quiet and charmaine's Gravy and Biscuit. The naked ladies were an appeal as well but most people waited for the night to come and gawk at their goods.
As she gets into her backstage she sees Gina, her colleague, talking to the air.
"It won't interfere with my job right? I know what people think but I am alright with this job. The hours and pay are good and I don't mind the nudity." She says and listens intently as if listening to someone reply.
"That's good, oh candy is here. Hi candy." Gina sees her and waves her over
Exhausted from her performance candy doesn't resist, but she is concerned that her friend has gone psycho.
But then she begins doubting her own sanity as she sees a floating fairy in front of her.
"Hi Candy, I am Maddie. I was just here offering gina to act as a muse for a collective of burnt out artists. You want to do it too?? There are a lot of artists crushed by the system, and you get cool magical dance powers if you do it." The fairy says.
Somewhere inside Candy a lifetime watching a girl capture magical cards regnites again.
"Can I hunt monsters instead??" She asks the fairy.
"Of course darling. You even get a companion if you wish." The Fairy answers.
Jacob walks out of the subway station late at night and approaches the Man in a hoodie that is standing in the prearranged street corner.
"The Wolf howls." Jacob says the pass phrase.
"The Prey Cowers." The man replies with the correct phrase.
"So here I am, your recruitment post at the forum didn't tell us why you wanted to meet here. Most of the people thought it was a trap set by the feds on behalf of the globalists. But I thought it would be too stupid for them. So I came here to check, but I have friends that are awaiting my reply so if you do anything my friends will hunt you and they do have guns." Jacob says to a man whose face he still can't see.
The man replies in a tone laden with gravitas that causes Jacob's hair to stand on end.
"I contacted your community because you Jacob and your friend are believers. You say you want to hunt those in power hunting children and drinking people's blood to stay young. But you are misguided my young friend, they have preyed upon you and your isolation and helplessness, made you blame those who are not responsible for your troubles. But despite that I believe you have goodness in your hearts, a desire to be righteous. All it needs is some compassion to temper it. My colleagues think you guys are lost causes, too deep into a phantasm that blind you and too ridden with prejudice they say. But not me and a small group of like minded people. We believe if channeled correctly your violent tendencies can be used for good, but we need to hammer the hate out of you at first." The hooded man says.
Jacob has heard similar, if slightly less ominous, screeds from the woke left before. He always hates it, he despises that they would try and pity him, that they would look down upon him when they are so blinded by mainstream media. But before he can give the man a piece of his mind the man draws something from his back.
It is beautiful, a futuristic sniper rifle in gleaming chrome black. A weapon that he had never even conceived of existing in reality. A railgun with floating drone to act as spotter and auto stabilizing tripod.
This is kind of shit the military hides at area 51. Jacob can't help but reach out to touch this piece of art.
The man stops him.
"Before I give you this beauty I am going to need you to do something for me. Namely I need you to spend a month working to coach a rec league team in an underserved community centre. You will get along with those people and you will learn about them as people and their problems. I am hoping this expansion of your world view is enough to help you learn some empathy. All paid at triple your current salary of course." The man says in his booming voice.
"Once you do that I will give you the gun and genetic and cybernetic enhancement, if you so wish, you need to wield it. Alongside some appropriate targets, that you can investigate independently from me."
Jacob wanted to cut and run right after the start of the sentence and the longer it went. It sounded like this was a lizardman trying to turn him into a cyborg assassin to do their bidding.
But something about the offer intrigued him, maybe this was his way in. He could learn about their operations and take them down from the inside. He would need to do it before they mind chip him but he was sure that he can do it. This is his chance to be a hero, maybe even save those so-called kids by teaching them the truth. His mother could use the extra cash for his fathers treatment as well but that wasn't the primary reason for jacob.
"Where do I sign?" He says
An:- some more side things the court is doing while ajax does more macro shit.
Honkai Guardians are the spirits of Ajax's court merged with the honkai DNA. They are aspected towards protecting and enhancing their a partners rather than swarming like the canon ones do.
It is a bit against Ajax intention of not gifting this power to humans but the courts are independent of him and as such over ruled him. Fortunately the power can be taken back by the honkai guardian at will so its not apocolyptic situation yet.
It is a bit against Ajax intention of not gifting this power to humans but the courts are independent of him and as such over ruled him. Fortunately the power can be taken back by the honkai guardian at will so its not apocolyptic situation yet.
- Location
- Eagan
Nice to see his court being proactive!