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Combinatorial Explosion (Worm/Original)

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So Shade finished the updates on the Mana types doc, it seems.
We now have confirmation that hell is real, and that certain metals represent stuff to hell.
Iron = Wrath.
Gold = Greed
Silver = Pride
WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE OTHER 4 SINS!!!
Lead ?= Sloth
Cadmium ?= Envy
??? ?= Gluttony
??? ?= Lust

Also! Pandore! We need to unlock Pandore's final Form! This means that once we get a new round of advanced tests, we should invest time into using Refinement + (Dark Power & Cleanse) mana to try to do so. We need to invest a lot of time into Metallurgy in general.

Also seems names are a lot more literal than expected. We should look into Divine Air again, which means Uranium. Either we raid Coil asap(bad idea until we finish the Coil-blocker), Buy it (bad idea; brings the heat onto us), or attempt to learn to fabricate elements and create Uranium (Radiation is deadly; extreme caution needed.)

EDIT: Would love it if any of y'all have ideas for Gluttony or Lust.
 
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ok i read the list of test and now i wonder if hell is real can we summon a real demon even a super weak one to see
 
cryptoam said:
NO. That would not be a good idea. We already have abilities that some could try and argue is wet tinkering(bio tinker). We do not want to add corruptive forces to the mix.
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well we have protection rune and seing that sunlight mana see to be antithesis to hell mana maybe try to have the containement be a mix of the two
 
Significantly worse, if the monster is or looks to be organic.

It's one thing to be able to 'heal-with-odd-consequences', it is considered to be another thing to create life.


Golems, that are obviously constructs and make people think of robots are much much PR friendly
 
i wonder if it would be possible to create a totaly human looking golem using mechanical and biological part to give him knok off powers and then use the soul thing to give it soul taken from rat just to see if you can create a full hero squad
 
But we already made life, and outright called it biotinkering during the endbringers battle.
At no point after that public reveal have we tried to downplay our powers to make and alter life.
 
Ah, fooey. So we have. I had it in my head that the blood/grass healing own was a golem, for some reason. Still, Panacea was there and it was after and Endbringer Battle. That gives a lot of leeway on what is considered acceptable.

----
Still, the word "Demon" has cultural connotations that make me feel that summoning them is like the worst idea. Even if no one would ever find out, I think that trying would be a poor use of time - I feel the risks would be massive and the things it could potentially do (that we might want it to do) are likely to be accomplishable.

---
I want to create three remotely piloted golem-mechas for Thoth:

A small inefficient one that can be just for low key traveling
One that has hands so Thoth can use the internet and other things that benefit from opposable thumbs

And a fuck-off-giant DOOM PIGEON MECHA for when she wants to go and like, hero or something

---
Also make like, warding bracelets/amulets for Taylor, Danny and Tattletale, maybe with some sort of box with two compartments: put the item in one compartment and recharge it by putting sand in the other compartment.
 
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  1. Is Gold/Sunlight Mana the opposite of hell? Hellish Gold is Greedy.
  2. Demons are way too dangerous to be doing right now, our only mana close to making a portal is Voidmetal/glass, and I'm not sure we can use that to make portals to anything.
  3. Even with Divine Air, Divine Air destroys flesh, so opening a portal to a Divine Realm could be something Aztec or similar, with there being hungry gods/divine beings that must feast on flesh.

Also, Idea: Runes that make Mana flow to make runes, so we can project runes over a large area, ie. Make a Ring Of Protection (Ignited with Cast Iron/Wrought Iron Mana) around us through a rune on the staff. Something sorta like FMA Alchemy, although that might require finding something like The Dragons Pulse (Arcane > Cadmium?) lol.

EDIT: Also! Sea-glass! We need to Witness the Secrets Of The Sea with Sea Glass, so it can show them to us. That or we wait for the update to see what my Glass-Tests resulted in.
 
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Void Spark > StoneRiftsharpened Voidrock CreationSynthesisThis mana produces Riftsharpened Voidrock when applied to StoneRiftsharpened Voidrock: This substance interacts with space physically. Objects made of it can tear holes into the void between worlds, or prop them open, among other possible uses.
What about this? I wanted to toy with it and see if we could make portals. Wormholes? Maybe some kind of plant based thing that roots into space?

Summoning using our mana to manifest Thoth, and handing over mana in general was also established to have restrictions decided by us. Maybe its worth trying that to summon things that might be dangerous without "letting them in"?
Can we summon someone we don't know? Like "The nearest demon"?

May be worth testing, we could go to a park and try to summon "The nearest hero" if we want a safe way of testing it.

Seaglass tests are good. We should go to the beach and try fishing while we are there. No point buying fish to work with when we could catch them ourselves.
 
Endlessblaze said:
Void Spark > StoneRiftsharpened Voidrock CreationSynthesisThis mana produces Riftsharpened Voidrock when applied to StoneRiftsharpened Voidrock: This substance interacts with space physically. Objects made of it can tear holes into the void between worlds, or prop them open, among other possible uses.
What about this? I wanted to toy with it and see if we could make portals. Wormholes? Maybe some kind of plant based thing that roots into space?
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Maybe we should try to see if we can actually house shit in the void between worlds. IE keep something out there for a bit. Maybe build a proper secure lab? Also yeah a plant that grows through space will be interesting, but we should try that in a remote place.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Shadestyle on Feb 23, 2021 at 8:12 PM, finished with 53 posts and 21 votes.
[collapse] [project] [sage] [taylor] [business] [simple] [advanced]
  • 20
    21
    [X][Collapse] Strive to remove the changes. They are a direct link to your other identity, and a sign of your failure besides.
    [X][Collapse] Strive to remove the changes. They are a direct link to your other identity, and a sign of your failure besides.
    -[X][Collapse] This is EXACTLY what the 'Rewind' mana is for, Thaum > Salt > Copper > Copper, it even does so specifically to separate objects.
    -[X][Collapse] If not, it's probably the easiest and safest to just amputate the outer half of each finger. We've got plenty of mana types for that and being stretchy or over-vasculates hidden with colouration magic is a much less problematic side effect. And should all else fail, we do know Panacea who can correct the details.
    [X][Collapse] Strive to accept the changes. You can hide them with some coloration magic, and they will serve as a sign of your fallibility.
    [X][Collapse] Remove the majority of the changes, but keep the tip of one finger changed as a reminder of your fallibility. Hide it with coloration magic.
    [X][Collapse] Strive to remove the changes. They are a direct link to your other identity, and a sign of your failure besides.
    -[x][Collapse] Now would be a good time to make some better containment procedures for your experiments.
    —[x][Collapse] Also might be good practice for helping Case 53s, isn't there that one mercenary group in town? See if you can't study/heal them later.
    [X][Collapse] Strive to remove the changes. They are a direct link to your other identity, and a sign of your failure besides.
    -[x][Collapse] Now would be a good time to make some better containment procedures for your experiments.
    ---[x][Collapse] Also might be good practice for helping Case 53s, isn't there that one mercenary group in town? See if you can't study/heal them later.
  • 10
    [X][Project] Lisa wants a device that will warn you if she is the subject of a thinker prediction. You'll try to create something to do exactly that.
    -[X][Project] Take one of those obsolete phones with no sim card and whose antennas you ensure dont work, and tinker some Eldritch Relay and 'Zap' transmutation into it so you can supply it with mana at all times from a distance like you did with the prison phone bug, AND make it function as an actual phone for communication by hooking the speaker and microphone into your power. Then further reinforce this with an arcane transmutation spell:
    [X][Project] Lisa wants a device that will warn you if she is the subject of a thinker prediction. You'll try to create something to do exactly that.
    [x][Project] You'll begin a project of some kind.
    -[X][Project] Now you're certain that there is someone on the other end of the connection through your Corona Pollentia/ Eldritch Relay, try to establish contact with that entity.
    --[X][Project] Create a Taylor-shaped avatar and try delegating control of it to the entity for communication.
    [X][Project] Something Else (Before we can make the equipment we need, or any good "Coil Alarm Bells" for Lisa, we need a good source of power. Return to Dust Engines and once again attempt to make a preferably compact pollen based engine. Ideally, we want something fairly well self contained, or easily attachable to devices. We need a 'plant' consisting of vital plant components, and some kind of bulb which contains and circulates pollen inside itself. Possibly embedded in wood. )
    [X][Project] You've transformed yourself by mistake, it could have happened to anyone. Now it's time to correct that mistake.
    -[X][Project] Use Biomancy to return your hands to normal. If you deaden your nerves and use coloring magic to cover things up, you should be able to physically remove and regenerate the altered parts.
    [X][Project] Write In: (Haunted by those unsafe tests with Uranium done by Coil, you seek to experiment with it more properly. Attempt to create Uranium.)
    [X][Project] You've transformed yourself by mistake, it could have happened to anyone. Now it's time to correct that mistake.
    -[X][Collapse] This is EXACTLY what the 'Rewind' mana is for, Thaum > Salt > Copper > Copper, it even does so specifically to separate objects.
  • 9
    10
    [X][Sage] Go out healing with Panacea.
    -[X][Sage] Have her heal you. For her, removing these blemishes would take less than a minute at most.
    [x][Sage] You'll spend your time investigating.
    -[x][Sage] Investigate the gang attack on the Barnes family last year. You now know everything that happened. Now it's time to start tracking down Shadow Stalker and find out the truth. Why did they do this to you?
    [X][Sage] Something Else (Wander around town, and use mana pulses to create a mental map of the bay, just like we did with our house.)
    [X][Sage] What will you do as Sage?
    -[X][Sage] Continue your magical training.
    --[X][Sage] Practice/Create a constrained form of Arcane magic with the key feature of directly or metaphorically mentioning specific mana types and attunement materials you are familiar with and using that as a focus for both willpower and symbolism to make the mana act like mana attuned to those substances and attunement chains. It's secondary but still important features are building more power and focus over the course of a long and detailed intonation, in a monotone almost chanted style dominated by rhyming couplets.
  • 10
    [X][Taylor] Skip School. If you don't, you'll have to wear gloves until you fix your hands, and keep them on no matter what.
    -[X][Taylor] Tell dad. He'll be worried despite this being a quick fix, but he can simply tell the school that you're ill.
    [X][Taylor] What sort of things will you do during the day?
    -[X][Taylor] Stay at home (Enhances other actions)
    --[X][Taylor] Look through the books you have.
    -[x][Taylor] Something Else (Go to the library and check out multiple fantasy books. Even if you can't learn from them directly you can use them as inspiration.)
    [X][Taylor] What sort of things will you do during the day?
    -[X][Taylor] Visit a forest. For inspiration, to hike with dad and hang out, and maybe to inspect for buying.
    [X][Taylor] Skip School. If you don't, you'll have to wear gloves until you fix your hands, and keep them on no matter what.
    -[x][Taylor] Don't tell dad. This should only take a few days at most to correct, and he'll be so worried if he found out.
    [X][Taylor] Hang out with Greg, instead of merely tolerating his presence.
  • 7
    8
    [X][Business] Establish a new way of making money using the means at your disposal
    -[X][Business] (Open a recycling business, have the city pay you for handling the junk, and you then get a bunch of shit to experiment with!)
    [X][Business] Make use of Lisa. (Write-in)
    -[x][Business] Show Lisa your notes on Eldrich Relay mana and it's variants, and live demonstrations of the more harmless ones, and see what she makes of it.
    [X][Business] What will you do in the name of good business this week?
    -[X][Business] Fund a venture.
    --[X][Business] Fund a project. (-1000$, A second [Project] action will be done this turn)
    --[X][Business] Fund experiments. (-100$, three additional [Advanced] Tests are added)
    [X][Business] Fund a venture.
    -[X][Business] Purchase new materials and supplies (Buy a small vacuum chamber for 200ish dollars)
    -[X][Business] Fund experiments. (-100$, three additional [Advanced] Tests are added)
    [X][Business] Make use of Lisa. (See if she can make sense of The Language created from Arcane > Paper, and if the writing works as Runes.)
    [x][Business] Make use of Lisa. (Coil is annoying and he shot us. Get rid of him. (hopefully legally?))
    [X][Business] Establish a new way of making money using the means at your disposal
    -[X][Business] Set up your building to sell goods from. (Write-In Goods to Sell)
    -[X][Business] (Open a recycling business, have the city pay you for handling the junk, and you then get a bunch of shit to experiment with!)
    [X][Business] Fund a venture.
    -[x][Business] Fund a project. (-1000$, A second [Project] action will be done this turn)
    --[x][project] try to sercure a zone in the lab using alchemy and diverse mana
    [X][Business] Make use of Lisa. (See if she can make sense of The Language created from Arcane > Paper, and if the writing works as Runes.)
    -[X][Business] Make sure to provide her with LOTS of paper, and maybe a complete blank book that had the mana applied, as well as papers that had the Arcane > Paper mana mixed with a pinch of some other random mana to make just a slight theming or variant.
    [X][Business] Fund a venture.
    -[X][Business] Purchase new materials and supplies (Buy a small vacuum chamber for 200ish dollars)
    [X][Business] Establish a new way of making money using the means at your disposal
    -[X][Business] Set up your building to sell goods from. Goods to Sell:
    --[X][Business] Water and Air dusts made with clay mana
    --[X][Business] 'Solar Sand'
    --[X][Business] Jeans treated with 'Artefact' as a more authentic form of the distressing fashion trend
    --[X][Business] Lightning Wafers
    --[X][Business] Flying catfish (the cheapest kind you get from a petstore) made with Riftgecko Mutation + some minor mutations to make them breath air
    --[X][Business] Fancy looking Betta fish modified with Chameleon Mutation, Ancestral Mimicry, Bioluminescence,
    --[X][Business] Nuggets of Sabertooth Tiger Iron
    --[X][Business] Jewelry selectively transmuted into Sunstruck Citrine and improved using 'Align Material' mana
    --[X][Business] Hopewood pellets in a fancy lantern-looking container you can safely put in your window sill or flower bed and which looks pretty as it burns and boosts the surrounding plants.
    --[X][Business] Woodsmith Armor-based furniture grown organically in a single smooth piece
    --[X][Business] Unhunger Snacks
    --[X][Business] 'Shadowplant Growth' based potted plants with Bioluminescence and Eyeplant Fruit and Heatseeker Plant
    --[X][Business] Healing fruit made using Seeds of Life
    --[X][Business] A small potted tree with 'Bioelectricity', mutated and with small copper bits it's made to grow around such that you can plug USB cables into it and use it to power and charge electronics
    --[X][Business] A photo booth that applies 'Sharpen' mana to the images before outputting them.
    --[X][Business] Bags of Haste Soil
    --[X][Business] Curestone pebbles
    --[X][Business] Seance powder
    --[X][Business] Recovery gel
    --[X][Business] Nuggets of Thunderbolt Iron
    [X][Business] Fund a venture.
    -[X][Business] Fund experiments. (-100$, three additional [Advanced] Tests are added)
  • 8
    9
    [X][Simple] Study a target for Runes: Alexandria
    [x][Simple] Perform a simple experiment.
    -[x][Simple] Acquire an external hard drive, the kind that's basically a very large USB stick for making backups but with a separate power cable, and power it with Brain > 'Zap' + Eldritch Relay > 'Zap' + Lightning Vision > 'Zap', then while doing that continuously plug it into a computer and download an offline copy of the entirety of wikipedia onto it so all of it passes through the mana. Lets make that thinker power ERN it's S rank.
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum -> Gallium -> Lead)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Salt > Iodine + "Vampire's Curse")
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Salt > Diamond + "Vampire's Curse")
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Salt > Iodine)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Iodine)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Salt > Graphite)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Graphite)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Salt > Diamond)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Diamond)
    [X][Simple] Test a substance's Mana Attunement (Thaum > Hopewood)
    [X][Simple] Test a substance's Mana Attunement (Thaum > Pandora's gold/copper/Iron)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Arcane -> Eye -> Corona Pollentia)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Arcane -> Corona Pollentia- > Eye)
    [X][Simple] Perform a simple experiment. (Write-In)
    -[X][Simple] Transmute the internals of a computer in a complex way using Phsycocite+"Eldritch Relay" and getting it inside the computer using the 'Zap' phonem to power it and be inside the active circuits.
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum -> Gold -> Skin)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum -> Corona Pollentia -> Skin)
    [X][Simple](Business?) Scout the area we are hiring, Getting a better overview of what rooms it consists of and he level of security on each one, as well as *review candidates* for 3 dedicated rooms: A shopping area open to the public where they can browse the stuff you're selling, a reasonably-secure additional garden + storage space, and a space to dedicate into a lab for dangerous alchemy experiments and such.
    [X][Simple] Study a target for Runes: study the 'Zap' phonem, batteries charged using 'Zap', platinum electrodes, and an induction coil all together.
    [X][Simple] Test a specific Rune's effect: Bounded spirals; like a golden spiral, but strictly approaching a very finite limit.
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum > Ruby > Ruby. Thaum > Ruby > Ruby > Ruby. Thaum > Sapphire> Ruby. Thaum > Sapphire> Sapphire> Sapphire.Arcane> Ruby > Ruby. Arcane> Ruby > Ruby > Ruby. Arcane> Sapphire> Ruby. Arcane> Sapphire> Sapphire> Sapphire.)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (
    [x][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (in Spoiler)
    [X][Simple] Repeated attunement chains (see spoiler below)
    [X][Simple] Test a specific Rune's effect: Elder Futhark Runes (see spoiler below)
    [X][Simple] Attempt to string together an Attunement Chain (Thaum> Egg > Bone > Salt > Graphite + "Vampire's Curse")
  • 3
    [X][Advanced] Test arcane sulfur to see what materials result, and test using thaumic sulfur as a source of heat on magically created materials.
    [X][Advanced] Try slowly increasing the force applied to a rod of Pandore. Start with your hands and work your way up to tools and/or magic (force, gravity, your new dagger).
    [x][Advanced] the worth materialised become a golden nuget maybe see if you can extract worth out of gold even if there is no craftmanship
    [X][Advanced] You have (Three) Advanced Tests Remaining. (Attempt to enter an elemental plane using Aluminum's set bonus)
    [X][Advanced] Discover additional Cantrips of a particular Set Bonus. (Sage Armor)
    [X][Advanced] Attempt to Alloy Pandore Powder with various other metals
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Sorry for the delay! Working on update.
 
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Chapter 19.2
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    • I have to get rid of this stuff, my identity is already threadbare as it is, and this, this could break everything open on that front.

    Unwilling to go to school with my fingertips altered like this, the first person I went to was of course dad.

    "Dad, I had a bit of an accident in the lab just now, so I need you to call the school and tell them I'm home with some kind of illness," I explained, walking into the living room nervously.

    He gives me a concerned look. "What happened?"

    I show him my hands and he takes them carefully, looking them over and prodding the tips gently.

    "That... That's something else. Do you have a way to fix it? What happened?" he asks.

    I wave off his concern. "I'm going to go out healing with Panacea this week. I'll ask her to fix it. It was just a simple mistake with a rune I was experimenting with. Nothing some healing can't fix," I explain.

    "If you say so," he responds. "Promise me you'll be a bit more careful?" he asks.

    I nod. "Naturally. I'm not exactly keen on anything like this happening again either. I'll be looking into some added protections."

    "You know, it might not be a terrible idea to move your things out of the basement, now that you've got some property to keep it on," he offers.

    "It's in the good part of town, too. Not much happens there," he says, explaining his reasoning.

    I grimace a bit at the idea. It wouldn't necessarily be unsafe, but at the same time, something about moving my experiments into town, so close to the boardwalk with all the potential interlopers and witnesses and thieves...

    "You don't have to. I just thought you might prefer to put some distance between your home and work, now that you can," he offers, noticing my expression.

    And isn't that the understatement of the week? I certainly would like that. Technically, nothing was stopping me from doing my work in a more public space, other than the attention it might bring.

    "I'll think about it, dad. I've got some problems with the idea, but it isn't a bad one, I don't think."

    "You're smarter than I was at your age, that's for sure," he says.

    "So, do you have chickenpox or mono, if anyone asks?" he continues with a smirk.


    Skipping out on school was odd. I had a lot more free time, to the point where I was able to get a ton done while I was waiting at home for the right time to sneak out and become Sage again.

    I had more than enough time to deeply experiment with a lot of the more "demonic" magic types, and my power began telling me things, things that seemed impossible.

    Hell is real, and there are apparently mining operations in it. I wasn't sure how my power knew this, considering before, it only told me about a mana type's physical properties, as well as use-cases, and sometimes warnings for the alchemical types.

    But when I tested out transmuting Iron using a complex blend of magics, my power informed me quite handily that what I did was apparently common practice in hell, combining Hellforge Magic with a Stone Transmutation turned the iron into a stinking sulfur-smelling sludge that would turn into "Demonite" if I heated it enough, evaporating away liquid and shrinking into a denser and denser material.

    How I could make it any hotter without something like an arc furnace when the clay-like sludge was already steaming and bubbling, I had no clue, but it seemed I would need to if I wanted to see what the metal did.

    When I added in Emerald Cultivation Magic to the mix, my power helpfully informed me that I had created Jewelmeat, a withered flesh made from gems and metal that twitched and pulsed with malice and power. It also informed me of the methods one must use to cook it, as the flesh apparently grew visibly healthier and more lively as it was heated. If I heated it with the perfect temperature, it could be edible, or so my power seemed to imply.

    But it also implied that too much heat would turn the flesh into a hostile monster.

    It was incredibly intriguing, however disturbing it might be.

    I also figured out the perfect solution to Lisa's problem, by applying mana attuned to my Corona Pollentia to Silicon, I could synthesize something.

    Something terrible, and beautiful. Something that evoked fear and awe, and nudged at the corners of my mind, reminding me of something I had never experienced.

    I could create Crystalline Flesh through synthesis, and that flesh could act as a relay for my power, producing and controlling mana just like my power does.

    It would require testing, but in theory, a phone could be augmented with the material, some kind of enchantment woven into it to detect Coil's meddling.

    On the mundane side, I also managed to put together something to compete with Panacea's healing spray, my very own 'Healant', produced via synthesis, I could create a bubblegum-pink fluid that healed wounds on contact. My power warned me that it was too strong in its current form, though, so it's likely I would have to perform experiments to dilute it correctly. Or pass it off to a lab to do that testing for me.

    I wondered if I could learn things that way. If the tests that other people did on my magic could be detected and recorded by my own power.

    If not, I imagine Crystalline Flesh could do the trick, on that front.

    Finally, a quick internet search had me checking a few of the Runes used by the Norse, the Elder Futhark language.

    It was interesting. All the characters seemed to lend themselves to Stone and Lightning magics, magics as angular and jagged as the runes themselves.

    Something tickled at the back of my mind as I studied the runes, but I couldn't figure it out on my own.

    I was reminded of The Language. The mana type I discovered that filled paper with illegible scrawls that seemed to lack meaning, despite their swoopy, curling and deliberate characters.

    I made a note to buy a stack of copy paper and cover it all with The Language. Lisa could surely make sense of it.

    Before long, it was time. School was over, and Panacea would soon be making her rounds.

    I grabbed my costume and slipped it on, before finally donning the gloves, cool moss slipping over my transformed fingertips, and tightening around them for a perfect fit with the barest muttering of intentions.


    I brought a vial of my Healant to the hospital for Amy to look over after we were done with our other business, and when we poured it on a tree, her eyes widened.

    "Oh wow. I assumed you could probably make something like this, but I'm still a little surprised how good you are at it. That stuff is liquid cancer, Sage. Like, pretty much, anyway. It basically makes cells stop dying long enough for them to exponentially grow for a while, and jacks up their reproduction speed to boot," she explains, palm resting on the tree we picked out.

    Sure enough, I could already see little lumps growing where the healant was spilled.

    "This stuff would work great, as long as you didn't get any on anything that didn't need healing. So, no breathing it in, drinking it, or otherwise spilling it on anything you don't want 'healed'," she says.

    After taking her palm off the tree, she explains further. "To be honest, this stuff is kind of crazy. It fights off the exact kind of DNA degredation that your power seems to ignore, even if it's just temporary. Have you ever heard of the North American Destroying Angel mushroom?" she asks.

    I shake my head.

    "Really nasty. I won't get into the details, but it basically attacks your DNA, and that's game over for most living things. This 'Healant' stuff, much like most of your magic, seems to treat DNA as 'Flavor text', rather than any true blueprint for life, but taken up to eleven. In short, it's basically the Temporary-tattoo of carcinogens," she finishes.

    Tossing the silicon vial away and stomping on it like a soda can, I tried to work up the courage to ask Amy my favor.

    "Amy, can you heal me quick? There's something I needed taken care of, and well, I figured I'd ask," I explain.

    She shrugs. "Sure. What? Acid burn? I haven't seen you heal those yet," she considers, wondering what could possibly wound me.

    In leu of an answer, I take off my glove and present the result of my failed experiment.

    "Thaumic Collapse. I basically got a bit of reality on my fingers, and well," I wave the hand around and waggle the fingertips.

    "Oh," Amy says, looking at the transformed flesh with interest.

    She grabs my hand and examines it for entirely too long with a glassy eyed look.

    "Wow. That's not some little birthmark, huh? That goes right down to the DNA. Well, the cells that still have em, anyway," she says.

    "Wait, what?" I ask. What on earth did she mean by that?

    "Hmm? Oh, yeah, some of your cells don't have full sets of DNA anymore. I figured you had some way of figuring that out by now? Sorry, I probably should have mentioned it the first time I noticed," she says casually, reverting my fingers back to normal.

    "Whatever your power does to make half dead or completely dead biomass get up and move, it hasn't been ignoring your body. A bunch of your cells and tissues have been surviving quite happily with their newfound cousins. Your power makes it so that malformed cells aren't being destroyed or recycled, and even some of your dead cells are 'surviving' long enough to reproduce."

    "The only time your body seems to cull cells is when they drift near your bones, and my power can't exactly tell what's doing it, other than that it's killing them and turning them straight into melted goop. It's all pretty interesting, actually. I actually ended up looking up those mushrooms after we met, once I figured out what was going on." She says simply.

    I had no earthly idea how to respond to that.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Huh, we uh might want to look into self-healing/enhancement chains to fix that. And also ask Amy for more specifics on the potential side effects.
    Of the spells we have, Life Refinement (Graphite>Manganese), Purge Ailments (Manganese>Graphite) or Purge Impure Vitae (Manganese>Blood) might help. Alternatively, we could push for giving Shaper magic research so Amy can better understand what is going on.

    The new materials are rather interesting. Pandore is aligned with hope, and I really want to push towards finding out what its evolution is, though making hope-based armor could be useful on its own. Or at least applying it to our armor in some form. Hell materials seem appropriate to the name, and most don't seem worthwhile to risk the potential side-effects of messing with hell energy more than necessary when we have so many other options. Although, the Midas cursed gold (turns flesh to gold) could be a terrible idea as a source of gold/income and the Sisyphium actually seems useful if we can shape it with magic. I imagine it would make pretty good restraints even for brutes. Also worth noting is the Greek names of the materials; does the world magic comes from possess historical similarities like Greek civilization or is it just QA framing it in this way? QA is able to somehow gain information on hell after all.
     
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    Well, best guess is that Taylor/Sage is now well on her way to changing into a Magical Creature. Because it would appear that this is what it means to have a slowly increasing 'Magical Body' trait. On the upside, her new weird magic biology is apparently at least somewhat superior to the old DNA based kind, considering the slowly increasing boosts to physical health and stamina 'Magical Body' provides.

    Perhaps we need a new statistic tracking her gradual evolution into an Immortal Magical Elf. Assuming we don't go whole hog and end up Earth Bet's Goddess of Magic.
     
    Red_Faux said:
    Well. Uh... gross?
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    Gross? This is awesome. I don't even know how to express how awesome it is that we (a) have full creative access to a magic system that seemingly runs on plato's forms and (b) have access to someone who can see the physical interpretation of those platonic forms. After all, what Taylor's magic creates isn't described in-universe as reality warping rejecting physical laws, but rather a secondary interpretation of the same physical reality made meaningful by way of particles that allow direct interactions with the platonic forms. Chances are? Anything Taylor can create that doesn't reduce itself to a separate inert material if left alone for too long has an equally valid physics-based explanation for why it works. And that means opportunities. >: D
     
    Yeah looking into self-healing to fix it seems like it'd be counterproductive. I think as we become a creature of magic, and mana "learns" how our body works, it'll increasingly discard DNA as "redundant" - our mana already knows how our body works; it doesn't need DNA to tell it (anymore?).

    On the other hand side, if we can get our mana to treat DNA as a necessary and inherent part of our body, we should get two things out of it "for free": Lamarckian genetic memory, and immortality.
     
    The Shallow said:
    So Shade finished the updates on the Mana types doc, it seems.
    We now have confirmation that hell is real, and that certain metals represent stuff to hell.
    Iron = Wrath.
    Gold = Greed
    Silver = Pride
    WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE OTHER 4 SINS!!!
    Lead ?= Sloth
    Cadmium ?= Envy
    ??? ?= Gluttony
    ??? ?= Lust

    Also! Pandore! We need to unlock Pandore's final Form! This means that once we get a new round of advanced tests, we should invest time into using Refinement + (Dark Power & Cleanse) mana to try to do so. We need to invest a lot of time into Metallurgy in general.

    Also seems names are a lot more literal than expected. We should look into Divine Air again, which means Uranium. Either we raid Coil asap(bad idea until we finish the Coil-blocker), Buy it (bad idea; brings the heat onto us), or attempt to learn to fabricate elements and create Uranium (Radiation is deadly; extreme caution needed.)

    EDIT: Would love it if any of y'all have ideas for Gluttony or Lust.
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    Hmm
    How 'bout
    Gluttony = Pig iron
     
    Noticed I had some quotes saved in the multi-quote…
    Shadestyle said:
    IodineThaum > Gallium > IodineMetaphorical HealingLiquidThis mana takes the true form of whatever living thing is nearest to it, and can heal something into it.This mana's effects are not perminant on their own.SaltThaum > Gallium > SaltMetaphorical SeperationRayThis mana takes the true form of whatever seperation is nearest to it, and can apply that seperation.
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    permanent
    Shadestyle said:
    Vesselnite TransmutationTransmutationThis mana transmutes aluminum into VesselniteVesselnite: This black metal grows more powerful, the more of it is destroyed, and the more it is emptied of energy and magic. It is at its most powerful at the precipice of oblivion, when only the final scraps remain.
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    I wonder how we might get rid of this, if we ever wanted to. Assuming "more powerful" also means "more difficult to destroy", at least.

    Also, does this refer to the total supply of the element in existence or does this effect work on each individual piece of it to some degree? Which is to say, if we made two items with this element and only one of them was at the verge of destruction, would that single item then be more powerful?

    Might be interesting if we ever need a really efficient but not too large power source for something. Alternatively, it might work as a communicator if the destruction of one far-off item affects every other instance.
     
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    This distaster has made one thing appartent: Golems are very possible.
    Also I'm sorry Shade, I've got like 70 attunement chains written down so far. Cutting down, but most of them are really good.
     
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