That would be really useful if Utau can relieve fatigue. That might move up a lot in priority if the Exaltation is aware of that, because having Fumi at her best for the longest is pretty important. Investigating Dia can wait a few minutes if that is an option, so that we get the best possible rolls.Quickshot0 said:
[Exalted/SMT] Shard of a Broken Sun
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Technically that's raw shaping, not magic, but semantics. They have their graces.Quickshot0 said:
Fair enough.Baughn said:
I don't think it would though... maybe Amu herself would though and the Exaltation might be aware through her? Though no... it doesn't read all of her mind, does it? So the first opportunity would come when she meets them then? The Su approach might already help a bit atleast as well, and it's speculative, so it's best to just try both approaches?Cytokinesis said:
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Amu
[X]Ask the experts what Kagatsuchi's most likely avenue of attack is, then have the Exaltation develop a charm to combat that.
[X]Gently investigate the new Chara
[X]Try to get the key to the Humpty Lock to improve her abilities with Chara
[X]At conception, fuse with all of her Chara to gain the greatest possible result if it wouldn't stress willpower reserves too much.
-[X] Otherwise, fuse with Dia if possible, or another Chara if not.
Charas
[X]Have Su alleviate fatigue, if she can think of a way.
[X]Have Miki assist Fumi with programming.
-[X] Use a Compassion channel on the programming if possible
[X]Have Ran keep track of friends efforts and generally keeping spirits up.
Exaltation
[X] Devise a charm based on the experts' knowledge of hazards
-[X] If experts cannot agree, or if experts are unavailable, fall back to hacking together a single-use charm to extend Integrity-Protecting Prana to the seal.
As a side note, Amu's surprise at my bandwagoned vote treating her taking over the JPs as a valid course of action (and it is, though not really practical until she's gotten some of the more leadery charms) was entirely intentional.
[X]Ask the experts what Kagatsuchi's most likely avenue of attack is, then have the Exaltation develop a charm to combat that.
[X]Gently investigate the new Chara
[X]Try to get the key to the Humpty Lock to improve her abilities with Chara
[X]At conception, fuse with all of her Chara to gain the greatest possible result if it wouldn't stress willpower reserves too much.
-[X] Otherwise, fuse with Dia if possible, or another Chara if not.
Charas
[X]Have Su alleviate fatigue, if she can think of a way.
[X]Have Miki assist Fumi with programming.
-[X] Use a Compassion channel on the programming if possible
[X]Have Ran keep track of friends efforts and generally keeping spirits up.
Exaltation
[X] Devise a charm based on the experts' knowledge of hazards
-[X] If experts cannot agree, or if experts are unavailable, fall back to hacking together a single-use charm to extend Integrity-Protecting Prana to the seal.
As a side note, Amu's surprise at my bandwagoned vote treating her taking over the JPs as a valid course of action (and it is, though not really practical until she's gotten some of the more leadery charms) was entirely intentional.
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Man, the whole idea of us and our sisters in the first place, being a Solar team working together like a well oiled machine- it makes me so damn warm and fuzzy.
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
0=no one knows.Varano said:
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Read And Find OutVarano said:
Well... you could try deriving something from which posts Baughn liked I suppose? Though you'd have to wonder if the author favours posts that makes things go worse, better, or the way he wants them to go.Varano said:
In any case, it would be something to keep you busy I suppose?
Quantumboost
Now with 50% more dots in Dimensional Science
- Location
- Ensemble Space
...I c wut u did thar.Baughn said:
Also, that just convinces me we should get Perfect Actualization all the more, if we have a Shaping-healer around.
al103
Grumpy Russian Bear (SV edition)
- Location
- Russia, Krasnoyarsk
From my perspective:
After meeting Amu: about 8.
Overall (including chosing her): from 4 to 9, as I can't correctly quantify changes if other candidates were chosen. While Amu is probably worst Dawn candidate out of them, it's quite probable that she is best suited for non-dawn activities which we need. That said not chosing her could lead to death of Hikawa... or him getting away clean, so it's a coin toss.
After meeting Amu: about 8.
Overall (including chosing her): from 4 to 9, as I can't correctly quantify changes if other candidates were chosen. While Amu is probably worst Dawn candidate out of them, it's quite probable that she is best suited for non-dawn activities which we need. That said not chosing her could lead to death of Hikawa... or him getting away clean, so it's a coin toss.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
No dice rolls here. Not as such.Durabys said:
Sunday's Melancholy 7
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
A/N: Well, this got ridiculously huge. Hope you don't mind.
Nothing immediately springs to mind. I don't believe I can improve on Fumi's plan, but there are three possible ways it could fail that I may be able to limit given an hour's work. Installing a new charm is something I'd be able to do while you are socializing; however, some of them have potential drawbacks you should be aware of in advance. You would be reaching beyond your capacity in ways that require me to override safety logic. Though, that is likely to be the case regardless.
The best approach may be to ask the experts what the most likely vector of attack is.
Ask the experts? She guessed that meant Fumi, or maybe Hotsuin. But Fumi was really busy, and Hotsuin...
She spoke up before she could tell herself all the reasons why this was a bad idea. "Um, Hotsuin? One question, please?"
Hotsuin paused on his way out. "Yes?"
"Well, it's about the Conception. If I knew how the Demiurge is going to attack, I might be able to prepare… at least a little better…"
Hotsuin narrowed his eyes at her, making her quail inwardly, but she refused to back down. This was important! Besides, he was really just another teenager, there was no reason for her to care that much about his disapproval. She met his gaze squarely.
He frowned. "I would have thought Fumi had already explained all we know."
Fumi distractedly nodded.
"She barely told me anything," Amu complained. "Only what it'll try to do at first, not how it'll react to failing. I have to assume that it isn't dumb, and it'll try something, but I don't know what it can do."
"Join the club," Hotsuin muttered under his breath. Louder, "It sounds to me like she did tell you everything we know. Which is to say, very little. We only know of its existence as a constant background to the world; there is no telling how it'll react to failure, or how strongly it'll strike back. But -" He smirked. "History shows that creatures of such might often have trouble even comprehending failure, let alone finding clever solutions. I would suggest being ready for indiscriminate brute force, if anything, but I can't predict the form of that force. If that will be all?"
He didn't look upset, but he did look impatient. She shrugged uncertainly and made to follow him towards the elevators, leaving Fumi to her struggles.
Some random spark of intuition made her look back after passing Fumi, for the first time giving her a good view of her work. Text chat, video chat, text chat, source code of some form, command prompt, more source code, another three terminal windows, web browser…
She cocked her head, looking more closely at the code Fumi was editing. Of course the language wasn't familiar, but if you assumed consistency…
"Shouldn't that be a semicolon?" She asked, pointing at a misplaced apostrophe. Fumi paused in her typing, nodded, corrected it and moved on. She thought for a moment. "And there, the exit condition of that loop can't happen, because you're passing the flag by value instead of name." At least, that was the only reading that made sense of everything else she could see.
Fumi stopped typing, tapping her fingers on the keyboard. "It's set in a different thread. Weren't you going to talk to your friends?"
"Yes, but -" She wanted to help.
"Brook's law. Adding more programmers to a late project makes it later. I'll ignore the way you seem to understand a language you couldn't possibly be familiar with, seeing as I wrote it myself, but if you want to hang around I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your comments to the syntax only. There's no time to explain everything." She frowned unhappily. "What I'm doing now is adding contingencies; the main program already works, but as you heard, we don't know enough about what will happen. Now either stick around for the next hour, or leave."
Stay here for the whole hour? That -
Was unnecessary, actually. All she had to do was -
Trying to push Miki away, Amu found she was stuck. Confusion was just about to turn into alarm when the connection finally gave in and they tumbled apart. Literally, in Miki's case, tumbling in mid-air.
What was that? Her mind felt tender, like she'd ripped off a band-aid too early.
'The effect of the seal?' Miki wondered.
They looked at each other, startled.
'Can you hear this?' Amu tried, deliberately thinking at Miki. This was the same as during her exaltation, when all four of them had been able to hear each other. It would be really useful if they could do that all the time.
'Ki͢n͠d ͝o̷f͘.'
Their connection quickly fuzzed out, then ceased entirely. Miki shrugged, as if to say 'Oh well'.
Fumi hadn't noticed anything. They grinned at each other.
"Actually," Amu said -
"How about we do both?" Miki finished. "The only thing I can do is look, and tell you if I spot something that's off, but that might still be helpful. If you don't mind, that is."
Fumi raised an eyebrow, looking between the two of them, then shrugged. "Sure, whatever."
Miki smiled, waving Amu away.
Of those two, a shaping attack is the one that would currently be impossible to defend against. As such, I will endeavour to construct a feasible defence charm in the next hour, based on Integrity-Protecting Prana. Please note that this will likely reduce the effectiveness of Integrity-Protecting Prana on yourself, requiring some level of active control to prevent damage.
Incidentally, if there's anything you can do to awaken your newest Chara ahead of schedule, that might be useful. It does have some useful skills.
Amu nodded agreeably. She was almost back up - this was actually a really fast elevator - and any moment now she'd get to see her friends again. She wondered who Utau's brother was. He sounded a little scary, if he'd jumped on top of a car!
The smile that forced its way onto her face was something she neither was able nor wanted to suppress.
The door dinged open and she stepped out, revealing -
"Amu-chi!"
Amu stumbled back into the elevator, Yaya hanging around her neck. She hit the back wall hard, forcing the air out of her lungs. "Oof. Yaya!"
"Eheh, sorry." Yuiki Yaya stuck her tongue out, then slid off her and almost fell down. Amu grabbed the supposedly older girl and steadied her on her feet, regarding her with fond exasperation. "But I heard you were coming to see me, so I couldn't wait!"
"Not just you, Yaya. It is good to see you, though." She pulled her in for a quick hug. "Am I going to get tackled by anyone else if I step outside?"
"Naah. It's just me, everyone else is listening to Utau." Yaya looked really excited. "Speaking of which, why didn't you tell me she was so good at singing? Let's get back there, now!"
The elevator doors soundlessly closed behind her.
"Well, I'd like that, but -" Amu smirked, turning Yaya around to see. "It appears we're going back down."
Yaya's eyes widened, and she looked pleadingly at Amu. "Noo~, that can't be! Did you bring me here to keep me captive? Let me go, I beg of you!"
"…What?" Amu stared uncomprehendingly at her.
"Well, I did almost get kidnapped," Yaya pointed out. She wriggled out of Amu's grip and studied the controls for a second, then hit the open-doors button. "If Ran hadn't been with them, I really would have thought I'd been kidnapped. What was with that, anyway? They're adults, but they could see her… and when did you get minions, Amu?"
"Minions?"
"Henchmen, then?" Yaya suggested.
Amu shook her head. "They're not my henchmen, and it's a long story. Let's get back to the others, I don't have a lot of time before I need to go back."
She was sitting in a circle with the other guardians, as well as Ikuto, Utau, her parents, and of course everyone's charas. Minus Miki, who was still downstairs - and Su, who had taken it upon herself to "Make the best cup of coffee ever!" Truthfully, Amu was a little worried of what she'd cook up; it wasn't beyond her to produce a cup with outright lethal levels of caffeeine, if she wasn't careful. Not that anything had ever gone wrong yet.
"That's, um…" She couldn't make herself meet Ikuto's gaze. Why was he the apparent spokesperson, anyway? "No, we're only trying to save… Japan. And a bit of China. The Dragon Seal doesn't have the range to do anything more, we're already pushing it."
She could feel everyone staring at her. What she'd said meant… they were sacrificing everyone outside of Japan. At best, they were sacrificing everyone outside of Japan. At worst… well, hopefully it wouldn't come to that.
"It does explain why the JSDF was out in force," Kukai commented. Everyone looked at him. "What, you didn't notice? There were soldiers everywhere, and vehicles. I'm not sure what they're planning to do against the end of the world, but…" He shivered visibly, and she saw Yaya squeeze his hand.
Ikuto spoke up. "It isn't your fault, Amu. You're doing your best, right?"
She hesitantly nodded.
He shrugged. "Then I don't see a problem. I don't think we could hold it against you even if you didn't, but -" His eyes narrowed "- why are you involved at all? If it's got something to do with the humpty lock, I'll do it instead."
"It's not…" She trailed off. Ikuto had been glancing at Mom frequently. Something was going on there, and she wasn't sure she liked it, but she guessed Mom hadn't told him anything important. She didn't want to explain her exaltation right now. "…It's something only I can do," she decided. "Miki's helping a lot, but that's because she's Miki, not because she's a chara." And she didn't want to explain their new relationship either, not right away. After the Conception, then, and hopefully she wasn't putting it off until after their death.
Amu wilted a little, thinking about what might happen.
Yaya looked at her, frowned for a moment, then perked up. "Oh, but Amu's not here to get interrogated!" She chimed in. "That's our job, Amu's the one with the interrogators. Did I tell you she has henchmen now?"
There was a pause.
"What? No, I said!" Amu complained.
"Oh, so that's what it was." Tadase nodded wisely. "I was wondering where she got them, but she's just taking Complete Annihilation to the next level. You didn't have to, Amu, really."
Horrified, sensing an incomprehensible betrayal, she turned to stare at him.
"That's right," Yaya agreed. "Amu's always so serious about things."
Kukai let out a chuckle. She shot him an accusing look. Everyone… everyone was failing her. Everyone, except… "Nadeshiko?" She tried, looking at the only one of her friends who hadn't spoken up yet. "You don't think they're my minions, do you?"
"Not minions," Nadeshiko agreed quietly. Amu nodded approvingly, then froze as she continued. "Henchmen."
Yaya giggled.
Amu glared at the girl who'd taken everything from her. The bane of her existence, the… oh, never mind. "Yaya, this is all your fault!" She yelled as she launched herself at her friend, tackling her to the floor and tickling her until she was laughing hysterically. Kukai shortly joined in, trying to save Yaya, Tadase attempted to intercept Kukai - but ended up another victim of Amu, who'd forgotten to be embarrassed after a giggling Ran forced a character change on her - and the meeting generally dissolved into a laughing tangle of limbs.
"Glad to have helped," Yaya hummed. "You know, I never asked… no, never mind. Don't worry about it, I won't."
Worry about what, Amu wondered. If she didn't want her to ask, though…
She shook her head, looked at her watch, and got to her feet. 12:40. "All right. We'll talk later, okay? I'm almost out of time, and there's something I need to ask Ikuto about. Utau, too. Speaking of which, have you seen that brother of Utau's I heard about?"
Yaya giggled, giving her a speculative look. "Noo~, I think it's best if you ask Ikuto about him. I don't want to ruin the surprise."
Amu looked blankly at her. "Surprise? No, never mind, I'm really running out of time here. Thanks, Yaya!" She gave her an impulsive hug, then looked around for Ikuto. There he was, sitting next to Utau in a corner. Convenient. Well, not precisely "next to", it looked like she was…
"But Ikutooo!"
Ikuto met her gaze, and she drew the corner of her mouth up in a half-smile.
"Ikuto? Who's…"
She poked the fastening of one of Utau's ponytails. The idol shrieked, then turned and looked up at her. "Oh, it's you. Amu, wasn't it?" Utau sighed, and slowly continued. "I'm not going to apologize for anything, but… thank you, I suppose. Your parents did tell us why we're here. Not the others, they're too young, but I wouldn't want to risk it out there. I do appreciate not needing to."
Utau narrowed her eyes. "Ikuto's still mine, though. Do you understand?"
Amu looked at her in confusion. Still hers? Did that mean -
"Oh God, I so did not need this," Ikuto groaned. "Amu, please let me introduce you. This is Tsukiyomi Utau." He paused, and her eyes widened in realisation. "My blood-related younger sister. It'd good if both of you remembered that. Utau, this is Amu, -" He paused, dramatically "- my adoptive little sister. Get along, will you?"
His what?
"Your what?"
Amu stared at him in total, genuine incomprehension. She was joined in that by Utau, who'd actually shouted the question. Ikuto smiled at them with some amount of glee.
"Well, you see. I was talking to your mother, Amu-chan, and she brought up an interesting detail. Apparently chara users have a much better chance of survival, even if you don't completely succeed. Therefore, since we already know each other - and because I'm the oldest one here -" He smirked, holding up a signed contract. "Welcome to the family, Tsukiyomi Amu. I'll do my best to be a wonderful brother."
The room had gone completely quiet. Amu looked around desperately, but it seemed Dad had bundled everyone out of the room before that conversation - Mom was still there, but she just nodded.
Letting him meet Mom had been totally, utterly the wrong idea!
She found her gaze inevitably, magnetically attracted back to Ikuto.
"Of course, you're still on the Hinamori family register as well. It's a bit unusual, and maybe not strictly speaking legal, but for the time being you can use both names. Doesn't that sound great?"
"I…" She tried saying something, but found her voice wouldn't come out. This was completely unfair! Utau was still staring at them. Utau… "Utau, are you going to accept this?" She asked.
Utau looked between her and Ikuto a few times, then slowly started to smile. She reached out to ruffle her hair; Amu was still too shocked to stop her. "Well, why not? I'm sure you'll be a great younger sister, Imouto-chan. I always wanted one, you know. Besides… less competition." Competition? What was she talking about?
Ikuto looked a little uncomfortable, but eventually shrugged in resignation. "We'll talk about that later. Amu, I'm sorry to drop this on you right now, but it was important to explain before - anything happened. That being said, did you want something?"
Amu blinked. Yes, she did, and she was getting really short on time; there was no time to worry about all of this right now. That seemed to be becoming a disturbingly common trend, unfortunately. "Oh, right! Yes, I wanted to ask if I can borrow the Humpty Key. And also… Utau, you know if it helps or not, right? I mean, with character transformations? Without spending a lot of time getting used to it?"
Utau looked uncertainly at her. "It does, but…"
Ikuto got straight to the point. "What are you planning? You can already do transformations with the lock, right?"
"Trust me?"
They didn't, and so she found herself having to make rapid explanations of what she wanted to try. Convincing them took too much time, so Ikuto eventually joined her in the elevator - and so did Utau, insisting on it since Ikuto was coming.
Getting him to agree that her hare-brained idea was a good idea at all took a lot of fast talking, and in the end she wasn't sure herself. Utau, surprisingly, supported her; as she said, sometimes it was best to risk it all on a throw of the dice and hope for the best.
Nothing immediately springs to mind. I don't believe I can improve on Fumi's plan, but there are three possible ways it could fail that I may be able to limit given an hour's work. Installing a new charm is something I'd be able to do while you are socializing; however, some of them have potential drawbacks you should be aware of in advance. You would be reaching beyond your capacity in ways that require me to override safety logic. Though, that is likely to be the case regardless.
The best approach may be to ask the experts what the most likely vector of attack is.
Ask the experts? She guessed that meant Fumi, or maybe Hotsuin. But Fumi was really busy, and Hotsuin...
She spoke up before she could tell herself all the reasons why this was a bad idea. "Um, Hotsuin? One question, please?"
Hotsuin paused on his way out. "Yes?"
"Well, it's about the Conception. If I knew how the Demiurge is going to attack, I might be able to prepare… at least a little better…"
Hotsuin narrowed his eyes at her, making her quail inwardly, but she refused to back down. This was important! Besides, he was really just another teenager, there was no reason for her to care that much about his disapproval. She met his gaze squarely.
He frowned. "I would have thought Fumi had already explained all we know."
Fumi distractedly nodded.
"She barely told me anything," Amu complained. "Only what it'll try to do at first, not how it'll react to failing. I have to assume that it isn't dumb, and it'll try something, but I don't know what it can do."
"Join the club," Hotsuin muttered under his breath. Louder, "It sounds to me like she did tell you everything we know. Which is to say, very little. We only know of its existence as a constant background to the world; there is no telling how it'll react to failure, or how strongly it'll strike back. But -" He smirked. "History shows that creatures of such might often have trouble even comprehending failure, let alone finding clever solutions. I would suggest being ready for indiscriminate brute force, if anything, but I can't predict the form of that force. If that will be all?"
He didn't look upset, but he did look impatient. She shrugged uncertainly and made to follow him towards the elevators, leaving Fumi to her struggles.
Some random spark of intuition made her look back after passing Fumi, for the first time giving her a good view of her work. Text chat, video chat, text chat, source code of some form, command prompt, more source code, another three terminal windows, web browser…
She cocked her head, looking more closely at the code Fumi was editing. Of course the language wasn't familiar, but if you assumed consistency…
"Shouldn't that be a semicolon?" She asked, pointing at a misplaced apostrophe. Fumi paused in her typing, nodded, corrected it and moved on. She thought for a moment. "And there, the exit condition of that loop can't happen, because you're passing the flag by value instead of name." At least, that was the only reading that made sense of everything else she could see.
Fumi stopped typing, tapping her fingers on the keyboard. "It's set in a different thread. Weren't you going to talk to your friends?"
"Yes, but -" She wanted to help.
"Brook's law. Adding more programmers to a late project makes it later. I'll ignore the way you seem to understand a language you couldn't possibly be familiar with, seeing as I wrote it myself, but if you want to hang around I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your comments to the syntax only. There's no time to explain everything." She frowned unhappily. "What I'm doing now is adding contingencies; the main program already works, but as you heard, we don't know enough about what will happen. Now either stick around for the next hour, or leave."
Stay here for the whole hour? That -
Was unnecessary, actually. All she had to do was -
Trying to push Miki away, Amu found she was stuck. Confusion was just about to turn into alarm when the connection finally gave in and they tumbled apart. Literally, in Miki's case, tumbling in mid-air.
What was that? Her mind felt tender, like she'd ripped off a band-aid too early.
'The effect of the seal?' Miki wondered.
They looked at each other, startled.
'Can you hear this?' Amu tried, deliberately thinking at Miki. This was the same as during her exaltation, when all four of them had been able to hear each other. It would be really useful if they could do that all the time.
'Ki͢n͠d ͝o̷f͘.'
Their connection quickly fuzzed out, then ceased entirely. Miki shrugged, as if to say 'Oh well'.
Fumi hadn't noticed anything. They grinned at each other.
"Actually," Amu said -
"How about we do both?" Miki finished. "The only thing I can do is look, and tell you if I spot something that's off, but that might still be helpful. If you don't mind, that is."
Fumi raised an eyebrow, looking between the two of them, then shrugged. "Sure, whatever."
Miki smiled, waving Amu away.
———
If the Demiurge will use brute force, given its position, that most likely means one of two types of assault. Either it will extend the time period it's suppressing reality, hoping you will fail; or, it will actively attempt to shape the seal into nothingness. There are of course any number of subtler measures it could take, such as throwing lightning at you, but that would both be far more difficult to defend against and against Hotsuin's recommendation.Of those two, a shaping attack is the one that would currently be impossible to defend against. As such, I will endeavour to construct a feasible defence charm in the next hour, based on Integrity-Protecting Prana. Please note that this will likely reduce the effectiveness of Integrity-Protecting Prana on yourself, requiring some level of active control to prevent damage.
Incidentally, if there's anything you can do to awaken your newest Chara ahead of schedule, that might be useful. It does have some useful skills.
Amu nodded agreeably. She was almost back up - this was actually a really fast elevator - and any moment now she'd get to see her friends again. She wondered who Utau's brother was. He sounded a little scary, if he'd jumped on top of a car!
The smile that forced its way onto her face was something she neither was able nor wanted to suppress.
The door dinged open and she stepped out, revealing -
"Amu-chi!"
Amu stumbled back into the elevator, Yaya hanging around her neck. She hit the back wall hard, forcing the air out of her lungs. "Oof. Yaya!"
"Eheh, sorry." Yuiki Yaya stuck her tongue out, then slid off her and almost fell down. Amu grabbed the supposedly older girl and steadied her on her feet, regarding her with fond exasperation. "But I heard you were coming to see me, so I couldn't wait!"
"Not just you, Yaya. It is good to see you, though." She pulled her in for a quick hug. "Am I going to get tackled by anyone else if I step outside?"
"Naah. It's just me, everyone else is listening to Utau." Yaya looked really excited. "Speaking of which, why didn't you tell me she was so good at singing? Let's get back there, now!"
The elevator doors soundlessly closed behind her.
"Well, I'd like that, but -" Amu smirked, turning Yaya around to see. "It appears we're going back down."
Yaya's eyes widened, and she looked pleadingly at Amu. "Noo~, that can't be! Did you bring me here to keep me captive? Let me go, I beg of you!"
"…What?" Amu stared uncomprehendingly at her.
"Well, I did almost get kidnapped," Yaya pointed out. She wriggled out of Amu's grip and studied the controls for a second, then hit the open-doors button. "If Ran hadn't been with them, I really would have thought I'd been kidnapped. What was with that, anyway? They're adults, but they could see her… and when did you get minions, Amu?"
"Minions?"
"Henchmen, then?" Yaya suggested.
Amu shook her head. "They're not my henchmen, and it's a long story. Let's get back to the others, I don't have a lot of time before I need to go back."
———
"The entire world? You're trying to save…"She was sitting in a circle with the other guardians, as well as Ikuto, Utau, her parents, and of course everyone's charas. Minus Miki, who was still downstairs - and Su, who had taken it upon herself to "Make the best cup of coffee ever!" Truthfully, Amu was a little worried of what she'd cook up; it wasn't beyond her to produce a cup with outright lethal levels of caffeeine, if she wasn't careful. Not that anything had ever gone wrong yet.
"That's, um…" She couldn't make herself meet Ikuto's gaze. Why was he the apparent spokesperson, anyway? "No, we're only trying to save… Japan. And a bit of China. The Dragon Seal doesn't have the range to do anything more, we're already pushing it."
She could feel everyone staring at her. What she'd said meant… they were sacrificing everyone outside of Japan. At best, they were sacrificing everyone outside of Japan. At worst… well, hopefully it wouldn't come to that.
"It does explain why the JSDF was out in force," Kukai commented. Everyone looked at him. "What, you didn't notice? There were soldiers everywhere, and vehicles. I'm not sure what they're planning to do against the end of the world, but…" He shivered visibly, and she saw Yaya squeeze his hand.
Ikuto spoke up. "It isn't your fault, Amu. You're doing your best, right?"
She hesitantly nodded.
He shrugged. "Then I don't see a problem. I don't think we could hold it against you even if you didn't, but -" His eyes narrowed "- why are you involved at all? If it's got something to do with the humpty lock, I'll do it instead."
"It's not…" She trailed off. Ikuto had been glancing at Mom frequently. Something was going on there, and she wasn't sure she liked it, but she guessed Mom hadn't told him anything important. She didn't want to explain her exaltation right now. "…It's something only I can do," she decided. "Miki's helping a lot, but that's because she's Miki, not because she's a chara." And she didn't want to explain their new relationship either, not right away. After the Conception, then, and hopefully she wasn't putting it off until after their death.
Amu wilted a little, thinking about what might happen.
Yaya looked at her, frowned for a moment, then perked up. "Oh, but Amu's not here to get interrogated!" She chimed in. "That's our job, Amu's the one with the interrogators. Did I tell you she has henchmen now?"
There was a pause.
"What? No, I said!" Amu complained.
"Oh, so that's what it was." Tadase nodded wisely. "I was wondering where she got them, but she's just taking Complete Annihilation to the next level. You didn't have to, Amu, really."
Horrified, sensing an incomprehensible betrayal, she turned to stare at him.
"That's right," Yaya agreed. "Amu's always so serious about things."
Kukai let out a chuckle. She shot him an accusing look. Everyone… everyone was failing her. Everyone, except… "Nadeshiko?" She tried, looking at the only one of her friends who hadn't spoken up yet. "You don't think they're my minions, do you?"
"Not minions," Nadeshiko agreed quietly. Amu nodded approvingly, then froze as she continued. "Henchmen."
Yaya giggled.
Amu glared at the girl who'd taken everything from her. The bane of her existence, the… oh, never mind. "Yaya, this is all your fault!" She yelled as she launched herself at her friend, tackling her to the floor and tickling her until she was laughing hysterically. Kukai shortly joined in, trying to save Yaya, Tadase attempted to intercept Kukai - but ended up another victim of Amu, who'd forgotten to be embarrassed after a giggling Ran forced a character change on her - and the meeting generally dissolved into a laughing tangle of limbs.
———
"Oh, I needed that," she giggled, leaning against Yaya's back. She also probably needed a shower, they were both sweaty and she hadn't even changed her clothes since yesterday, but she'd worry about that later."Glad to have helped," Yaya hummed. "You know, I never asked… no, never mind. Don't worry about it, I won't."
Worry about what, Amu wondered. If she didn't want her to ask, though…
She shook her head, looked at her watch, and got to her feet. 12:40. "All right. We'll talk later, okay? I'm almost out of time, and there's something I need to ask Ikuto about. Utau, too. Speaking of which, have you seen that brother of Utau's I heard about?"
Yaya giggled, giving her a speculative look. "Noo~, I think it's best if you ask Ikuto about him. I don't want to ruin the surprise."
Amu looked blankly at her. "Surprise? No, never mind, I'm really running out of time here. Thanks, Yaya!" She gave her an impulsive hug, then looked around for Ikuto. There he was, sitting next to Utau in a corner. Convenient. Well, not precisely "next to", it looked like she was…
———
"No, I said." Ikuto sounded frustrated. Amu had only caught the tail end of the conversation, but apparently he wasn't so much "sitting in a corner" as "cornered". What was Utau doing?"But Ikutooo!"
Ikuto met her gaze, and she drew the corner of her mouth up in a half-smile.
"Ikuto? Who's…"
She poked the fastening of one of Utau's ponytails. The idol shrieked, then turned and looked up at her. "Oh, it's you. Amu, wasn't it?" Utau sighed, and slowly continued. "I'm not going to apologize for anything, but… thank you, I suppose. Your parents did tell us why we're here. Not the others, they're too young, but I wouldn't want to risk it out there. I do appreciate not needing to."
Utau narrowed her eyes. "Ikuto's still mine, though. Do you understand?"
Amu looked at her in confusion. Still hers? Did that mean -
"Oh God, I so did not need this," Ikuto groaned. "Amu, please let me introduce you. This is Tsukiyomi Utau." He paused, and her eyes widened in realisation. "My blood-related younger sister. It'd good if both of you remembered that. Utau, this is Amu, -" He paused, dramatically "- my adoptive little sister. Get along, will you?"
His what?
"Your what?"
Amu stared at him in total, genuine incomprehension. She was joined in that by Utau, who'd actually shouted the question. Ikuto smiled at them with some amount of glee.
"Well, you see. I was talking to your mother, Amu-chan, and she brought up an interesting detail. Apparently chara users have a much better chance of survival, even if you don't completely succeed. Therefore, since we already know each other - and because I'm the oldest one here -" He smirked, holding up a signed contract. "Welcome to the family, Tsukiyomi Amu. I'll do my best to be a wonderful brother."
The room had gone completely quiet. Amu looked around desperately, but it seemed Dad had bundled everyone out of the room before that conversation - Mom was still there, but she just nodded.
Letting him meet Mom had been totally, utterly the wrong idea!
She found her gaze inevitably, magnetically attracted back to Ikuto.
"Of course, you're still on the Hinamori family register as well. It's a bit unusual, and maybe not strictly speaking legal, but for the time being you can use both names. Doesn't that sound great?"
"I…" She tried saying something, but found her voice wouldn't come out. This was completely unfair! Utau was still staring at them. Utau… "Utau, are you going to accept this?" She asked.
Utau looked between her and Ikuto a few times, then slowly started to smile. She reached out to ruffle her hair; Amu was still too shocked to stop her. "Well, why not? I'm sure you'll be a great younger sister, Imouto-chan. I always wanted one, you know. Besides… less competition." Competition? What was she talking about?
Ikuto looked a little uncomfortable, but eventually shrugged in resignation. "We'll talk about that later. Amu, I'm sorry to drop this on you right now, but it was important to explain before - anything happened. That being said, did you want something?"
Amu blinked. Yes, she did, and she was getting really short on time; there was no time to worry about all of this right now. That seemed to be becoming a disturbingly common trend, unfortunately. "Oh, right! Yes, I wanted to ask if I can borrow the Humpty Key. And also… Utau, you know if it helps or not, right? I mean, with character transformations? Without spending a lot of time getting used to it?"
Utau looked uncertainly at her. "It does, but…"
Ikuto got straight to the point. "What are you planning? You can already do transformations with the lock, right?"
"Trust me?"
They didn't, and so she found herself having to make rapid explanations of what she wanted to try. Convincing them took too much time, so Ikuto eventually joined her in the elevator - and so did Utau, insisting on it since Ikuto was coming.
Getting him to agree that her hare-brained idea was a good idea at all took a lot of fast talking, and in the end she wasn't sure herself. Utau, surprisingly, supported her; as she said, sometimes it was best to risk it all on a throw of the dice and hope for the best.
Sunday's Melancholy 8
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Sunday's Melancholy, 12:54
There was… something.
Amu glanced at her watch; only a few minutes left. There seemed to be a kind of tension in the air, though she wasn't sure if it was real or not. It might be just her imagination, and the longer they waited the better - maybe - but they were getting too close. She got to her feet, easily pulling Ikuto along. Utau had left after their discussion, not wanting to disturb the setup - or "Crazy magitech contrivance," as she put it - but Ikuto had insisted on staying until the end.
"Amu?" He asked.
Fumi looked up from where she'd been resting her head in her arms.
"Time, already?" She looked blearily at them.
"I'm not sure. I'm not sure, we're supposed to get some warning, but I think… just in case…"
Advanced waves detected. Wide-area aberrant information flow detected. Wide-area shaping field detected. Multiple-waypoint shaping effect detected - caution, inconsistent signature. Aberrant geometry shaping field detected, geometry estimation in progress. Warning, chaotic shaping field detected, no database match. Hardening exterior interfaces against flow turbulence. Feeder conduits shutting down.
She stiffened, feeling her stomach churning. Miki, over by Fumi's side, looked up in alarm.
Traffic analysis suggests dual-mode gossip network, extrapolated cycle time approximately 50 seconds.
Only seconds had passed.
Shaping field geometry fluctuating, closest match is hyperbolic (32%). Minimum spanning distance 400 seconds. Median spanning distance uncomputable.
"Definitely time!" She squeaked, a high-pitched noise that nonetheless carried across the otherwise quiet hall. "Ran, Miki, get over here!"
Ikuto was finally reacting, but so slowly. She was bouncing on her feet before he'd even gotten his hands on the key, and had to force herself not to grab it by force. She barely noticed when Ran, flying at top speed, got close enough for the transformation to Amulet Heart.
He got the key out of his pocket, then hesitated and looked at her with concern. "Are you really sure?"
She eyed him incredulously. "No time! Just give it to me!"
Ikuto seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but finally - finally, after almost three seconds of deliberation, he jerkily handed her the key. She hoped it'd do some good. Actually opening the lock would have been crazy - she had no idea what would happen - but the lock helped even when she was just wearing it, so maybe the key would do the same.
Network traffic approaching saturation, ETA 30 seconds. Assuming two-stage commit, expect no serious effects for another minute.
Why was her passenger chattering like the demiurge was some kind of computer network? No, never mind, something to ask it later.
Miki hit her at full speed, rocking her onto her heels. She adjusted automatically, then gave Ikuto a hopeful look. Hoping for what, she wasn't sure.
His eyes widened, then he smiled and dropped a hand on her shoulder, pushing her gently in the direction of the main seal.
"Do your best," he said.
Somehow, it felt vexing. In the middle of the terror, impatience and stage fright, some part of her had hoped he'd do something more. Maybe give her a hug, if that didn't feel so much like cheating on Tadase.
This really wasn't the time for soul-searching. Miki was pulling on her shirt, telling her to go, and she kicked off into a sprint. Time seemed to be moving at a glacial pace.
"Fumi!" She shouted. "Twenty seconds! Get it started!"
It'd all be for nothing if the seal wasn't on yet by the time things started to happen.
"Already on it!" Fumi hollered back.
Lock in one hand and key in the other, she could sense a build-up of potential between them, like two magnets that couldn't decide if they wanted to reject or attract the other. At the same time she felt the intakes of the seal dilate, sending a shockwave back through the dragon stream as it attempted to eat the next hour's worth of energy in the space of a second and found that there was nothing there. The stream would adjust in a few seconds, by which time she had to be ready to moderate it, but first it was time to do something really stupid. "Miki!"
Key and lock amplifying her focus, barreling headlong into the seal's zone of influence, Amu's mind reached out to Miki's without first releasing Ran. The effect was immediate, and dramatic; as Miki disappeared, Amu's costume oscillated wildly between several different color schemes and styles before she reached far enough in to prohibit any such alterations. Inside her head the three of them fought for balance, and she stumbled, taking precious seconds to recover. She felt like she'd jammed several pieces in places they didn't belong; like she was going to come apart at any moment, except the seal wouldn't let her, not even to put herself together the right way.
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea -
That wasn't her passenger. Miki?
Yes! No! I don't have a clue! This was a bad idea! A bit late now, but this was a bad idea!
Whoever it was, she sounded resigned. Amu could understand her, she felt a headache coming on herself. Maybe not quickly, hopefully not quickly, but she couldn't possibly keep this form up for long. She hoped this was worth it.
Essence pools increased by 15%. Warning, network saturation in 10 seconds.
She'd reached her spot, though, and the dragon seal was just about to ramp up to full power. With the stream's shockwave still the only thing she needed to worry about, a moment's thought allowed her to blunt it before it reached any sensitive components of the machinery. Fumi was scanning her screens, her cup of Su's extra-ridiculous black "coffee" apparently forgotten.
Wait a minute, this place is uncomfortable even when the seal is at minimum power. What's going to happen when it's at max?
That… was a good question. She could sense the flow of energy through the machinery rapidly rising, giving her only a second to -
Brace!
Even just standing there, she felt like she'd been clamped in a vice. This wasn't just a bit of pressure; it felt like it was trying to squeeze her right out of existence. She couldn't speak, she could barely move, she could hardly even think.
Desperate, wanting it to stop, she forcefully wrapped a mote of essence around herself and cross-braced it against itself, forming the crudest possible shield.
Relief.
Why did that happen? Shouldn't we have the ability to stop things like that?
Integrity-protecting Prana only prevents shaping attacks. The seal's zone of effect also prohibits shaping. They reinforce each other rather than cancel out. I am not sure why it had the effect it had.
Her passenger sounded vaguely confused. Amu put it out of her mind; the shield, while crude, might last anything from a few minutes up to an hour before she needed to reinforce it. Not ideal, but good enough for what she was doing. The seal was already at maximum, too.
Network saturation imminent, please stand by… traffic dropping off. No estimates for further activity.
Nothing?
No, that wasn't right. She could still feel it building, like a static charge in the air. Something was definitely about to happen.
Revised ETA: Two seconds. Extending Integrity-Protecting Prana to material components of Dragon Seal. Caution, effectiveness will be reduced.
She clamped down on the seal with an effort of will.
Things started happening very quickly.
———
[Advanced waves spiking]
[External interfaces set to maximum hardening]
[Maintaining peripheral essence buffers at 50% nominal]
[Essence capacitors at 98%]
[Primary essence conduit nominal]
[Secondary essence conduits nominal]
[Control interfaces A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1, C2 all nominal]
[Signal/noise ratio at 45dB]
[Toggling exalt safeties off]
This is not the time for heavy thought. You focus all your effort on keeping everything stable under what you expect will be strain well beyond Amu's current parameters.
[Primary essence conduit at 100% load]
[Secondary essence conduit #1 at 60% load]
[Secondary essence conduit #2 at 65% load]
———
Fumi froze in mid-movement. The air between them seemed to stretch, black lightning playing across the room without touching anything, then her vision faded like an overexposed photograph.
The dragon seal!
Only a fraction of a second had passed, but the seal was already stuttering, burning through power at an impossible rate. She joined her own essence to the dragon stream and used it to steer the seal, bending all her mind on stopping it from attempting the impossible -
She held the spells in position, focusing on standing in for the fading effects of its physical components -
Not a bad trick. Let's never do it again.
Everything outside her own skin was missing, physics suppressed by the will of the Demiurge, but it would be back. It had to come back. This wasn't the end, this was just the intermission. The immense force flowed over her like a stream over a pebble, like waves crashing on a rock -
Part of her was hysterically making up analogies, trying to distract itself from the fact that everything inside her body appeared to be missing as well; she felt like a soap bubble, ready to pop at the slightest provocation. Didn't she have a charm to stop that? Most of her was busy bending reality to its will, or at least refusing to bend knee to reality, and didn't care. She might have been there for a second, a day or a month, she had nothing left to keep track. Time ceased to matter.
After a year the pressure slackened slightly, and the room swam back into focus, but before she could even begin to relax a wave of pure denial hit her from an angle that didn't exist. It refused her existence, abjured her very being, and it scattered off Integrity-Protecting Prana as if it were nothing but a gentle rain. With the Demiurge crashing against a perfect defence the seal made a little headway, forming an egg-shaped zone of reality around her; gasping, she took her first breath in what might have been a century.
It didn't last, of course it didn't. The Demiurge was not a computer game NPC, to meaninglessly repeat actions that had no effect, and a moment later she found herself mercilessly crushed out of existence again. The force now carried a strong tinge of confusion and frustration. She hoped that meant it was working, that it couldn't keep this up forever, because she wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to keep it up either. She had already exhausted her own pools of essence, and the stream from her passenger wasn't so much a gentle trickle as a raging, barely-controllable river. She had to control it, failure was not acceptable, but it got harder with every passing moment. If it outlasted her, the seal would destroy itself and they'd all die. Her, Mom, Ikuto, everyone.
Everyone? Then how was she thinking right now?
She was still there, existing despite the origin of reality's denial of that existence. She could still feel her body, only it didn't quite feel like her body. She could wiggle her fingers, but they were more like the idea of fingers than actual fingers.
Amu fought on, struggling to hold everything together for just another minute.
———
[Control interface C1 failure]
[Control interface B2 failure]
[Control interface C2 failure]
[Secondary essence conduit #2 emergency shutdown]
[Global overload, scaling essence capacity by 1.15x]
[Secondary essence conduit #1 at 110%]
[Primary essence conduit at 120%]
[Control interface A2 failure]
[Signal/noise ratio at 24dB]
[Forcing charm activation: Glory to the Most High]
[Signal/noise ratio at 7dB]
[Global overload, scaling essence capacity by 1.4x]
[Warning: S/NR critically low]
[Control interface A3 failure]
[Warning: Essence capacitors at 40%]
———
Just one more minute.
[ ] Take your chances
[ ] Take less chances
[ ] Write-in
A/N: Regarding honorifics. I'm only including them when a character is using an "abnormal" one, e.g. "-chi" for Yaya above, or if the character is deliberately stressing it. (That one's actually doubly abnormal, as it doesn't exist.) This is not actually true for every chapter I've posted, so I'll need to go back over them at some point and fix that, but probably not until after the quest is done. That may be a while.
2 compassion channels used; 1 remaining.
18 limit gained, i.e. -1 willpower for the next month.
2 siblings gained, whether you like it or not.
Ran now has an essence pool. However, both Miki and Ran are reduced to 10 motes due to willpower loss.
A/N: Being Ikuto is suffering. So, on occasion, is steering a forgetful and frazzled young girl.
New character sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dFKaMrVOh1h0Ao9CuLKtR26RxmI-YtkgU4EiOa35muM/edit#
There was… something.
Amu glanced at her watch; only a few minutes left. There seemed to be a kind of tension in the air, though she wasn't sure if it was real or not. It might be just her imagination, and the longer they waited the better - maybe - but they were getting too close. She got to her feet, easily pulling Ikuto along. Utau had left after their discussion, not wanting to disturb the setup - or "Crazy magitech contrivance," as she put it - but Ikuto had insisted on staying until the end.
"Amu?" He asked.
Fumi looked up from where she'd been resting her head in her arms.
"Time, already?" She looked blearily at them.
"I'm not sure. I'm not sure, we're supposed to get some warning, but I think… just in case…"
Advanced waves detected. Wide-area aberrant information flow detected. Wide-area shaping field detected. Multiple-waypoint shaping effect detected - caution, inconsistent signature. Aberrant geometry shaping field detected, geometry estimation in progress. Warning, chaotic shaping field detected, no database match. Hardening exterior interfaces against flow turbulence. Feeder conduits shutting down.
She stiffened, feeling her stomach churning. Miki, over by Fumi's side, looked up in alarm.
Traffic analysis suggests dual-mode gossip network, extrapolated cycle time approximately 50 seconds.
Only seconds had passed.
Shaping field geometry fluctuating, closest match is hyperbolic (32%). Minimum spanning distance 400 seconds. Median spanning distance uncomputable.
"Definitely time!" She squeaked, a high-pitched noise that nonetheless carried across the otherwise quiet hall. "Ran, Miki, get over here!"
Ikuto was finally reacting, but so slowly. She was bouncing on her feet before he'd even gotten his hands on the key, and had to force herself not to grab it by force. She barely noticed when Ran, flying at top speed, got close enough for the transformation to Amulet Heart.
He got the key out of his pocket, then hesitated and looked at her with concern. "Are you really sure?"
She eyed him incredulously. "No time! Just give it to me!"
Ikuto seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but finally - finally, after almost three seconds of deliberation, he jerkily handed her the key. She hoped it'd do some good. Actually opening the lock would have been crazy - she had no idea what would happen - but the lock helped even when she was just wearing it, so maybe the key would do the same.
Network traffic approaching saturation, ETA 30 seconds. Assuming two-stage commit, expect no serious effects for another minute.
Why was her passenger chattering like the demiurge was some kind of computer network? No, never mind, something to ask it later.
Miki hit her at full speed, rocking her onto her heels. She adjusted automatically, then gave Ikuto a hopeful look. Hoping for what, she wasn't sure.
His eyes widened, then he smiled and dropped a hand on her shoulder, pushing her gently in the direction of the main seal.
"Do your best," he said.
Somehow, it felt vexing. In the middle of the terror, impatience and stage fright, some part of her had hoped he'd do something more. Maybe give her a hug, if that didn't feel so much like cheating on Tadase.
This really wasn't the time for soul-searching. Miki was pulling on her shirt, telling her to go, and she kicked off into a sprint. Time seemed to be moving at a glacial pace.
"Fumi!" She shouted. "Twenty seconds! Get it started!"
It'd all be for nothing if the seal wasn't on yet by the time things started to happen.
"Already on it!" Fumi hollered back.
Lock in one hand and key in the other, she could sense a build-up of potential between them, like two magnets that couldn't decide if they wanted to reject or attract the other. At the same time she felt the intakes of the seal dilate, sending a shockwave back through the dragon stream as it attempted to eat the next hour's worth of energy in the space of a second and found that there was nothing there. The stream would adjust in a few seconds, by which time she had to be ready to moderate it, but first it was time to do something really stupid. "Miki!"
Key and lock amplifying her focus, barreling headlong into the seal's zone of influence, Amu's mind reached out to Miki's without first releasing Ran. The effect was immediate, and dramatic; as Miki disappeared, Amu's costume oscillated wildly between several different color schemes and styles before she reached far enough in to prohibit any such alterations. Inside her head the three of them fought for balance, and she stumbled, taking precious seconds to recover. She felt like she'd jammed several pieces in places they didn't belong; like she was going to come apart at any moment, except the seal wouldn't let her, not even to put herself together the right way.
Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea -
That wasn't her passenger. Miki?
Yes! No! I don't have a clue! This was a bad idea! A bit late now, but this was a bad idea!
Whoever it was, she sounded resigned. Amu could understand her, she felt a headache coming on herself. Maybe not quickly, hopefully not quickly, but she couldn't possibly keep this form up for long. She hoped this was worth it.
Essence pools increased by 15%. Warning, network saturation in 10 seconds.
She'd reached her spot, though, and the dragon seal was just about to ramp up to full power. With the stream's shockwave still the only thing she needed to worry about, a moment's thought allowed her to blunt it before it reached any sensitive components of the machinery. Fumi was scanning her screens, her cup of Su's extra-ridiculous black "coffee" apparently forgotten.
Wait a minute, this place is uncomfortable even when the seal is at minimum power. What's going to happen when it's at max?
That… was a good question. She could sense the flow of energy through the machinery rapidly rising, giving her only a second to -
Brace!
Even just standing there, she felt like she'd been clamped in a vice. This wasn't just a bit of pressure; it felt like it was trying to squeeze her right out of existence. She couldn't speak, she could barely move, she could hardly even think.
Desperate, wanting it to stop, she forcefully wrapped a mote of essence around herself and cross-braced it against itself, forming the crudest possible shield.
Relief.
Why did that happen? Shouldn't we have the ability to stop things like that?
Integrity-protecting Prana only prevents shaping attacks. The seal's zone of effect also prohibits shaping. They reinforce each other rather than cancel out. I am not sure why it had the effect it had.
Her passenger sounded vaguely confused. Amu put it out of her mind; the shield, while crude, might last anything from a few minutes up to an hour before she needed to reinforce it. Not ideal, but good enough for what she was doing. The seal was already at maximum, too.
Network saturation imminent, please stand by… traffic dropping off. No estimates for further activity.
Nothing?
No, that wasn't right. She could still feel it building, like a static charge in the air. Something was definitely about to happen.
Revised ETA: Two seconds. Extending Integrity-Protecting Prana to material components of Dragon Seal. Caution, effectiveness will be reduced.
She clamped down on the seal with an effort of will.
Things started happening very quickly.
———
[Advanced waves spiking]
[External interfaces set to maximum hardening]
[Maintaining peripheral essence buffers at 50% nominal]
[Essence capacitors at 98%]
[Primary essence conduit nominal]
[Secondary essence conduits nominal]
[Control interfaces A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1, C2 all nominal]
[Signal/noise ratio at 45dB]
[Toggling exalt safeties off]
This is not the time for heavy thought. You focus all your effort on keeping everything stable under what you expect will be strain well beyond Amu's current parameters.
[Primary essence conduit at 100% load]
[Secondary essence conduit #1 at 60% load]
[Secondary essence conduit #2 at 65% load]
———
Fumi froze in mid-movement. The air between them seemed to stretch, black lightning playing across the room without touching anything, then her vision faded like an overexposed photograph.
The dragon seal!
Only a fraction of a second had passed, but the seal was already stuttering, burning through power at an impossible rate. She joined her own essence to the dragon stream and used it to steer the seal, bending all her mind on stopping it from attempting the impossible -
She held the spells in position, focusing on standing in for the fading effects of its physical components -
Not a bad trick. Let's never do it again.
Everything outside her own skin was missing, physics suppressed by the will of the Demiurge, but it would be back. It had to come back. This wasn't the end, this was just the intermission. The immense force flowed over her like a stream over a pebble, like waves crashing on a rock -
Part of her was hysterically making up analogies, trying to distract itself from the fact that everything inside her body appeared to be missing as well; she felt like a soap bubble, ready to pop at the slightest provocation. Didn't she have a charm to stop that? Most of her was busy bending reality to its will, or at least refusing to bend knee to reality, and didn't care. She might have been there for a second, a day or a month, she had nothing left to keep track. Time ceased to matter.
After a year the pressure slackened slightly, and the room swam back into focus, but before she could even begin to relax a wave of pure denial hit her from an angle that didn't exist. It refused her existence, abjured her very being, and it scattered off Integrity-Protecting Prana as if it were nothing but a gentle rain. With the Demiurge crashing against a perfect defence the seal made a little headway, forming an egg-shaped zone of reality around her; gasping, she took her first breath in what might have been a century.
It didn't last, of course it didn't. The Demiurge was not a computer game NPC, to meaninglessly repeat actions that had no effect, and a moment later she found herself mercilessly crushed out of existence again. The force now carried a strong tinge of confusion and frustration. She hoped that meant it was working, that it couldn't keep this up forever, because she wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to keep it up either. She had already exhausted her own pools of essence, and the stream from her passenger wasn't so much a gentle trickle as a raging, barely-controllable river. She had to control it, failure was not acceptable, but it got harder with every passing moment. If it outlasted her, the seal would destroy itself and they'd all die. Her, Mom, Ikuto, everyone.
Everyone? Then how was she thinking right now?
She was still there, existing despite the origin of reality's denial of that existence. She could still feel her body, only it didn't quite feel like her body. She could wiggle her fingers, but they were more like the idea of fingers than actual fingers.
Amu fought on, struggling to hold everything together for just another minute.
———
[Control interface C1 failure]
[Control interface B2 failure]
[Control interface C2 failure]
[Secondary essence conduit #2 emergency shutdown]
[Global overload, scaling essence capacity by 1.15x]
[Secondary essence conduit #1 at 110%]
[Primary essence conduit at 120%]
[Control interface A2 failure]
[Signal/noise ratio at 24dB]
[Forcing charm activation: Glory to the Most High]
[Signal/noise ratio at 7dB]
[Global overload, scaling essence capacity by 1.4x]
[Warning: S/NR critically low]
[Control interface A3 failure]
[Warning: Essence capacitors at 40%]
———
Just one more minute.
[ ] Take your chances
[ ] Take less chances
[ ] Write-in
A/N: Regarding honorifics. I'm only including them when a character is using an "abnormal" one, e.g. "-chi" for Yaya above, or if the character is deliberately stressing it. (That one's actually doubly abnormal, as it doesn't exist.) This is not actually true for every chapter I've posted, so I'll need to go back over them at some point and fix that, but probably not until after the quest is done. That may be a while.
2 compassion channels used; 1 remaining.
18 limit gained, i.e. -1 willpower for the next month.
2 siblings gained, whether you like it or not.
Ran now has an essence pool. However, both Miki and Ran are reduced to 10 motes due to willpower loss.
A/N: Being Ikuto is suffering. So, on occasion, is steering a forgetful and frazzled young girl.
New character sheet: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dFKaMrVOh1h0Ao9CuLKtR26RxmI-YtkgU4EiOa35muM/edit#
Eighteen limit?
Wow. How much of that was the chara merge? If a lot, I hope it helped otherwise, because that's a really pricy mistake.
Wow. How much of that was the chara merge? If a lot, I hope it helped otherwise, because that's a really pricy mistake.
Also, Glory to the Most High is active. I think that's another major source of limit, considering using it the normal way is 1 limit. Brute forcing it onto her in a way it wasn't meant to be used in the first place probably was very bad.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The answers are in there. I refuse to believe you didn't skim some of the update.Alectai said:
About a third. GttMH accounts for most of the rest.Cytokinesis said:
Look on the bright side, she isn't in limit break!
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I'M PANICKING OH MY GOD ARRRRGHHHH
I'm going to try to write something, but I'm... Really not sure what to do, and I fear that I'll ruin everything if I try to come up with a plan.
But... I'll write something, anything, even if it's just the Exaltation's mindset.
I'm going to try to write something, but I'm... Really not sure what to do, and I fear that I'll ruin everything if I try to come up with a plan.
But... I'll write something, anything, even if it's just the Exaltation's mindset.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
No, it's still going strong. It'll last out the scene.RCa said:
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
No
You had already seen the death of one world, saved only by the foresight of your creator, and the sacrifice of your counterpart.
Never Again
In your heart, you knew saving your Host at least was possible--simply withdrawing the kitbashed Charm and refocusing her defenses would preserve her, and perhaps something could be won in the end...
But the Unconquered Sun would not take that path. The Heroes that you worked with in the past would never take that path. They would stand, even in the face of Oblivion, and fight tooth and nail to bring forth the Dawn--be they through wisdom, swordplay, or charismatic speech alone.
And you envied that to some level--you had once been little more then an autonomous fragment of divine might, operating under a strict procedure, never to deviate from your duties, lest the Enemy subvert you... But you had a mind of your own--perhaps even a heart, even if it was little more then a reflection of the Heroes of the past that you had once been bonded with.
There were better options as a Spear of Heaven perhaps... But you chose the ten year old child, who was doomed without your intervention. Was that really the act of an automaton?
Perhaps you weren't a Hero yourself, but you remembered what a Hero could do. You believed in Amu--who had shown remarkable courage and compassion under fire, willing to endure even this hellish storm for the sake of her friends, family, and world. How could you possibly do less in the face of that?
She wasn't strong enough yet... But the Amu of Tomorrow Would be. The power of the Solar Exaltation was to transcend all limitations--to forge the light of day even in the darkest of nights. Glory Unto the Most High--even if it was only a memory of his courage, his compassion, his drive and his patience. Her soul was already cracking under the strain, your emergency vents bleeding off the worst of the pressure, at the cost of short term strength--but you could take more of the load, maybe. Your memories were already a patchwork, and much of what you had learned in the Titanomachy was only peripherally relevant--too much had been lost, and too much was different for it to do more then confuse you. They could be safely purged to free up additional processing power... Several unique Charms developed by previous Hosts were also in your memory--advanced techniques developed for individual paragons. Perhaps they might be useful in the far future, but this wasn't a world of savage swords and sorcery--not yet, and holding onto simple mementos like that simply because it "Might" be useful was selfish in the light of this situation.
Perhaps only slivers of support could be mustered--but you would could do no less. In the memory of Creation, the Sun that stood in it's defence, and the Heroes of old--you would not allow another World to fall on your watch!
You had already seen the death of one world, saved only by the foresight of your creator, and the sacrifice of your counterpart.
Never Again
In your heart, you knew saving your Host at least was possible--simply withdrawing the kitbashed Charm and refocusing her defenses would preserve her, and perhaps something could be won in the end...
But the Unconquered Sun would not take that path. The Heroes that you worked with in the past would never take that path. They would stand, even in the face of Oblivion, and fight tooth and nail to bring forth the Dawn--be they through wisdom, swordplay, or charismatic speech alone.
And you envied that to some level--you had once been little more then an autonomous fragment of divine might, operating under a strict procedure, never to deviate from your duties, lest the Enemy subvert you... But you had a mind of your own--perhaps even a heart, even if it was little more then a reflection of the Heroes of the past that you had once been bonded with.
There were better options as a Spear of Heaven perhaps... But you chose the ten year old child, who was doomed without your intervention. Was that really the act of an automaton?
Perhaps you weren't a Hero yourself, but you remembered what a Hero could do. You believed in Amu--who had shown remarkable courage and compassion under fire, willing to endure even this hellish storm for the sake of her friends, family, and world. How could you possibly do less in the face of that?
She wasn't strong enough yet... But the Amu of Tomorrow Would be. The power of the Solar Exaltation was to transcend all limitations--to forge the light of day even in the darkest of nights. Glory Unto the Most High--even if it was only a memory of his courage, his compassion, his drive and his patience. Her soul was already cracking under the strain, your emergency vents bleeding off the worst of the pressure, at the cost of short term strength--but you could take more of the load, maybe. Your memories were already a patchwork, and much of what you had learned in the Titanomachy was only peripherally relevant--too much had been lost, and too much was different for it to do more then confuse you. They could be safely purged to free up additional processing power... Several unique Charms developed by previous Hosts were also in your memory--advanced techniques developed for individual paragons. Perhaps they might be useful in the far future, but this wasn't a world of savage swords and sorcery--not yet, and holding onto simple mementos like that simply because it "Might" be useful was selfish in the light of this situation.
Perhaps only slivers of support could be mustered--but you would could do no less. In the memory of Creation, the Sun that stood in it's defence, and the Heroes of old--you would not allow another World to fall on your watch!