That said, it seems like Taylor is underestimating the PRT. I mean, if she can seriously create dungeons that allow people to gain "powers," or "armor," or whatever, that's an inevitable escalation of options for fighting against the real bad stuff in the form of endbringers and the like. I'm pretty sure that they'd bend over backward to get her on their team or at least... as a registered independent; which I do think she ought to try to do (the independent part, not the team part. Honestly, don't think she is ready for that anyhow). She might not mix well with the Wards, but wow, is there some awesome potential here that I'd love to see happen.
They seemed to be divided roughly into five categories: Gold, Lumber, Stone, and Metal, plus something else that Taylor didn't have but could sort of 'feel' an empty mental space for.
She has the ability to create Danger Rooms for people to train in, which is valuable all on its own, and fueling her growth is dirt cheap.
A tractor-trailer load of raw felled timber is ~20 tons and would cost about $600, delivered. That same amount of money would buy ~30 tons of pea gravel (~3 tons of limestone slabs if gravel doesn't count), ~7 tons of scrap steel, or ~70 square feet of assorted stained glass.
Given that the kinds of materials Tinkers use can cost more than $600 an ounce, Taylor could probably build one massive fuck-off powerful dungeon for the cost of one of Kid Win's blasters.
She has the ability to create Danger Rooms for people to train in, which is valuable all on its own, and fueling her growth is dirt cheap.
A tractor-trailer load of raw felled timber is ~20 tons and would cost about $600, delivered. That same amount of money would buy ~30 tons of pea gravel (~3 tons of limestone slabs if gravel doesn't count), ~7 tons of scrap steel, or ~70 square feet of assorted stained glass.
Given that the kinds of materials Tinkers use can cost more than $600 an ounce, Taylor could probably build one massive fuck-off powerful dungeon for the cost of one of Kid Win's blasters.
Valuable? I think the word you were looking for was priceless. That danger room part isn't just "valuable on its own" it's straight up priceless. Do you realize how much money and resources a group like PRT (and I mean this for just the non-powered part) which is a cross of police, S.W.A.T. and kinda military must be spending? They are supposed to fight against parahumans without powers and tons of restrictions from tactics and lethality to collateral and weapons, their training must reflect that. They would cheerfully buy multiple huge complexes and fly PRT troopers from all over for that even if they can't persuade her to move to a better location and they would still be saving sooo much money.
Add to that the items they can gain that gives parahuman-like abilities, even if Keeper keeps the right to cherry-pick the ones she liked from them to develop herself as a cape... The sky is the limit, Taylor.
Well... if they learn Keeper would grow powerful with it to the point of Eidolon and beyond, their response can go either way.
True enough. And Taylor also...isn't the best decision maker. In Canon she has divided thoughts about joining the Wards, and decides she wants to join "from a position of power." Her answer? Go undercover in a villain team!
That's actually not a terrible idea. Not without its own problems (chief of which is disappearing ships are still noticeable and loud on land and tunnels would flood on sea) of course but still.
The problem with this plan is there is a distinct lack of aquatic units (or aquatic combat in general, barring water shallow enough to walk over) in Dungeon Keeper et al, and in general the bottom of a bay makes for a poor foundation ;P
Well... except for the tentacle unit in DK1. They're technically amphibious. And there's a few units in WFTO that could be assumed to be at least able to walk around down there. But not the workers. This isn't a typical dungeon fic, it's primarily dungeon keeper and it's spinoffs, so she can't just go and start evolving minions for specific tasks. There isn't a mechanic for that in those games per se.
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Also, to everyone in general: promise the next chapter is coming soon. The last week and a half has been a bit crazy, between me needing to last minute taxes (mine are complicated so I kept putting it off since I didn't wanna pay taxact a bunch of money), and my family suddenly pushing our 'extended family and friends sort-of-easter-party' to be at my place because my sister got really sick and couldn't host it at hers.
After the last chapter I'd done a bunch of work on a big informational codex that turned out to be like 8,000+ words for only the general terms/base mechanics plus minions, haha. Then all the other stuff came up >.>
But at least with all the partying over, I'm in a mood to get shit done, so back to the keyboard and the actual chapter for me!
The problem with this plan is there is a distinct lack of aquatic units (or aquatic combat in general, barring water shallow enough to walk over) in Dungeon Keeper et al, and in general the bottom of a bay makes for a poor foundation ;P
I can see two ways:
- Buying some scuba gear (or inflatable bridge) for workers (but the Dungeon would need to be next to the water)
- Rewarding people in some way for dropping off scrap metal (this would become a black market)
Personally, I'm not a big fun of human Minions in DK fics, mainly because they may start thinking instead of the Keeper, resulting in different (and probably saner) decisions. I would like to see Taylor actually manage that "independent hero" thing.
While keeping new cape in good graces is a good idea, helping her with "vandalism" does sound like ticket into M/S confinement.
Otherwise? I freaking love this story. Keep on letting your imagination fly!
For new readers, this chapter is the first part of two for Chapter 3. It got broken into two parts for reasons that are no longer relevant, so don't worry about it.
Fun fact: Some people raised the issue of various laws regarding property. I did some research, as I was curious, and discovered that not only do those vary wildly by state (and country for that matter), that apparently many of the modern-day ones were passed after Earth Bet would have diverged (having been passed in the late 80's). Which gives quite a bit of leeway without simply pulling author fiat. Even better, there's actual real-world legal precedent I was able to dig up, which inspired much of the below conversation. Most definitely don't take that as actual legal advice though! Everywhere is different.
Carlos watched with some consternation as Keeper's imps loudly tore into their third chunk of fiberglass siding. The girl's power was weird. It seemed fairly indiscriminate, with her imps being able to break down anything she told them to, but the results were often somewhat bizarre.
"OK," he said. "I get the whole metals turning into generic ingots thing, and turning a bush into wood logs is sort of plausible if you squint really hard. What I don't get is how fiberglass equates to stone and wood."
Keeper just shrugged at him indifferently. "Don't look at me. My power is weird like that. It turned some shards of stained glass into gold coins, so I have no idea."
"Wait, really?" he asked.
"Yeah." she said with a small nod. "I mean, it feels like there's a logic to things, because there's trends like valuables into gold, metal into ingots, stone into stone blocks, and so on, but then it goes and does something like this. I mean, glass is made from sand right? And sand is just rocks, so maybe the wood is the fiber?"
"Uh, actually the 'fiber' in fiberglass literally refers to glass fibers," Carlos replied. "I think it's spun out into strands somehow."
"Could be something else then? Who knows. Powers are weird."
Carlos chuckled. "That they are."
The two of them had long since moved beyond the storage crate that Keeper had originally focused her efforts on. The echoing noise had been more than either of them had really wanted to put up with, and after a quick explanation that he didn't actually have super-strength, he could just push himself to harmful levels in order to fake it, and so couldn't just tear them to pieces, Keeper had given up on the storage crates for now. In lieu of that, Carlos had volunteered to play aerial recon for the girl, helping her locate smaller, more easily removed debris. That had eventually led them to the shoreline, where there was a plethora of storm-washed junk, including the long-shattered hull of an old dinghy, which her imps were now gleefully tearing apart the last of with their bizarrely effective tools.
"Why are you being so nice about all this?" Keeper asked him out of the blue.
Carlos noticed she'd drawn in on herself slightly again, clutching her staff and hunching her shoulders a bit. He didn't think she was even aware she was doing it every time she took initiative in the conversation.
"I mean, I get that testing powers in the Graveyard is practically a local tradition according to PHO," she continued, "and honestly I wouldn't be shocked to hear someone already recorded us and posted it. But… you're a Ward! There have to be rules about this sort of thing, right? Won't you get in trouble?"
Seeing that the imps had finished breaking up the last piece of siding, Carlos grabbed hold of what had probably once been part of the wreck's aluminum mast, and hauled it and a series of attached cables free of the sand, dropping it in front of the imps, who got to work with apparent glee. The creatures' eerie, unblinking grins unnerved him slightly, but by now he was getting used to it.
"Why would I get in trouble?" he asked as he stepped back, dusting his hands a little to clear the sand off them. He indicated with his head that the girl should follow, and together they walked a bit further down the shore towards the next bit of junk.
"Aren't we, you know, committing trespassing and vandalism?" she asked him with a certain degree of hesitation, before visibly rallying herself. Carlos idly thought that maybe she wasn't quite as unaware of herself as he'd previously thought.
"I know the PRT tends to look the other way and all when it comes to independents," she continued, "but I can't imagine they don't hold you to a higher standard, right? They can't possibly be happy about you wandering the city helping some nobody break stuff."
He chuckled lightly. "Eh, you're only partly right. It's true that we do get held to a higher standard. When you're in the spotlight all the time, the public has a tendency to tear you apart for any little misstep. But here's the thing: nobody cares about all the abandoned junk out here. As far as the average citizen is concerned, removing a couple of rusting crates or cleaning up old sailboats counts as a public service. Even more importantly though… that same neglect is what actually makes it perfectly legal. More or less."
Keeper's eyes drew together in confusion. "More or less?" she asked.
Carlos wobbled a hand from side to side. "Well, there's some nuance here and I'm no legal expert, but it goes something like this…. When a company goes under, they file for bankruptcy, right? They have to pay off creditors, deal with their investors, all that stuff. Otherwise they'll go to jail. So first thing they do is try and sell off any products they possibly can. Usually that involves holding clearance sales or making deals with other companies to shift stockpiles and whatnot. With me so far?"
"Sure," she replied.
"Well, after they've sold everything they can through normal means, there's usually stuff left over. Sometimes it might be hardware that they aren't legally allowed to sell, clearance items nobody wanted, whatever. There's all sorts of things. That stuff then gets turned over to a court-appointed individual, who holds a big auction to get rid of anything they possibly can, and the proceeds go to paying off any remaining debts and costs before being given back to the original owner."
"Of course, sometimes that's not always possible, right?" he continued. "The graveyard's a perfect example: when most of the shipping companies went belly-up after the riots, there simply wasn't any way to actually remove a lot of the junk. So it was just… left behind. It's not like anyone is going to buy a bunch of unmovable shipping crates full of god knows what rusting junk at auction, you know?"
"Color me shocked." Keeper said in a deadpan voice, but with something of a wry grin on her face.
Carlos smiled. "Exactly. So what normally happens in the case of property or land that doesn't sell at auction, ownership simply defaults to the city, who then will later attempt to bundle it into various deals to try and stimulate investment. But in this case…"
"The same problem still applies, I guess?"
"Bingo," he said, making a vague finger-gun gesture. "The cost of cleaning up the place is staggeringly high, and that scares off investors. In order to even begin clearing the crap out, by now you'd realistically need to simply bulldoze the whole area, pay a lot of money to clear away the trash, and then build back up from scratch. On top of it all you've still got the Graveyard itself blocking much of the harbor, the Trainyard essentially inactive, the massive gang activity in the city, a globally faltering economy…. It's just too much of an investment risk. Even when whole lots are available for a pittance, people just don't have the resources or inclination to try."
Keeper snickered to herself slightly. "I wonder if the city would sell me a few buildings if I promised to use my imps to clean them up?"
Carlos grinned for a moment as the sounds of metal on metal died away behind them. He wouldn't have guessed that talking about legal code of all things would get her to open up a little more. Yet she seemed genuinely interested in the answers, and while she didn't seem to know the history, she definitely understood the implications.
"They actually might at that," he said with a laugh, "if you could convince them you were serious. Though I don't know why you'd want to, and you actually wouldn't need to. I'll get to that in a bit. Anyway, as I was saying, most abandoned structures in the city are in a kind of legal limbo. They're technically owned by the city, but they haven't done so much as send a single worker out for maintenance in years. That in turn means, legally speaking, anyone can make a very real claim for official abandonment. Which is… problematic, really, because when it comes to real estate, abandoned land reverts to control of the city."
"Wait," Keeper laughed, looking somewhat shocked, "so the city is legally considered to have abandoned the land, but because the land is abandoned it legally belongs to the city?"
"Basically. Hence the legal limbo. Essentially, if the city were to press some kind of claim or arrest someone on trespassing charges, it would come down to a question of whether automatic possession trumped official abandonment, and for that, we do have legal precedent."
"Really?"
Carlos nodded. "Yep. Sometime in… oh, the late nineties, I think, some idiot in City Hall thought they could get a maybe handle on the rising number of supervillains in the city by cracking down on the exact thing we're doing right now. It completely blew up in their faces when some well-liked independents got caught up in it as well as the villains, and it all went to court in a series of relatively high-profile cases."
"I'm guessing the city lost?" Keeper asked him.
"They did, and hard. The courts ruled that due to the sheer neglect and inaction on the city's part, the properties in question had clearly been abandoned, and that if City Hall wanted to claim otherwise then they would in turn have to clean them up or be liable for all sorts of safety violations. They chose to accept the loss rather than risk being forced to pay out even more money, and haven't tried again since."
Keeper laughed. "Figures."
"But wait, there's more!" Carlos said cheerfully in a falsetto as they stopped briefly in front of a large wooden beam that was half-buried in the sand. Since the sound of the imps' picks on metal had long stopped, he crouched and dug his hands underneath it, before heaving it free.
"That's all just regarding trespassing. On the vandalism side, it's actually far simpler. In short, when it comes to clearly abandoned objects, they're free for the taking if anyone wants to stake a claim as long as the original owner doesn't lodge a protest. You could literally go around and slap 'Owned By Keeper' stickers on every shipping crate in about a mile of our current location and the city couldn't complain whatsoever. Mind you, you'd probably face some fines for some kind of violation if you didn't clean them up right away, but that's exactly what you're doing, so…"
Keeper smiled a bit to herself. "So it really is fine?"
"Yep. For that matter, you said your power involves staking a claim on a building or something, right? That is definitely legal."
Carlos hummed to himself for a moment as they stood in front of the debris, his bobbing his head from side to side, trying to remember the specifics of the relevant statute. After a moment, he continued while they waited for the imps to catch up.
"Well, OK, that's not quite accurate; it's better to say it's not illegal. Back in the late eighties, when the whole superhero thing was really taking off and the government was struggling against the villains, all sorts of laws to accommodate heroes were passed to try and stem the tide of problems. One of those involves… oh, call it turning a blind eye to heroes making use of land that isn't strictly theirs. There's some rules about it, but back before the Protectorate was formed in the early nineties, unless you were a high profile team letting the villains know where your hideout or workshop lay was tantamount to suicide."
"Still can be, really," He finished sadly.
Keeper was oddly silent as Carlos paused in his explanation. He glanced at her, and saw that she was staring vaguely off into the bay, her fists clenched. Suddenly concerned, he opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, when something else that had been nagging the back of his mind suddenly clicked, and he looked all around.
"Uhhhh, Keeper?" he asked slowly.
The girl started, clearly having been thinking of something else, and looked at him.
Yay, this is not dead!
Also, nay this was short!
but, yay because seems like Taylor might just stake claim to the boat graveyard?
if not that another abandoned building?
Also, boo for cutting off before the imp shenanigans.
Did Taylor planned to walk across town with her Imps in tow? They wouldn't carry that much to make it worthwhile, she can't summon more than three (or if she can, at least she don't know she can make more than three). Unless they automatically teleport to base to stash resources. Or they can start claiming something that isn't connected to Dungeon Heart.
Wouldn't she end up in trouble for creating gold by the way?
Keeper just shrugged at him indifferently. "Don't look at me. My power is weird like that. It turned some shards of stained glass into gold coins, so I have no idea."
<Wince.> Oh Taylor, you should never admit it to anyone. Let's hope Aegis doesn't report this part, but this one looks reasonably intelligent, so it shouldn't be an issue. Hopefully.
But if any serious government representative heard this, I suspect even more drastic measures would be applied to you.
Why? Thing is that gold is very important for the world economy. Many countries keep lots of gold for their reserves.
Here is an example. I suspect on Earth-Bet those numbers are worse (serious world economy issues), but in case of US it may be around 8,133 tons.
So if you are someone, who can produce gold almost ex nihilo, then overall value of gold will drop like a sack of bricks if you will produce it enough. In some regions, especially poor ones (which I suspect Brockton Bay easily qualify to) even kilograms may shatter economy, especially if many people keep gold as their main source of wealth. And it may be the case, as gold in most situations is a pretty solid money investment.
So the more gold you produce and release it around, the value of it will keep dropping and it may reach critical lower number. So Uncle Sam wouldn't be happy if all those tons at one point would become worthless.
Oh well, better be safe then sorry. I guess Taylor will only produce smaller amount of that gold and not release lots of it, if at all, outside of her territory.
<Wince.> Oh Taylor, you should never admit it to anyone. Let's hope Aegis doesn't report this part, but this one looks reasonably intelligent, so it shouldn't be an issue. Hopefully.
But if any serious government representative heard this, I suspect even more drastic measures would be applied to you.
Why? Thing is that gold is very important for the world economy. Many countries keep lots of gold for their reserves.
Here is an example. I suspect on Earth-Bet those numbers are worse (serious world economy issues), but in case of US it may be around 8,133 tons.
So if you are someone, who can produce gold almost ex nihilo, then overall value of gold will drop like a sack of bricks if you will produce it enough. In some regions, especially poor ones (which I suspect Brockton Bay easily qualify to) even kilograms may shatter economy, especially if many people keep gold as their main source of wealth. And it may be the case, as gold in most situations is a pretty solid money investment.
So the more gold you produce and release it around, the value of it will keep dropping and it may reach critical lower number. So Uncle Sam wouldn't be happy if all those tons at one point would become worthless.
Oh well, better be safe then sorry. I guess Taylor will only produce smaller amount of that gold and not release lots of it, if at all, outside of her territory.
Ah yeah, this is is the case here. Never mind then x_X. But it's better to be careful anyway, pretty sure some people would like to gain access to a cape even more which can produce gold on demand and all.
So if you are someone, who can produce gold almost ex nihilo, then overall value of gold will drop like a sack of bricks if you will produce it enough.
There's actually a pretty simple answer to this, if you think about it, though it hasn't strictly come up yet. Will pretty soon though. The hint is already in there back in Chapter 1.
