That been answered by QM already, but to make my point more clear:
Yes. That what I said. Since non-alive, and even non-biological, things might be considered as creatures (like golems, for example), so biological, and even alive, not-creatures, likely, might be considered as a traps, treasures and so on. Everything depends from the criteria Taylor's power uses to "label" things.
Actually, @Klendatu is correct here. They would be considered traps, if we're talking about stationary systems. There are stationary biological systems in Dungeons 2 & 3 that are built via the traps system.
Just off the top of my head:
The Spider Den is the D2 Demon faction trap-making room in general. It's dominated by a giant slug-thing which is 'worked' by spider-demons to produce Spider Eggs, which function as that factions version of Parts.
Tentacle Door (There are several versions, one even retaliates when attacked)
Giant Tentacle (freestanding 'turret')
Improved Giant Tentacle (upgraded version w/ spikes)
Spider Eggs (hatch into multiple spiderlings)
Tamed Spider Den (creates 3 spiders when enemies approach. Upgraded version makes bigger spiders w/ 2x damage)
Slimy Eggs (acts like a glue trap, popping when an enemy steps up to it)
Sticky Spider's Web — Basically an alternate tar trap, slows enemies.
Skeletal Fist — Skeleton arm turret, basically undead version of the tentacle.
Ressurection Trap — the name is kind of a misnomer, as it spawns a skeleton, and has a side effect of animating nearby corpses as skeletons as well.
Might be a few others. But those are the ones that immediately jumped out at me from my half-finished Defenses Codex. Which is actually more like 3/4ths finished, now that I'm looking. I'd actually just go finish that up literally right now (really, all it needs is cleanup and putting WFTO descriptions in, the lists are done apparently), but I'm sure people would prefer I spend my time getting the next chapter finished
That's a fair point, I was thinking more about the 'micro-parasites' that Wildbow's WoG states Nilbog has as a countermeasure for getting nuked, but if they're stored in 'pods' or something then that would count as a trap.
That's a fair point, I was thinking more about the 'micro-parasites' that Wildbow's WoG states Nilbog has as a countermeasure for getting nuked, but if they're stored in 'pods' or something then that would count as a trap.
Even if they're part of individual creatures, it's possible Taylor's control might register them that way if they don't maneuver outside fixed areas of the town.
Finally, some good news -- A wild chapter appears!
It's also like twice the length as usual., coming in at 9k. I'd hoped to hit 10, but eh. Cutoffs happen when they happen, and I don't like forcing them. Still, it basically means you're getting a double chapter this time around, which hopefully makes up for me taking so long. And, ofc, you finally get to see Taylor finishing up her new dungeon's initial design plans.
Maps will be getting updated shortly, as well as her current research / known powers lists too. For those who haven't seen in other comments, 'Maps & Minions' will be its own Informational series, with chapter-based updates, while the research/powers will just get that post updated each time a chapter is posted, so beware spoilers there. Or don't, if you don't care about them.
Fun fact: turns out New Hampshire (where I always assume Brockton Bay is located) is one of only five states that doesn't have any specific exceptions to drinking age laws. Not even for religious services, which surprised me. I've chosen to ignore that here, as it made for an amusing minor plot point and a tiny bit of character development. Also, an assumption that drinking (and sale of) laws are looser on Earth Bet will help Taylor out down the line if she wants to be selling alcohol at her tavern. (B/c I'd be surprised if a minor could normally get a license for that.)
Conversely, something like ~40 states have various laws that range from the specific to the general that mean it is legal to allow minors to drink at home with their parents. Some even allow for supervised drinking when eating out. I apparently live in one of the ones that has laws much looser than most, and had had no idea that the exceptions differed so widely across different states when the baseline drinking age law is a federal-level one.
Regardless, whichever ones you have where you live, remember: Don't be like Taylor here. Drink responsibly.
So, Taylor needs names for her dungeons. Normally I'm pretty good with names, but I'm just pulling fantasy-sounding ones out of nowhere for a story or D&D game. I'm a lot worse with other genres for whatever reason. Probably because for the former its easy enough to just string several nice-sounding syllables together and call it a day, whereas if you want something like say, an OC cape name you have a lot more constraints. Or in this case, if you need a name for a location that's somehow reflective of what/where it is, and one that's preferably neither overly long to speak, overly dramatic (its her house after all), and not lazy af (like just 'Arcane Dungeon').
Anyway, I'm open to suggestions for namelists, if anyone has a suggestion. As when I've done this in the past, tossing out a whole bunch of suggestions makes it more likely to either spark an idea of my own, or picking one of yours
When Taylor awoke in her bed the following morning, she did so with a deep ache in her muscles and a raging headache. Cracking open one eye, she winced as the bit of sunlight peeking through the curtains of her window stabbed into her brain like a pair of knives.
What had...?
Oh.
Right.
Almaric had told her she could bring her mother back.
Taylor groaned and pulled her pillow over her face, both for the sweet relief of darkness and in sheer embarrassment over her half-remembered behavior of the previous evening. Her memory was more than a bit foggy, but she nevertheless had vague recollections of a seriously concerned Almaric carrying her back to the house and her father. When she'd came to from her faint, there had been a lot of crying and babbling wildly at her father, which had been followed by more crying and a lot of shouting from both of them in varying amounts. That, in turn, had been followed by a lot of drinking.
Which was where the headache had come from, obviously. How on earth things had gotten to the point of her dad pouring both of them shots of something, Taylor couldn't remember, but if this was what a hangover felt like, she was prepared to swear the stuff off entirely for life now that she'd experienced one. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls, and her breath stank like... like something that really stank.
Her head hurt too much to find a proper metaphor.
She groaned again, soundly cursing the general ancestry of any and all purveyors of distilled spirits, which of course brought her right back around to the thinking about actual spirits, namely restoring her mother's to life. Which, frankly, as far as she was concerned, was worth any cost, no matter what her dad thought. And Taylor really did mean any.
That had been partly what the 'argument' last night had been about. She, of course, had been all for just haring off and putting everything towards bringing her mom back as soon as possible, consequences be damned. Her dad, meanwhile, had at least tried to keep a level head about him, despite looking like she'd handed him an emotional punch in the gut. Which in all fairness she probably had. He'd insisted she hold off and proceed carefully thanks to the sheer amount of attention she'd be getting should it come out, which it almost certainly would without PRT intervention.
She hadn't taken it well, and probably owed him an apology now. Especially given she'd promised to at least consider his input before making big decisions. Which she hadn't done. And, well... said apology wasn't going to happen while she was hiding under her pillow, refusing to face the hated sky-orb.
With yet another groan as the elephants in her brain made their displeasure known, Taylor pried herself out of bed, staggered into the bathroom, took an aspirin from the medicine cabinet, and gritted her way through her morning routine. None of it really helped, and it wasn't until she was halfway through cooking breakfast that it occurred to her to try using a heal spell on herself.
The abrupt cessation of the vast majority of Taylor's aches and pains, most especially the pounding in her skull, left her almost dizzy with relief.
No, wait... that was probably the dehydration. Which apparently her spell couldn't fix. Well, at least she had an easy means to apologize to her dad with: breakfast and a hangover cure.
She'd have to leave him a note, though, Taylor supposed. She could just go heal him right now, but he was still asleep and when she'd been at the PRT building they'd given her something of a lecture about getting permission first when at all possible before healing people, something she hadn't done with the gang members. She also didn't want to wake him, given how late it had been when they'd finally gone to bed, but neither did she want to wait around for him to get up; there was too much to do, and she hadn't even finished last night before getting sidetracked.
On that note, Taylor once again found herself mulling over her newest acquisitions while she sat down to eat. Her minions had, of course, finished the Prison, Tar Trap, and Bombard the previous night. Nor had they been idle since, as she now appeared to have acquired an additional four new entries in her mental catalogue.
Of course, the first one in the list just had to be something that immediately reminded Taylor of what she'd just experienced over the past half hour, as her goblins had apparently put together some design schematics for an extra-large set of brewing equipment that covered both boilers and distilleries, which would make it trivial to set up a full Brewery that would improve the lives of her orcs, trolls, goblins, and other assorted humanoids.
Almaric, meanwhile, had clearly taken her questions about moving her research base over to her Arcane Dungeon to heart, as she also now had access to the Transfer Creature spell they'd discussed.
It was her nagas' work though that really excited Taylor. Among other things, she'd asked them to prioritize spells to defend against gunfire and at least one form of teleportation, and they'd clearly decided to reach for the sky.
The first spell they'd researched was called 'Rebound'. Unlike Armour, which formed a tough yet ultimately penetrable forcefield that acted as a general boost to durability, Rebound protected the caster from projectiles by encasing them in a short-lived energy field that caused any airborne object moving beyond a certain speed to reverse direction entirely, sending it straight back where it came from. It wasn't terribly picky about what constituted 'an object', or even 'beyond a certain speed', either, being capable of returning even slow-moving objects like thrown knives and grenades, and even a handful of forms of directed energy attacks like blasts of fire.
As great as Rebound was, though —and Taylor was absolutely thrilled by it— it was Taylor's fourth and final new power that she was truly excited about. In fact, the moment she realized what it was, rather than dwell upon it further she quickly polished off the last bites of her breakfast, stuck the remainder of the pancake mix into the fridge, scribbled the quick note to her dad just in case, and then finally made her way into the basement. There, she hastily donned her 'costume' and consulted her mental catalogue.
With a specific twist of her mana, Taylor reached out with both claws, curling them as if to dig them into something standing in front of her. With a strangely muted sound of thunder, the red and black glow of her magic split the air in front of her. Then Taylor pulled, pouring in a trickle of her mana while slowly widening the crack, until with a sudden jerk reality tore and snapped into the shape of an ovular vortex of swirling, chaotic energies.
Her power had informed her that the spell itself was called 'Demon Portal', and it was one of the most common spells available to a Keeper who had a need to regularly travel the surface world. With it, she could create a portal between one of her core chambers and any point on the surface world within several miles of said core — provided she could see the surface destination, with or without her powers.
Meaning, since her whole house, basement included, counted as being 'on the surface' and she could see both it and any other dungeon she'd made via her powers, Taylor now had a way to move secretly and instantaneously between her home and any dungeon she made. Provided, of course, she was careful enough to place them within range of one another.
The rift itself was unstable, admittedly, as it could be disrupted by a sufficiently determined assailant, and she could only maintain one at a time. Still though, unless it was disrupted, it was more or less permanent and didn't require any mana upkeep from her, only a relatively minor upfront cost to open the portal. Even better, she had a vague impression that it possessed a kind of in-built IFF, meaning that her minions and anyone who had specific permission from her could use it, but those who were hostile to her couldn't.
Right now, Taylor had a particular use for the spell in mind. Yesterday, she'd held off on going back and building an emergency Prison just in case any gang members showed up, largely because she hadn't had a way to get there after the buses had shut down for the evening. That was quite obviously no longer an issue, which meant not only could she quickly assemble a temporary prison, but she could also complete her tear-down of the current archive and still probably be back before her father awoke.
Taylor quickly panned her awareness down into the depths of her dungeon, snatched up Almaric, and deposited the warlock next to her.
"Mistress?" he inquired with a slight bow.
Taylor addressed him formally. "Almaric. Do you recall my previous orders for when the new archive was completed?"
"Of course, Mistress. You wished for me to organize the transfer of your collected knowledge to this location, where it shall be bound for safekeeping."
"Good. Slight change of plans. I would like you to begin doing so now while I dismantle the old archive and complete the construction of the new one. You may then bind the scrolls as soon as space is available."
"At once, Mistress." Having clearly been dismissed, the warlock bowed and immediately stepped into the Demon Portal without hesitation.
That's... interesting, Taylor noted. He didn't even need to be told where it went.
Was that a sign that he had just assumed, or was it yet another sign that her minions shared at least some of her awareness of what went on within the confines of the dungeon? Something to be investigated, perhaps. But later.
Taylor stepped through the portal herself. As with the transfer between her basement and the dungeon below it, she felt no sensation of movement; she was simply at home one second and stepping out from the other side of the Demon Portal and into the church's ex-bathroom the next, almost as if she'd passed through little more than a curtain. She couldn't decide if that was disorienting or not.
Your creatures need a bigger lair.
Hmm. There was not a whole lot of space in here. Note to self, Taylor thought, make sure my core rooms have sufficient room for a gateway. She'd need to move this one again soon. But that would be something for later.
In order to give Almaric some time to round up her scrolls and researchers, Taylor decided to take care of the prison first. It was, after all, rather vitally important that she minimize the possibility of casualties. She should also make sure she had some spare imps lying around, so that the fallen could be taken to it or to one the lairs.
Exiting the bathroom, Taylor proceeded to the end of the hall and entered the room that had once been a kitchen, and was still set up as a temporary office. With a wave of her hands she deconstructed the table and chairs. Then, following the blueprint in her mind, she carved out a significant portion of the floor in the center of the room, creating a balconied pit a few feet deep. This process gained her a degree of stone, and with a little extra from her reserves she laid down grey slate flooring across both the balcony and pit. A little more stone, and several square braziers rose from the floor of pit near the corners, which spontaneously alighted with an blue flame.
Next Taylor drew upon her metal reserves, and cruel, barbed-metal fencing sprouted from the edges of the pit, reaching upwards until the bars towered overhead, where they ended in steel hooks. With a rattle, chains formed, snaking their way through the air to wrap and bind those portions of the fence that could be opened. Additional chains grew from metal sockets in the walls of the pit, ones ending in intimidatingly heavy-looking manacles.
Her power seemed to nudge her slightly, as if things were yet incomplete, so with a slight expenditure of gold Taylor conjured up a handful of grey-furred rats to take shape in the pit as well, along with the occasional inanimate skeleton trapped forlornly amidst the chains just for effect.
There. Now it was complete.
Taylor gazed over her prison and shivered slightly. The pale blue lighting from the braziers gave the place a particular air of... hopelessness, of despair, really. The kind of place that whispered 'what if they really did just throw away the key?' and made you feel that you would be wasting away here for a long, long time.
Which... could actually happen, now that Taylor thought about it. She could see two levers in this room, ones she didn't think she had consciously placed, but somehow knew were supposed to be there. The first one she'd expected: pulling it would disable the dungeon's shaker effect that prevented enemy deaths, effectively turning off the prison's primary function while leaving any current prisoners trapped within it.
The second lever though, Taylor immediately strode to and pulled, as it seemed that Almaric had neglected to mention a second function of the prison: While the lever was set to active, those trapped within would be subjected to a steady stream of necrotizing energy that would cause them to slowly wither away until they died, at which time their corpses would be revived as skeletal archers.
She would summon her own skeletons, thank you very much. She refused to murder people to bulk out her forces.
Finished with the prison for the time being, Taylor began making her way towards the her next task: disassembling the Archive. While she didn't have to be physically present to do so, merely within the dungeon, she decided that she'd give it a bit of a tour in person anyhow. As she'd seen previously with the Merchants, just relying on her parahuman senses could lead to... oversights.
Along the way she encountered a number of her minions going about their tasks, each one bowing to her in turn as she passed. The first among these were her nagas, whom she encountered before she'd even finished making her way back around the edge of the prison; they were obviously on their way to the Demon Portal. Taylor also encountered one of her original skargs, which appeared to have taken upon itself to patrol the halls of the rectory.
She moved out into the church proper, where she was met by the sight of all six training dummies in full use, each one clanking and rattling with every swing of her gnarlings' swords. The sheer noise level caused Taylor to wince slightly; clearly, if Uber and Leet hadn't already given the location of her base away, this likely would have. Certainly her oculi seemed to dislike the noise, as a quick glance revealed them hanging about up near the rafters, in the general vicinity of the choir loft.
The 'tavern', such as it was, appeared to have been well-stocked by a rather large number of imps who seemed to be just running around aimlessly gabbling at one another. Belatedly, Taylor recalled that she hadn't yet unsummoned the ones she'd called into existence in order to dismantle Squealer's truck, and took a moment to pare their numbers down to a mere half dozen.
Then she made her way down the length of the church, grimacing in disgust as she passed a pair of skargs who were messily devouring a number of micropiglets. A quick check of the gas traps showed them thankfully undisturbed, after which she took the stairs and finally reached her destination.
Taylor paused as she stepped through the entryway and out into the loft, wondering briefly what her mother would have to say about the fact that she was, in a kind of bizarre, technical sense, about to unmake an entire library's worth of knowledge. OK, fine... it wasn't a real library, per se, it was just her power's weird representation of one, but still... to the denizens of her dungeon, at least, it was close enough.
The idea made her vaguely uncomfortable for some reason.
Not that I'll let that stop me, she thought, forcing the feeling down. After all, it isn't like I won't be remaking it in a few minutes. With a wave of her hand, the room unraveled into smoke just as the other rooms had when she'd wiped the church clean the previous time, causing the refunded pile of stacked wood and gold to appear in her Stockpile.
After scooping the wood up and depositing it back home Taylor made her way back downstairs, where she was immediately confronted with an abrupt problem: the two skargs she'd passed had finished their... repast, but were now snarling and posturing aggressively at each other, looking for all the world like they were gearing up for a fight.
One of your creatures is growing angry!
"Stop!" Taylor immediately commanded before any sort of scuffle could break out. Thankfully, this immediately caused both creatures to subside, although Taylor could sense they were extremely unhappy about it. This in turn was extremely concerning for Taylor, given the conversation she had previously with her father.
But only for a brief moment, as actually looking at them with more than a passing glance immediately diagnosed the problem, causing Taylor to sigh.
Hand, meet face.
The 'problem' so to speak was a simple one, one she'd even already known about. It was just that yesterday she'd been under such a mix of excitement and emotional exhaustion that she had neither the time nor inclination to really check up on things, and as a result had almost made a rather critical mistake:
She had too many beasts.
Or, better to say that she hadn't constructed enough Beast Den space for them. Just because they could all fit in one room at the same time didn't mean they wanted to sleep in seriously cramped quarters with each other, and as a result it looked like three of current count of nine beasts had been, well, edged out of enough room to make nests for themselves.
Judging by the by the four disgustingly meaty-looking crystal formations and the two that looked like hollowed-out wasps' nests, these two of her skargs and one of her oculi hadn't slept at all since she'd summoned them late yesterday morning, and they were getting seriously cranky due to lack of sleep.
Sighing and muttering to herself, Taylor grumbled a bit about wasting wood, before deciding to sell off a few of the tavern tables; she didn't exactly have a lot of need for a large space, especially as she would be moving a good half of her humanoid minions to the new base. That wood was immediately repurposed in laying down a bit of dirt flooring up in the now-empty choir loft. Then, just for good measure to make sure it was taken care of immediately, Taylor dropped her oculi into the den directly and ordered them to make their nests there, followed by doing the same with her skargs, only in the rectory.
Almost immediately the two skargs were curled up around their odd-looking crystal, snoozing away. The oculus, meanwhile, meandered over towards the animal pen as soon as it had carried out her orders, no doubt intent on a meal before it too went to sleep.
Taylor blew out a somewhat exasperated sigh, and took a few moments to carefully sweep her attention over the dungeon, checking for any other potential problems she might've missed.
Fortunately, there didn't seem to be any. Probably would have been soon, as she was bumping right up close to the limit of the lair space for her goblins, gnarlings, and spellcasters, but since she'd already split her forces that wouldn't be an issue any longer. In fact, as soon as she actually had some additional wood to spend, Taylor thought she might expand the training area a little bit and summon some new orcs, seeing as how they'd all died in the fight. Or maybe she'd spring for something new. She still had a few options she hadn't tried out yet, after all.
Regardless, there didn't seem to be any current issues, so Taylor deposited the remainder of the wood into her arcane dungeon. She also briefly considered taking the crates of trap parts before deciding not to; after all, she didn't really need them for home as she was bringing her goblins with her, and they'd keep as backups for rebuilding the existing gas traps if anyone set them off.
Although.... she did have a prison now. So why not? She'd be wanting a goblin or two to remain here anyway, right?
Grinning evilly to herself, Taylor spent the toolboxes her goblins had accumulated overnight. Alongside a bit of metal and gold, this let her lay down a spread of six blade lotuses behind the existing gas traps, which would hopefully mean that at least for now, anyone trying to force their way in would have to stand in the gas while they tried to smash their way past the blade lotus' walls.
Then she finally made her way back home, ready to begin phase two of the day's activities. Or at least the first part of it, until she had the chance to stop by a grocery store or something.
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Setting up the rest of the Archive in her arcane dungeon —which really needed its own name, Taylor once again reflected— was a relatively trivial task. More shelving, more books, additional workstations, creepy accoutrements... all things she'd done before, though this time she ended up spending a little less wood and a little more stone, as her power seemed to approve of working the existing granite and obsidian walls and flooring into the overall design. Still, it took Taylor very little time at all, and shortly she found herself at a loose end before remembering that she needed to re-bind her researchers to their new home.
After consulting a bit with Almaric, this turned out to be a fairly trivial process; all Taylor really needed to do was stand in front of her core, place her hand on the minion to be bound, and invoke Transfer Creature. A brief but simple lightshow followed, along with said minion's mana levels dropping to empty, presumably due to losing access to the previous core. Not that any of them openly complained to Taylor, or that she had any real way of measuring such things; it was just that having experienced that fatigue and headache herself she recognized the general signs. Her nagas in particular looked a little unsteady as they slithered away to sleep things off for a bit.
... And speaking of sleeping things off, it would appear her father was finally stirring.
Time to go face the music.
Taylor grumbled to herself a bit, emotionally dragging her feet, but she did head upstairs to dig out the pitcher of pancake mix she'd stuck into the fridge, open a new package of bacon, and get started prepping a small breakfast. After maybe about fifteen minutes, her father made his way into the kitchen, looking more than a little under the weather.
He staggered his way over to the fridge, but halfway there he seemed to notice the plate of food already sitting on the table, waiting for him. It took him a moment or two further to realize that Taylor herself was also in the room.
An expression of terrible guilt flashed across his face, but Taylor just patted him on the shoulder and gently pushed him into a chair. He opened his mouth to speak, but she shushed him with a finger as she pushed a mug of coffee into his hands.
"Hush. Let me talk."
Taylor took a seat across the table from him and took a steadying breath to squash down her nerves. This kind of being upfront with people hadn't come naturally to her for years, and this was one time that taking refuge in the confidence her powers gave her wasn't the answer. It was... hard wasn't the right word, things had been better between them, but she still struggled with opening up for a few moments. But in the end, she managed to get her voice working.
"I'm sorry for how I acted last night," she told him, her eyes dropping to her hands in her lap. "I... don't actually remember most of it, but I remember enough to know to know that I was being reckless and unreasonable, and that you were right to tell me to proceed carefully."
"Taylor, I—"
"No, Dad, it's my turn to apologize," she insisted, shaking her head. "I was in the wrong. I realize that now. I was... I got too caught up in what I could do, and didn't stop to think about how I should do it, or what the consequences could really be."
She sighed unhappily. "For years I... I've missed Mom so much. Had both dreams and nightmares about getting her back. When you told me I needed to be careful it sounded like you were telling me to not bring Mom back, and..."
"Taylor, I would never..."
"I know that now," she interrupted him, then repeated her statement in a smaller, less forceful tone. "I know that now. What you were actually trying to tell me, now that I've had some time to clear my head. And... you're right. Bringing people back from the dead, assuming it's really them, is... huge. Massively, unbelievably huge. Potentially even 'Completely changes the balance of power' huge."
Taylor leaned back in her chair a bit, her eyes gaze drifting towards the ceiling. "The thing is... well... in the cape community there are just certain kinds of powers that make the gloves come off immediately," she explained.
"We covered it a bit about it in Mr. Gladly's class last semester, actually, like what happened with the Faerie Queen. Whole teams of capes panicked and went after her in droves the very second people found out about her power, even though up until that point she had been a pretty small-time villain. Suddenly having hordes of capes chasing her resulted in her being forced to kill more and more of them just to survive. They escalated against her, which created a huge body count and made her more powerful than ever. Just because the heroes couldn't leave well enough alone."
Taylor's voice caught a little as she continued to stare at her lap. "I can't... I don't... There are just so manyways that things could go wrong like that for me. I'm already walking on thin ice with the PRT, even if they don't know it, just for having some of those panic-inducing abilities. Even ignoring those entirely, my powers are of enormous value to any team or government in the world, and me being able to resurrect people increases that by several orders of magnitude."
"I'm already worried enough about the PRT deciding that rather than support me they'd prefer to stick me in a gilded cage somewhere to churn out goodies for them. Even if they've been a lot nicer than I expected. But now? Now I'm afraid that if I just went and just brought Mom back without a plan, they could find out and arresther, by claiming they thought she was some kind of Stranger, or maybe even just 'confiscate' her because she's the product of a parahuman power and has no rights, or whatever, and basically hold her hostage until I did what they wanted."
She took a sharp breath, held it for minute, and then let it out slowly. "That's not to say I'm going to let paranoia stop me. I will bring Mom back, period. But... I need to be smart about it. I mean, I know that at a minimum I guess we could all just live in one of my dungeons and I could leave Reskin running forever, and both you and Mom could just disappear into the woodwork. That's not very optimal though."
Her dad chuckled. "It would make hiring people for the DWU a bit difficult."
Taylor gave him a small, awkward smile.
"A-anyway," she said after a moment. "So, um, yeah. I'm sorry for yelling. Especially after I promised I'd listen to your input before making major decisions. Not to mention I kind of didn't do that already by going ahead with signing the registration paperwork, even if we had already talked it over some."
Her dad rubbed his temples slightly with a wince. "Well... apology accepted. And I'm sorry too, for letting things get away from us. Even under the circumstances it was irresponsible of me to be letting you have that much to drink. Frankly I'm surprised you're holding up as well as you are. Does being transformed help with that or something?"
"I'm what?" Taylor looked down at herself, actually noticing the color of her skin and the presence of her claws. "Oh shit! I forgot to change back!"
Her dad winced again. "Please don't raise your voice, dear."
"Sorry, sorry..." she said, much quieter. "No, I got some new spells and was getting some work done. I forgot to er... take off the costume, so to speak, when I came up to make you, um, apology breakfast."
Her dad took another sip of his coffee, and grimaced slightly. "Thanks for that, by the way, though I'm not sure my stomach is ready for something as heavy as pancakes."
Taylor gave him a cheeky grin. "Ah, but that's where you're wrong. I'd have fixed you up while you were still asleep, but the PRT was very firm in pointing out that outside law enforcement actions, if at all possible I have to ask first, period, so... how does Panacea always put it...?"
She conjured up a small, whirling ball of red smoke, holding the spell in her hand instead of simply releasing it.
"Do I have permission to heal you?"
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Two hours later found Taylor snickering silently to herself as yet another shopper rounded the corner only to do a massive double-take when they came face to face with a demon girl in casual clothes, pushing along two shopping carts absolutely filled to the brim with all manner of toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, plates, plastic cups, and anything else she could find that was made out of dirt-cheap paper or plastic.
The attention had been, well, kind of embarrassing at first, but there was no way she was going to risk going shopping for resources in her civilian ID, at least not in the quantities she wanted, and Brockton Bay didn't have much at all in the way of open woods what with its general proximity to both mountains and agricultural land to the west and north, and Boston to the south. As a result, after a bit of discussion with and extremely good suggestions from her dad, Taylor had ended up deciding that if she was going to constantly be in the public eye anyway, she might as well get used to the idea.
So she'd just hopped on a bus and gone on a general shopping trip, this time in her cape ID. Not in full costume, of course —she didn't want to alarm people by wearing her armor, so she was wearing just a t-shirt with an abstract red-and-black splash of color and some ordinary dark colored jeans— but she was sporting the slightly demonic features from the previous day.
The end result had rather surprised her, it being almost mundane.
She'd gotten some alarmed looks at first from various employees, but each time Taylor entered a business she just flashed her PRT-issued Cape ID at them, and they seemed to relax a little. Which amused her to no end, since she suspected that it was highly unlikely any of them had ever seen one before, and thus wouldn't have known a real one from a fake one. It wasn't like Brockton had a huge number of non-villains who might want to go shopping in-costume, after all. Take-out, maybe, sure, before or after a patrol, but groceries? Or gardeningequipment? No way.
Still, it seemed like the old adage served her well: just act like you're supposed to be there and know what you're doing, and most people will just assume it's true.
Taylor was on the last leg of her trip now, the last of three grocery stores where she was purchasing cheap paper and plastic goods to turn into more wood. At each one she'd wandered in, grabbed two large carts, and headed to the paper aisle and began loading up on everything she could. She wasn't a jerk about it either, so instead of just loading up entirely on every bit of toilet paper in the place to save money, she went for a very wide variety and made sure to leave plenty for everyone else.
She also found that each time she had to try very hard not to laugh at the look on the cashiers' faces when she finally pulled up to the register, though. Especially when she told each one not to worry about bagging anything, and instead ripped open a Demon Portal right there and told them to just chuck stuff right into it.
After she'd paid, she'd closed the open portal by the simple means of the trick she'd discovered earlier that morning: since she could only have one portal open at a time, casting her mind out to one dungeon and opening a new portal there caused the current one to close.
This time, however, instead of closing the portal and moving on to her next destination, she thanked the cashier and entered the portal before closing it, leaving her standing in a corner of the Core Chamber of her Arcane Dungeon, where her imps were already hard at work shoveling her purchases into their bags.
She briefly surveyed the results of her trip, and was pleased to note that her limited trip back to the gardening center, as well as the new one to a nearby junkyard, had pushed her stocks of both metal and stone up to the same levels of gold she'd gotten off Squealer's behemoth of a truck, and while it wasn't nearly as much, her treasure room also now contained multiple stacks of wood logs piled alongside the rest.
Time to get back to work. She made her way into the Archive, and called Almaric over to her.
"Yes, Mistress?" he asked with a slight bow.
Taylor noted with amusement that the warlock didn't seemed fazed whatsoever by her casual attire. "Almaric, you and the others are settling in well, I hope?"
"Of course, Mistress."
"Good. Before I give you your new instructions, I have a few questions. First, while I do appreciate you bringing me to my father last night, he would prefer my subjects not accidentally wander into the house. I happen to agree with him. While I have no concern that such an order wouldn't be followed, not all of my subjects are intelligent, and I would prefer to avoid accidents. Is there anything like Impasse that would allow me to designate an area as off-limits?"
Almaric thought for a moment. "I can't think of a spell like that offhand, Mistress, but if I might suggest an alternative?"
"You may."
"In lieu of a spell, a simple wooden door would suffice; the goblins you have living here should be able to construct one already. In addition to preventing your enemies from moving freely about a dungeon, your mastery of your domain should suffice to lock any door within it, which would prevent even your own allies and minions from passing through them, no matter where you are."
Taylor blinked slowly as that information processed.
"Sooo.. you're telling me that doors have, what? Special properties? Like enemies not being able to walk through them even when un-locked, if I understand that right?"
"Indeed, Mistress," Almaric replied with a tilting nod. "That it is the function of a basic wooden door, and there are a great many other types which would be researched, with time."
Taylor opened her mouth to ask him for some examples, but stopped herself at the last second, visibly changing her mind and holding up a finger instead.
"OK, wait, no. I'll ask about that later. One second."
A brief effort of will, and Taylor had queued up a wooden door, to be built just before the point where her impasse flag blocked the passageway.
"Alright, done." She said, dropping her hand. "Next order of business. That Spirit Chamber thing you told me about. That is now my number one priority. Or perhaps learning a resurrection spell myself. Are you capable of designing a plan to maximize how soon that can be researched?"
"I'm afraid not, Mistress," Almaric told her with an apologetic bow. "Such things are best left to the master of the domain."
Taylor scowled slightly, but wasn't terribly surprised. While her minions did seem to be capable of initiative, they were, well... followers, not leaders. Troops, rather than strategists or generals. And so on.
"Alright then," she stated. "Are there any general means to speed up research? Or any specialties that would specifically assist with researching either of those things?"
Almaric nodded. "For the first there are a few options. A Research Shrine is a small chamber of vast potency, one that only houses a single worker but greatly multiplies their efficiency. Constructing one would require you to begin harvesting crystallized mana, however, though that would be easy enough to access as you are already capable of constructing a Vortex."
A quick reference of her initial starter rooms showed that yes, she did have something called that. It was the demon version of 'sleeping chambers', as she thought of them: Lairs were for the humanoids, the Beast Den for beasts, the Graveyard for undead... and the Vortex for demons. She had a vague sense there were other, more specialized ones, but they were currently shrouded from her view.
....And now that she was once again paying attention in the first place, Taylor abruptly saw that said shroud or fog had been receding. She honestly hadn't noticed it before, but it was now quite clear to her that each incidence of learning a new schematic or spell had caused the occlusion of her catalogue to be pushed back further and further, so that she could see and understand more of her 'currently locked' options.
Some of the new ones were a bit... sketchy, to say the least. Like the spell called 'Obey', which would force a minion to both work harder and ignore its own needs for a period of time, even if doing so would cause it to collapse. Also the Sanctuary, a room which appeared to be dedicated to holding rituals of sacrifice to dark gods in exchange for power, or something.
Yeahhh.... Probably best to keep away from those two.
Other options weren't so bad. The Alchemy Lab sounded like it might have promise, allowing her to commission the creation of potions, both beneficial and offensive in nature. It also opened up two different new summons: A 'Bone Warrior', presumably some kind of better skeleton, and a 'Crackpot', which Taylor could only assume was some kind of mad scientist.
There were also two highly useful-sounding spells, both of which Taylor was sorely tempted to add to her queue: Shackle, and Prophecy.
Shackle was fairly straightforward, being kind of like a magical EMP that worked on just about any machine, whether mechanical or magical, and presumably electrical. It was dedicated to temporarily deactivating static defenses of all kinds, but Taylor's mind immediately jumped to the possibility of coming up with a variant that might work on weapons or armor, especially tinkertech, as well as maybe something like electronic door locks, elevators, etc.
Prophecy on the other hand was both straightforward and extremely useful given she already had Demon Portal. Despite the name, it wasn't actually a form of precognition at all. No, instead it was straight up area-based clairvoyance. With a middling expenditure of mana, she could focus her mind on an area of the city and view it for about ten to fifteen seconds as if she was using her dungeon-vision, which in turn should allow her to open a portal directly to there.
Nigh-instant teleportation to and from anywhere in the city? Yes please.
It was at this point that Almaric said something to her that Taylor missed entirely. Somewhat guiltily, she realized he'd been continuing on with his answer to her question, while she'd just inadvertently tuned him out to look at her catalogue.
"Apologies," she lied, not wanting to admit that she'd just let her mind wander. "I was looking elsewhere for a moment. Please repeat that, starting after your mention of building a Vortex to harvest... crystallized mana, you said?"
"Very well, Mistress," the warlock replied, bowing his head slightly. "As I was saying, a Research shrine would be an expensive if excellent investment, as it allows a single minion to research new abilities at near triple their normal speed — which includes any applicable specialties as well as the minion's own individual strengths and experience."
"Beyond that, as I mentioned previously there are a number of creatures I am aware of which are simply better at research than most others. Archons, for example, have an in-depth knowledge of, well, everything. Dark Angels are masters of spellcasting, as are Liches. All three of those however would take multiple steps to acquire."
"And specific specialists?" Taylor asked.
Almaric made a humming sound to himself. "Well... there are probably any number of specialties that could be applicable. Souls, Healing, Life, Renewal, Rebirth, Resurrection... perhaps Death or Blood Magic even, as necromancy in general is tangentially related."
Once again Taylor was treated to the rare sight of Almaric making a face of distaste, though this time it was less intense than the previous. "...Also Light or Holy Magic."
This time, Taylor raised an eyebrow at her minion. "Holy Magic?"
Looking somewhat unhappy, Almaric explained. "Unicorns. Fairies. A few others."
A rather stupefied look crossed Taylor's face. "I can recruit Unicorns?!" she asked him.
"Correct, Mistress."
"How does that even work?" she asked.
Almaric shrugged. "Even the most die-hard of heroes can become bitter and disillusioned at the pervasiveness of evil amongst men. Some are led to abandon their path, and instead become mercenaries."
"Yeah, but... Unicorn." Taylor protested. "They don't even have hands. How can they perform research? And aren't they like... purity personified or something like that?"
Almaric snorted. "Hardly. There are demonic versions too, and they are terrifying to behold. Or so I've heard." Then he tilted his head in consideration. "Nightmares are loosely related as well."
Taylor just sort of stood there processing that for a bit. After a minute or so, she shook herself, and refocused on the conversation.
"OK.... so assuming I actually wanted to summon a unicorn, how would I do that?"
"I am afraid I am unsure, Mistress," Almaric apologized. "You would be better off asking someone else with a more relevant set of knowledge."
"And how would I do that?"
Almaric thought for a moment or two more, then shook his head. "Again, I do not believe I know. However... if I might hazard a guess, an Arcanist might be able to assist you. They tend to... straddle the line between light and dark more than most, let us say. And those I can help you with."
"Alright, so what would I need for them?"
"It is simple enough. A Library, an Archive, and a Sanctuary all together would be sufficient to support them."
Taylor frowned. "I'm not sure I want to build a room dedicated solely to human sacrifice."
Almaric gave her a confused glance, and Taylor sighed mentally.
Damn the vagueness of my power sometimes.
"Let me guess, it does more than that?" she asked.
"But of course, Mistress. The Sanctuary is one of your most important rooms!"
"Perhaps you should explain it then."
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The next hour or so went on in a similar vein, more or less. Taylor would ask a question about potential capabilities, and Almaric would answer in a way that typically just raised more questions. Eventually Taylor conjured up a clipboard like she had before, and started taking notes, because Almaric knew a lot about what was possible, even if he didn't know everything.
In the end, Taylor settled on a few short term goals, plus a few slightly longer term ones. The short term ones mostly had to do with building some infrastructure, because realistically she'd want a variety of different minions doing research nearly full time. For that she needed a number of other specialized rooms, and to help get all of them in a timely manner, one the first longer term projects would need to be the Research Shrine, to help speed things up in general. And for that she needed some demons.
Arbitrarily, Taylor chose the northwest room to construct her Vortex in and once again the name turned out to be a bit odd in comparison to the rest of the room. There wasn't a whole lot of vortex involved, really, although she supposed that the windows that showed a very clear view of a firestorm-filled void might well qualify. The rest of the room though was what one might expect from something that was intended to house demons: it was all black stone arches, rough flooring, and glowing orange cracks, as well as a general pervasive heat to the place that made Taylor break out into a sweat almost immediately.
The Fire Mephit she summoned once she was finished was pretty great, though.
The demon was quite a bit bigger than she was expecting. Far more massive than her, though slightly shorter if only by virtue of the fact that instead of walking upright, it crawled along the ground on its wing-forearms like a bat. A gigantic, fire-spitting bat. One that was all blacks and oranges and had scales instead of fur, and glowing fiery pits for eyes. And spoke like it had a mouthful of sharp rocks.
OK, so maybe the mephit wasn't much like a bat, other than in general shape. Still, it was intimidating as fuck and since Taylor wanted a lot more researchers in general, for good measure she spent the additional gold to summon up three additional ones. She sent them all off to the Archive to begin researching a room known as an Arcanium, a place where mana would be both mined and stored.
Since she'd placed the Vortex in the northwest corner, and the lair in the southwest, Taylor then decided she might as well stick with the pattern and turn the western room into the graveyard. Laying it down wasn't quite as boring as building a beast den, but it was close. A bit of stone and wood to lay down a deep layer of loose earth and some decorative statuary, a little bit of metal to create a low, wrought-iron fence along the edges of the room, and a bit of gold for... something Taylor wasn't actually sure about, but probably had to do with the supernatural nature of the place. Or maybe it was for whatever made the creepy, ground-hugging mist. Whatever. Overall, it meant the room was, for now anyway, little more than an open plot of grave dirt bounded by gothic-looking fencing and a few scattered, broken statues.
Once that was finished, Taylor summoned up the only other undead she had access to except for the skeletons: a pair of banshees.
She'd expected something vaguely, or maybe not so vaguely, horrific-looking. Instead, what she actually got could perhaps best be described as 'stately': a pair of hovering, serene-looking women, of perhaps slightly-above-average looks, dressed in ghostly, voluminous, funeral garb that fluttered in a nonexistent wind. If she hadn't known better, she'd almost have thought they were holograms, as they were entirely a single shade of pale blue, not to mention nearly transparent. They were also startlingly silent for something that was supposed scream and/or sing, merely nodding their heads when she sent them off to the archive to begin research on a Crypt, which Almaric had said was necessary to recruit a necromancer.
Next, Taylor moved on to expanding her research facilities again, this time by adding an equally overlarge Library on the opposite side of the dungeon from the Archive, while also mentally reserving the larger eastern room for the Sanctuary. Then, because she really liked the symmetry of it, she had her imps carve out two smaller room on the far side of it, one on each side of the hallway. One would be for her research shrine, and the other... probably the Arcanium, or some other magically-significant room. Although, who knew; she was probably going to end up rearranging for efficiencies' sake every now and then anyway, especially since it didn't cost her anything, as long as it was just rooms she was moving.
As for her preexisting spellcasters... Taylor badly wanted to research Prophecy, so she changed Almaric's orders such that he and the nagas researched that first, then the Sanctuary, followed by simply having them move down the line assisting with the current projects until either they were all complete, or she gave orders to focus on something new.
Then, finished for now, she decided to wander off in search of her dad to see what he was up to. Part of her wondered if she should maybe reinforce the church some first, but frankly she'd rather wait on that until she had that larger-scale version of Reskin that Almaric had told her about earlier when he was describing Rituals.
Hopefully she'd be able to get to it before it was time to meet with the PRT again. That'd impress them for sure.
Welcome to another update of Maps & Minions, where you can take an more in-depth look at everything Taylor's got going for her!
As before, these maps are actually pretty big since I'm making them in Dungeon Painter Studio. For best viewing, I'd suggest right clicking (or hold press, for iOS... no idea how Android does it) them and opening them as just the image in a new tab. Then you should be able to see everything better.
The below is up to date as of the end of Chapter 14.
Just some additional screenshots, because I felt like putting in the work.
Here's an example of the Banshee in the Graveyard, and the Fire Mephit (ie Imp) in the Vortex, both from Dungeons 3. I've spruced them up a bit for Taylor's descriptions, obvious, since hers aren't so cartoonish-looking. (Mostly. *cough* Almaric *cough*). Also pictured happens to be their individual 'beds', largely because your snotlings are just that fast in deciding to build them. I barely had enough time to hit F12 for the screenshot before one of them was running in, lol.
Church: Forgotten Chapel works well. Basement Dungeon:Final Bastion
Theoretical Dungeons! Ice Dungeon: Winter Wight Way (Because undead and snowballs go hand in hand.) Fire Dungeon:Crematorium Central (Festive Dance Holidays? Now it's Inferno Disco!) Water Dungeon: Brockton Bay Pirate Retreat (Brockton Bay needs more pirates!) Earthy/Mine Dungeon: Dwarf Doom Banking (Start out as a linear 'mine', then erupts into a fancy bank-like facility) Tavern:Prancing Imp (Where customers go to eat, drink, and watch other dungeon delvers on the big screen!) PRT Training Facility:Character Building (PRT requested area for training PRT and / or Protectorate in a non-lethal environment. Not open to general public.) Legal Cape Fight Ring:Royal Ring (Non-lethal due to Prison feature, legal place for capes to fight/settle scores.)
Man, imagine how weird it must be to be a Keeper Minion; one moment you're busily working away discovering the fundamental mysteries of magic and reality (or whatever), the next moment you're dangling from a metaphysical flying hand that drops you (literally drops you) somewhere else entirely.
It's no wonder that Minions demand such high wages and that all their needs and comforts be provided to them free of charge in exchange for service, when you think about it from their perspective.
It's nice to see Taylor having such positive things to look forward in her life. Independence, self-determination, growing a business, and bringing her mom back from the dead!
The mental image of demon!Taylor piling papers and plastics into her cart like she's an Endbringer prepper is hilarious to me for some reason.
I'm a loving this, although I have to say while I get that revives are a big deal unless the revives are easily spammable it's probably not that big of a deal.
And I doubt the PRT would jump straight to kidnapping, cauldron might but that's cauldron and Taylor doesn't know about that
I'm a loving this, although I have to say while I get that revives are a big deal unless the revives are easily spammable it's probably not that big of a deal.
There's at least like 5 or 6 different ways in the games I can think of, and D3's version is actually very early game, being acquirable by going straight for their version of the Crypt. It's basically a mad science cryolab deal, where any of your horde minions or converted heroes that die in the overworld (demons and undead autorevive already in that) get their corpses stored, until one of your undead can come man the 'Defibromat' which resurrects them at full health.
Oh, and D2 has the Hospital, which serves the same function, but is run by Horde creatures.
Neither of them cost money to maintain or run, and can have multiple workstations, only limited by the size of the room and having someone to work there.
In fact the only 'cost' involved in any of the games (at least that I can think of) is either ability cooldowns for minions who can rez (like the Witch Doctor), or the mana cost for reviving dead demons in D3. Or the gold cost for reviving Thalya herself, I guess.
Almaric seems to have prior employment experience, so Taylor's gonna have to try a lot harder than that if she wants to surprise him. Keepers have a tendency to take 'eccentric' well beyond acceptable boundaries and into the lands of batshit insanity.
What I'm saying is that Almaric has probably seen Some Shit, if not been responsible for doing Some Shit himself. (We are, after all, talking about the same DKII Warlocks who are seen in cinematics doing 'research' by brewing magic potions at random and then feeding them to whatever creature happens to be within immediate grabbing reach to see what happens. And I'm pretty sure the cinematic Warlock accidentally turns himself into a chicken at one point too. Rigorous scientific methodology this is not.)
There's at least like 5 or 6 different ways in the games I can think of, and D3's version is actually very early game, being acquirable by going straight for their version of the Crypt. It's basically a mad science cryolab deal, where any of your horde minions or converted heroes that die in the overworld (demons and undead autorevive already in that) get their corpses stored, until one of your undead can come man the 'Defibromat' which resurrects them at full health.
Oh, and D2 has the Hospital, which serves the same function, but is run by Horde creatures.
Neither of them cost money to maintain or run, and can have multiple workstations, only limited by the size of the room and having someone to work there.
In fact the only 'cost' involved in any of the games (at least that I can think of) is either ability cooldowns for minions who can rez (like the Witch Doctor), or the mana cost for reviving dead demons in D3. Or the gold cost for reviving Thalya herself, I guess.
Yeah, one of the most obvious benefits of serving a Keeper in all the games is resistance to getting dead. Death is just not a big deal for Keepers and they have multiple ways to prevent or undo it, details varying from setting to setting.
Minions might have to put up with a lot of bullshit in service to a Keeper, but there are some damn fine benefits from doing so.
Just some additional screenshots, because I felt like putting in the work.
Here's an example of the Banshee in the Graveyard, and the Fire Mephit (ie Imp) in the Vortex, both from Dungeons 3. I've spruced them up a bit for Taylor's descriptions, obvious, since hers aren't so cartoonish-looking. (Mostly. *cough* Almaric *cough*). Also pictured happens to be their individual 'beds', largely because your snotlings are just that fast in deciding to build them. I barely had enough time to hit F12 for the screenshot before one of them was running in, lol.
Fun factoid: Imps actually appreciate fine art, and are perpetually grumpy due to the lack of access to such in typical demonic lairs, dungeons and the like.
I am given to understand that there is a time-limit to getting monsters into the cryolab? Reviving them is probably pretty miraculous in its own way, but I wouldn't trust that method for anyone who had time to rot. Of course, there is value in cryogenics too...
In fact, the moment she realized what it was, rather than dwell upon it further she quickly polished off the last bites of her her breakfast, stuck the remainder of the pancake mix into the fridge, scribbled the quick note to her dad just in case, and then finally made her way into the basement.
That was quite obviously no longer an issue, which meant not only could she quickly assemble the prison, but she could also complete her tear-down of the current archive, and still probably hbe back before her father awoke.
Was that a sign that he had just assumed, or was it yet another sign that her minions shared at least some of her awareness of what went on within the confines of the dungeon? Something to be investigated, perhaps. But later.
Considering that her imps could seemingly home in on her dungeon when recovering supplies? I would guess that her monsters have an innate knowledge of their destination, at least if it is on dungeon ground, but maybe anywhere, again depending upon how effective imps are at navigating towards designated loot. The full dungeon knowledge would be unnecessary, although she might want to confirm that the entire population of her dungeon cannot see the entirety of her claimed area before she takes a shower.
Sighing and muttering to herself, Taylor grumbled a bit about wasting wood, before deciding to sell off a few of the tavern tables; she didn't exactly have a lot of mneed for a large space, especially as she would be moving a good half of her humanoid minions to the new base.
So, Taylor needs names for her dungeons. Normally I'm pretty good with names, but I'm just pulling fantasy-sounding ones out of nowhere for a story or D&D game. I'm a lot worse with other genres for whatever reason. Probably because for the former its easy enough to just string several nice-sounding syllables together and call it a day, whereas if you want something like say, an OC cape name you have a lot more constraints. Or in this case, if you need a name for a location that's somehow reflective of what/where it is, and one that's preferably neither overly long to speak, overly dramatic (its her house after all), and not lazy af (like just 'Arcane Dungeon').
I forgot this story existed for long enough I had a bunch of delicious chapters to catch up on, enough it was worth rereading the whole thing.
And glad I did.
Thanks for your excellent efforts, it was several hours well spent.
God damn this story never fails to make me want more with every chapter. The simple breadth and implications of her new powers are enough that this version of Taylor is going to change the foundation of the world in so many ways.
I really love this story. Its exquisitely done and definitely going to lead to some veeeery interesting directions. I can't wait for Taylor to expand and interact more with the myriad of capes in and around Brockton and the effect her powers are going to have on the balance of power. There is still a gigantic amount of good she could do if she wants to pursue her heroic desires, as well as expanding as a rogue to make a wonderland(horrorland?) of cape shenanigans.
Also, the moment she rides up on a real Unicorn is the day Vista is going to desperately wish she could join Taylor's team and I love it.
Names?
Hmmm...
Aincrad might be funny, especially if U&L know about it...
Might also be interesting to make a dungeon called the Adventurer's Guild.
Here's a bit of a mix-and-match for inspiration:
{Forgotten/Lost/Ancient/Royal/Corrupted/Humble/Sunken} [Tomb/Throne/Crypts/Catacombs/Fortress/Holdfast/Undercrofts] of/of the [Warrior/Hero/Soldier/Balor/Necromancer/Overlord/Despair/Fury/Wisdom/Valor/Nightmares/Paladin]
So you can pick one or more of each and get a phrase (or change the ordering around too, if that sounds better):
I think the biggest thing that bogs down the Pacing of this is her power is too complex because you are giving her too much. I mean we have what? 4 chapters of story progression? 5? With the rest being experimenting with her power and getting explanations of her ability.
