Lets be fair. It is very squarely the weavers fault. The impregium and war of the rage didn't help but weaver did start the cascade.
They also did a fairly decently job controling the wyrm incursion well into modernity. Its only after industrialization that wyrm has gained a major hold on the world. Before that they fight off most attempts.
Wonder what Mia's method for fighting evolve into?
Looking at it at this early point, I feel that Forceful Mind would be useful and she can be some sort of spell caster and monk/martial artist hybrid. Fling spells, buff herself and her group, and also deck people from across the room.
The ability to slap people senseless from afar could not be understated!
You wrote a Celestial Forge fic that was so good it changed my mind about the inherent conceit of Celestial Forge fics, so while I'm a bit leery of the Party System, specifically, in Gamer fics, your writing abilities have more than earned a little trust on my part (after all, your character writing and worldbuilding is top-notch!).
You wrote a Celestial Forge fic that was so good it changed my mind about the inherent conceit of Celestial Forge fics, so while I'm a bit leery of the Party System, specifically, in Gamer fics, your writing abilities have more than earned a little trust on my part (after all, your character writing and worldbuilding is top-notch!).
Thank for this, truly. You have no idea how much this warms my heart.
Gamer fics in general eventually devolve into mostly just words and number for abilities, and it's something I'm trying to avoid. Doubly so when speaking of party members. But, you don't have to worry much about that, the most I'm going to do with deep diving into what any party members, if any more join which isn't looking likely right now, is their character sheets at the end and actions during the story. Or anything that I think is interesting enough to show.
Paying off that asshole was the first thing I did with the cash that somehow found its way into my pockets. At first, it looked like he didn't want to take it, because then he couldn't try to bump up the price for 'interest' and 'late fees'.
With him off my back, I was debt free, able to work on myself, but there was one problem.
I didn't have a job. And the thought of having to work again with… well everything going on was just so weird. Was this what some Hunters in this world felt like? Well, the respect I had for some of them, you know, the ones that don't end up losing their minds, went up by a few notches.
We had to move, though. Not just because this apartment was a shithole, but because everyone from Regina's old life knew where to find her. Most of them were dead now, but I knew that some of them were still around, and the less that I had to worry about someone calling in imagined debts, the better.
Real Estate, like always, was a bitch and half. Not nearly as bad as it had gotten back home, but shit was still fucked.
Especially when I didn't have any income.
God, I was probably going to have to steal money from those Vampires, didn't I?
Or, at least, I thought I was going to have to.
I was on my fourth cup of coffee (of course it was the cheap shit), when Isabelle walked back in the door with a briefcase full of paper work, and a smile on her face.
I blinked owlishly as she opened the briefcase with enough paperwork and legal documents to make my head spin, and a FINANCES to be earned with at least four levels.
That was one skill I was more than happy to leave by the wayside, but I was already reading and comprehending some of these papers already.
"You took all his money." I said with wonder and amazement as I saw more zeroes than I had in both lives.
"He wasn't always awake, and needed someone to manage his finances." She said evenly, a wolfish sharp smile on her lips. "Due to his age, he trusted none of his childe or subordinates to not take everything he had and use it against him. So he ensured that the only person that could access his accounts besides himself, and an accountant no one knew about was… well his little 'pet'."
You could melt the metal off a dreadnought ship with the acid that dripped of her smile.
Did this mean I was rich now?
You know what, don't think about it too much.
"We're still going to have to move and lay low. Especially you because I'm pretty sure that other higher ranking Vamps know you." I said softly, already having added certain… runes to the windows. Minor charms against undead that were probably too shoddy for an actual Runecrafter, but I didn't have months to make one rune, just a couple of hours so they were going to have to do.
"This is true, no matter how much a part of me wishes to simply dance in the sun again." Her melodious voice said with a sad sigh, staring out at the window towards the sunlight that looked… so much dimmer than it did in my world. Not really, but light lacked the warmth or hope that it should inspire.
There was an… uneasiness that I felt as I stared at this world. Like it was lacking something that I couldn't understand or comprehend.
"While your home has its… charm-" I didn't bother hiding my bark of laughter at that, but she ignored it. "-we must move on somewhere that is better fortified and defended than this place."
"I agree. Was looking in the shop for stuff, but most places that we could use for a home are… way more expensive than most other shit here." Seriously, I know that it's big, and way cheaper than some of the mechs I saw around, but almost a million GP for the Nautilus was a fucking lot.
Was I going too big? Maybe, but call me paranoid and wanting a home that can hide just about anywhere in the oceans.
"We need more than just a normal home though. Especially if we want to take the fight to the vamps." I said honestly, knowing that it was probably a lot more ambitious than I had any right to.
"How many ghouls are out there alone and afraid because we just don't have the room to protect them? To shield them from retribution that those bastards might bring?"
"Far more than you wish to know." Isabelle said grimly, reaching into space and pulling out a little something I bought for her from the shop. Or rather, two things. A nice reliable Colt 993, and a .45 ACP that gleamed in the living room's light. "I promise you that I will put these both to good use."
"Well, I'm just glad you convinced me to get normal guns instead of something more… exotic." She didn't snort, it was more like a graceful titter at my expense. Well, I ain't a lady, and didn't think I was ever going to be, so I just growled at her.
"I do believe that we would have more eyes focusing on us if we had gone with that 'radiation rifle' that you wanted to purchase."
"Hey, I like cool stuff, sue me for it!" I growled back, about to curse but deciding against it when I saw the glimmer in her eyes.
"Though, I have a number of different locations that might catch your interests, but before we decide to descend on a new home, I do believe that training is in order." That was actually a good point.
"Yeah, I'm… still not exactly sure what all I can do." I admitted staring at my fists that were more comfortable closed than just a few days ago.
We split from each other then, her heading towards a shooting range nearby, while I headed towards a little boxing gym a couple of blocks away. Thankfully, it was a bigger place, one that I could easily get lost in, even if I did get a lot of strange looks from people nearby.
I was a walking weirdo to be fair. Skinny, almost bone thin thanks to Regina not taking care of herself for the past couple of months since she had become a ghoul. It was something that I tried to fix, changing up my diet and finally eating healthy, but while stronger, faster, and overall better, it was still a human body.
A few warmup stretches and some treadmill running had my muscles a little sore, but I knew that it was going to be way worse in the morning after I woke up. I started with a few blows at a punching bag, wearing gloves over my fists and pads on my knees. Nothing much, simply practicing some normal straight blows that I occasionally mixed in with uppercuts and lower body blows.
After a couple of minutes, I started to mix in a few kicks and knees, the rattle of the chain and slight pain in my hands and legs sorta… therapeutic. I let all the stress, all the fear for the world around me, the loss that I had been feeling that I would never see my boy or family again fuel the blows, moving faster and faster even as my muscles screamed and burned in protest.
As the pressure built and sweat formed on my brow, I felt something collect in my body, a force, energy, that bubbled and collected ready to be used. Instead of collecting it into my two palms, I focused on my right fist as I cocked back, bending my knees before moving forward and up as I slammed an uppercut into the punching bag, both the bag and myself traveling a few feet in the air before gravity once again took hold.
ANSATSUKEN HAS REACHED LEVEL 15
CONGRATULATIONS! FOR REACHING LEVEL TEN YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED
+5STR
+5VIT
+5AGI
Holy shit. Seven levels? After just one training session? Or was it because of my already high stats that the skill rose up that fast? Or the whole fighting for my life imprinted more experience into my brain than I had expected?
Don't think about it too hard Mia, Gamer powers are bullshit and trying to understand everything about them was probably more effort than it's worth.
Looking around, I realized that the entire gym was turned towards me, every pair of eyes staring at me, before darting towards the punching bag, and then returning towards my huffing and puffing form.
Well.
Shit.
Here's another place I was never coming back to.
Without another word, I grabbed my crap and walked out the building, my limbs wobbling in protest at having been pushed farther than they could handle, and balking at the clock that said I had been beating that bag for almost an entire hour.
By the time I got back to the apartment, Isabelle was already there brewing another pot of coffee while reading through some more documents.
"I received quite the surprise while out at the range." She said conversationally, making her status appear and float the box over towards me.
I almost spit my drink out when I saw that both her Dex and Agi were fifteen points higher than they had been this morning.
"Guns? I asked, remembering how my own stats had gone up in points after I had progressed a skill.
She nodded. "After a single session, it registered my gun skill at having been the equivocal of 20 or so."
Damn, that meant that her Dexterity and Agility were already higher than mine. Talk about a cheat.
Eh, whatever.
"Take a look at this." Isabelle said, passing over a police report?
"How'd you manage to get your hands on these?" I asked as I started reading over it.
"Lump had some contacts in the police, a couple of officers and detectives that are specifically on his payroll. Something that some other higher ranked Sabbat members frowned on."
"You mean wanted to kill him over 'consorting with mortals'." I muttered under my breath as I read through the report. It wasn't even a week old. A corpse had been found beheaded last week inside of a large scale wood shop. Apparently someone had used one of the saws to cut it off.
There had been a struggle inside the building, with someone else's blood on the man's hands and mouth, and the entire wood shop had been torn apart like a bull had been given cocaine and someone put red shades on its eyes.
Weirdest part was that the corpse looked like it had been dead for at least a couple of years and looked like a mess before it literally broke apart in ash when exposed to sunlight.
"The guy who wrote this is dead, isn't he?" I asked in a quiet voice.
"Even the Sabbat know that exposing the Masquerade as it is with the Camarilla around is a death sentence. A pity." She said with a harsh voice, and I shivered at the thought.
I knew that the moment the Masquerade gets broken, all hell breaks loose.
It's the reason I wasn't trying to expose or break it myself because I know that there is no putting that genie back in the bottle, and it's going to end with a lot of dead people.
"So, Rick thought that the guy that killed the Vamp is a hunter?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes, though given the blood on the vampire, I doubt that it was an actual hunter and is instead a would be victim. Then there was this." She set down a grainy old picture on the desk. A black van, one that had its fair share of dents and scratches, had been parked just outside the building at the suspected time.
"You think that's the car he was driving in?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I think that's the car he was taken in." Another file was dropped on the table, that of a Wallace James, the owner of the woodworking shop. "The owner of the shop went missing the same day that this happened, and Rick's ghouls or subordinates weren't the ones that took them."
"If it was a Technocracy group, then Rick would have never found this in the first place." I said quietly, ignoring the confused look she gave me. I hadn't had a chance to tell her about those assholes, and that was mainly because of just how much there was out there. Explaining Werewolves had taken an hour, and that was with just a simple explanation. Hadn't even gotten into the various tribes, breeds, or the Black Spirals that were trying to destroy the world. "Alright, so some group came in and took Wallace somewhere, but who could have done it?"
And, well, I had an option for finding that van anyway.
SCRY
-1300GP
Like most of the other spells I'd bought, this came in a scroll that immediately uploaded the spell into my brain when I accepted it, placing the scroll in my Inventory with the rest of the skill books and scrolls I've bought.
Huh, so that's how you do it.
I grab a nice big pot from the kitchen, a gift from Regina's sister from years ago, and fill it up with water, placing it on the floor. With both hands, I picture the Van from the photo in my mind, every last inch that I knew of it, from the large dent on the back bumper, to the large scratch alongside the right door.
There, in the pool of water, slowly but surely, that van appeared. Only, it wasn't black anymore but grey, the scratches and gouges hidden underneath the new coat of paint, but the bends and bumps were still there. I couldn't see people near it, but I could make out a bar.
Roxxie's Motors.
Weird ass name for a bar, but whatever.
I reach in my pocket for my phone, then curse as I realize that smartphones aren't invented for another couple of years. Fuck.
I keep the image clear for a little while longer, trying to turn the camera, but the damn thing won't let me. But, there out of the corner I notice the street sign. Brickell Key Drive.
Over by South Beach.
"Well, I guess we're going on a stake out." I say as I let the spell dissipate and head towards the restroom. "Better get ready, I have a feeling we'll have a long night ahead of us."
For now, I think I'll spend some of my GP.
NAME: MIA ITZEL/REGINA REED AGE:93(68+23)
LV:8
XP:4,800/12,800
HP:250/250 MP:230/230
ATTRIBUTE POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE:0
FUNDS:$4000
GP:8650
PERK POINTS:0
Spells:
Libra:2
Telekinesis:12
Fireball:2
Cure:5
Esuna:5
Haste:2
Scry:4
Mind Blank:2
PERKS: FORCEFUL MIND:
APPLY YOUR STRENGTH ATTRIBUTE TO KINETIC MAGIC AND ABILITIES DAMAGE MULTIPLIER.
THOUGHTFUL MIND: INCREASE MP REGENERATION BY 50%
HARDY LUNGS: INCREASE OVERALL ENDURANCE AND STAMINA.
DAY HUNTER:YOU DEAL INCREASED DAMAGE TO VAMPIRES DURING THE DAYTIME.
ARSONIST:YOU GAIN AN INCREASED EXPERIENCE GAIN FOR FIRE BASED ABILITIES
I CAN DO THIS ALL DAY: REGENERATE YOUR HP BY 5% PER HOUR INSTEAD OF 1%.
Alright, this'll be the last chapter for like a week until my work week ends. Hope you all enjoyed. Also, Mage is a nightmare, especially Mechanics wise.
A skill that would be helpful for Mia to buy in the long run would be prana-bindu(biofeedback) for total body awareness and control. Others like Total Concentration Breathing(Demon Slayer) could also be useful.
But beyond those she needs the fundamental skills like Ki Manipulation and Mana Manipulation.
I have the 20th Edition, it's fucking 700 pages. I still don't understand how Paradox works mechanically. PDF because I don't have $140 to spend on a copy.... even if a part of me does.
And this isn't even getting into the fact that you have to figure out how your character does magic too. Oh sure you can have the spheres, but you also need to make up how your Mage justifies how they do magic. Like, do they sacrifice chickens on the fool moon for the magic? Spread seeds in a specific direction while chanting? Dancing a specific ritual at noon? Stuff like that.
Yeah, paradox is… well basically it's the broken remnants of humanities unconscious attacking you for disagreeing with its world view? It's like angry internet "scientists" getting mad about you obviously proving them wrong by doing something "impossible".
Really I find magic easiest to wrap your head around via sitting down to think about how exactly magic would work if *your* brain was directly hooked up to Khaos/quantum sea/raw possibility and how it would work most naturally for *you*. I mean yes this only really let's you build a few actual archetypes to play with but it lets you avoid having to constantly check yourself about wether what you want to do makes any sense at all in your tradition/practice/whatever. If you want npc characters though, it's actually pretty easy, just throw literally any vaguely mage like person from something else in and work backwards from there.
Yeah, paradox is… well basically it's the broken remnants of humanities unconscious attacking you for disagreeing with its world view? It's like angry internet "scientists" getting mad about you obviously proving them wrong by doing something "impossible".
Really I find magic easiest to wrap your head around via sitting down to think about how exactly magic would work if *your* brain was directly hooked up to Khaos/quantum sea/raw possibility and how it would work most naturally for *you*. I mean yes this only really let's you build a few actual archetypes to play with but it lets you avoid having to constantly check yourself about wether what you want to do makes any sense at all in your tradition/practice/whatever. If you want npc characters though, it's actually pretty easy, just throw literally any vaguely mage like person from something else in and work backwards from there.
I have the 20th Edition, it's fucking 700 pages. I still don't understand how Paradox works mechanically. PDF because I don't have $140 to spend on a copy.... even if a part of me does.
And this isn't even getting into the fact that you have to figure out how your character does magic too. Oh sure you can have the spheres, but you also need to make up how your Mage justifies how they do magic. Like, do they sacrifice chickens on the fool moon for the magic? Spread seeds in a specific direction while chanting? Dancing a specific ritual at noon? Stuff like that.
Paradox is accumulated when you do blatantly magical things in front of mortals or do things like time travel that are inherently against the rules of reality. Once the paradox is accumulated it goes into a pool that your DM can use to fuck you over depending on how many success they get on that roll.
Choosing your paradigm is really easy unless you want to build your own , just imagine what fictional character you want your chracter to do magic like. They can be harry porter or full metal alchemist. Or you can use the ones outlined by the various traditions. It gets easy once you do a few sessions.
Just came across this, loving it so far (Gamer party aside, always disliked those, can't help but feel like they strip to MC of their mystique? Or something like that).
But yeah, a good WoD story is something I enjoy coming across with how rare they seem to be.
So thanks! I'm certainly looking forward to seeing where you take this.
Umm, not really. The stronger you are, the worse the effects of Paradox are. There's a reason the really high-end mages spend as much time as they can on the other side of the Gauntlet.
If I didn't I didn't know you hate vampires too much I'd suggest buying dhampir physiology and quietus and obfuscate, since those disciplines are made for assassinating vampires in its advanced powers and a dhampir with the right merits can pass for vampire.
No paradox too since the vampires penalty in game is their slipping morality and generation, which wouldn't apply for self generated bloodpoints of dhampir combined with gamer healing.
Honestly you could have made it a gamer restricted to jailbroken WoD powers and gotten very far with template stacking that is "illegal" except for special WoD signature characters.
But if you're opening other fiction powers there are probably much better things like hamon or a solar exaltation to buy lol. Or a sideral. A sideral exaltation would be much better, something like arcane fate is a must in this place of dickbag seers and totalitarian surveillance.
If I didn't I didn't know you hate vampires too much I'd suggest buying dhampir physiology and quietus and obfuscate, since those disciplines are made for assassinating vampires in its advanced powers and a dhampir with the right merits can pass for vampire.
No paradox too since the vampires penalty in game is their slipping morality and generation, which wouldn't apply for self generated bloodpoints of dhampir combined with gamer healing.
Honestly you could have made it a gamer restricted to jailbroken WoD powers and gotten very far with template stacking that is "illegal" except for special WoD signature characters.
But if you're opening other fiction powers there are probably much better things like hamon or a solar exaltation to buy lol. Or a sideral. A sideral exaltation would be much better, something like arcane fate is a must in this place of dickbag seers and totalitarian surveillance.
The master's tools cannot dismantle the master's home.
Anything Out Of Context from White Wolf's properties is going to be inherently superior to anything from them because they aren't tied to White Wolf's rules keeping Players from becoming powerful enough to matter. Supernatural martial arts from fighting games will work better than Exaltations because they aren't limited by Essence. Weapons and equipment from the GP store aren't tainted by WoD humanity's lack of the Spark of Creation. Magic that isn't affected by Paradox is infinitely more valuable no matter how freeform WoD Magic has the capability to be compared to spells from Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.
Anything Mia can get from WW properties is just Worse than something similar from elsewhere because the World of Darkness is a fake, broken world made by a false god who was too malicious and incompetent to create anything that could have actual worth.
Shrug. Exactly, there is very little tension right now, on chapter 3.
Mia could just buy the holy materia out of ffvii to talk to Gaia right now. Or at least after 5 chapters of xp stockpiling. A gamer power with a freeform shop is absurd.
