[X]Plan: Final Preparations
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
It was Mags, Saint's second in command
Interesting. Well that makes any potential side stories more interesting. Saint falls into the Lawful Stupid range of characters in worm. She at least has some story telling potential.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Well, she would have potential if she weren't in prison just like Saint and Dobrynja.
- Location
- Georgia
It may not have been made clear in the story itself, but in the forums, SW pointed at the textbooks on magic we sent to Dragon as how she learned enough magic to cast a single shield spell, since the Dragonslayers had access to that information as soon as Dragon had access to it.
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
Did the Dragonslayers have any plan on the chance they got caught? Or did they simply think they were never going to get caught?
- Location
- Georgia
Unknown. While there is a form of "capture insurance" in the Worm setting, it tends to revolve around keep parahumans out of the Birdcage. Since none of the Dragonslayers are parahumans, they are in a more or less ordinary, though likely high security, prison. What they will do after getting out of prison* is unlikely to matter in the course of the game, but their biggest advantages over Dragon, the advantage that let them be an effective mercenary force, is so much slag now, so when they do get out, there's not a heck of a lot they can do. They lost all of their gear, they lost Ascalon and Richter's information, they lost their surveillance history... all they'll be is three humans who used to be able to get one over on Dragon, which might get them hired by a paramilitary company, but they'll never be a threat to Dragon again.**
Even if they had Teacher's help, I doubt they'd be able to figure out Dragon's new code, since it is based on alien tech and they don't have their first hand view of her program.
*How long they'll be sentenced depends on how much they did that was actually illegal, and how much they might have to worry about extradition. "Mercenary" by itself does not mean that their work was illegal, but stealing from Dragon definitely was, and I would expect governments to be fighting for first shot at earning some goodwill with the world's greatest Tinker.
**I feel that rambled excessively but don't see how to fix it.
I mean they pretty much rolled a critical fail in that ambush. Not only did no one stay on over watch but the EMPTY warehouse its self exploded. It's like they didn't even have a plan for combat much less escape.
- Location
- Georgia
In their defense, anybody else trying to attack them with a powerful enough weapon or power to take them out before they were even aware of, much less had a chance to respond, would have killed them. The usual situation of people, particularly heroes, going out of their way to not kill or maim meant that they were operating under a different set of rules of engagement than we were.
Their tactics were unwise, but I understand how a competent, albeit self-trained, mercenary team could have made that mistake in those specific circumstances.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
It's also worth noting that they hit the warehouse not as an attack, but to break in during and Endbringer fight to steal the radio. They had reason to think that the capes using it as a base of operations was going to be in the Ukraine fighting Behemoth, so there should have been no need to fight in the first place.
- Location
- Georgia
My apologies for the quality of the writing. I know I'm not that good at it. If it earns a point, put it in Cover for Lacey, please.
^Thump^ Face planted in the thick book she'd been working through, Taylor thought to herself, Math is so easy now, I said. I know more about math than any of my teachers, I said. Studying the ins and outs of number theory was such a great idea. Who knew that knowing so much math would actually make the books more boring?. Seriously, she could solve any problem the book threw at her once she translated the terms used in Earth Bet higher math to the Galean shorthand she was used to, in her head, in seconds, while juggling two apples. Two, but not three. She'd dropped the third apple when she tried.
I'll just need to go to a college and talk to an expert, or maybe ask Miss Militia about some thinkers she could talk to to get her started without having to dig through all those books. Something about this thought niggled at the back of her mind for a moment. Chasing the rabbit, she caught the thought before it could escape and decided this was a good time for a break. Storm, call Missy.
<Affirmative, Mistress>
Moments later, a window popped up showing the young shaker in costume. "Hey, calamity. What's up?"
"Do you have a moment? I'd hate to interrupt anything important."
"Important? Hah! They don't give me anything important to do. Well, important AND interesting. I'm just manning the Console, and the last call was about some giant birds running through a park, chasing dogs. That was nearly an hour ago. Please, give me something to talk about. Save me from the worst supervillain of them all, Boredom!" Exaggerated sighs accentuated the sentiment as she played things up, showing that for all her power, experience, and usual demeanor, she was still a 12 year old girl.
"I was seeking relief from that same beast when a thought occurred to me. How much do you know about Miss Militia? Her personality, that is, not who she is. What does she do for fun? Does she do anything at all for fun?"
"She's the poster child for "married to her work". Every once in a while Chevalier makes her take some down time, but I think all she does is train at home instead of at the Protectorate range. Why?"
"Well, I have this friend, Kayleigh, who has all the energy of a chipmunk on its third Red Bull. She's constantly trying to drag me out to do social stuff. Annoying as it is, I know I need it to keep from spending all of my down time reading books. It's good for me. I'll deny that if you ever tell her, of course, but it occurred to me that Miss Militia might need that kind of friend and not have one. So, tell me, want to help me get her to relax?"
Grinning from ear to ear, Vista responded, "Oh, hell yes!"
Orange light flared in a clearing surrounded by a dense forest, then quickly faded away, leaving two figures behind.
One was dressed in camouflage fatigues, with a jacket tied around her waist, revealing the tank top worn under it, and a bandanna wrap around her lower face. A greenish gray blur settled into the shape of a hunting rifle completed her look.
The other figure's outfit has been described as "evidently the result of a limited budget for purchasing fabric" on Parahumans Online, along with a disturbingly large number of comments essentially boiling down to "I'd hit that". A short red jacket over a dark shirt, a red miniskirt, red heeled boots, a red pointy hat , and a staff comprised the heroine's costume.
"So, Calamity Witch. What was it you wanted to show me," spoke Miss Militia.
The younger woman scratched the back of her head, unsure where to start."I, uh, don't know how much you've been told about a new program we're trying with the PRT, or Shipwright's tech, or about how my powers work...," taking a deep breath, she stopped rambling and tried to focus. " Well, let's just say there's a lot going on. I brought you here to demonstrate a few toys we're want to let you field test. The short version is that Shipwright has become a full employee of Dragon Co. Because Dragon can replicate most of his designs, so some tinker grade gear in mass produced form is going to be making its way to the Protectorate and PRT."
Quirking an eye brow at the mention of "toys", Miss Militia spoke up, "OK.. and that meant we needed to come out here why?"
"I can demonstrate some things and discuss others without fear of anybody watching, as this is an uninhabited planet." She waited for Miss Militia's expression shift from shock to add, "And now the real question is, 'Am I just messing with you?'"
Miss Militia reached up and tapped her ear, "Console, do you read me? Uh huh. Yeah, where am I? Canada? Thank you."
Calamity Witch just rolled her eyes, "Spoilsport. Alright, first up, a feature that will most likely not be available widespread for a year or two." Clearing her throat, she spoke clearly, "Deploy shield."
A second passed before anything happened, but then a burst of light revealed a pattern MM recognized from the spell that carried her here. The light faded, revealing a small armband, which CW picked up and tossed to MM. "Deploying gear to the field by teleport. Never go unarmed again, not that you can go unarmed. Ever." No response came from the older heroine. Taylor hadn't given up on making her laugh, though, and that was an admittedly poor attempt. "That's just a hard light shield. It works the same as Vista's."
MM's head snapped up at that. "What do you mean, 'the same as Vista's'. When did you give her a shield?"
Oops. "It's built into her arm. I don't know why she didn't tell you about it" or tell her she had a new, heavy combat arm, evidently, "It projects an adjustable shield, from as small as 6 inches across to a riot shield. The size doesn't affect the strength of the shield, but it does affect how quickly the shield drains its battery. Shipwright says it'll hold up like a quarter inch of steel, but any shot that penetrates the shield will cause the whole thing to fail until you switch it off and back on, so don't rely too heavily on it." CW was hoping so hard that focusing on the shield's parameters and that it was a purely defensive addition that MM wouldn't ask a question that would force her to lie or get Vista in more trouble. For the moment, at least,it seemed to work
"Sounds useful. So, I just plug it in? Tinker tech is never that easy."
"Shipwright's working on a generator for the PRT so they can power things without having to come to him. He and Legend have been dealing with the details for that." Casual name drop for the win thought Taylor to herself. At least two of the Triumvirate weren't total dicks. "Just expect more stuff to be showing up soon. "
Another flash of light heralded the arrival of another weapon. This one looked a lot like a flamethrower, consisting of a backpack with two large cylinders and a boxy contraption on the top, connected to a short rifle shape with a nozzle on the front by means of a hose.
"This may look like a flame thrower, but Shipwright is calling it a frost thrower." Not bothering with putting the harness on, Taylor picked up the gun, flipped off the safey, and pulled the trigger. A stream of white liquid shot out, rapidly boiling away into a white cloud, though the longer she kept the trigger pulled, the longer it took for the liquid to boil off. " It condenses and cools atmospheric nitrogen that it can then shoot under high power. It can't condense it fast enough to be used without the tanks, but give it a couple of minutes to refill itself and you're good to go again. We're really hoping this will help with firefighting as well as damage control for dealing with Blasters and breakers."
Miss Militia quirked an eyebrow up at that. "While that does sound useful, you still haven't shown anything that explains why you insisted on bringing me out here to show them off. If you're giving any of this to us, shouldn't my whole team be getting the demonstration?"
Hurry up, Vista, thought Taylor to herself. "Alright, I'll come clean." -ish, "I suck at small talk and wanted to start off by getting you in a good mood." Taylor took a deep breath to compose herself. "The thing is, I like you. More than that, I respect you, a lot more than Chevy Chase. I'm not trying to steal Vista from you, but you're making it really hard to keep her there. Fair warning, if she comes to us looking for a place to stay, we're not going to turn her away."
Miss Militia, looking less amused now, replied, "The laws regarding Wards are clear and undeniable. Without the mess that was Brockton Bay, we just can't give her what she wants. Even trying might not only cost Chevalier his job, it could get her transferred to somebody who'll be even stricter. The law doesn't care about her experience and power, because the laws were largely written by childless civilians who have never been in a fight more serious than a shouting match. We.." She cut herself off, visibly, and rephrased, "I wasn't under quite as strong restrictions when I was a Ward, as these laws hadn't been written back then, but I do know what it means to be a soldier who the world saw as a child. We've been trying to give her as much freedom as we can, but all she sees is the things she can't do, not what she can."
"I understand that. I just thought you should know, but I also wanted your permission to give her something. I got her a new arm because she got hurt through my stupidity. I even thought about carrying her up out of Cadejo's reach, but the thought got lost in the heat of the moment." This time, the flash of light that came with magical teleports cleared to reveal a rectangular block, shaped kind of like a large suitcase. Taylor cleared her throat and said, "It's morphin' time."
The boxy shape unfolded, with the outermost plates sliding apartto reveal more components inside that unfolded in turn. In just a few seconds, the plates of the "box" slid into place as the outer defense of the suit of armor that had revealed itself. It finished by the front of the suit opening up, ready for somebody to just step in and go.
At Miss Militia's amused look, Taylor clarified, "Shipwright insisted on that activation phrase. Something to do with a show he watched as a kid." She shrugged. "This is the Crow light reconnaissance prototype power armor for the new Dragon's Teeth initiative. It has been custom sized for Vista, but I haven't even told her about it, yet."
Looking the older heroine in the eye, she continued, "I haven't told her about it because I know it would just make her even more restless. I'm telling you so you can call us to send it to you, wherever you are, if you feel she needs the protection, such as at the next Endbringer fight. I've already seen her get hurt, and I can't let that happen again so easily if there's something I could do about it."
*The cream is in the connoli* came a telepathic message from Samantha.
Finally.
"So, now that I've covered why I wanted this privacy, are you ready to go?" At Miss Militia's nod, Calamity Witch spun out her casting sigil, at which point both heroines vanished.
Moment's later found the pair standing in a different forest, the faint smell of sulfur carried on the breeze and the sounds of birds singing coming from the trees.
"This time, we actually are on a different world, thousands of miles from almost any humans, for a different kind of gift. Look behind you."
Miss Militia turned cautiously to see what this 'gift' was, only to be greeted by the sight of Missy Byron, not Vista, wearing a swim suit and holding another one. "It took me forever to find your swimsuit. I'm surprised I wasn't choked by the dust on it."
"Don't worry, we're not asking you to unmask. Missy has seen all of us out of costume, even our newest recruit, and even Dragon, partly because Shipwright thought it was silly to insist of costumes when he was performing surgery on her. We wanted to give you a something I'm usre is in short supply in Philly: A chance to relax". Taylor reached up to scratch the back of her head. "Honestly, I'm not all that good on relaxing, either, so we asked Wench for suggestions."
"Wench? Seriously?"
Missy chimed in with, "No, not seriously. She's just being so indecisive on picking a cape name that we're teasing her with bad ones. My favorite so far is Bag Lady."
"We set up a place for you to change over there, but don't wander off. We made sure the Hotsprings That Time Forgot were clear of predators nearby, but we could always have missed a dinosaur or two, and yes, I'm being serious again. Stewardess thought a trip to some hot springs would be something you'd enjoy."
"Actually, there is a villain named Stweardess already, so she can't use that one..." and on the conversation went, as much relaxing and fun were had.
^Thump^ Face planted in the thick book she'd been working through, Taylor thought to herself, Math is so easy now, I said. I know more about math than any of my teachers, I said. Studying the ins and outs of number theory was such a great idea. Who knew that knowing so much math would actually make the books more boring?. Seriously, she could solve any problem the book threw at her once she translated the terms used in Earth Bet higher math to the Galean shorthand she was used to, in her head, in seconds, while juggling two apples. Two, but not three. She'd dropped the third apple when she tried.
I'll just need to go to a college and talk to an expert, or maybe ask Miss Militia about some thinkers she could talk to to get her started without having to dig through all those books. Something about this thought niggled at the back of her mind for a moment. Chasing the rabbit, she caught the thought before it could escape and decided this was a good time for a break. Storm, call Missy.
<Affirmative, Mistress>
Moments later, a window popped up showing the young shaker in costume. "Hey, calamity. What's up?"
"Do you have a moment? I'd hate to interrupt anything important."
"Important? Hah! They don't give me anything important to do. Well, important AND interesting. I'm just manning the Console, and the last call was about some giant birds running through a park, chasing dogs. That was nearly an hour ago. Please, give me something to talk about. Save me from the worst supervillain of them all, Boredom!" Exaggerated sighs accentuated the sentiment as she played things up, showing that for all her power, experience, and usual demeanor, she was still a 12 year old girl.
"I was seeking relief from that same beast when a thought occurred to me. How much do you know about Miss Militia? Her personality, that is, not who she is. What does she do for fun? Does she do anything at all for fun?"
"She's the poster child for "married to her work". Every once in a while Chevalier makes her take some down time, but I think all she does is train at home instead of at the Protectorate range. Why?"
"Well, I have this friend, Kayleigh, who has all the energy of a chipmunk on its third Red Bull. She's constantly trying to drag me out to do social stuff. Annoying as it is, I know I need it to keep from spending all of my down time reading books. It's good for me. I'll deny that if you ever tell her, of course, but it occurred to me that Miss Militia might need that kind of friend and not have one. So, tell me, want to help me get her to relax?"
Grinning from ear to ear, Vista responded, "Oh, hell yes!"
Orange light flared in a clearing surrounded by a dense forest, then quickly faded away, leaving two figures behind.
One was dressed in camouflage fatigues, with a jacket tied around her waist, revealing the tank top worn under it, and a bandanna wrap around her lower face. A greenish gray blur settled into the shape of a hunting rifle completed her look.
The other figure's outfit has been described as "evidently the result of a limited budget for purchasing fabric" on Parahumans Online, along with a disturbingly large number of comments essentially boiling down to "I'd hit that". A short red jacket over a dark shirt, a red miniskirt, red heeled boots, a red pointy hat , and a staff comprised the heroine's costume.
"So, Calamity Witch. What was it you wanted to show me," spoke Miss Militia.
The younger woman scratched the back of her head, unsure where to start."I, uh, don't know how much you've been told about a new program we're trying with the PRT, or Shipwright's tech, or about how my powers work...," taking a deep breath, she stopped rambling and tried to focus. " Well, let's just say there's a lot going on. I brought you here to demonstrate a few toys we're want to let you field test. The short version is that Shipwright has become a full employee of Dragon Co. Because Dragon can replicate most of his designs, so some tinker grade gear in mass produced form is going to be making its way to the Protectorate and PRT."
Quirking an eye brow at the mention of "toys", Miss Militia spoke up, "OK.. and that meant we needed to come out here why?"
"I can demonstrate some things and discuss others without fear of anybody watching, as this is an uninhabited planet." She waited for Miss Militia's expression shift from shock to add, "And now the real question is, 'Am I just messing with you?'"
Miss Militia reached up and tapped her ear, "Console, do you read me? Uh huh. Yeah, where am I? Canada? Thank you."
Calamity Witch just rolled her eyes, "Spoilsport. Alright, first up, a feature that will most likely not be available widespread for a year or two." Clearing her throat, she spoke clearly, "Deploy shield."
A second passed before anything happened, but then a burst of light revealed a pattern MM recognized from the spell that carried her here. The light faded, revealing a small armband, which CW picked up and tossed to MM. "Deploying gear to the field by teleport. Never go unarmed again, not that you can go unarmed. Ever." No response came from the older heroine. Taylor hadn't given up on making her laugh, though, and that was an admittedly poor attempt. "That's just a hard light shield. It works the same as Vista's."
MM's head snapped up at that. "What do you mean, 'the same as Vista's'. When did you give her a shield?"
Oops. "It's built into her arm. I don't know why she didn't tell you about it" or tell her she had a new, heavy combat arm, evidently, "It projects an adjustable shield, from as small as 6 inches across to a riot shield. The size doesn't affect the strength of the shield, but it does affect how quickly the shield drains its battery. Shipwright says it'll hold up like a quarter inch of steel, but any shot that penetrates the shield will cause the whole thing to fail until you switch it off and back on, so don't rely too heavily on it." CW was hoping so hard that focusing on the shield's parameters and that it was a purely defensive addition that MM wouldn't ask a question that would force her to lie or get Vista in more trouble. For the moment, at least,it seemed to work
"Sounds useful. So, I just plug it in? Tinker tech is never that easy."
"Shipwright's working on a generator for the PRT so they can power things without having to come to him. He and Legend have been dealing with the details for that." Casual name drop for the win thought Taylor to herself. At least two of the Triumvirate weren't total dicks. "Just expect more stuff to be showing up soon. "
Another flash of light heralded the arrival of another weapon. This one looked a lot like a flamethrower, consisting of a backpack with two large cylinders and a boxy contraption on the top, connected to a short rifle shape with a nozzle on the front by means of a hose.
"This may look like a flame thrower, but Shipwright is calling it a frost thrower." Not bothering with putting the harness on, Taylor picked up the gun, flipped off the safey, and pulled the trigger. A stream of white liquid shot out, rapidly boiling away into a white cloud, though the longer she kept the trigger pulled, the longer it took for the liquid to boil off. " It condenses and cools atmospheric nitrogen that it can then shoot under high power. It can't condense it fast enough to be used without the tanks, but give it a couple of minutes to refill itself and you're good to go again. We're really hoping this will help with firefighting as well as damage control for dealing with Blasters and breakers."
Miss Militia quirked an eyebrow up at that. "While that does sound useful, you still haven't shown anything that explains why you insisted on bringing me out here to show them off. If you're giving any of this to us, shouldn't my whole team be getting the demonstration?"
Hurry up, Vista, thought Taylor to herself. "Alright, I'll come clean." -ish, "I suck at small talk and wanted to start off by getting you in a good mood." Taylor took a deep breath to compose herself. "The thing is, I like you. More than that, I respect you, a lot more than Chevy Chase. I'm not trying to steal Vista from you, but you're making it really hard to keep her there. Fair warning, if she comes to us looking for a place to stay, we're not going to turn her away."
Miss Militia, looking less amused now, replied, "The laws regarding Wards are clear and undeniable. Without the mess that was Brockton Bay, we just can't give her what she wants. Even trying might not only cost Chevalier his job, it could get her transferred to somebody who'll be even stricter. The law doesn't care about her experience and power, because the laws were largely written by childless civilians who have never been in a fight more serious than a shouting match. We.." She cut herself off, visibly, and rephrased, "I wasn't under quite as strong restrictions when I was a Ward, as these laws hadn't been written back then, but I do know what it means to be a soldier who the world saw as a child. We've been trying to give her as much freedom as we can, but all she sees is the things she can't do, not what she can."
"I understand that. I just thought you should know, but I also wanted your permission to give her something. I got her a new arm because she got hurt through my stupidity. I even thought about carrying her up out of Cadejo's reach, but the thought got lost in the heat of the moment." This time, the flash of light that came with magical teleports cleared to reveal a rectangular block, shaped kind of like a large suitcase. Taylor cleared her throat and said, "It's morphin' time."
The boxy shape unfolded, with the outermost plates sliding apartto reveal more components inside that unfolded in turn. In just a few seconds, the plates of the "box" slid into place as the outer defense of the suit of armor that had revealed itself. It finished by the front of the suit opening up, ready for somebody to just step in and go.
At Miss Militia's amused look, Taylor clarified, "Shipwright insisted on that activation phrase. Something to do with a show he watched as a kid." She shrugged. "This is the Crow light reconnaissance prototype power armor for the new Dragon's Teeth initiative. It has been custom sized for Vista, but I haven't even told her about it, yet."
Looking the older heroine in the eye, she continued, "I haven't told her about it because I know it would just make her even more restless. I'm telling you so you can call us to send it to you, wherever you are, if you feel she needs the protection, such as at the next Endbringer fight. I've already seen her get hurt, and I can't let that happen again so easily if there's something I could do about it."
*The cream is in the connoli* came a telepathic message from Samantha.
Finally.
"So, now that I've covered why I wanted this privacy, are you ready to go?" At Miss Militia's nod, Calamity Witch spun out her casting sigil, at which point both heroines vanished.
Moment's later found the pair standing in a different forest, the faint smell of sulfur carried on the breeze and the sounds of birds singing coming from the trees.
"This time, we actually are on a different world, thousands of miles from almost any humans, for a different kind of gift. Look behind you."
Miss Militia turned cautiously to see what this 'gift' was, only to be greeted by the sight of Missy Byron, not Vista, wearing a swim suit and holding another one. "It took me forever to find your swimsuit. I'm surprised I wasn't choked by the dust on it."
"Don't worry, we're not asking you to unmask. Missy has seen all of us out of costume, even our newest recruit, and even Dragon, partly because Shipwright thought it was silly to insist of costumes when he was performing surgery on her. We wanted to give you a something I'm usre is in short supply in Philly: A chance to relax". Taylor reached up to scratch the back of her head. "Honestly, I'm not all that good on relaxing, either, so we asked Wench for suggestions."
"Wench? Seriously?"
Missy chimed in with, "No, not seriously. She's just being so indecisive on picking a cape name that we're teasing her with bad ones. My favorite so far is Bag Lady."
"We set up a place for you to change over there, but don't wander off. We made sure the Hotsprings That Time Forgot were clear of predators nearby, but we could always have missed a dinosaur or two, and yes, I'm being serious again. Stewardess thought a trip to some hot springs would be something you'd enjoy."
"Actually, there is a villain named Stweardess already, so she can't use that one..." and on the conversation went, as much relaxing and fun were had.
13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
Well, I've finally caught back up on this. Good stuff.
That is sadly unrealistic. English professors don't make that much. Even for a combined household income, it probably still didn't hit 100k. Liberal arts professors tend to get paid very poorly in general.
That is sadly unrealistic. English professors don't make that much. Even for a combined household income, it probably still didn't hit 100k. Liberal arts professors tend to get paid very poorly in general.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Uh, yeah it's realistic if Annette were the ONLY person working. She and Danny were both working, and together they maybe brought in 100k combined. I was referring to Annette being the breadwinner in that she had a higher salary than Danny.
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Closing the vote. Now I guess I need to watch youtube videos about what happens when you spray liquid nitrogen at water.
As for the armor retrofit... Hmmm... I might be able to sneak something in during this time slot
As for the armor retrofit... Hmmm... I might be able to sneak something in during this time slot
Last edited:
- Location
- Ekaterinburg, Russia
...Well I can't tell you that, but I can tell you what happens if you take Dewar flask and upend it on the tiled floor.
What happens is that transparent liquid evaporates into some white mist (read - supercools the water vapors) just as it's hitting the floor, but nothing substantial happens otherwise. No spillage, no nothing.
- Location
- Georgia
I think its use as a fire suppressant far exceeds its utility dealing with water, since the two things water does to put out fires is block access to oxygen and lower the temperature enough to prevent reignition. I figured it could be either remaining Endbringer and we needed to prepare for both, but filling in gaps in whatever shelter people can find should be a good use in a Leviathan fight. Of course, there's no telling how much I'm underestimating the amount of cold it would take to do that, but even if it doesn't work, the idea's cool, right?
A fair bit: it'd take about ~2.2 kg (~2.7 L) of liquid nitrogen to freeze 1 kg of water from 25 C (from evaporation: would be more with cooling of resulting gas, but that'd still be >1.2 kg). That's also assuming perfect heat transfer, which isn't going to happen, with gaseous nitrogen acting as an insulator between the surfaces (which is why you can see people do things like stick their hands in liquid nitrogen).
That said, should work well as a fire retardant: CO2 is already used for that purpose.
- Location
- Georgia
The real advantage of this gun is the ability to compress and cool the atmosphere to replenish the tanks. Liquid co2 might have made a better choice, but I was thinking of our atmospheric composition of ~80% N when I came up with the idea. I wanted something more like a freeze ray, like our spell or the Batman villain, but since I couldn't come up with a mechanism that could be used to generate such an effect, I had to come up with a less effective, hopefully practical machine that might see large scale rollout in the coming years, in universe.
Part of the problem we face in meat space is the costs of preparing gear versus the odds of it getting used. With Arsenals deploying the needed gear to the desired location once it is needed, a host of options suddenly become practical.
Cloudy Skies 11.18
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
[] Train, either in the real world or in Perfect Storm's simulator. SPECIFY which spell to work on.
-[] Ragnarök is your ultimate spell but you've never tested it. Maybe you should fix that before the next Endbringer attack. Do it in a simulation.
Cloudy Skies 11.18
Friday, July 22
Evening in Philadelphia gives way to a sunny seaside cliff as you have your Device fire up a training simulation. You do not spend a lot of time in the simulator, but when you learn new spells you tend to spend an hour or so running through some tests to find their limits and getting familiar with them. The importance of doing so was made particularly poignantly when you neglected to practice using your telekinesis and got shot in the face by a grenade by MS-13 a couple of months back.
Today, you plan to use it for the same purpose, though this time it is not a new spell you want to experience but one you have had for some time and never felt brave enough to cast.
"Mistress appears distressed," says the translucent silhouette that Perfect Storm tends to prefer when materializing in this digital world.
"Distressed is the wrong word," you reply. "I'm more… anxious, I guess? There's an Endbringer fight on the way. I know it. Dragon knows it."
"What is Mistress's plan?"
You look out over the water and the sand bars just a few hundred feet away from the base of the cliff. It is so beautiful; only the fact that it is not real comforts you on just what kind of hell you are about to unleash. "Tell me more about one of my spells. Ragnarök."
"Ragnarök. Breaker-tier spell; highest category of bombardment magic. Personalized by Calamity Witch Origin and source of callsign. Destructive yield so immense nonlethal modification impossible. High probability that spell can damage or kill Endbringer."
You suspected it had a great deal of power, but it is nice to have confirmation that this is the best shot you have at hurting one of the Simurgh's brothers. Still, you cannot help but compare it to Solar Wrath. While that spell is immensely powerful, as you found out when luring the Dragonslayers into your trap, it also has the potential for just as much collateral damage. "I want to try it out."
"Understood. Initializing targets."
Down from the sky descends a massive wedge of steel, clearly an interstellar battleship. "Is that a Belkan ship?" you guess, thinking of Perfect Storm's hatred for the enemies of the Galean Empire that designed him.
"Affirmative." The Device's avatar takes to the skies, and you follow to float over the land. "Ragnarök requires large investment of magic, more than can be provided by all but strongest mages. If taken entirely from Linker Core, near guarantee casting will cause core implosion and rapid death. Calamity Witch Origin commonly used spell to absorb mana from enemy soldiers in order to supplement personal Linker Core capacity. Mistress possesses Extinction Knight subtemplate and cartridge capabilities. Will serve same function.
"Ragnarök formula number 1 loaded. Ready to cast."
You shrug. "Let's do it."
You level your staff to aim at the alien battleship, and your casting sigil appears before growing larger. It is not the exact same as the ritual circle you used when creating Samantha, but it does have an additional ring around it with an ever-changing string of code. A series of gunshots sound from the head of your staff, virtual cartridges being consumed to heighten the sense of realism. What look like three of the miniature suns of Solar Wrath appear, one at each point of the triangle. Tongues of flame stream from them towards the middle of the sigil, swirling around and around to create an even bigger ball of fire.
Even with your Barrier Jacket making you fireproof, you can still feel the ungodly amount of heat pouring off the still-building attack as well as a discomforting tightness in your chest. "Storm, please tell me thing is finished," you manage to force out through gritted teeth.
"Firing solution calculated. Variables locked. Casting finished in three… two… one…"
"Ragnarök!" you scream, and the world screams with you. The sun before you does not fire so much as explode outwards. You can feel this spell reverberating through your soul, an entire planet's hate and rage collected and concentrated and ignited as death inescapable.
Just above the shrinking edge of the sun, you see the beam smash through the battleship. The midsection explodes into a rain of molten shrapnel, and the two halves of the ship fall from the sky still burning into the sea.
A wave of fatigue and nausea sweeps over you and threatens to overcome you. You drop and barely manage to use your flight spell to keep from slamming into the ground. "Storm, something's…" You swallow the vomit that wants to rise. "Something's wrong."
The silhouette joins you on the ground. "Use of cartridges sufficient for casting Ragnarök in excess of Mistress's Linker Core capacity. Result in first stage of acute mana poisoning. Symptoms simulated."
"Ugh. This is awful." You push yourself upright with the aid of your staff and stagger over to the edge of the cliff to look again at the destroyed ship. If your spell can do this, it can certainly hurt an Endbringer, though your excitement is more than tempered by your feeling of illness. "You said this was was the first stage?"
"Affirmative. Acute mana poisoning has five stages. Later stages require prolonged recovery period. Last stage is inevitably fatal." Perfect Storm visibly hesitates. "Request Mistress not put self in such condition."
You reach out and do your best to pat the shoulder of the shadowy figure that has no physical presence. "Don't worry, Storm. I'm not eager to die right now either. But I am eager not to feel like shit—" The nausea vanishes before you can finish your sentence, and you shoot the representation of your Intelligent Device a smile. A thought crosses your mind, and your smile fades. "You said the first Calamity Witch personalized that spell, and you called it formula number one. Is her version the second formula?"
"Indeed. Mistress desires to experience modification?"
"Might as well. Without feeling like I was poisoned, thank you very much," you warn.
The cliff beneath you abruptly disappears, and when you arrest your fall you realize the seaside vista is gone. In its place is a wide expanse of prairie, almost like you were transported to the Midwest. Below you is a city, glass towers and warehouses in the middle with shorter buildings around them. At the very edge of the city stands a stone wall, and even at this distance you can make out what look to be cannons spaced out on the top of the wall at regular intervals.
Cold dread hits you in the gut. "What is this place?" you ask, hoping against all hope that you are wrong.
It is not to be. Perfect Storm turns to look at you fully. "Representation of Belkan outpost colony."
A colony. Not a military base. Not a field of warehouses. It is a colony, which means a population where most of them are not military personnel. "This is what Ragnarök is for?!" you demand. "Blowing up cities? Murdering thousands of innocent people?"
"Belkan forces attacked cities," Perfect Storm snaps back, its voice angrier than you have ever heard before. "Not efficient or impersonal. Belkan knights raped and kidnapped women and children, then butchered all remaining."
A woman appears a short distance away. She is older than you by perhaps a decade, with a Barrier Jacket that is identical to your own with the exception of being stretched tight over her more generous frame. Her bronze skin goes well with her dark hair. It is her golden eyes, though, that capture your attention. They are locked on the city below, and the glare she gives it is as cold and calculating.
"Galea responded in kind."
Oriana Brevetti, the first Calamity Witch – for who else could she be? – grasps a matching staff to your own and points it at the town below. "Starfield Harvest," she growls. The same casting circle you used for Ragnarök flashes into existence, and after a moment you see streams of all the colors of the rainbow reaching up from the colony and making their way towards her. The colors hit the sigil and are absorbed; an orange aura in turn builds around Brevetti. Soon her aura shines bright enough you cannot look directly at her, and the other colors vanish.
"Ragnarök!"
The three fireballs form, but they do not merge their power like before. They instead fire their own beams at an angle. The beams collide halfway between Brevetti and the colony. From that impact is birthed what must be twenty or thirty smaller beams that fall the rest of the way.
From your position, you are in the perfect spot to watch the explosions that follow. Skyscrapers collapse. Buildings that are not immediately vaporized are instead blown apart by the shockwaves. The city bursts into flame, and everything and everyone within burns.
"Breaker-tier spells designed for hard targets," Perfect Storm says. "Starships, S-rank knights. When fired on habitations, impact site destroyed but surrounding areas unharmed. Orbital bombardment initially used to attack colony targets. Defense satellite gunneries and anti-spacecraft missiles countered strategy.
"Brevetti already had reputation as dangerous mage. Flare mana, used lethally, produce heat and radiation. Ordered to assist siege of Belkan colony world Elicoor II. Planet used as forward operations base. Multiple bombardment attempts failed. Brevetti's role to destroy defensive weapons that had crippled bomber craft.
"Too many weapons systems in place. Ships could not approach even with assistance. Subsequently Brevetti experimented with preferred Breaker spell and created formula 2. Multiple impacts with overlapping blast radii. Sneaked past anti-spacecraft guns at night and destroyed Elicoor II capitol city and major military installations. Planet captured one week later. Effectiveness of attack unprecedented. Earned Brevetti moniker 'Calamity'."
"That's enough! I don't want to hear any more!" You tear your eyes away from the scene of senseless destruction. "End simulation."
"Mistress—"
"I said stop the damn simulation!"
You open your eyes to see a normal apartment ceiling and violently wipe away the tears staining your cheeks. You have always heard that war was hell, but such a trite phrase does little to describe what you just saw and heard. Belka and Galea might have been more technologically advanced than Earth Bet, but both worlds were guilty of war crimes as far as you can see.
"Taylor?" You whip your head around to find Kurt standing in the doorway, worry painted all over his face. "Are you okay?"
You get rid of another tear threatening to fall. "I'm fine. I was doing a little research into my powers. Turns out some of them have a darker purpose than I expected." Because you had convinced yourself that there was a good and just reason why the Galeans wanted to turn people into one-woman WMDs, you scoff internally.
"That sounds… rough," he awkwardly replies. "Do you, you know, want to talk about it or something?"
"I'd really rather not."
He nods, which you expect is the end of it. Kurt has never been the most touchy-feely of people. Most of the Brockton Bay dockworkers weren't, honestly. Even the offer to listen to your complaints is unusual for him. He starts to leave but stops after a single step, and then he surprises you by coming closer and joining you on the couch.
It takes him a few halting attempts, but finally he gets out, "I owe you an apology."
"For…?"
"For how I acted during the thing last month. When the Privateers tore ourselves apart. I was… I was a dick to you. A lot of us were. I don't know everything about your powers," he admits, his words tumbling out faster and faster, "but just from what Tim and Samantha told us, it's obvious they're strong."
The smile you give him is anemic. "Alexandria all but told me she thinks I'll be Legend's successor in a few years."
His eyes bug out. "Wait. Alexandria told you—?" He shakes his head. "Never mind. Wow. Uh, anyway, you're really strong. You can do so much good, but the way we saw it at the time, it looked like you weren't doing much with all that power at all."
"Not doing much?! While you guys were jumping in over your heads and trying to kill people," you say scathingly, "I was working with Dragon and some others to come up with a way to fight the Endbringers. Something that already killed the Simurgh, if you care to remember the headline news from yesterday."
You had requested that you not be named in the press conference Dragon, Legend, and the Chief Director gave yesterday afternoon to tell the world that the Hopekiller was no more, but you had nonetheless taken pride in the flabbergasted questions the reporters asked as they tried to wrap their heads around the enormity of the news. That the PRT had an experimental method to disarm Ziz-bombs – the LSD idea Cassiel had proposed – was just the cherry on top.
"I remember. It's going to be a long time before I forget, that's for sure." Kurt picks at a loose thread on his shirt. "We didn't know the reason you weren't out fighting criminals here in town was because you had bigger fish to fry. We didn't want to know. That's why we didn't ask. We were too wrapped up in telling ourselves how we could do more with your powers if we had them instead."
"Are you saying you guys were jealous?" you ask in surprise.
The way he hangs his head is answer enough, you suppose. "I was, I can say that much. All I could see was what was going on right in front of me and how nothing was getting better. Or, maybe, how nothing was getting better fast enough to satisfy me. We were impatient, and we were upset, and we were arrogant and stupid. And we took it out on you."
You take a long moment to look at him closer. The way the militant half of the Privateers had treated you was insulting, that was for sure, but you cannot say that it really hurt you, either. You had, quite honestly, already been thinking of them as your dad's team rather than your own, no matter that you had at first planned to work alongside them. For all that he had not injured you, however, you know that his behavior had put a massive strain on his marriage, to the point that Lacey had actually considered divorcing him.
"You hurt Lacey more than you hurt me, you know," you say at last.
"I know. She already told me she doesn't know when she'll be ready to forgive me for how I treated her. I don't blame her for that, and I don't expect you to just forgive me, either." He stands up from his chair and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I just needed to tell you I'm sorry."
Good choice to do this in a simulation, by the way. I was worried the vote to do it in the real world would win for a while.
Next chapter will be the normal end of arc interlude and AAR, but we do have one last vote before that. I was going through the skill trees and decided to rebalance the cartridge/Ragnarök ratio to better reflect the cost of the latter, so now the Charge Cartridge skill only provides 8 cartridges per day. You still have 50 in reserve, and Ragnarök still costs ten per casting. Because of this rebalance, however, you guys now have an extra training point floating about. Take this time to assign it to any unmastered skill. If it is a spell shared among multiple characters, please include in the vote who it goes to.
-[] Ragnarök is your ultimate spell but you've never tested it. Maybe you should fix that before the next Endbringer attack. Do it in a simulation.
Cloudy Skies 11.18
Friday, July 22
Evening in Philadelphia gives way to a sunny seaside cliff as you have your Device fire up a training simulation. You do not spend a lot of time in the simulator, but when you learn new spells you tend to spend an hour or so running through some tests to find their limits and getting familiar with them. The importance of doing so was made particularly poignantly when you neglected to practice using your telekinesis and got shot in the face by a grenade by MS-13 a couple of months back.
Today, you plan to use it for the same purpose, though this time it is not a new spell you want to experience but one you have had for some time and never felt brave enough to cast.
"Mistress appears distressed," says the translucent silhouette that Perfect Storm tends to prefer when materializing in this digital world.
"Distressed is the wrong word," you reply. "I'm more… anxious, I guess? There's an Endbringer fight on the way. I know it. Dragon knows it."
"What is Mistress's plan?"
You look out over the water and the sand bars just a few hundred feet away from the base of the cliff. It is so beautiful; only the fact that it is not real comforts you on just what kind of hell you are about to unleash. "Tell me more about one of my spells. Ragnarök."
"Ragnarök. Breaker-tier spell; highest category of bombardment magic. Personalized by Calamity Witch Origin and source of callsign. Destructive yield so immense nonlethal modification impossible. High probability that spell can damage or kill Endbringer."
You suspected it had a great deal of power, but it is nice to have confirmation that this is the best shot you have at hurting one of the Simurgh's brothers. Still, you cannot help but compare it to Solar Wrath. While that spell is immensely powerful, as you found out when luring the Dragonslayers into your trap, it also has the potential for just as much collateral damage. "I want to try it out."
"Understood. Initializing targets."
Down from the sky descends a massive wedge of steel, clearly an interstellar battleship. "Is that a Belkan ship?" you guess, thinking of Perfect Storm's hatred for the enemies of the Galean Empire that designed him.
"Affirmative." The Device's avatar takes to the skies, and you follow to float over the land. "Ragnarök requires large investment of magic, more than can be provided by all but strongest mages. If taken entirely from Linker Core, near guarantee casting will cause core implosion and rapid death. Calamity Witch Origin commonly used spell to absorb mana from enemy soldiers in order to supplement personal Linker Core capacity. Mistress possesses Extinction Knight subtemplate and cartridge capabilities. Will serve same function.
"Ragnarök formula number 1 loaded. Ready to cast."
You shrug. "Let's do it."
You level your staff to aim at the alien battleship, and your casting sigil appears before growing larger. It is not the exact same as the ritual circle you used when creating Samantha, but it does have an additional ring around it with an ever-changing string of code. A series of gunshots sound from the head of your staff, virtual cartridges being consumed to heighten the sense of realism. What look like three of the miniature suns of Solar Wrath appear, one at each point of the triangle. Tongues of flame stream from them towards the middle of the sigil, swirling around and around to create an even bigger ball of fire.
Even with your Barrier Jacket making you fireproof, you can still feel the ungodly amount of heat pouring off the still-building attack as well as a discomforting tightness in your chest. "Storm, please tell me thing is finished," you manage to force out through gritted teeth.
"Firing solution calculated. Variables locked. Casting finished in three… two… one…"
"Ragnarök!" you scream, and the world screams with you. The sun before you does not fire so much as explode outwards. You can feel this spell reverberating through your soul, an entire planet's hate and rage collected and concentrated and ignited as death inescapable.
Just above the shrinking edge of the sun, you see the beam smash through the battleship. The midsection explodes into a rain of molten shrapnel, and the two halves of the ship fall from the sky still burning into the sea.
A wave of fatigue and nausea sweeps over you and threatens to overcome you. You drop and barely manage to use your flight spell to keep from slamming into the ground. "Storm, something's…" You swallow the vomit that wants to rise. "Something's wrong."
The silhouette joins you on the ground. "Use of cartridges sufficient for casting Ragnarök in excess of Mistress's Linker Core capacity. Result in first stage of acute mana poisoning. Symptoms simulated."
"Ugh. This is awful." You push yourself upright with the aid of your staff and stagger over to the edge of the cliff to look again at the destroyed ship. If your spell can do this, it can certainly hurt an Endbringer, though your excitement is more than tempered by your feeling of illness. "You said this was was the first stage?"
"Affirmative. Acute mana poisoning has five stages. Later stages require prolonged recovery period. Last stage is inevitably fatal." Perfect Storm visibly hesitates. "Request Mistress not put self in such condition."
You reach out and do your best to pat the shoulder of the shadowy figure that has no physical presence. "Don't worry, Storm. I'm not eager to die right now either. But I am eager not to feel like shit—" The nausea vanishes before you can finish your sentence, and you shoot the representation of your Intelligent Device a smile. A thought crosses your mind, and your smile fades. "You said the first Calamity Witch personalized that spell, and you called it formula number one. Is her version the second formula?"
"Indeed. Mistress desires to experience modification?"
"Might as well. Without feeling like I was poisoned, thank you very much," you warn.
The cliff beneath you abruptly disappears, and when you arrest your fall you realize the seaside vista is gone. In its place is a wide expanse of prairie, almost like you were transported to the Midwest. Below you is a city, glass towers and warehouses in the middle with shorter buildings around them. At the very edge of the city stands a stone wall, and even at this distance you can make out what look to be cannons spaced out on the top of the wall at regular intervals.
Cold dread hits you in the gut. "What is this place?" you ask, hoping against all hope that you are wrong.
It is not to be. Perfect Storm turns to look at you fully. "Representation of Belkan outpost colony."
A colony. Not a military base. Not a field of warehouses. It is a colony, which means a population where most of them are not military personnel. "This is what Ragnarök is for?!" you demand. "Blowing up cities? Murdering thousands of innocent people?"
"Belkan forces attacked cities," Perfect Storm snaps back, its voice angrier than you have ever heard before. "Not efficient or impersonal. Belkan knights raped and kidnapped women and children, then butchered all remaining."
A woman appears a short distance away. She is older than you by perhaps a decade, with a Barrier Jacket that is identical to your own with the exception of being stretched tight over her more generous frame. Her bronze skin goes well with her dark hair. It is her golden eyes, though, that capture your attention. They are locked on the city below, and the glare she gives it is as cold and calculating.
"Galea responded in kind."
Oriana Brevetti, the first Calamity Witch – for who else could she be? – grasps a matching staff to your own and points it at the town below. "Starfield Harvest," she growls. The same casting circle you used for Ragnarök flashes into existence, and after a moment you see streams of all the colors of the rainbow reaching up from the colony and making their way towards her. The colors hit the sigil and are absorbed; an orange aura in turn builds around Brevetti. Soon her aura shines bright enough you cannot look directly at her, and the other colors vanish.
"Ragnarök!"
The three fireballs form, but they do not merge their power like before. They instead fire their own beams at an angle. The beams collide halfway between Brevetti and the colony. From that impact is birthed what must be twenty or thirty smaller beams that fall the rest of the way.
From your position, you are in the perfect spot to watch the explosions that follow. Skyscrapers collapse. Buildings that are not immediately vaporized are instead blown apart by the shockwaves. The city bursts into flame, and everything and everyone within burns.
"Breaker-tier spells designed for hard targets," Perfect Storm says. "Starships, S-rank knights. When fired on habitations, impact site destroyed but surrounding areas unharmed. Orbital bombardment initially used to attack colony targets. Defense satellite gunneries and anti-spacecraft missiles countered strategy.
"Brevetti already had reputation as dangerous mage. Flare mana, used lethally, produce heat and radiation. Ordered to assist siege of Belkan colony world Elicoor II. Planet used as forward operations base. Multiple bombardment attempts failed. Brevetti's role to destroy defensive weapons that had crippled bomber craft.
"Too many weapons systems in place. Ships could not approach even with assistance. Subsequently Brevetti experimented with preferred Breaker spell and created formula 2. Multiple impacts with overlapping blast radii. Sneaked past anti-spacecraft guns at night and destroyed Elicoor II capitol city and major military installations. Planet captured one week later. Effectiveness of attack unprecedented. Earned Brevetti moniker 'Calamity'."
"That's enough! I don't want to hear any more!" You tear your eyes away from the scene of senseless destruction. "End simulation."
"Mistress—"
"I said stop the damn simulation!"
You open your eyes to see a normal apartment ceiling and violently wipe away the tears staining your cheeks. You have always heard that war was hell, but such a trite phrase does little to describe what you just saw and heard. Belka and Galea might have been more technologically advanced than Earth Bet, but both worlds were guilty of war crimes as far as you can see.
"Taylor?" You whip your head around to find Kurt standing in the doorway, worry painted all over his face. "Are you okay?"
You get rid of another tear threatening to fall. "I'm fine. I was doing a little research into my powers. Turns out some of them have a darker purpose than I expected." Because you had convinced yourself that there was a good and just reason why the Galeans wanted to turn people into one-woman WMDs, you scoff internally.
"That sounds… rough," he awkwardly replies. "Do you, you know, want to talk about it or something?"
"I'd really rather not."
He nods, which you expect is the end of it. Kurt has never been the most touchy-feely of people. Most of the Brockton Bay dockworkers weren't, honestly. Even the offer to listen to your complaints is unusual for him. He starts to leave but stops after a single step, and then he surprises you by coming closer and joining you on the couch.
It takes him a few halting attempts, but finally he gets out, "I owe you an apology."
"For…?"
"For how I acted during the thing last month. When the Privateers tore ourselves apart. I was… I was a dick to you. A lot of us were. I don't know everything about your powers," he admits, his words tumbling out faster and faster, "but just from what Tim and Samantha told us, it's obvious they're strong."
The smile you give him is anemic. "Alexandria all but told me she thinks I'll be Legend's successor in a few years."
His eyes bug out. "Wait. Alexandria told you—?" He shakes his head. "Never mind. Wow. Uh, anyway, you're really strong. You can do so much good, but the way we saw it at the time, it looked like you weren't doing much with all that power at all."
"Not doing much?! While you guys were jumping in over your heads and trying to kill people," you say scathingly, "I was working with Dragon and some others to come up with a way to fight the Endbringers. Something that already killed the Simurgh, if you care to remember the headline news from yesterday."
You had requested that you not be named in the press conference Dragon, Legend, and the Chief Director gave yesterday afternoon to tell the world that the Hopekiller was no more, but you had nonetheless taken pride in the flabbergasted questions the reporters asked as they tried to wrap their heads around the enormity of the news. That the PRT had an experimental method to disarm Ziz-bombs – the LSD idea Cassiel had proposed – was just the cherry on top.
"I remember. It's going to be a long time before I forget, that's for sure." Kurt picks at a loose thread on his shirt. "We didn't know the reason you weren't out fighting criminals here in town was because you had bigger fish to fry. We didn't want to know. That's why we didn't ask. We were too wrapped up in telling ourselves how we could do more with your powers if we had them instead."
"Are you saying you guys were jealous?" you ask in surprise.
The way he hangs his head is answer enough, you suppose. "I was, I can say that much. All I could see was what was going on right in front of me and how nothing was getting better. Or, maybe, how nothing was getting better fast enough to satisfy me. We were impatient, and we were upset, and we were arrogant and stupid. And we took it out on you."
You take a long moment to look at him closer. The way the militant half of the Privateers had treated you was insulting, that was for sure, but you cannot say that it really hurt you, either. You had, quite honestly, already been thinking of them as your dad's team rather than your own, no matter that you had at first planned to work alongside them. For all that he had not injured you, however, you know that his behavior had put a massive strain on his marriage, to the point that Lacey had actually considered divorcing him.
"You hurt Lacey more than you hurt me, you know," you say at last.
"I know. She already told me she doesn't know when she'll be ready to forgive me for how I treated her. I don't blame her for that, and I don't expect you to just forgive me, either." He stands up from his chair and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I just needed to tell you I'm sorry."
Good choice to do this in a simulation, by the way. I was worried the vote to do it in the real world would win for a while.
Next chapter will be the normal end of arc interlude and AAR, but we do have one last vote before that. I was going through the skill trees and decided to rebalance the cartridge/Ragnarök ratio to better reflect the cost of the latter, so now the Charge Cartridge skill only provides 8 cartridges per day. You still have 50 in reserve, and Ragnarök still costs ten per casting. Because of this rebalance, however, you guys now have an extra training point floating about. Take this time to assign it to any unmastered skill. If it is a spell shared among multiple characters, please include in the vote who it goes to.
- Location
- Elsewhere
Well, he did say
So I think it counts.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
Ha! As if.
And now we know for sure that a spell behind Divide Energy is a mana-vampire, just as I suspected. And its apparently city-scale vampirism.
I doubt it'll be really useful for Taylor, considering little number of mage-candidates on Earth-Bet and Taylor's unwillingness to hurt innocents.
At least now you know what to expect.
IAE: "Correction. They were not innocent. According to the Galean Criminal Code, being a Belkan is a severe crime, punished by inprisonment in the Re-education Centre or death."
Interesting, what would Brevetti have thought if she saw this scene?
Would she have felt disgust, seeing such a display of weak will, naivete and misplaced compassion?
Or would she have felt happiness that there will be a time and place peaceful enough for a powerful mage to have such a sense of morality?
[X] Misteltein
It's the only unmastered spell Taylor can cast.
Timerider
That guy who really should get out more.
- Location
- The End of the World.
There is actually a very good reason for such a purpose.
"We really, really needed the dakka."