[x] Yes, you like it. (schism always turned on, intimidation ++, empathy --)
[X] And then was that time, when you escaped a fire. You heated a good chunk of the building's wall and then instantly freezed it, after that a mere buck broke the wall and let your band to get out. Your pyrokinesis was rushed, but precise. Though you were a wreck for the next few days.
parallel thought plus control focus will allow for great flexibility over what we can do. we already grabbed the powerhouse for blasting now to make sure it only does what we tell it to. as for schism it will help more than it hurts so long as we make sure to not let it completely cut us off from those around us. while it will make it hard to relate to most ponies and make many feel uneasy around us it is able to be worked around and more importantly is a huge boost to magic and intellect. we could multicast if we get this down properly.
[x] Yes, you like it. (schism always turned on, intimidation ++, empathy --) No. of votes: 3 pressea, Camellia, Blasterbot
[x] Sometimes, however, a foal makes things that endanger others. Like this idiot, who took off the rail skid. Your fear opened some valve deep inside you, and the fire was hot enough to melt the entire car full of steel slabs. You gave him a right trashing, but somehow didn't cripple him permanently. Considering circumstances, you were a paramount of tranquility. No. of votes: 5 pressea, Thozmp, Dalek Ix, Cyrus 21, Camellia
[X] And then was that time, when you escaped a fire. You heated a good chunk of the building's wall and then instantly freezed it, after that a mere buck broke the wall and let your band to get out. Your pyrokinesis was rushed, but precise. Though you were a wreck for the next few days. No. of votes: 1 Blasterbot
[X] Your father took you at work regularly. And well, once something gone wrong and a wave of molten metal was approaching you and some workers… You still don't remember, how smolten (!) fireproof (!) material was reshaped into a wedge, redirecting the flow around you, and then a powerful freezin enchantment to keep air around your four breathable. No. of votes: 1 Hydroplatypus
Trait acquired: flames of passion. Intense feelings increase power of your fire spells.
Trait acquired: aggressive response. Your first reaction to danger is to attack.
After some thought you decided that you don't like the feeling. Yes, you keep cool head even though your irritation is palpable, but it doesn't make you feel confident, it makes you feel afraid. You are afraid that you may become utterly disconnected. You don't like it a tiniest bit. It is better to learn some self-control or apply the technique only when needed. And you still are not sure that you will need it in fight anyway, you still managed to achieve victory in seriously agitated state.
… Anyway, you got your lesson on magic (which is always supervised by Solar Flare even if she doesn't teach at this particular lesson) and is moving to next lesson, crafting. Also by Solar Flare.
Unlike combat magic, crafting magic items is all about accuracy, precision and raw patience, and also some actual item crafting skill. It is OK to make a cheap, simple artifact by enchanting cheap piece of stock jewelry or crude armor. However, to make something really powerful, spells must be embedded into materials in the process of forging, and even shape of the item often must be specifically designed for particular enchantment. This sometimes makes magic items to look overly classic, extravagant, eclectic and dozen other buzzwords. In essence, a powerful artifact always looks strange.
You still is not sure you should study the field in depth. Yes, crafting potentially allows to pack much power into small volume. But the skill is so time-consuming, that it is somewhat impractical in many cases. Anyway, you are focused in your studies on specific type of enchantment, best suited for specific type of items, one you are working today with. It should fix your obvious problem, you know you have.
Today you are working with
[] hornring
[] earring
[] necklace
[] horseshoes
[] body armor
[] Write-in? Must be wearable without magic in dynamic situations and craftable in reasonable time.
==== flashback, Canterlot. The problem. ====
Canterlot is not to your tastes. It is not as big as Stalliongrad, but very densely packed. Unlike most cities, Canterlot grows into sky, not into fields. This produced a very special kind of architecture, with building staying close to each other, with narrow streets and so on. Living space in the city is extremely expensive. In fact, it is common to work and sleep in shifts. Probably more than half of the city lives this way. Stalliongrad is more merciful in this aspect, living space is not an issue (though distances may be). Still, your mentor insisted that you have to spend some time on the streets, preferably under false identity. You are briefed extensively on city layout and street life by appropriate police officer, so you are not in the dark….
Still, you was at a loss at first, when suddenly you saw two menacing earth ponies stepped before you, blocking the narrow alley. Looking back, you saw another two blocking way back. You were unsure how to address the situation. There is no chance you can call for rescue. You somehow got lost.
What did you do?
[] Attacked head-on.
- [] using lethal means
- [] using non-lethal means
[] Intimidated with display of power.
- [] grim
- [] flashy
[] Prepared for counterattack.
- [] using lethal means
- [] using non-lethal means
[] Write-in? Must be aggressive.
[X] Hornring
[X] Attacked head-on.
- [X] using non-lethal means
I like. Something that you can wear that won't draw much suspicion, and some non-lethal experience.
EDIT: Changing to something harder to remove. Also, Horn bling.
I thought the shoes would be fairly incognito. otherwise I could go for the full body armor instead. no matter what we make it will be unique and attention grabbing so incognito is not going to happen if we want good effects. also no love for trying to social our way out?
You didn't cared much about the thugs, but killing them would be an overkill, not saying that you'll have to be creative to avoid consequences. So, you casted your favorite flare spell at some distance both behind and in front of you. You felt for a moment how stones around you cracked, but the was not the point, as your opponents were blinded for a moment. With a dancing movement you stroke both with your hooves, causing them to fall down. You were pretty sure they got a concussion, but that's was their problem. Then you moved forward and then activated a powerful firewall spell behind you, that should keep them there for a while, and calmly trotted away.
==== Present time ====
Still, it showed you that you lack good ways to deal with opponents without inflicting much harm. Not that it was an immediate problem, but it is better to have the option. And to do it you needed some spells, not belonging to fire school. Unluckily, these spells are much harder for you to cast. You cast fire spells with same easy as you breath. Cold spells, being the opposite side of same coin also are not an issue. But paralyzing spells? Out of your grasp. At least, not with acceptable casting time.
Good thing, it is possible to store prepared spell matrixes in proper gems. After that it is only a question of pumping some arcane power into it to produce a spell. Of course, there are many limitations, and finding proper gem is a nightmare. It must be as close to perfect as it is possible, and there is no perfection in this world. In practice it means that a large gem must be crushed, and if you are lucky, one or two shards would be of passable quality. You already passed this stage, selecting five shards of purest diamond and cut them, perfecting their natural faces. All basic enhancements were already in place… So it was about embedding them into complicated three-dimensional roughly toroidal web of iridium alloy… with threads thinner than hair, and an additional spell after each thread put in place. Very complicated work.
Finally, you were able to put in place the final thread. After that you carefully examined your work with both arcane sense and various tools. And again. And again. Finally satisfied, you looked at your mentor. Solar Flare tilted her head and glanced at your teacher of crafting arts. He also examined your work, and nodded. You put the crafted ring into the center of complicated diagram drawn on the table, and then put six gems that would guide your power, while you pump the ring with magic, awakening it as an artifact of power. You breathed deeply several times…. And fired beam of pure magical energy into one of the gems. The energy jumped in arc onto other gems, that started to glow with intense bluish-white light with slowly increasing luminosity until you could barely see anything in a sea of light. Finally, you hear a ring, as the first gem stopped to pass energy, as you apparently pumped enough of it for the task. It was… exhausting. You sighed, and then launched a tiny spark into the diagram.
You were able to see the room clearly through closed eyelids for a second. But when you built enough courage to touch the ring with your magic, you felt the five slots, where five spell matrices could be put. It felt like extension of your our spellcasting ability. Worth every minute of tiring hours of work for the last month. You bounced and bounced and bounced like an excited small filly.
"Hm…." Solar Flare's voice almost frozen you mid air. You slowly turned to her with apologetic smile. She tilted her head and looked at you with unreadable expression for a minute. Then she laughed. "Good work, dear. Thank you, doctOr, you work is done here. You will be payed an extra. Now, Sunset, let's talk in private.
Item acquired: hornring of universal spellstoring. You can put up to five spells into this ring, and cast them as if you had them as signature spells (i.e. with minimal effort and without thought)
==== Serious Talk ====
"My dear, it is time for you to move to next big stage of your life." Huh? You looked at Solar Flare with a silent question. She obliged. "Today you finished your first big project. I don't care what motivated you, but you made a decision and followed it on your own, applying considerable effort. Your was able to convict doctOr to choose exactly this design, clearly not recommended for beginners. I consider this as a sign of maturity of a sort. And, your control is now good enough so you could train on your own without my direct supervision. Of course, there are some loose ends and we will fix it in a month or two, but all important things are learned. Unfortunately, you are still to learn about less than stellar sides of our life. Of course, Stalliongrad taught you many things and made you strong, but it is in its heart a honest city. Harsh, but honest. I don't expect you to become a politician and employ manipulation as a your main tool, but I do expect you to be able to discover and stomp them. Do you understand, what it means?"
You considered it. "I need practice under supervision of an expert. But doesn't Canterlot host enough sinister plots?"
Solar Flare snorted. "Yes and no. There are more then enough manipulative nobles here. However, they know very well, what will follow after a wrong move, so the conspiracies are very paranoid, the plots are very well hidden and so on . They are too good for you to learn just now."
While it was a blow to your pride, you had to agree, that it was possible. At least, you could not prove otherwise. "Meaning that I have to go to a city with less competent people. But still a big city, and there are only so many of them. Small towns will not provide enough … material"
"Yes. I offer you Vanhoover. It is quite large port on north-western coast. Many competing companies, healthy, but significant amount of gangs and so on. Also, I like the police commissioner there. He is only one person, but is able to hold a city of corrupt people under control. Quite a feat."
"Well, I don't see a reason to turn the offer down, but where would I live and will I have money?"
"You will have a stipend and prepaid apartment. However, the stipend will cover only bare minimum.You will have to impress your boss to pay you for anything more."
Essentially, not very different from what you had here. While you did have access to many costly arcane materials, and Solar Flare was always available for a gentle word, you had to work in the palace kitchen to have more than passable food and small personal projects. "I agree".
"Good. Now, please tell me about what happens on the streets…."
Your train trip was uneventful. You traveled in business-class, but that wasn't all that luxurious, merely comfortable. Still, much better than economy-class, and gave you time to think about your destination.
Vanhoover isn't the largest city of Equestria. However, it is an important port and a railway hub with significant cargo traffic. There is also a base of Royal Navy nearby, to keep an eye on the sea traffic, and well, they see action more often than they wish. The city itself has comparatively high criminal levels… however, the second lowest level of violent crimes against civilians after Canterlot, and that does mean something. As far, as it can be guessed from available sources, the local police commissioner decided to use his limited funds mostly to protect civilians. Gangs are allowed to roam relatively free, though they have to play by rules. For some reason, gang wars in Vanhoover are very common, keeping gangs small and powerless. You are pretty sure that this is not a coincidence.
====== Arrival =====
Vanhoover Passenger Central is a big train station, really big, mostly because it is the only passenger railway terminal in the city. You left your platform, and immediately saw a dark-grey stallion with slightly darker mane and piercing ice-blue eyes, who held a placard with words "Meeting Sunset Shimmer". You came to him and greeted him. "Hello! I'm Sunset Shimmer, mister."
He gave you a quick look, and answered in monotonous tone: "Hello. I'm Gray Rock. Do you have any luggage?"
"Nope. I was told, that I will be provided with basics, and I don't have much personal belongings. We can leave." Your cheerful attitude was lost on this one.
"Good. Follow please. Beware, there are much people here."
You followed. His fast steps were not suited for small talks, so you had to wait, until you had arrived into police office, and entered a big cabinet, and saw the chief of the Vanhoover Police Department. A dark grey earth pony stallion with warm orange mande and deep brown eyes. And common looking earth pony, passing by name Anchor Point. Likely, the chessmaster who kept local gangs in fights with each other for more than fifteen years, slowly cleansing the city. Such people are not to be angered, you are better to make him a friend.
"Good day, mister Point. I'm Sunset Shimmer, hopefully your future apprentice in social engineering. Ready to work!"
Anchor Point looked approvingly. " Aaaah, enthusiasm of youth. Well, my dear, I prefer hooves-on approach, so you will start as intern in one of divisions. I prepared the documents on our structure for you, as well as dossiers on people we can attach you to. Sleep on the choice and tell, who you would prefer. We booked studio apartment for you, and you will have a stipend. In case your curator will approve your performance, you will have some extra money, but even without it you will have enough to live." He stood up and walked to the window. "Come here, dear."
You followed. "Yes?" The sight was astonishing. The office was at 25th floor, while most building were mere five-to-ten floors. On the right you saw a field of railways, and somewhere near horizon you saw masts of airship port.
"I love this city, I lived here for good part of my live. I don't expect you to like it, but I do expect you to think about its future. Do you understand?" Translation: do not screw up my work, and we will pass along just fine.
You HATE doublespeak, but you have no choice here. "Yes, I understand. However, I was sent here for practice." Translation: I was sent to screw up SOME work, related to yours. Can we find something safe?
"Of course, you will have some safe practice. And you will have a proper guidance." Translation: You will have a sandbox. It should be sufficient.
"My mentor has pretty high standards, but she has a high opinion about you." Translation: I have doubts, but my mentor doesn't, so I trust you.
He smiled warmly and hopefully genuinely. "Aaah. I met your tutor. She has a temper, but we found mutual understanding. Hopefully, we will come to understanding too. In case of misunderstanding I will trust her judgement" Translation: I'm not going to anger your mentor, but she will not protect you if you screw up.
"I hope, it won't be needed." Translation: Rules accepted.
"Aaah. It's good to see so smart young kids. If only everybody would be so smart. Here are your papers and documents for you. Gray Rock will guide you to your apartment. Come in this cabinet tomorrow at 8 o'clock."
The rest of the day was uneventful, you quickly settled up, and spent most of the time reading the documents. You had several interesting choices…
paper and writing tools (consider infinite within reasonable limits)
id's for names of Sunset Shimmer, Searing Flame and Burning Sands. Are they fake or not? Debatable, but all required records do exist, with your thaumic metrics there. Provided by Solar Flare
passes for libraries
Library of Vanhoover police department
Library of Vanhoover University
Library of Marine Academy
Public Library of Vanhoover City
Library of Central Hospital of Vanhoover
passes for general document archives
Public Archive of Vanhoover City Hall
Public Archive of Vanhoover Police
Public Archive of Vanhoover Court
Clearance to use police crafting lab within limits
Acquaintances/enemies. (Blue, green yellow, orange, red from friendly to hostile)
Princess Solar Flare (blue) (dangerous to abuse)
Sure Anchor, police commissioner (green)
Apple Brown Betty, the landlord. (yellow)
Stats
Name: Sunset Shimmer
Appearance:
Age: 16 yo, late teens Theme: Future Fire Archmage. Personality: bold, courageous, straightforward, honest, hardworking, quick to anger
Traits:
Affinity to fire. Effective conviction is increased by 2 for fire-themed spells and by 1 for ice-themed spells. Reduced casting time for fire spells. Flames of passion. Intense feelings increase power of fire spells (increase effective conviction by 2-4) Aggressive response. Your first reaction to danger is to attack. Merciful. Doesn't kill unless required. Crafter. Can apply Crafting skill to making magic items Crafter (spell embedder). Can embed spell matrixes into magic items , that can be later activated Crafter (spellstore embedder). Can embed spellstore slots into magic items, where spell matrixes can be put for later activation.
Skills:
5 Conviction (potency of magic)
5 Discipline (complexity of magic)
4 Evocation (instantaneous effect spells)
4 Thaumaturgy (prolonged effect spells, crafting magic items)
3 Crafting (capability to create magic items)
3 Athletics (general physique)
3 Endurance (obvious)
2 Economics (what is needed to run a successful business or predict changes on market)
2 Medicine (Ability to treat injuries. Includes limited medical healing)
2 Legal Code (Knowledge of the law)
2 Telekinesis (receives bonuses from Evocation and Conviction)
1 Empathy (understanding people)
1 Rapport (ability to convince people)
1 Brawl (plain physical combat)
1 Cooking (obvious)
For comparison, 0 is untrained; basic familiarity is 1; competent (apprentice) is 3; excellent (professional) is 5, legendary is 7-10, divine is 11+
Sunset IS a magic prodigy, and is very fit physically (Stalliongrad, remember?), but her civil skills leave some to be desired.
I will not lock votes until wednesday at least, so feel free to discuss and ask questions. I also retconned time of apprenticeship to two years. Not that it is vital, but I fell it would be more adequate here.
I imagine Economic and Violent/Robbery crimes would be the easiest for us to get started on (I imagine the latter is going to have us taking down the perpetrators?)
Intelligence would give us a drier technical take on everything along with testing our concentration and attention to detail? Internal would be messy, no one likes Internal Affairs, but it would allow us to get very familiar to sniffing out things hidden by people who know the system.
Legal would be... Persecution? Contracts and attention to wording?
Family Crime... Hoo, boy, now there's something really messy. Emotional Control and Social tip-toeing most likely.
No idea what Task Force is.
Depending on how we're handling this (I.E. how much time we skip and how many sections we can learn from) we should probably try to get an easy. intermediate, and hard one at the least.
I imagine Economic and Violent/Robbery crimes would be the easiest for us to get started on (I imagine the latter is going to have us taking down the perpetrators?)
In any detective division you will be attached to a detective, just like in any other division you would be attached to a competent worker. Detective divisions do take down lesser perpetrators after they have a proof good enough to convince Legal, but in case you want serious action, you should choose Task Force.
Intelligence would give us a drier technical take on everything along with testing our concentration and attention to detail? Internal would be messy, no one likes Internal Affairs, but it would allow us to get very familiar to sniffing out things hidden by people who know the system.
Depending on how we're handling this (I.E. how much time we skip and how many sections we can learn from) we should probably try to get an easy. intermediate, and hard one at the least.
You should assume, that you will have time for one, at most two divisions in two years. After that you will be offered several careers (one of them being continuing the work in police)
[X] Legal Matters
might be the least action filled of choices but it will get us well acquainted with the legal system. we are here to learn to cover our weakness and that is social fu.
