Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
- Location
- U.S.
.... @Mister Ficser question, but would minecraft bonemeal accelerate the world tree seed growth?
- Location
- United States
When your country became resposible for a good chunk of the Geneva Convention. Looking at you WWII Canadians. Don't get me wrong, I approve what you did to the Nazi's, but Yeesh.
But they were Nazis! That shouldn't count.
Also, Marvel's kind of had a weird relationship with Canada for a long time... back in the 80s and early 90s, Toronto and Ottawa in Marvel were both small towns composed mainly of log cabins, and nothing more than two stories high. This was at the same time that Alpha Flight was a running comic, and we had the secret tech to put Adamantium into Wolverine's bones, and build Guardian's super-suit. Apparently in log cabins?
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Apparently they were Captain's Logs.
Of the Starship Eh?-nterprise.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
That was why you got to do it once.
...They're currently in DC. The discussion the characters had was about the local multiverse and what it connects to.
The middle segment was literally about Roy Harper, Speedy, and how he's adjusting to being unfrozen.
The vacation arc ends in the next chapter and then we move on to dealing with something in DC that's been left to fester.
Probably? But it's not a small little thing that'll go from seed to tree in a poof of green sparkles. The world tree exists on a timescale that we really cannot comprehend and even the gods struggle with it as most are too young to imagine a world without it.
- Location
- U.S.
so just like miecraft food, just need to keep applying bonemeal?
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Make an automatic bonemeal dispenser that feeds a constant stream of bonemeal from a decanter of endless
- Location
- Oregon, USA
...Sounds like you need an IQ to Chrono Trigger to help with growth. Set it up to grow in 65,000,000 BC, maybe even applying some sort of long term time compression to give even more time for growth, possibly alongside the Moonstone to be doing more than one thing and no one seems to have found the Moonstone over the intervening time, so a pocket dimension door should be safe even if unattended. Pick it up 65,002,300 years later along with the Sunstone.
- Location
- usa
This is unofficial but I think the reason weapon X was in Canada is because weapon x program was an American project that needed to be done in a foreign country with a lot of land and thinly populated. so they could conduct human experiments without it being traced back to the US and Canada just happens to be the country chosen for this. I don't know why Marvel keeps using Canada for these kind of things but it has become a tradition by now.
Had a quick thought about this. Al's been debating with becoming a full void dragon right? I know he just got the magatama thing and, truthfully, I know next to nothing about that cause I know essentially nothing about that thing. So, if we put aside the issue of the magatama and how it'll affect his body and species issue, would Al produce chakra then? I get the point of more temporary clones would probably not be a good idea, but still it's a thought. Also, would the transition make him fully organic and leave the cyborg/machine parts behind? Ever since that little bit of the story about him becoming a dragon centered on magic had popped up, I've been thoroughly scanning each chap for even a hint on the matter. I'd really love to know more about that matter, how it'll affect Al, and if it'll be touched upon in the near future.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
My pet hypothesis for the Canadians in Marvel being so "morally questionable" is that a bunch of the comic book writers were history enthusiasts and knew what Canada had done in wars. (A lot of things Canada did in WW1, for example, were later declared War Crimes.)
Why was Weapon X in Canada? Because Canada wanted to see what they could do.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Or, it's because they eat gravy on French fries, heretics that they are.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Are we allowed to talk about that? This isn't QQ.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Your opinion isn't always the majority and we all have to navigate a world in which the majority of people will not cater to our every whim and/or ick when our whims/icks are unreasonable to the majority of people.
Basically: yes, we are allowed to talk about poutine, but you're the one driving this train off the tracks with the topic at this point. How badly do you need to have the last word?
Kosjurake
The Wildest of Ronins
- Location
- Tokyo LOCCENT
So, I'm still contemplating the Tony Hawk Pro Skater thing. Can't do it as an Instant Quest, both because I doubt A, there are any IQs for THPS because like uhhhh sweet skateboard skills seem pretty low on the list of priorities for Gamers. Terra probably didn't put one in. B: Even if they did exist I can't imagine Alchemist would be interested in it. Best I could think of is maybe Yuffie gets into skateboarding and begs for it?
So, maybe as bailed on DC entirely plot, and somehow get a link to it because like there are no world ending threats in THPS. Anyways, since Alchemist is more into RPGs and not so much shooters or sports games, even if he might have played the original two DOOMs and knows of the THPS series, entirely possible he's both unaware of the fact Doomguy shows up there, and that the OG Doomguy is in fact the same character as the DOOM 2016 Doomslayer.
Whereas given Kary has some multiverse knowledge of her own, and the Doomslayer has been ruining his multiverse's hell's day for literal ages. She might actually be quite aware of Doomguy and his reputation. Which leads to the question of would she be afraid of him or not? She is currently Gamer empowered, but the Doomslayer is very very good at killing demons. Even ignoring a VS debate perspective on the Doomslayer (because the VS debate perspective on him is very dumb these days after The Ancient Gods), he is a perpetual murder machine fueled by the hell energy he harvests from slain demons, and who has taken down at least three demonic kaiju while on foot. Two of them using the Crucible blade which actually seals off the Titan's regenerative/self resurrective powers, and one of them without said blade. Which is doubly impressive because that one was noted in the Slayer Testaments to be the greatest Titan ever seen by Hell.
I'm just kind of imagining them watching Tony Hawk at a competition and then The Only Thing they Fear Is You starts playing on the loudspeakers as they announce Doomguy is next up. Kary starts panicking while Alec is completely confused why some retro FPS character is even in a skateboarding competition. And maybe Kary wouldn't panic, but if I was a demon and I knew of the Doomslayer, I'd sure as heck be panicking if Doomguy suddenly appeared even if I was the biggest baddest demon to ever live. Because Doomguy has gone through like a dozen of the biggest baddest demons ever. Like, his super shotgun has literally been named by Hell, and they named it Lucifer's Bane. I'm admittedly unclear if that means he fought his universe's iteration of Lucifer or not.
Anyways Alchemist, definitely shouldn't ever IQ to DOOM at least not with Kary in tow, but there's definitely some things there that could be useful. Some fun guns, and the Crucible Sword. I never liked the name, but by god do I love the look of the Doomslayer's energy sword.
So, maybe as bailed on DC entirely plot, and somehow get a link to it because like there are no world ending threats in THPS. Anyways, since Alchemist is more into RPGs and not so much shooters or sports games, even if he might have played the original two DOOMs and knows of the THPS series, entirely possible he's both unaware of the fact Doomguy shows up there, and that the OG Doomguy is in fact the same character as the DOOM 2016 Doomslayer.
Whereas given Kary has some multiverse knowledge of her own, and the Doomslayer has been ruining his multiverse's hell's day for literal ages. She might actually be quite aware of Doomguy and his reputation. Which leads to the question of would she be afraid of him or not? She is currently Gamer empowered, but the Doomslayer is very very good at killing demons. Even ignoring a VS debate perspective on the Doomslayer (because the VS debate perspective on him is very dumb these days after The Ancient Gods), he is a perpetual murder machine fueled by the hell energy he harvests from slain demons, and who has taken down at least three demonic kaiju while on foot. Two of them using the Crucible blade which actually seals off the Titan's regenerative/self resurrective powers, and one of them without said blade. Which is doubly impressive because that one was noted in the Slayer Testaments to be the greatest Titan ever seen by Hell.
I'm just kind of imagining them watching Tony Hawk at a competition and then The Only Thing they Fear Is You starts playing on the loudspeakers as they announce Doomguy is next up. Kary starts panicking while Alec is completely confused why some retro FPS character is even in a skateboarding competition. And maybe Kary wouldn't panic, but if I was a demon and I knew of the Doomslayer, I'd sure as heck be panicking if Doomguy suddenly appeared even if I was the biggest baddest demon to ever live. Because Doomguy has gone through like a dozen of the biggest baddest demons ever. Like, his super shotgun has literally been named by Hell, and they named it Lucifer's Bane. I'm admittedly unclear if that means he fought his universe's iteration of Lucifer or not.
Anyways Alchemist, definitely shouldn't ever IQ to DOOM at least not with Kary in tow, but there's definitely some things there that could be useful. Some fun guns, and the Crucible Sword. I never liked the name, but by god do I love the look of the Doomslayer's energy sword.
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
Depends. Can Yuffie
(Source: I picked a city in the area, checked the Wikipedia page, and scrolled down to the climate section.)
Perhaps she forgot? She was kind of going through a major life event at the time.
Chapter 236
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 2.3.6
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
November 9, 2010
When Alchemist had mentioned visiting the pyramids, Jinx had kind of been expecting they'd join a tour group and do the usual 'ooh'ing and 'ah'ing from a distance.
Instead?
Instead the quartet were walking through the long-undisturbed halls of a pyramid.
Alchemist had led the group towards one specific pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza, under the cover of darkness. He'd ignored the warning signs posted all around the giant stone construction, written in dozens of languages that told them to keep off, keep away and carried a huge, huge range of legal threats.
Jinx kind of felt nervous but she'd also admit she was more than a little excited.
"Weirdest thing about this place..." Alchemist said from the front, clearly visible thanks to the effects of True Seeing. "You'd think everything would've been uncovered by now. Ultrasound, ground penetrating radar, x-ray... But no, there's still dozens and dozens of secrets that nobody noticed."
"You think some of it might be because of culture?" Jinx asked, her eyes tracking the hieroglyphs and reading them as though they were in plain English. "I mean, stuff that'd make sense to them but not us?"
"Probably," Alchemist agreed as they kept going deeper and deeper. "That's a good point, actually. Hmm..."
The quartet stopped at a dead-end, warnings written in ancient Egyptian covered the walls. The hieroglyphs were clumsy but Jinx noted that they warned of some kind of curse that would cause a person's hair and teeth to fall out.
"That's ominous," Kary commented as she kept a tight hand on Yuffie. "I'm unfamiliar with any such curse."
"That's because it's not a curse," Alchemist explained as he set one gloved hand against the wall covered in warnings. "Jinx, while I work on this, you want to pull out a Geiger Counter?"
"Uh... sure?" Jinx wasn't actually sure what that was but she tried to follow the suggestion anyway. Opening the inventory, she zeroed in on the search bar and immediately tried typing in 'G-I-G'...
And coming up blank.
"...How do you spell that?" Jinx asked after a few more failed attempts.
"G-E-I-G-E-R," Alchemist spelled out for her. Jinx quickly found the object in question and, rather than pulling it straight out of the inventory-
She read the description.
~~Geiger Counter~~
~~Brand: WayneTech~~
~~Battery: 97%~~
~~Description~~
"A common commercial model, the Geiger Counter is an indispensable tool in ensuring one's safety in potentially radioactive environments."
...Radioactive?!
"Why would something radioactive be down in an Egyptian pyramid?!" Jinx asked, her voice echoing down the empty corridors.
"Well, what's down here came from outer space," Alchemist's voice was almost unheard as the wall they'd been poking at slowly began to sink into the ground. Another chamber lay beyond, too deep for Jinx to see into it with the range limits of her vision.
Flicking the switch on the little handheld device, Jinx was dismayed to hear it start clicking.
And Alchemist, heedless of the risk of radiation poisoning, just started walking right on in. And snapping his fingers every few steps...
The Geiger Counter went suspiciously silent when Jinx followed directly behind him.
"...You have a spell that cancels out radiation, don't you?" Jinx asked, her eyes narrowing into glowing pink slits.
"Yep," Alchemist absentmindedly replied. "Wouldn't leave Earth without it. Also works great on Kryptonians, too."
Jinx inhaled deeply, the stale air burning at her throat.
"Perhaps you should consider telling us in the future, love," Kary commented idly, following in Jinx's footsteps. "I'm uncertain as to how resistant this form is to cancers. I am not manifested flame, not anymore."
"So... is radiation some kind of, like, poison or something?" Yuffie asked, the girl's head on a swivel as more and more of the chamber was revealed.
"...Basically," Jinx admitted after a few seconds of thought. "It's a lot more than that but, yeah, it's poisonous for us."
Trying to explain how elemental decay worked and how it released energy that could break down the body was currently a bit beyond Jinx.
"A high enough level of Esuna seems to fix it right up," Alchemist called back from in front of them. "Could also try Heal, Wish, I could pick up Lesser Restoration and give that a go, too."
"...How do people even die in the worlds this stuff came from?" Yuffie asked, a rather pointed question that Jinx hadn't even thought of. "'Cuz it sounds like everything can be fixed with magic."
"I cheat. A lot," Alchemist admitted as they stepped out of the narrow corridor and into a much larger chamber. "The system lets me get around a lot of requirements by itself, then there are some perks that let me get around the other requirements, too. As is, most folks have to spend a lot of money and time to accomplish what I've found workarounds for."
Jinx wondered if he meant the cost of the spells, the fact that the material requirements were actually more like suggestions or if the actual power of the spells went up and up and up as they exceeded their natural level restrictions.
The dragon bit her lower lip in thought as they passed through more warnings.
She'd been reading the Nether Scrolls more thoroughly and she'd been practicing a few things at night, after finishing her homework. Firing off a spell the second it was possible and ignoring the material costs for the cheaper ones would get her the direct, immediate effect. Fully repeatable, fully recastable, all it demanded was MP and that was negated by the Spellspring effect.
But being a bit slower, channeling the magic through whatever token the spell supposedly needed, she could get an idea for a more complete form. Something that was larger and more flexible, something that could be better shaped and modified, altered to better suit her needs in some ways.
She could almost see ways to twist the spells themselves, to offer a little more magic and expand how it interacted with the world. It would just take a little more work, eat a little more magic and-
"Is that a space ship?!" Jinx demanded once they walked into the very last chamber of the hidden corridor. On a series of pedestals around the room were some treasures, made of some kind of metal that had never rusted and, against the back wall, was a massive metal ship in the shape of a hawk!
"E-yup," Alchemist told the group as he stepped up to one of the pedestals. On it was a knife, not a fleck of rust but the edge was stained with something even after the countless years it had been sealed away. "It's what we're here to get."
"How?!" Jinx demanded as she rushed up to the space craft to look at it. "Why is there a literal space ship inside of an ancient pyramid!?"
"It crash landed here a long, long time ago," Alchemist explained as Yuffie silently pocketed the knife that Alchemist had been looking at. "The artifacts around the room were made out of the engine casing, stuff called 'Nth Metal'."
The wizard pointed towards a scarab necklace on one pedestal and a pair of clawed gauntlets on another.
"Much as I'd like to, we can't leave those behind for the people who went to college to get a degree in pyramid schemes to scratch their heads over," Alchemist continued to explain as he snapped his fingers and the ship began to shrink. "They're all cursed and connected to a set of souls that keep reincarnating over and over again to play out the same tragedy, over and over again."
The wizard picked up the shrunken ship as Yuffie pulled the knife back out of her pocket, gingerly holding it out and away from herself with two fingers. Jinx carefully took it from the girl and stowed it in the Inventory.
"What need do you have with the ship, love?" Kary asked as she picked up the clawed gauntlets, shaped like a set of talons.
"Trade it in to a collector," Alchemist explained as he slowly turned around the room and continuously cast his anti-radiation spell. "I figure I can use it to buy some goodwill."
"...Okay. I guess we're done here?" Jinx asked, looking around the now-barren room.
"Unless you want to dig around a bit more and see if we can't find some more hidden doors," Alchemist told her as he finished de-radiating the room.
Jinx felt a cold wave wash over her as he cast the spell on her, too, and shivered uncontrollably for a second.
"...You know what?" Jinx said, looking at the rest of the group. "Why not? I want to see if we can uncover something that they'll put on the news!"
-----
November 10, 2010
Bruce Wayne rubbed his face tiredly as he waited in the Hall of Justice for one of several people to show up for one of several meetings.
Thanks to the efforts of the apprentices, they'd begun to backtrack where all of the vampire night deliveries throughout Europe had either been coming from or going to. With that information, they were able to start narrowing down various other businesses and facilities that were acting outside the norm.
Some, like bloodbanks, were found to have a handful of staff who'd stopped showing up. They tended to work nights and either worked in handling deliveries or else were responsible for maintaining inventory and marking out materials that had gone bad and needed to be disposed of. A more thorough review had found that up to half of the spoiled blood had still been viable and had been marked for destruction instead.
Then, checking the inventory of some of the crashed delivery trucks had found those 'spoiled' blood bags set aside in coolers whilst bags of saline with food coloring had replaced them in the biohazard bags.
Shell games and false reporting, doctored documents and outright deception. They were finding such incidents all throughout the continent, one or two people in critical positions, diverting funds and resources...
That didn't touch on various meat processing facilities, legal or otherwise, which had been operated entirely by staff that had been 'taken'.
Every time they uncovered one layer, they found leads to more. Thousands, tens of thousands of people had been involved in this and more were being found every hour.
Bruce slowly twisted the ring on his finger, thinking. Waiting.
The U.N. wanted answers and they wanted them yesterday. Considering how many members of their own staff had been turned to dust and what that implied, Bruce was more than certain that they weren't going to like those answers.
"Sir?" the voice of a young woman called, breaking the dark knight from his thoughts. He looked up to see one of the civilian members of the staff standing at the door that led from the monitor room out into the tour hallway. "A, uh, Question is here to see you? He says you requested him."
"I did," Bruce said as he stood up and walked towards, and then past, the woman. "Thank you, Anne."
Walking through the building, Bruce noted that it had seen significant foot traffic throughout the day. It always did after a major event, people came looking to the heroes for reassurance to quell their doubts and fears.
Sometimes, Bruce wondered how those same people would feel if they knew that the heroes were often terrified. That the heroes typically didn't really know what was going on, that they were actively fighting against the unknown and the uncertainty that filled their own hearts.
Bruce set those thoughts aside as he stepped into the meeting room where a tall, faceless man wearing a blue trench coat and fedora waited.
"I wasn't expecting a call from the Batman," the faceless man began the second Batman stepped foot in the room. "Yet I'm not surprised. People going missing, butchers, bankers, bakers and more. The world is afraid and here you are. Motive, means, who and why... All of these and here you are, asking the Question."
"And the Question answered," Batman responded as he grabbed a nearby remote and activated a monitor on one wall-
'A new chamber has been uncovered in the great Pyramid of Giza which was, according to experts, somehow opened from within! Inside this undiscovered room, archeologists uncovered a massive ring-like structure with a ramp leading into it. Experts have yet to-'
Changing the channel away from the news, Bruce activated the input instead and cast several documents on to the screen.
"We have the means and why," Batman explained as he manipulated the screen to highlight the typed letter that Giovanni had recieved a few days prior. "Magic that could act on sympathetic links, targeting a vampire remnant from World War Two and the infrastructure it had a hand in subverting. We're still working on uncovering everything but that appears to have been the core action, though we're still uncertain as to the underlying motive."
"...Candid," the Question stated as he stepped around Batman to look at the monitor more closely. "Unusually so."
Bruce waited patiently as the other man hesitantly touched the haptic screen and began to move around the documents, focusing on one for a moment before slipping to another with no real rhyme or reason.
"The Justice League doesn't often call in... individuals of my caliber," the Question eventually said as he reviewed some of the data they'd lifted involving the delivery trucks. Batman assumed he was likely noticing the discrepancy between how much was listed on the manifest versus the weight of the truck at a weigh station.
"There are currently some disagreements about expanding the scope of our operations," Bruce revealed as he watched the Question intake the data.
"The supers are disagreeing with you attempting to bring in more unpowered individuals," the Question stated, accurately guessing as to the internal strife within the upper levels of the League. "And you brought me here as a proof of concept."
"In a way," Batman agreed neutrally. "It's both more and less complicated."
"More and less?" the Question turned to face him, the soft grooves where his eye sockets should be almost looked upraised in curiosity. "More complicated, you called for me without the approval of the others. Less, you don't care about their opinion. Hmm... difficult."
"Difficult," Batman echoed, fully agreeing with him. "We need more talents outside of the obvious. We need to be able to better grasp information, both in finding it and understanding it."
"A job offer, then?" the man asked as he turned back to face the monitor. "I see. With the Justice League? Or with you?"
"Me." Batman wasn't going to bother trying to play any word games. Not at the moment. Not with so much going on.
"...I see," the Question stated as he stood up straighter and clasped his hands behind his back. "We'll discuss terms later, Bruce."
Batman didn't so much as flinch at the casual reveal of his name by the faceless investigator.
"I'll be in the console room. Let the front desk know when you're ready to talk, Victor," Bruce told the man before turning to leave.
Charles Victor Szasz didn't respond beyond a minor tilt of his head, equally unsurprised that Batman knew who he was underneath of the Pseudoderm.
The both of them were investigators, after all.
-----
Sitting cross-legged on the ground with a pot of rich, black soil cradled in between his legs, Alchemist was working on a spell.
Plant Growth, like Create or Destroy Water, had more to it than just cast it and forget it. It could be used that way, yes, but that would barely touch on the true utility of the spell. Cast quickly, it could cause plants in the nearby area to grow out of control, turning a basic stretch of vegetation into a godawful tanglevine. Its other use, if slowly worked into the earth around the caster, was much more valuable.
Unfortunately, Alchemist was having a bit of a hard time working out the other use for the spell. It required something incredibly difficult and rare.
Patience.
Under normal circumstances, utilizing the enhancing effect of Plant Growth demanded eight hours of uninterrupted concentration from the caster. Upon completion, a circle of space around the caster measuring in with a radius of eight-hundred meters would experience doubled growth and crop yields for the next year.
Alchemist wasn't one to operate under normal circumstances. Through his perks, the spell's values would already be doubled. With the benefit of another spell called 'Faith' he could improve those figures by a bit more than double. With spellboost effects, he could double the range of the spell and eventually make it permanent.
Originally, Faith only empowered general magic by thirty percent and healing spells by fifty percent. Upon reaching level one-hundred, those values doubled to sixty and one-hundred, respectively. Which was before Archmage and the non-elemental boosting perk doubled that again.
He needed to bring Faith up to two-hundred, modify those numbers further to ninety and one-hundred and fifty percent. Which would then get doubled to one-hundred and eighty and three-hundred percent.
So, running those numbers again, Alchemist figured that Plant Growth would either multiply yields about seven or ten-fold, depending on how things worked together, and it would cover a circle with a radius of about seven kilometers for about four years.
At level one.
If it acted like his other spells and experienced linear growth as it leveled up, barring the potential for extraordinary growth beyond level one-hundred?
Alchemist could triple those figures. Or multiply them by four point five if he factored in his equipment factor that multiplied a spell's power by an additional fifty percent at double the cost. And that didn't include the other spell empowerments he had in his gear...
Such as the factor that cut his casting time down by two-thirds.
The mage wasn't sure he could really go around and sell the casting of Plant Growth as a service. For one thing, he wouldn't have proof until the year after using it that it even worked as advertised.
For another?
He'd rather market it towards family-owned farms and those didn't usually have a whole lot of liquid cash.
So, what were his options?
Well, he could just do nothing. That was absolutely viable and one option that he found incredibly tempting.
His other option? Aside from making an offer to some major agricorp?
Charity. Alchemist could go to a few struggling farms and offer to cast the spell free of charge provided they would share the results with their neighbors. He could build a reputation that would practically drag customers screaming out of the woodwork.
Alchemist breathed in deeply, the smell of the misty mountain air was practically a balm for his soul.
Normally, the spell was limited to Druids, Rangers and some rare few Clerics. People that were in tune with nature, capable of interacting with the ebb and flow of nature's own magic. It was a more symbiotic style as compared to the more arcane arts that Alchemist preferred or the shared burden of divine spellcasting that most Clerics could do.
The mage's yellow eyes slid over to a red spear, buried tip-first into the ground. One of the Elder Spears he'd purchased...
And the item that Jinx and Cinder were currently working hard to clear out.
The girl had a plan of her own, one he was honestly happy to encourage. She'd brought up the fact that she needed to have some form of active income for her upcoming emancipation hearing.
Alchemist's suggestion of Big Belly Burger or O'Shaughnessy's did get a considering look from the girl before she'd admitted that it wouldn't be enough for her own goals. It wouldn't be enough for her to afford to rent or buy a home for her and Cinder.
Jinx wanted to do something else. She wanted to operate her own business... of a sort.
She'd used some of the money from her trust to pay for a legal consultation with a team that handled multi-level marketing groups. Specifically, one of the lawyers who kept a dietary supplement seller from getting sued left, right and center. She'd needed to know how to word things in a way that would protect her from legal indemnity.
Her second step had involved purchasing a scroll from the Game Shop.
Soul Trap, from the Elder Scrolls series. Not a spell Alchemist was especially fond of but it could be used ethically under certain circumstances. Player One's Illusion Dungeons or Item Worlds, basically, but they provided no shortage of opportunities to make use of the spell.
Her third step had actually brought Alchemist up short. She'd used her last quest ticket on a spell-scroll that Alchemist hadn't ever really considered as being worthwhile.
True Creation.
It sounded great. It sounded powerful!
The reality, though? It was basically Fabricate but it would let the caster swap out materials for GP. At five times the cost of the materials. It was also a very powerful spell that was normally limited to the divine side of spellcasters, though there was nothing that said the spell couldn't be reverse engineered and figured out by an enterprising wizard.
In all honesty, it was actually more valuable for being able to create raw materials, something Fabricate couldn't do. For example, Adamantite ore was dirt cheap because it was plentiful but damn near useless outside of the hands of a master smith who could smelt it into Adamantine Alloy. Or various crystals used by magicians of every stripe and color, those were incredibly cheap in their uncut and unshaped forms but, when properly handled, their value could end up being worth more than five times that of their original value.
Alchemist raised a hand and touched the pendant dangling from his neck. A stylized, two-dimensional dragon face made from Darksteel. Recently improved with both the Gem of Creation and the Jewel of Creation, artifacts from the world of Valkyrie Profile-
~~ Amulet of Arcane Potency R1 ~~
~~ INT and WIS X2, MP/2,
White Magic Power +50% but Spellcasting time +10%,
Allows the wielder to modify some spells with the effects of: Empower, Maximize, Extend, Merciful and Selective up to three times for each effect.
Only one effect may be applied per spell.
Ignore the first 3,500 GP of material costs for spells.~~
Jinx had her own pendant made of Adamantine, Kary's was forged of Abyssal Bloodiron.
The dragon had put together the fact that she could cast True Creation and get seven-hundred GP of materials for free with each casting, something he'd failed to notice at all. She'd been using it to craft up a handful of Grand Soul Gems, three at a time as she was traversing the Elder Spear and filling them with the souls of the demons within.
That, combined with the effect of the Miserly Master perk, which reduced the required spell components by half a percent per level of spell mastery...
Alchemist looked down to the pot, to the sole seed embedded into the soil.
Nothing yet... but the spell wasn't done yet, either.
The mage shifted, his eyes idly tracking a blur of green that was darting between barren trees in the distance. Artemis didn't have much to say to the wizard and, truthfully, he really wasn't bothered by that fact.
The wizard sighed and looked up towards the sky. He didn't know if the goddess was nursing a grudge and resented the fact that she couldn't act on it or if she was just struggling to deal with the people around her.
Well, there wasn't much he could-
"What the shit was that?!" Jinx screamed as she stepped out of a gate that took the place of the Elder Spear. "Alchemist! What the shit was that?!"
"...Jinx?" Alchemist noted that the girl was covered in cuts, nicks and bruises. "I might be able to answer you but I need a little context."
"Why did the demons in that thing all have moves like that Traydor chick in my laser gun?!" Jinx yelled as Cinder limped her way out of the gate as well. "With swords! Or fists! Or spears! What the hell was- some of them summoned a mile long fire snake!"
"Ah, yeah." Alchemist nodded seriously as the pinkette continued to freak out. "They do that sometimes."
"And the tits!" Jinx screeched, clutching at her chest. "It was like, like, like this one chick, with the magic and the swords! She had these absolutely massive breasts! And nobody else had anything!"
"...Suddenly a bit uncomfortable here, actually," Alchemist said before pursing his lips and looking back down at the pot of soil. "Can I ask if you actually got what you wanted?"
"Seriously! None of the other girls even came up to an A-cup!" Jinx continued to shout, her hands shaking as the girl clenched and unclenched her fists. "It was like I was fighting a... Why did one of them ask if I wanted to join the flatty club?!"
"Guess we're stuck on this topic, then," Alchemist mumbled with a sigh as Jinx continued to rant about the Disgaea weapon's item world.
"How does any of that make sense?!" Jinx screamed, drawing quite a few eyes as she started to wind down. "It was just... just... Why were their eyes so big? Why did the wolves have horns? How did those demons get guns grafted on to their arms?!"
Or not. It looked like Jinx was building up a fresh head of steam.
Looking back down to the Ash seed in the pot, Alchemist was pleased to note that at least one thing was going right.
It had sprouted, one little white root had crept out of a crack in the pod to cautiously probe at the soil underneath.
"I was getting hit on by pigs!" Jinx continued, less and less manic as she began to calm down. "Literal pigs! With helmets! And maces!"
"Did you soul trap them?" Alchemist asked, making note of the heavy looking sack strapped to the wide, black belt he'd made for the girl. It had two rows of metal eyelets going all the way down the length that was held together by a big, silver buckle.
"Every last one of them," Jinx told him, her pink gaze locked on to his eyes. "I am not going to settle for some pig! Hell no! I'm gonna use each and every one of 'em to make little paper Rings of Regeneration!"
"Well, that sounds like a plan." Alchemist smiled at the girl from his spot on the ground. "How many did you get?"
"...Two-hundred? Two-twenty?" Jinx reached down and jiggled the sack she'd tied to her belt before undoing the knot and reaching in. She extracted a golden gem, the size of an overlarge coin.
A grand soul gem, filled with the essence of a demon.
"Well, let me finish with this-" Alchemist motioned to the pot in his lap, to the seed that had just sprouted a pale, thin little stem. "-and we'll work on upgrading our belts. Sound good?"
"...Yeah," Jinx mumbled quietly before inhaling, loud and deep. "Yeah, that sounds really good."
Alchemist watched the girl turn around and head for the cabin for a moment before turning his attention to the red spear that reformed where her Gate had been.
Setting aside the pot with the sprouted Yggdrasil seed, Alchemist stood up and grabbed the crimson weapon that Jinx had left behind in one hand.
In his other, Alchemist plucked a plain silver ring out of his inventory and then fused the Elder Spear into it.
~~ Silver Ring x10 ~~
~~ Defense +192
Skill/Spell Experience +62% ~~
Extracting another silver ring, Alchemist took the ten that had just been made and fused them into it.
~~ Silver Ring R1 x10 ~~
~~ Defense +1,920
Skill/Spell Experience +620% ~~
Extracting a rather chunked and worn ingot of Ebony, from the same series as he'd been tampering with to move around factors in the past, Alchemist fused a quartet of rings into it.
~~ Enchantment Token x10 ~~
~~ Defense +7680
Skill/Spell Experience +1,900% ~~
Finally, setting the token in the inventory but keeping it highlighted, Alchemist selected a few other items.
One, an unenchanted copy of his current belt. Two, a ring from the world of Valkyrie Profile called the 'Ring of Learning' which bolstered experience gained by thirty percent. Third, Alchemist selected another artifact from the aforementioned world called the 'Coin of Fortune' which offered a further sixty percent experience boost. Fourth and finally, Alchemist tracked down another enchanted token that held a copy of the current skill boosting enchantment on his gear and clicked 'Fuse'-
-- Belt of Yggdrasil--
-- Defense +7680, Experience +1,630%, GP +860%, Mana +300%, Weapon Mastery +1,900%, Skill/Spell Experience +2,150%, Gain +1 Perk Point when leveling up, HP +600 when leveling up --
Alchemist felt a smile spread across his face as he registered the belt to his Soulbound Armory.
Sure, he could sit around for the three or so hours it would take to cast Plant Growth so that it would enrich the soil. He could even do it over and over again for the sake of turning a profit by helping people.
But now? Now he'd have to do it less and less often to get the spell mastered. Or any spell, for that matter!
Such as, for example, Mass Heal.
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
November 9, 2010
When Alchemist had mentioned visiting the pyramids, Jinx had kind of been expecting they'd join a tour group and do the usual 'ooh'ing and 'ah'ing from a distance.
Instead?
Instead the quartet were walking through the long-undisturbed halls of a pyramid.
Alchemist had led the group towards one specific pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza, under the cover of darkness. He'd ignored the warning signs posted all around the giant stone construction, written in dozens of languages that told them to keep off, keep away and carried a huge, huge range of legal threats.
Jinx kind of felt nervous but she'd also admit she was more than a little excited.
"Weirdest thing about this place..." Alchemist said from the front, clearly visible thanks to the effects of True Seeing. "You'd think everything would've been uncovered by now. Ultrasound, ground penetrating radar, x-ray... But no, there's still dozens and dozens of secrets that nobody noticed."
"You think some of it might be because of culture?" Jinx asked, her eyes tracking the hieroglyphs and reading them as though they were in plain English. "I mean, stuff that'd make sense to them but not us?"
"Probably," Alchemist agreed as they kept going deeper and deeper. "That's a good point, actually. Hmm..."
The quartet stopped at a dead-end, warnings written in ancient Egyptian covered the walls. The hieroglyphs were clumsy but Jinx noted that they warned of some kind of curse that would cause a person's hair and teeth to fall out.
"That's ominous," Kary commented as she kept a tight hand on Yuffie. "I'm unfamiliar with any such curse."
"That's because it's not a curse," Alchemist explained as he set one gloved hand against the wall covered in warnings. "Jinx, while I work on this, you want to pull out a Geiger Counter?"
"Uh... sure?" Jinx wasn't actually sure what that was but she tried to follow the suggestion anyway. Opening the inventory, she zeroed in on the search bar and immediately tried typing in 'G-I-G'...
And coming up blank.
"...How do you spell that?" Jinx asked after a few more failed attempts.
"G-E-I-G-E-R," Alchemist spelled out for her. Jinx quickly found the object in question and, rather than pulling it straight out of the inventory-
She read the description.
~~Geiger Counter~~
~~Brand: WayneTech~~
~~Battery: 97%~~
~~Description~~
"A common commercial model, the Geiger Counter is an indispensable tool in ensuring one's safety in potentially radioactive environments."
...Radioactive?!
"Why would something radioactive be down in an Egyptian pyramid?!" Jinx asked, her voice echoing down the empty corridors.
"Well, what's down here came from outer space," Alchemist's voice was almost unheard as the wall they'd been poking at slowly began to sink into the ground. Another chamber lay beyond, too deep for Jinx to see into it with the range limits of her vision.
Flicking the switch on the little handheld device, Jinx was dismayed to hear it start clicking.
And Alchemist, heedless of the risk of radiation poisoning, just started walking right on in. And snapping his fingers every few steps...
The Geiger Counter went suspiciously silent when Jinx followed directly behind him.
"...You have a spell that cancels out radiation, don't you?" Jinx asked, her eyes narrowing into glowing pink slits.
"Yep," Alchemist absentmindedly replied. "Wouldn't leave Earth without it. Also works great on Kryptonians, too."
Jinx inhaled deeply, the stale air burning at her throat.
"Perhaps you should consider telling us in the future, love," Kary commented idly, following in Jinx's footsteps. "I'm uncertain as to how resistant this form is to cancers. I am not manifested flame, not anymore."
"So... is radiation some kind of, like, poison or something?" Yuffie asked, the girl's head on a swivel as more and more of the chamber was revealed.
"...Basically," Jinx admitted after a few seconds of thought. "It's a lot more than that but, yeah, it's poisonous for us."
Trying to explain how elemental decay worked and how it released energy that could break down the body was currently a bit beyond Jinx.
"A high enough level of Esuna seems to fix it right up," Alchemist called back from in front of them. "Could also try Heal, Wish, I could pick up Lesser Restoration and give that a go, too."
"...How do people even die in the worlds this stuff came from?" Yuffie asked, a rather pointed question that Jinx hadn't even thought of. "'Cuz it sounds like everything can be fixed with magic."
"I cheat. A lot," Alchemist admitted as they stepped out of the narrow corridor and into a much larger chamber. "The system lets me get around a lot of requirements by itself, then there are some perks that let me get around the other requirements, too. As is, most folks have to spend a lot of money and time to accomplish what I've found workarounds for."
Jinx wondered if he meant the cost of the spells, the fact that the material requirements were actually more like suggestions or if the actual power of the spells went up and up and up as they exceeded their natural level restrictions.
The dragon bit her lower lip in thought as they passed through more warnings.
She'd been reading the Nether Scrolls more thoroughly and she'd been practicing a few things at night, after finishing her homework. Firing off a spell the second it was possible and ignoring the material costs for the cheaper ones would get her the direct, immediate effect. Fully repeatable, fully recastable, all it demanded was MP and that was negated by the Spellspring effect.
But being a bit slower, channeling the magic through whatever token the spell supposedly needed, she could get an idea for a more complete form. Something that was larger and more flexible, something that could be better shaped and modified, altered to better suit her needs in some ways.
She could almost see ways to twist the spells themselves, to offer a little more magic and expand how it interacted with the world. It would just take a little more work, eat a little more magic and-
"Is that a space ship?!" Jinx demanded once they walked into the very last chamber of the hidden corridor. On a series of pedestals around the room were some treasures, made of some kind of metal that had never rusted and, against the back wall, was a massive metal ship in the shape of a hawk!
"E-yup," Alchemist told the group as he stepped up to one of the pedestals. On it was a knife, not a fleck of rust but the edge was stained with something even after the countless years it had been sealed away. "It's what we're here to get."
"How?!" Jinx demanded as she rushed up to the space craft to look at it. "Why is there a literal space ship inside of an ancient pyramid!?"
"It crash landed here a long, long time ago," Alchemist explained as Yuffie silently pocketed the knife that Alchemist had been looking at. "The artifacts around the room were made out of the engine casing, stuff called 'Nth Metal'."
The wizard pointed towards a scarab necklace on one pedestal and a pair of clawed gauntlets on another.
"Much as I'd like to, we can't leave those behind for the people who went to college to get a degree in pyramid schemes to scratch their heads over," Alchemist continued to explain as he snapped his fingers and the ship began to shrink. "They're all cursed and connected to a set of souls that keep reincarnating over and over again to play out the same tragedy, over and over again."
The wizard picked up the shrunken ship as Yuffie pulled the knife back out of her pocket, gingerly holding it out and away from herself with two fingers. Jinx carefully took it from the girl and stowed it in the Inventory.
"What need do you have with the ship, love?" Kary asked as she picked up the clawed gauntlets, shaped like a set of talons.
"Trade it in to a collector," Alchemist explained as he slowly turned around the room and continuously cast his anti-radiation spell. "I figure I can use it to buy some goodwill."
"...Okay. I guess we're done here?" Jinx asked, looking around the now-barren room.
"Unless you want to dig around a bit more and see if we can't find some more hidden doors," Alchemist told her as he finished de-radiating the room.
Jinx felt a cold wave wash over her as he cast the spell on her, too, and shivered uncontrollably for a second.
"...You know what?" Jinx said, looking at the rest of the group. "Why not? I want to see if we can uncover something that they'll put on the news!"
-----
November 10, 2010
Bruce Wayne rubbed his face tiredly as he waited in the Hall of Justice for one of several people to show up for one of several meetings.
Thanks to the efforts of the apprentices, they'd begun to backtrack where all of the vampire night deliveries throughout Europe had either been coming from or going to. With that information, they were able to start narrowing down various other businesses and facilities that were acting outside the norm.
Some, like bloodbanks, were found to have a handful of staff who'd stopped showing up. They tended to work nights and either worked in handling deliveries or else were responsible for maintaining inventory and marking out materials that had gone bad and needed to be disposed of. A more thorough review had found that up to half of the spoiled blood had still been viable and had been marked for destruction instead.
Then, checking the inventory of some of the crashed delivery trucks had found those 'spoiled' blood bags set aside in coolers whilst bags of saline with food coloring had replaced them in the biohazard bags.
Shell games and false reporting, doctored documents and outright deception. They were finding such incidents all throughout the continent, one or two people in critical positions, diverting funds and resources...
That didn't touch on various meat processing facilities, legal or otherwise, which had been operated entirely by staff that had been 'taken'.
Every time they uncovered one layer, they found leads to more. Thousands, tens of thousands of people had been involved in this and more were being found every hour.
Bruce slowly twisted the ring on his finger, thinking. Waiting.
The U.N. wanted answers and they wanted them yesterday. Considering how many members of their own staff had been turned to dust and what that implied, Bruce was more than certain that they weren't going to like those answers.
"Sir?" the voice of a young woman called, breaking the dark knight from his thoughts. He looked up to see one of the civilian members of the staff standing at the door that led from the monitor room out into the tour hallway. "A, uh, Question is here to see you? He says you requested him."
"I did," Bruce said as he stood up and walked towards, and then past, the woman. "Thank you, Anne."
Walking through the building, Bruce noted that it had seen significant foot traffic throughout the day. It always did after a major event, people came looking to the heroes for reassurance to quell their doubts and fears.
Sometimes, Bruce wondered how those same people would feel if they knew that the heroes were often terrified. That the heroes typically didn't really know what was going on, that they were actively fighting against the unknown and the uncertainty that filled their own hearts.
Bruce set those thoughts aside as he stepped into the meeting room where a tall, faceless man wearing a blue trench coat and fedora waited.
"I wasn't expecting a call from the Batman," the faceless man began the second Batman stepped foot in the room. "Yet I'm not surprised. People going missing, butchers, bankers, bakers and more. The world is afraid and here you are. Motive, means, who and why... All of these and here you are, asking the Question."
"And the Question answered," Batman responded as he grabbed a nearby remote and activated a monitor on one wall-
'A new chamber has been uncovered in the great Pyramid of Giza which was, according to experts, somehow opened from within! Inside this undiscovered room, archeologists uncovered a massive ring-like structure with a ramp leading into it. Experts have yet to-'
Changing the channel away from the news, Bruce activated the input instead and cast several documents on to the screen.
"We have the means and why," Batman explained as he manipulated the screen to highlight the typed letter that Giovanni had recieved a few days prior. "Magic that could act on sympathetic links, targeting a vampire remnant from World War Two and the infrastructure it had a hand in subverting. We're still working on uncovering everything but that appears to have been the core action, though we're still uncertain as to the underlying motive."
"...Candid," the Question stated as he stepped around Batman to look at the monitor more closely. "Unusually so."
Bruce waited patiently as the other man hesitantly touched the haptic screen and began to move around the documents, focusing on one for a moment before slipping to another with no real rhyme or reason.
"The Justice League doesn't often call in... individuals of my caliber," the Question eventually said as he reviewed some of the data they'd lifted involving the delivery trucks. Batman assumed he was likely noticing the discrepancy between how much was listed on the manifest versus the weight of the truck at a weigh station.
"There are currently some disagreements about expanding the scope of our operations," Bruce revealed as he watched the Question intake the data.
"The supers are disagreeing with you attempting to bring in more unpowered individuals," the Question stated, accurately guessing as to the internal strife within the upper levels of the League. "And you brought me here as a proof of concept."
"In a way," Batman agreed neutrally. "It's both more and less complicated."
"More and less?" the Question turned to face him, the soft grooves where his eye sockets should be almost looked upraised in curiosity. "More complicated, you called for me without the approval of the others. Less, you don't care about their opinion. Hmm... difficult."
"Difficult," Batman echoed, fully agreeing with him. "We need more talents outside of the obvious. We need to be able to better grasp information, both in finding it and understanding it."
"A job offer, then?" the man asked as he turned back to face the monitor. "I see. With the Justice League? Or with you?"
"Me." Batman wasn't going to bother trying to play any word games. Not at the moment. Not with so much going on.
"...I see," the Question stated as he stood up straighter and clasped his hands behind his back. "We'll discuss terms later, Bruce."
Batman didn't so much as flinch at the casual reveal of his name by the faceless investigator.
"I'll be in the console room. Let the front desk know when you're ready to talk, Victor," Bruce told the man before turning to leave.
Charles Victor Szasz didn't respond beyond a minor tilt of his head, equally unsurprised that Batman knew who he was underneath of the Pseudoderm.
The both of them were investigators, after all.
-----
Sitting cross-legged on the ground with a pot of rich, black soil cradled in between his legs, Alchemist was working on a spell.
Plant Growth, like Create or Destroy Water, had more to it than just cast it and forget it. It could be used that way, yes, but that would barely touch on the true utility of the spell. Cast quickly, it could cause plants in the nearby area to grow out of control, turning a basic stretch of vegetation into a godawful tanglevine. Its other use, if slowly worked into the earth around the caster, was much more valuable.
Unfortunately, Alchemist was having a bit of a hard time working out the other use for the spell. It required something incredibly difficult and rare.
Patience.
Under normal circumstances, utilizing the enhancing effect of Plant Growth demanded eight hours of uninterrupted concentration from the caster. Upon completion, a circle of space around the caster measuring in with a radius of eight-hundred meters would experience doubled growth and crop yields for the next year.
Alchemist wasn't one to operate under normal circumstances. Through his perks, the spell's values would already be doubled. With the benefit of another spell called 'Faith' he could improve those figures by a bit more than double. With spellboost effects, he could double the range of the spell and eventually make it permanent.
Originally, Faith only empowered general magic by thirty percent and healing spells by fifty percent. Upon reaching level one-hundred, those values doubled to sixty and one-hundred, respectively. Which was before Archmage and the non-elemental boosting perk doubled that again.
He needed to bring Faith up to two-hundred, modify those numbers further to ninety and one-hundred and fifty percent. Which would then get doubled to one-hundred and eighty and three-hundred percent.
So, running those numbers again, Alchemist figured that Plant Growth would either multiply yields about seven or ten-fold, depending on how things worked together, and it would cover a circle with a radius of about seven kilometers for about four years.
At level one.
If it acted like his other spells and experienced linear growth as it leveled up, barring the potential for extraordinary growth beyond level one-hundred?
Alchemist could triple those figures. Or multiply them by four point five if he factored in his equipment factor that multiplied a spell's power by an additional fifty percent at double the cost. And that didn't include the other spell empowerments he had in his gear...
Such as the factor that cut his casting time down by two-thirds.
The mage wasn't sure he could really go around and sell the casting of Plant Growth as a service. For one thing, he wouldn't have proof until the year after using it that it even worked as advertised.
For another?
He'd rather market it towards family-owned farms and those didn't usually have a whole lot of liquid cash.
So, what were his options?
Well, he could just do nothing. That was absolutely viable and one option that he found incredibly tempting.
His other option? Aside from making an offer to some major agricorp?
Charity. Alchemist could go to a few struggling farms and offer to cast the spell free of charge provided they would share the results with their neighbors. He could build a reputation that would practically drag customers screaming out of the woodwork.
Alchemist breathed in deeply, the smell of the misty mountain air was practically a balm for his soul.
Normally, the spell was limited to Druids, Rangers and some rare few Clerics. People that were in tune with nature, capable of interacting with the ebb and flow of nature's own magic. It was a more symbiotic style as compared to the more arcane arts that Alchemist preferred or the shared burden of divine spellcasting that most Clerics could do.
The mage's yellow eyes slid over to a red spear, buried tip-first into the ground. One of the Elder Spears he'd purchased...
And the item that Jinx and Cinder were currently working hard to clear out.
The girl had a plan of her own, one he was honestly happy to encourage. She'd brought up the fact that she needed to have some form of active income for her upcoming emancipation hearing.
Alchemist's suggestion of Big Belly Burger or O'Shaughnessy's did get a considering look from the girl before she'd admitted that it wouldn't be enough for her own goals. It wouldn't be enough for her to afford to rent or buy a home for her and Cinder.
Jinx wanted to do something else. She wanted to operate her own business... of a sort.
She'd used some of the money from her trust to pay for a legal consultation with a team that handled multi-level marketing groups. Specifically, one of the lawyers who kept a dietary supplement seller from getting sued left, right and center. She'd needed to know how to word things in a way that would protect her from legal indemnity.
Her second step had involved purchasing a scroll from the Game Shop.
Soul Trap, from the Elder Scrolls series. Not a spell Alchemist was especially fond of but it could be used ethically under certain circumstances. Player One's Illusion Dungeons or Item Worlds, basically, but they provided no shortage of opportunities to make use of the spell.
Her third step had actually brought Alchemist up short. She'd used her last quest ticket on a spell-scroll that Alchemist hadn't ever really considered as being worthwhile.
True Creation.
It sounded great. It sounded powerful!
The reality, though? It was basically Fabricate but it would let the caster swap out materials for GP. At five times the cost of the materials. It was also a very powerful spell that was normally limited to the divine side of spellcasters, though there was nothing that said the spell couldn't be reverse engineered and figured out by an enterprising wizard.
In all honesty, it was actually more valuable for being able to create raw materials, something Fabricate couldn't do. For example, Adamantite ore was dirt cheap because it was plentiful but damn near useless outside of the hands of a master smith who could smelt it into Adamantine Alloy. Or various crystals used by magicians of every stripe and color, those were incredibly cheap in their uncut and unshaped forms but, when properly handled, their value could end up being worth more than five times that of their original value.
Alchemist raised a hand and touched the pendant dangling from his neck. A stylized, two-dimensional dragon face made from Darksteel. Recently improved with both the Gem of Creation and the Jewel of Creation, artifacts from the world of Valkyrie Profile-
~~ Amulet of Arcane Potency R1 ~~
~~ INT and WIS X2, MP/2,
White Magic Power +50% but Spellcasting time +10%,
Allows the wielder to modify some spells with the effects of: Empower, Maximize, Extend, Merciful and Selective up to three times for each effect.
Only one effect may be applied per spell.
Ignore the first 3,500 GP of material costs for spells.~~
Jinx had her own pendant made of Adamantine, Kary's was forged of Abyssal Bloodiron.
The dragon had put together the fact that she could cast True Creation and get seven-hundred GP of materials for free with each casting, something he'd failed to notice at all. She'd been using it to craft up a handful of Grand Soul Gems, three at a time as she was traversing the Elder Spear and filling them with the souls of the demons within.
That, combined with the effect of the Miserly Master perk, which reduced the required spell components by half a percent per level of spell mastery...
Alchemist looked down to the pot, to the sole seed embedded into the soil.
Nothing yet... but the spell wasn't done yet, either.
The mage shifted, his eyes idly tracking a blur of green that was darting between barren trees in the distance. Artemis didn't have much to say to the wizard and, truthfully, he really wasn't bothered by that fact.
The wizard sighed and looked up towards the sky. He didn't know if the goddess was nursing a grudge and resented the fact that she couldn't act on it or if she was just struggling to deal with the people around her.
Well, there wasn't much he could-
"What the shit was that?!" Jinx screamed as she stepped out of a gate that took the place of the Elder Spear. "Alchemist! What the shit was that?!"
"...Jinx?" Alchemist noted that the girl was covered in cuts, nicks and bruises. "I might be able to answer you but I need a little context."
"Why did the demons in that thing all have moves like that Traydor chick in my laser gun?!" Jinx yelled as Cinder limped her way out of the gate as well. "With swords! Or fists! Or spears! What the hell was- some of them summoned a mile long fire snake!"
"Ah, yeah." Alchemist nodded seriously as the pinkette continued to freak out. "They do that sometimes."
"And the tits!" Jinx screeched, clutching at her chest. "It was like, like, like this one chick, with the magic and the swords! She had these absolutely massive breasts! And nobody else had anything!"
"...Suddenly a bit uncomfortable here, actually," Alchemist said before pursing his lips and looking back down at the pot of soil. "Can I ask if you actually got what you wanted?"
"Seriously! None of the other girls even came up to an A-cup!" Jinx continued to shout, her hands shaking as the girl clenched and unclenched her fists. "It was like I was fighting a... Why did one of them ask if I wanted to join the flatty club?!"
"Guess we're stuck on this topic, then," Alchemist mumbled with a sigh as Jinx continued to rant about the Disgaea weapon's item world.
"How does any of that make sense?!" Jinx screamed, drawing quite a few eyes as she started to wind down. "It was just... just... Why were their eyes so big? Why did the wolves have horns? How did those demons get guns grafted on to their arms?!"
Or not. It looked like Jinx was building up a fresh head of steam.
Looking back down to the Ash seed in the pot, Alchemist was pleased to note that at least one thing was going right.
It had sprouted, one little white root had crept out of a crack in the pod to cautiously probe at the soil underneath.
"I was getting hit on by pigs!" Jinx continued, less and less manic as she began to calm down. "Literal pigs! With helmets! And maces!"
"Did you soul trap them?" Alchemist asked, making note of the heavy looking sack strapped to the wide, black belt he'd made for the girl. It had two rows of metal eyelets going all the way down the length that was held together by a big, silver buckle.
"Every last one of them," Jinx told him, her pink gaze locked on to his eyes. "I am not going to settle for some pig! Hell no! I'm gonna use each and every one of 'em to make little paper Rings of Regeneration!"
"Well, that sounds like a plan." Alchemist smiled at the girl from his spot on the ground. "How many did you get?"
"...Two-hundred? Two-twenty?" Jinx reached down and jiggled the sack she'd tied to her belt before undoing the knot and reaching in. She extracted a golden gem, the size of an overlarge coin.
A grand soul gem, filled with the essence of a demon.
"Well, let me finish with this-" Alchemist motioned to the pot in his lap, to the seed that had just sprouted a pale, thin little stem. "-and we'll work on upgrading our belts. Sound good?"
"...Yeah," Jinx mumbled quietly before inhaling, loud and deep. "Yeah, that sounds really good."
Alchemist watched the girl turn around and head for the cabin for a moment before turning his attention to the red spear that reformed where her Gate had been.
Setting aside the pot with the sprouted Yggdrasil seed, Alchemist stood up and grabbed the crimson weapon that Jinx had left behind in one hand.
In his other, Alchemist plucked a plain silver ring out of his inventory and then fused the Elder Spear into it.
~~ Silver Ring x10 ~~
~~ Defense +192
Skill/Spell Experience +62% ~~
Extracting another silver ring, Alchemist took the ten that had just been made and fused them into it.
~~ Silver Ring R1 x10 ~~
~~ Defense +1,920
Skill/Spell Experience +620% ~~
Extracting a rather chunked and worn ingot of Ebony, from the same series as he'd been tampering with to move around factors in the past, Alchemist fused a quartet of rings into it.
~~ Enchantment Token x10 ~~
~~ Defense +7680
Skill/Spell Experience +1,900% ~~
Finally, setting the token in the inventory but keeping it highlighted, Alchemist selected a few other items.
One, an unenchanted copy of his current belt. Two, a ring from the world of Valkyrie Profile called the 'Ring of Learning' which bolstered experience gained by thirty percent. Third, Alchemist selected another artifact from the aforementioned world called the 'Coin of Fortune' which offered a further sixty percent experience boost. Fourth and finally, Alchemist tracked down another enchanted token that held a copy of the current skill boosting enchantment on his gear and clicked 'Fuse'-
-- Belt of Yggdrasil--
-- Defense +7680, Experience +1,630%, GP +860%, Mana +300%, Weapon Mastery +1,900%, Skill/Spell Experience +2,150%, Gain +1 Perk Point when leveling up, HP +600 when leveling up --
Alchemist felt a smile spread across his face as he registered the belt to his Soulbound Armory.
Sure, he could sit around for the three or so hours it would take to cast Plant Growth so that it would enrich the soil. He could even do it over and over again for the sake of turning a profit by helping people.
But now? Now he'd have to do it less and less often to get the spell mastered. Or any spell, for that matter!
Such as, for example, Mass Heal.
So, uh, what was Jinx'e business plan? We know she got Soul Trap, True Creation to make Soul Gems (which I guess is a more economical way to acquire them then buying from the Shop or casting Wish), and a Lawyer skilled enough to keep Not!Alex-Jones from completely fuster-clucking his own operation (which is a genuine miracle to be sure).
But what she's actually doing was never explained. Is soul-trapping a bunch of Item World mobs more then just grinding the skill and/or punishing them, but actually part of Jinx's plan? Is she going to mass-produce healing items to sell and the Lawyer is to cover for the fact that it's friggin magic and most definitely hasn't gone through the FDA (which couldn't handle magic items anyway, but the US still hasn't been able to get a handle on internet regulation, forget magic)? Is the plan to operate on the same premise of crap like homeopathy and crystal 'therapy' that's left alone because it's (medically) harmless, only her healing rings/items actually work?
It sounds interesting, but also a hell of a lot more complicated then it first appears, and prone to get worse as the business grows. And gets push-back from established interests.
Meanwhile, as for Alchemist...I've just gotta clap my hands on my face at this guy. Why exactly does he need a job? No really, why? Jinx's motivations to legally justify her emancipation in the eyes of the law make perfect sense. For Alchemist? Everything actually expensive in life (housing, healthcare, luxuries) he can and apparently enjoys personally fulfilling with magic and crafting. And for all the little things that can't just be bought in the Game Shop (with his, I remind you, effectively infinite money from blowing up the Zombie ID) or made by Alchemist... that's what his job working for Bruce Wayne is for. A fairly well-paid job at that. Not nearly as much as he actually is worth, but far more then enough to cover the everyday costs of things like processed foods, (in-universe) vacations, tools (in the past before magic solved everything), etc. Probably even the plot of land Alchemist is building up on presently.
And that doesn't even take the option of him selling rare mundane materials on the open market. Sure he can't flood the market, and he does have to go through the effort of trying to find buyers for one-off material supplies (as usually I'd imagine companies/governments are more interested in securing a source of materials rather then just a few tons/kilograms here and there)...but if he ever has a need for clean cash it's a fast option.
I'll be honest, it's frustrating to see Alchemist fall into another distraction and time-sink instead of just...continuing his preparations for Zeus, or ACTUALLY resting on vacation like he's supposed to, or even going to see Batman about the Vampire thing like he thought about earlier and has apparently completely dismissed since. Especially when it is, by all accounts so useless. As a job, it's role is pointless, ineffective at making money compared to all his other options. If he actually wants it just because he's interested in that kind of magic or wants to help grow things...why not just be honest about that? Instead of some very half-assed thoughts about selling magic to companies almost immediately shifted into pro-bono work for farmers.
Edit: I'm definitely experiencing some plot delay fatigue. The Vampire thing has been slowly moving along, yeah, and I don't disagree with the need for another vacation...but once again Alchemist is blowing off rest for mildly important tasks and firmly unimportant busy-work, and the girls aren't really pushing him on that like they claimed they would the last time he did this. There's been no growth in Alchemist or them in this regard, or at least it feels that way, and it seems like the 'vacation' arc will end with Alchemist just about as stressed out as before and stronger/more prepared only in the abstract plane of Gamer Numbers that by this point in the story are so high it's basically unnoticeable. That there will have been no real qualitative feeling of growth either in Alchemist's abilities, or his confidence/'feel' as a combatant, and not much in the way of character growth given the repeat of non-relaxing slice of life and alchemist unendingly finding busywork to do (or have his duplicate that he's constantly aware of) do. And in the end it's all just feels like another delay to resolving the Zeus plot-line, AGAIN.
(I really liked the short halloween portion, Jinx getting emancipated was nice, teasing the Valkyrie was entertaining if a little hollow with the end and aftermath cut-off like that, and there's a dozen other nice bits of character exploration here and there. But the big things like Zeus, clearing things up with Batman and ACTUALLY TALKING to the League, exploring the Asylum of interdimensional refugees, just sparring with Diana? All of that just seems to keep getting pushed back, delayed, or ignored and procrastinated (by Alchemist) on. And it's frustrating despite how much I do enjoy what else has been going on.)
But what she's actually doing was never explained. Is soul-trapping a bunch of Item World mobs more then just grinding the skill and/or punishing them, but actually part of Jinx's plan? Is she going to mass-produce healing items to sell and the Lawyer is to cover for the fact that it's friggin magic and most definitely hasn't gone through the FDA (which couldn't handle magic items anyway, but the US still hasn't been able to get a handle on internet regulation, forget magic)? Is the plan to operate on the same premise of crap like homeopathy and crystal 'therapy' that's left alone because it's (medically) harmless, only her healing rings/items actually work?
It sounds interesting, but also a hell of a lot more complicated then it first appears, and prone to get worse as the business grows. And gets push-back from established interests.
Meanwhile, as for Alchemist...I've just gotta clap my hands on my face at this guy. Why exactly does he need a job? No really, why? Jinx's motivations to legally justify her emancipation in the eyes of the law make perfect sense. For Alchemist? Everything actually expensive in life (housing, healthcare, luxuries) he can and apparently enjoys personally fulfilling with magic and crafting. And for all the little things that can't just be bought in the Game Shop (with his, I remind you, effectively infinite money from blowing up the Zombie ID) or made by Alchemist... that's what his job working for Bruce Wayne is for. A fairly well-paid job at that. Not nearly as much as he actually is worth, but far more then enough to cover the everyday costs of things like processed foods, (in-universe) vacations, tools (in the past before magic solved everything), etc. Probably even the plot of land Alchemist is building up on presently.
And that doesn't even take the option of him selling rare mundane materials on the open market. Sure he can't flood the market, and he does have to go through the effort of trying to find buyers for one-off material supplies (as usually I'd imagine companies/governments are more interested in securing a source of materials rather then just a few tons/kilograms here and there)...but if he ever has a need for clean cash it's a fast option.
I'll be honest, it's frustrating to see Alchemist fall into another distraction and time-sink instead of just...continuing his preparations for Zeus, or ACTUALLY resting on vacation like he's supposed to, or even going to see Batman about the Vampire thing like he thought about earlier and has apparently completely dismissed since. Especially when it is, by all accounts so useless. As a job, it's role is pointless, ineffective at making money compared to all his other options. If he actually wants it just because he's interested in that kind of magic or wants to help grow things...why not just be honest about that? Instead of some very half-assed thoughts about selling magic to companies almost immediately shifted into pro-bono work for farmers.
Edit: I'm definitely experiencing some plot delay fatigue. The Vampire thing has been slowly moving along, yeah, and I don't disagree with the need for another vacation...but once again Alchemist is blowing off rest for mildly important tasks and firmly unimportant busy-work, and the girls aren't really pushing him on that like they claimed they would the last time he did this. There's been no growth in Alchemist or them in this regard, or at least it feels that way, and it seems like the 'vacation' arc will end with Alchemist just about as stressed out as before and stronger/more prepared only in the abstract plane of Gamer Numbers that by this point in the story are so high it's basically unnoticeable. That there will have been no real qualitative feeling of growth either in Alchemist's abilities, or his confidence/'feel' as a combatant, and not much in the way of character growth given the repeat of non-relaxing slice of life and alchemist unendingly finding busywork to do (or have his duplicate that he's constantly aware of) do. And in the end it's all just feels like another delay to resolving the Zeus plot-line, AGAIN.
(I really liked the short halloween portion, Jinx getting emancipated was nice, teasing the Valkyrie was entertaining if a little hollow with the end and aftermath cut-off like that, and there's a dozen other nice bits of character exploration here and there. But the big things like Zeus, clearing things up with Batman and ACTUALLY TALKING to the League, exploring the Asylum of interdimensional refugees, just sparring with Diana? All of that just seems to keep getting pushed back, delayed, or ignored and procrastinated (by Alchemist) on. And it's frustrating despite how much I do enjoy what else has been going on.)
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Planet-wide. Do it. You know you want to. The vampires, finish them! (Are there good vampires in DC? Or other undead? I don't remember that being a thing.)
Two guesses. One, skipping a lot of the hard part of building up a major company by letting people pay for the privilege of selling her stuff for her. No store fronts or employees to manage that way. Two, she could be outsourcing the filling of soul gems - sell an empty gem to people, buy back a full one. Or both.
Agreed. Is his current task a worthy one? Yes. Is it as time-critical as a hostile skyfather? Not even close. Just a few lines about how Alec's current plans tie into taking Zeus down would help. Heck, an explanation for why they're sitting around on Earth where Zeus could gank them at any time instead of vacationing/grinding in instant quests would be good.
I get that "optimal decisions" and "good story" don't always go hand in hand, but it's a lot easier to sustain a suspension of disbelief if you give us something concrete to work with.
nullptr
Mostly Harmless
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