He died later after telling Xmen about Magneto's plan to mutate normies. I honestly don't remember whenever he died because of the faulty operation or him escaping Magneto's gang by ocean
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
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- Oklahoma
The device that gave him mutant powers killed him, at first he could stretch his body a little and could bounce from a shallow ocean bottom to the top kinda like rubber properties but not very elastic. Then later his forced mutation kept making his body more malleable at a extreme rate till it could no longer hold together and he melted into water and died.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
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I was going to say that sounds like "Pencils Down, Death Rays Up" but that was pretty long. It's the (Old/pre-reboot) World of Darkness as the Earth in Mass Effect, and I think the Reapers got outright eaten by the cosmic-level background monsters (The Wyrm, Caine, etc.) waking up due to all the noise those blasted kids were making in their back yard with their little scuffle, or something like that. It, uh, it got a little crazy and hard to follow for someone with no real WoD background towards the end, TBH. Still a fun fic, though.
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I've said this as well - if the safe handling and use of guns was a federally required PE unit and you had to write a couple of essays about it, it would take a lot of the mystique out of them. It's one thing when your main exposure to guns is movie and video game action heroes and not-fat-I'm-sturdy weekend warriors at the paintball club or firing range (or, worse, "gangsta" teens with even less common sense) trying to emulate them, but once it becomes homework it's just not cool.
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H
It was a big moment in the first X-Men movie.
He didn't turn into water immediately, his body started becoming more flexible and liquid-like, letting him squeeze through the bars of the cell he was in and swim to safety... right up until he couldn't control his body anymore and dissolved into water, showcasing the fact that Magneto's plan to make all humans mutants to end their racism would just kill them instead and solve nothing.
It was a big moment in the first X-Men movie.
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Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
I'd say it'd solve a lot of problems. You can't be racist if you're dead, after all.
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
And a world with no humans left alive would be very peaceful (well, by modern interprettions of the word; very "nature red in tooth and claw" for hypothetical observers behind the fourth wall without humans left to keep animals pushed into the fringes and hinterlands and to provide easy living for the ones we think are cute and/or delicious) but that's not what people mean when they wish for world peace either.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Remember, it'd only kill off the muggles. Mutants (and possibly mutates) would still be fine...for a given definition of "fine." Also non-humans who are different enough to not be affected. And possibly magical types, as well. Also ones who are off-world and/or isolationist enough for whatever reason.
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That's a great idea! I just have a few questions for Magneto-
Who's growing your food?
Who's supplying your water?
Who's healing your sick?
If the answer to any of the above is 'The muggles', I would strongly suggest reconsidering your stance on genocide. As for me? I'm going to enjoy a hot meal made of food I didn't grow, drink a tall glass of water that won't give my dysentery and, if I -do- get sick? I can call a doctor.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
I was just responding to the post saying it would kill all humans. Some humans would survive, if only the ones I mentioned.
And yes, killing off 98%+ of humanity would definitely have some very bad effects, such as what you mentioned.
Also, who is burying all those corpses? And what happens when you have billions of rotting dead bodies spreading disease everywhere? Because that would totally be a thing.
Aren't the X-men movies in their own separate universe from everything else so it's only humans with and without the X-gene so there's no magical types or anything else?
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Maybe it's the precursor to My Hero Academia.
When the writers have Magneto in argle-bargle mode like the ones for the first X-Men movie, his answer is always "We'll just find some one-in-a-million lucky mutant who got powers that do that, and have them take care of it! Who needs trained professionals when you've got blind luck to rely on!"
What about the percentage who would develop horrifically lethal powers with no experience or potentially any way of controlling them?
Because that's a thing. Even discounting people like Rogue who's passively lethal or Cyclops whose lack of control is down to brain damage there's still people like that poor kid Xavier had Logan hunt down and kill. You know, the dude who generated some sort of disintegration plague that killed every living thing in a huge radius and was apparently not something he could turn off?
Actually, what did they do with him when they resurrected all the dead mutants? Because I doubt they would have him on Krakoa.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Mostly for the remaining humans. The planet would probably become more habitable for other species. Assuming the humans remaining can safely shut down the various production facilities (nuclear, coal, etc).
If what you are really asking is if they are set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the answer is no, they are not. The X-men movie rights were owned by Fox, not Disney/Marvel, which has long been a bone of contention between them. Marvel owns the comic books, which are basically 'free advertising' for the movies, which make a LOT more money, and Disney REALLY doesn't like it.
It's one of the reasons they bought Fox outright, to get those rights back.
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That was an Ultimates story, not mainstream X-men, so Krakoa is not a factor.
Or... the % of mutants who are doing those things in normal life keep doing those things for the mutant survivors. Which is about how it's portrayed on Krakoa and stuff, and things continue on as is, with selective mutant powers able to help incredibly in developing needed infrastructure, and mutant geniuses helping make a better world with more eco-friendly tech.
At least, that's how it gets painted by the mutant supremacists.
The Guthrie clan are a farm family. Three or four of the more powerful mutants are doctors. The Beast is everything, and Magneto is a master of all forms of electronics, genetics, and mechanical engineering. Cyclops would qualify as a master optometrist and/or optician, in addition to his combat skills.
Mutants come from all the backgrounds humans do.
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Hmm, I should have said 'solved nothing' instead of 'solve nothing', to keep it in proper context.
Frescko
Transhumanist
So I don't know how to post on CaerAzkaban, but I noticed a post on the Size of the Library of Alexandria, and while we don't know it's exact size, it's estimated to of had a collection of around 40,000 to 400,000 or around 100,000 books.
A US census I found had the average number of books in a library be at 116,481.6 items. Meaning that the Library of Alexandria was slightly smaller the the average modern day library, though something to note is that the Library of Alexandria had a Daughter school/library called the Serapeum of Alexandria.
John Tzetzes wrote that the Serapeum of Alexandria had 42,800 scrolls. He died in 1180 BC and the Serapeum was closed in 325 AD which is like 1500 years apart so take the number with a grain of salt.
well all those numbers where for 'real life' so the video game Hades might have the libraries be many times larger. Did Alchemist also copy the Serapeum of Alexandria or any other library while he was in the ancient world? I'm pretty sure he sent like a week or two flying all around the Mediterranean if I recall those chapters correctly.
A US census I found had the average number of books in a library be at 116,481.6 items. Meaning that the Library of Alexandria was slightly smaller the the average modern day library, though something to note is that the Library of Alexandria had a Daughter school/library called the Serapeum of Alexandria.
John Tzetzes wrote that the Serapeum of Alexandria had 42,800 scrolls. He died in 1180 BC and the Serapeum was closed in 325 AD which is like 1500 years apart so take the number with a grain of salt.
well all those numbers where for 'real life' so the video game Hades might have the libraries be many times larger. Did Alchemist also copy the Serapeum of Alexandria or any other library while he was in the ancient world? I'm pretty sure he sent like a week or two flying all around the Mediterranean if I recall those chapters correctly.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
I wonder how much page-space a scroll takes up, and what the average book size was back then. I can't imagine scrolls are a very efficient way to store information, because you can fit a lot more pages in a lot smaller of a space with a bound book as opposed to one long piece of parchment, and without printing presses, books were likely not that large either, and they would typically have MUCH larger print, given the differences between handwriting and modern printed text.
So 400,000 books and scrolls was prooobably not that much compared to even 1,000 modern books.
So 400,000 books and scrolls was prooobably not that much compared to even 1,000 modern books.
Chapter 248
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 2.4.8
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Jinx woke up slowly and uncurled herself from around Cinder, stretching out in a way not dissimilar to a cat.
School over the last few days had been especially boring but she'd also been sent home with a lot of homework, which ate up way too much of her evening and saw her going to bed without really accomplishing anything else.
Which sucked.
Although she supposed it had been kind of okay, just sitting at the coffee table and listening to a World War Two documentary on these Fletcher boats because the red fox doll Alchemist had made was fixated on the things.
Speaking of Alchemist, she hadn't really seen much of him the last few days. According to Kary, he'd spent a lot of time just in bed.
And not in the fun way.
Yawning widely, Jinx padded her way out of the bedroom-
And instantly found herself amidst a room filled with chaos.
Ash was standing next to Alchemist, her tail wagging away while the man in question was busy holding platters of food in both hands.
And two more platters of food in his floating gauntlets.
Seated at the coffee table was Yuffie. And Yuffie. And Yuffie- there was a total of six Yuffies all seated somewhere around the room! Some of them had plates with Egg Souffles on them while others were waiting to be served.
Two were wrestling on the floor, fighting over the remote to the television.
In the middle of the coffee table was a large pitcher with what Jinx recognized as being mixed fruit juice.
Foods from Bloodstained. Attribute boosting foods from Bloodstained.
"Hi, Jinx!" Alchemist called out to her, his voice brighter and more energetic than she'd been expecting. "Find a seat somewhere, I'll have some food for you in a minute!"
Looking around, Jinx saw Kary sitting on the stairs and decided to join her, just adjacent to the chaos caused by all of the Yuffies interacting with each other.
One was eagerly stuffing her face. Two of them were wrestling in the doorway to Yuffie's room. Another was staring at Alchemist, her brown eyes practically unblinking and disturbingly focused. A fifth was doing the same, though her posture carried a hint of menace and hostility.
Then there was the sixth, kicking her legs back and forth while happily humming and putting ketchup on her eggs.
That last one was probably the real Yuffie.
Probably.
"...I'm pretty sure I've had a few nightmares like this," Jinx told Kar'Yashlan as she sat down next to the (much) older woman. "And I'm kind of hoping I'll wake up and discover Alchemist didn't have another 'brilliant' idea."
Turning to the side, Jinx could see Reis and Nostradamus both watching cautiously from the top of the stairs, both ready to bolt if the horde of ninjas started to escape the confines of the sitting room.
"Here you go," Alchemist told the duo as he brought over a plate of eggs for each of them. "Sorry if things are a bit hectic."
"I'm used to it," Jinx responded, downplaying her discomfort at the number of ninjas in the room. "So, did you teach Yuffie how to duplicate herself or is this some kind of Polymorph shenanigans?"
"Polymorph shenanigans," Alchemist admitted, pointing to the different Yuffies in turn. "Freddy and Foxy over there-" he said as his finger aimed at the two wrestling in the doorway. "Chica right there-" was the one stuffing its face. "Bonnie and Goldy, of course-" were the two staring at Alchemist, though both ducked their heads when Alchemist pointed at them so they could focus on their cooling food.
"Beloved here has been experimenting with things all morning," Kary explained to the young dragon, leaning slightly against her. "Rather... disturbing things, really."
"I've been figuring out the limits of Wish," Alchemist explained dryly, rolling his eyes at his girlfriend's antics. "It doesn't act like my other spells and I needed to figure out what it could actually do, alright?"
Jinx sliced off a piece of fluffy eggs and slowly chewed on it as she thought on that, slowly turning her head back and forth from Alchemist and Kary. Flaring her nostrils as she almost laughed, Jinx figured they were just egging each other on.
"So," Jinx began to ask after swallowing her food. "What did you find out?"
"Well, first off, it doesn't get much better by leveling it up," Alchemist said as he leaned against the wall. "If I use it to replicate a spell, it's treated as being a level nine spell but still at level one."
"Could... you maybe explain that again?" Jinx asked, interrupting Alchemist when he went to take a breath.
In the background, the dragon could see Ash get down on her belly and start begging Yuf- Bonnie for some of her food.
"Right, uh... Tier. Wish is a ninth 'tier' spell. If I use it to replicate any other spell, they're cast as though they're from the same 'tier'. Most spells don't really benefit from it much, it just makes them harder to shake off or dodge. Without convert for materials and spellspring for cost, it'd be stupidly cost ineffective. Efficient. Inefficient." As Alchemist talked, Jinx nodded along. It wasn't the best news, not really, but at least it wasn't really a problem.
It just meant that if they wanted to get more power out of various spells, they needed to work on and master those specific spells.
Wish and Limited Wish were just decent stand-ins.
"It... can be used to replicate eighth level divine spells and ninth level arcane spells but it comes with a bit of risk. It failed more often than not for me and, uh..." Alchemist trailed off as he opened his inventory and pulled out a small piece of material which he held out for her.
Taking it in claw, Jinx saw that it was a sharp, bloody splinter of otherwise transparent material. It almost looked like broken glass.
"The feedback on a failed spell tended to cause the materials to explode," Kary explained for the wizard.
Jinx handed the bloody splinter of diamond back to Alchemist, her expression flattening into displeasure.
At least, the havoc dragon thought as she side-eyed the fallen angel, Alchemist seemed to have someone with him when he got up to experimenting.
"So, it replicates spells but not experience and it's a gamble to try and do more with the spell than it says it can do. So far I'm not really seeing anything surprising," Jinx admitted as she deftly picked up her fork once more.
"Fair enough- Let's see... it can be used to improve someone's stats by as much as five points per attribute but it doesn't work if they've already had their stats improved past five points. The puppet party helped me out with that one," Alchemist continued, waving once again towards the group of humanized dolls. His next words came out as a quiet mutter, though, and Jinx didn't think he meant for her to hear them "And at least now they have above average Wisdom..."
"So, basically it's not really benefiting from all the work you've put into it except being able to use spellboost perks on it?" Jinx asked as she tallied up all of the changes, or lack thereof.
"...Well, there is one thing that's improved," Alchemist admitted after a moment of hesitation. The man looked to Kary for a second before offering Jinx a close-mouthed smile. "Its ability to create magical artifacts jumped up from a ten-thousand GP allowance to a twenty-thousand GP allowance. And I'm pretty sure it'll go all the way up to thirty-thousand if I take it up to level two-hundred."
"Well, that's not..." The way Alchemist's sheepish grin hadn't left his face began to set off alarm bells in the back of Jinx's head. "What did you do?"
"I... didn't start out by conjuring the limit of what it can currently do?" Alchemist offered, slowly reaching up to scratch his head as, in the background, one of the wrestling Yuffies turned into a tiny plush bear. "I sort of worked my way up in increments of one-thousand, starting at ten-k."
Jinx crossed her arms and favored the mage with an unimpressed glare. "You did something crazy, didn't you?"
"Not... I thought it was funny at the time," Alchemist admitted before he cleared his throat and opened his inventory. He extracted a tiny, naked plastic doll with crazy hair pointing straight up, stubby limbs and great big eyes set into a hideous face. "I made a bunch of troll dolls."
"...That's it?" Jinx asked, not connecting whatever it was that he didn't want to admit to.
"...They're animated troll dolls." Kary said from Jinx's side, pointing at the ugly little thing in Alchemist's hand with her own fork. "Why don't you tell her what all you decided they should do, love?"
"...Alright. Alright." Alchemist inhaled deeply before exhaling and putting on a paper-thin smile. "Whenever I make a construct, they get a certain number of in-built perk points called 'Construction Points' which can be used to purchase, well, perks. From a small list. Tiny constructs like this start out with one point. Being made of soft plastic instead of wood, bone or metal offers them another point. Being extra vulnerable to acid means one final point."
Jinx put another bite of sweet, fluffy eggs into her mouth and began chewing, remaining silent.
"...Which I used to purchase the construct modifications of Additional Movement: Flight, Grab and Burn," Alchemist finally got out as he released the naked troll doll into the air where it hovered with no external support.
"...How many did you make?" Jinx asked after swallowing her food.
"Well, they cost me one-hundred and twenty-five GP each, cost reduction perk in there, so my first batch was eighty strong. Then eighty-eight, ninety-six... one-thousand, three-hundred and twenty."
Jinx mulled that over as she ate another bite of eggs.
One-thousand, three-hundred and twenty little troll dolls that could latch on to something and self-ignite...
Jinx's eyes slid from Alchemist's sheepish grin over to his other constructs, each of which had turned back into dolls instead of Yuffies.
Judging by Alchemist's words, they should have had three such perks as well. The thought of Goldy, angry and murderous, able to silently hover in the air to get wherever it wanted...
"Alchemist?" Jinx finally asked once she'd made up her mind on what to think of what she'd been told.
"Yeah?"
"You're insane." His face dropped slightly, his grin growing just a bit more fragile. "But that's awesome. Who are you gonna use 'em on?"
"Well..." he began, his smile returning in full force. "I was thinking..."
-----
Wally West was kind of getting tired of their 'secret base' being used as a halfway house for anyone and everyone the Justice League needed to hide for a minute.
Serling Roquette hadn't just been the first. She'd been a warning!
Wally inhaled slowly as he measured out the food for his super-fast super-mice. He wasn't being fair, he knew that. It wasn't the fault of those who'd been brought in to the mountain.
The androids had been stuck as toads and left to Red Tornado's care. Cheetah was one of Batman's projects. The woman was basically under house arrest while the circumstances behind her transformation and actions was being dug through.
Or they would be, if there wasn't crisis after crisis distracting everyone with more immediately critical tasks.
"You're looking so much better..." Wally mumbled as he slid Pinky's food tray into place.
Pinky had slimmed down tremendously. The poor critter still had some loose flab from where it had been grotesquely obese but that was shrinking a little bit every single day.
He'd just needed some magic-rich food. An alternative energy source to draw on, something that was... Wally didn't want to say 'Richer' but it was definitely different.
Magic... Wally sighed as he thought about that topic, too.
Magic was real. Something people had told him time and again but he'd always argued, sarcastically denied its existence as being no more than tricks and illusions.
Then he learned otherwise.
Then he started learning some of his own.
Trick Room and Firebolt weren't the most impressive spells out there but he knew he could figure out how to do something with both of them. Firebolt, if he put in some work and got pretty good with it, could be cast so it fired off four balls of fire at once.
Which was pretty neat. Not as impressive as what Alchemist could do but Wally also didn't have access to some kind of cheat code where he could just mono-focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else.
"Yeah..." Wally mumbled as he wedged a finger between the unyielding black bars of Pinky's cage. The little rodent ran over to his hand and started rubbing his face against Wally's finger. "You're looking so much better, you can move so much better... I think you might be ready for the next experiment?"
That had always been the intention with Pinky. Unlike Inky or Blinky, Pinky had been doped with super-speed that was less than effective. While Inky and Blinky had 'perfect' versions of the Flash Super-Serum in them, Pinky had intentionally been doped with a defective version.
The same version inside of Kid Flash.
"Hey, don't think I forgot about you," Wally joked with a smile as he turned to the fourth and final cage. Inside was a perfectly mundane, perfectly ordinary white lab mouse.
Clyde.
The control mouse. He was completely normal. He hadn't been given any performance enhancing drugs at all.
Wally frowned as he watched the mouse, however. Clyde, unlike Inky, Blinky and Pinky, didn't pay any attention to him. The mouse was strictly interested in food and water, sometimes running on his wheel. Unless he was being handled, Clyde didn't seem at all aware, or else concerned, with the world outside of his cage.
The speedster pursed his lips in thought as he refilled Clyde's food and water before sliding the false bottom off of his cage to clean up the mouse's waste.
Turning to the side, he saw that all three of the other mice were sitting up and watching him. Their nose's twitched and their red eyes blinked but they were all clearly focusing on him. Focusing on Clyde's cage, Wally saw that the mouse was busy sniffing at a corner.
"...Huh," Wally mumbled as he grabbed the notebook that he and Connor both recorded data in. Flipping through the pages, he saw days and days full of measurements and notes but, aside from the struggles Pinky had been going through, there wasn't anything in there about any odd behaviors...
"That's weird..." Wally continued as he clicked his pen open and began to make his own notes after flipping back to the current day.
The redhead found his gaze slipping back to the empowered mice several times as he wrote, his thoughts drifting back to their unusual level of focus.
Setting the notebook down, Wally brought out his cell phone and sent a text to Connor, asking if he'd noticed anything unusual with any of the mice. When he didn't get an immediate response back, he pocketed the device and tried to think if anyone else had spent any time handling his... he didn't like thinking of them as 'Specimens', not really, but he didn't have a better word for them.
Wally bit his lip in thought as he left the room.
He could ask his uncle but the man had seemed kind of... unsettled about the mice whenever they got brought up.
Batman would just glare at him or offer a short, curt answer that didn't really help him at all.
Red Tornado knew engineering. An entirely different branch of science with little to no direct relation to what Wally was working with.
Reaching up and clasping his hands together behind his head, Wally headed for the stairs that would take him down and to the Operations Center. Alchemist was supposed to be in some time today, Robin said that Batman had something he needed the mage to do so Wally hoped he could catch the man for a minute and ask him a few questions.
Ever since the whole castle quest thing in the early industrial age of demon invasions, Wally had found the man... easier to talk with.
Still odd. Still difficult. But Alchemist didn't lie to him.
He didn't lie to any of them.
Something the speedster found he really appreciated, even if he didn't always care for what the wizard had to say.
Wally was fairly sure he already knew the answer he was going to get. He wasn't stupid, despite what a lot of people seemed to think.
But he'd really, really like having someone else confirm what he thought he was seeing.
"Whoa!" a young boy's voice called out, pulling Wally out of his spiraling thoughts. Turning around, quick as a flash, he found Garfield Logan staring at him in awe. "Are you Kid Flash?!"
"Yup!" Wally confirmed, an easy grin spreading across his face. "The one and only!"
"That's so cool!" the kid cried out. "You're, like, super fast, right?!"
Looking past the boy, Wally could see Garfield's mother in the doorway to the Rec Room. The television was barely visible behind her and Wally could see it tuned to a channel showing off a room full of old people.
Marie Logan looked incredibly stressed. Probably because she was connected to the whole mess going on in Bialya, even if only very indirectly.
"I am indeed, like, super fast," Wally confirmed as he put a little more feeling into his easy grin and sent Marie a small nod. The woman looked between him and her son for a moment before visibly relaxing. "C'mon, let's go outside and I'll show you just how fast I am!"
Garfield latched on to Wally's hand and practically dragged him towards the exit, something the teen was happy enough to let the boy do.
Sure, this wasn't a big damn hero moment...
But, sometimes? The little damn hero moments were pretty nice, too.
-----
Alchemist hadn't seen anyone near the Zeta Terminal when he finally did turn up at Mount Justice which wasn't really that big of a surprise, all things considered.
The Justice League was in the middle of being harangued by the United Nations. Again. Which shoved back their other responsibilities further and further on to the back burner.
The wizard was honestly pretty content with the fact that they'd turned him down, back when he'd been stuck wearing Leslie. He answered to Batman and their relationship, while cordial, could be broken off without setting off an international inquest by a pack of useless busybodies.
Alchemist mused on the strange turns and twists his story had gone through. From a homeless teenager with a few relatively basic spells to his name to stealing an island and working on building a multi-layered artifact that could realistically alter the entire world.
Given enough time, anyway.
Sitting down at one of the main terminals, Alchemist extracted a pocketful of SD cards and got to work. His first step was setting up an account on a website that handled large uploads of data and storage.
He actually had to sign up and pay a fairly decent fee for an unlimited account.
Then, inserting the first SD card, he set it to upload and then... he waited.
Leaning back in his chair as the computer read, then moved the files, Alchemist puffed out his lips and looked up at the stone ceiling. That was going to take a while. Each of the dozen or so cards he'd brought up were loaded with high-definition pictures.
So, what should he be doing in the meantime?
Distantly, another part of Alchemist was in the process of putting together some basic apartments on Infinity Island while Yuffie and the familiars were busy exploring with Kary. Fabricate was making quick work of that and it didn't really demand much of the wizard's attention.
Taking a troll doll out of his inventory, Alchemist cast Faith on himself and then cast Rapid Repair on the doll before he put it back into the inventory.
None of the dolls were Awakened. He'd made a batch of suicide bombers, offering them awareness and sophoncy would have been cruel. Incredibly so.
An army of trolls, ready to start a flame war.
Taking another doll out of his inventory, Alchemist re-cast Faith on himself and then cast Rapid Repair on the newest doll.
The burning enhancement each of the troll dolls was fitted with would do anywhere from one to six fire damage over the course of six seconds. And because he'd made them out of plastic, the dolls were not immune to being harmed by their own fire.
Yes, the choice was intentional.
Rapid Repair would, under normal circumstances, restore five points of durability to a construct over the course of six seconds. That would be an eighty percent chance to offset the damage caused by the burning.
Alchemist's perks doubled that. Which meant that just casting Rapid Repair would more than offset the recoil damage his army of flaming trolls would suffer under.
Faith... Well, truth be told, Alchemist wasn't entirely sure just how much empowerment Faith offered. It was a universally useful buffing spell that would empower just about every kind of spell that Alchemist could cast afterwards but it didn't do so with a universal multiplier.
At its base power, Faith would enhance healing spells by fifty percent, even if used to harm the undead, but would only offer a thirty percent increase to other spells. And Alchemist wasn't honestly sure what Rapid Repair was treated as.
That didn't factor in the bonus Alchemist had gotten from bringing it to level one-hundred. Nor did that factor in Alchemist's equipment bonuses or perks.
There were a few easy ways to test it, Alchemist mused as he maintained his cycle of re-casting Faith and then casting Rapid Repair on his mindless constructs. There were a number of temporary conjuration spells that would create a specific amount of mass.
Wall of Iron was always a fun choice, really.
The wizard ignored the many notifications he was receiving of his spells leveling as he continued to watch the little on-screen graphic of pages flying out of a folder just to get swallowed up by a great big blue circle with a trio of white W's inside.
Sixty-four gigabytes of lost, burned books saved to the internet. Just...
Alchemist stopped playing with his dolls for a moment to count out the SD cards unto which he'd saved the Library of Alexandria, still whole in the world of Zagreus and Hades.
Ten more cards. Six-hundred and forty gigabytes of tomes, scrolls, books and everything else that he'd been able to find in the building. Countless thousands of pictures.
Setting up the second card to start uploading, Alchemist returned to his other task.
Lifting one troll doll over his head, Alchemist stared into the oversized, ugly brown eyes set deep into the heavily-wrinkled face.
"...You are going to cause so many nightmares," Alchemist told his foul creation. "And not just for me."
The troll doll didn't respond. It didn't have an intelligence score.
Alchemist tossed it into the inventory and pulled out its replacement with his left hand, pausing in between spells to navigate the computer. He needed to open up an email client-
He needed to set up a fake email account, actually.
"Alchemist," a deep voice growled from behind the wizard's chair as he was in the process of making a new account.
"Yeah, boss?" Alchemist asked, focused on the screen rather than the man behind him.
"What are you doing?"
"I am... uploading the Library of Alexandria to the internet, boss," Alchemist explained as he settled on a name and password-
bookertheunburnt@stewgle.com
-and began to compose a message to send off to a few different universities. He was going to have to include a few dozen pictures, see what responses he got.
"You... have access to the Library of..." Behind him, Alchemist could literally hear Batman slowly inhale through his nose as the implications of things began to hit him.
"Had," Alchemist corrected the man. "I -had- access. And I recorded everything I could get my hands on. Don't ask me to tell you what's where, though. I was focused on preserving it, not on reading it."
The wizard also had a copy of the Libram Logaeth, written by John Dee. He'd used Standstill and his camera to make a copy of the book when Gremory had dropped it after Miriam had severed the demon's illusion in the world of Bloodstained.
That SD card had the number Seventy-Two written on it in red marker. A bit obvious but, honestly, Alchemist needed to make it hard to forget so he wouldn't lose it. He didn't really think he'd get any use out of it considering it was initially a book on the summoning of angels but it was filled with notes on demon summoning and-
Alright, if Alchemist was going to be completely honest with himself... he'd made a copy so he'd have something to reference the next time John Constantine got wrapped up in something stupid, preventable and slash or preventably stupid.
"Hmm..." Batman hummed as he hovered over Alchemist's shoulder. "How long will this take?"
"I've got, like, half a terabyte of data." Alchemist waved at the monitor in front of him before he resumed typing. The wizard had to repeatedly tab back out to another page where he was searching for the contact information for various upscale universities that focused on their history programs. "It's probably going to be a few hours."
"...Could you cast your speed spell on the computer?" Batman asked after a few moments of watching the wizard tab back and forth.
"I could, yeah." Alchemist stopped and finally turned around. Batman was watching the computer and didn't even look down to acknowledge the wizard. Shrugging, Alchemist turned back around. "But that would just kill the computer and wouldn't do anything about the upload speeds. Those are throttled by the network, not our equipment."
"So it would work on a closed system?" Batman asked.
"It should, yeah," Alchemist answered distractedly. "Problem is heat build up. Fans can turn as fast as they want, air only moves so fast at these kinds of volumes being pushed by this kind of equipment. I... might be able to magically enforce a certain temperature range, or... hmm... maybe enchanting things with fire resistance...?"
The mage trailed off in thought, his thumb tapping away just under the space bar on the keyboard in front of him.
If he enchanted a computer with Repair to increase its durability, then loaded it up with Prestidigitation to maintain a nice, cool twenty degrees and maybe a little bit of Fire Resistance to offset any unexpected damages...
If Alchemist did all of that... could he make a Raspberry Pi supercomputer?
Alchemist shook his head and got back to typing. He had enough projects on-hand as it was!
"So, what did you need me for?" the mage asked instead, trying to get the Caped Crusader back on topic.
"Right... I need you to go to one of the clinics in Gotham and spend a day, perhaps two, healing people."
"Alright," Alchemist agreed with a small shrug. "Did something happen that I missed?"
"Something to that effect." Alchemist didn't roll his eyes at Bruce's non-answer but he was tempted to. The man played things a bit too close to his chest most of the time. Especially when he didn't need to. "Quite a few people suffered injuries recently that have left them unable to work. Given the economic straits in Gotham, joblessness eventually becomes desperation and things are difficult enough."
"Alright, I can do that," Alchemist calmly told the man as he began to select pictures from the collection he'd already saved and began to add them to the email. "It won't be free, though."
"...I'm already paying you for your time, Alchemist," Bruce said, his tone growing deeper as he growled.
"You're paying me to work on things in relation to the heroes and specifically the teenage team," Alchemist corrected the man. "This sounds like a Bruce Wayne kind of deal, at least it does to me. And Bruce Wayne is a fool that should be parted with his money."
"...How much?" Batman asked, resignation in his voice.
"Five-hundred dollars," Alchemist told him without bothering to turn around. "Per head."
"...That's all?"
"Yep," Alchemist agreed as he clicked 'Send' and sent his message off to a variety of institutes around the world. "That's all."
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Jinx woke up slowly and uncurled herself from around Cinder, stretching out in a way not dissimilar to a cat.
School over the last few days had been especially boring but she'd also been sent home with a lot of homework, which ate up way too much of her evening and saw her going to bed without really accomplishing anything else.
Which sucked.
Although she supposed it had been kind of okay, just sitting at the coffee table and listening to a World War Two documentary on these Fletcher boats because the red fox doll Alchemist had made was fixated on the things.
Speaking of Alchemist, she hadn't really seen much of him the last few days. According to Kary, he'd spent a lot of time just in bed.
And not in the fun way.
Yawning widely, Jinx padded her way out of the bedroom-
And instantly found herself amidst a room filled with chaos.
Ash was standing next to Alchemist, her tail wagging away while the man in question was busy holding platters of food in both hands.
And two more platters of food in his floating gauntlets.
Seated at the coffee table was Yuffie. And Yuffie. And Yuffie- there was a total of six Yuffies all seated somewhere around the room! Some of them had plates with Egg Souffles on them while others were waiting to be served.
Two were wrestling on the floor, fighting over the remote to the television.
In the middle of the coffee table was a large pitcher with what Jinx recognized as being mixed fruit juice.
Foods from Bloodstained. Attribute boosting foods from Bloodstained.
"Hi, Jinx!" Alchemist called out to her, his voice brighter and more energetic than she'd been expecting. "Find a seat somewhere, I'll have some food for you in a minute!"
Looking around, Jinx saw Kary sitting on the stairs and decided to join her, just adjacent to the chaos caused by all of the Yuffies interacting with each other.
One was eagerly stuffing her face. Two of them were wrestling in the doorway to Yuffie's room. Another was staring at Alchemist, her brown eyes practically unblinking and disturbingly focused. A fifth was doing the same, though her posture carried a hint of menace and hostility.
Then there was the sixth, kicking her legs back and forth while happily humming and putting ketchup on her eggs.
That last one was probably the real Yuffie.
Probably.
"...I'm pretty sure I've had a few nightmares like this," Jinx told Kar'Yashlan as she sat down next to the (much) older woman. "And I'm kind of hoping I'll wake up and discover Alchemist didn't have another 'brilliant' idea."
Turning to the side, Jinx could see Reis and Nostradamus both watching cautiously from the top of the stairs, both ready to bolt if the horde of ninjas started to escape the confines of the sitting room.
"Here you go," Alchemist told the duo as he brought over a plate of eggs for each of them. "Sorry if things are a bit hectic."
"I'm used to it," Jinx responded, downplaying her discomfort at the number of ninjas in the room. "So, did you teach Yuffie how to duplicate herself or is this some kind of Polymorph shenanigans?"
"Polymorph shenanigans," Alchemist admitted, pointing to the different Yuffies in turn. "Freddy and Foxy over there-" he said as his finger aimed at the two wrestling in the doorway. "Chica right there-" was the one stuffing its face. "Bonnie and Goldy, of course-" were the two staring at Alchemist, though both ducked their heads when Alchemist pointed at them so they could focus on their cooling food.
"Beloved here has been experimenting with things all morning," Kary explained to the young dragon, leaning slightly against her. "Rather... disturbing things, really."
"I've been figuring out the limits of Wish," Alchemist explained dryly, rolling his eyes at his girlfriend's antics. "It doesn't act like my other spells and I needed to figure out what it could actually do, alright?"
Jinx sliced off a piece of fluffy eggs and slowly chewed on it as she thought on that, slowly turning her head back and forth from Alchemist and Kary. Flaring her nostrils as she almost laughed, Jinx figured they were just egging each other on.
"So," Jinx began to ask after swallowing her food. "What did you find out?"
"Well, first off, it doesn't get much better by leveling it up," Alchemist said as he leaned against the wall. "If I use it to replicate a spell, it's treated as being a level nine spell but still at level one."
"Could... you maybe explain that again?" Jinx asked, interrupting Alchemist when he went to take a breath.
In the background, the dragon could see Ash get down on her belly and start begging Yuf- Bonnie for some of her food.
"Right, uh... Tier. Wish is a ninth 'tier' spell. If I use it to replicate any other spell, they're cast as though they're from the same 'tier'. Most spells don't really benefit from it much, it just makes them harder to shake off or dodge. Without convert for materials and spellspring for cost, it'd be stupidly cost ineffective. Efficient. Inefficient." As Alchemist talked, Jinx nodded along. It wasn't the best news, not really, but at least it wasn't really a problem.
It just meant that if they wanted to get more power out of various spells, they needed to work on and master those specific spells.
Wish and Limited Wish were just decent stand-ins.
"It... can be used to replicate eighth level divine spells and ninth level arcane spells but it comes with a bit of risk. It failed more often than not for me and, uh..." Alchemist trailed off as he opened his inventory and pulled out a small piece of material which he held out for her.
Taking it in claw, Jinx saw that it was a sharp, bloody splinter of otherwise transparent material. It almost looked like broken glass.
"The feedback on a failed spell tended to cause the materials to explode," Kary explained for the wizard.
Jinx handed the bloody splinter of diamond back to Alchemist, her expression flattening into displeasure.
At least, the havoc dragon thought as she side-eyed the fallen angel, Alchemist seemed to have someone with him when he got up to experimenting.
"So, it replicates spells but not experience and it's a gamble to try and do more with the spell than it says it can do. So far I'm not really seeing anything surprising," Jinx admitted as she deftly picked up her fork once more.
"Fair enough- Let's see... it can be used to improve someone's stats by as much as five points per attribute but it doesn't work if they've already had their stats improved past five points. The puppet party helped me out with that one," Alchemist continued, waving once again towards the group of humanized dolls. His next words came out as a quiet mutter, though, and Jinx didn't think he meant for her to hear them "And at least now they have above average Wisdom..."
"So, basically it's not really benefiting from all the work you've put into it except being able to use spellboost perks on it?" Jinx asked as she tallied up all of the changes, or lack thereof.
"...Well, there is one thing that's improved," Alchemist admitted after a moment of hesitation. The man looked to Kary for a second before offering Jinx a close-mouthed smile. "Its ability to create magical artifacts jumped up from a ten-thousand GP allowance to a twenty-thousand GP allowance. And I'm pretty sure it'll go all the way up to thirty-thousand if I take it up to level two-hundred."
"Well, that's not..." The way Alchemist's sheepish grin hadn't left his face began to set off alarm bells in the back of Jinx's head. "What did you do?"
"I... didn't start out by conjuring the limit of what it can currently do?" Alchemist offered, slowly reaching up to scratch his head as, in the background, one of the wrestling Yuffies turned into a tiny plush bear. "I sort of worked my way up in increments of one-thousand, starting at ten-k."
Jinx crossed her arms and favored the mage with an unimpressed glare. "You did something crazy, didn't you?"
"Not... I thought it was funny at the time," Alchemist admitted before he cleared his throat and opened his inventory. He extracted a tiny, naked plastic doll with crazy hair pointing straight up, stubby limbs and great big eyes set into a hideous face. "I made a bunch of troll dolls."
"...That's it?" Jinx asked, not connecting whatever it was that he didn't want to admit to.
"...They're animated troll dolls." Kary said from Jinx's side, pointing at the ugly little thing in Alchemist's hand with her own fork. "Why don't you tell her what all you decided they should do, love?"
"...Alright. Alright." Alchemist inhaled deeply before exhaling and putting on a paper-thin smile. "Whenever I make a construct, they get a certain number of in-built perk points called 'Construction Points' which can be used to purchase, well, perks. From a small list. Tiny constructs like this start out with one point. Being made of soft plastic instead of wood, bone or metal offers them another point. Being extra vulnerable to acid means one final point."
Jinx put another bite of sweet, fluffy eggs into her mouth and began chewing, remaining silent.
"...Which I used to purchase the construct modifications of Additional Movement: Flight, Grab and Burn," Alchemist finally got out as he released the naked troll doll into the air where it hovered with no external support.
"...How many did you make?" Jinx asked after swallowing her food.
"Well, they cost me one-hundred and twenty-five GP each, cost reduction perk in there, so my first batch was eighty strong. Then eighty-eight, ninety-six... one-thousand, three-hundred and twenty."
Jinx mulled that over as she ate another bite of eggs.
One-thousand, three-hundred and twenty little troll dolls that could latch on to something and self-ignite...
Jinx's eyes slid from Alchemist's sheepish grin over to his other constructs, each of which had turned back into dolls instead of Yuffies.
Judging by Alchemist's words, they should have had three such perks as well. The thought of Goldy, angry and murderous, able to silently hover in the air to get wherever it wanted...
"Alchemist?" Jinx finally asked once she'd made up her mind on what to think of what she'd been told.
"Yeah?"
"You're insane." His face dropped slightly, his grin growing just a bit more fragile. "But that's awesome. Who are you gonna use 'em on?"
"Well..." he began, his smile returning in full force. "I was thinking..."
-----
Wally West was kind of getting tired of their 'secret base' being used as a halfway house for anyone and everyone the Justice League needed to hide for a minute.
Serling Roquette hadn't just been the first. She'd been a warning!
Wally inhaled slowly as he measured out the food for his super-fast super-mice. He wasn't being fair, he knew that. It wasn't the fault of those who'd been brought in to the mountain.
The androids had been stuck as toads and left to Red Tornado's care. Cheetah was one of Batman's projects. The woman was basically under house arrest while the circumstances behind her transformation and actions was being dug through.
Or they would be, if there wasn't crisis after crisis distracting everyone with more immediately critical tasks.
"You're looking so much better..." Wally mumbled as he slid Pinky's food tray into place.
Pinky had slimmed down tremendously. The poor critter still had some loose flab from where it had been grotesquely obese but that was shrinking a little bit every single day.
He'd just needed some magic-rich food. An alternative energy source to draw on, something that was... Wally didn't want to say 'Richer' but it was definitely different.
Magic... Wally sighed as he thought about that topic, too.
Magic was real. Something people had told him time and again but he'd always argued, sarcastically denied its existence as being no more than tricks and illusions.
Then he learned otherwise.
Then he started learning some of his own.
Trick Room and Firebolt weren't the most impressive spells out there but he knew he could figure out how to do something with both of them. Firebolt, if he put in some work and got pretty good with it, could be cast so it fired off four balls of fire at once.
Which was pretty neat. Not as impressive as what Alchemist could do but Wally also didn't have access to some kind of cheat code where he could just mono-focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else.
"Yeah..." Wally mumbled as he wedged a finger between the unyielding black bars of Pinky's cage. The little rodent ran over to his hand and started rubbing his face against Wally's finger. "You're looking so much better, you can move so much better... I think you might be ready for the next experiment?"
That had always been the intention with Pinky. Unlike Inky or Blinky, Pinky had been doped with super-speed that was less than effective. While Inky and Blinky had 'perfect' versions of the Flash Super-Serum in them, Pinky had intentionally been doped with a defective version.
The same version inside of Kid Flash.
"Hey, don't think I forgot about you," Wally joked with a smile as he turned to the fourth and final cage. Inside was a perfectly mundane, perfectly ordinary white lab mouse.
Clyde.
The control mouse. He was completely normal. He hadn't been given any performance enhancing drugs at all.
Wally frowned as he watched the mouse, however. Clyde, unlike Inky, Blinky and Pinky, didn't pay any attention to him. The mouse was strictly interested in food and water, sometimes running on his wheel. Unless he was being handled, Clyde didn't seem at all aware, or else concerned, with the world outside of his cage.
The speedster pursed his lips in thought as he refilled Clyde's food and water before sliding the false bottom off of his cage to clean up the mouse's waste.
Turning to the side, he saw that all three of the other mice were sitting up and watching him. Their nose's twitched and their red eyes blinked but they were all clearly focusing on him. Focusing on Clyde's cage, Wally saw that the mouse was busy sniffing at a corner.
"...Huh," Wally mumbled as he grabbed the notebook that he and Connor both recorded data in. Flipping through the pages, he saw days and days full of measurements and notes but, aside from the struggles Pinky had been going through, there wasn't anything in there about any odd behaviors...
"That's weird..." Wally continued as he clicked his pen open and began to make his own notes after flipping back to the current day.
The redhead found his gaze slipping back to the empowered mice several times as he wrote, his thoughts drifting back to their unusual level of focus.
Setting the notebook down, Wally brought out his cell phone and sent a text to Connor, asking if he'd noticed anything unusual with any of the mice. When he didn't get an immediate response back, he pocketed the device and tried to think if anyone else had spent any time handling his... he didn't like thinking of them as 'Specimens', not really, but he didn't have a better word for them.
Wally bit his lip in thought as he left the room.
He could ask his uncle but the man had seemed kind of... unsettled about the mice whenever they got brought up.
Batman would just glare at him or offer a short, curt answer that didn't really help him at all.
Red Tornado knew engineering. An entirely different branch of science with little to no direct relation to what Wally was working with.
Reaching up and clasping his hands together behind his head, Wally headed for the stairs that would take him down and to the Operations Center. Alchemist was supposed to be in some time today, Robin said that Batman had something he needed the mage to do so Wally hoped he could catch the man for a minute and ask him a few questions.
Ever since the whole castle quest thing in the early industrial age of demon invasions, Wally had found the man... easier to talk with.
Still odd. Still difficult. But Alchemist didn't lie to him.
He didn't lie to any of them.
Something the speedster found he really appreciated, even if he didn't always care for what the wizard had to say.
Wally was fairly sure he already knew the answer he was going to get. He wasn't stupid, despite what a lot of people seemed to think.
But he'd really, really like having someone else confirm what he thought he was seeing.
"Whoa!" a young boy's voice called out, pulling Wally out of his spiraling thoughts. Turning around, quick as a flash, he found Garfield Logan staring at him in awe. "Are you Kid Flash?!"
"Yup!" Wally confirmed, an easy grin spreading across his face. "The one and only!"
"That's so cool!" the kid cried out. "You're, like, super fast, right?!"
Looking past the boy, Wally could see Garfield's mother in the doorway to the Rec Room. The television was barely visible behind her and Wally could see it tuned to a channel showing off a room full of old people.
Marie Logan looked incredibly stressed. Probably because she was connected to the whole mess going on in Bialya, even if only very indirectly.
"I am indeed, like, super fast," Wally confirmed as he put a little more feeling into his easy grin and sent Marie a small nod. The woman looked between him and her son for a moment before visibly relaxing. "C'mon, let's go outside and I'll show you just how fast I am!"
Garfield latched on to Wally's hand and practically dragged him towards the exit, something the teen was happy enough to let the boy do.
Sure, this wasn't a big damn hero moment...
But, sometimes? The little damn hero moments were pretty nice, too.
-----
Alchemist hadn't seen anyone near the Zeta Terminal when he finally did turn up at Mount Justice which wasn't really that big of a surprise, all things considered.
The Justice League was in the middle of being harangued by the United Nations. Again. Which shoved back their other responsibilities further and further on to the back burner.
The wizard was honestly pretty content with the fact that they'd turned him down, back when he'd been stuck wearing Leslie. He answered to Batman and their relationship, while cordial, could be broken off without setting off an international inquest by a pack of useless busybodies.
Alchemist mused on the strange turns and twists his story had gone through. From a homeless teenager with a few relatively basic spells to his name to stealing an island and working on building a multi-layered artifact that could realistically alter the entire world.
Given enough time, anyway.
Sitting down at one of the main terminals, Alchemist extracted a pocketful of SD cards and got to work. His first step was setting up an account on a website that handled large uploads of data and storage.
He actually had to sign up and pay a fairly decent fee for an unlimited account.
Then, inserting the first SD card, he set it to upload and then... he waited.
Leaning back in his chair as the computer read, then moved the files, Alchemist puffed out his lips and looked up at the stone ceiling. That was going to take a while. Each of the dozen or so cards he'd brought up were loaded with high-definition pictures.
So, what should he be doing in the meantime?
Distantly, another part of Alchemist was in the process of putting together some basic apartments on Infinity Island while Yuffie and the familiars were busy exploring with Kary. Fabricate was making quick work of that and it didn't really demand much of the wizard's attention.
Taking a troll doll out of his inventory, Alchemist cast Faith on himself and then cast Rapid Repair on the doll before he put it back into the inventory.
None of the dolls were Awakened. He'd made a batch of suicide bombers, offering them awareness and sophoncy would have been cruel. Incredibly so.
An army of trolls, ready to start a flame war.
Taking another doll out of his inventory, Alchemist re-cast Faith on himself and then cast Rapid Repair on the newest doll.
The burning enhancement each of the troll dolls was fitted with would do anywhere from one to six fire damage over the course of six seconds. And because he'd made them out of plastic, the dolls were not immune to being harmed by their own fire.
Yes, the choice was intentional.
Rapid Repair would, under normal circumstances, restore five points of durability to a construct over the course of six seconds. That would be an eighty percent chance to offset the damage caused by the burning.
Alchemist's perks doubled that. Which meant that just casting Rapid Repair would more than offset the recoil damage his army of flaming trolls would suffer under.
Faith... Well, truth be told, Alchemist wasn't entirely sure just how much empowerment Faith offered. It was a universally useful buffing spell that would empower just about every kind of spell that Alchemist could cast afterwards but it didn't do so with a universal multiplier.
At its base power, Faith would enhance healing spells by fifty percent, even if used to harm the undead, but would only offer a thirty percent increase to other spells. And Alchemist wasn't honestly sure what Rapid Repair was treated as.
That didn't factor in the bonus Alchemist had gotten from bringing it to level one-hundred. Nor did that factor in Alchemist's equipment bonuses or perks.
There were a few easy ways to test it, Alchemist mused as he maintained his cycle of re-casting Faith and then casting Rapid Repair on his mindless constructs. There were a number of temporary conjuration spells that would create a specific amount of mass.
Wall of Iron was always a fun choice, really.
The wizard ignored the many notifications he was receiving of his spells leveling as he continued to watch the little on-screen graphic of pages flying out of a folder just to get swallowed up by a great big blue circle with a trio of white W's inside.
Sixty-four gigabytes of lost, burned books saved to the internet. Just...
Alchemist stopped playing with his dolls for a moment to count out the SD cards unto which he'd saved the Library of Alexandria, still whole in the world of Zagreus and Hades.
Ten more cards. Six-hundred and forty gigabytes of tomes, scrolls, books and everything else that he'd been able to find in the building. Countless thousands of pictures.
Setting up the second card to start uploading, Alchemist returned to his other task.
Lifting one troll doll over his head, Alchemist stared into the oversized, ugly brown eyes set deep into the heavily-wrinkled face.
"...You are going to cause so many nightmares," Alchemist told his foul creation. "And not just for me."
The troll doll didn't respond. It didn't have an intelligence score.
Alchemist tossed it into the inventory and pulled out its replacement with his left hand, pausing in between spells to navigate the computer. He needed to open up an email client-
He needed to set up a fake email account, actually.
"Alchemist," a deep voice growled from behind the wizard's chair as he was in the process of making a new account.
"Yeah, boss?" Alchemist asked, focused on the screen rather than the man behind him.
"What are you doing?"
"I am... uploading the Library of Alexandria to the internet, boss," Alchemist explained as he settled on a name and password-
bookertheunburnt@stewgle.com
-and began to compose a message to send off to a few different universities. He was going to have to include a few dozen pictures, see what responses he got.
"You... have access to the Library of..." Behind him, Alchemist could literally hear Batman slowly inhale through his nose as the implications of things began to hit him.
"Had," Alchemist corrected the man. "I -had- access. And I recorded everything I could get my hands on. Don't ask me to tell you what's where, though. I was focused on preserving it, not on reading it."
The wizard also had a copy of the Libram Logaeth, written by John Dee. He'd used Standstill and his camera to make a copy of the book when Gremory had dropped it after Miriam had severed the demon's illusion in the world of Bloodstained.
That SD card had the number Seventy-Two written on it in red marker. A bit obvious but, honestly, Alchemist needed to make it hard to forget so he wouldn't lose it. He didn't really think he'd get any use out of it considering it was initially a book on the summoning of angels but it was filled with notes on demon summoning and-
Alright, if Alchemist was going to be completely honest with himself... he'd made a copy so he'd have something to reference the next time John Constantine got wrapped up in something stupid, preventable and slash or preventably stupid.
"Hmm..." Batman hummed as he hovered over Alchemist's shoulder. "How long will this take?"
"I've got, like, half a terabyte of data." Alchemist waved at the monitor in front of him before he resumed typing. The wizard had to repeatedly tab back out to another page where he was searching for the contact information for various upscale universities that focused on their history programs. "It's probably going to be a few hours."
"...Could you cast your speed spell on the computer?" Batman asked after a few moments of watching the wizard tab back and forth.
"I could, yeah." Alchemist stopped and finally turned around. Batman was watching the computer and didn't even look down to acknowledge the wizard. Shrugging, Alchemist turned back around. "But that would just kill the computer and wouldn't do anything about the upload speeds. Those are throttled by the network, not our equipment."
"So it would work on a closed system?" Batman asked.
"It should, yeah," Alchemist answered distractedly. "Problem is heat build up. Fans can turn as fast as they want, air only moves so fast at these kinds of volumes being pushed by this kind of equipment. I... might be able to magically enforce a certain temperature range, or... hmm... maybe enchanting things with fire resistance...?"
The mage trailed off in thought, his thumb tapping away just under the space bar on the keyboard in front of him.
If he enchanted a computer with Repair to increase its durability, then loaded it up with Prestidigitation to maintain a nice, cool twenty degrees and maybe a little bit of Fire Resistance to offset any unexpected damages...
If Alchemist did all of that... could he make a Raspberry Pi supercomputer?
Alchemist shook his head and got back to typing. He had enough projects on-hand as it was!
"So, what did you need me for?" the mage asked instead, trying to get the Caped Crusader back on topic.
"Right... I need you to go to one of the clinics in Gotham and spend a day, perhaps two, healing people."
"Alright," Alchemist agreed with a small shrug. "Did something happen that I missed?"
"Something to that effect." Alchemist didn't roll his eyes at Bruce's non-answer but he was tempted to. The man played things a bit too close to his chest most of the time. Especially when he didn't need to. "Quite a few people suffered injuries recently that have left them unable to work. Given the economic straits in Gotham, joblessness eventually becomes desperation and things are difficult enough."
"Alright, I can do that," Alchemist calmly told the man as he began to select pictures from the collection he'd already saved and began to add them to the email. "It won't be free, though."
"...I'm already paying you for your time, Alchemist," Bruce said, his tone growing deeper as he growled.
"You're paying me to work on things in relation to the heroes and specifically the teenage team," Alchemist corrected the man. "This sounds like a Bruce Wayne kind of deal, at least it does to me. And Bruce Wayne is a fool that should be parted with his money."
"...How much?" Batman asked, resignation in his voice.
"Five-hundred dollars," Alchemist told him without bothering to turn around. "Per head."
"...That's all?"
"Yep," Alchemist agreed as he clicked 'Send' and sent his message off to a variety of institutes around the world. "That's all."
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Zagareth Rhaveno
Filipino Extravaganza
- Pronouns
- He/Him
alchemists and batmans interactions are so funny to me for some reason. anyways thanks author
- Location
- England
Per head?
Zeuseus
KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD!!
Another way of saying 'Per Person'