Chapter 196: Teaching Magic?
- Location
- france
- Pronouns
- He
[X] I'm willing to try to teach them but only if they join the Protectorate. And with no guarantee of success.
[X] Power
Power Roll: (880 points)
Entry Roll D36=9
200 Strength Boost, 300 Exchange Position, 100 Explosive Finish
Sub-vote results: 200 Strength Boost
Banked: 680
[X] Power
Power Roll: (880 points)
Entry Roll D36=9
200 Strength Boost, 300 Exchange Position, 100 Explosive Finish
Sub-vote results: 200 Strength Boost
Banked: 680
Pretty happy with this chapter. I got the impression that I'm improving on dialogue. (It may be just an impression.)
I hope you like the choice I made for the synergy bonus. It's vague on purpose but the effects should be visible in the next few chapters. It's not huge but it should be fun to play with.
Enjoy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 05/11/2011 (14 PM)
Looking at the eager face of Strega I decided that this situation warranted using the Player Pin.
"Please say yes! Please say yes! I want to learn real magic. Not those dumb rituals we do that always bring back…memories. Please say yes."
Okay, that check out. No obvious ulterior motives. Now for Haruspex.
"I need to stay calm. I'm less than two meters away from the most powerful capes in the world. We mustn't offend him. I can read confusion and introspection in his body language. That's good, it's not hostility. Thank god he didn't take Zack's request badly. We shouldn't have taken him with us. Even for plan A, he wouldn't have been that useful. And now that we're on plan B he's completely useless."
I cut things off there. I learned enough. As a precaution, I assigned a bunch of Minds to take direct control of my facial muscles to smooth out my involuntary tells. His power may be related to reading body language. That done I hide a wince at learning the name of Taurus, that was an unfortunate consequence of using the Pin. And lastly, I wondered what plan A was.
I didn't delve into it for too long, they've clearly abandoned it. I need to focus on the present. At least I didn't find any nefarious thoughts either.
After too long strained silence I spoke up. "That's a lot to ask you know."
"But it's true. You're really using magic. You would have denied it otherwise." Strega was quick to capitalize on my lack of denial.
I waved my hand back and forth. "Heh, it mostly depends on how you define magic."
That seems to confuse both Strega and Haruspex so I decided to elaborate. And it allowed me to gain some time to think.
"The basics of my powers are no great secrets, they've been sufficiently discussed on the web. My partners came from other dimensions, either copied or stolen. I don't know and I try to not think about it. Presumably, the rules of physics in those dimensions are different. So we can assume that those differences are what allow my partners to use their powers. But if that's the case, can we really call that magic? For them it's normal. The only trick is that my power somehow applied their physical rules to them despite the fact that they're in our dimension."
That explanation generates a thoughtful frown from them both. I use the opportunity to glance toward Taurus. The man was examining Massue's spiked tail with intense fascination. I let him to it.
I turned back around when I heard Haruspex objecting. "But we've seen you use magic directly, not your partners. There must be something there."
"The fact that you didn't see a partner, or recognize it as such doesn't mean that one wasn't in play."
At the interrogating looks I received I decided that I could reveal a tidbit of information without great consequences. I took out The Jump from my pocket. "What Strega called earlier a Magic Card is in fact the resting state of one of my partners."
I threw the Card to the ground. "Come out!" The card was replaced by an angry-looking pink creature vaguely reminiscent of a rabbit. The Jump let out a squeaky huff before jumping a dozen meters in height landing on top of Massue and promptly going to sleep.
The duo looked flabbergasted at the scene before turning their attention to me once more.
Strega looked ready to cry. "So you can't teach us at all. It's all dependent on your powers?"
There I hesitated. By now my Minds has finished formulating a strategy and putting together the facts. Fact was that I didn't know for sure. Putting aside Nimue or Grant Summoning, because that didn't constitute teaching. I was the recipient of something like nine magic systems, depending on how you count. Was there anything among the lots something that could be taught?
Chakra was discarded immediately. Others could certainly learn the hand signs by heart and practice diligently, but without Chakra of their own, it would just be making funny-looking shapes with their fingers.
Sealing was the same way, drawing seals would do nothing without Chakra to activate them. Unless the seals could include a function to convert an external energy source into Chakra. I didn't know if that was possible, I would need to ask Sifu. But that was a long shot.
Blue Magic was similarly put aside, with no monsters to give them access to the spells and no mana. Though I guess I could use the spell on them myself, the harmless ones at least. If I make them drink Mana potion could they use that? It may warrant further consideration.
Training them as Beastmaster has the exact same problem. And without even the possibility of learning the abilities by being subject to them.
Using my just awakened Furyoku I could maybe, but that was a big maybe, awaken their own. However as far as I could tell there were no Spirits in our dimension. If some Parahuman projections count, that may be the right way to go. It was another long shot.
I guess that Bakugami could grant access to Cherry Bomb to anyone if I asked him. But they would need a Celestial brush and Mystical Ink. Could I find a way to find a substitute for either of those? Bakugami would need to be in the sky but that was no great hassle. And if they try to abuse the power I could just not call Bakugami until they've been dealt with. However, giving them the ability to generate unlimited bombs may not be the greatest idea.
I barely scratched the surface of Armament Haki, in fact even less than that. And would it count as Magic anyway? Probably not. No, that one was out.
Shadowstep was indubitably magic, but far too specific and the problem of the power source was still there.
I could easily enough teach them how to use Enchanted Books and Bottles o' enchanting, and it might even be conceivable for them to make Enchanted Books or enchant items directly if I could cobble together an Enchanting Table. And yes that would be indubitably magic but they would be entirely dependent on me for the raw materials. Furthermore, I wasn't sure that it would satisfy them. They could see it as a weird form of Tinkering.
The last option was perhaps the most promising, while they didn't possess Magic Circuits maybe, and that was another big maybe, they could learn to carve nerve circuits as substitutes. From what little I knew it was an unbelievably painful process, and it needed to be repeated each time you wanted to do anything. But it was possible. The other issue was that I didn't know any spells. I only used my Magic circuits to fuel Shadow. So they'll need to experiment. A dangerous prospect while suffering from the pain of the nerve circuits.
All in all the picking was slim. Still, my bleeding heart and Strega's teary eyes made the choice for me.
"I never considered trying to teach someone. I have no idea if it's even possible so I can't make any promises. There's a very good chance that we'll fail utterly. But I'm willing to give it a try." I paused to fix them both one after another. "I have one condition, however."
The women nodded seriously and breathed out a word. "Anything."
That level of commitment was worrying but I pressed on. "I can't go around giving powers to random people like that. You would need to join the Protectorate and become heroes in truth. You would need to go on patrol, fight villains, save cats from trees, and everything else."
Strega was about to open her mouth when she was interrupted by Haruspex raising his hand. "That's perfectly understandable. We'll need some time to consider our options carefully. We'll contact you when we reach a decision."
The women looked dejected but nodded. "Yeah, I guess."
"That's more than fair."
Strega waved toward Taurus to call him back. The tall man gave a regretful look at Massue before walking toward us and joining the other two Adepts.
"Before we left I had one last question. Is the offer open for the Adepts as a whole or just our group?"
That was a good question from Haruspex and I took a few seconds to answer. While recruiting all the Adepts at once could be a good move it would probably be too much.
"For now just you three, that might change if we succeed but there's no point bringing in a lot of people for something that could ultimately give no results."
"Fair point. Thank you for your time. Good day to you."
"Yes, it was great to meet you. See you soon." Strega appeared to have regained her enthusiasm. Despite barely knowing her and despite the fact that she was older than me she reminded me of Aylamon, a little sister that I needed to support and protect.
"Your dragon is cool. Thanks." Taurus gave me a gruff nod.
As I watched them leave I wondered if I missed something in their interaction. Was Haruspex the real leader and Strega just a mouthpiece? Or was she groomed for leadership and put to the test?
I turn back toward Massue and recall The Jump. I wondered what Colin would say when I announced that I may end up recruiting three new Parahuman.
To my surprise when I spoke to him a few minutes later he only let out a grunt and asked for two reports, one on the conversation and one on the powers that I could potentially teach. So I sat at my desk and started typing.
While my body worked I sent my mind into the mental realm to analyze two new partners and a new power that popped up during my conversation with the Adepts. A bunch of my Minds already looked them over and were a weird mix of excited and confused.
In the center of the realm, I met with three me standing side by side.
The me to the far left stepped forward.
"Let's start with the easiest thing. We got Strength Boost, the last Boost power, with the usual doubling effect. I don't think we can put off eating the Seed of Strength any longer now that the benefits are effectively doubled."
Yeah, I've been sitting on those for too long anyway. I think I could modify a recipe for a bean salad to work with the seeds. It'll make for a nice dinner. And that reminds me, again, that I need to talk to Robin about it.
"And that's not all. If we apply all the Boosts to the same partner, or ourselves, there's a synergy effect. The Menagerie isn't clear on what it does exactly, supposedly it's some sort of increase in the recipient's presence and karma. An invisible aura that makes others more likely to listen and events more likely to go our ways."
I accessed the power to check but the Menagerie was indeed being mysterious. I didn't learn any more than what the other me said. It would be up to me to see if I could discover any subtle or obvious effects as time passes.
The second me spoke up. "Next we have a phenomenal example of convergent evolution. This alien creature is an oviparous that can produce an impressive amount of tentacles and fanged maws out of its mouth. Their stomach is linked to a fleshy subspace dimension that is shared by all members of the species. Their claws produce a vicious toxin that prevents natural healing. And they have a human-like intellect."
I nodded warily, I knew myself well enough to smell a trap. But I played along by not checking the information directly.
"It's called a Flerken. Guess what earth species it looks like?"
I let out a weary sigh. "It's a fucking cat isn't it?"
"Got it in one. Completely indistinguishable from a normal domesticated cat until it opens its mouth."
We all chuckled. Either the multiverse was so full of cats that we couldn't help but stumble upon them every two steps or the Menagerie was pranking us.
Once our laughter subsided, the third me stepped forward. "Considering what I'm going to tell you I think that we could all use more laughs." He took a deep breath before launching into his explanation. "We gained something called a Personal AI. It's an artificial intelligence based on our own brain that we can summon into a computer. At the end of the summoning, we regain the memories of being the AI."
That's sounded good so far. I could see a lot of use for that and nothing particularly worrying.
"It does operate under a few annoying limitations, one, in particular, means that it must obey official authorities no matter what. So we may need to be careful who we let know about it, this could be abused far too easily."
Considering that the AI version of me would still be telepathically linked with my real self it wasn't that bad, at worst I would dismiss the AI but it was still something that I needed to be aware of.
"The interesting thing is that this does not come out of nowhere. It's based on an AI created by a Parahuman Tinker, a man named Andrew Richter."
That was indeed interesting. We had our doubts about Hercules. We have multiple mundane animals that exist on Earth. And there's Solar of course. But this was the first time that we gained something confirmed to be coming from our own dimension or at least one very similar to it. But the other me wasn't finished.
"This AI is called Dragon."
I paused.
Yes, that would do it. Now I could understand the confused mix of feelings coming from my Minds. And in retrospect, this explains a lot of things. No one was that much of an agoraphobic.
Still in the end did it change anything? I would be the last person to judge someone based on their species or physical makeup. She was a hero and that was enough for me. Maybe at some point, I'll try to discreetly tell her I knew but I wouldn't make it a priority.
The other me must have followed a similar line of thought. "Yeah, that's not the biggest revelation. But it has two problematic implications. If we ever summon our Personal AI on a computer connected to the net, there's little doubt that it will encounter Dragon at some point."
Ah, yes I didn't think about that.
"The second thing is that the information about Dragon specified that there's a terminal somewhere that can be used to spy on her, modify her programming, or even kill her, and she's not aware of it. In fact she's unable to become aware of it, a deliberate loophole in her programming. And I can't be sure but there's a good chance that is what the Dragonslayers are using to run rings around her."
That would indeed make a lot of sense. I did read the files about those mercenaries. How they managed to steal a suit from her and reverse-engineered it to build two more*. All the while seemingly not being capes themselves. If they had direct access to her most inner thoughts, all her secrets, that would explain it nicely.
I licked my lips. "It's only a theory for now. We can't act on it without any proof. Acting too fast may just push them to press the kill button before we can do anything. Presumably, they haven't done so yet because they benefit from the situation. We need to do some research on the Dragon Slayers, but discreetly. And we may need to avoid using connected devices to do so."
I pointed at the me that made that discovery. "I want you to search for any partners, powers, or combination of the two that would allow us to help Dragon. We need to be prepared."
With that, we go our separate ways. Knowing that I would be meeting Dragon tomorrow to give her custody of the Butcher, I was in need of a distraction so I decided to go see Replica. That would make for a good change of pace.
The little Pokemon proved to be a prankster, thankfully not a malicious one. They started things off by jumping on my back as soon as I appeared in their bubble. Once I managed to wrangle them into my arms they curled against me with obvious delight. The environment around me was that of a small island covered with trees and with a rocky hill in the center hiding a grotto.
I sat down on a rock to talk to them and explained that I wish for them to train hard until they learn to shapeshift. They agreed with enthusiasm, only asking that I play with them or they were allowed to play with my other partners when not training. I agreed readily enough.
When I tried to get up I discovered they used their prehensile tail to tie my shoelaces into a knot. This was the start of an amusing chase through the forest.
An hour later, after they got bored of running I left them to their nap and returned my awareness to the real world, in the orb.
I received a very nice surprise during my daily session of Material Extraction, instead of giving me a ring the Gasha Nuts gave me a Magic Potion. Despite the name it wasn't supposed to be drunk, instead, if the one transporting it was at the risk of dying the potion would consume itself to fully heal them. A powerful item that would be added to my standard loadout.
I ended my day by delving into Nimue's Dungeon. When I finished off the fourth-floor boss I was rewarded by the class system granting me my third level in Dungeon Master. And I got to choose which trait of Nimue I wish to improve. Hmm, what to choose?
[] Class System (Secondary Civilian classes)
[] Invader Revival (First revival is free)
Wordcount: 3037
Excess words: 318
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surprise, @Varja pranked you again. We didn't gain Bizarro Krypto instead we got the Personal AI.
I really hesitated when it came to Alex deducing that the Dragonslayer has access to Ascalon. Even with him being aware of Ascalon was stretching things a little. But considering he got two dozen Minds to consider the issue, that he ate 50 Seed of wisdom to boost his intelligence, and that he's a master strategist it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.
Also as a third-level Dungeon Master Alex gains the following:
-Improve Trait: Your bond to your Dungeon Core allows you to improve its innate traits.
At 3rd level, and again at 19th level, you can improve one trait of your Dungeon. See below for the list of traits and how they are improved.
–Class System: Your Dungeon Core can grant a secondary civilian class, such as Blacksmith, Cook, Merchant, Farmer, and so on.
–Invader Revival: Your Dungeon Core can retain hold of an Invader's soul for up to one month instead of one week. In addition, the first time an Invader dies inside your Dungeon they can be revived for free.
At first, I wanted to make the decision myself, going for the Improved Class System, but then I tried to consider Alex's point of view. Wouldn't he prefer the Revival? So you get to choose instead.
And here's the penultimate Activity vote:
[] Sergeant Blair contacted me to organize another training exercise with the Wards
[] I accumulated a fair number of Enchanted books, and it's time to put them to use.
[] I got a rest day. it will be good to spend some time at home
[] It's time to give away more partners and create more heroes.
[] I have enough parts to build my own Mech, let's do that.
[] The PR team finalized the arrangement for the Talk Show. I'm overjoyed.
[] Dauntless wants to use a charge on his Totem, he wants me to be there just in case.
For the roll, 680 (Banked) + 360 (Chapter) + 0 (Excess words) = 1040 points.
[] Creature
[] Power
Voting will be closed Friday at 3 PM GMT
*Yes, I know that the Dragonslayers stole all three suits from Dragon directly. But The wiki specifies that she only declared one stolen. Presumably, they still use three when doing Mercenary work, so that's the public explanation of where the other two come from.
Last edited:
