Chapter 21
- Location
- Marietta, OH USA
Chapter 21
Chapter Text
Taylor took a deep breath, inhaling deep of the faintly salty night air. Ten thousand scents, all of them named, numbered and filed in her mind, filled her nostrils. She sighed, smiling, hopped on her toes twice, ran to the edge of the rooftop and leaped.
She threw her arms out to the side and with a loud fwump of cloth catching the wind her cloak unfolded into an enormous pair of wings. With a whoop she began circling, climbing in the updraft rising off the city streets below.
For not the first time she reflected that Adrian seriously underestimated his own gift as a Tinker. He'd scoff, and say that his skills were nothing but memorized formulas and blueprints downloaded into his brain… but then he'd go and make something like this. His "rudimentary engineering knowledge" was enough for him to take the crude Azeroth designs for a parachute cloak and a goblin glider, incorporate the exotic Tinker materials Parian had access to-- such as the light, flexible "memory-metal" making up the bonelike struts in the cape-- and create something totally original and unique: a Glider Cape.
"Not a real Tinker," my furry airborne tushy, Taylor thought smugly.
She wasn't flying "swimmer" style like most flying capes. Instead she hung cruciform, her arms straight out to the side, her hands holding the "wrists" of each batlike wing (which coincidentally served as the attitude controls) and her body and feet dangling below. It looked a little nontraditional and was a little less aerodynamic, but truthfully made a lot more sense. Among other things it meant that she led with her feet instead of her face when coming in for a landing. Speaking of which…
Her launch had been from the top of one of the downtown skyscrapers; she was now fast approaching the roof of a three-story department store on the edge of the shopping district. She stretched her legs out in front of her as the rooftop rushed up to meet her. Her powerful digitigrade legs absorbed her impact as perfectly as the pistoned landing gear on a jet. At the instant her clawtips touched the graveled roof her wrists flicked in a certain way. Her glider-wings briefly mantled around her, bleeding all her forward momentum, then collapsed back into shapeless cloth, wrapping around her like a shroud.
There was a faint hoot far above. Out of the overcast sky down flew a giant horned owl that settled gracefully on the rooftop before transforming back into a midnight black werewolf in a forest green robe. Skinwalker. AKA Bayleaf, AKA her boyfriend Adrian Smith. She gave him a wolfish smile; it still gave her a little warm tingle to think those words. "Nice landing," He told her. "Spot anything that needs our attention while you were up there?"
"Er, no," she confessed with a sheepish eyeroll. "Sort of got caught up in the whole flying thing..." He didn't say anything; he just grinned. Something about his expression told her that he'd done the same thing more than once himself. She wondered what it was like to fly for real-- not glide, actually fly with your own wings…for not the first time she felt a twinge of regret that they hadn't ended up with two worgen druids on the team-- the idea of them flying together…
"Hemlokk?" Bayleaf waved a furry hand in front of her face. "You okay?"
She started. "Oh, sorry," she said. "Just woolgathering, I guess." She looked out over the city. "It's a quiet night."
Bayleaf shook his head. "Only a Brocktonite would call three muggings, a couple of attempted break-and-entries and a drunken four-way brawl a 'quiet night,'" he said, making quote marks in the air with his claws.
She huffed, not sure if she was amused or annoyed at his estimation of her home town. "So how did I do, Teach?" she said.
He shrugged, flicking his ears. But his tone was tinted with respect. "You came, you saw, you kicked butt," he said. "Those muggers never saw you coming. And those four thugs brawling in the bar parking lot never had a chance." He wasn't lying. She had ported… 'flash stepped,' he insisted on calling it… right behind each of her marks and rendered them unconscious with a carefully targeted blow before they even saw her. He grinned suddenly, tongue lolling. "My favorite was the two guys trying to break into that electronics shop…"
It was close work, picking a door lock by flashlight. Kudos to them for not simply taking a crowbar to the latch. The two men crowded into the narrow doorway, whether to block the telltale light with their bodies or just in an eager press to be first through the door when the lock gave way she couldn't say. She had just leapt down from the fire escape overlooking their little escapade when one of them happened to glance up and see her hooded and cloaked form drop down to the sidewalk.
"Oh shit, it's Shadow Stalker!"
She'd known that the mistake was inevitable, but the shock of actually being mistaken for her own worst enemy had actually brought her up short. She cursed under her breath as she realized her momentum was broken (then cursed again as she realized she'd forgotten to slip into her invisible 'stealth' mode before leaping down.) Growling to herself she stalked forward, shifting her intent from a quick takedown to some batman-style intimidation. "You wish," she growled, weapons loose in her hands and her eyes glowing yellow.
The two men got distinctly alarmed and went for their weapons as she came closer and they got a better look at her glowing eyes, the alien shape of her digitigrade legs and the gleam of her fangs. "Oh shit, that's NOT Shadow Stalker!" the second one said, scrabbling for a pistol in his belt.
She BLURRED forward. Faster than the eye could follow the pistol was knocked flying into the street and its wielder flattened into the sidewalk, the wolf-woman left standing in a crouch on his back. The first man squealed, turned and ran. He got to the corner before she leaped, closing the distance instantly. A double strike from her batons and his weapon of choice-- a length of lead pipe-- was gone and he was left clutching broken fingers. He staggered back into the wall of the building behind him."Who ARE you, bitch?!"
"BITCH?" she seized him by his shirt front and slammed him into the brick wall, pinning him in place by a baton across his throat. "I'm not a bitch--" she said. Her hood fell back and her head lunged forward till his nose was almost touching hers, the sodium yellow of the street lamp above revealing the face of a snarling, furious werewolf. "My name is Hemlokk, and I'm THE Bitch, little man!!" she bayed into his face, her gleaming fangs snapping.
"--And right before he passed out, he actually started making noises like Curly from the Three Stooges," Bayleaf said, chuckling. He did an imitation of the man, flailing his arms around. "Himimeneimememineee!!"
Hemlokk snorted back her own laughter. "Oh don't make me laugh," she said. "If I start I'll never stop." She grinned back at him. "It was pretty funny though." Her smile shrank a bit. "That fight at the bar, though. That wasn't so funny."
Bayleaf nodded. That hadn't been any little fist fight; knives and at least one steel chain had been out when they arrived, and more than a bit of blood was already spilled. Tonight had been for Hemlokk, but Bayleaf had been of a mind to intercede first-- but Hemlokk had beaten him to the punch, leaping into the middle of the parking lot (sending the onlookers running off screaming-- whether in fear of the 'werewolf' or of the Cape, he couldn't say) and begun flash-stepping between the combatants, disarming and disabling them with swift ruthless strikes. She had fumbled though with the last one when a jabbing blow with the taser at the end of her baton had failed to drop the burly biker.
She sighed and looked down at the baton in her left hand. The 'low charge' LED had long ago stopped blinking and had gone dark. "I didn't realize the charge had run dry. I really need to trade these in for better equipment..."
Bayleaf nodded. His heart had stuttered to a brief halt when Hemlokk's taser-strike to the biker's thick gut had failed to drop him. Thankfully Hemlokk hadn't been left flatfooted; a quick feint backwards to dodge the thug's retaliatory strike with his switchblade, and then a lightning-fast high kick to the chin, and the guy had finally folded like the rest. Still, it had been alarming. Foolish of him to worry-- the enchantments on her blouse alone made the weapons they'd wielded laughable-- but still. "Well, Greg and Theo-- ahem, Vindicator and Shen-- " he coughed as he remembered his Cape manners. "Have been working together, Vindicator was chattering this morning about how a lot of stuff was almost ready, 'especially for Hemlokk...' wanna head back to the Workshop and see what they've got so far?"
Hemlokk smiled and put her burnt-out batons away. "Yeah, I think I could call it a night," she said.
Bayleaf whipped out his phone and dialed. "Sparky?" He paused and sighed patiently. "Okay, Shar'Din? Me and Hemlokk could use a lift back to the shop… no, our hearthstones are set for different locations-- we really need to all sit down and discuss that... Spare a mo for a summon?… Great." He hung up. A moment later a shimmering oval appeared in midair over the rooftop. With a flourish he gestured for his lady to precede. She leapt into the shimmer and vanished, Bayleaf right behind her. The portal hung there for a moment longer, then slowly faded away.
Since forming the "Alliance," the Lost Workshop had undergone a rapidly accelerating metamorphosis. The cluster of warehouses that had once crowded out and hidden the relatively tiny shop were now little more than a false front, a shell disguising the real structure within. Adrian had moved swiftly, buying up the mismatch row of warehouses, knocking out the connecting and interior walls and inserting new rooms, effectively turning the buildings into one large construction then replacing most of its innards with a ramshackle warren of workspaces.
As begun, so continued; most of the rooms were made from converted steel shipping containers. All of them together had made it swift work; take the crate, lay some plumbing along the base of the walls and electrical wiring along the ceiling, put in some flooring, add openings and connectors for water, septic, electric and gas and the like, cover the interior walls with insulating panels, and you had a prefab room… one you could customize into a mini-apartment, a studio, a workshop, or anything else you needed with little effort.
The other Warcrafted had been a little unenthused at the idea. But they changed their tune once Fennek called dibs on the first one. The others had watched in astonishment as the hedonistic Vulperan had taken a wad of cash out of his 'mad money,' hit Ebay and Amazon, and proceeded to convert one half of the 8x8x40 box into a tidy, almost spartan one-room apartment… and the rest into the plushest gaming and movie room any of them had ever seen, complete with jumbo screen TV monitor, cable, internet, gaming consoles, surround sound, recessed lighting, huge plush recliner seating, and popcorn and soda machines within arm's reach, just 'cause.
Once they saw just how adaptable-- and comfy-- the modular rooms could be, the rest had begun clamoring for one or more of their own. Soon there was a warren of about a dozen of the modular rooms, spreading out from the central workshop and stacked atop each other like children's blocks, linked by doors, walkways, crude balconies and welded-on metal stairs. They had begun stringing wiring for lights but a momentary brainstorm had led to them running creepers of Adrian's glowing 'ghost vines' everywhere instead. The soft pervasive glow was hailed roundly as a vast improvement over hanging bulbs or fluorescent tubes. Other Azerothian style improvements for climate, ventilation, sound buffering, water filtration and other comforts were hailed equally.
There had been surprising ripple effects from this little home improvement project. It had been easy enough to obtain the shipping containers; Brockton Bay's harbors were practically swimming in them. About fifteen, twenty years ago Leviathan had made his appearance, and worldwide nautical shipping went into freefall. The sailors, harbor workers and others most dependent on Brockton Bay's harbors for their wellbeing had reacted poorly. In a bout of incredible stupidity, some of the protesters had decided the best way to protest the collapse of local industry was to hijack one of the enormous cargo vessels and scuttle it in the deep channel mouth of the Bay, effectively marooning all the ships in the harbor and blocking it to all major shipping. Hundreds of ships were left stranded, eventually abandoned by their now-bankrupt companies, and the docks left stacked high with empty cargo containers no ship would ever load again.
Adrian, or rather, Azeroth Ltd, had moved in and bought the steel containers off the city as "salvage," for less than a penny on the dollar. They only needed a dozen of the things (and it had been easy peasy to have the things trucked to the warehouse row and popped inside) but Adrian had made a point of having the dummy corporation buy the whole lot, just to cover their tracks better. Of course that left the dummy corporation in possession of something on the order of several thousand cargo containers that had to be disposed of in some fashion within a certain time, or various fines, taxes, fees, etc. would accrue.
It had been Taylor's father who had seen the results of their work and had noted that there were all sorts of people salivating to get their hands on cheap, affordable ready-to-go emergency housing, and even the bare-bones version of their modded cargo containers would be vastly superior to the shoddy trailers, pop-up houses and mobile homes used now...
The next thing Danny Hebert knew, there had been a small tornado of government paperwork, and now the Dock Workers Union was employed by Azeroth Ltd., and incredibly busy hauling empty cargo containers in, sanding off the rust, painting them, adding doors, windows, wiring and plumbing, and rolling them out to be hauled by train to wherever they were wanted. And everyone wanted them. FEMA wanted them for emergency housing. Corporations wanted them for on-site temporary workshops. Penny-pinching or energy-frugal private citizens wanted them for cheap, energy efficient homes. Not-so-paranoid-after-all survivalists wanted them for their camps and bunkers...
They soon were making money hand over fist. It was all they could do to just sit there and watch in goggling disbelief as their fake company rapidly became a real one-- all through a simple if clumsy effort to disguise the renovations to their superhero lair…
They had started (very very discreetly) hiring office workers to handle the day to day business, taking in the orders and handling the paperwork. Grue, who'd started out as the "face" for the company, suddenly had an entire genuine office growing in place underneath him. It was a tossup whether he was more thrilled or alarmed at his sudden elevation to corporate respectability. Much to his relief he was still effectively just a "face;" the real decisions of Azeroth Ltd. were still being made by a group of Rogues gathered around a folding table in a hidden workshop in Brockton Bay.
Lisa on the other hand was as busy as a one-legged woman at an asskicking contest, finding ways to shuffle that money around, tucking it away in 'discreet' offshore accounts and various other tricks to hide the real final destination of all that lucre from their adversaries and enemies-- and consequently from the Government and the IRS.
The more conscientious members of their little group-- Chiefly Danny Hebert and Taylor-- had nearly gone into hyperventilating shock when they realized they were committing tax fraud against the United States government. The more ruthlessly pragmatic members of the party (Tattletale and Fennek) had broken them out of it by pointing out, rather sarcastically, that selfsame government had written laws that made pretty much any employment more lucrative than flipping burgers illegal for Capes. Furthermore, their enemies (like Coil, Kaiser, and Cauldron) had been doing everything they were doing and worse, for far more ignoble reasons, and doing it with the aid of the Government itself.
"The government where politicians use private charities as slush funds and suck up donations from foreign powers," Lisa had added. "The same graft-ridden, corrupt Government that wrote laws forcing all of us to either resort to government slavery or a life of crime just to survive. And frankly any government that would want to throw us all in the Birdcage for getting rich making affordable housing for the homeless can just go pound sand up its aft port come tax time."
"Yeah, and maybe you forgot that the so-called leaders of the world are under Cauldron's thumb?" Fennek had chipped in. "The President himself is on their leash and barks when they say 'speak.' Right now, there is no legitimate government." That had been a show-stopper.
The Vulperan, Adrian reflected as they came in for a landing, had a knack for stating utterly horrible truths as tactlessly as possible.
The portal they had leapt through came out in an empty circular chamber about fifty feet across, where about seven or eight unused tunnels intersected underground, right below the warehouse row. A six-foot monolith of rough-hewn stone with a single, glowing rune carved in it stood in the center of the space. Shar'Din stood next to it, his hand resting on its surface; Lei Ling stood on the other side with her hand next to his. "Welcome back," she said with an annoyed sigh. "Bout time you two lovebirds quit running from rooftop to rooftop and got back here."
"Why, what's up?"
"Pretty much everything all at once," Lei Ling said with a roll of her eyes. "Greg and Theo finally crawled out of their lair, babbling about how they had a ton of stuff to show everyone. Lisa says she's about hit the limit on how far she can push Calvert in his civilian identity-- but she's pretty sure she's figured out a way to neutralize him as both Calvert and Coil. Parian's here..."
"Yeah, she and I just finished that special project," Shar'Din said, grinning like a fool. "I can't wait to show you all." he led the way down one of the tunnels.
"What about you?" Bayleaf said to Lei Ling.
"Altogether we've got about two hundred major healing potions bottled," she said. "about a quarter that many of each of the ones Greg calls stat-boosters-- stamina, intellect, agility, strength. A pile of mana boosters for Sparky, just in case he starts jonesing."
"What about scrolls?"
Lei Ling sighed. "I dunno exactly. I've just been scratching them out and piling them up. It's been kind of a dilemma, deciding what herbs get ground up for potions and which ones we can spare for inks..."
"We should probably start focusing on more inks," Bayleaf mused. "Scrolls are lighter and will store longer."
"You and Shen have been piling up enchantments pretty good, too," Hemlokk noted.
Bayleaf grunted and grimaced. "Most of which are just us recycling the rejects from everyone's crafting skills," he said. "The really potent enchantments are still pretty sparse. It's still difficult finding sufficient ingredients."
Enchantments and Inscriptions could both be stored on parchment or vellum for later use. However Enchantments were more or less permanent enhancements to be cast on clothing, armor, jewelry or devices, while inscriptions, with a few exceptions were generally temporary effects cast upon the person themselves. Inscription used milled inks made from plants with potent exotic qualities. Enchantments were made from far stranger stuffs, largely non-baryonic materials and even stranger things-- crystallized time, solidified Void, essences of various elements and more.
Between them, though, the work areas were getting piled deep in neatly-rolled scrolls...
"Oh, and Lok'Tara and Fennec found their first Hunting Companions," Lei Ling added with a roll of the eyes. They'd reached the end of the tunnel; a spiral metal staircase continued upward.
"Lok'Tara and Fennek were running around town?" Hemlokk said. She was understandably alarmed; a giant green orc woman and a midget were-fennec might just cause a scene out in public, even in Brockton Bay. "Oh crap. Were there police involved?"
"Not as much," Lei Ling said. For some reason she seemed amused. "But I think we're now officially in violation of the Endangered Species Act." She started up the spiral staircase.
"What?" Bayleaf stared at her.
The question was set aside the moment they came up through the trap door in the workshop floor. He perhaps should have been more suspicious when Lei Ling let him up the stairs first. The moment his head and shoulders popped out of the floor, something large, hairy and barking very loudly came thundering across the room at him. Bayleaf snarled in alarm, his hackles standing on end. This did not deter the gigantic hellhound in the least.
"TRUCK! DOWN!" someone bellowed. For a miracle the mountain of fangs and muscle screeched to a halt. It dropped on its belly to the floor and froze in place. It never took its eyes off of Bayleaf, though, growling faintly. Bayleaf returned the favor.
Beyond the beast Bayleaf could see Lok'Tara setting some sort of gigantic bird on a perch-- holy crap, was that a golden eagle?? She came hurrying up to the monster dog's side. "Truck! Quiet!" the dog stilled. She pointed at Bayleaf. "Friend! Got it? Friend. " The dog's whole demeanor changed. It looked up at her and whined softly, then looked over at Bayleaf, lowered his head and gave its tail a tentative wag.
Bayleaf slowly climbed up out of the trapdoor, never taking his eyes off the dog. It looked like some monstrous mutated version of a bull mastiff-- only bigger! "What is this?" he said as Taylor carefully followed, the admonition of 'Friend' repeated over. "I thought you couldn't use your monster-growing powers anymore."
"She can't!" Alec called out. Bayleaf cast about in confusion, looking for the vulperan. When he located him he nearly laughed; the were-fennec was was perched atop the highest work shelf, looking down at them amidst piles of clockwork parts and ingredient jars, cobwebs hanging from his ears. From the state of the shelves Fennek had apparently made the ascension to his current perch in serious haste. "That brute is some sort of cross-breed."
"Between what, a dog and a house?" Taylor said in disbelief. "Where did you get him?"
At that moment the eagle reminded everyone of its presence with a high-pitched cry. "Animal smuggler," Rachel said, her tusks making her scowl look truly fierce. "Truck full of birds." She rested her massive hand on the dog's massive head. "This guy was in the back; he was trained to guard the cargo. Change now."
Bayleaf blinked. "What?"
The orc girl gestured at the two worgen. "Change back. I want Truck to know what you look and smell like in both shapes."
"A wise precaution I guess," Bayleaf muttered. He morphed down to his human shape and warily approached the dog, his hand outstretched, palm up. Truck growled and grumphed worriedly, but after a curt sound from Rachel he gave Adrian's hand a sniff and a lick. He apparently approved of what he smelled because he wagged his tail and stuck his head under Adrian's hand, begging for pets. Adrian obliged, scratching behind the dog's ears while Taylor repeated his performance. "You didn't need to go through this with your other dogs," Adrian noted.
"I already finished training them," Lok'Tara said. "And they sorta got bum-rushed into knowing you. I didn't want that with Truck."
"You didn't want HIM bum-rushed?" Alec yelled from his perch. "I come home and that thing's waiting at the door with a BIB and a FORK!"
"He wouldn't have hurt you unless I told him to," Lok'Tara said.
"No, that would involve CHEWING. That thing's large enough to swallow me, Fidget and Gidget whole!"
Fidget and Gidget? Adrian looked up at him, puzzled. Two inquisitive fuzzy faces poked over the edge of the shelf next to Alec. "Ah, so you decided on ferrets then?"
Alec's expression was bemused. He shrugged. "I guess so. It was more like they picked me."
Aisha came strolling around the end of the shelves. "Yeah, you should see fox-boy's room," she said. "It looks like Ferret Disneyland in there."
"I wasn't sure what all I really needed," Alec explained with the air of someone who had explained the same thing many times already. "So I got everything. Just to be sure."
"And then went back for seconds, looks like," Aisha rebuttled. "You soft touch." Alec snorted in disdain, but he didn't bother denying.
Taylor gestured at the bird. "And I'm guessing that was one of the… captives of the bird smuggler?" she said.
Lok'Tara nodded. "I want Panacea to look at them both," she said. "They say they're okay but I wanna be sure."
"This could be a problem..." Taylor said, worrying her lip.
"No kidding," Alec snarked from his perch. He looked down at Truck, who was still lying on the floor getting pets. "It's against the law in the States to have a riding moose without a permit." Lok'Tara and Truck both snorted at him.
"You were fine with her other dogs when she could mutate them into giant monsters," Adrian said in amusement.
"And who told you that?" Alec retorted. "Besides, back then I was slightly bigger than bite-sized, if you'll recall--- at least part of the time. And for the record, the GIANT CONDOR over there doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy either."
Adrian shook his head. It was probably vulperan instincts making Alec twitchy around the new animals. It was a good thing Rachel hadn't come home with a snake of some sort; considering the vulperan lore in Azeroth, Alec would have probably brought the roof down.
"He wouldn't hurt you," Lok'Tara said without even looking at him. "He'd most likely want to play with you."
"Great, so he thinks I'm a rubber pet toy," Alec sniped. "He won't eat me, he'll just chew on me till my squeaker comes out."
Adrian ignored the two quibbling at each other and turned to Aisha. "So I'm guessing Amy is..."
"On her way here tomorrow, to do her maaaaaaaad science with her new test subjects, muwuhahah," Aisha said, grinning and making spooky clawing motions. "She finally decided on a short list of must-do bio-tinker upgrades that the Hunters' Companions have to get. She said she's also gonna give some up-dos to the rest of Rachel's little zoo, and give us all a quick check-up for good measure… if we don't mind."
"Free health care? Couldn't hurt," Adrian joked. "Okay, just… Lok'Tara, look after your pets and… don't let them eat anyone. And someone was saying something about Shen and Vindicator?"
"Yeah, they been really impatient for you to get back," Shar'Din said. "Ooh, that reminds me, Parian's still waiting in the sewing room!" The blood elf took off at a run, fast as his robes would let him. "We'll meet everyone at the shop center!" he called over his shoulder as he disappeared among the walkways and corridors.
"Wwwwwell," Adrian said. "Guess we should go see our monk and paladin first? To the forges!" He turned on his heel and headed off down the hallway.
Taylor shrugged to Lei Lin. "To the forges," she said, following her boyfriend.
The Alliance's tentative partnership with Faultline's mercenary crew had yielded considerable dividends. Vindicator's lone six-hour mission into one of Labyrinth's surreal dimensions had him dragging out close to a ton of raw ore in exotic metals (A ridiculous amount had it not been for his superhuman strength, stamina and other supernormal abilities.) Faultline hadn't been overly enthusiastic about the ore, but the byproduct of a few thousand carats in precious and semiprecious stones had warmed her up to the idea of continuing the effort. One cross-dimensional spelunking trip turned to two, then to a full week…
On the second day Shen and a couple of the others had started joining in to lend their considerable muscle to the efforts. By the third Bayleaf had a head-slapping moment and diverted several of his tinkerbots, kitted out with pickaxes and bottomless haversacks, to the effort. Labyrinth had not always opened her gates to the same worldlets; the terrain had often been surreal beyond measure. Bayleaf and Shar'Din had started showing up to harvest enchanting ingredients as well as more gems and ore. Some of the worlds had otherworldly plants and vegetation; Taylor and Lei Ling had spent a turn or three exercising their herbalism skills.
One of the worlds had wildlife. Wild, savage sounds echoed there. Dark shapes with glowing eyes-- and not always just two-- that skulked in the undergrowth just out of reach of their lanterns. Lok'Tara had taken her spear and walked out into the dark. When she returned an hour later, the orc girl said nothing of what had occurred. But there were far fewer eyes in the dark, and she was carrying a bottomless haversack loaded with raw hides the likes of which noone had ever seen.
By the end of the second week, Labyrinth had started flagging. The strain of forcing dimensions to overlap and holding them steady for hours on end had started to tell on her. Faultline called a halt to proceedings, and Bayleaf was inclined to agree. But when all was said and done they had dragged in, one bottomless bag at a time, almost fifty tons of pseudo-Azeroth ore, a stack of animal hides six foot high, several pounds of herbs, roots and seeds of unknown provenance and a small fortune in crystals and gems.
Once they'd divided up the take with Faultline and hauled their own take back to the Lost Workshop, Greg and Shen had beelined for the forges and hadn't been seen away from them since. The furnaces had roared, arcane light had lit the rafters, and the sound of hammers ringing on anvils had gone on day and night. Adrian had begun worrying that the two had fallen into some sort of tinker fugue, and he wasn't the only one.
Everyone else was just as busy, though, feverishly working to turn their windfall into tools, armor, and weapons in preparation for… well, everything that was going to come. Shar'Din was thick as thieves with Parian, lurking about her shop whenever he wasn't lurking in his own workroom with his rolls of cloth and jars of enchanting supplies. Taylor and Fennek had found themselves spending a lot of time bent over the same worktable, turning rough gems and twisted wire into magically enhanced jewelry. Lok'Tara was either tending her animal friends (who came and went through her skylights and window vents all day long), or working through her piles of skins, scowling in concentration as she drove a leather awl through the thick hides. Adrian himself had been up to his elbows in machine parts and axle grease...
Even those that weren't crafting (Lisa and Brian) were busting their humps on the internet or over piles of paperwork (government and otherwise) needed to keep their rapidly growing little venture under the radar, and keep their adversaries on the back foot. Aisha, Mr. Hebert and the Dallon sisters were a godsend, chivvying the others to eat, rest, and take regular breaks-- even if it meant pushing some of them out the door to do patrols or make other heroic-style appearances. (It was at least fresh air, anyway.)
But now it looked like it was time for the first round of show-and-tell.
Adrian and Taylor followed the sound of ringing hammers to the forges. As the Workshop had grown and spread, burrowing its way through the warehouse row, the original lost and re-found workshop had remained, Adrian's undisputed redoubt and the beating heart of the whole. Nevertheless, everyone else had a toehold there as well-- it was where the Comms system was set up, after all, which was Aisha's near-permanent nest. And it was the only space they had that was truly equipped and ventilated to handle the smelting and smithing of metal. (It was also the only section slathered in Azeroth runes, inscriptions and enchantments that smothered the noise of falling hammers and magically dissipated the smoke from the forges and kilns, keeping their hidden Cape base hidden.
The once spacious floor was now crowded; armor and weapons in pieces and in whole stood around the room, leaving barely enough workspace where needed. Greg and Theo were both at the anvil, stripped to the waist and wearing heavy goggles, leather aprons and gloves. The pandaren was hammering out some bit or other of armor that sparked strangely under the hammer blows while Greg watched closely, observing the technique. "Oh, hello, Bayleaf, Hemlokk!" Theo… Shen… said. "Give us a moment--" He picked the glowing metal up in tongs and dropped it in a quenching bath; luminous steam shot for the ceiling as the water hissed. The two craftsmen pushed up their goggles and doffed their gloves as they came over. "Glad you're back!"
"We finally finished up a few things--" Greg said. "W-Well, for you all. --And for everyone else, but--" he stammered.
Shen motioned for him to stop. "We got a few things for you," he finished for him. Greg nodded, relieved. The poor ex-geek was still powerfully uncomfortable in his own skin around other people.
"Really?" Adrian said. "Well let's see it."
"Let's start with the big one, I think," Shen said.
"You mean the--?" Greg started to say.
"No no, the other big one," Shen corrected. "The one for Miss Taylor here." The teenage paladin nodded, obviously understanding, and hustled over to a display rack on the wall. He pulled down two sheathed blades and handed them to Shen, who handed them to Taylor. "We know those batons you've been using haven't been really working out," the Pandaren said. "So we crafted you these."
Taylor unsheathed one of the blades. Even she could see it was a beautiful piece of work, a single s-shaped curve from the jewel-embedded pommel down to the tip of the single-edged blade that put her in mind of a scimitar or some other exotic arabian weapon. The edge gleamed wickedly in the light; the metal of the blade almost seemed to glow blue-white. She twirled it experimentally-- it was beautifully balanced.
"And check this out," Shen said, taking the blade back from her. To her shock he ran it down the edge of a nearby anvil, shaving off a pencil-thin layer as easily as if he were slicing cheese. Then he sliced the hem of his leather apron; it still cut as smoothly as a razor through silk. "Awesome, huh?"
"Yes," Taylor said. But her distaste was obvious. It was easy to tell she was visualizing what sort of gruesome damage such blades would do to human flesh…
"Oh, that's not all," Greg said suddenly. "Okay, Shen, do the thing." He held out his arm.
"Okay." Shen raised the blade overhead.
"Whoa, now wait a minute, I AAAAAAH!" Taylor and Adrian both let out a scream as Shen brought the blade down and rammed it right through Greg's arm.
Greg grimaced and clutched his arm below the blade. "Gah, okay, takeitouttakeitouttakeitout!!!" he yelled. Shen obediently yanked the blade free. "Man, I forgot how much that STINGS at first," Greg said, cradling his arm.
"What the hell are you two doing??" Taylor screeched. She was so startled she'd shifted back into her were-form. Adrian had gone furry as well. She lunged forward, hand reaching for the healing bandages in her belt pouch.
"Wait, it's okay, it's okay!" Greg said. He held out his arm and turned it over; it was completely uninjured. His hand flopped uselessly. "Ugh, hate this part," he said, trying to rub feeling back into it.
Alarmed, Adrian grabbed Greg's forearm and turned it over, peering at it. "Not a scratch," he said, a grin slowly spreading on his face. "Did you two really--"
Shen was grinning from ear to ear. "Ghost Iron," he said. "An alloy with Leystone and Azerite, actually. Took a lot of trial and error, and a heap ton of enchantments--"
"Sparky helped out big time with that," Greg said.
"But the blades won't chip, bend or dull, and they will slice through just about anything. Except living flesh," Shen said. "They phase right through, like, well, like a ghost."
Taylor blinked. "You made a pair of Manton limited daggers," she said, amazed.
The two nodded, grinning and chuckling like fools. "Oh, they do have an effect," Shen went on. "They sting like hell, for one. And they cause temporary numbness and paralysis."
Greg flexed his fingers clumsily. "Only lasts about a minute, though."
Bayleaf's smile diminished a bit. "So what happens if you stab someone in the heart?" he said. "Or worse, the brain?"
"And what about long term effects?" Taylor added.
The two looked at each other and grimaced. "Yeah, we thought of that," Shen said. "We caught a couple of rats and tested it."
Greg shuddered. "Man, it was ghoulish strapping the things down and---" he made stabbing motions.
"No long term effects from typical wounds, as far as we can tell," Shen said. The one we stabbed in the heart… well, it stopped breathing for a minute. No pulse as far as we could tell. Then just when we thought it was dead-- boom, it gave a big spasm and came back to life."
"The one we stabbed in the head? It, uh, sorta had a seizure..." Greg cringed. He pointed over to a cage in the corner. Inside was a brownish-grey sewer rat, shuffling about. "He's mostly okay, but he's sorta, um, twitchy now..."
"We felt sorry for it," Shen confessed. "Couldn't even walk right for a half an hour, so we sorta decided ol' Twitchy gets a retirement settlement-- a nice warm cage and all the cheese and sesame seeds he can eat."
"Right. 'Do NOT apply directly to the forehead.' Got it." Taylor took the blade back and sheathed it with a shudder. She did not mention that as one of her many 'talents' as an Azeroth Rogue she had the power to magically coat the blades of her weapons with a range of toxic auras: soporific, paralytic, enervating, even purely toxic dark energy. If she wanted these daggers could be very lethal indeed.
But at least now, she thought, she had an effective alternative. The sheaths hung from slim intertwined leather belts. She discarded the hated batons and their straps and donned the knife belts; they hung comfortably at her hips, ready to her hands. She drew them in a flash and twirled them about, dancing in a quick kata, then another, the blades flying around her in a dizzying display of flashes of silver before slipping back into their sheaths. The boys exclaimed in surprise and applauded, impressed.
"Nice work, guys," Bayleaf said. "What else you got?"
"Well we got armor," Greg said. He waved to a row of manikins. "Mostly mail. Mail shirts, bracers, greaves, pauldrons, the works. Everyone can come in and mix and match to suit. We even got some mail shirts thin and light enough for our non-combatant types… they'll slip under a jacket or sweater easy. It bugged me having Lisa and Aisha and Brian and Mr. Hebert running around out there without any real protection."
Adrian didn't dispute it. They had sunk money into having Parian and Shar'Din make full outfits of Azeroth cloth for everyone, and Taylor's birthday present to her father, via a commission to Lok'Tara, had been a leather coat so heavily enchanted it could probably stop machine gun fire. Danny had accepted it happily-- chuckling something about feeling like Harry Dresden, whoever that was. Still, Azeroth chain and plate made cloth and leather look like wet cardboard by comparison. "The usual enchantments?"
"Strength, Speed, Stamina, Agility," Greg recited. "Made a little bit of each. "Strength and Stamina are mostly on the plate. Speed and Agility on the chain."
"We argued a bit about that," Shen said. "In the end we decided it'd be better to heavily boost one or two stats, rather than try to boost all of them just a little on everything." Greg grumbled; it was obvious who wanted what. It was unsurprising, Adrian thought; gamers tended to covet gear that had all the bells and whistles on, practical or not.
Bayleaf nodded. "besides, the cloth, leather, and jewelry can plug the gaps on any deficiencies." That was another of the many little advantages of reality over the game: Armor classes could be mixed and layered in ways you could never get away with on Blizzard's servers. Wizards could and did wear a little chain over those flowing robes; paladins had no problem with wearing a layer of Shal'dorei silk armor (protective, and comfortable! Cool in summer, warm in winter!) underneath their shining plate.
While jewelry was not as flexible, one could manage to squeeze in one or two more rings than the game allowed, and while the game designers had overlooked concepts like earrings, pendants, brooch-pins or bracelets, especially ones with charms, Jewelers in the arcane city of Dalaran had not. Aisha for one sported a charm bracelet (one of Taylor's and Alec's first jewelry projects) that gave her the speed, agility and stamina of an olympic gymnast and better second-chance protection than a Kevlar vest.
It amused Taylor to no end to think that the tiny little bangles she'd made for Aisha's bracelet probably made the girl a better all around athlete than Sophia Hess had ever been.
"… This is really beautiful work, guys," Bayleaf said as he fingered one of the mail shirts. "Shar'Din and I should be able to put enchantments of our own on everything as well. ...Did you make any more stuff with that ghost iron alloy?"
"Just a couple. There wasn't much ghost iron ore. I finished up my new armor-- "Greg walked over to a tarp-covered manikin. He whipped it off; standing under the cloth was a new suit of plate armor, gleaming gold and white. Golden Light energy glowed in recessed gemstones in the bracers, pauldrons, breastplate and boots. The round shield Greg normally carried was replaced with a larger, heavier Reulaux triangle, and instead of a warhammer the suit had an enormous sword. The blade was two hands wide, and the pommel was level with the suit's shoulder with the tip resting on the floor.
"Gonna have Lok'Tara or Parian make me a bottomless scabbard for this," Greg muttered, taking the blade and hefting it. It was a hand and a half grip; he held the enormous sword in one hand effortlessly. "You know, the reason I used a hammer was… well, it's easier to pull a blow with a blunt weapon than a sharp one," he said. "I could deal with breaking arms, but lopping them off?" He cringed and grimaced. "But then I found out just how much damage even a blunt hammer can do and… yeah, well, I spent almost all the remaining ghost iron on my sword."
"We made one more," Shen said. He was cradling a long wooden box in his arms. He opened it, revealing a folded silk cloth which he peeled back. In the bottom of the folded cloth was a dagger-- small, thin, and plain, more like an enlarged needle than a knife, with a foot long blade and an unadorned white bone grip. "This is for Amy. We juiced it up so that a quick stab will numb and paralyze… leave it inserted long enough it can render someone unconscious. It's not just a second-chance weapon-- we figured it might come in handy if she ever has to anesthetize someone and can't use her usual methods."
"Certainly couldn't hurt," Bayleaf said. "Taylor, you're going to see Amy and Vicky soon, do you want to hold on to it?" Hemlokk nodded; Shen refolded the silk and closed the box, handing it over to the she-wolf. She took the box and tucked it in her haversack.
"Oh!" Greg said. "We finished the Lightwell!" He pointed to the worktable. Sitting at one end was a squat stone bowl, no more than three feet wide and a foot deep, with a fat bottom and a wide lip. Glowing runes and gemstones decorated its circumference. A faint fountain of golden light rose straight up from its mouth.
Taylor cocked an eyebrow. "It looks like a chamberpot," she said.
"It's not a chamberpot!" Greg and Shen snapped simultaneously.
Bayleaf looked down into the Lightwell. Down inside was a nest of rough-cut crystals, glowing brilliantly with shimmering rainbow colors. Heskimmed his hand through the glowing light rising from the bowl; his fingers trailed golden sparks through the air like glittering mayflies, and he felt a faint surge of well-being spread through his fingertips. "Yeah, Sparky's gonna be seriously happy about that," he said.
"He knows. He's already tapped it today," Greg said. "Best he's looked in ages, you ask me."
"He'll still have to keep running back to it every day," Taylor objected. "Unless he carries it around with him everywhere. And it doesn't look too conveniently portable to me."
"No, no," Bayleaf said. "The energy's translocative. It taps into the aetherial planes between the realities. The Blood Elves could tap into their Sunwell anywhere on their world, and on several worlds over, without any trouble."
"Wow," Taylor said, impressed. "So what's the range on this little mini version?"
At the question, the three Warcrafters present began looking thoughtful and counting on their fingertips. "As the Light energy will slowly spread over time in a nonlinear progression, given the rate of emission and the radius, it should be… Holy Moley," Shen muttered, giving the well a look.
Greg blinked too. "Yeah, Holey Moley," he said. "By the end of the week there'll be Light energy 'fallout' in China."
"Fallout??"
Bayleaf made 'calm down' motions with his hands. "Light energy is benevolent, harmless at most," he said. "And only people with Azerite DNA can even tap it for anything useful. Otherwise it'll be so thin on the ground, it'll be almost undetectable… A few flecks of benevolent energy, nothing more."
She gave him a skeptical look, one ear folded back. "Well, you might want a little full disclosure with the others about your pollution levels. Even if you're only polluting the world with a few good vibes."
Bayleaf snorted. " China sends us toys covered in lead paint and a brown cloud of air pollution-- we send them invisible good vibes. Seems fair… Fine, fine, I'll tell the others."
"I don't mean to be rude, but I gotta go," Taylor said. "I've got potions and herbs being speed-grown I've got to check on...and I've got to call Amy about Fennek and Lok'Tara's new pets anyway." She gave Bayleaf a nuzzle on the cheek and left. "Try not to do anything TOO destructive, you three," she said over her shoulder.
Once she was out of sight. Shen stepped in close dropped his voice. "One more thing--"
Bayleaf snorted. "You don't say, Uncle-San?" Shen just stared at him in puzzlement. "Never mind. Jackie Chan reference. What is it?"
Greg stepped in close as well. "The Big One," he said. He jerked his head to one side, drawing Bayleaf's attention to a half-length steel cargo container in one corner.
Bayleaf sobered up. "Let's see." They went as a group to the steel doors and unbolted them. Bayleaf looked in… and up… at what stood inside, suspended from pulleys and chains. Bayleaf whistled.
"We finished up the outer plates and shell," Greg said. "The internal support frame is done too-- strongest alloy we could smelt. Azerite, Leystone, Adamantine, structural steel." He stood next to bayleaf and looked up at the hulking, dangling form. "We even managed to grow several of the crystalline components--"
"Now all it needs," Shen said, "Is your loving touch."
"The auto-fabbers have cracked out most of the internal components," Bayleaf said. "Little more'n a matter of putting all the pieces inside..." he paused and swallowed, remembering what this massive machine was meant for… what he might have to do with it.
"Are you sure?" Greg said suddenly. "Is this… I mean, will it really be necessary?"
Bayleaf stood still and silent for a long moment. "Let's pray not," he said. "But let's thank God we have it just in case."
"Gangwaaay!" There were shouts and shrieks of alarm deeper in the Workshop, followed by a resounding crash. "What the HAIL, Sparky?" Aisha was heard to yell.
"It's Shar'Din!"
"I'll Shart YOUR Ding, you pointy eared white blonde idiot!"
"Oh yeah," Greg said. "Sparky must've finished his flying carpet."
Bayleaf grunted in amusement. He slammed the doors to the cargo container and bolted them. "Let's go see what the damage is."
Two pizzas and a half-dozen orders of Chinese takeout, as it happened. (His little crash landing in the lounge area hadn't exactly increased Shar'Din's popularity scores. ) The flying carpet indeed did work-- it was whip-snap fast and nimble in the air as a teased snake… but to Sparky's disappointment the general verdict was he could keep it to himself. At least as long as it undulated through the air the way it did, sure-foot gripping spell or no…
"Okay, now, let's take a look at you two," Amy said, picking up one of ferrets. Fidget wriggled and tried to lick her nose. She giggled and tickled his belly. "Aren't YOU a handful--!"
"Upgrade day" had finally arrived. After several days of hesitation, indecision, and buying cage after cage of white mice from the pet store, dragging them to the Lost Workshop and 'amplifying' them in various ways, Amy had finally gotten enough confidence… or maybe just caved… and declared it was time for Fennek's and Lok'Tara's companions to get their boosts.
Truck had been the first, and the most simple. Amy had laced his skeleton with buckminsterfullerene fibers, increasing their toughness and strength several thousandfold. She had even managed to tweak it so that the carbon fullerene fibers grew naturally. Flexible subdermal armor and hyper-tough tendons and ligaments, based off spider silk proteins. Claws and teeth, hardened and toughened as well. Musculature enhanced by over 200%. An accelerated healing factor. All of it paid for with a heightened metabolism and a complex litany of improvements to his digestive system to play the metabolic costs… largely by expanding his already human-like diet to where he could eat foods that would make a trained veterinarian run for the emergency medical bag, and the ability to extract the last erg of nutrition from it.
This heightened metabolism also paid for the largest cost; an expanded brain. "I thought you didn't do brains," Aisha had objected.
"Technically I'm not," Amy had replied. "I'm actually ADDING to it. A second larger layer to the cerebral cortex, A neo-neo cortex so to speak, same for the temporal lobes…some extra nodes at the base of the cerebellum... "
"Sort of adding a dual processor and extra memory chips, huh?" Greg ventured. Amy rolled her eyes and shrugged, but acknowledged that it was as good a description as any.
When she had finished, the changes were barely noticeable… well, when compared to the sort of monstrous metamorphoses that say, one of Blasto's creations had undergone. Or even one of Lok'Tara's dogs back when she'd been Bitch. He was still edging on the realm of the ridiculous-- but then again he had been before he'd been amped. But even with the almost-weightlifter-esque musculature and the blunt, enlarged skull, he was still passable as an ordinary, if 'good grief' huge, dog. The big brute was busy now wolfing down enough kibble and raw meat for three dogs, trying to catch up with the demands of his sudden transformation.
Sky had been much more delicate work. At first the golden eagle hadn't wanted Amy to touch him. Lok'Tara had finally managed to use her bond to calm the bird enough for Amy to work. An enlarged brain was the first step, though in the end she'd only enhanced Sky very slightly. There really wasn't much she could do without making the poor bird's head too unwieldy to fly. This was followed by a carefully lacing of carbon fullerene fibers through the fragile skeleton-- nothing near what Truck had undergone, but more than enough to make breaking the bird's bones a job for someone with a baseball bat and a LOT of muscle. The subdermal armor made arrows and bullets far less of a concern. Again, the cellular biology was altered to grow the fibers naturally, even in the feathers-- which did interesting things to their insulative properties. There was a good chance, Amy informed them, that the eagle's feathers were now fireproof as well. The nictating membranes over his eyes were likewise enhanced. She enhanced his night vision to match his already stunning visual acuity...
After the operation, Sky was logy and agitated at the sudden influx of new sensory information… but quickly calmed when Lok'Tara set out a plate of rabbit cut up for him. That, he could understand, and quickly began gulping it down.
Now came Fidget and Gidget, Fennek's ferrets. The changes to these to were going to be a touch more complicated. Birds of prey and gigantic hunting hounds were already fairly tough customers. Little domestic ferrets, not nearly so much. So the changes were going to be more extreme.
… Of course, having Fennek standing there, wringing the hem of his shirt like an expectant father, wasn't making it easier. Bayleaf put a calming hand on Fennek's shoulder. "Calm down," Adrian ordered. "This is Panacea. She's the best there is at what she does, by a lap and half-- and that's when she's not even trying. Fidget and Gidget will be fine."
Amy breathed a silent 'thank you' to the worgen. "Well, time for a bath, little guy," she said to Fidget. She stroked the ferret's forehead, putting him quickly into a soporific state, and lowered him into the vat.
She was going to need external sources of biomass for these changes. Per her request they had brought in a steel tub and filled it to the brim with, of all things, onions and potatoes. She had used her power to reduce the root vegetables to a primordial soup-- a sort of raw liquid protoplasm, about the consistency of broth. Once Fidget was submerged up to his ears, she began the changes.
He was going to have to be a bit bigger, for starters. Something closer to a largish otter: about twenty pounds and nearly three feet long from nose to tailtip. Expanded diet and metabolism, enlarged/enhanced brain, subdermal armor and structurally strengthened skeleton were a given… Mustelid brains were simpler than canine ones, so there was more that had to be added; it was a trick to keep the size of the skull manageable and its shape sleek. One of the more surprisingly complicated changes was to the forepaws; it required extra nerves and certain addendums to the motor control areas… After that, slightly lengthening and strengthening the toes was simplistic.
The experts Amy had consulted argued about whether ferrets were natural climbers. With their new enhanced grip strength and retractable, carbon-fiber strengthened claws, the question became arbitrary. These buggers wanted to climb? They'd climb.
It barely took a half hour… and that only because she was going slowly and carefully. At the thirty three minute mark she pulled Fidget from the tub and let him reawaken. The little bandit-masked armful had blinked up at her, then begun gleefully climbing all over her, getting her soaked in proto-broth. "Aagh! Help!" she shrieked and giggled, ducking her head to keep the now oversize ferret from jamming his nose in the nape of her neck.
With an air of absolute relief, Fennek came hustling over, arms out to take his pet off her. He fell back on his rump as twenty pounds of carpet shark leaped into his arms. "Wauf! Whoa, you sure grew up fast, didn'tcha… ah darn it, now we gotta buy you a bigger cage! And bigger tube toys… and ferret sweaters… and--"
Amy giggled at the sight of Fennek wrestling with the oversized ferret, and picked up Gidget. "Okay, girl, now your turn..."
Less than twenty minutes later, Gidget joined her brother in play-mauling their master. The vulperan rolled around on the floor with his two partners, happy as a boy on Christmas with a new puppy. Bayleaf gave her a slightly strained smile. "You gave them opposable thumbs, I see..." he said.
Amy gave him an evil smile. "Well, you wanted them combat ready," she said. "I suggest you do one of two things."
"Being?"
"Childproof everything, or give them little toolbelts..."
Several of those present snorted. Bayleaf started to make what he clearly hoped was a snappy comeback when he was interrupted. A sound echoed through the Lost Workshop, penetrating through the walls and wards, a rising and falling cadence that chilled every spine there. All over, tinkerbots of every size stopped in mid task and began echoing that sound, lights flashing and turning. Everyone fell silent. Even Fidget and Gidget quit their antics.
"The Endbringer sirens," Greg said, his throat dry. Without a word Lisa and Aisha ran for the Comms. The big viewscreen lit up, the news bulletins already in full blast, ticker tapes running across the bottom of the screen and down either side. Some talking head or other was behind the news desk, announcing an attack by the Simurgh. Behind him in bluescreen was a cityscape that Adrian had made point of looking up and memorizing from the first day of his arrival.
"Canberra," he said. The scroll on the screen confirmed it. He gripped the back of his chair, the wood cracking under his grip. "No. We're not ready!"
Chapter Text
Taylor took a deep breath, inhaling deep of the faintly salty night air. Ten thousand scents, all of them named, numbered and filed in her mind, filled her nostrils. She sighed, smiling, hopped on her toes twice, ran to the edge of the rooftop and leaped.
She threw her arms out to the side and with a loud fwump of cloth catching the wind her cloak unfolded into an enormous pair of wings. With a whoop she began circling, climbing in the updraft rising off the city streets below.
For not the first time she reflected that Adrian seriously underestimated his own gift as a Tinker. He'd scoff, and say that his skills were nothing but memorized formulas and blueprints downloaded into his brain… but then he'd go and make something like this. His "rudimentary engineering knowledge" was enough for him to take the crude Azeroth designs for a parachute cloak and a goblin glider, incorporate the exotic Tinker materials Parian had access to-- such as the light, flexible "memory-metal" making up the bonelike struts in the cape-- and create something totally original and unique: a Glider Cape.
"Not a real Tinker," my furry airborne tushy, Taylor thought smugly.
She wasn't flying "swimmer" style like most flying capes. Instead she hung cruciform, her arms straight out to the side, her hands holding the "wrists" of each batlike wing (which coincidentally served as the attitude controls) and her body and feet dangling below. It looked a little nontraditional and was a little less aerodynamic, but truthfully made a lot more sense. Among other things it meant that she led with her feet instead of her face when coming in for a landing. Speaking of which…
Her launch had been from the top of one of the downtown skyscrapers; she was now fast approaching the roof of a three-story department store on the edge of the shopping district. She stretched her legs out in front of her as the rooftop rushed up to meet her. Her powerful digitigrade legs absorbed her impact as perfectly as the pistoned landing gear on a jet. At the instant her clawtips touched the graveled roof her wrists flicked in a certain way. Her glider-wings briefly mantled around her, bleeding all her forward momentum, then collapsed back into shapeless cloth, wrapping around her like a shroud.
There was a faint hoot far above. Out of the overcast sky down flew a giant horned owl that settled gracefully on the rooftop before transforming back into a midnight black werewolf in a forest green robe. Skinwalker. AKA Bayleaf, AKA her boyfriend Adrian Smith. She gave him a wolfish smile; it still gave her a little warm tingle to think those words. "Nice landing," He told her. "Spot anything that needs our attention while you were up there?"
"Er, no," she confessed with a sheepish eyeroll. "Sort of got caught up in the whole flying thing..." He didn't say anything; he just grinned. Something about his expression told her that he'd done the same thing more than once himself. She wondered what it was like to fly for real-- not glide, actually fly with your own wings…for not the first time she felt a twinge of regret that they hadn't ended up with two worgen druids on the team-- the idea of them flying together…
"Hemlokk?" Bayleaf waved a furry hand in front of her face. "You okay?"
She started. "Oh, sorry," she said. "Just woolgathering, I guess." She looked out over the city. "It's a quiet night."
Bayleaf shook his head. "Only a Brocktonite would call three muggings, a couple of attempted break-and-entries and a drunken four-way brawl a 'quiet night,'" he said, making quote marks in the air with his claws.
She huffed, not sure if she was amused or annoyed at his estimation of her home town. "So how did I do, Teach?" she said.
He shrugged, flicking his ears. But his tone was tinted with respect. "You came, you saw, you kicked butt," he said. "Those muggers never saw you coming. And those four thugs brawling in the bar parking lot never had a chance." He wasn't lying. She had ported… 'flash stepped,' he insisted on calling it… right behind each of her marks and rendered them unconscious with a carefully targeted blow before they even saw her. He grinned suddenly, tongue lolling. "My favorite was the two guys trying to break into that electronics shop…"
It was close work, picking a door lock by flashlight. Kudos to them for not simply taking a crowbar to the latch. The two men crowded into the narrow doorway, whether to block the telltale light with their bodies or just in an eager press to be first through the door when the lock gave way she couldn't say. She had just leapt down from the fire escape overlooking their little escapade when one of them happened to glance up and see her hooded and cloaked form drop down to the sidewalk.
"Oh shit, it's Shadow Stalker!"
She'd known that the mistake was inevitable, but the shock of actually being mistaken for her own worst enemy had actually brought her up short. She cursed under her breath as she realized her momentum was broken (then cursed again as she realized she'd forgotten to slip into her invisible 'stealth' mode before leaping down.) Growling to herself she stalked forward, shifting her intent from a quick takedown to some batman-style intimidation. "You wish," she growled, weapons loose in her hands and her eyes glowing yellow.
The two men got distinctly alarmed and went for their weapons as she came closer and they got a better look at her glowing eyes, the alien shape of her digitigrade legs and the gleam of her fangs. "Oh shit, that's NOT Shadow Stalker!" the second one said, scrabbling for a pistol in his belt.
She BLURRED forward. Faster than the eye could follow the pistol was knocked flying into the street and its wielder flattened into the sidewalk, the wolf-woman left standing in a crouch on his back. The first man squealed, turned and ran. He got to the corner before she leaped, closing the distance instantly. A double strike from her batons and his weapon of choice-- a length of lead pipe-- was gone and he was left clutching broken fingers. He staggered back into the wall of the building behind him."Who ARE you, bitch?!"
"BITCH?" she seized him by his shirt front and slammed him into the brick wall, pinning him in place by a baton across his throat. "I'm not a bitch--" she said. Her hood fell back and her head lunged forward till his nose was almost touching hers, the sodium yellow of the street lamp above revealing the face of a snarling, furious werewolf. "My name is Hemlokk, and I'm THE Bitch, little man!!" she bayed into his face, her gleaming fangs snapping.
"--And right before he passed out, he actually started making noises like Curly from the Three Stooges," Bayleaf said, chuckling. He did an imitation of the man, flailing his arms around. "Himimeneimememineee!!"
Hemlokk snorted back her own laughter. "Oh don't make me laugh," she said. "If I start I'll never stop." She grinned back at him. "It was pretty funny though." Her smile shrank a bit. "That fight at the bar, though. That wasn't so funny."
Bayleaf nodded. That hadn't been any little fist fight; knives and at least one steel chain had been out when they arrived, and more than a bit of blood was already spilled. Tonight had been for Hemlokk, but Bayleaf had been of a mind to intercede first-- but Hemlokk had beaten him to the punch, leaping into the middle of the parking lot (sending the onlookers running off screaming-- whether in fear of the 'werewolf' or of the Cape, he couldn't say) and begun flash-stepping between the combatants, disarming and disabling them with swift ruthless strikes. She had fumbled though with the last one when a jabbing blow with the taser at the end of her baton had failed to drop the burly biker.
She sighed and looked down at the baton in her left hand. The 'low charge' LED had long ago stopped blinking and had gone dark. "I didn't realize the charge had run dry. I really need to trade these in for better equipment..."
Bayleaf nodded. His heart had stuttered to a brief halt when Hemlokk's taser-strike to the biker's thick gut had failed to drop him. Thankfully Hemlokk hadn't been left flatfooted; a quick feint backwards to dodge the thug's retaliatory strike with his switchblade, and then a lightning-fast high kick to the chin, and the guy had finally folded like the rest. Still, it had been alarming. Foolish of him to worry-- the enchantments on her blouse alone made the weapons they'd wielded laughable-- but still. "Well, Greg and Theo-- ahem, Vindicator and Shen-- " he coughed as he remembered his Cape manners. "Have been working together, Vindicator was chattering this morning about how a lot of stuff was almost ready, 'especially for Hemlokk...' wanna head back to the Workshop and see what they've got so far?"
Hemlokk smiled and put her burnt-out batons away. "Yeah, I think I could call it a night," she said.
Bayleaf whipped out his phone and dialed. "Sparky?" He paused and sighed patiently. "Okay, Shar'Din? Me and Hemlokk could use a lift back to the shop… no, our hearthstones are set for different locations-- we really need to all sit down and discuss that... Spare a mo for a summon?… Great." He hung up. A moment later a shimmering oval appeared in midair over the rooftop. With a flourish he gestured for his lady to precede. She leapt into the shimmer and vanished, Bayleaf right behind her. The portal hung there for a moment longer, then slowly faded away.
Since forming the "Alliance," the Lost Workshop had undergone a rapidly accelerating metamorphosis. The cluster of warehouses that had once crowded out and hidden the relatively tiny shop were now little more than a false front, a shell disguising the real structure within. Adrian had moved swiftly, buying up the mismatch row of warehouses, knocking out the connecting and interior walls and inserting new rooms, effectively turning the buildings into one large construction then replacing most of its innards with a ramshackle warren of workspaces.
As begun, so continued; most of the rooms were made from converted steel shipping containers. All of them together had made it swift work; take the crate, lay some plumbing along the base of the walls and electrical wiring along the ceiling, put in some flooring, add openings and connectors for water, septic, electric and gas and the like, cover the interior walls with insulating panels, and you had a prefab room… one you could customize into a mini-apartment, a studio, a workshop, or anything else you needed with little effort.
The other Warcrafted had been a little unenthused at the idea. But they changed their tune once Fennek called dibs on the first one. The others had watched in astonishment as the hedonistic Vulperan had taken a wad of cash out of his 'mad money,' hit Ebay and Amazon, and proceeded to convert one half of the 8x8x40 box into a tidy, almost spartan one-room apartment… and the rest into the plushest gaming and movie room any of them had ever seen, complete with jumbo screen TV monitor, cable, internet, gaming consoles, surround sound, recessed lighting, huge plush recliner seating, and popcorn and soda machines within arm's reach, just 'cause.
Once they saw just how adaptable-- and comfy-- the modular rooms could be, the rest had begun clamoring for one or more of their own. Soon there was a warren of about a dozen of the modular rooms, spreading out from the central workshop and stacked atop each other like children's blocks, linked by doors, walkways, crude balconies and welded-on metal stairs. They had begun stringing wiring for lights but a momentary brainstorm had led to them running creepers of Adrian's glowing 'ghost vines' everywhere instead. The soft pervasive glow was hailed roundly as a vast improvement over hanging bulbs or fluorescent tubes. Other Azerothian style improvements for climate, ventilation, sound buffering, water filtration and other comforts were hailed equally.
There had been surprising ripple effects from this little home improvement project. It had been easy enough to obtain the shipping containers; Brockton Bay's harbors were practically swimming in them. About fifteen, twenty years ago Leviathan had made his appearance, and worldwide nautical shipping went into freefall. The sailors, harbor workers and others most dependent on Brockton Bay's harbors for their wellbeing had reacted poorly. In a bout of incredible stupidity, some of the protesters had decided the best way to protest the collapse of local industry was to hijack one of the enormous cargo vessels and scuttle it in the deep channel mouth of the Bay, effectively marooning all the ships in the harbor and blocking it to all major shipping. Hundreds of ships were left stranded, eventually abandoned by their now-bankrupt companies, and the docks left stacked high with empty cargo containers no ship would ever load again.
Adrian, or rather, Azeroth Ltd, had moved in and bought the steel containers off the city as "salvage," for less than a penny on the dollar. They only needed a dozen of the things (and it had been easy peasy to have the things trucked to the warehouse row and popped inside) but Adrian had made a point of having the dummy corporation buy the whole lot, just to cover their tracks better. Of course that left the dummy corporation in possession of something on the order of several thousand cargo containers that had to be disposed of in some fashion within a certain time, or various fines, taxes, fees, etc. would accrue.
It had been Taylor's father who had seen the results of their work and had noted that there were all sorts of people salivating to get their hands on cheap, affordable ready-to-go emergency housing, and even the bare-bones version of their modded cargo containers would be vastly superior to the shoddy trailers, pop-up houses and mobile homes used now...
The next thing Danny Hebert knew, there had been a small tornado of government paperwork, and now the Dock Workers Union was employed by Azeroth Ltd., and incredibly busy hauling empty cargo containers in, sanding off the rust, painting them, adding doors, windows, wiring and plumbing, and rolling them out to be hauled by train to wherever they were wanted. And everyone wanted them. FEMA wanted them for emergency housing. Corporations wanted them for on-site temporary workshops. Penny-pinching or energy-frugal private citizens wanted them for cheap, energy efficient homes. Not-so-paranoid-after-all survivalists wanted them for their camps and bunkers...
They soon were making money hand over fist. It was all they could do to just sit there and watch in goggling disbelief as their fake company rapidly became a real one-- all through a simple if clumsy effort to disguise the renovations to their superhero lair…
They had started (very very discreetly) hiring office workers to handle the day to day business, taking in the orders and handling the paperwork. Grue, who'd started out as the "face" for the company, suddenly had an entire genuine office growing in place underneath him. It was a tossup whether he was more thrilled or alarmed at his sudden elevation to corporate respectability. Much to his relief he was still effectively just a "face;" the real decisions of Azeroth Ltd. were still being made by a group of Rogues gathered around a folding table in a hidden workshop in Brockton Bay.
Lisa on the other hand was as busy as a one-legged woman at an asskicking contest, finding ways to shuffle that money around, tucking it away in 'discreet' offshore accounts and various other tricks to hide the real final destination of all that lucre from their adversaries and enemies-- and consequently from the Government and the IRS.
The more conscientious members of their little group-- Chiefly Danny Hebert and Taylor-- had nearly gone into hyperventilating shock when they realized they were committing tax fraud against the United States government. The more ruthlessly pragmatic members of the party (Tattletale and Fennek) had broken them out of it by pointing out, rather sarcastically, that selfsame government had written laws that made pretty much any employment more lucrative than flipping burgers illegal for Capes. Furthermore, their enemies (like Coil, Kaiser, and Cauldron) had been doing everything they were doing and worse, for far more ignoble reasons, and doing it with the aid of the Government itself.
"The government where politicians use private charities as slush funds and suck up donations from foreign powers," Lisa had added. "The same graft-ridden, corrupt Government that wrote laws forcing all of us to either resort to government slavery or a life of crime just to survive. And frankly any government that would want to throw us all in the Birdcage for getting rich making affordable housing for the homeless can just go pound sand up its aft port come tax time."
"Yeah, and maybe you forgot that the so-called leaders of the world are under Cauldron's thumb?" Fennek had chipped in. "The President himself is on their leash and barks when they say 'speak.' Right now, there is no legitimate government." That had been a show-stopper.
The Vulperan, Adrian reflected as they came in for a landing, had a knack for stating utterly horrible truths as tactlessly as possible.
The portal they had leapt through came out in an empty circular chamber about fifty feet across, where about seven or eight unused tunnels intersected underground, right below the warehouse row. A six-foot monolith of rough-hewn stone with a single, glowing rune carved in it stood in the center of the space. Shar'Din stood next to it, his hand resting on its surface; Lei Ling stood on the other side with her hand next to his. "Welcome back," she said with an annoyed sigh. "Bout time you two lovebirds quit running from rooftop to rooftop and got back here."
"Why, what's up?"
"Pretty much everything all at once," Lei Ling said with a roll of her eyes. "Greg and Theo finally crawled out of their lair, babbling about how they had a ton of stuff to show everyone. Lisa says she's about hit the limit on how far she can push Calvert in his civilian identity-- but she's pretty sure she's figured out a way to neutralize him as both Calvert and Coil. Parian's here..."
"Yeah, she and I just finished that special project," Shar'Din said, grinning like a fool. "I can't wait to show you all." he led the way down one of the tunnels.
"What about you?" Bayleaf said to Lei Ling.
"Altogether we've got about two hundred major healing potions bottled," she said. "about a quarter that many of each of the ones Greg calls stat-boosters-- stamina, intellect, agility, strength. A pile of mana boosters for Sparky, just in case he starts jonesing."
"What about scrolls?"
Lei Ling sighed. "I dunno exactly. I've just been scratching them out and piling them up. It's been kind of a dilemma, deciding what herbs get ground up for potions and which ones we can spare for inks..."
"We should probably start focusing on more inks," Bayleaf mused. "Scrolls are lighter and will store longer."
"You and Shen have been piling up enchantments pretty good, too," Hemlokk noted.
Bayleaf grunted and grimaced. "Most of which are just us recycling the rejects from everyone's crafting skills," he said. "The really potent enchantments are still pretty sparse. It's still difficult finding sufficient ingredients."
Enchantments and Inscriptions could both be stored on parchment or vellum for later use. However Enchantments were more or less permanent enhancements to be cast on clothing, armor, jewelry or devices, while inscriptions, with a few exceptions were generally temporary effects cast upon the person themselves. Inscription used milled inks made from plants with potent exotic qualities. Enchantments were made from far stranger stuffs, largely non-baryonic materials and even stranger things-- crystallized time, solidified Void, essences of various elements and more.
Between them, though, the work areas were getting piled deep in neatly-rolled scrolls...
"Oh, and Lok'Tara and Fennec found their first Hunting Companions," Lei Ling added with a roll of the eyes. They'd reached the end of the tunnel; a spiral metal staircase continued upward.
"Lok'Tara and Fennek were running around town?" Hemlokk said. She was understandably alarmed; a giant green orc woman and a midget were-fennec might just cause a scene out in public, even in Brockton Bay. "Oh crap. Were there police involved?"
"Not as much," Lei Ling said. For some reason she seemed amused. "But I think we're now officially in violation of the Endangered Species Act." She started up the spiral staircase.
"What?" Bayleaf stared at her.
The question was set aside the moment they came up through the trap door in the workshop floor. He perhaps should have been more suspicious when Lei Ling let him up the stairs first. The moment his head and shoulders popped out of the floor, something large, hairy and barking very loudly came thundering across the room at him. Bayleaf snarled in alarm, his hackles standing on end. This did not deter the gigantic hellhound in the least.
"TRUCK! DOWN!" someone bellowed. For a miracle the mountain of fangs and muscle screeched to a halt. It dropped on its belly to the floor and froze in place. It never took its eyes off of Bayleaf, though, growling faintly. Bayleaf returned the favor.
Beyond the beast Bayleaf could see Lok'Tara setting some sort of gigantic bird on a perch-- holy crap, was that a golden eagle?? She came hurrying up to the monster dog's side. "Truck! Quiet!" the dog stilled. She pointed at Bayleaf. "Friend! Got it? Friend. " The dog's whole demeanor changed. It looked up at her and whined softly, then looked over at Bayleaf, lowered his head and gave its tail a tentative wag.
Bayleaf slowly climbed up out of the trapdoor, never taking his eyes off the dog. It looked like some monstrous mutated version of a bull mastiff-- only bigger! "What is this?" he said as Taylor carefully followed, the admonition of 'Friend' repeated over. "I thought you couldn't use your monster-growing powers anymore."
"She can't!" Alec called out. Bayleaf cast about in confusion, looking for the vulperan. When he located him he nearly laughed; the were-fennec was was perched atop the highest work shelf, looking down at them amidst piles of clockwork parts and ingredient jars, cobwebs hanging from his ears. From the state of the shelves Fennek had apparently made the ascension to his current perch in serious haste. "That brute is some sort of cross-breed."
"Between what, a dog and a house?" Taylor said in disbelief. "Where did you get him?"
At that moment the eagle reminded everyone of its presence with a high-pitched cry. "Animal smuggler," Rachel said, her tusks making her scowl look truly fierce. "Truck full of birds." She rested her massive hand on the dog's massive head. "This guy was in the back; he was trained to guard the cargo. Change now."
Bayleaf blinked. "What?"
The orc girl gestured at the two worgen. "Change back. I want Truck to know what you look and smell like in both shapes."
"A wise precaution I guess," Bayleaf muttered. He morphed down to his human shape and warily approached the dog, his hand outstretched, palm up. Truck growled and grumphed worriedly, but after a curt sound from Rachel he gave Adrian's hand a sniff and a lick. He apparently approved of what he smelled because he wagged his tail and stuck his head under Adrian's hand, begging for pets. Adrian obliged, scratching behind the dog's ears while Taylor repeated his performance. "You didn't need to go through this with your other dogs," Adrian noted.
"I already finished training them," Lok'Tara said. "And they sorta got bum-rushed into knowing you. I didn't want that with Truck."
"You didn't want HIM bum-rushed?" Alec yelled from his perch. "I come home and that thing's waiting at the door with a BIB and a FORK!"
"He wouldn't have hurt you unless I told him to," Lok'Tara said.
"No, that would involve CHEWING. That thing's large enough to swallow me, Fidget and Gidget whole!"
Fidget and Gidget? Adrian looked up at him, puzzled. Two inquisitive fuzzy faces poked over the edge of the shelf next to Alec. "Ah, so you decided on ferrets then?"
Alec's expression was bemused. He shrugged. "I guess so. It was more like they picked me."
Aisha came strolling around the end of the shelves. "Yeah, you should see fox-boy's room," she said. "It looks like Ferret Disneyland in there."
"I wasn't sure what all I really needed," Alec explained with the air of someone who had explained the same thing many times already. "So I got everything. Just to be sure."
"And then went back for seconds, looks like," Aisha rebuttled. "You soft touch." Alec snorted in disdain, but he didn't bother denying.
Taylor gestured at the bird. "And I'm guessing that was one of the… captives of the bird smuggler?" she said.
Lok'Tara nodded. "I want Panacea to look at them both," she said. "They say they're okay but I wanna be sure."
"This could be a problem..." Taylor said, worrying her lip.
"No kidding," Alec snarked from his perch. He looked down at Truck, who was still lying on the floor getting pets. "It's against the law in the States to have a riding moose without a permit." Lok'Tara and Truck both snorted at him.
"You were fine with her other dogs when she could mutate them into giant monsters," Adrian said in amusement.
"And who told you that?" Alec retorted. "Besides, back then I was slightly bigger than bite-sized, if you'll recall--- at least part of the time. And for the record, the GIANT CONDOR over there doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy either."
Adrian shook his head. It was probably vulperan instincts making Alec twitchy around the new animals. It was a good thing Rachel hadn't come home with a snake of some sort; considering the vulperan lore in Azeroth, Alec would have probably brought the roof down.
"He wouldn't hurt you," Lok'Tara said without even looking at him. "He'd most likely want to play with you."
"Great, so he thinks I'm a rubber pet toy," Alec sniped. "He won't eat me, he'll just chew on me till my squeaker comes out."
Adrian ignored the two quibbling at each other and turned to Aisha. "So I'm guessing Amy is..."
"On her way here tomorrow, to do her maaaaaaaad science with her new test subjects, muwuhahah," Aisha said, grinning and making spooky clawing motions. "She finally decided on a short list of must-do bio-tinker upgrades that the Hunters' Companions have to get. She said she's also gonna give some up-dos to the rest of Rachel's little zoo, and give us all a quick check-up for good measure… if we don't mind."
"Free health care? Couldn't hurt," Adrian joked. "Okay, just… Lok'Tara, look after your pets and… don't let them eat anyone. And someone was saying something about Shen and Vindicator?"
"Yeah, they been really impatient for you to get back," Shar'Din said. "Ooh, that reminds me, Parian's still waiting in the sewing room!" The blood elf took off at a run, fast as his robes would let him. "We'll meet everyone at the shop center!" he called over his shoulder as he disappeared among the walkways and corridors.
"Wwwwwell," Adrian said. "Guess we should go see our monk and paladin first? To the forges!" He turned on his heel and headed off down the hallway.
Taylor shrugged to Lei Lin. "To the forges," she said, following her boyfriend.
The Alliance's tentative partnership with Faultline's mercenary crew had yielded considerable dividends. Vindicator's lone six-hour mission into one of Labyrinth's surreal dimensions had him dragging out close to a ton of raw ore in exotic metals (A ridiculous amount had it not been for his superhuman strength, stamina and other supernormal abilities.) Faultline hadn't been overly enthusiastic about the ore, but the byproduct of a few thousand carats in precious and semiprecious stones had warmed her up to the idea of continuing the effort. One cross-dimensional spelunking trip turned to two, then to a full week…
On the second day Shen and a couple of the others had started joining in to lend their considerable muscle to the efforts. By the third Bayleaf had a head-slapping moment and diverted several of his tinkerbots, kitted out with pickaxes and bottomless haversacks, to the effort. Labyrinth had not always opened her gates to the same worldlets; the terrain had often been surreal beyond measure. Bayleaf and Shar'Din had started showing up to harvest enchanting ingredients as well as more gems and ore. Some of the worlds had otherworldly plants and vegetation; Taylor and Lei Ling had spent a turn or three exercising their herbalism skills.
One of the worlds had wildlife. Wild, savage sounds echoed there. Dark shapes with glowing eyes-- and not always just two-- that skulked in the undergrowth just out of reach of their lanterns. Lok'Tara had taken her spear and walked out into the dark. When she returned an hour later, the orc girl said nothing of what had occurred. But there were far fewer eyes in the dark, and she was carrying a bottomless haversack loaded with raw hides the likes of which noone had ever seen.
By the end of the second week, Labyrinth had started flagging. The strain of forcing dimensions to overlap and holding them steady for hours on end had started to tell on her. Faultline called a halt to proceedings, and Bayleaf was inclined to agree. But when all was said and done they had dragged in, one bottomless bag at a time, almost fifty tons of pseudo-Azeroth ore, a stack of animal hides six foot high, several pounds of herbs, roots and seeds of unknown provenance and a small fortune in crystals and gems.
Once they'd divided up the take with Faultline and hauled their own take back to the Lost Workshop, Greg and Shen had beelined for the forges and hadn't been seen away from them since. The furnaces had roared, arcane light had lit the rafters, and the sound of hammers ringing on anvils had gone on day and night. Adrian had begun worrying that the two had fallen into some sort of tinker fugue, and he wasn't the only one.
Everyone else was just as busy, though, feverishly working to turn their windfall into tools, armor, and weapons in preparation for… well, everything that was going to come. Shar'Din was thick as thieves with Parian, lurking about her shop whenever he wasn't lurking in his own workroom with his rolls of cloth and jars of enchanting supplies. Taylor and Fennek had found themselves spending a lot of time bent over the same worktable, turning rough gems and twisted wire into magically enhanced jewelry. Lok'Tara was either tending her animal friends (who came and went through her skylights and window vents all day long), or working through her piles of skins, scowling in concentration as she drove a leather awl through the thick hides. Adrian himself had been up to his elbows in machine parts and axle grease...
Even those that weren't crafting (Lisa and Brian) were busting their humps on the internet or over piles of paperwork (government and otherwise) needed to keep their rapidly growing little venture under the radar, and keep their adversaries on the back foot. Aisha, Mr. Hebert and the Dallon sisters were a godsend, chivvying the others to eat, rest, and take regular breaks-- even if it meant pushing some of them out the door to do patrols or make other heroic-style appearances. (It was at least fresh air, anyway.)
But now it looked like it was time for the first round of show-and-tell.
Adrian and Taylor followed the sound of ringing hammers to the forges. As the Workshop had grown and spread, burrowing its way through the warehouse row, the original lost and re-found workshop had remained, Adrian's undisputed redoubt and the beating heart of the whole. Nevertheless, everyone else had a toehold there as well-- it was where the Comms system was set up, after all, which was Aisha's near-permanent nest. And it was the only space they had that was truly equipped and ventilated to handle the smelting and smithing of metal. (It was also the only section slathered in Azeroth runes, inscriptions and enchantments that smothered the noise of falling hammers and magically dissipated the smoke from the forges and kilns, keeping their hidden Cape base hidden.
The once spacious floor was now crowded; armor and weapons in pieces and in whole stood around the room, leaving barely enough workspace where needed. Greg and Theo were both at the anvil, stripped to the waist and wearing heavy goggles, leather aprons and gloves. The pandaren was hammering out some bit or other of armor that sparked strangely under the hammer blows while Greg watched closely, observing the technique. "Oh, hello, Bayleaf, Hemlokk!" Theo… Shen… said. "Give us a moment--" He picked the glowing metal up in tongs and dropped it in a quenching bath; luminous steam shot for the ceiling as the water hissed. The two craftsmen pushed up their goggles and doffed their gloves as they came over. "Glad you're back!"
"We finally finished up a few things--" Greg said. "W-Well, for you all. --And for everyone else, but--" he stammered.
Shen motioned for him to stop. "We got a few things for you," he finished for him. Greg nodded, relieved. The poor ex-geek was still powerfully uncomfortable in his own skin around other people.
"Really?" Adrian said. "Well let's see it."
"Let's start with the big one, I think," Shen said.
"You mean the--?" Greg started to say.
"No no, the other big one," Shen corrected. "The one for Miss Taylor here." The teenage paladin nodded, obviously understanding, and hustled over to a display rack on the wall. He pulled down two sheathed blades and handed them to Shen, who handed them to Taylor. "We know those batons you've been using haven't been really working out," the Pandaren said. "So we crafted you these."
Taylor unsheathed one of the blades. Even she could see it was a beautiful piece of work, a single s-shaped curve from the jewel-embedded pommel down to the tip of the single-edged blade that put her in mind of a scimitar or some other exotic arabian weapon. The edge gleamed wickedly in the light; the metal of the blade almost seemed to glow blue-white. She twirled it experimentally-- it was beautifully balanced.
"And check this out," Shen said, taking the blade back from her. To her shock he ran it down the edge of a nearby anvil, shaving off a pencil-thin layer as easily as if he were slicing cheese. Then he sliced the hem of his leather apron; it still cut as smoothly as a razor through silk. "Awesome, huh?"
"Yes," Taylor said. But her distaste was obvious. It was easy to tell she was visualizing what sort of gruesome damage such blades would do to human flesh…
"Oh, that's not all," Greg said suddenly. "Okay, Shen, do the thing." He held out his arm.
"Okay." Shen raised the blade overhead.
"Whoa, now wait a minute, I AAAAAAH!" Taylor and Adrian both let out a scream as Shen brought the blade down and rammed it right through Greg's arm.
Greg grimaced and clutched his arm below the blade. "Gah, okay, takeitouttakeitouttakeitout!!!" he yelled. Shen obediently yanked the blade free. "Man, I forgot how much that STINGS at first," Greg said, cradling his arm.
"What the hell are you two doing??" Taylor screeched. She was so startled she'd shifted back into her were-form. Adrian had gone furry as well. She lunged forward, hand reaching for the healing bandages in her belt pouch.
"Wait, it's okay, it's okay!" Greg said. He held out his arm and turned it over; it was completely uninjured. His hand flopped uselessly. "Ugh, hate this part," he said, trying to rub feeling back into it.
Alarmed, Adrian grabbed Greg's forearm and turned it over, peering at it. "Not a scratch," he said, a grin slowly spreading on his face. "Did you two really--"
Shen was grinning from ear to ear. "Ghost Iron," he said. "An alloy with Leystone and Azerite, actually. Took a lot of trial and error, and a heap ton of enchantments--"
"Sparky helped out big time with that," Greg said.
"But the blades won't chip, bend or dull, and they will slice through just about anything. Except living flesh," Shen said. "They phase right through, like, well, like a ghost."
Taylor blinked. "You made a pair of Manton limited daggers," she said, amazed.
The two nodded, grinning and chuckling like fools. "Oh, they do have an effect," Shen went on. "They sting like hell, for one. And they cause temporary numbness and paralysis."
Greg flexed his fingers clumsily. "Only lasts about a minute, though."
Bayleaf's smile diminished a bit. "So what happens if you stab someone in the heart?" he said. "Or worse, the brain?"
"And what about long term effects?" Taylor added.
The two looked at each other and grimaced. "Yeah, we thought of that," Shen said. "We caught a couple of rats and tested it."
Greg shuddered. "Man, it was ghoulish strapping the things down and---" he made stabbing motions.
"No long term effects from typical wounds, as far as we can tell," Shen said. The one we stabbed in the heart… well, it stopped breathing for a minute. No pulse as far as we could tell. Then just when we thought it was dead-- boom, it gave a big spasm and came back to life."
"The one we stabbed in the head? It, uh, sorta had a seizure..." Greg cringed. He pointed over to a cage in the corner. Inside was a brownish-grey sewer rat, shuffling about. "He's mostly okay, but he's sorta, um, twitchy now..."
"We felt sorry for it," Shen confessed. "Couldn't even walk right for a half an hour, so we sorta decided ol' Twitchy gets a retirement settlement-- a nice warm cage and all the cheese and sesame seeds he can eat."
"Right. 'Do NOT apply directly to the forehead.' Got it." Taylor took the blade back and sheathed it with a shudder. She did not mention that as one of her many 'talents' as an Azeroth Rogue she had the power to magically coat the blades of her weapons with a range of toxic auras: soporific, paralytic, enervating, even purely toxic dark energy. If she wanted these daggers could be very lethal indeed.
But at least now, she thought, she had an effective alternative. The sheaths hung from slim intertwined leather belts. She discarded the hated batons and their straps and donned the knife belts; they hung comfortably at her hips, ready to her hands. She drew them in a flash and twirled them about, dancing in a quick kata, then another, the blades flying around her in a dizzying display of flashes of silver before slipping back into their sheaths. The boys exclaimed in surprise and applauded, impressed.
"Nice work, guys," Bayleaf said. "What else you got?"
"Well we got armor," Greg said. He waved to a row of manikins. "Mostly mail. Mail shirts, bracers, greaves, pauldrons, the works. Everyone can come in and mix and match to suit. We even got some mail shirts thin and light enough for our non-combatant types… they'll slip under a jacket or sweater easy. It bugged me having Lisa and Aisha and Brian and Mr. Hebert running around out there without any real protection."
Adrian didn't dispute it. They had sunk money into having Parian and Shar'Din make full outfits of Azeroth cloth for everyone, and Taylor's birthday present to her father, via a commission to Lok'Tara, had been a leather coat so heavily enchanted it could probably stop machine gun fire. Danny had accepted it happily-- chuckling something about feeling like Harry Dresden, whoever that was. Still, Azeroth chain and plate made cloth and leather look like wet cardboard by comparison. "The usual enchantments?"
"Strength, Speed, Stamina, Agility," Greg recited. "Made a little bit of each. "Strength and Stamina are mostly on the plate. Speed and Agility on the chain."
"We argued a bit about that," Shen said. "In the end we decided it'd be better to heavily boost one or two stats, rather than try to boost all of them just a little on everything." Greg grumbled; it was obvious who wanted what. It was unsurprising, Adrian thought; gamers tended to covet gear that had all the bells and whistles on, practical or not.
Bayleaf nodded. "besides, the cloth, leather, and jewelry can plug the gaps on any deficiencies." That was another of the many little advantages of reality over the game: Armor classes could be mixed and layered in ways you could never get away with on Blizzard's servers. Wizards could and did wear a little chain over those flowing robes; paladins had no problem with wearing a layer of Shal'dorei silk armor (protective, and comfortable! Cool in summer, warm in winter!) underneath their shining plate.
While jewelry was not as flexible, one could manage to squeeze in one or two more rings than the game allowed, and while the game designers had overlooked concepts like earrings, pendants, brooch-pins or bracelets, especially ones with charms, Jewelers in the arcane city of Dalaran had not. Aisha for one sported a charm bracelet (one of Taylor's and Alec's first jewelry projects) that gave her the speed, agility and stamina of an olympic gymnast and better second-chance protection than a Kevlar vest.
It amused Taylor to no end to think that the tiny little bangles she'd made for Aisha's bracelet probably made the girl a better all around athlete than Sophia Hess had ever been.
"… This is really beautiful work, guys," Bayleaf said as he fingered one of the mail shirts. "Shar'Din and I should be able to put enchantments of our own on everything as well. ...Did you make any more stuff with that ghost iron alloy?"
"Just a couple. There wasn't much ghost iron ore. I finished up my new armor-- "Greg walked over to a tarp-covered manikin. He whipped it off; standing under the cloth was a new suit of plate armor, gleaming gold and white. Golden Light energy glowed in recessed gemstones in the bracers, pauldrons, breastplate and boots. The round shield Greg normally carried was replaced with a larger, heavier Reulaux triangle, and instead of a warhammer the suit had an enormous sword. The blade was two hands wide, and the pommel was level with the suit's shoulder with the tip resting on the floor.
"Gonna have Lok'Tara or Parian make me a bottomless scabbard for this," Greg muttered, taking the blade and hefting it. It was a hand and a half grip; he held the enormous sword in one hand effortlessly. "You know, the reason I used a hammer was… well, it's easier to pull a blow with a blunt weapon than a sharp one," he said. "I could deal with breaking arms, but lopping them off?" He cringed and grimaced. "But then I found out just how much damage even a blunt hammer can do and… yeah, well, I spent almost all the remaining ghost iron on my sword."
"We made one more," Shen said. He was cradling a long wooden box in his arms. He opened it, revealing a folded silk cloth which he peeled back. In the bottom of the folded cloth was a dagger-- small, thin, and plain, more like an enlarged needle than a knife, with a foot long blade and an unadorned white bone grip. "This is for Amy. We juiced it up so that a quick stab will numb and paralyze… leave it inserted long enough it can render someone unconscious. It's not just a second-chance weapon-- we figured it might come in handy if she ever has to anesthetize someone and can't use her usual methods."
"Certainly couldn't hurt," Bayleaf said. "Taylor, you're going to see Amy and Vicky soon, do you want to hold on to it?" Hemlokk nodded; Shen refolded the silk and closed the box, handing it over to the she-wolf. She took the box and tucked it in her haversack.
"Oh!" Greg said. "We finished the Lightwell!" He pointed to the worktable. Sitting at one end was a squat stone bowl, no more than three feet wide and a foot deep, with a fat bottom and a wide lip. Glowing runes and gemstones decorated its circumference. A faint fountain of golden light rose straight up from its mouth.
Taylor cocked an eyebrow. "It looks like a chamberpot," she said.
"It's not a chamberpot!" Greg and Shen snapped simultaneously.
Bayleaf looked down into the Lightwell. Down inside was a nest of rough-cut crystals, glowing brilliantly with shimmering rainbow colors. Heskimmed his hand through the glowing light rising from the bowl; his fingers trailed golden sparks through the air like glittering mayflies, and he felt a faint surge of well-being spread through his fingertips. "Yeah, Sparky's gonna be seriously happy about that," he said.
"He knows. He's already tapped it today," Greg said. "Best he's looked in ages, you ask me."
"He'll still have to keep running back to it every day," Taylor objected. "Unless he carries it around with him everywhere. And it doesn't look too conveniently portable to me."
"No, no," Bayleaf said. "The energy's translocative. It taps into the aetherial planes between the realities. The Blood Elves could tap into their Sunwell anywhere on their world, and on several worlds over, without any trouble."
"Wow," Taylor said, impressed. "So what's the range on this little mini version?"
At the question, the three Warcrafters present began looking thoughtful and counting on their fingertips. "As the Light energy will slowly spread over time in a nonlinear progression, given the rate of emission and the radius, it should be… Holy Moley," Shen muttered, giving the well a look.
Greg blinked too. "Yeah, Holey Moley," he said. "By the end of the week there'll be Light energy 'fallout' in China."
"Fallout??"
Bayleaf made 'calm down' motions with his hands. "Light energy is benevolent, harmless at most," he said. "And only people with Azerite DNA can even tap it for anything useful. Otherwise it'll be so thin on the ground, it'll be almost undetectable… A few flecks of benevolent energy, nothing more."
She gave him a skeptical look, one ear folded back. "Well, you might want a little full disclosure with the others about your pollution levels. Even if you're only polluting the world with a few good vibes."
Bayleaf snorted. " China sends us toys covered in lead paint and a brown cloud of air pollution-- we send them invisible good vibes. Seems fair… Fine, fine, I'll tell the others."
"I don't mean to be rude, but I gotta go," Taylor said. "I've got potions and herbs being speed-grown I've got to check on...and I've got to call Amy about Fennek and Lok'Tara's new pets anyway." She gave Bayleaf a nuzzle on the cheek and left. "Try not to do anything TOO destructive, you three," she said over her shoulder.
Once she was out of sight. Shen stepped in close dropped his voice. "One more thing--"
Bayleaf snorted. "You don't say, Uncle-San?" Shen just stared at him in puzzlement. "Never mind. Jackie Chan reference. What is it?"
Greg stepped in close as well. "The Big One," he said. He jerked his head to one side, drawing Bayleaf's attention to a half-length steel cargo container in one corner.
Bayleaf sobered up. "Let's see." They went as a group to the steel doors and unbolted them. Bayleaf looked in… and up… at what stood inside, suspended from pulleys and chains. Bayleaf whistled.
"We finished up the outer plates and shell," Greg said. "The internal support frame is done too-- strongest alloy we could smelt. Azerite, Leystone, Adamantine, structural steel." He stood next to bayleaf and looked up at the hulking, dangling form. "We even managed to grow several of the crystalline components--"
"Now all it needs," Shen said, "Is your loving touch."
"The auto-fabbers have cracked out most of the internal components," Bayleaf said. "Little more'n a matter of putting all the pieces inside..." he paused and swallowed, remembering what this massive machine was meant for… what he might have to do with it.
"Are you sure?" Greg said suddenly. "Is this… I mean, will it really be necessary?"
Bayleaf stood still and silent for a long moment. "Let's pray not," he said. "But let's thank God we have it just in case."
"Gangwaaay!" There were shouts and shrieks of alarm deeper in the Workshop, followed by a resounding crash. "What the HAIL, Sparky?" Aisha was heard to yell.
"It's Shar'Din!"
"I'll Shart YOUR Ding, you pointy eared white blonde idiot!"
"Oh yeah," Greg said. "Sparky must've finished his flying carpet."
Bayleaf grunted in amusement. He slammed the doors to the cargo container and bolted them. "Let's go see what the damage is."
Two pizzas and a half-dozen orders of Chinese takeout, as it happened. (His little crash landing in the lounge area hadn't exactly increased Shar'Din's popularity scores. ) The flying carpet indeed did work-- it was whip-snap fast and nimble in the air as a teased snake… but to Sparky's disappointment the general verdict was he could keep it to himself. At least as long as it undulated through the air the way it did, sure-foot gripping spell or no…
"Okay, now, let's take a look at you two," Amy said, picking up one of ferrets. Fidget wriggled and tried to lick her nose. She giggled and tickled his belly. "Aren't YOU a handful--!"
"Upgrade day" had finally arrived. After several days of hesitation, indecision, and buying cage after cage of white mice from the pet store, dragging them to the Lost Workshop and 'amplifying' them in various ways, Amy had finally gotten enough confidence… or maybe just caved… and declared it was time for Fennek's and Lok'Tara's companions to get their boosts.
Truck had been the first, and the most simple. Amy had laced his skeleton with buckminsterfullerene fibers, increasing their toughness and strength several thousandfold. She had even managed to tweak it so that the carbon fullerene fibers grew naturally. Flexible subdermal armor and hyper-tough tendons and ligaments, based off spider silk proteins. Claws and teeth, hardened and toughened as well. Musculature enhanced by over 200%. An accelerated healing factor. All of it paid for with a heightened metabolism and a complex litany of improvements to his digestive system to play the metabolic costs… largely by expanding his already human-like diet to where he could eat foods that would make a trained veterinarian run for the emergency medical bag, and the ability to extract the last erg of nutrition from it.
This heightened metabolism also paid for the largest cost; an expanded brain. "I thought you didn't do brains," Aisha had objected.
"Technically I'm not," Amy had replied. "I'm actually ADDING to it. A second larger layer to the cerebral cortex, A neo-neo cortex so to speak, same for the temporal lobes…some extra nodes at the base of the cerebellum... "
"Sort of adding a dual processor and extra memory chips, huh?" Greg ventured. Amy rolled her eyes and shrugged, but acknowledged that it was as good a description as any.
When she had finished, the changes were barely noticeable… well, when compared to the sort of monstrous metamorphoses that say, one of Blasto's creations had undergone. Or even one of Lok'Tara's dogs back when she'd been Bitch. He was still edging on the realm of the ridiculous-- but then again he had been before he'd been amped. But even with the almost-weightlifter-esque musculature and the blunt, enlarged skull, he was still passable as an ordinary, if 'good grief' huge, dog. The big brute was busy now wolfing down enough kibble and raw meat for three dogs, trying to catch up with the demands of his sudden transformation.
Sky had been much more delicate work. At first the golden eagle hadn't wanted Amy to touch him. Lok'Tara had finally managed to use her bond to calm the bird enough for Amy to work. An enlarged brain was the first step, though in the end she'd only enhanced Sky very slightly. There really wasn't much she could do without making the poor bird's head too unwieldy to fly. This was followed by a carefully lacing of carbon fullerene fibers through the fragile skeleton-- nothing near what Truck had undergone, but more than enough to make breaking the bird's bones a job for someone with a baseball bat and a LOT of muscle. The subdermal armor made arrows and bullets far less of a concern. Again, the cellular biology was altered to grow the fibers naturally, even in the feathers-- which did interesting things to their insulative properties. There was a good chance, Amy informed them, that the eagle's feathers were now fireproof as well. The nictating membranes over his eyes were likewise enhanced. She enhanced his night vision to match his already stunning visual acuity...
After the operation, Sky was logy and agitated at the sudden influx of new sensory information… but quickly calmed when Lok'Tara set out a plate of rabbit cut up for him. That, he could understand, and quickly began gulping it down.
Now came Fidget and Gidget, Fennek's ferrets. The changes to these to were going to be a touch more complicated. Birds of prey and gigantic hunting hounds were already fairly tough customers. Little domestic ferrets, not nearly so much. So the changes were going to be more extreme.
… Of course, having Fennek standing there, wringing the hem of his shirt like an expectant father, wasn't making it easier. Bayleaf put a calming hand on Fennek's shoulder. "Calm down," Adrian ordered. "This is Panacea. She's the best there is at what she does, by a lap and half-- and that's when she's not even trying. Fidget and Gidget will be fine."
Amy breathed a silent 'thank you' to the worgen. "Well, time for a bath, little guy," she said to Fidget. She stroked the ferret's forehead, putting him quickly into a soporific state, and lowered him into the vat.
She was going to need external sources of biomass for these changes. Per her request they had brought in a steel tub and filled it to the brim with, of all things, onions and potatoes. She had used her power to reduce the root vegetables to a primordial soup-- a sort of raw liquid protoplasm, about the consistency of broth. Once Fidget was submerged up to his ears, she began the changes.
He was going to have to be a bit bigger, for starters. Something closer to a largish otter: about twenty pounds and nearly three feet long from nose to tailtip. Expanded diet and metabolism, enlarged/enhanced brain, subdermal armor and structurally strengthened skeleton were a given… Mustelid brains were simpler than canine ones, so there was more that had to be added; it was a trick to keep the size of the skull manageable and its shape sleek. One of the more surprisingly complicated changes was to the forepaws; it required extra nerves and certain addendums to the motor control areas… After that, slightly lengthening and strengthening the toes was simplistic.
The experts Amy had consulted argued about whether ferrets were natural climbers. With their new enhanced grip strength and retractable, carbon-fiber strengthened claws, the question became arbitrary. These buggers wanted to climb? They'd climb.
It barely took a half hour… and that only because she was going slowly and carefully. At the thirty three minute mark she pulled Fidget from the tub and let him reawaken. The little bandit-masked armful had blinked up at her, then begun gleefully climbing all over her, getting her soaked in proto-broth. "Aagh! Help!" she shrieked and giggled, ducking her head to keep the now oversize ferret from jamming his nose in the nape of her neck.
With an air of absolute relief, Fennek came hustling over, arms out to take his pet off her. He fell back on his rump as twenty pounds of carpet shark leaped into his arms. "Wauf! Whoa, you sure grew up fast, didn'tcha… ah darn it, now we gotta buy you a bigger cage! And bigger tube toys… and ferret sweaters… and--"
Amy giggled at the sight of Fennek wrestling with the oversized ferret, and picked up Gidget. "Okay, girl, now your turn..."
Less than twenty minutes later, Gidget joined her brother in play-mauling their master. The vulperan rolled around on the floor with his two partners, happy as a boy on Christmas with a new puppy. Bayleaf gave her a slightly strained smile. "You gave them opposable thumbs, I see..." he said.
Amy gave him an evil smile. "Well, you wanted them combat ready," she said. "I suggest you do one of two things."
"Being?"
"Childproof everything, or give them little toolbelts..."
Several of those present snorted. Bayleaf started to make what he clearly hoped was a snappy comeback when he was interrupted. A sound echoed through the Lost Workshop, penetrating through the walls and wards, a rising and falling cadence that chilled every spine there. All over, tinkerbots of every size stopped in mid task and began echoing that sound, lights flashing and turning. Everyone fell silent. Even Fidget and Gidget quit their antics.
"The Endbringer sirens," Greg said, his throat dry. Without a word Lisa and Aisha ran for the Comms. The big viewscreen lit up, the news bulletins already in full blast, ticker tapes running across the bottom of the screen and down either side. Some talking head or other was behind the news desk, announcing an attack by the Simurgh. Behind him in bluescreen was a cityscape that Adrian had made point of looking up and memorizing from the first day of his arrival.
"Canberra," he said. The scroll on the screen confirmed it. He gripped the back of his chair, the wood cracking under his grip. "No. We're not ready!"
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but if there happened to be a webcam system paralleled to the building security, and you wanted to access it, here's what you'd do…