To spark the Forge of Destiny anew (Season 1 hiatus s.2 in works)

[Khan_Panther]

25 • Episode 2 (Phoenix Down) part 10

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++( Gotham City
++( 2010 • June 27th
++( 5:43 am

Looking back at the mess that happened at Sionis Industries Steel Mill it probably could have been avoided. If we had just used one of the plants at either Central City or Keystone City like Flash had recommended. Doing it in Gotham was just asking for problems to happen. I mean we had an almost full Justice League roster present and so trouble came to us.

Thankfully it was just normal gangsters, and not any of the mask brigade. Nah, those bozo's were called the Street Demonz. A motorcycle gang that operated out of Gotham City, and wore leather jackets with a big red D on the back.

Spoiler: Street Demonz jacket

Source • Batman wiki • Street Demonz

The gang had been around for years, but thanks to that night like a solid 80-90% of the gang plus their leaders were rounded up. They'd been fighting it out with some weird group that was carrying puppets before we got involved. The puppet boys ran as soon as they saw that Batman wasn't alone, the Demonz weren't that smart.

No instead they decided to focus on the heroes instead of running. Some even screamed at them "The penalty for trashin' the Demonz is death!"

I mean how much more of a cliche mook-tier Saturday morning bad guy could you get? Sadly, it all went down on a Thursday, if it'd been a Saturday I'd have more concerns than I already do.

...

I think getting shot at for the first time that I can consciously recall stunned me. Well it did till a round ricocheted off of my bucket, which shocked me into flopping down and onto the metal puddle below me.

My flop was apparently hard enough, or I used my powers like I was flailing about, that the whole thing crashed noisily to the ground. Said crash also warped the metal framing and sent other ladles with molten steel and a mass of coal spilled everywhere. The coal was from the various coal cars that had been hauled into the abandoned plant and were set up to funnel into me. Well they used to be now they were tipped over and mixed up into glowing molten steel.

...

That was an issue that I hoped Sionis Industries had an insurance policy in place. Mainly because that loud crashing and tearing noise that I just heard was most likely the roof caving in on me.

Which except for the noise meant next to nothing bad really happened on my end. It sounded down like thunder upon my head, the only thing I could compare it too was the time one of the high schools in my old life got torn down. Got to watch that and take some of it home as a sort of souvenir. I never went there but my mod had taught at that school for over two decades, so it was an emotional day.

Well the sweet sounds of demolition but also of a tornado going through the area like that one YouTube video.

Spoiler: Tornado sounds

Source - TORNADO - SEE BUILDING DESTROYED FROM INSIDE by maynardcat

• • • • •

I could hear a loud whirring noise, as well as an odd slurping noise intermixed with the crackling of flames. If someone had a bird's eye view like the video Batman would show me later they'd have seen something weird.

A twister of fire that failed to breach the top of the steel mill was centered on my body. Around me all of the coal had been ignited and most of the steel that was to be fed to me as well as some of the buildings own framing was used. All of that metal was being melted and dragged closer to me. It was not fun at all for me while I was 'slurping' all that metal and burning coal down.

The way that it kind of all engulfed me and sunk in reminded me of a comic I read. It was a 6 or 7 issue special of Iron Man with bits of it being used in the movie Iron Man 3.

What happened is that the super carbonized mixture of coal and metal shrouded me in a cocoon. A cocoon that they League moved into some brick enclosure in the country side near Slaughter Swamp. The whole thing was very disgusting to look at, though thankfully I emerged hale and hearty a couple days later.

Spoiler: Cocoon

Spoiler: Warning = Graphic

Spoiler: I warned you

Just add vents of fire at random points.

Source = Comic • Iron Man: Extremis • Issue #1

I have to say though that the new look after I emerged was worth it. My skin was some sort of shiny black metal with colorful swirls in it. It was like looking at a quiet black sea with rainbow ribbons of algae floating and mixing in everchanging patterns. If said sea was a sheet of obsidian on top of metal.

Thankfully I had none of that Emotional Spectrum shenanigans going on. I don't think I would have stayed free of an Oan Sciencell if that weren't the case. While I had no fancy power ring related powers I was happy with my new body over all.

My head at this point has been fully replaced with fire. The metal that forms most of my body seems to act like a set of carapace or mobility device. Seeing as from the neck down to the stomach region was an empty hollow space that was just stuffed full of fire. A shell that had a wide hole for the neck where my head was, and a thin seam lead down to where a human's belly button would be.

On me though that region was was just a large fiery hole that I could use to 'eat' fuels and metals. And, besides 'eating' I could use it to rapidly heat up metal if I so desired in order to assist me in forging it.

Wonder Woman, or in this case Princess Diana told me that if I was on best behavior and improved in my skills she had a reward for me. A reward in the form of an introduction to the Amazon blacksmith Io, an Amazon who'd been working the forge since Ancient Greece. That was a true reward as my forge spirit nature seemed to demand that I do whatever it took to get an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship where I planned to learn all I could and hopefully best a master in their field.

Though I did catch a subtle undertone to her comment. I would be allowed to walk on Themyscira, not as the male I once was, but as the elemental spirit I now was.

...

Oh, and Batman was working on a method in parallel with Zatara for me to go about day-to-day life looking like a human. It's a little concerning that I am already disassociating myself from the humans, but I'm sure that'll pass.

In like a week on July 2nd, I would need to sit down to take my Junior year placement tests for Gotham Academy. A center of education I was not looking forward to being involved with. The old Jinhui, or me now, was a Junior there, but the old me from before was a 24-year old with a recent Masters in Accounting. Well, that and a moderately successful job.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Khan_Panther]

26 • Episode 2 (Phoenix Down) part 11

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After watching the sun rise I started exploring my sort of new environment, Gotham City. I decided to start working my way south from the northern most tip of Gotham. That meant starting at Amusement Mile, an almost amusing location as it is the land where it all began. Well, where it all began for me.

Now what one needs to consider is that Gotham is a port city. Now in the comics the city was located in New Jersey though the exact location was never quite specified, just that it was a coastal town built atop the islands. Now, though in this world Gotham had apparently never been founded off the coast of New Jersey, no instead the city had been founded in Connecticut in this universe. At least most of the history remained the same, even if I was going to have to deal with being transferred into Gotham Academy from the Whatever Prestigious Private School I used to attend.

Spoiler: Gotham City

• Gotham City Circa No Man's Land
• Ignore the color coding

Source = Batman: No Man's Land (1999) Issue #NA

Spoiler: worse raw map of Gotham

• The map that would be the template for the Batman: No Man's Land maps.
• The artist is Elliot R Brown

According to Wikipedia which is something that exists here. A fact that I was most thankful for, as overall except for some specific things like DC Comics as a company and their imprints, this world was largely identical to the in my first life. That means that if it was a thing in 2010 from my old life its a thing here, though I will note the over all tech level is a little higher. I mean the common 2010 LexCorp Phone, or its competitor Waynetech Phones were the equivalent of 2018 iPhones and Samsung Galaxies in comparison.

It's like that all over the technology landscape. With a lot of regionalism when it comes to technology advances. You have a stable field that is ahead in some areas and behind in others when it comes to 2010 and 2021 tech from my old world. This all felt normal now, thanks in part to the remnants of Old Jinhui.

Jinhui, an Asian (Chinese) name that means Golden Ash, could be used in English as a codename. "Heh, call me Golden Ash!"

Nah, that name's not really conducive to what I look like now. There's nothing golden about me at the moment, I'm obsidian skin and fires. Oh, and there's no ash about me, well unless I burn something. Though, the residue will either quickly flake off in the wind or be absorbed into my skin.

I am now according to magic something akin to a Forge Spirit. So, that is another potential name, but that's not the point about what I was doing.

No, that was reading the map and city history pages of Gotham City. All while I was wondering about the city I would be based out of for the immediate future.

On an overall look at Gotham's landscape there are several major islands. The big three form the Uptown, Midtown and Downtown regions of the city. Separating Uptown and Midtown was the Sprang River, on which to the west sat the island housing Arkham Asylum. Midtown and Downtown are separated by the Finger River.

Uptown is largely the newest section of town, and Amusement mile is located there. Crime Alley and thus the Monarch Theater is also located there. Batman was born on a night almost two and a half decades ago. A man named Joe Chill gunned down Thomas and Martha Wayne over a pearl necklace. Bruce was only eight years old at the time, he'd leave Gotham a year or so later to start his world wide training spree. At age 21 if I am reading the news right he started as Batman in 1999.

Midtown is home to Gotham University, and as part of that sprawling complex is Gotham Academy. Ah, Gotham Academy I'd be a part of that in the Fall, so long as we can get my inhuman appearance looking more human. I can remember other elementals and demons having an almost innate ability to disguise themselves as humans. I bet as a forge aspected magical being I would need to forge a cap or mask of disguise.

Midtown's Central region is absolutely dominated by Robinson Park, a frequent home of Poison Ivy. I think I might be able if I get some cash flow going help her get out of villainy. Well, supervillainy and transition that focus into regular old corporate greed, after all she can custom design plants. Plants capable of towering over skyscrapers, and I want that on my side.

Mostly I just want to commercialize her custom plants as an efficient phytomining method. Just imagine a tree or shrub that produces 'fruit' which are like 25% a specified metal or other mineral. Well either that or use her powers to grow wooden skyscrapers. She could with a little training even handle the water and waste systems as well as air for the tower. The electricity and glass windows, as well as any non-wooden furniture/appliances would of course need to be added after the fact.

Spoiler: Wooden Skyscraper

Source = CNN • Has the wooden skyscraper revolution finally arrived?

Midtown was also dominated by the Coventry
and the area just known as the Upper East Side. The Coventry was also home to the Iceberg Lounge, aka the Penguin's night club / base of operations. Gotham Heights was near the university.

Downtown was the biggest island out of the main three, and contains the Diamond and Fashion Districts, Old Gotham, Chinatown and City Hall. My residence place my family as living in Chinatown, Though I forget which Triad or Yakuza was in charge of where my house was. A house that the Batman had someone taking care of to make sure that it was still lived in to the neighborhood. Old Gotham sits atop the buried remnants of Wonder City, and if my out of context memories are right there's a Lazarus Pit under there.

South of Downtown are 5 smaller islands, one of which was not named. The largest of the five was the Tricorner and home to a largely decommissioned Naval base called the Tricorner Yards. Oh, Commissioner James Gordon and his daughter live there. Paris Island directly to the east was known to sometimes a Joker hideout. Further to the east was Sullivan Island, not much I can recall about that one. Then finally we get to Blackgate Isle, the home to Blackgate Penitentiary.

A prison that handles conventional criminals, while the Rogue's Gallery gets the escapable and ineffective Arkham Asylum. Blackgate Isle is separated from the Downtown by the unnamed island. The body of water separating the two islands is known as the Rip.

...

Now back to my enthusiastic walk from the north of Gotham to the south of it.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Khan_Panther]

27 • Episode 2 (Phoenix Down) part 12

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++( Gotham City • Amusement Mile
++( 2010 • June 27th
++( 6:12 am

It's quiet, almost too quiet at that. Though that probably has something to do with Batman having invited outside help, as well as cooperated with the Gotham City Police Department. That cooperation between the League and the Police ended up catching a dozen individuals that had been Jokerized.

Besides catching a dozen Jokers, they good guys also managed to shut down Joker's operation and gang for the forseeable future. Speaking of the Jokers, they were down to just one in Arkham, as they turned on one another almost immediately. Meaning, they fought and killed each other in Arkham till only one was standing, the 'True Joker' for now.

For now the amusement parks were quiet with a couple hours yet before the few functional ones open for the day. This bit just like all others parts in Gotham have their stories steeped in violence. Amusement Mile was the product of a war of business and entertainment between two businessmen, or should it be three?

In the 1910s Amusement Mile's ground was broken. Our tale begins with the Solomon Brothers who were there first. They had nickelodeons, whatever those were, and a string of movie houses. Then Carlo Geraldi opened the original Amusement Mile which gave the area its name. Within weeks of Geraldi's business being opened the Brothers and him were in a competition to outdo one another.

They began to build, more and more attractions all in an effort to outdo one another. Of course the working class loved it as there was something new there every week to spend their factory wages on.

Sensing a chance at profits other hucksters and carneys were quick to join in the fun. So the result is that by the mid-fifties Gotham had no less than three zoos, five mainstream amusement parks. Well, that and multiple wax museums alongside reptile farms were also built.

Then the factories of the time that drove the Gotham City economy began to dry up after the fifties. The drop in disposable income meant that the amusements had to start closing down. And, the lack of any way to relieve stress aided Gotham's other major industry in growing. Most of these places were then used over the years as villainous hideouts.

Amusement Mile was also at one point in time the home of Gotham's Boy Wonder, the first Robin, Richard 'Dick' Grayson. Well the home of C.C. Haly and Norton Bros. Circus, more commonly know as Haly's Circus, known for the circus act turned tragedy the Flying Graysons. A tragedy that would stop the circus from returning to the City for years to come. I think that someone was a shadowy backer to the circus as after they left they seemed to improve and repair their equipment rapidly. That financial backing makes me think of Bruce Wayne, after adopting the young Grayson, making the decision to sponsor his ward's former family.

Other notable locations in the Amusement Mile city district would be Crime Alley in New Town, with Leslie Thompkins' Medical Clinic being nearby. There's also closer to town the Olympus, a night club owned by Maxie Zeus. A man that at the moment hasn't shown any sign of his insanity from the comics. Besides that potential madhouse, there is also one of Gotham City's many casinos and radio centers.

Just looking down to the left of me I was able to make out the boat marina known as Roger's Yacht Basin. The home to Gotham City's Yacht Club, and where the rich and powerful to this day keep their yachts. It's hilarious to me that it's so, seeing how Amusement Mile is rife with villain hideouts, that I can't remember a single time those boats got hit.

Just wandering around the streets in the early hour it's amazing that no one has tried to start anything with me.

Though the fact that I am a six foot something man with broad shoulders and a head made of fire might have something to do with that. They probably assume that they're either high if a drug addict/dealer, or that I'm a new member of Gotham's seedy underbelly. And, if my head's on fire then I probably have fire power like Firefly or Dr. Phosphorous.

After all why would you want to go over and mess with a man who might set you on fire.

The Gotham Knights Stadium of Uptown Gotham was rife with the homeless. Apparently Scarecrow had dosed the stadium with an extremely high and long lasting variant of his fear toxin. The stadium was also just a block or two from the Giordano Botanical Gardens.

Giordano Botanical Gardens, in Uptown was one of two botanical gardens that were present in Gotham City. This botanical garden though was the only one which allows the public regular admittance. The second on was located on the same island as Arkham Asylum. Though that one was generally just for the use of the Asylum, though it was known from time to time permit public visits. Giordano Gardens is the larger of the two and covers over 7 acres in total, counting the conservatory, 2 acres of outside gardens, and the full glass structure that covers 85,000 square feet. Staff botanists state there are about 50,000 plants on hand at the production facility at any one time. That whole chunk was basically ripped out of the Garden's page on Gotham City's government owned website.

Huh, speaking of websites I can't believe that two things are true. The fact that there's no public guide to capes in this world. Like a wiki for the real heroes and villains and their powers, I mean there's a pretty active Marvel Comics wiki. I mean Iron Man 2 came out a few weeks before mimes and fires knocked me out.

Well, that and this world while it has social media is lacking in forum options. I think a PHO, or in this case a MetaHumans (& Aliens) Online could be a useful thing. Especially if I can get a wiki running to compare the different capes of this world, and their tech.

Yep, that's a plan and I just need to find someone reliable to run the forum software. Especially since I know nothing about website management, I was an accountant with all that entailed.


praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Khan_Panther]

28 • Episode 2 (Phoenix Down) part 13

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Ooh, I just found abandoned warehouse number, number.. oh I lost count after 20. The Warehouse looked like it was full of lots of slightly rusted pipework. Rusty pipework that covers the walls of a building and forms odd patterns on the inside reminds me of something. That's right SCP-015, which I only really know because a DM decided to add an expy into a campaign. God, this universe better not have crossed over with the SCP universe.

Looking closer at the site revealed a rusty art plaque, and the warehouse was silent. Well, that and there were no pipes made of bone, wood, pressed ash, human flesh, glass, granite, or other materials. It looked like the pipes were just rusted iron and steel plus what looks like corroded copper and lead.

This specific warehouse I was messing about in was located about the middle of the docks in The Hill District. The only distinguishing feature from all the other dark warehouses was that this one was near Aparo Park, and had an upside down fishing boat near its main shutter.

All of the doors and windows were covered up from the inside with the pipework. Overall, I had to think that this must have been someone's lair at some point. Just looking at the Arkham Asylum and Blackgate Penitentiary public prisoner rolls showed like a hundred nut jobs. Well over a hundred only some of which were themed villains. Though in the ten or so minutes I spent looking at the lists, none stood out to me as dealing with pipes.

I might just not be looking closely enough at the lists or this might be someone new. I had to pry open a roof access hatch to get in. There was even more piping inside of the warehouse some of which seemed to connect to a lab station.

Yep, this was most definitely someone's base. A someone who is actively working on their chemicals going by the bubbling mixtures. I couldn't see much yet, but I did make out that this mess

I managed to decipher that he or she I guess, but in Gotham it seems like for every female villain there's like three to five times as many male ones. But, back to the notes I could make out. I had a day or two before they came back to check up on their lab. It was Sunday, today and the notes make me think that they'll be back either late Monday evening, or early Tuesday morning.

For now though I'm just going to start grabbing bits here and there to start my first forging project. Grabbing up some loose piping and throwing it into my gut's fiery gate to start heating up I found a large and thick pipe that had a welded caps on both sides of it. I figured the large pipe could make a passable anvil for this first project.

It being Gotham and this being a potential villain's lair I did the smart thing. I checked that fat pipe, or I guess in this case it's a DIY drum that hasn't been filled with any chemicals. That just makes it perfect for my needs, its walls were a solid two inches going off the hollow echoing noise tapping it made. The caps were made thicker, and overall it was a heavy piece of metal that I could drag around.

Huh, that's interesting and not something I could do before my transformation. Tapping the walls of several of the bare pipes around me revealed a similar feat. I could check and interpret the material composition of various items just by rapping on them. Though it seems only to be useful for checking on metals.

My first project, a hammer for use in future forgings might give me better results in reading things. I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted my blacksmithing hammer to look like. It would need a large head on it for better strikes, and a smaller side for more precise work. I might be able to enchant it at a later date and time to be able to alter the head's structure for better crafting methodologies.

I would need a long handle for multiple reasons. A longer handle would let me use it in combat with wide sweeps, like a golf swing. For now though I could just choke up on the handle when I'm forging. That's also I will need to look into messing about with, using magic to shorten or lengthen the handle.

Spoiler: The Hammer (for now)

Based on Ronan's Hammer from Marvel the Universal Weapon

I think it was sometime in the evening when I first got started and I'd been at it for the whole night. Well, the sun was rising at this point and I had a successfully forged hammer.

Overall I would rate last night as a success even as I went about making repairs to the storage area I'd banged up. I also had learned a lot about my new form's powers. Well, the most obvious one that would need to be strenuously tested at a later date. Especially as I remembered some maths and going off the metal, in this case steel, and the different wall thicknesses my anvil was roughly two and a half tons of steel. Steel which as time passed and I stopped thinking in strictly human prowess was as easy to move as a stack of four reams of paper, or about twenty pounds. Not sure how exact that comaprision is to be honest but that would put my strength as being around two hundred and fifty times what it used to be. That's easily car lifting range and was making my inner nerd a bit giddy.

Besides the strength I learned that I could exhale blasts of fiery plasma. Said plasma was hot enough to soften steel, though I'm sure that was just me trying not to melt and ruin either my temporary anvil or my unfinished hammer. Directly as part of that I could project fire through my arms to heat up my hands and claws for fine detail work.

Additionally my gut fire was hot enough to melt the different metals I put in their into an almost runny clay like consistency.

...

Though I want to continue pondering my new powers I can hear traffic starting up. So let's get this place fixed most of the way and then make my escape.

After all I still need to return to my house in Chinatown.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Khan_Panther]

29 • Episode 2 (Phoenix Down) part 14

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++( Gotham City
++( 2010 • June 28th
++( 8:23 am

Although I want to keep messing about with my newly discovered powers and skills. I had a new hammer that felt like it was capable of growing. That and I was learning/making it up as I go when it came to technique. I think in my case I might be able to if I waive sleep, which I no longer physically need, should speed up my progress on mastering my trade.

It's a cliche, but using the ol' 10 year figure I heard to truly master blacksmithing sounds a bit long. With my 'Spirit of the Forge' enhancements I should reach mastery well before that. I remember a Ren-Faire where one of the smiths said he pulled about 48 hours at the forge a week, every week. Expanding that over the course of a decade means that there would be roughly 25,000 hours that needs to be accounted for.

Just by the very fact that I can ignore sleep and the weekends should drop that down to a solid 1,042 days or about 2.85 years, a much more manageable number. That assumes nonstop blacksmithing though, and doesn't account for any schooling or hero training.

That reminds of two very concerning facts. The first is that after I check the family house in Chinatown I need to move to a more defensive location. The second is that I just remembered that the League had talked a few times about forming a junior league for training and evaluation purposes for teen heroes.

The second one would be a bit easier to handle for now, as I think it was mentioned it would be opened in August. Plenty of time for teenagers to get in contact and start learning things. Well, that and via the League's Zeta-Tubes could be used to allow easy commute times.

Honestly I'm sure some of the teen-metahumans and their parents will treat it like a summer camp for heroes. The official sidekicks though will probably be put into leadership roles to get them used to team operations. That team training would probably be the last step for some of them before their induction into either the Leagu official or one of its newer branches. I think I remember there being multiple divisions. A JLark for stealth, a JL:Magic for well magic, and then the regular JL for standard ops.

The first main issue though is more pressing, especially so as time continues. I can't live in the Starsmore family home for several reasons alone. I mean I'm a seven foot and five inches tall metal man with a head made of fire. Well, that and I weigh about fourteen hundred pounds so unless the house has been reinforced I don't think I'm going in there for long.

Wait, I just had an idiot's moment. If I am always 1400 pounds, 635 kilo for my metric friends, how did I climb a thin corrugated steel wall. I mean with the claws that I got I should have just been stuck on the ground as I shredded the wall from the pressure of my claws.

That means one of three things. That I have a Structural Reinforcement Field running that reinforces things. Or, there's some sort of tactile telekinesis that let's me manipulate my surroundings without destroying them. Finally, there's the least like option that I simply can shift my mass between two points. Yeah, that last one's the least likely, I think it's a combo of the first two options. As a forge spirit it makes sense that I have some sort of reinforcement field as well as a crafting aid like tactile TK.

Focusing back in on what's more important right now. Making sure I have a house or place of residence in Gotham is what I need to focus on. I think I remember a bit near Robinson Park being cleared out. The Park would make an ideal place to settle since its centrally located in Gotham. Well that and its next to the University District where Gotham University and Gotham Academy are located.

Pulling one of my many maps out of Bagsy, my friendly bag of holding. Said map showed me what the park should look like from the air at least. The funky oval rectangle thing to the west of the reservoir. It was cleared out recently as a part of city zoning. The little square on the line of the reservoir is an inlet from the Finger River. Most of the reservoir is under ground in a deep catchment basin.

Spoiler: map

...

Idly scratching at my chest revealed a simple golden key. A key I'd apparently forgotten about, especially since I'd spent like three weeks using its domicile as a residence. The Tower of Fate which saw me as its current owner, at least temporarily. Seeing as the tower is useless right now, what with Kent and Nabu making up lost time in fixing Kent's fraudulent debts.

That's not the point I should see if Batman, or rather Bruce Wayne, could spot me the money needed to get that cleared land. I can then use the key to plant the Tower from its location outside of standard space-time to that location. I can then set up a floating platform for the reservoir to use should any of Kent's enemies come calling.

Ooh, ooh, idea. Grab a DMV ticket machine with a ticket reader to handle scheduling 'duels' I can even have a calendar board. Said board would then be filled with open time slots and contact info. As well as a disclaimer that attacks on my site of education, i.e. Gotham Academy, will be considered a forfeiture of arcane means. I think I'll need to talk to the Amazons, as well as hit the Tower's library for reference material.

In order to get said reference material I need a legal claim on a land to erect the Tower. The fact that it needs a legal claim is a result of magic and ownership rites. Once, it's up though I can get into those books more easily, as well as set up a proper forge.

...

So I got my priorities in order for now. First hunt down Batman or Bruce, though using one of the Zeta-Tubes for a 'medical-check' could get me into his alerts. Once contacted I just need to express the need for a more secure position, as well as one that could be watched. Upon gaining the land I just need to wait for the proper lunar arrangement. In this case, the new moon, as I literally just missed the full moon.

So I just need to need to wait for July 11th and its new moon to roll around. The last full moon was June 26th, literally two days ago.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Khan_Panther]

30 • Episode 2 (Phoenix Down) part 15

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++( Salem • Tower of Fate
++( 2010 • June 30th
++( 12:40 pm

As I started to arrange the residential floor the tower let me make I had to think things over. Mainly how reasonable Batman was with getting me a Wayne-affiliated moving company to pack my old house up. And once everything was packed up it got expedited from Gotham City over to Salem, Massachusetts.

Once they were here yesterday I just asked them to leave the trucks and come back for them tomorrow. That was mainly done for two reasons. The first so I could work through the night without any questions. Well, more questions than a growing seven foot five metal man with a flaming head would involve. The second reason was they said they were being paid hourly on this job so I figured they could take a break on Bruce Wayne's dime.

The Tower of Fate owing to its odd internal dimensions, as well as the very fact it exists out of sync with the rest of the world could be rearranged. The physical tower was just the outer shell for this magical version of a TARDIS. Heh, I have a knockoff TARDIS that can't travel and needs to be ritualistically summoned in the now.

That's an idea for the future, upgrade the Tower in at the very least a spaceship. If I can add a time travel function to the Tower at either the same time as the other upgrade or as a later one.

There's also the League's Zeta-Tubes which could be added into an attached shed for ease of use, while maintaining security. After all this world is a death world that could end for any number of reasons. No, need to allow a direct gate into the heart of my domain for now.

.. Back to the Tower being a TARDIS. Much like one it stores all of its chambers in a sort of pseudo-space in an archive. That and the Tower's spirit which was still in the form of an elderly Kent Nelson was capable of tracking it all.

The very fact that the spirit hasn't changed to match me shows that Kent is still the recognized master. So, for now I just need to handle not actually owning a place that I could comfortably live in. Well, that and I managed to, with help, sort out a relatively sparse forge. It had the furnace and coal plus the anvil and barrels of water/oil, but the tools I would need to source and provide on my own time.

I think I remember times where people snag large areas of land into pocket dimensions. If I could get one of those going I could grab a mountain or volcano for resource collection. Well that and a source of coal for the forge past what the Tower can provide at the moment.

On an upside Batman has said he would see about acquiring the property I had wanted next to Robinson Park. I don't know if I'll get the permit though in time for the next lunar ritual opening. And, even if I get the property in any realistic timeframe I would still owe him.

There's the fact that I would probably repay that favor in the form of money and services. I will probably end up suppling the League with forged and enchanted gear. The second would be to form a company and then funnel money into paying off the land debt.

Huh, that reminds me I had thought about it the other day. This world has social media, we're talking 2010 social media here. If I can get some magic working to boost some computers I might be able to serve as either a host or run my own website. I have the pressing desire to create MetaHumans (& Aliens) Online. After all, a superhero setting without a dedicated message board and wiki just feels weird after binging on Worm fanfics.

Man, if I had this powerset and found myself in Worm I'd be set and probably a gang leader by now. After all as a Jin I need to subvert the world's plot, well that and introduce the trope 'Reality Ensues' unto the world. If this was Worm Jin... would be the name of a rocking golden boss of a villain. In a cultivation setting I might have gone the route of a Golden Farmer or other peasant Tradesman.

Nah, to be Jin is to be golden and ascend to the limits of the world while not actively contesting the 'will of heaven'. In this case it means operating under the notion that this is a comic/cartoon universe filled with heroes and villains. I'll be playing that way until my hammer is the one to shatter the heavens.

I think that should have been "My drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens".

But, I like mine better. After all I am going into this with powers related to the forge. I think I need to work on a catchphrase. Huh, I wonder if any of the heroes or the villains for that matter have a catchphrase.

I already know that my quip 'fu is going to be weaker than anyone else's when it comes to snappy one liners.

I know I'm rambling but I have a debt that could easily be in the tens of millions in value. After all land in Midtown Gotham City next to the Park should be comparable to prices in New York by Central Park.

Wait Poison Ivy exists in this world and usually turns the park into her playground. Does that impact the property values any?

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[FactorySmith]

This story has potential but theres two big things holding it back.
The first is the constant stream of thought thinking, explaining, and musings throughout the story. They really interupt the flow, with having like five paragraphs of tangential ramblings with two-three sentences of actual action.
The second is the constant amount of telling, not showing. We the audience are flatly told stuff, instead of having the events shown in the narrative. Like the whole multiple Joker things being simply explained to no reaction, and their capture just casually mentioned and not shown.

 

[Khan_Panther]

This story has potential but theres two big things holding it back.

Click to shrink...

Thanks that means a lot. Having any feedback at all is nice.

The first is the constant stream of thought thinking, explaining, and musings throughout the story. They really interupt the flow, with having like five paragraphs of tangential ramblings with two-three sentences of actual action.

Click to shrink...

I think my stream of thought in writing this, comes from two parts. The first is that it's just how I do my writing, when it comes down to it. The second is largely nerves in having written the most words for a story too date.

Usually all of my other writing attempts have failed after like five chapters tops. I should improve now that the story is leaving thecharacter establishing bit and entering Young Justice territory.

The second is the constant amount of telling, not showing. We the audience are flatly told stuff, instead of having the events shown in the narrative. Like the whole multiple Joker things being simply explained to no reaction, and their capture just casually mentioned and not shown.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I can agree with that. I need to inject more showing and less telling into the story. Like I said in thethe section above I think that it's mainly nerves. Most of that's from actually trying to get the rust shaken off and isn't helped by the fact that this is my first major foray in to writing. Every other bit has mostly been just snippets that fizzled out.

And, Chekhov's Joker is in play it might just be a few episodes. Though "Revelation" will be notably different from canon so spoilers there. Though who says all the Jokers got grabbed?

 

[Khan_Panther]

31 • Episode 3 (The meaning of Independence) part 1
Young Justice • Season 1, Episode 1 • Independence Day

<|> ++ <|> ++ <|> ++ <|> ++ <|>

++( Salem • Tower of Fate
++( Thursday, July 1st, 2010
++( 12:40 pm EST

Well, I've been in this new life for a month. Well, technically a bit longer, but I've only been up and about for a month. In that time a lot has happened to me. It's nice to actually just sit down and unwind. Sure there's nothing good on right now, but it was only a Thursday night. I would just need to wait till later in the summer for the League to open their training camp.

I'm able to stop and think about what a mess I've landed myself in.

I started turning into a weird fire/metal elemental, which I only recently finished fully morphing into. The Justice League interrogated me a bit, though I managed to pass most of my responses off as not meta knowledge. Thank Hell that the Joker managed a viral method of spreading his brand of crazy. Well him and the orange alien angel that is Mirand'r.

Definitely have two very different emotional responses to those two. Mirand'r has me very mixed, it's thanks to her I learned more about myself. Though she is also the reason that I am down a mentor, seeing as she's scampered off with the Nabu/Kent Nelson duo. I got to keep the Tower though, for the moment at least.

Doesn't change the fact that Kent has tainted my forge with his order. Well that and the fact that all his old enemies have probably been notified by now about Doctor Fate having an apprentice.

Joker though with his viral reveal, that was confirmed by his video has me as concerned as I am capable of feeling. I didn't read Death Metal where the Batman who Laughs was a Batman who'd been infected by Joker blood. I also didn't play the Arkham Asylum games, though the Joker Infection was explained in it. To quote a friend:

"In the game Arkham Knight, Joker was dying from using a bad batch of some sort of super soldier serum and he needed a cure. As a side effect of his mutated state his blood was a potent form of Joker Toxin. In the game he contaminated Gotham's blood banks too deadly effect. The result: patients needing to be quarantined as the blood behaves likes a prion infection. It attacked the brain and transformed people... well into him basically. Unless we find a way to reverse the process, no-one will be able to stop what he's unleashed."​

So yep I wasn't trusting the Joker to be contained. After all they might have done last man standing in Arkham, but who says there aren't ones still roaming free.

My old response to this would have been to just nuke it from orbit as a joke. No more seriously I'd have treated it as a vampire infestation and go in full lethal with fire teams behind to cleanse everything. The old Jinhui would have just left everything up to the Justice League or the government.

Heh, Cadmus was a thing in this world so it's only a matter of time till they tried to weaponize it or clone it. After all they were the crazy business that ran genetics, and in this world they were a Washington, D.C. based genetics research laboratory. I wouldn't be surprised if they had made DNAliens, after all I remember a scene with Dubbilex, force choking Supergirl.

Spoiler: force choke

source • DC comics wiki • Alex

Ugh, I hate having to use such slow satellite internet when it comes to research. Well, that and you don't appreciate how far social media has come until you get punted 10 years into the past. I mean sure the screen resolution was awesome, thanks to WayneTech and LexCorp products. Well them and others advanced tech companies. No the issue stems from the fact that the internet meme culture is only in its baby steps.

Heh, at least I could find high quality videos on how to start blacksmithing. I mean most of the videos on TheTube are at 1080p resolution if not better, and these are the equivalent of 2010 YouTube cellphone videos. Said videos were very handy in learning the techniques that the library's intro to blacksmithing talk about.

I can already tell I can skip some of the steps when it comes to forging. After all I can have it as hot as I need the metal to be, so far I am immune to heat. Heck if pushed my fiery plasma can even put out enough heat to melt the dang metal into an odd runny putty consistency. Probably magic related since liquid metal should behave like a liquid and not heated silly putty.

Nah, the most important thing I've done since I finished organizing a living section and a forge in the Tower was to find a journal. A journal that I can easily store inside of Bagsy, and will be used to record both my smithing and enchanting forays/products.

Like my hammer of stainless steel which is entry #1 in the journal. Number 2 will have to be this journal and the quill that I still need to fashion. After all this is a project and should thus be recorded. Number Tres would be my currently messily organized theory work and notes on everything.

I have in front of me dozens of quills all in multiple copies in case I screw up on one. Open to my left is a book that talks about turning feathers into bloodsteel and then enchanting them. Usually the feathers would still be attached to the wing of a living creature, or entity.

The book was in a section of the library that was related to necromancy for some odd reason and not the crafting section. I mean sure this spell is typically used to create the metal wings of the Stymphalian birds from myth or something similar to that Angel chap from X-Men. I mean sure this particular version is an incredibly painful process, but bloodsteel while vile to make is a wonderful metal.

I think a lot of chickens will not be merrily clucking along soon. At least I'll be able to cook any chickens left over for meals to take to my new neighbors. I mean if a chicken is okay to use for potentially lethal experimental magic for the Hawaiians it's probably good enough for the moment.

It was one of Kent's notes I found talking about the islands. Apparently, when you ask a Hawaiian 'what animal is okay to use for potentially lethal experimental magic', the answer is chickens. It's enthusiastically chickens. In fact they typically follow that up with, 'can you use more chickens?'

Hawaiians really don't like chickens.

And, I have no clue why they hate the tasty birds so much.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

Spoiler: AN • 31 • Ep.3 (Independence Day) p.1

If some one can name the fanfic reference to Hawaii at the end you get a bonus.

Edit 2021-06/30 11:39 PM EST
Answered by Rglichti on SpaceBattles

 

[Khan_Panther]

32 • Episode 3 (The meaning of Independence) part 2

<|> ++ <|> ++ <|> ++ <|> ++ <|>

Just getting back from the market with some art glass and other supplies told me two things about Salem. The first was that the occult scene here was somewhat active. Well, that or the populace is counting on tourists hoping to see the home of Doctor Fate. The second is that Salem treats the odd much like how Sunnydale does I imagine.

I was able to walk about in the open and just said I was in the area looking for treatment. The natives just gave me a sorta understanding but sad look then just treated me like any other.

The market though did show me that I had easier options when it came to making enchanted bloodsteel writing implements. Instead of using a trial and error approach to making a metallic self-inking feather quill, I could use a glass pen. That's the whole purpose of me grabbing the glass art dowels, or canes as I was told.

A glass craftsman had been present at the market today and had a selection of pens. Handmade glass dip pens with handmade ink pots were proudly displayed. Asking him about them he explained the concept to me. The grooves on the head serve as a reservoir that can be easily cleaned with just a light rinse.

The main downside of using a glass pen though was the constant line width. There's none of that ability to change the darkness or thickness of a line by changing the pressure or angle of the pen. Though you can trace multiple lines and fill in the gaps for some pretty calligraphy.

...

That wasn't the point though he also showed me how one turns a cane of art glass into a pen. A relatively simple method of crafting that I was confident would go well in preparing enchantable items. I just need to figure out how to infuse the glass with lifeforce to form a magical pen.

Making one of the glass pens was a relatively simple process at that. Take a fresh glass cane of a thickness suitable for use as a pen and then apply heat. Take the edges off of an end of the rod, said cane end will need to be blunted for the handle.

The two pieces of cane with then be fused together via heat. Once fused the nib glass is heated further down and is pulled apart from either side to form the nib taper. Pull too much and the nib will be very long and tapered, plus prone to breaking. To avoid that we add a slight twist to make a better taper, that still has a risk though. Twist too much and the nib will be very short and stubby, almost too much so to be of any use.

The nib's actual tip is formed by snapping off the ribbed cane at the desired location. If you try to create the finished nib tip in the flame, it will not flow the ink properly since the ribs will have melted off. The smaller the point of the snap, the finer the line the pen will write.

The whole thing seems easy enough and I can just use one cane of glass for a pen. After all my claws should be able to make the ribbing on the nib just fine.

...

So that's what I did after I got back to the tower. All of those feathers, some of them rare got but back into storage. I also remembered to feed the chickens.

I mean I might be using them as sacrificial ritual fuel to enchant something. There's no reason to be cruel about it, though.

Just need, according to the calculations I did, five chickens per finished pen. There needed to be four standing on colored discs that were precisely aligned with the cardinal directions. The fifth one would be standing atop a final disc as well as have the glass pen with it.

Apparently the modified ritual I found uses the Four Symbols common to Eastern Asian Cultures. Not something I knew too much about. Sure I might have been born and raised in the Metropolis Chinatown before moving to Gotham's, but I was raised American. My father's fault as he was home more out of the two. Well, that and mother, Chang Ming-Zu or Ming-Zu Chang in American naming, did not like to talk about her home country. Hence I.. I mean Jinhui was raised as a typical American boy.

Bah, I'm wandering off in thought. Though I will need to watch out now that Jinhui's memories are starting to surface in this new life.

The ritual used the five mythological creatures that formed the Four Symbols. Green Wood to the east with an Azure Dragon disc. Red Fire to the south with a Vermillion Bird. White Metal to the west with the White Tiger. Then we have the Black Water of the north as symbolized by the Black Tortoise.

To close the ritual there was the central disc on a raised altar off the ground. Upon it laid a disc emblazed with the depiction of the Yellow Dragon, they of the Yellow Earth. That disc in the middle also had the pen being enchanted laid upon it.

Enchanting the pen required using a ritual weapon, in this case my hammer in proper sequence. Start at the Green Wood, work my way around clockwise and finish with the central Yellow Earth sacrifice.

Overall the feel is like something out of a Xianxia novel. I am literally using blood to form an artifact, while using symbols straight from Oriental myths and legends. I'm just happy that all I needed to paint was a plain circle outside of the outer four discs and one right inside of them. Then just draw another set of plain circle around each disc and offering in the required order.

This was literally one of the simplest methods I could find in the massive library. When questioned about why Kent never used this method, the spirit only said his blood wasn't proper. So I'm guessing if this works it'll only be thanks to me being both magical and a child of Eastern Asia where they held power.

Thankfully the ritual is cost free to the user and is a simple matter overall. The sacrifices take the 'cost' or 'debt' incurred in this method. Then the actual enchanting is a matter of properly focusing one's will and desires upon the item. If the payment is enough then you get a success. If it's a failure you just lose the sacrifices and the item you wanted to be enchanted.

Now, I just need no one to come in and interrupt me.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[CatsMewow]

Now, I just need no one to come in and interrupt me.

Click to shrink...

Jinx! Now he's doomed himself.

 

[Khan_Panther]

33 • Episode 3 (The meaning of Independence) part 3

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++( Salem • Tower of Fate
++( Thursday, July 1st, 2010
++( 11:30ish in the night EST

From the Journals of Jinhui the Forge Spirit
• Name pending changes •

Right well this was a messy experience though I'm finally getting the hang of this magic thing. Well, so long as it involves splattering chickens while attempting a ritual. I only used like a dozen before I learned that the ritual discs needed to be cleaned after each use. That and clean up the ritual circle.

Cleaning the circles on the floor and the residue on myself was easy enough between the different attempts. All I had to do was torch myself and the floor to render everything into ash and soot that would then be sucked into my gut. After all if some one entered before I had finished torching the room and downing the ash there'd be questions.

I think I just jinxed myself, but I'm going to ignore that for the moment. Especially so as only me and Kent/Nabu have the keys to the Tower.

To clean the discs you just needed to clean them with the element that promoted it. That cycle specifically means the following interaction to the elements. "Wood feeds Fire, Fire produces Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal collects Water, and Water nourishes Wood". So in that case I just apply fire to the earth disc in a controlled manner. The trick is that each disc calls for the element to nourish it, be applied via the previous element. Which means a wood fueled fire is fed to the Yellow Dragon on the Yellow Earth disc.

Yeah the dual element bit was something I learned after my second go at cleaning them, along with the feed the beast part. Heh, those instructions weren't with the ritual but in a different book. A book I only learned about upon asking the Tower's Spirit why it wasn't working. It was about the Chinese Philosophy of Wuxing, what made me thankful was that iron could be used for the metal bits. After all the element called Metal in some of the Wuxing elemental texts was gold. Gold, the expensive metal that I don't have access to at this time.

It took me until well into the evening before two things happened. The first was that I learned the proper beast feeding/cleaning cycle for this ritual was Yellow Dragon ▸ Black Tortoise ▸ White Tiger ▸ Vermillion Bird ▸ finally the Azure Dragon.

I already knew that my circles needed to be redone each time after it totally failed to manifest anything. Said circles were made from a mix of ash and powdered rust, with added wax to make it stick together. Wax is a good way to refer my plasma when it's at the coldest I can make it. According to one of those meat thermometers I found in the kitchen, the plasma wax had a resting temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

It kept that temperature even in the rapid cooling deep freezer, well it did for like five minutes. Five minutes is also how long it took to lose the constant heat when I just set it out in the open air. So, magic from me had to be infused into it for it to last that long, be strong. After it reached the arbitrary time limit of five minutes passed it'd rapidly cool and become brittle. Brittle to the point a chicken could break what ever the plasma wax had been used to form.

I don't think I can use this to restrain people. Well not without potentially giving them third degree burns if I try and cuff them with it. From both my own and Jinhui's memories as a Boy Scout that was just too hot for pretty much all of the human population. Most adults would suffer third-degree burns if exposed to 150 degree water for two seconds. Burns would also occur with a six-second exposure to 140 degree water or with a thirty second exposure to 130 degree water. Even if the temperature they were exposed to was a weak 120 degrees, a five minute exposure could result in third-degree burns. All of those values were Fahrenheit as it was the Boy Scouts of America.

...

Wax wasn't what I wanted to cover though in this discourse. I managed to after, let's count, 23 attempts and 72 chickens I had my first successful enchantment. A glass dip pen that could write on its own whatever it heard, though it needed a pot of ink within a foot of itself to be active.

6 goes later gave me an animated pen that had an extra. Said extra was a tiny bead that when dropped into an ink pot transferred to the connected pen. So that would make this experiment #36 a success for my purposes.

Another three pens were successfully enchanted making my success rate one out of 4 or 5 attempts. So I think I'm done with this Four Corners arrangement with the glass pens. I just need to get everything cleaned up and finish figuring out what I'm doing for enchanted books.

I think my desired enchantments are endless pages, a self sorting system, and an auto page turning function to a desired page. Well those three and a few more were what I wanted for these books.

Take the pens and enchant them. Have a bottomless ink well connected to the pens. Link the pens to specific books. Oh, and somehow enable everything to be upgraded in the future.

My successes will be recorded as artifacts in Artifact #2 my Record of Artifacts. In said record there'll be two systems running in parallel. The first counting system will be for artifacts of my own creation. The second which'll start immediately after my list will be for all of the ones I encountered with notations of if it's been secured and contained by my hand.

Current listing of all of my current artifacts.

Spoiler: Artifacts

1	The Forge Hammer
2	Pen and Book • Register of Artifacts
	• A running tally of my self made artifacts. • A running tally of all encountered artifacts
3	Pen and Book • Register of SRE (Spells, Rituals, & Enchantments)
	• Both self made and learned SRE in the order of learning / self creation
4	Pen and Book • Register of Experiments
	• A mad scientist's experiment log with notes both serious and whimsical.
5	Pen and Book • The Daily Log
	• An Auto-Updating diary journal with expandable space for personal thoughts

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Khan_Panther]

34 • Episode 3 (The meaning of Independence) part 4

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++( Salem • Tower of Fate
++( Friday, July 2nd, 2010
++( 7:45 AM EST

Right well considering I had bought over a hundred chickens, I needed to consider what I was going to do with the survivors. Said living chickens that'd been classes as meat and egg hens, numbered 35. A slightly annoying number, one to many for the magical 34, and one too small for an even three dozen.

Except for the easily handled blood splatters and giblets there was no evidence of the sacrificed birds. Their bodies and essence were devoured by the sacrificial ritual. Probably unbalancing the discs as I had used too many before finding a proper swing. I had to treat my long handled forge hammer as a golf club. A golf club that was hitting a water balloon filled with red stuff.

Heh, thank god for my new anatomy, even if it was concerning on a mental level, that I had zero visceral reaction. I think the metal and fire of my form is forcing me to disconnect with my former humanity.

That's my personal hope, and it's not that I need therapy.

.. Yeah, I probably need therapy. Especially since I can't remember clearly what was so traumatic from my old life.

*krrk*, *creak*, *krrk*

Note to self, whipping my head back n' forth in rapid succession makes worrying noises. Trying to straighten my neck out like I would when I was human showed my metal flesh was semi-malleable. I could reshape the living metal that holds me together.

.. Definitely something to explore later, but not right now. Especially as I still need to make my bottomless ink well. That would reduce my irritating count of 35 chickens to a more reasonable level of chickens. Especially since the only experience I have with them is from when I would housesit for my Aunt. She had a few pygmy goats, a dozen or so chickens, and a dog. Well she had those critters, and like three barn cats plus another five cats indoors.

So, I knew enough to clean and erect a coop. Well that and I can feed and water the silly birds. Sure they have a reputation for being profoundly dumb, but while that may be an earned reputation they can be remarkably intelligent. Some of her chickens could count, and some showed a remarkable level of self-awareness, and even manipulate one another by Machiavellian means.

Despite that knowledge about chickens I still enjoyed eating them, and their eggs. Tasty eggs when scrambled with a pinch of salt and a dash of black pepper. Oh, add some bacon, sausage, and toast and that was a mighty fine breakfast.

Sadly I can't actually taste anything at the moment besides ash, metal and blood.

Doesn't mean I can't use the birds and eggs for cooking. The Tower of Fate has a pretty good kitchen even if it's a decade or two out of date. Still, has pretty much any and all the kitchen gadgets I could ever desire.

Looking around said kitchen I noticed a butchers block and necessary equipment to render a bird. I could easily cull and clean one of the birds using a combo of my powers, claws, and hammer.

Grabbing one of the birds by its feet I sat it in a stasis circle, a simple ring of ash, salt and 'plasma wax'. Such a simple and plain magical circle would strain under even a basic assault though is perfect for holding poultry and livestock still for a minute or so.

Quickly dispatching a couple of the flock I held them upside down for them to drain. After they stopped draining I plunged them into some hot water to slightly melt the fat to make defeathering easier. While they're soaking I just need to set up a bin to dump the feathers into.

To defeather a chicken you need to start right away. I recommend tucking the legs under its breast and begin pulling feathers. You want to pluck the wings and tail first as those feathers can cause tearing if one let's it cool. After that's done you want to remove the feet, well you could also do that before the plucking.

After removing the feet and all of the feathers, make sure you do a second pass to remove any missed feathers from the first go around. Now, you just need to starting at the neck, find two tubes that are twisted/bound together. Those tubes will be the crop and the esophagus. You'll need to separate them and pull them down and out the neck one at a time. Pull down as far as you can and cut them off.

Now at the tail you'll need to start cutting to remove the innards. The first cut needs to be right below the chickens vent. From the tip of the rib cage, in a triangular shape, cut down to where you made your first incision. Make sure to cut through the fat until you start to see the inside of the cavity. Grab the opening and in a slanted cut on the other side finish the triangle, to cut it off.

In the open cavity you'll need to stick your hand into the open cavity, and starting from the back, scoop everything out. Make sure to scrape the lungs out that are embedded into the back. This particular step required me to practice shifting my metal-flesh to form a smaller hand to fit into the opening. After all A hand sized for my 7 foot 8 frame is too big to fit into this opening without ruining the bird.

Too mess with my hand I had to focus on a conceptual heat, not a physical one, in order to soften the metal. Once it was softened I could then use my other hand to shape it almost like it was made of clay.

Back to the chicken rendering. That fat that was removed goes into some pans to be rendered down for later. Most of the organs go into the trash, or if you're magical you can use them as feed for familiars or lesser demons. If you're going to save any of the organs you'll want to carefully remove the bile sacs and fat from the organs. You'll want to do this without puncturing any of the organs you want to keep. Puncturing them will make them spoil quicker than they should as well as introduce bile/bacteria.

Once the cavity has been emptied you want to rinse it. A water hose or a sink would be fine, but for me I'm going to use some from the kitchen sink and then after it's been rinsed let it sit in a brine mix. Oh yeah you probably wanted to remove the tail and vent before rinsing the cavity out.

Setting the birds in the brine is a personal touch my dad, mine not Jinhui's, showed me. He was a home dad, and mom was the bread winner in the family. Dad loved the domestic stuff, and would teach classes at the college in the summer. My old mom, though loved teaching, and taught school during the day, college in the summer, as well as doing odd teaching jobs in the evening.

My new parent's though were different and a barrel that I don't want to unpack. Especially as I just know it'll bite me in the ass at a later date.

Thankfully my League communicator let me know I would be having a guest or two over for lunch.

Yes, Cluck I and Clucky II your bodies shall be used to nourish my guests. I'm sure I'll have enough time to clean up all the viscera from dispatching them, plus the giblets that were removed.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

Spoiler: AN • ep. 3 p. 4

Food is a passion of mine, and I'll write extensive steps or recipes if I want to about it. Food was my life growing up, and still is even if I need to watch my weight and liver.

I grew up watching shows like Hell's Kitchen, Food Network, Alton Brown, and multiple other ones. I even do most of the cooking for my family.

Total Househusband, I know how to handle most everything in the house. That includes the laundry, plumbing, mowing, and lawn care.

 

[Khan_Panther]

35 • Episode 3 (The meaning of Independence) part 5

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I started brining the birds at about 8 and looking at the clock, they've been bathing for an hour at this point. Now, lunch for me was at 1 as that's when my lunch break was scheduled at my accounting job. Jinhui's was typically noon since he was a high schooler and that was his schedule for three years.

So, unless they're freakishly early for a lunch meeting I had three hours to finish these birds. If each bird was about, huh. I can't actually judge their weights through the combo of enhanced strength and metal skin. Fixing my hand I'd warped earlier to clean out these birds I found a meat scale to weigh them on. Huh, so that's why I had trouble finding pots and had to use a cauldron for scalding them. One of the birds weighed 8 pounds the other 9 after they'd been cleaned out.

Looking around for any form of records showed that the Tower's storage system was capable of miracles. In this case it was its ability to lock whole sections up in temporal storage. Apparently that's how those chickens I'd found were stashed until I needed some for rituals.

I need to find out hoe to get more of these giant birds incase I end up losing all of my current flock.

.. Focusing back on the clock I noticed I was down to only two hours till noon. That means I needed to get to work on rendering the two oversized chickens for meal time.

The very first thing that I like to do when breaking down a chicken, from when my dad taught me was the wing tips. The tips can be used to make chicken stock or tossed. Or, like the offal from earlier it can be fed to some breeds of familiars or lesser demons/spirits. Wing tips are the bit of the wing that goes from the very tip to the first wing joint. To remove them you want to use a small knife and trace around the joint and then pop it to remove it.

After that is the wishbone, a bit that's located ate the neck opening of poultry birds. Using the tip of your knife, make a cut along each arm of the wishbone to detach it from the breast meat. Work your fingers behind the wishbone, separating it from any flesh that's still attached. Slide your fingers up toward the apex of the wishbone until you can hook your finger behind the part where the two arms join. Pull it out, and free the wishbone fully from the flesh; set it aside for stock.

Now that the tips and wishbone have been removed the next thing I was taught to focus on was the back.

There's two ways to remove the back. The first method was using a pair of sturdy shears and snipping along both sides of the backbone. The second involves lots of knifework. Using a knife cut down both sides of the backbone through the skin and cartilage between the breast and the back. At that point use a heavier knife with short, firm strokes to bust through the ribs. Like the tips save the backbone for either stock or offal feed.

Now that the backbones gone, flip it over so the skin side is up. Press down firmly on the chicken's breastbone until you hear a crack and the chicken lies flat, not smashed flat. Now you just want to use a good blade and press down firmly on the back of the blade until it cracks through the bone.

After that's done its only a matter of removing the legs. To do that grab the drumstick and lightly pull it away from the body until the skin is stretched. Make a shallow cut in the skin, just the skin. After making an incision all the way around the joint, grab the leg and twist it downward, away from the body, until the ball joint pops out of the socket. Be very careful when performing this as it really shouldn't require much force. After popping the joint use your knife to completely remove the joint.

Now at this point you're mostly done and have four pieces. But with a little more time you can turn that quartered bird into the eight more manageable pieces. Said pieces are as follows: two bone-in breasts, two wings, two bone-in thighs, and two drumsticks.

Spoiler: Chicken cuts ** Mildly Graphic

Not my chicken


Not my chicken

[/SPOILER]
[/SPOILER]

Now you can either separate the wings from the breasts, or separate the drumsticks from the thighs. The way I was trained by my dad was to handle the wings first.

To separate the wings from the breasts, place the breast skin side up on your cutting board. Working with one half-breast at a time, hold the wing with your off hand and wiggle it to locate the shoulder joint. Holding the wing outstretched you want to cut through the joint, separating the wing from the breast. Repeat with the other breast and wing combo.

Now the last thing to do is separate the drumsticks from the thighs. Working one leg at a time, use a fingertip to locate the ball joint between the thigh and drumstick. If you place the legs skin side down on your board, you can also locate the joint by the line of white fat that runs along it. Flex the joint a few times, if stiff scald it in how water for a few seconds. Then cut through the joint, separating the thigh from the drumstick. After that leg is done you'll want to repeat this with the other leg.

...

Cleaning up the offal into mason jars for later use there was a knocking sound coming from one of the lower level. I could hear the sound of the spirit conversing with someone, not sure who.

Who schedules lunch for 11 in the morning?

Spoiler: AN • ep. 3 p. 5

Edit 2021 07/05 - 8:41 pm EST
• Removed nested spoilers
• Images are still working even on a logged out device that is using Incognito

 

[Tazered]

@Khan_Panther gotta be honest the nested spoilers are annoying especially when the pictures in the end don't work.

 

[Khan_Panther]

@Khan_Panther gotta be honest the nested spoilers are annoying especially when the pictures in the end don't work.

Click to shrink...

I think I fixed the issue, well with the nested spoilers.

As far as I can tell all of the images are still working. I even tested them on a logged out mobile device that is using Incognito to confirm.

 

[Khan_Panther]

36 • Episode 3 (The meaning of Independence) part 6

<|> ++ <|> ++ <|> ++ <|> ++ <|>

Wiping my hands on a nearby towel I walked over to the stairwell to holler.

"Spirit Interface who was that at the door?" All the while I was walking down one of those ridiculously long stairwells the Tower was fond of using. I mean why else would you need to ascend or descend fifty feet of stairs when the floors were on average only ten feet tall. That's a solid thirty to forty feet of walking through rocks, bricks, wood and other materials.

Just walking up and down the same stair a dozen times will show you at least a dozen different patterns to the walls. Thankfully the rooms are much more stable when it comes to their looks. I think it has something to do with the rooms being stable pocket spaces while the stairs and halls I've made haven't been locked into physical space yet.

That's a spell, or ritual I don't have at this time. Wait, I've been here a couple days on my own. Well, that and I'd been sheltered here for a few weeks by Kent.

Is.. Is the Tower VI Spirit sapient enough to be mad at me?

I mean except for setting up my current, rather spartan living quarters. Well spartan besides the basic forge I had organized, and my kitchen.

God, I love my new kitchen, I'd been able to organize it how I wanted to. Sure the appliances might be a little dated by a few decades, but they were all top of the line. That was ignoring the magical extras that a lot of the things had. The knife block was an easy one as it had sharpening and repair enchants on it to tend to the knives. The sink used a basic bit of water magic to create an unlimited source of water from the sinks.

The icebox and storage bins had time magic woven into them. Put something hot into the icebox and within fifteen minutes it'd be a servable temperature. The storage system used the Tower's greater magics to give ingredients and prepared food a shelf life that would last as long as the Tower stood. Well, as long as it had enough magic to sustain itself.

.. Does the Tower tap into the ley lines under Salem to sustain itself? Or, does it use an outside source like a slumbering god or outer realm?

All those and more went through my head as I made my way down a single set of stairs. A set that to move one single floor had taken me eighty feet of stairs to walk down.

Yep, I think that the Tower was having a go at me. Especially so when I get that confirmed after I finish descending the unusually long stairs.

Standing in the door was an old man. I could tell by the energy in the air that he was magical, though a big clue was Billy Batson in his Captain Marvel appearance standing behind the old man looking nervously at me. They were standing in the foyer of the Tower with the Spirit looking mighty miffed about them being there.

Looking at the old man, I was thankful he was in respectable grey robes, and nothing garish. He was more a Gandalf instead of an eccentrically dressed Dumbledore. It also told me that the wizard was the scholar I had grown up reading about and not the Aboriginal god that had appeared in the new era of comics.

Though for all I know, just like Billy having two faces so could the wizard. He'd just be wearing a face that's designed to make those around him calm.

Him, the old wizard being here has me on edge, Especially so, while the official master of the Tower of Fate is out of town, so to speak.

He was a nosy one, who'd grabbed a young boy and was coaching him. Sure, he was a force for good, but still it's poor optics. Well, that and there's the whole mess about how he severely screwed up when handling Teth-Adam. I mean sure it was a different time, being like 3000 years ago.

But, still when he saw his former champion overthrow his country, he lost it. I mean sure he thought Adam had been corrupted, but he didn't do the due diligence of investigating. Especially as, if half read comic memories were right, he thought his evil daughter Blaze was the cause.

What does this brilliant man do? Investigate, counsel his former protégé, or try and talk him down?

Nope, he makes a snap decision and unleashes powerful magics to render him powerless for a time. After rendering him powerless

Adam's soul and powers were trapped within a powerful scarab, a scarab that was probably the source of the current Black Adam's powers. Being stripped of his powers and soul but still conscious rendered his magically supported body which was several hundred years old, into a withered corpse.

The wizard then buried both the body and the scarab in the tomb of Ramses II, where he had most likely planned for it to remain for all eternity. Well, it stayed there until the Batsons and whomever was with them, and sacrificed them stole Teth-Adam's powers. In death, the former hero was referred to as "Khem-Adam" or "Black Adam". Disillusioned by what he perceived as Adam's betrayal, Shazam went several millennia before appointing a second champion to fight evil in his name.

So to have this old man with such wonderful history staring at me in the foyer of my current sanctum worried me.

.. Still I can be polite.

praise the heavens( praise the heavens)

 

[Aconitum]

I hope he tells him that to his face^^

 

[Khan_Panther]

Right, Apologies for the delay.

I got super sick all of a sudden, and am no where near fully recovered. Health levels are probably ~40-50% compared to the 20-30% they were a couple days ago.

Chapters will resume this evening as I continue to recover. Might be slow as the screen is still a bit blurry.