...except for the randomized stress inducers QA throws at Taylor herself.
Wiki Warrior
- Thread starter LMeire
- Start date
I not made the connection between certain difficulties Taylor faced while underground and the AoI's actions. Thank you pointing that out.
I thought it would be a while longer before AoI showed up.
Hopefully Queenie cut down on bombarding her host with stimuli that causes Best Host to reach for her Shard with greater frequency. This considering that Queenie is about go up against a whole Entity as a lone Shard.
Chapter 360: Oculist Interlude
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
I jumped up mild shock at the sound of my alarm piercing through my dream. I bleakly laid there on the couch trying to remember what I was dreaming about for my journal but alas, I couldn't remember much more than a glass sphere. Wonderful clue, my liege. If not for the chance at lucid dreaming I would have stopped bothering with this esoteric shit weeks ago.
Anyway, I'm up now, so it's back to work I go. Freetime is for people who don't practice magic seriously. A lot like a career in music in that way, and according to the boss, that's no coincidence. I wasn't sure what to make of Bookworms' claims about reality, but he'd never lead me wrong when the topic came to the art and science of magic. The boss always says magic is all about hard work and good timing, it sat right with me and my Tinker-esque practice, so I didn't question it.
So I diligently tapped a half-dozen charges to check in on my surveillance and interference sphere networks scattered around the Bay while I chewed on my breakfast granola bar. It was a sophisticated array of various crystal and glass ornaments that I'd arranged to do everything from look in on current events to remote casting magic from the comfort of my RV clear across the city. In just two hours' worth of meditation I could know anything I wanted and cast almost any spell anywhere I wanted. Assuming that I wanted something in the confines of the city, anyway.
All normal topside, but the hidden underbelly of the port town was weirder than ever. I don't know how the Cabal leadership did it, but our gang's lair spiderwebbed across an impossible sprawl right beneath the city's collective nose. Bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, and patrolled by dozens of those weird skeletons that the boss brings in to Master with his own magic power.
"Miss Zhaang," The boss addressed me, as his long yellow finger tapped on the 'face' of my remote ritual drone. "If I can have a moment of your time?" I've always hated how he seemed to see me on the other end of my drone the same way I could see him. Nothing to do with Bookworm personally, I just hate being seen and the one thing I loved about my power was that most people had no way of doing that when I was hidden in my civilian address. Not the boss though. He always saw me, and I've hated it since day one of my remote ritual drone's activation.
"Yeah boss?" my drone crackled out the words that I had whispered into the harmonic opals that composed my mic.
"I need you to focus your scrying on our northernmost facilities. I feel that something strange is occurring and we must be certain that it will not interfere with our work in the near future before our rituals can proceed." I could immediately tell what the boss was talking about, the spheres under the trainyard were fifteen times further away from each other than they'd been the last three days of expansion. The fuck was that about? "Report to Faust when you've determined the scope of the anomaly."
"On it, boss." Like wet on water. I might not like how he could see me, but I wasn't about to jeopardize my education with substandard work when I was specifically called on. With that in mind, I slotted another eight charges to spin up my Hunter-Tracker field and deploy it over the city. Once the field's borders had expanded sufficiently, I ordered it to sink into the earth and give me the eyes I needed to see any fucky stuff going on.
My HT field was a great piece of work, it was also fragile and difficult to recreate once broken, but it was great. An invisible spherical zone of I-see-you-ness that could permeate any material that wasn't too exotic or shielded against magic. And unlike the vast majority of my surveillance drones, its physical mass was located entirely in my trailer home. The only bad thing about it was how big and fragile the interfacing orb was, being a two-foot diameter of hollow blue-stained glass. If anybody were to happen upon my place they'd instantly have proof that I was caping from the privacy of my home- something that I'd gathered was apparently a big no-no in cape culture in the time since I built the thing. Oopsy-fucking-doo, it wasn't like I could easily move my workspace elsewhere with all my better tools being too big and fragile to get out the door easily. I was stuck caping in my comfortable den away from all the prying eyes of outside.
Once the field had moved underground it took a while for the sphere to process that the visible area was ten-to-fifteen times larger than the detected area on the surface. Which was why I had it expand up here instead of sinking the scrying field immediately. Once it had contained the entire anomalously large zone, I fed it more instructions to zoom in on anything power-related in the detected area. Most of the search was to be expected, skeleton patrols, the swamp house that we commandeered a few weeks ago, the Yggdrasil network, Molemaster's illegal shroom gardens. Nothing, really.
I was about to call boss number two, also known as Faust, when my field saw it. Haphazard had somehow gotten in our super-secret magic clubhouse and was popping away on the edge of an underground cliffside. An underground cliffside that in retrospect was probably popped into existence by the Ward hero in the first place.
What the fuck was she doing here? It's too early in the morning for a Wards patrol, and the location was too far out from the new heart of the city. Plus the reception can't possibly be good enough for her radio to reach her back up or whatever they do.
Still, there she was, source of like half of Brockton's crazy shit these days. Making more crazy shit by throwing all kinds of exotic energy into the quantum foam that dazzled even sensors as penetrating as my HT field. Mission accomplished, now I knew why the trainyards part of the complex was so big. Though knowing boss number two, just knowing the why wasn't enough detail, I'd have to get a report on every little change that Haphazard was adding to our villainous formula. So I was stuck watching her until she left
Well it wasn't like I had plans beyond checking on all of my surveillance spheres anyway.
First note about this little homework assignment, Haphazard's power was as frenetic as ever. It's energy level jittered and juggled itself all over the place like a ratking on crack cocaine. And that was just her power on standby. Every time she popped something out of the multiverse, the radio static mess that she called a power would twist on itself like a Mandelbrot and pop out another flavor of energy along with the 'summoning'.
Second note, she also had fire magic now. Unlike regular powers, my HT field could actually make sense of magical energy beyond the look of it. I could actually identify magic powers, whereas with regular powers I could only observe the lightshow their activation scattered into what boss number one calls the Aurbis. And fire magic, that's- Well it's not really the best idea to have a big open flame when you're in a cave but as long as she kept control of it- Oh.
Third note, there was a big-ass forest burning down in one of the connecting rooms. It wasn't really important since the blaze was so far away from our consecrated ritual spaces, but still, Haphazard was apparently as irresponsible as her callsign implied to just ignore the massive fire she started and go right back to practicing in a different room.
Note four, her summoning was relatively average. I don't spy on her routine all that often, but what I was seeing seemed average for what I have seen. Some junk, some people, a whole lot of weird shit that twisted her power up; just average, for her.
The interesting part was when her power made half the cavern bloom into a fucking jungle and threw her off the cliff. I was a novice in power 'science', having just read enough to get an understanding of what my crystal balls could show me. But even I knew that powers generally don't hurt the capes who use them.
Note six, Haphazard apparently lets off pops uncontrollably when she's injured. That was a terrible trait for somebody who gets thrown into combat with villains and has the ability to make shit like that giant ice cube from a few months ago. For my report, I made a list of the more interesting effects beyond making her energy waves do the Tango.
Within the first three pops, she had summoned two different- flocks I suppose- of corgi-size moths. Then she froze the water below and conjured a fishing rod- conjured, not 'summoned', it arrived in freefall through magic means. I made a note to try and recover it for research purposes later today.
Then around four pops afterwards my HT field started picking up on what I can only describe as an orchestral choir playing Joy to the World in magical energy that awarded her charges. It wasn't actually audible noise, the song was how my interface communicated the energy to me here in my trailer. It doesn't even have that function. I needed ears on this too.
With that in mind, I plugged another three charges into one of my nearby spy drones to get it up and moving on the hero's position. The trip would take about an hour but the time was well spent as long as I got more juicy details for my report. Maybe boss number one would teach me more magic, that was always my hope if I did good.
In the meantime, the magical jungle that Haphazard had summoned continued to obliterate seemingly random sections of that particular area of the cave. Buildings had been popped into the mess just to be immediately ripped apart by masses of mossy vines. And the top half of my Hunter-Tracker field saw the same thing happening topside, with a region roughly the size of a city block being terraformed into a forested crater.
Note number I neither remember nor care, Haphazard has ice magic too. That wasn't too odd, as fire and ice were both part of Destruction school. What was odd was how powerful the spell she used was. As far as I knew, the Protectorate were still burying their heads in the sand when it came to magic existing. Which implied that either Haphazard was getting taught by somebody outside of the Protectorate or that Haphazard could cheat the whole teacher-student thing and learn things with her power like some of the other Cabal members could.
Note I don't know, seven, I guess. Haphazard had boat magic, which wasn't a thing that I knew existed but I couldn't deny that it suited her given what I'd heard about the heroine's past exploits. Clockwork boat magic. Huh. Is this what Faust meant when he talked about suspending my disbelief to achieve great unknowable powers? Powers that I literally couldn't have known about before seeing them?
Note number eight, In as little as a few minutes of observation I caught a glimpse of Haphazard's 'teacher', she really did have a cheaty way to learn magic with her powers, her first use of the spell gave her Stoneskin! I was going to have to save up some money to see if she'd teach it to me. Or maybe I'd get lucky and one of the gang's leaders would know it already.
And then there was a tornado, which, given the aquatic nature of the place, didn't do the best for my visibility. Still, I had magic detection and sound was on the way so my reconnaissance continued.
That's when the dungeon itself took action, a semi-rare occurrence to witness. In just two fluid movements of energy, it grabbed a pinch of powerstuff from somewhere out of my HT's range and 'smeared it across the wall of the cavern. In previous construction events, the dungeon doing this had once resulted in libraries full of the spellbook for Magelight. This consequentially meant that every member of the Cabal knew how to cast Magelight and that we could sell the books on the blackmarket whenever funds got tight. As to what this current construction event had done, I had no idea. The effect itself wasn't magical.
Number ten, Haphazard can carve runes into the air. It didn't make any sense but fuck it, that's what she did, so that's what's going into the report. Additionally, the water in the vicinity of the rune was being banished, which lead to greatly increased visibility around the rune as the vapor there was gone. This meant that I was able to see the rune banishing a bunch of McGoblins from the effected area too, confirmation of both the rune's function as well as what the dungeoncore had done.
Note number doesn't matter, this kid doesn't play by the rules in anything she does. Good thing I didn't have to fight her. I just hoped that she kept my drones out of it when she got to poking our wasp's nest of a lair.
After that the running battle slowed down to a walking battle as she had to protect a monster cape that she'd tied to her back. Why not just send him to safety? She knows banishing spells, it should be easy. In any case, she'd spent the next hour walking her worm guy back to where she'd been exploded and so I spent the next hour watching her do that. I figured neither one of my bosses would be thrilled to hear that I'd left a hero exploring our base without any eyes or ears on her for the duration of her stay.
By the time something interesting had happened, the tornado had died down and I could make out all of the action again. Which meant that by the time my ears had arrived, I could make out the conversation between Haphazard and Surtr. "But you're a god." What. I think my regular ears stopped working when I heard that, so I didn't catch the rest of the conversation's start. But I heard enough to get the gist of it.
Haphazard's magic came from Surtr. Not a mysterious pattern of dreams, not a drug trip, not weeks of meditation, Surtr was her god. Surtr was just there, she could hold a conversation with him. He could presumably be bribed without all the ceremony of ritual offerings that a regular mage had to do to commune with the sources of magic. No fair, my god only gave me a discount on casting scrying spells.
"Anything else you'd like to talk about? Magic secrets, perhaps?" Oh yes please. There's no way he doesn't know that I'm listening in, right? Surely that was an invitation to expand my grimoire as well. Unless he wasn't worried about my spying because teacher-student rules applied even to gods. Oh well. In that case, I could still glean talking points to bring up with Bookworm when we had our next teaching session.
"Magic secrets? Definitely!"
"Alright. Well fair warning, magic secrets tend to come in two flavors: 'I could have thought of that' and 'not meant for mortal comprehension'."
"Isn't that a little melodramatic?"
"Aye, but you've met the likes of Hank already." Haphazard visibly shivered at the thought of whoever this Hank guy was. "Sometimes the melodramatic is well deserved."
"Just- just give me a secret."
"Alright. Listen up. "Where the mind goes, the energy goes." … I don't get it.
"I don't get it."
"It means that what your spells do depends almost entirely on what you want from them. A basic cutting charm can tear a mountain asunder if that's what you tell the charges to do. But if you try casting that same spell while thinking about your hair, then guess what's going to get cut?" That's supposed to be a secret? Bookworm taught me that day one! I mean, not the mountain thing, that was bad-ass. But the whole 'magic isn't a toy and having to be careful with what you think about while using it' thing, lesson number two.
"Really? Regular powers aren't like that at all. Usually it's something really niche or hard to describe. Like Manton limits."
"Magic is the regular power. Anyone can use it, rather than just what you call parahumans."
"Is that another magic secret?"
Surtr shrugged and made a so so gesture with one hand while squishing a goblin's head into paste with the other. "It can be."
"Whatever. Give me another? Please?"
"How about you tell me one?"
"What?"
"Not too long ago I taught you {Burning Hands}," Suspicion confirmed. "And you've used it to decent effect since then. So, tell me something you know about fire, and I'll build off of that enlightenment for you."
"Uhh. {Fire is Hot}?" Why did that sound like a spell? "Wait, what the fu-frick?! How'd you do that? I didn't even-"
"Magic." Surtr pronounced looking incredibly pleased with himself. "Also you've been Enlightened for a few months now and I was just waiting for you to notice and tell me something like that."
"Enlightened. That's the second time you've used that word."
"Aye. One of your multiversal projection events, if I had to guess the source of it. But Enlightenment is Enlightenment, so even if you didn't get that way from years of study and self-reflection you were owed a power for achieving it."
"So what? My fire spells are hotter just for having an extra hundred charges?" Kind of cheaty if true.
"Nay, all of your fires are hotter for holding onto a hundred charges." What!
I said it once, and I'll say it again, I don't want to fight this chick. She scares me.
Anyway, I'm up now, so it's back to work I go. Freetime is for people who don't practice magic seriously. A lot like a career in music in that way, and according to the boss, that's no coincidence. I wasn't sure what to make of Bookworms' claims about reality, but he'd never lead me wrong when the topic came to the art and science of magic. The boss always says magic is all about hard work and good timing, it sat right with me and my Tinker-esque practice, so I didn't question it.
So I diligently tapped a half-dozen charges to check in on my surveillance and interference sphere networks scattered around the Bay while I chewed on my breakfast granola bar. It was a sophisticated array of various crystal and glass ornaments that I'd arranged to do everything from look in on current events to remote casting magic from the comfort of my RV clear across the city. In just two hours' worth of meditation I could know anything I wanted and cast almost any spell anywhere I wanted. Assuming that I wanted something in the confines of the city, anyway.
All normal topside, but the hidden underbelly of the port town was weirder than ever. I don't know how the Cabal leadership did it, but our gang's lair spiderwebbed across an impossible sprawl right beneath the city's collective nose. Bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, and patrolled by dozens of those weird skeletons that the boss brings in to Master with his own magic power.
"Miss Zhaang," The boss addressed me, as his long yellow finger tapped on the 'face' of my remote ritual drone. "If I can have a moment of your time?" I've always hated how he seemed to see me on the other end of my drone the same way I could see him. Nothing to do with Bookworm personally, I just hate being seen and the one thing I loved about my power was that most people had no way of doing that when I was hidden in my civilian address. Not the boss though. He always saw me, and I've hated it since day one of my remote ritual drone's activation.
"Yeah boss?" my drone crackled out the words that I had whispered into the harmonic opals that composed my mic.
"I need you to focus your scrying on our northernmost facilities. I feel that something strange is occurring and we must be certain that it will not interfere with our work in the near future before our rituals can proceed." I could immediately tell what the boss was talking about, the spheres under the trainyard were fifteen times further away from each other than they'd been the last three days of expansion. The fuck was that about? "Report to Faust when you've determined the scope of the anomaly."
"On it, boss." Like wet on water. I might not like how he could see me, but I wasn't about to jeopardize my education with substandard work when I was specifically called on. With that in mind, I slotted another eight charges to spin up my Hunter-Tracker field and deploy it over the city. Once the field's borders had expanded sufficiently, I ordered it to sink into the earth and give me the eyes I needed to see any fucky stuff going on.
My HT field was a great piece of work, it was also fragile and difficult to recreate once broken, but it was great. An invisible spherical zone of I-see-you-ness that could permeate any material that wasn't too exotic or shielded against magic. And unlike the vast majority of my surveillance drones, its physical mass was located entirely in my trailer home. The only bad thing about it was how big and fragile the interfacing orb was, being a two-foot diameter of hollow blue-stained glass. If anybody were to happen upon my place they'd instantly have proof that I was caping from the privacy of my home- something that I'd gathered was apparently a big no-no in cape culture in the time since I built the thing. Oopsy-fucking-doo, it wasn't like I could easily move my workspace elsewhere with all my better tools being too big and fragile to get out the door easily. I was stuck caping in my comfortable den away from all the prying eyes of outside.
Once the field had moved underground it took a while for the sphere to process that the visible area was ten-to-fifteen times larger than the detected area on the surface. Which was why I had it expand up here instead of sinking the scrying field immediately. Once it had contained the entire anomalously large zone, I fed it more instructions to zoom in on anything power-related in the detected area. Most of the search was to be expected, skeleton patrols, the swamp house that we commandeered a few weeks ago, the Yggdrasil network, Molemaster's illegal shroom gardens. Nothing, really.
I was about to call boss number two, also known as Faust, when my field saw it. Haphazard had somehow gotten in our super-secret magic clubhouse and was popping away on the edge of an underground cliffside. An underground cliffside that in retrospect was probably popped into existence by the Ward hero in the first place.
What the fuck was she doing here? It's too early in the morning for a Wards patrol, and the location was too far out from the new heart of the city. Plus the reception can't possibly be good enough for her radio to reach her back up or whatever they do.
Still, there she was, source of like half of Brockton's crazy shit these days. Making more crazy shit by throwing all kinds of exotic energy into the quantum foam that dazzled even sensors as penetrating as my HT field. Mission accomplished, now I knew why the trainyards part of the complex was so big. Though knowing boss number two, just knowing the why wasn't enough detail, I'd have to get a report on every little change that Haphazard was adding to our villainous formula. So I was stuck watching her until she left
Well it wasn't like I had plans beyond checking on all of my surveillance spheres anyway.
First note about this little homework assignment, Haphazard's power was as frenetic as ever. It's energy level jittered and juggled itself all over the place like a ratking on crack cocaine. And that was just her power on standby. Every time she popped something out of the multiverse, the radio static mess that she called a power would twist on itself like a Mandelbrot and pop out another flavor of energy along with the 'summoning'.
Second note, she also had fire magic now. Unlike regular powers, my HT field could actually make sense of magical energy beyond the look of it. I could actually identify magic powers, whereas with regular powers I could only observe the lightshow their activation scattered into what boss number one calls the Aurbis. And fire magic, that's- Well it's not really the best idea to have a big open flame when you're in a cave but as long as she kept control of it- Oh.
Third note, there was a big-ass forest burning down in one of the connecting rooms. It wasn't really important since the blaze was so far away from our consecrated ritual spaces, but still, Haphazard was apparently as irresponsible as her callsign implied to just ignore the massive fire she started and go right back to practicing in a different room.
Note four, her summoning was relatively average. I don't spy on her routine all that often, but what I was seeing seemed average for what I have seen. Some junk, some people, a whole lot of weird shit that twisted her power up; just average, for her.
The interesting part was when her power made half the cavern bloom into a fucking jungle and threw her off the cliff. I was a novice in power 'science', having just read enough to get an understanding of what my crystal balls could show me. But even I knew that powers generally don't hurt the capes who use them.
Note six, Haphazard apparently lets off pops uncontrollably when she's injured. That was a terrible trait for somebody who gets thrown into combat with villains and has the ability to make shit like that giant ice cube from a few months ago. For my report, I made a list of the more interesting effects beyond making her energy waves do the Tango.
Within the first three pops, she had summoned two different- flocks I suppose- of corgi-size moths. Then she froze the water below and conjured a fishing rod- conjured, not 'summoned', it arrived in freefall through magic means. I made a note to try and recover it for research purposes later today.
Then around four pops afterwards my HT field started picking up on what I can only describe as an orchestral choir playing Joy to the World in magical energy that awarded her charges. It wasn't actually audible noise, the song was how my interface communicated the energy to me here in my trailer. It doesn't even have that function. I needed ears on this too.
With that in mind, I plugged another three charges into one of my nearby spy drones to get it up and moving on the hero's position. The trip would take about an hour but the time was well spent as long as I got more juicy details for my report. Maybe boss number one would teach me more magic, that was always my hope if I did good.
In the meantime, the magical jungle that Haphazard had summoned continued to obliterate seemingly random sections of that particular area of the cave. Buildings had been popped into the mess just to be immediately ripped apart by masses of mossy vines. And the top half of my Hunter-Tracker field saw the same thing happening topside, with a region roughly the size of a city block being terraformed into a forested crater.
Note number I neither remember nor care, Haphazard has ice magic too. That wasn't too odd, as fire and ice were both part of Destruction school. What was odd was how powerful the spell she used was. As far as I knew, the Protectorate were still burying their heads in the sand when it came to magic existing. Which implied that either Haphazard was getting taught by somebody outside of the Protectorate or that Haphazard could cheat the whole teacher-student thing and learn things with her power like some of the other Cabal members could.
Note I don't know, seven, I guess. Haphazard had boat magic, which wasn't a thing that I knew existed but I couldn't deny that it suited her given what I'd heard about the heroine's past exploits. Clockwork boat magic. Huh. Is this what Faust meant when he talked about suspending my disbelief to achieve great unknowable powers? Powers that I literally couldn't have known about before seeing them?
Note number eight, In as little as a few minutes of observation I caught a glimpse of Haphazard's 'teacher', she really did have a cheaty way to learn magic with her powers, her first use of the spell gave her Stoneskin! I was going to have to save up some money to see if she'd teach it to me. Or maybe I'd get lucky and one of the gang's leaders would know it already.
And then there was a tornado, which, given the aquatic nature of the place, didn't do the best for my visibility. Still, I had magic detection and sound was on the way so my reconnaissance continued.
That's when the dungeon itself took action, a semi-rare occurrence to witness. In just two fluid movements of energy, it grabbed a pinch of powerstuff from somewhere out of my HT's range and 'smeared it across the wall of the cavern. In previous construction events, the dungeon doing this had once resulted in libraries full of the spellbook for Magelight. This consequentially meant that every member of the Cabal knew how to cast Magelight and that we could sell the books on the blackmarket whenever funds got tight. As to what this current construction event had done, I had no idea. The effect itself wasn't magical.
Number ten, Haphazard can carve runes into the air. It didn't make any sense but fuck it, that's what she did, so that's what's going into the report. Additionally, the water in the vicinity of the rune was being banished, which lead to greatly increased visibility around the rune as the vapor there was gone. This meant that I was able to see the rune banishing a bunch of McGoblins from the effected area too, confirmation of both the rune's function as well as what the dungeoncore had done.
Note number doesn't matter, this kid doesn't play by the rules in anything she does. Good thing I didn't have to fight her. I just hoped that she kept my drones out of it when she got to poking our wasp's nest of a lair.
After that the running battle slowed down to a walking battle as she had to protect a monster cape that she'd tied to her back. Why not just send him to safety? She knows banishing spells, it should be easy. In any case, she'd spent the next hour walking her worm guy back to where she'd been exploded and so I spent the next hour watching her do that. I figured neither one of my bosses would be thrilled to hear that I'd left a hero exploring our base without any eyes or ears on her for the duration of her stay.
By the time something interesting had happened, the tornado had died down and I could make out all of the action again. Which meant that by the time my ears had arrived, I could make out the conversation between Haphazard and Surtr. "But you're a god." What. I think my regular ears stopped working when I heard that, so I didn't catch the rest of the conversation's start. But I heard enough to get the gist of it.
Haphazard's magic came from Surtr. Not a mysterious pattern of dreams, not a drug trip, not weeks of meditation, Surtr was her god. Surtr was just there, she could hold a conversation with him. He could presumably be bribed without all the ceremony of ritual offerings that a regular mage had to do to commune with the sources of magic. No fair, my god only gave me a discount on casting scrying spells.
"Anything else you'd like to talk about? Magic secrets, perhaps?" Oh yes please. There's no way he doesn't know that I'm listening in, right? Surely that was an invitation to expand my grimoire as well. Unless he wasn't worried about my spying because teacher-student rules applied even to gods. Oh well. In that case, I could still glean talking points to bring up with Bookworm when we had our next teaching session.
"Magic secrets? Definitely!"
"Alright. Well fair warning, magic secrets tend to come in two flavors: 'I could have thought of that' and 'not meant for mortal comprehension'."
"Isn't that a little melodramatic?"
"Aye, but you've met the likes of Hank already." Haphazard visibly shivered at the thought of whoever this Hank guy was. "Sometimes the melodramatic is well deserved."
"Just- just give me a secret."
"Alright. Listen up. "Where the mind goes, the energy goes." … I don't get it.
"I don't get it."
"It means that what your spells do depends almost entirely on what you want from them. A basic cutting charm can tear a mountain asunder if that's what you tell the charges to do. But if you try casting that same spell while thinking about your hair, then guess what's going to get cut?" That's supposed to be a secret? Bookworm taught me that day one! I mean, not the mountain thing, that was bad-ass. But the whole 'magic isn't a toy and having to be careful with what you think about while using it' thing, lesson number two.
"Really? Regular powers aren't like that at all. Usually it's something really niche or hard to describe. Like Manton limits."
"Magic is the regular power. Anyone can use it, rather than just what you call parahumans."
"Is that another magic secret?"
Surtr shrugged and made a so so gesture with one hand while squishing a goblin's head into paste with the other. "It can be."
"Whatever. Give me another? Please?"
"How about you tell me one?"
"What?"
"Not too long ago I taught you {Burning Hands}," Suspicion confirmed. "And you've used it to decent effect since then. So, tell me something you know about fire, and I'll build off of that enlightenment for you."
"Uhh. {Fire is Hot}?" Why did that sound like a spell? "Wait, what the fu-frick?! How'd you do that? I didn't even-"
"Magic." Surtr pronounced looking incredibly pleased with himself. "Also you've been Enlightened for a few months now and I was just waiting for you to notice and tell me something like that."
"Enlightened. That's the second time you've used that word."
"Aye. One of your multiversal projection events, if I had to guess the source of it. But Enlightenment is Enlightenment, so even if you didn't get that way from years of study and self-reflection you were owed a power for achieving it."
"So what? My fire spells are hotter just for having an extra hundred charges?" Kind of cheaty if true.
"Nay, all of your fires are hotter for holding onto a hundred charges." What!
I said it once, and I'll say it again, I don't want to fight this chick. She scares me.
Last edited:
Well, that was interesting. Your occultist comes across as being from the world of Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell with a bit of the more formalized magic found in D&D and related TTRPGs.
I am sort of hoping that he is not a Riskian, as that would slightly break the sense of fifth-dimensional chess-master who is quietly organizing the board(s) in his favor.
I am sort of hoping that he is not a Riskian, as that would slightly break the sense of fifth-dimensional chess-master who is quietly organizing the board(s) in his favor.
TheOmnimercurial
Dragon Bard
- Location
- UK
I adore Haphazard! ^_^
I actually really enjoyed the whole Clone Arc too!
I actually really enjoyed the whole Clone Arc too!
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
Nah, she's a native Earth Betian. Just one whose recieved a magic education from somebody else who knows what they're talking about.
Oculist (Not Occultist, she makes crystal balls to see through and her name reflects that) joined up with the gang that formed around all the unattended magic items that the Clone Arc put into circulation, the Cabal of Hidden Untruths. Leadership of the Cabal is not so secretly a diarchy between Faust (A combination of a few very different people from Type MOON and World of Darkness) and Bookworm (TES' Mannimarco who manteled part of Hermaeus Mora in an alternate version of his canonical apotheosis) and the stated mission of the group is to abuse metaphysics to rule the world as gods in the flesh.
Thank you! Did the custom navigation system I built into it help you out at all when reading it? I haven't gotten much feedback on that for how much work it took.
--
In other news, I'm probably going to expand on the last chapter I posted yesterday before starting on the rewrite again. I was sick of looking at it but it's not yet done according to my plan in the notes. So it's going to be roughly 1 lecture longer soon.
TheOmnimercurial
Dragon Bard
- Location
- UK
I actually just kept reading through each part page by page.
Heh ^_^°
Heh ^_^°
Is the name supposed to be Occultist, or is it purposefully wonky?
I admit it is getting hard to follow everything going on when all the summons begin merging effects... Taylor really needs to spread the love outside BB.
I admit it is getting hard to follow everything going on when all the summons begin merging effects... Taylor really needs to spread the love outside BB.
Apparently Oculist is basically just another name for Optometrist, so it doesn't seem wonky
Well thank you for the info dump. I was not expecting that.
You have your work cut out for you when the Endbringer fight rolls around. Is that when certain characters become aware of the Architect of Infinity?
I think the PRT would prevent Taylor from leaving Brockton Bay spreading her weirdness elsewhere. I also think that Brockton Bay is an unofficial quarantine zone.
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
Architect of Infinity is just the shard that powers SCP-184, it's not going to leave Brockton of its own volition. No offense meant, but I honestly have no idea how you keep getting the idea that I'm going to introduce a fifth entity when the fourth was only introduced just to keep things tidy.
If you or anyone else is actually interested in my plans for the future of this fic, you should click the link under the spoiler in my going crazy information post. That's where all my notes to self are for how to write future chapters. I've decided to leave it up sans the final paragraph where I talk about the reader only seeing that if I were dying. It is very much a spoilery infodump post for literally the entire fic.
In a previous interlude, the AoI declares war on QA because Queenie stole or is using his Random Generator ability.
I am looking forward to reading the rest of the story now.
Keep up the good work.
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
Nope, the Architect is pissed because phrik, the metal that composes the hilts of lightsaber-type weapons, disappeared from the dungeon's catalogue after the timer on Orik Saal ran out, and AoI blamed QA for not letting them know about the timelimit before it could make something with the material.
Sorry for completely misinterpreting that interlude.
Hecatonchires
Just an H-class cyborg with an octopus brain stem
- Location
- The Gong, NSW, Australia
a fishing rod is singular
them is plural
Haphazard from the outside is fun. Can the Oculist see the effect of the changes to Hap's power, or just that it's changing?
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
Just that it's changing.
EDIT: Lecture's in the chapter now.
Thinking about using bold text to differentiate spells from other stuff, specifically from shard names as right now spells also use brackets.
Last edited:
Hecatonchires
Just an H-class cyborg with an octopus brain stem
- Location
- The Gong, NSW, Australia
Which chapter?
Is there a dedicated {Mage Light} shard that serves up all Mage Light spells, or is there a {Light Magic} shard that's responsible for an entire school of light spells, or is Mage Light a generic casting request that a lot of different shards can fulfill in their own way?
In the first case, don't differentiate it at all, because there's no real distinction.
In the second or third cases I'd suggest capitalizing it without brackets as I did here. A particular manifestation of a spell would have some full syntax like {Vesta:Mage Light} to specify the shardware behind it, but the user doesn't perceive it.
As an alternative, I'd suggest a prefix for spells. I can cast my Animal Messenger variant {$Signifying Monkey} without pinging shard {Signifying Monkey}.
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
The most recent chapter, I added magic lessons to the tail-end instead of just cutting it off after the hour.
Hecatonchires
Just an H-class cyborg with an octopus brain stem
- Location
- The Gong, NSW, Australia
Suggested doc for the end of the chapter: table of held charges vs spell effects
100 = more damage
666 = infernal damage (hellfire!)
1337 = extra sparkly effects
5318008 = mana is now stored in the mammary glands (the Tsunade effect)
??? = reduced charge cost 10%
Etc
100 = more damage
666 = infernal damage (hellfire!)
1337 = extra sparkly effects
5318008 = mana is now stored in the mammary glands (the Tsunade effect)
??? = reduced charge cost 10%
Etc
Last edited:
Chapter 361
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
"And this here is called a Yggdrasil rune," Surtr pointed out the the odd diagram carved into the wall, it looked like an oak tree overlaid with a bunch of circles arranged in a diamond. "Traditionally, Yggdrasil runes are used to travel over the longest of distances, planet to planet if you're skilled." Wow.
"This thing can get me to other planets?"
"No. Probably not." Aw.
"Is it because I'm not skilled enough?"
"Oh no, the skill is all in the engraving. Yggdrasil runes have to be linked to eachother to use like that, this one is tied to a rather robust network but I highly doubt any of it goes to another planet."
"So where can we go with this thing. We can use it, right??"
"Yes, of course we could use it, I've already seen some of its ilk before. So if you like, we can go to another part of this cistern that we'd been to before." I had to think about that for a while. Yes, we needed a way to get back to the other half of our team, but I still had a responsibility to get all the civilians I summoned to safety. The main issue was that I didn't want to blow all my charges on something that wasn't a sure thing.
"How much does it cost to use?"
"It's totally free to use, just as long as you travel within the preprogrammed network." Well that solved my ethical dilemma nicely, we could just zip right back once we found a safe route to get them all home.
"Lets do it."
"Alright, just try to hold still." And with that Surtr pressed his thumb to the circle at the center of the rune, causing it to glow. I was faintly reminded of an elevator.
What didn't remind me of an elevator was what happened next, as I felt a light pulling sensation on each of my finger and toe tips that gradually spread to my whole body. My head was the last part of me that was affected, and when it reached my eyes I was startled at the suddenness with which I saw the whirling colorful tube that was pulling me along up through to a distant location. I was being pulled to somewhere in the outer roots of the Great Tree, I inexplicably knew.
Then it was over. We were in a decidedly more urban location, there were buildings anyway. "I thought you said we'd been here before."
"We have, but it didn't look like this." One of my pops, probably.
"Let's explore a bit, maybe we can get our bearings and find a way out."
"Sounds good, Caller."
The area had apparently been one of those domes with a waterfilled central pit, now transformed to be lined with small single-story houses that wouldn't be out of place in the Docks. More interestingly, some of the buildings appeared to be inhabited, some had lights on inside with wooden furniture and even some paintings of some random countryside. Neat.
Also neat was the glowing blue transparent grass that I occasionally found growing from cracks in the cobblestone road, that probably wasn't natural. More proof of the ABB's magical drug garden? Some other nefarious villain botanical crimes?
I could only hope so. Getting back on track for my investigation, I needed some solid evidence before I brought this case to the PRT. Then Acting Director Renick would see how stupid it was to take me off of official patrols and I'd be reinstated. It was a foolproof plan. I just needed to find proof of what I already knew was going on.
–
08/02/11
Preliminary Caster Notes
(Not for public distribution)
Caster energies are an emergent phenomena characterized by parahuman-like abilities that can be utilized by anybody at the cost of imaginary tokens referred to as "charges" with some exceptions(1). Caster-related energies notably have an identical Sturm Scatterplot to every other form of Caster energy, and thus it cannot be used as an identifier and inhibits the use of most data-collection Thinker powers that attempt to take it into account. It's introduction to Earth Bet early this year is currently theorized to be the result of the ongoing World War 3, possibly anomalous fields produced specifically to power and maintain Earth Risk's megastructure war machines.
The research is all new, but thanks to staff with multiversal origins, we've already made some great strides in understanding this radical new change to the study of powers. The list of hard facts is as follows:
Caster powers cost "charges" to use, the exact initial number is seemingly dependent on how useful the power use would be. Multiversal staff have indicated that the price is determined by "gods", a secular understanding of the phenomena will have to achieved without their input.
Charges are gathered in the process of meditation or prayer to specific ideas important to the subject. Experiments to gather charges from religions that the subject does not believe in have all ended in failure, regardless of how rigorously devout behavior has been copied. Similarly, atheists are able to gather charges just as easily as devout practitioners when meditating on personally held philosophies or artistic appreciation. So despite the mysticism of multiversal experts on the subject, belief in god(s) appears to simply be a useful placebo effect.(2)
1: Exceptions include the noted phenomena of "Ritual Science" previously only exemplified in the Lazarus Codex and the Apple Effigy Seance ritual performed by "WALKER".
2: The PRT does not make any claims about the legitimacy nor illegitimacy of any faith or creed. Just that belief in them does not appear to have any notable effect on Caster powers at this time.
Page 1 of 2
"This thing can get me to other planets?"
"No. Probably not." Aw.
"Is it because I'm not skilled enough?"
"Oh no, the skill is all in the engraving. Yggdrasil runes have to be linked to eachother to use like that, this one is tied to a rather robust network but I highly doubt any of it goes to another planet."
"So where can we go with this thing. We can use it, right??"
"Yes, of course we could use it, I've already seen some of its ilk before. So if you like, we can go to another part of this cistern that we'd been to before." I had to think about that for a while. Yes, we needed a way to get back to the other half of our team, but I still had a responsibility to get all the civilians I summoned to safety. The main issue was that I didn't want to blow all my charges on something that wasn't a sure thing.
"How much does it cost to use?"
"It's totally free to use, just as long as you travel within the preprogrammed network." Well that solved my ethical dilemma nicely, we could just zip right back once we found a safe route to get them all home.
"Lets do it."
"Alright, just try to hold still." And with that Surtr pressed his thumb to the circle at the center of the rune, causing it to glow. I was faintly reminded of an elevator.
What didn't remind me of an elevator was what happened next, as I felt a light pulling sensation on each of my finger and toe tips that gradually spread to my whole body. My head was the last part of me that was affected, and when it reached my eyes I was startled at the suddenness with which I saw the whirling colorful tube that was pulling me along up through to a distant location. I was being pulled to somewhere in the outer roots of the Great Tree, I inexplicably knew.
Then it was over. We were in a decidedly more urban location, there were buildings anyway. "I thought you said we'd been here before."
"We have, but it didn't look like this." One of my pops, probably.
"Let's explore a bit, maybe we can get our bearings and find a way out."
"Sounds good, Caller."
The area had apparently been one of those domes with a waterfilled central pit, now transformed to be lined with small single-story houses that wouldn't be out of place in the Docks. More interestingly, some of the buildings appeared to be inhabited, some had lights on inside with wooden furniture and even some paintings of some random countryside. Neat.
Also neat was the glowing blue transparent grass that I occasionally found growing from cracks in the cobblestone road, that probably wasn't natural. More proof of the ABB's magical drug garden? Some other nefarious villain botanical crimes?
I could only hope so. Getting back on track for my investigation, I needed some solid evidence before I brought this case to the PRT. Then Acting Director Renick would see how stupid it was to take me off of official patrols and I'd be reinstated. It was a foolproof plan. I just needed to find proof of what I already knew was going on.
–
08/02/11
Preliminary Caster Notes
(Not for public distribution)
Caster energies are an emergent phenomena characterized by parahuman-like abilities that can be utilized by anybody at the cost of imaginary tokens referred to as "charges" with some exceptions(1). Caster-related energies notably have an identical Sturm Scatterplot to every other form of Caster energy, and thus it cannot be used as an identifier and inhibits the use of most data-collection Thinker powers that attempt to take it into account. It's introduction to Earth Bet early this year is currently theorized to be the result of the ongoing World War 3, possibly anomalous fields produced specifically to power and maintain Earth Risk's megastructure war machines.
The research is all new, but thanks to staff with multiversal origins, we've already made some great strides in understanding this radical new change to the study of powers. The list of hard facts is as follows:
Caster powers cost "charges" to use, the exact initial number is seemingly dependent on how useful the power use would be. Multiversal staff have indicated that the price is determined by "gods", a secular understanding of the phenomena will have to achieved without their input.
Charges are gathered in the process of meditation or prayer to specific ideas important to the subject. Experiments to gather charges from religions that the subject does not believe in have all ended in failure, regardless of how rigorously devout behavior has been copied. Similarly, atheists are able to gather charges just as easily as devout practitioners when meditating on personally held philosophies or artistic appreciation. So despite the mysticism of multiversal experts on the subject, belief in god(s) appears to simply be a useful placebo effect.(2)
1: Exceptions include the noted phenomena of "Ritual Science" previously only exemplified in the Lazarus Codex and the Apple Effigy Seance ritual performed by "WALKER".
2: The PRT does not make any claims about the legitimacy nor illegitimacy of any faith or creed. Just that belief in them does not appear to have any notable effect on Caster powers at this time.
Page 1 of 2
Last edited:
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
happy early new year. ( it's not the next day here yet... but I'm gonna go to bed so I won't be awake to chime in the new year.)
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
Now I am really hoping this happens as a complete surprise to Taylor.
Happy New Year to @LMeire and @Aurora Moon.