You feel the new perk click into place, slotting into your brain as neatly as the others. About two minutes after that you feel something similar but VERY different. This feels more like YOURE the one slotting into place, like the whole workshop is, and the darkness outside the archway clears slightly to reveal...slightly shallower darkness. You can make out shapes outside of it, shifting inexorably in the dark. Upon closer inspection you can make them out as...gears. Giant fucking gears. You look around before finding your armor and putting it on, gesturing to Sheila to follow you, and to the others to stay put as you drift up off the ground and skim silently out of the archway with your daughter following behind.
Being a fucking flying aircraft carrier in human form means you're less worried about Sheila being hurt by unknown enemies and having her here with you might even save your life. Your armor has a few visual processes available from its dead space tech base. With your new visual acuity you could see that what you'd been looking at before had indeed been gears, huge ones, Shifting some sort of giant mechanism in a giant web of outflowing machinery so convoluted even you were having trouble figuring out what the fuck it was supposed to actually do. Below that was...holy fuck, you couldn't believe your eyes...those were parts. Small mechanical precision parts just laying in mountains of metal. You didn't even really recognize some of them, though you could tell from context and from similarity to other things what they did for the most part.
None of these were some ineffable hyper tech you couldn't process, there were a solid amount of wheels, and what looked like at a glance some kind of super compact motors. This whole place was some kind of mechanical graveyard except all the mechanical shit was in perfect condition. You floated down to skim over the piles, you remembered to bring Sheila but before you could bring it up she had released repulsor jets from her spine like wings and lifted off to follow on her own. The repulsors let off an eerie blue light that bounced off the metallic piles in strange and shifting patterns as she moved following you in you quiet drifting journey to...wherever the fuck you were even going.
The effect cut off as the clouds covering the moon shifted, shining silver white light through the giant ass stained glass window making up one wall of your new location and giving you both a direction to go in. You changed courses and headed for the window, Sheila scanning the area around the two of you for anyone carrying ill intent. It was so easy for you to forget your daughter had that shield programming in her outside combat. She was so socially ignorant and sweet, but when things got real Sheila was rock solid, something you suspected came as much from yourself and her mothers as from her background in the intelligence agency. Speaking of mothers you had to talk to Nat sometimes soon. It had been long enough that a baby would have an aura and there wasnt one. The two of you would need to set something up. Luckily she had mentioned as long as you were trying she wasnt in a hurry. She was sixteen again physically and you had plenty of time.
Coming to the windows you finally got a view of the city you were in. You were in shock...this was clearly...not New York. Which was pretty much everything you knew about cities to be honest. Whether they were or were not New York. Since you had never actually been anywhere else. That said you suspected from the architecture (which you were a genius in thanks to Great Man and your architect genius perk) that you were somewhere analogous to earth at least and in a time period that wouldn't be too different from yours.
The zoom function on your armors visual processors was good enough to catch the odd sign out in the city below you, which you could read because Great Man made you a genius linguist and thank god because being stuck in what was apparently an alternate version of Japan without being able to speak or read Japanese would have been so annoying. After a few minutes of taking in this weird Japanese super city (the tech here was, while still well within your own definitions of normal, much more advanced than the general level seen back home) you managed to use long distance vision of signs to figure out a few things. First thing was based on the billboards at least everyone here was human, not that you would have hated meeting some aliens or magical humanoids but for your first jump you seemed to have avoided anything really nuts.
The second thing was continuous references to "Air Trek's" which from the billboards appeared to be motorized roller blades of some kind. You had to admit that while it was weird that also sounded immensely fun to try, and you looked forward to finding some to try, or better yet building some. You would have kept looking around, except at that moment the tower you were in started to shake.
It legitimately took you a minute to realize there was a noise causing the movements because you were so disoriented from standing at ground zero of the auditory assault, but after the one toll of what had to be a giant fucking bell it just...stopped. The silence afterward was deafening, as you turned to look at Sheila though you caught light shifting across the piles, rapidly approaching from off in the distance.
Grabbing Sheila you dart over and push her into the workshop before darting upwards to hide among the gears. You had considered waiting in the actual archway but you figured letting the entrance to your pocket dimension sit in the middle of a clear space next the only window in the place would be a bad call. Skimming between the teethe of the gears you found a large horizontal gear that was spinning so slowly it shouldn't upset any motions and touched down. You sat down and slipped out one of your Akashic phones checking to see if there was a connection available.
You managed to find a few signals, some of them extremely weird and well protected, and while you could almost definitely have hacked them given enough time that wasn't what you were here for. You narrowed down a wifi signal and slipped in making sure to hide your presence. In the distance you heard the previously approaching people pass by, though you couldn't see them from here. Getting into a back door in their systems was fairly simple, their code was advanced, but only by normal earth standards, your dad had made a fully sentient AI and a decent chunk of your coding knowledge came from things like future civilizations and the digital source code of literal magic. A standard wifi connection with AES encryption just wasn't a challenge.
The harder part came after the connection. Once you got in you had access to the entire internet (thank god again for linguistics being part of your Great Man perk because i was all japanese). You had enough raw knowledge of search protocols and info sec combined with talent for investigation from artisan to put together disparate clues but you still had to search a huge volume of data. Luckily the processor in the dead space tech phone was insanely high powered though not as advanced as one might think since your modular design perk didn't come with any supercomputer setups aside from some stuff hidden in ship designs you hadnt really dug into. You HAD been able to overclock the shit out of it since soul steel could basically hold an infinite amount of energy. That said the speed of your device and the speed of your brain were not exactly equal and it took fucking hours to put together a decent picture of the world.
The first thing you did was rig up a search program, though you didnt actually run the thing right away. After it was open and left waiting you combed through news stories for any sort of common thread or elements in local news that might imply anything about what the hell this place was. Actually the first thing you had done had been try to search this place through key words but you got nothing so it was apparently somehow a secret. Once you found the common elements under the most interesting stories (the robo blade things Air Treks or AT's) you tweaked the search a bit and set it loose. Sifting through the results left you a much more focused pool of data you could search for any sort of information. It took most of the night for you to process it all but once you did you came to a really weird conclusion. There was some sort of shadow war going on with roller blades.
Well...there were kind of a few shadow wars from what you could tell. There was the obvious one the "parts war" which was some kind of underground competitive culture where people went around and challenged each other for control of territories. That one had its own website, which some forum surfing and dedicated hacking had gotten you into. Plenty of data on there to cross reference with other things to figure out more. The second was a larger more concentrated tournament bringing in people worldwide called the "Gram Scale Tournament" which was supposed to be a gathering of some of the most powerful people on the planet for rollerblading? This world was weird. The last layer seemed to be some kind of weird rumored guerilla battle between two of the largest "Stormrider" (coolest name for roller bladers you had ever heard) teams, called Genesis and Sleeping Forest.
Finding literally anything about that last one had been half luck on deeply hidden forums and the posts you had catalogued were mostly deleted within minutes. You knew barely anything about it, besides references to "regalia" without nearly any context and something called the "Tropaion Tower" which could be some kind of metaphorical religious thing for fanatic roller blade cultists or could be the literal secret tower you were standing in. You weren't sure why the fuck any of them would be so pumped about this place, since there didnt seem to be anything here but giant gears and parts you could get at any random store but who fucking knew. Combing the rest of the internet to be sure produced zero information about any leads on any magic or non AT related super tech so this was probably the only really interesting thing to get into.
The Gram Scale Tournament seemed to be just starting, with a week or two maybe before i began? You could probably enter. You had a team five, though you would need to make ATs for the girls and figure out how to train them in their use. Your personal skill would probably be good with artisan to start though if these people were world class some training of your own might not hurt. The issue as you saw it was that you hadn't ever seen an AT. You'd found a few schematics online but real tournament grade stuff wouldn't be on the internet and while you could easily make a roller blade with a motor the tournament didn't list any required specs or industry standards. As you felt the forge trigger again you began to plan, deciding how to gain access to some Air Treks.
Celestial forge accessed: Material Limitations (World Seed) (100CP) Sufficient CP. Purchased. Total remaining CP: 700.
You decide to go out and do some recon, trying to learn a bit more about this world and the forces here. Since Sheila doesn't speak Japanese you bring her back into the workshop, letting the girls all know a short summary of what you found and how you're going out to explore and try to see some of these Air Treks in action. After the expected disbelief that this entire world seems to function on a secret underground political caste made up of people on futuristic roller blades you take a brief pit stop to rig up a TV and some furniture in a back area of the lab for them to chill out on, even going so far as to build a bed. You weren't comfortable getting your girls a hotel room until you had a better concept of what was going on in this town. The TV took a little bit to get synced to the Akashic Network but you got it and thanked yourself immensely for building a magic signal that connected across worlds.
After setting them up with furniture and entertainment you cooked the girls a meal with some of the food in the fridge you had installed before the journey and left them all to their blissful food comas as you slipped out to hit the town. You spent five to ten minutes looking for a door you couldn't fucking find before giving up and drifting down from the tower in your armor through a discrete hole you cut in the stained glass window out of direct sight. Once you got to the ground you tossed your gear through the archway, catching a glare from Nat at the noise when it hit the ground inside and set off towards...noise?
You basically wandered around, enjoying the sights and smells as best you could. You'd never been out of new york and this place was way different. You stopped to try some of the food a few times ( picked up some easy money from carving a couple quick wood sculptures and making them look old with some of the science from great man then pawning them) and just generally walked around and enjoyed the city. You did see some storm riders but they were mostly just kids doing whatever, their auras didn't show anything impressive. Finally after a few hours you stumbled on something interesting. A group of people sitting next a tiny open sided shop near a river bank using ATs to race. The shop even sold ATs. You mulled it over and decided to pick up a pair, the better you knew how they felt and worked when you made yours the better they would turn out.
You grabbed a pair of yellow and black Air Treks from the shop owner, thanking him but not tipping because you heard somewhere that tipping was considered rude outside the US. You walked over to sit on a grass hill off to the side of the odd cement platforms on either side of the river like giant waterway sidewalks. Once you were strapped in you stood up and...fell directly back down. You frowned, standing up again, waiting for artisan to trigger. It sort of did, but mostly for general balance. The stance and motions for using these things was counterintuitive as hell. You fell down more times in the next hour than you had since you'd gotten the artisan perk, but honestly this was really fun. It was nice to have to work at something again instead just being amazing at it spontaneously.
After the first hour you managed to flow smoothly across the ground...at about the speed of a segway. Still you felt a sense of accomplishment learning to do something so crazy difficult even an artisan like you needed an hour to get the basics. This world was going to be pretty fun. Slowly you drifted away from the shop and the races, not caring about who was with you as you learned to pick up speed, it actually hurt, even your amplified legion body wasnt used to using the muscles or holding these positions and you were getting sore and tired and just having a blast. After another hour you were darting around, not at the same speed as those racers but maybe twenty miles an hour, laughing your ass off at the wind in your face as you twirled and streaked about. Finally your body was just too damn sore and you let yourself drift to a stop, plopping down laughing and happy in the grass beside the river.
It took you a second to realize the sound following your slump wasn't a heartbeat as you hear an impressed slow clap off to the side. As you looked up you see a red blur streak past you, leaving a trail of fucking FIRE on the ground in a complicated pattern before screeching to a stop. The man who made the noises stood cockily watching your reaction, which was fair considering how...scary that had been. The grace in those motions had been on a level even you couldn't approach. And you could tell from his bearing and aura that wasn't even his best, this guy was fucking injured. Badly. His leg was the next best thing to crippled and he was still able to make you look like an arthritic sloth. It was barely even human how good he was on those things, and you could say that with certainty, being substantially more than human and having been working on getting basic functionality with them for hours even with all your perks.
The man had wild red hair and a long black jacket with a blaze of white fur along the edges. His grin was impressed and sincere and his british accent was crisp and clear as he spoke to you in english. "Gotta say mate, that was a hell of a first effort. I just watched you learn in hours what it takes most people weeks or months to learn. You're not a master by any means but I'd give you decent odds against most F-class riders in a match." He chuckled at the scuffs on your face and hands, your clothes obviously being fine since they were soul steel smart fabric "That said you're already picking up bad habits, the danger of learning too quickly. I could give you a few pointers if you like?"
You sat up with a grunt, casting a suspicious look over at the guy. You admittedly loved his style, dude was pretty badass with the whole fire motif, but you also didn't know him, and there wasnt a reason for him to offer the help. You narrowed your eyes at the stranger "Dude, I don't know you. Pro- tip though, approaching exhausted sweaty sixteen year old boys at night and offering to give them pointers is semi creepy." You grunted as you pushed to your feet. "Plus aside from some weird trick with what I assume are flint lined wheels I haven't seen any evidence you're any good either."
The man barked out a laugh at your comment before shooting you a grin "We both know that isn't true. You noticed exactly how good I am. I saw your reaction to that trick, it wasn't to the fire, which incidentally is not from flinted wheels by the way. My name is Spitfire, and I lead a particularly noteworthy stormrider team. And I was interested in seeing how talented you are. I have a few tricks I can teach you, no strings, if you decide to join up that's great, if not theres one more interesting rider around. I promise you mate, I-"
You cut him off mid sentence. "What the fuck is wrong with the wheels of your ATs? Because those arent lined in flint sure but they're...weird." What they were, to be honest, was fucking terrifying. The aura concentrated on those wheels was nightmarishly thick and powerful. Not evil or anything, just hot and wild. Whatever those were they were significant and powerful. His eyes went wide at the mention of them and then narrowed in suspicion. His aura pulsed with panic before relaxing a bit. From context and body language he seemed to have briefly considered you might be some kind of spy or something but then remembered how much you sucked a few hours ago and decided nobody was that good an actor. In point of fact you actually were that good an actor if you'd wanted to be, but you weren't going to tell him that.
His guarded expression has softened a bit but he still look tense "They aren't important, just a set of custom wheels that hold up at high temperatures, i can get you a set like them later if you end up joining my team. With your talent you could earn your own within a few months, maybe a year tops." Interestingly that statement, according to his aura was only half lie. He actually believed you could earn a set of wheels like his, but they were definitely not nothing and weren't high temperature wheels or anything like it. Still, even without the weird super wheels his aura itself was strong. This guy was important and skilled as hell, also weirdly maybe not completely human, which kind of made sense given the supernatural grace.
Before you could respond though, a giggle rang out across the clearing from up on the overpass above the hill you were on. A stunningly beautiful asian girl around your age with a tight white dress and a weird hat and goggles dropped down from the overhang, riding clockwise along the face of a pillar to get to the ground. The girl was maybe eighteen in a better light, a bit older than you actually, but pretty and fairly busty. Her hair was weirdly, pink and due to the complete uniformity and extreme length (down to the top of her rather pillowy ass) you were pretty sure it was somehow natural. Did people have pink hair here? That was fucking weird. You had to admit it looked cute on her though.
The girl reached the ground and skidded to a stop "Spitfire, you know it's rude to poach new talent this early. You're supposed to let him get acclimated on his own so he can get a feel for the different factions." She pouted cutely, her eyes still twinkling with mischief "Leave some riders for the rest of us why don't you. Besides this one is cute, I think he might prefer a teacher who can be a bit more...hands on?" She leaned forward and put her hands on her knees, seemingly accidentally plumping her rather prodigious breasts even further. That aside her aura showed no real interest, she found you decently attractive, but was already interested in someone else and mostly just liked teasing people because she thought it was fun. You noted to yourself that this girl and Felicia must never meet.
Her aura also showed that like Spitfire she wasn't exactly human, though from its intensity she was substantially less skilled and powerful. Fairly important socially though. That said it seemed like a colossaly bad idea to let these two non humans know you could see that they were something besides normal people, considering how on his guard mentioning the wheels of his ATs had made Spitfire, bringing up the nonhuman physiology seemed like a good way to get attacked, and from the strength of his aura you were concerned Spitfire might be capable of actually hurting you. Regardless the guarded expression had turned to annoyance as he glared at the girl, the two of them ignoring you completely to begin arguing like siblings about who should be the one to teach you. As they bickered you felt the forge begin to trigger again and decided to let it hit since you didn't have anything better to do here.
Celestial forge accessed: Grudge Forged (Fate/Legends Japan Land of the Rising Sun) (200CP) Sufficient CP. Purchased. Total remaining CP: 700.
You sit there for probably another fifteen minutes listening to them bicker before it ceases to be funny and gets kind of annoying. Ten minutes after that you begin to get genuinely upset. Finally you clear your throat loudly to get their attention. Three times. They eventually stop and turn to you. You actually considered they may be dating with all the sniping but from their postures and context clues you're actually thinking more like siblings.
When they finally turn to you, you see a sheepish look fall across Spitfire's face, though the pink haired girl gives you a beaming smile like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "As amusing as watching you two peck at each like old hens isn't, I'm going to take spitfire up on the free lessons. No offense miss...whatever your name is, but I'm new in town and I don't want to join anyones crew."
The pink haired girl pouted and narrowed her eyes at Spitfire. "You aren't supposed to just tutor random newbie's without recruiting. It set's a bad precedent and it's impossible to undercut without actively paying someone...which?" She looks over to you and you shake your head. She huffs in acceptance "My name is Simca. Once you're trained up a bit come find me I know where all the best races are." And with that she turned and skated away.
You noted as she left a large number of stickers and patches stuck on her admittedly very nice rump. Well. That was weird. Shaking off the random bit of info you turned to Spitfire. "That aside if you really meant what you said about not attaching string's I'd be interested in learning a bit. You seem like a stand up guy. I should ask though, do you have a place I and a few friends could crash during this whole thing? Because otherwise we're going to have to work around me finding a hotel."
Spitfire gave an easy smile. "Not a problem, mate. I have an old friend who owns a few places around town, I'm sure I can bum a penthouse off him or something. It'll only be temporary though. Once your lessons end you'll need to start picking up the tab or find a new place." He gestures for you to follow then slips out his phone and shoots off a text, waiting with the phone out for a response. A quick text conversation has you both heading to a parking lot nearby and climbing into a Bentley.
As you feel him pull out into traffic he continues talking. "So I imagine you're fairly exhausted, we can start on your training tomorrow. It's getting a bit late and I want you fresh for tommorows work. One little thing though. I know it may be tempting for you to go out and buy a new set of ATs. Dont. Wait until you're trained up a bit before you get a new pair. There are a ton of small technical details that can change with style, you want to hold off on picking your main set of Air Treks until you've developed your road." At your confused look he smiles and shakes his head. "Sorry your riding style."
You shrugged at the slip but you got the gist of it. It made sense, there were about a thousand tiny setting in the skates. Pressure sensitivity, torque, spooling tension in the engines. The things were ridiculously complex. It was honestly a bit weird to you that tech this advanced had been used in roller blades of all things but hell, people used GPS mainly for food delivery these days. Regardless you assured your new mentor honestly enough "I was thinking something similar to be honest. Do you mind if I have my friend's meet us at the place? I can text them if I get the address."
He shrugged easily at your question "I mentioned to him you wouldn't be alone. The place should be big enough for a few. You got a whole team coming in? Or are you learning AT on your own and just crashing with friends. I wouldn't normally assume but when you meet a genius rider who decides to start sharpening his new skills the same night as the first toll, your first thought is Gram Scale."
You grin back guilelessly "Honestly I doubt we're going to be in a position to be in this tournament. Maybe the next one or something? I do have a team with me, just my little sister, and three girlfriends, but none of them have ever touched ATs and judging by how hard it is for me to learn so far no way they get ready in time." That was actually completely accurate. You were positive after a few hours of training on these things getting someone up to snuff in a few months or whatever was going to be near impossible.
Of course, you actually had about twice that long, since there was enough space in the workshop if you cleared some things to the side to practice. That took it from impossible to just really hard, and with artisan teaching, once you got yourself up to snuff it would be possible to teach your girls. Spitfire, not knowing any of that, just smiled and nodded "Good way to look at it mate, no need to tush. You're damn young, I bet your friends are too." He gave you a sly wink "Three girlfriends too, aren't you a little heartbreaker. Remind me of myself when I was your age."
You noticed a sense of genuine relief when you mentioned not being in the tournament, which seemed weird but you figured you would learn what it meant eventually. Until then you had a bunch to learn and you were happy to start. As you pulled up to the new digs you felt the forge trigger again, letting the new perk wash over you as you climbed out of the car. You could slip outside when Spitfire was busy to let the girls out and have them knock.
Celestial forge accessed: Relay Artisan (Age of Wonders ll) (200CP) Sufficient CP. Purchased. Total remaining CP: 600.
You all made it into the incredibly spacious penthouse in short order. Spitfire was charming and debonair as he introduced himself to the girls, but you suspected Spitfire was charming and debonair when he brushed his teeth in the morning. Your ladies all greeted him cordially, though you noticed your daughters face heating up a bit when he kissed her hand. You cursed yourself for your interest in older women, Sheila must have gotten some of your tastes during the conversion.
Regardless, being far too shy and naive to actually do anything about her little crush you decided to leave it alone, though you noticed Ruby smirking at your daughter behind her back and suspected she would get at least a little teasing. You resolved to intercept Ruby before she convinced your little girl to try sleeping with your new mentor just to see what it was like. It was a huge relief when Spitfire left, promising to pick you up in the morning.
Pushing away that very disturbing though and reassuring yourself that Spitfire was too old for her and judging by his aura was in a serious committed relationship anyway, you caught all the girls up on his offer. Natasha, seeming to have taken over a bit of a leading role in their little group (Felicia liked to remain in the background most of the time and Ruby idolized Nat a bit) was the first to ask the obvious question "So are we going to be learning from him too?"
You'd given that some thought on the way over. You hadn't told Spitfire much about your girls, just that they were here to be part of your team, but he knew they didn't have any experience "I considered that and I think our best bet is probably for me to learn first and then teach you. We can use the time compression on the workshop to speed up your lessons and practice. Spitfire knows you dont have any experience but we could just get you masks or something and pretend you're new recruits?"
Nat raised an eyebrow at that. After a moment of staring she reached out an put her hand on your shoulder. "Honey, you have many fine qualities, you're brilliant, and sexy, and very thoughtful." She gave you a pitying look "But that's the stupidest plan I've ever heard. What kind of morons wouldnt notice when someone they knew disappeared and a new person in a mask popped up while they were gone. Especially someone with the same body type. That plan would only work on a complete idiot."
Acknowledging how incredibly stupid that plan was you nodded you head. Accepting that you were a moron for even contemplating something that ridiculous though you moved on, deciding to table the issue until you had finished your training. Maybe Spitfire would be close enough to you by then to tell him about some of your secrets. You all piled into the one king sized bed after swearing to order a new one later and drifted off to sleep, exhausted from your first day in a new world.
Getting up in the morning to get ready to meet Spitfire outside you decided to leave the girls to sleep for a while, being in the workshop meant the day had been twice as long for them, even with TV to watch all the worrying had to have been driving them nuts. You resolved to cook them a nice dinner later as you slipped out and met your mentor downstairs next to his expensive sports car. Which was red obviously. You really should have expected that.
To your surprise Spitfire drove you both back out to the river where you had practiced before. Noting your confused expression he chuckled as you got out "I bet you were expecting some kind of training facility. Storm riding is about moving through a city, we don't need expensive training grounds or anything. The best place to learn is in the city itself. Air Treks are about freedom to move in ways normal people cant, unconstrained by location. Flying isn't much good if you can only do it in certain places."
You saw the logic there, you considered responding but you were here to learn, so you let Spitfire continue. "Now, you have the basic motions down, speed and nuance will come with practice, and freakishly fast for you I'm guessing. What you need to do first is break your reliance on thinking in such a limited scope. All your training was on flat ground, thats fine for learning to crawl, but running is a bit more than that. Now, do me a favor, without using your hands, or using the grass get up onto that overpass."
You had somewhat expected that when he mentioned ground level, but it was still a bit of a challenge. You had a basic idea what he meant from Simca's entrance but doing it in reverse was a bit more complicated. Well, you had better get started. You slipped on you ATs and sped off to get some distance. The overpass was about thirty feet up. It was held up by columns so there was no ramp section or anything like some of them had. There was one spot that had the right angle for you to try to ride up.
You shifted your weight a bit and zipped forward, trying to hit the wall at an angle. Storm riding itself wasnt really covered by artisan honestly which made this much harder. Roller blading and racing were, and stone age otaku was helping a ton, but you were actually learning this yourself. Which made it feel particularly good when you got the angle you wanted and rode right up the wall. For about ten feet. Then you fell. Which really fucking hurt. You climbed to your feet, gnashing your teeth in annoyance and skimming away to build up speed again, as you let the forge trigger to hopefully distract from the pain, it occurred to you that this would be a long day.
Celestial Forge Accessed: Computronium (Eclipse Phase) (600CP) Sufficient CP! Purchased. Total remaining CP: 100.
...One Month Later
You groan as you slump back into the couch after your most recent day of training. Your body aches. You keep expecting to have mastered everything, but Spitfire knows some many small tricks and moves its absurd. Wallrides, rail grinds, oversouls, overbanks (which are different), not to mention the insane training he'd made you do to learn to shift your center of gravity mid air so you could alter trajectory post jumping.
A dozen smaller skills you had needed to master. Sure you thought you had been impressive learning each one of them in a day or less, but there were so fucking many it didn't even matter. You were lucky stone age otaku prevented your from backsliding, you'd hate to see what Spitfire would do if his beloved disciple did any trick he had already learned less than perfectly.
During the month you had finally gotten good enough to start doing races, which was a good thing because if you hadn't the girls might have murdered you in your sleep from boredom. Every person you knew or interacted with in this world was an AT fanatic and them having to wait to learn to ride was straight up isolating them. THey had each other but they needed to go out and be social. Your races gave them a chance to meet people and make new friends.
Happily aside from being race worthy you considered yourself good enough at this point to teach and they had also spent the last two weeks in the workshop training between race nights. They were all talented girls with increased intelligence and stats and picked things up fast. With cure alls and angels tears in case of the worst for resurrection they were able to push harder than was probably safe and learn everything you had to teach.
You had even made a new friend. Spitfire had taken in another disciple, a blonde japanese kid about your age named Kazuma. The kid went by Kazu, and he seemed pretty damn gifted. In terms of sheer speed he could manage he was actually faster than you were, though that would of course change soon once you finally made your own ATs. You had decided to wait on that though, Spitfire had let slip a few things about his wheels, a special type of powerful AT called "Regalia" and you wanted to study them and a few others so you could make your own.
Regalia from what you could tell acted as a sort of seal of authority in the AT world. The two ingredients to make a "King" were road and regalia. You had been studying often to try to create your own road but it was an odd and elusive concept. Spitfire had suggested trying to identify what made your ride special. How you used ATs in a different way than other people. A road was an expression of your ride and was deeply personal, especially for a king.
If you made a regalia you needed to find a road before you could create it, so that whatever it did took advantage of your techniques to increase your power. Kazu had settled on riding the flame road like Spitfire, but you didn't feel like you should emulate anyone else. If you couldn't create a road with the forge you didn't deserve to be allowed to wear shoes much less ATs.
You had even met some of Kazu's friends over the month and gotten to know them a bit. There was Onigiri, who was a fairly weird guy who chose to ride one AT on his head for some reason. He'd tried perving on your daughter the first time you'd and you'd shut that shit right down. The kid still flinched and covered his junk when you walked into a room though none of the other members of Kazu's crew held it against you.
Ikki was Kazu's best friend a genuinely cool guy. He was a little dense and loud, but energetic as hell and a blast to hang with. The kid had serious swagger and even more serious talent, you'd raced him more than a few times and the little bastard seemed to improve as quickly as you did. Racing Ikki was always a challenge and you guys had become fast friends.
Buccha was a mellow guy when he wasnt racing. Absolutely fucking huge, the darker skinned teen was like seven feet tall and four hundred pounds, and outside of a nasty streak when he raced he was just about the chillest person you had ever met. Agito was a loud vicious little troll and you guys got on like a house on fire. He was something of a kindred spirit, taking no shit from anyone and generally being a miserable bastard.
Ikki's childhood friend Ringo was a cutie, somehow wearing her glasses like a model in a pair of cosmetic frames. That said she was obviously crushing hard on Ikki and it was also obviously kind of mutual even if he was too stupid to notice. Though not completely mutual because anyone with eyes could see that boy was over the moon for Simca, and was shockingly the person she had feelings for as well.
Seeing Simca's aura around Ikki was actually kind of hilarious, she liked to play the vamp and come on all seductive but her aura was constantly lit up with embarrassment and giddiness when she was near him. The weirdest thing was Ringo's aura though. Like Spitfire's it was stupidly bright, signifying extreme significance. Ikki's was too but Ikki was talented enough to keep up with YOUR learning speed so he was obviously a total monster in terms of potential.
You had spent time with your girls outside training over the month of course. You and Sheila had grown a lot closer, you had decided to teach her how to paint, and she seemed to relish your lessons. Half the time you both ended up coated in the stuff but she always came out smiling. Natasha and you had sex a few times, though only the two times had been to try for a baby, the third you had fucked Ruby together, much to your little assassins glee.
Felicia had decided to intern under Spitfire learning to cut hair when he wasn't training you and was getting absurdly popular. She seemed to love the entire business and Spitfire told you in confidence he suspected she had more talent for it than he did. In general the last month had just been some of the most genuinely happy times you'd had, in your life. At least, until the second chime.
You heard the pounding on the door in the middle of the night and knew it was a bad thing. No one knocked that urgently to let you know you had a really nice car or took excellent care of your lawn. Your worry wasn't abated when you opened the door and saw Ikki. Agito was standing behind him, looking like a little punk and staring dramatically into the middle distance. You rolled your eyes after seeing they were safe and unhurt and invited them inside.
You sit down on the couch, trying not to be too loud so you dont wake the girls. "Ok man, whats the deal, you look like someone kicked your puppy. I haven't seen you in days and now you show up in a snit with a bag? That hottie big sister of yours kick you out?" You had made no big secret of how attractive you found Ikki's older sister Rika, even if she was seeing someone and you had no intention of acting on it. It rankled the kid enough you suspected the annoyance would help you focus. Plus the woman had an ass that could crack concrete.
Your friends eyes narrowed "Ok one, shut the fuck up, and two not exactly but kind of. Simca came to see me recently. She had somewhere she wanted to take me. Said she had to show me something special." His eyes softened at the mention of the pink haired swallow, and you were reminded of why you liked Ikki so much, the kid was loyal to a fault.
You raised an eyebrow mockingly, knowing the answer from his aura but wanting to tweak his nose "Oh wow so Pinky made you a man and when Rika found out she bounced you for breaking poor Ringo's heart?" The absolutely poleaxed expression on his face was a treat to see and even Agito burst out laughing at his expression.
Your distraction duties had apparently been fulfilled to the perfection because yout buddy started squawking in outrage and confusion. "What!? No, I...she wanted me to take over this big storm rider team. We didnt...I mean not that I wouldn't want to. And Ringo isn't... Rika would never...you...you shut the fuck up!?"
You grinned fondly at the formerly morose kid, having managed to break his melancholy mood a bit as intended. "Well sorry to hear it. Ruby is really rooting for you and Simca. Though Nat has money on Ringo, she's been binge watching every anime she can find and I think she's really invested in this childhood friend trope. Felicia thinks you should just date both of them, and honestly I'm with her."
The kids face was basically atomic chili red at this point "Why are you guys all talking about my love life? Ringo and I aren't like that at all! And what do you mean date both of them, we can't all be crazy american guys with super sexy harems. Don't act like your situation is a normal thing that happens to people! And I don't need Ruby interfering in my dating life! She's controlling enough as it is!"
You laughed even harder at his expression, having to give him that last point. The girls all knew Ikki and the others from your races, and Ruby in particular adored Ikki. She called him the street thug little brother she never had, and bullied him relentlessly in the most loving possible way. You could see from his aura that Ikki actually took this affection as intended, being weirdly used to it from years growing up with aggressive controlling older sisters.
You looked back at the bedroom to check his yelling hadn't woken anyone up, seeing the kid panic at the idea of waking Ruby in the middle of the night. Agito looked interested too, but no one woke up. Agito might get on well with you but Akito (his weirdly cheerful alternate personality) was fairly close to your daughter and probably wanted to know if she was awake. It wasn't a romantic thing, you weren't sure the kid even liked girls they just got along really well.
After you had calmed him down a bit Ikki managed to fill you in on the entire situation. You were fairly shocked that even your most dramatic estimate of upper tier storm rider politics had fallen far short of what was actually going on. Apparently Ikki's sisters are all part of Sleeping Forest, a legendary AT team exclusively made up of kings. Ikki had been tapped to lead Genesis, a massive rival super team made up of dozens of storm rider organisations and you guessed resented their rule?
He had accepted the post because SImca had asked it of him but he'd had to go to kyoto to prove himself to some powerful Yakuza boss guy named Yoshitsune who controlled one of their largest teams and managed to win him over. When he got back he'd fought Ringo to a draw and things got insanely awkward between them. The politics between Genesis and Sleeping Forest had made his home life too complicated and he and Agito had bailed, coming to see you for help. The only question now was what the hell were you supposed to do with them?
You were shocked to find Spitfire waiting when you arrive at the tower the next morning, grinning at the stunned expression on you face your mentor manages to keep down his laugh. "Well, if it isn't my cute little disciple. I knew the little crow was bringing friends but I hadn't expected you to come along Anthony. Then again with your rate of improvement I suppose you'll need a tuner of your own soon enough. Introducing you to them might be smart."
You actually weren't sure you would. You knew that tuning was a way to adjust the fine details of a regalia so that it didn't overwork the body, but you were also pretty sure the people regalia were originally made for didn't need them. Not to mention how strong your body actually was. Ikki had filled you in on some of the reasons he was here, getting his regalia repaired and finding a tuner of his own. Knowing your little buddy was going to become a king before you was frustrated but to be fair the kid was a straight up monster when it came to ATs.
Of course it wasn't just Spitfire and you and Ikki. Along with your friend and your mentor were a smug looking blonde guy with slicked back hair and glasses and a sexy dark haired woman in leopard print with revealing pants. These were Yoshitsune and his right hand Benkei. The Yakuza AT boss was considered one of the most talented storm riders in the world and kept together the entire Trident team with his sheer charisma and skill. Benkei was incredibly dangerous all on her own. Sheila had come along with you in case of danger, remembering how odd this tower had been.
You couldn't help feel a sense of urgency as you climbed in the elevator to ascend. Yoshitsune was theoretically Ikki's subordinate, which meant your friend and rival had a damn solid amount of influence. You on the other hand were stuck on your road and couldn't advance. If you couldn't get your regalia done and get a team together and working well before the tournament started you were starting to get a sinking feeling some very bad things would happen.
The world of ATs had been growing darker and hungrier as you trained, slowly revealing some of the brutal underpinnings to you. Based on some of that damage that you'd seen in higher ranked parts wars you'd gone to and some of the things Spitfire had said you were fairly sure people were going to die during the tournament. You could bring them back sure, but only with a body, and only at the cost of a shitload of attention.
Speaking of which you were starting to get seriously worried about the forge. Aside from not connecting in quite some time (well for the last month you had suppressed it last time because you were busy) you felt a distinct shift in the way it worked. You couldn't say what made it clear but you knew somehow that artifacts weren't going to be the trigger for your next jump. Which was fine for now, you were having fun learning to ride and meeting new people, but if you ended up having to bring someone back and anyone found out not being able to get off world was going to be an issue.
You were broken from you reverie however by the elevator stopping. Sheila stepped close and grabbed your arm, tugging you close protectively in a motion that probably looked to everyone else like she was hiding behind you. You had gone with the little sister lie here since she looked so much like you so her sticking close didn't raise any red flags with anyone. When the door opened you couldn't help but be impressed. The inside of this place looked much more impressive in the daylight, the massive gears all shifting in turn to an unseen beat.
Waiting outside the elevator were a group of people. First was a pretty older blonde with an incredibly tall up do. She wore severe glasses and carried herself with strict dignity. Her aura flared with affection when she saw Spitfire, and weirdly actually connected to his in a way you hadn't seen before. Based on context you were going to assume this was Ine, Spitfire's tuner.
The second person was a mousy girl with brown hair in buns. Her aura was...slightly unstable. She was an insecure mess and desperate for the approval her peers. You hadn't used aura sight on anyone with this particular brand of desperation before. The crippling self doubt was just sad, you kind of wanted to give the poor girl a hug. She was looking nervously around the group and when her eyes fell on Ikki they lit up, her aura flaring with determination.
Your attention however was all for the last girl. Her hair was a cascade of bubblegum pink, long and flowing with barrettes in it at regular points. Her smile was gentle and kind and her gorgeous hazel eyes were blazing with curiosity and life. She had long thing fingers, fingers you recognized as an artists fingers, a mechanics fingers. Just like yours. Oh, and she was a monster.
Like...seriously terrifying. Ikki was a terrifying talent at ATs, even with artisan and stone age otaku you had trouble reaching his level, relying on perks to remain neck and neck, but ATs were specific to this world. This girl was a different kind of monster. This girl had so much talent she made your dad look like an eighty year old who didnt know how to work a toaster. The level of mechanical talent flaring in her aura (and yes you could see it, you knew it well enough from your fathers) was staggering. Even with your perks and abilities this girl was as talented at mechanics as YOU.
You stepped forward and may have bulled past Ikki a bit to offer your hand to the pink haired beauty. She looked down at your hand when you offered it and blushed a bit. You smiled softly at her, trying to be reassuring "Hi there, I'm Anthony, it's nice to meet you. Mind if I ask your name?"
She offered her hand hesitantly and you took it and kissed the back. Her face turned bright red as she stuttered out "K-k-kururu. My name is Kururu Sumeragi. It's n-nice to meet you Anthony." Her eyes had gone wide in surprise at your forwardness and the stutter was adorable, but her aura didn't show any discomfort just a bit of shock and uncertainty.
You heard a chuckle from the direction of the blonde woman, Ine " Fufufu, Isn't that sweet, our little genius has a suitor. Come Hako, Spitfire, why don't we leave thse two to get to know each other and show the little crow around. I can look at the regalia personally, I can't think of anyone more qualified to fix it than me." The rather intimidating woman grabbed your mentor, your friend, and even your daughter and started herding them away, leaving you alone with Kururu.
You smiled reassuringly, offering her your arm in a gentlemanly fashion. You always felt a bit dramatic when flirting and tended to default to being mockingly formal, it had worked on occasion before the forge, but formerly self deprecating humorous technique had become actually debonair and charming after exposed to artisan. You were fairly sure no one else you'd met could pull off acting like a courtier unironically but artisan made many things possible.
She took your arm blushingly and lead you...in some direction, you honestly had no idea how to navigate this clusterfuck. Kururu seemed at home here though, literally if you didnt miss your guess. You decided to try to ease her into talking about tech, if she was really as much like you as you figured technical talk would be soothing. "So I would have figured they would have you work on the wind regalia, she did call you their little genius and judging by your hands you do quite a bit of work with ATs. Which I mean as a compliment of course."
As you expected even mentioning her specialty flipped a switch, bringing out her confidence and letting her tense shoulders ease a bit. "I was actually, or I was in consideration. However there was another project that came up." She looked over at you and smiled "Spitfire wants to commission you a tuner to help build you a regalia. You don't have a road yet from what I hear, but you're developing one, and tuners have an innate sense of what their king needs in terms of function."
You smiled back at her widely "I wouldn't be opposed to a tuner if they're someone I feel can keep up. Or if they would actually be capable of helping. But are you saying you can build me a regalia that fits the road I'm making even if I don't know what that is? Because that's pretty impressive. I'm a damn talented engineer and I live in my own brain and even I have no clue what regalia would work for me."
Her expression turned pensive, worrying her lip as she tried to figure out how to explain it "I understand it sounds presumptuous when you put it like that. But I've been working on ATs since before I could walk. I played with wrenchs in my crib and listened to stories about the original kings to fall asleep at night. It's not that I'm saying I'm better than you at engineering, though I suspect I probably am, I'm better than most, its that I was made for this specific purpose. In any case, I like the idea of building my own regalia more than repairing a broken one. I've even been...studying you...while you ride."
Her rather fetching blush intensified as she forced her eyes forward. You felt a surge of amusement at her reaction followed by one of jealousy as you tracked the fact that she would have been studying Ikki if she had decided to repair the wind regalia. You shook off the thought and smiled at her charmingly. "I don't mind being studied by a genius. And I don't dislike the idea of having help on my regalia, if you're willing to work with me on it. I don't expect you to just trust my abilities of course, do you have a workbench or something I can use to show you a bit of what I can do?"
Her face was still red, but her eyes narrowed at you as she shot you some side eye. You were absolutely floored by how expressive this girl was, granted some of it was body reading but still, she was pretty much the opposite of Nat, every emotional response might as well have been posted on a billboard. Without any response to your question she steered you off to one side walking you towards a workbench behind a gear you hadn't even seen here.
Gone was the shy teen girl who was flustered by a cute boy, in her place a brilliant scientist ruled her workshop with an iron fist, awaiting disappointment from yet another failed challenger. The odd thing was that her aura had no trace of arrogance in it. She knew she was the best but it didn't go to her head, it was just a fact. Water was wet, snow was cold, and Kururu Sumeragi was the best engineer in any room.
If she had been talking anyone else, even the old you, or even your father she'd have been right too, but you were a celestial artificer damn it, and if you couldn't impress a pretty gearhead girl with your crafting skills you might as well hurl your ass into the depths of this ridiculous tower. The question is, how do you prove it?
-
Perks:
Material Limitations (World Seed) (100CP)
Even with the advanced technology commonplace on Earth nowadays, material limitations haven't changed. Or rather, you could say that they've gotten even worse. After all, how are you going to store antimatter if you have only steel at hand? Luckily, you won't ever have problems finding the materials you need. Whether you'll stumble upon them while searching through a scrapyard, or find just the right people who can get you that obscure alloy you need, nothing will stop you from building whatever you want besides your own skill. Well, if you're keeping it reasonable, at least.
The chance of you finding what you're searching for decreases exponentially with the material's strength and rarity, and increases by how much you know about said material, scientifically, and how good your technology skills are. So while a regular schmuck would probably never find Adamantium, someone who could reproduce it themselves in only a few years would have much, much better chances. So if you're in a situation where it is impossible to get what you want with what you know and where you are right now? Then you'll have to get to work yourself. Good riddance then that you can eventually reproduce any material or alloy that you have seen, though for extremely advanced ones it might take an unreasonable amount of time and skill.
Grudge Forged (Fate/Legends Japan Land of the Rising Sun) (200CP)
Ibaraki-douji created her favoured bone sword by tearing out the bones of many Oni and setting them into a forge of her own terrible flames for hundreds of days. A way of sword smithing only a demon could manage, a brutal and unrefined method that results in a brutal and unrefined sword. But that sword is powerful, near unbreakable and holds the furious grudges of the Oni sacrificed to make it, giving the weapon a deadly cursed aura. This sort of feat is much more applicable to your skills now, as you find it far easier to turn your own innate abilities to the work of crafting things. A dragon's fire improves the quality of things forged in it, rather than just destroying the entire workshop. Cooling a forged sword in your own Youkai poison will still cool it as if with water but also imbue powerful toxins into the metal itself. You are able to add your abilities in creative ways to your creations without compromising them. Better still, you're very good at focusing what you create to not harm yourself. Using the bones of hundreds of hate-filled demons to create a cursed sword would direct those curses at your enemies, not at the original wielder of the sword. No need to worry about life draining demon blades if you're at the source of them all.
Relay Artisan (Age of Wonders ll) (200CP)
The knowledge necessary to create the massive structures known as 'Wizard Towers' is not easy to learn, but not especially rare either. Indeed, all Wizards rely on these towers for their abilities - in particular the ability to vastly increase the reach of their magics by channeling their arcane power through gigantic crystalline projectors lining the tower's structure. Smaller, less powerful crystals are occasionally used as well, both as 'Magic Relay' structures at fixed locations and with special equipment used by champions of the various armies. You are a gifted artificer when it comes to creating such relays and projectors. Not only can you create such crystals, but you have mastered the magical theories behind their function to the point you could craft these magical artifacts from other materials such as wood or silver. As your skill increases you'll be able to create more intricate and efficient relays, reducing their size or increasing their range. With practice, you could craft gemstones small enough for a ring's jewel that could let you project your magic within a dozen miles of their location. Once attuned, the connection between a Wizard and the relays you craft cannot be broken, it will continue to function across any distance and even across dimensions so long as the relay remains intact.
Computronium (Eclipse Phase) (600CP)
One cubic foot of grade-A, pure TITAN-manufactured computronium originally a block of water ice from Iapetus. This is the kind of thing those commie Argonauts would sell their forks into indenture to get one good look at. Whorls of glassy circuitry and fleeting aurora-like flashes of light are trapped within the clear block. Only a high-bandwidth data port betrays its actual purpose. There's more processing power in this one-foot cube than almost any single computer system in the entire solar system (with the possible exception of the rest of the Iapetus matrioshka computer and any other computronium the TITANs have made, of course); it is capable of insanely massive processing feats. It must be kept cool and powered, since it lacks the rest of Iapetus's infrastructure. It would make excellent substrate to run a Seed AI on.