Interlude - 3. Taylor

January 4, 2011, Hebert House - Brockton Bay, 7:12 AM

When Taylor woke up that morning, the first thing she tried was to feel the insects around her, and there they were, brilliant pinpricks of information, like a mental starscape. So it was not a dream, all of yesterday did happen, and the 3 bitches were in PRT jail. The thought alone was a good start to the day.

Dad was still sleeping, the mites on his skin were happily munching on cellulose and dead skin... The mites were quite a bit TMI though. But a whole day of exposure and constantly sensing everyone's skin mites in a 50 yard radius had already desensitized her natural reservations about having to imagine everyone's privates. Oh well, every silver lining has a cloud attached to it, not that she'd not want to sense those, tactically they were an amazing resource. She'd read a bit yesterday and the mites were apparently a normal part of the human skin microbiome.

She figured that she'd got what she'd wanted though. Trapped in that locker, with all that filth, all she wanted was to reach out to anyone for help and not having to just think of herself in that position; simultaneously wondering if she had turned her head long enough for the camera to see the bitches pushing her in, she wanted to see their faces when the evidence came out. When she passed out the first time, she awoke swimming in overwhelming information about those things all around, guess she did 'reach out' to a lot of someones. The pressure was too much and she had passed out again, next time the information was not overwhelming, she could simultaneously focus on the pinpricks and yet conceive them as a whole - then she got to 'see' everyone, like a dotted 3D diagram. All of these thoughts were deeply buried under massive amounts of panic and hysteria though. She could think back and discern all this only much, much later.

She'd also discovered she could send vague commands to the pinpricks somewhat, mostly to change their position and basic actions like attack or eat. It was not really very 'fine' control to speak of, but she could give the commands arbitrarily to any particular subset of all the insects around her, including single ones, with any arbitrary variety and simultaneity. That was something to think of. She couldn't think of focusing on multiple things truly simultaneously before, let alone handling so many independent thoughts, actions and commands.

She was actually very creeped out when the door bell rang during breakfast, there wasn't supposed to be anyone at the door, at least no one with the normal amount of skin bugs she'd already come to associate people with. It was Aveek, he must have done something with his powers.

Breakfast was nice, everyone was in a better mood since forever. Dad had been extremely supportive and attentive since yesterday. A part of her mind bitterly resented that it had to be something this bad to bring her to dad's attention but she quashed the thought outright. She had not paid him much attention either, wallowing in her own schoolyard misery. Her family had simply broken after mom and yesterday's sitdown was possibly the closest thing to a therapy session they both had had.

Aveek was nerding out with dad talking about his 'Gamer' powers. Seriously, weird themes some powers have, but his power was weird in a whole new way. He did claim the source was different, but she had her doubts, he seemed to claim to know too much about powers for her to take all of his remarks at face value. Though the guy hadn't purposefully deceived her yet for anything that she knew of. Her faith in friendships was frayed, but Aveek was still a ray of cautious hope. He may be a few years older, but he'd declared her his friend and she'd warmed up to it in the last few days, especially after the locker rescue.

Him explaining the charisma bit finally helped a lot in quelling some very uncomfortable thoughts she'd been having about him, how the first time he met her he was quite awkward but with each successive meeting he'd seemed smoother and more... attractive? He'd not given any signals and she was afraid that she was simply imprinting on to the first person who'd actually done something, okay, done a lot of things to help her out of her situation. Hearing him talk about how his increasing charisma subtly changed his personality and looks, and how strength and vitality changed his physique - it was very relieving, it was not her latching on to him in some sort of weird unromantic crush, he was actually getting better looking and smoother talking. When he'd come to go to school with her she was almost floored by how - dangerously impressive looking he'd become. It was all his power thing, phew, that was one worry assuaged.

It was further mollified when he got into his 'monologue mode' and shut down dad's teasing. But did he have to say it out like that? She knew she was no looker - stop it Taylor, he specifically addressed all your concerns and did it very well, don't bring your insecurities into this! His monologue mode was pretty awesome though, he'd suddenly be orating, almost injecting precise emotions in his delivery, she'd noticed that a few times. Would she be able to do that when sharing his power?

The mana cleansing thing was amazing, she'd never felt this pristine before. Though she lost some proprioception, because her own skin mites were gone, but wow! It still felt brilliant! She could replace the proprioception simply by placing select bugs on her extremities, no loss there. Would she also be able to do that with the power sharing? It felt better than the best shower she ever had!

Anyway, it was startling to see that big panel hovering in front of her like the holographic displays in Aleph movies. She was still very wary about this whole power sharing thing, but unless Aveek had some diabolical plan of peerless subtlety, she could find no reason not to trust him. She accepted.

The world unfolded into vastness, she saw them, the transdimensional things Aveek had spoken of, two unimaginably huge creatures, whose each cell was a moon sized power core, they were shedding these cells on to earth, on to earths actually, she realized she'd seen this twice yesterday, and had forgotten, the huge fractal... cell... blob... thing falling upon her, yet not upon her. And then there was an even vaster unfolding, the blue ocean, she realized this was mana that he was talking about, and it was amazing. Though this visual also somehow felt secondhand, like she was connected to mana through someone. Of course, the power linked to her through Aveek.

Then there was peace, like being in a womb. Her mind was, empty, and for a moment she had no worries, none of that edgy jitter to her thoughts that were there since yesterday, none of the perpetual depression about herself and her family. Then it all came back again...

Ah, she'd fallen down, she blinked her eye open, Aveek was there, looking at her curiously. She sat up, "What happened?"

"You fell down."

"Yes, I can see that, what did your power tell you?"

"That you've been added to the party." Then he muttered something about dick AI, whatever.

"How do I test it?"

"Say 'status' with the intent of opening your own status window."

"Okay, status."


Taylor Hebert

Title: Queen Administrator

Class: Aspiring Hero

Level: 10

HP: 90/90 Regen. 0.4%/s

SP: 99.9T/100T (parasite Shard Points)

STR: 5

VIT: 4

DEX: 10

INT: 24 +30 = 54

WIS: 17 -5 -3 = 9

CHA: 3

Status Points: 50

Desc: Taylor is a smart girl with a strong core who has triggered after vicious bullying and abuse from her ex-best friend's clique in school. She loves her mother's memory. She has started repairing her relationship with her father. She wants to help people with her powers.

Status effects: Aggressive (power induced) -5 WIS, +30 INT, Mildly Depressed -3 WIS


Wow, and there was another window that opened immediately below it.

Get rid of your parasite influence!

Be aggressive when you want to, not when your power wants to!

You can choose to spend 5 status points to negate your power induced WIS debuff and free your mind right now!

Spend the points?

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]

Aveek was standing at a distance, preferably to give her privacy, he's always unusually polite, must be a culture thing, she could tell he was itching to have a look, she waved him over.

He came and started looking through the windows, nodding like a doctor going over reports. "Mhm, you can accept this one right now. That extra agression is no good."

She complied, the edgy jittery part of her mind smoothed out. Some measure of the peace she felt was back again. she gave her stats another look, the -5 WIS was gone, but the power induced +30 INT remained, the rest of the stats were not looking good at all. Except for INT of course, she didn't need a blue window to tell her she was smart...

"Hey, what are the average stats for a normal human?"

"Usually around 10-15 for an adult, I've seen them go up to the high 20s and even 30s for exceptional people, like your intelligence."

She nodded, "yeah, but look at my charisma will you?"

"Yeah, you haven't much taken care of your body either, though my starting stats were not much better than yours. Wanna see how they are in less than two weeks?"

She nodded again, he opened a window, "can you see this?"

Wow, he was a monster! "Wow! In just two weeks?"

"Yep, lots of hard work, it gets slower the higher the points are though."

"So I currently have 45 points left, how to-"

He interrupted me, "No, you aren't touching your stat points for anything right now, low points can be raised to at least 20 with minimal training."

"Uh, okay, but charisma..."

"No, you'll train it, you'll do your best to look presentable and interact with people. And honestly, I spent only two points in charisma in an emergency situation, other than that, you must have noticed the improvement that I got from just interacting with people?"

She blushed a bit, then mustered up all the courage she had, "boy hadn't I noticed it! I was crippled with worry that I was getting a crush on somebody who kept giving out elder brother vibes!"

He gave an embarrassed laugh, "Ah, I'm sorry, that was unintended. Not the vibes I mean! I'm more than content with that! The attractiveness I mean, I've noticed it, which is why I don't really want my charisma to go up much higher, or else I might start becoming unrealistically attractive! Well, at least with training you'll be a much more impressive person in a few days. Then you'll be the one giving people inadvertent crushes."

Healthy social interaction has improved your CHA by 2

She almost jumped again, that window actually came with a mental 'ding!'. Aveek laughed again, "See what I mean?"

Okay, this was, this was awesome. Finally! She could be rid of her insecurities at last! Also, the mildly depressed debuff reduced by 1!

Aveek interrupted her internal victory dance, "Cool, you will also learn psychology and get rid of your depression immediately, any WIS debuff is bad."

"How do I learn something as vast as psychology 'immediately'?"

"Ah, I'd almost forgotten, close these windows and open your skill window, say 'skills'"

She tapped the crosses on the open windows, then spoke, "Skills."

Another window opened, this was a grid with many boxes, it was divided into 2 parts, Action Skills and Knowledge Skills, the action part had four occupied boxes, while the knowledge part had many occupied boxes, but they were sort of greyed out. Aveek asked her to tap open the action boxes. She did.


The Gamer's Mind: (Passive) Lvl. 1 - 76.8%

Your brain is part of a mana hypercomputer:

Allows you to interact with the Gamer System.

More benefits at higher levels.


The Gamer's Body: (Passive) Lvl. 1 - 4.2%

Your body is a persistent mana construct:

Gives your body regenerating HP and lets you grow with status points.

More benefits at higher levels.


Administration:(Parasite Power) Lvl. 1 - 12.7%

One Power To Rule Them All:

Lets you control all lifeforms within a range.

Subskill: Dominion Target Lvl. 1 - 0.1%

Current targets: Non-Aquatic Invertebrates.

SP Cost: increasing with target complexity.

Subskill: Dominion Range Lvl. 1 - 44.3%

Current radius: 51m.

SP Cost: increasing with target range.

Subskill: Administration Detail Lvl. 1 - 53.2%

Current sensing and commands: Position, orientation, basic actions.

SP Cost: increasing with sense and command complexity.


Multitasking: (Parasite Power) Lvl. MAX - 0.0%

SimulThinking, SimulActing, Simultaneous:

Allows you to multitask on a nigh infinite scale. Scales with every lifeform under your control.

Cost: increasing SP with number of simultaneous streams of thought.


"Hmm, no mana though, but see how ridiculous your powers really are?"

Her eyes were wide, this was really much more than she thought her power was all about. Hot Damn! She'd have to really think about it carefully when she was over her surprise. She mechanically closed the windows, then tapped on the Psychology box in the knowledge skills. There was a prompt asking if she wanted to learn Psychology. Aveek was saying something about not doing that right now, but this was too amazing to listen to him. She tapped accept.

Her mind was almost overwhelmed with concepts, she felt like she was going to collapse again. But she didn't have high base INT for nothing, she immediately focused her individual streams of thought minding each insect to instead simultaneously dissect and assimilate all the information. Her mind cleared up in seconds. She knew why she was depressed, how to deal with it, and a lot of other things. She just gained University level competency in psychology!

She looked back at Aveek, "You were saying?"

His mouth was agape, eyes completely disbelieving, "Huh."